2004

Midwest-based Son Volt, with songwriter Jay Farrar at the helm, will begin recording their fourth full length album at the end of September. Following a five-year hiatus, with the exception of the April 2004 recording of “Sometimes” for the Alejandro Escovedo tribute album, multi-instrumentalist Dave Boquist, bassist Jim Boquist and drummer Mike Heidorn will reconvene at Farrar’s St. Louis studio. Speaking about the “Sometimes” session, Farrar says: “It felt like we hit the ground running when we recorded Al’s song for Por Vida. Five years seemed like five days at that point. It proved that more recording and performing as Son Volt is something that should happen.”

As this revered band reconnects, a unique glimpse inside the Son Volt sessions will be offered. Beginning October 1, a webcamera will be placed in the studio to capture a day of pre-production and 16 days of recording. The webcamera can be accessed at www.jayfarrar.net/webcam and will feature streaming photos that refresh every 5 seconds.

Farrar formed Son Volt in 1994 after the dissolution of Uncle Tupelo. With the release of Trace, Straightaways and Wide Swing Tremolo, the band was met with praise by the public and critics alike. From the plain-spoken chorus of “Windfall” to the gritty guitars of “Straightface”, Son Volt has always pushed the boundaries to blend traditional American music forms with poetic imagery and straight-ahead rock.

Son Volt is not currently affiliated with a label and plans to return to the road in early 2005.

Sundance Channel will broadcast the Oct. 11 finale of the Vote for Change tour in Washington, D.C. Along with live concert footage of the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Dave Matthews Band and James Taylor, “National Anthem: Inside the ‘Vote for Change’ Concert Tour” will feature pre-taped behind-the-scenes segments lensed by veteran filmmakers Albert Maysles and D A Pennebaker.

Each of the dozen-plus artists are expected to perform for about 22 minutes at the Oct. 11 show, which wraps a 10-day Vote for Choice blitz through upcoming presidential election battleground states.

A Sundance spokesperson tells Billboard.com Maysles and Pennebaker will be on the road with the Vote for Choice tour in the days ahead to document rehearsals and off-stage interaction between the acts.

“From the Kennedys to Dylan, the Beatles, and Stones, Al Maysles and D A Pennebaker are the pre-eminent observers of politics and music in our time,” says Sundance founder Robert Redford. “Sundance is pleased to present these legendary filmmakers’ view of the collision between pop culture and politics at this fascinating moment in U.S. history.”

“This documentary presents a unique opportunity to extend the music from this amazing finale show beyond the walls of the arena to a broader audience, and provide viewers with an insider’s look at what the ‘Vote for Change’ tour is all about,” says Springsteen manager Jon Landau.

According to Pearl Jam’s official Web site, the show may also by Webcast, with details to be announced.

Source billboard.com.

Fans of the Band should mark their calendars for May 2005, when Capitol/EMI is slated to release a box set, curated by band member Robbie Robertson. “I’m working on the definitive musical history of the Band,” Robertson tells Billboard. The seminal group, which included Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel, famously disbanded in 1976, as captured in the Martin Scorsese-directed concert film, “The Last Waltz.”

Robertson says the five-CD set will include more than 100 songs, many of them previously unreleased, as well as a DVD. The artist was also involved in “Across the Great Divide,” a three-CD set released in 1994. However, this Band collection will include more unreleased material.

Billboard caught up with Robertson at a party for the film “Ladder 49,” where he performed his song “Shine Your Light,” the movie’s end title, and jammed with Dave Stewart and the party’s host, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Robertson says he is also revisiting the music for “Raging Bull” for a two-CD soundtrack that will be released Feb. 15 by Capitol. He wrote the source music and scored three pieces for the 1980 movie, as well as selected the other music with director Scorsese.

“I’m just finishing mixing and compiling the original music. It’s 38 tracks,” Robertson says. Additionally, he and Scorsese wrote the liner notes. It marks the first time a soundtrack to the film has been released. A special-edition DVD of “Raging Bull” comes out Dec. 14.

But Robertson seems most excited about his work on a Native American musical with the working title “Ceremony.” The artist, who is part Native American, is writing the music for the Broadway project, David Henry Wang (“M. Butterfly”) is penning the book and David Lavoie (“Nine”) is directing.

Source billboard.com.

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy has been tentatively scheduled to appear on ABC’s

Paul Westerberg, Bob Mould, the Gear Daddies are confirmed for an Oct. 23 benefit concert in Minneapolis for Soul Asylum bassist Karl Mueller, who was recently diagnosed with throat cancer. According to Westerberg’s official Web site, the show, to be held at the Quest, will also feature members of Soul Asylum as well as the super group Golden Smog, staffed by members of Wilco and the Jayhawks. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster.

Westerberg recently told Billboard.com that for one of the first times since the demise of the Replacements, he considered reuniting the band for the benefit. “I didn’t call the guys myself,” he admitted. “One of our old roadie pals came over who owns a bar now and runs a club and was asking if I would do a benefit for Karl and I said, ‘See if the boys want to play.’ And he kind of went around and got various answers and it didn’t come back real strong like, ‘Hey let’s do it.’ And I felt like that was the opportunity, that was the chance and we just missed it.

