Archive: 2004

Beginning today (April 27), the Beastie Boys catalog will be available for paid digital download for the first time at Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Seven of the group’s studio and compilation releases, including such classics as “Paul’s Boutique” and “Check Your Head” but omitting its 1986 Def Jam debut “License To Ill,” are augmented with 21 exclusive non-LP mixes. In all, more than 120 tracks will be available for sale.

As previously reported, the rap trio’s new single, “Ch-Check It Out,” arrives for sale on iTunes tomorrow. It is drawn from the Beasties’ upcoming new album, “To the 5 Boroughs,” due this summer via Capitol.

Source billboard.com.

Rashied Ali, who replaced Elvin Jones as John Coltrane

Singer Billy Joel was involved in his third car accident in two years Sunday when he slammed into a house on a wet road on Long Island. No one was seriously injured.

There was no evidence that alcohol or drugs were involved and Joel was not suspected of any crime, said Nassau County police Officer Joan Eames. Joel suffered a small cut on a finger but refused medical attention, Eames said.

Joel was alone in the car, and no one in the house was injured, police said.

Last year Joel was hospitalized after smashing his car into a tree along a Long Island highway. No summonses were issued, and Joel was not given a Breathalyzer test.

Joel escaped serious injury in a crash in East Hampton in June 2002.

He later checked into a substance abuse and psychiatric center, reportedly after becoming depressed when a respiratory infection forced him to cut short a tour with fellow piano player Elton John .

Source Launch.com.

Beatles drumming legend Ringo Starr is reported to have undergone surgery on a shoulder injury.

Friends of the 63-year-old state he’s had an operation for bone spurs, which is a painful condition in which there’s abnormal bone growth on joints.

The operation took place in California and forced him to cancel a number of gigs by his All Starr band.

A source close to Starr said: “He was told this could be something to do with his drumming. He uses his arm much more than normal. It’s been hurting him for some time.

“He’s resting up now while undergoing physiotherapy and is determined this will not stop him playing in future. He’s well on the way to recovery.”

Source NME.com.

Internet-search pioneer Google Inc. plans to announce within days that it will push forward with an initial public offering, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.

Major elements of Google’s expected offering remain unknown, including its size, which banks have been tapped to lead it, and the extent to which individual investors will be able to participate. A Google spokeswoman declined to comment.

Source CNN.com.

After a six-year layoff, the Beastie Boys are back with To the 5 Boroughs. Adam “MCA” Yauch, Adam “AdRock” Horovitz and Mike “Mike D” Diamond produced the new album themselves during the past two years, working out of their own downtown Manhattan studio.

With the World Trade Center on the cover, To the 5 Boroughs is a salute to New York, full of old-school hip-hop beats and political anger.

Source Rollingstone.com.

Spam Allstars celebrate the release of their fourth album – Spam Allstars Contra Los Roboticos Mutantes – on May 7th.

The album features DJ Le Spam on turntables samplers, fx, bass, and guitar; Adam Zimmon on guitars; Mercedes Abal on flute, vox; John Speck on trombone, vox; AJ Hill on alto & c melody sax, vox; Steve Welsh on tenor & baritone sax; Tomas Diaz on timbales, bata, and lead vox; Lazaro Alfonso on bata, vox; Brendan Buckley on drum loops; and invitados Sammy Figueroa on congas and percussion, Michel Diaz Fragoso on keys; Albert Menendez on keys, David Font on bata; and Juan Carlos Valdivia on violins. This CD was recorded at City of Progress Studio in North Miami Beach, produced by DJ Le Spam, and independently released on Spamusica Records.

In 2002, Spam Allstars released their third album Fuacata Live! to critical acclaim and were recognized with a Latin Grammy nomination in the Pop Instrumental category.

See Spamallstars.com for more information.

Photos by David Bann of The Slip’s live performance at Axis in Boston, MA on April 18th, 2004.

Irish rock act the Thrills have signed on for a portion of this summer’s Lollapalooza tour. The group joins a lineup that already includes Morrissey, String Cheese Incident, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, Polyphonic Spree, Sonic Youth, Gomez and Le Tigre. The tour kicks off July 14 in Auburn, Wash.

The Thrills will be touring in support of their acclaimed Virgin debut, So Much for the City,[i/] which debuted last November at No. 14 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and has sold 82,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The group has North American dates already booked through May 29 in Providence, R.I., including an appearance next weekend at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. The Thrills have been in a Los Angeles recording studio working on their sophomore album, having already laid down 13 tracks with an eye on an early 2005 release.

Source Billboard.com.