“Now I say, there’s probably no chance we’ll get back together again,” he said, without pinpointing which former band mates were not interested. “It bothered me for like an afternoon,” he laughed. “But, it did bother me for that long because I was secretly excited and some of them weren’t.”

As previously reported, Columbia/Legacy will on Oct. 12 release the Soul Asylum concert set “After the Flood: Live From the Grand Forks Prom.” The album was taped June 28, 1997, at the Grand Forks Airbase in North Dakota. The veteran rock act accepted an offer from two area high schools to perform, after the town was decimated by heavy flooding.

Source billboard.com.

Eleven never-before-heard tracks will be unveiled on Matador’s 10th anniversary edition of seminal indie rock act Pavement’s sophomore album, “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain.” Due Oct. 26, the double-disc set sports 14 additional unreleased versions of songs from the album, including a 1994 Peel Session on BBC Radio. The package will include a 40-page booklet with essays, rare Pavement photos and memorabilia.

“There’s some things I would veto now and then, but Matador more than anything has been the driving force in digging up stuff and making these records into ’90s classics,” Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus tells Billboard.com with a chuckle. “I mean, they’re doing a 40-page booklet! I didn’t even know there was that much stuff that you could use for this!”

Thanks to such infectious cuts as “Range Life,” “Gold Soundz” and “Cut Your Hair,” “Crooked Rain” exposed Pavement to listeners well beyond the confines of indie rock. The set is the band’s top-selling to date, having shifted more than 234,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

“There are some extras that I guess just failed,” Malkmus says of unreleased tracks like “All My Friends,” “Hands off the Bayou” and “Flood Victim.” “There are some full songs that are pretty cool; they sound just like ‘Crooked Rain.’ They maybe have not as good mixes or bad singing, or are just slightly inferior. But they’re still pretty good.”

Malkmus says he never listens to old Pavement albums, but was pleased to hear “Crooked Rain” recently in a bar in his Portland, Ore., home base. “I made an effort to record it and mix it in a way that was not completely ’90s,” he says of the album. “In the end, if you listened to it a lot when it came out, it will take you back to that time. It’s just a little more fleshed out than [the 1992 debut album] ‘Slanted and Enchanted.’ It’s not necessarily more ambitious, but just by making a second album, it’s more ambitious. On a first album, you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Pavement split after 1999’s “Terror Twilight,” with Malkmus going on to a solo career leading the band the Jicks. He says there’s no fundamental obstacle to a Pavement reunion some day, but it’s not something he’s anticipating in the near future.

“It doesn’t feel exactly right yet for me to do it,” he admits. “I mean, it could. I guess you just know when it’s right, just like so many other things in your life. Or, you force it due to financial reasons or someone telling you how much you could make. No one has told us that, so that’s not an issue at all. But we all get along; no one is like a lawyer with a huge caseload or has lost an arm.”

As for the possibility of future expanded editions of other Pavement albums, Malkmus says, “they might run out of B-sides and stuff at [1995’s] ‘Wowee Zowee.’ But they could go up to [1997’s] ‘Brighten the Corners.’ There’s a million extra songs from that one. That’s a case where there are songs that were undoubtedly better than the ones on the album. Ultimately, it depends on how special Matador think the records are and if other people do too.”

Here is the track list for “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain”:

Disc one: “Back to the Gold Soundz” (Phantom Power Parable)
“Silence Kit”
“Elevate Me Later”
“Stop Breathin”
“Cut Your Hair”
“Newark Wilder”
“Unfair”
“Gold Soundz”
“5-4=Unity”
“Range Life”
“Heaven Is a Truck”
“Hit the Plane Down”
“Fillmore Jive”
“Camera” (“Cut Your Hair” B-side)
“Stare” (“Cut Your Hair” B-side)
“Raft” (“Range Life” B-side)
“Coolin’ by Sound” (“Range Life” B-side)
“Kneeling Bus” (“Gold Soundz” B-side)
“Strings of Nashville” (“Gold Soundz” B-side)
“Exit Theory” (“Gold Soundz” B-side)
“5-4 Vocal” (“Gold Soundz” B-side)
“Jam Kids” (“Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” bonus 7-inch)
“Haunt You Down” (“Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” bonus 7-inch)
“Unseen Power of the Picket Fence” (from “No Alternative”)
“Nail Clinic” (from “Hey Drag City!”)

Disc two: “After the Glow (Where Eagles Dare)”:
“All My Friends”
“Soiled Little Filly”
“Range Life”
“Stop Breathin”
“Ell Ess Two”
“Flux=Rad”
“Bad Version of War”
“Same Way of Staying”
“Hands Off the Bayou”
“Heaven Is a Truck (Egg Shell)”
“Grounded”
“Kennel District”
“Pueblo (Beach Boys)”
“F***ing Righteous”
“Colorado”
“Dark Ages”
“Flood Victim”
“JMC Retro”
“Rug Rat”
“String of Nashville (instrumental)”
“Instrumental”
“Brink of the Clouds” (John Peel Session, BBC Radio)
“Tartar Martyr” (John Peel Session, BBC Radio)
“Pueblo Domain” (John Peel Session, BBC Radio)
“The Sutcliffe Catering Song” (John Peel Session, BBC Radio)

Source billboard.com.