According to a post on the band

Aimee Mann has revealed the initial dates in what looks to be an extensive summer outing. The only confirmed dates thus far consist of an opening two-night stand in Los Angeles

Playing a large amount of songs from their latest -It

Steve Kimock talks about the upcoming studio album, the DVD, the intonation of nature, and more.

The Cure has nailed down a June 22 release date for its 13th studio album. The as-yet-untitled set will be issued by Geffen via producer Ross Robinson’s I Am imprint, to which the Cure signed last year after parting ways with longtime label Fiction/Elektra.

The Robert Smith-led band will perform the album’s yet-to-be-revealed first single April 30 on NBC’s “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” the same day the quintet will be inducted into the Hollywood Rockwalk on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Two days later, the Cure will headline the second night of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. A North American tour is expected to run from late July to September with several up-and-coming support acts clearly influenced by the Cure’s sound, but a spokesperson stresses the lineup and routing are still being finalized.

Source Billboard.com.

Founding Gov’t Mule members Warren Haynes (guitar, vocals) and Matt Abts (drums) with now-permanent bandmates Danny Louis (keyboards) and Andy Hess (bass) performed Mule’s monumental 1,000th concert, Friday, April 16, at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco.

The group proved what ten years and a thousand shows sounds like with a seamlessly tune-packed, blues-drenched opening set. The second began with what seemed like a simple appearance by bassist Phil Lesh on “Lay of the Sunflower.” But this soon turned into an unexpected all Dead set as drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann took up the unusual two-kit drum set-up, and guitarist Bob Weir and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti also took the stage. during “Cryptical Envelopment.” Gov’t Dead, so to speak, dealt a powerful serving of “The Other One,” Wang Dang Doodle,” Sugaree,” “Viola Lee Blues” and a “Turn on Your Lovelight” closer.

Only the Mule crew returned for an extraordinarily jammed-out third set, marked by legendary New Orleans funk group the Meter’s Zigaboo Modeliste sat in on Robert Johnson’s “32-20 Blues” and Neville Brothers’ “Fiyo on the Bayou.” The show ended the only way it possibly could — with a rousing version of “Soulshine.”

Gov’t Mule will continue to celebrate with a Tenth Anniversary two-night stand at New Orleans’ Orpheum Theatre on Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1.

While honoring the band’s massive history, Haynes, Abts, Louis and Hess continue to look to the future. The foursome is currently assembling the first Gov’t Mule studio album since the addition of Louis and Hess as permanent band members. It will also be the first release since the extensive guest-gathering Deep End series and the first proper band-based recorded effort since founding bassist Allen Woody’s passing August 26, 2000. The recording is scheduled for an autumn 2004 release on ATO Records.

Meanwhile Warren Haynes’ solo acoustic album, LIVE AT BONNAROO (ATO Records), which documents the entire 16-song set Haynes performed at the 2003 Bonnaroo music festival, will be released June 8, 2004. The release features Mule favorites “Beautifully Broken” and “Fallen Down” and some exciting covers, like the glorious version of Radiohead’s “Lucky” and a redefining interpretation of U2’s “One.”

Simon & Garfunkel will return to the U.S. concert circuit this summer. The reunited duo has confirmed 19 shows, kicking off June 10 in Albany, N.Y., that will make up the second leg of its Old Friends tour.

As was the case with the first leg, the Everly Brothers will make a special guest appearance during the summer concerts. The 2003 shows found the Everlys turning out a nightly performance of “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have To Do Is Dream” and “Let It Be Me,” and being joined by Simon & Garfunkel on “Bye Bye Love.”

Fans hoping to catch Simon & Garfunkel in their town a second time will most likely be disappointed with this round of dates. “They will play almost exclusively in markets where we have not gone,” Garfunkel’s manager, John Scher, told Billboard.Biz in January. At that time, Scher said a European tour is likely to follow the U.S. outing, and noted a Japanese tour was a possibility.

The 2003 Simon & Garfunkel outing grossed more than $55 million and played to 500,000 people across 32 concerts, according to Billboard Boxscores. It was the pair’s first major tour since 1983.

Here are Simon & Garfunkel’s confirmed tour dates:

June 10: Albany, N.Y. (Pepsi Arena)
June 11: Uncasville, Conn. (Mohegan Sun Arena)
June 12: Philadelphia (Wachovia Center)
June 16: Pittsburgh (Mellon Arena)
June 17: Buffalo, N.Y. (HSBC Arena)
June 19: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel)
June 20: Cincinnati (U.S. Bank Arena)
June 22: Nashville (Gaylord Entertainment Center)
June 23: Indianapolis (Conseco Fieldhouse)
June 25: Milwaukee (Bradley Center)
June 26: St. Louis (Savvis Center)
June 27: Kansas City, Kan. (Kemper Arena)
June 29: Salt Lake City (TBD)
July 1: Los Angeles (Hollywood Bowl)
July 2: Fresno, Calif. (Save Mart Center)
July 3: Las Vegas (MGM Grand Arena)
July 6: Dallas (American Airlines Center)
July 7: Houston (Toyota Center)
July 8: New Orleans (New Orleans Arena)

Source Billboard.com.

The future of The Simpsons may be in jeopardy if the most recent contract dispute between the show’s actors and Simpsons network Fox continues to simmer.

Six actors who provide the voices for dozens of Simpsons characters–Hank Azaria (Moe, Apu and Comic Book Guy), Nancy Cartwright (Bart and Nelson), Dan Castellaneta (Homer and Krusty), Julie Kavner (Marge), Harry Shearer (Mr. Burns and Smithers) and Yeardley Smith (Lisa)–are asking the network for more money. Currently, the stars make $125,000 per episode, and they’re looking for the powers that be to nearly triple that figure, to $360,000 per episode or almost $8 million a year for a 22-episode season.

Their other demand: profit participation, which is especially lucrative considering The Simpsons’ potential merchandising, syndication and DVD profits.

The group, which has banded together in the past to hit their bosses up for salary increases, kicked off the current brouhaha when they recently failed to show up for table readings for the show’s 16th season. Six episodes for the 2004-05 season, set to kick off post-baseball in November, are in the can, but the actors haven’t gone to the office for tapings in a month.

With negotiations still at an impasse earlier this week, Fox announced it would be forced to shorten the episode order for next season–which would definitely give fans a cow.

According to Yeardley Smith’s agent, John Kelly, however, Fox’s refusal to play ball with the actors is not just about money but is tantamount to a lack of acknowledgement of the actors’ contributions to the wildly successful franchise. Fox claims the figure is high, but the actors’ reps have estimated that Springfieldian saga has earned Fox and the show’s executive producers more than $2.5 billion since it debuted in 1989.

The Simpsons, the longest-running animated series in TV history, has averaged 11.5 million viewers this season. And, though that marks a drop of almost 2 million viewers from last season’s average, it’s still enough to make the series the cornerstone of Fox’s Sunday-night lineup.

Source eonline.com.

Madonna’s Maverick Records label, home to the Material Girl as well as Alanis Morissette and Michelle Branch, has lost $66 million since 1999, according to recently unsealed court documents filed by its adversary and partner, Warner Music Group.

The documents relate to the latest spat in the 12-year-relationship between Maverick and Warner Music, which was recently bought from Time Warner Inc. by an investment group led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. Time Warner is also the parent company of CNN.

Last month, Maverick sued Warner Music for $200 million, claiming breach of contract and fraud. The Warner documents were part of a pre-emptive claim filed in a Delaware court asking a judge to find that the company had fulfilled its commitment to Maverick.

The documents claim that in order for Maverick to get out of its joint venture with Warner Music, which is up at the end of the year, Maverick will have to pay $92.5 million, in addition to the value of Warner’s interest in the label. The price tag includes the $66 million in losses, a $20 million loan and $6.5 million in unrecouped fees.

According to Warner Music’s filing, if Maverick cannot raise the money needed to buy itself out the joint venture, Warner can convert the label into a “purely passive economic interest,” taking all control of the label away from Maverick. In this case, Maverick would reap no profits from the label until the losses were repaid.

A Warner Music spokesman declined to comment. Maverick could not be immediately reached. The label is gearing up for the May 18 release of Morissette’s first album in two years, “So-Called Chaos.” The following week, Madonna begins a world tour in Los Angeles.

Source CNN.com.

Matt Hoge talks of his debut film, The United States of Leland. A murderous tale of ironic hope, it continuously dives into emotional intangibles: fear, desire, hate, love. As a result, the multi-layered story offers a cracked window into the heart of tragedy.

Although it’s an election year, politically active singer Natalie Merchant is making time to focus on the music. The singer is doing a series of U.S. dates on both coasts this summer, beginning July 31 in Northampton, Mass., and continuing through late August.

It’s her first road trip since 2002, when she shared headlining duties with Chris Isaak on a cross-country trek. The singer, who keeps a busy schedule of social activism and volunteering, promises that this will be her only tour of 2004.

She’ll be accompanied by the same band that played on her most recent release, The House Carpenter’s Daughter. The album features Merchant’s interpretations of seven traditional folk songs and four covers by the likes of the Carter Family and Fairport Convention.

Source pollstar.com.