2004

The late Bob Marley’s sons Ziggy, Stephen, Julian and Damian will team this summer for the first Bob Marley Roots Rock Reggae Festival. The trek begins Aug. 7 in Portsmouth, Va., and will wrap Aug. 29 in Berkeley, Calif. Other artists confirmed to perform are Toots & the Maytals, Common, Slightly Stoopid and Looner.

Roots Rock Reggae marks the first time the Marley family is collaborating on a national tour that is this extensive. Stops on the trek include an Aug. 10 appearance at Celebrate Brooklyn in the borough’s Prospect Park, an Aug. 22 show at Red Rocks outside Denver and an Aug. 28 gig at San Diego’s annual Street Scene festival.

A number of the headliners are supporting new albums. Stephen is scheduled to release a solo effort on Motown this fall. Ziggy is touring in support of 2003’s “Dragonfly” on Private Music/Arista, while Julian rolled out “Time & Place” in November 2003 on Ghetto Youths/Tuff Gong Records.

Common has recently collaborated with hot producer Kanye West on his next set, the follow-up to 2002’s “Electric Circus.” Toots & the Maytals just released their newest album, “True Love,” via V2.

Here are the Roots Rock Reggae dates:

Aug. 7: Portsmouth, Va. (nTelos Pavilion Harbor Center)
Aug. 8: Vienna, Va. (Wolf Trap)
Aug. 10: Brooklyn, N.Y. (Celebrate Brooklyn)
Aug. 12: Boston (Fleet Boston Pavilion)
Aug. 13: Trenton, N.J. (Sovereign Bank Arena)
Aug. 14: Wilmington, Del. (Tubman-Garrett Park)
Aug. 15: Pittsfield, Mass. (Berkshire Music Glen)
Aug. 17: Cleveland (Tower City Amphitheatre)
Aug. 18: Rochester Hills, Mich. (Meadowbrook Music Festival)
Aug. 20: Chicago (The Chill on Kingsbury Street)
Aug. 21: Riverside, Mo. (E.H. Young Riverfront Park)
Aug. 22: Morrison, Colo. (Red Rocks Amphitheater)
Aug. 24: Albuquerque, N.M. (Journal Pavilion)
Aug. 26: Mesa, Ariz. (Mesa Amphitheatre)
Aug. 27: Los Angeles (Greek Theatre)
Aug. 28: San Diego (San Diego Street Scene)
Aug. 29: Berkeley, Calif. (Greek Theatre)

Source billboard.com.

After a long break, activity is slowly brewing in the Pearl Jam camp. The group’s official Web site hints at a handful of future releases and live performances by the fall. “There could be some shows — maybe acoustic, maybe not, a possible CD of some sort, and it’s possible the band may head back to the studio towards the end of the year to begin work on their eighth album,” the site says.

“As far as new music from side projects goes, some releases are possible but not definite,” the post continues, referring to such affiliated acts as Brad and the Rockfords. In addition, frontman Eddie Vedder is confirmed to appear on former Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons’ upcoming solo album, but will not make a rumored guest spot on the Who’s in-progress studio release.

The prospective fall shows may be held in swing states in the run-up toward the U.S. presidential election. And while Pearl Jam actively campaigned for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, the site says the group will not play any fundraisers on his behalf this year.

Bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard will be seen in the upcoming documentary “Malfunksun: The Andrew Wood Story,” which chronicles the life of the late Mother Love Bone vocalist. Former Soundgarden members Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil have also participated in the film.

Finally, the site confirms that Sony Music is working on a Pearl Jam greatest hits album, with details to be announced. The band exited Sony’s Epic Records last year after spending its entire career on the label. Pearl Jam says it is “still leaving options open” for a new record deal.

Source billboard.com.

Longtime Phish lyricst Tom Marshall, currently leading his own band, Amfibian, issued a statement today reacting to the sudden announcement that Phish was breaking up after 21 years.

Marshall, who has been co-writing Phish

Geffen has rounded up 16 of Joni Mitchell’s more issue-minded tracks for the compilation “The Beginning of Survival,” due July 27. The songs are drawn from the Mitchell album “Dog Eat Dog,” “Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm,” “Night Ride Home,” Turbulent Indigo” and “Taming the Tiger.” Among the guests sprinkled throughout are Don Henley, James Taylor, Willie Nelson and Michael McDonald.

The album’s self-described “commentaries on the world in which we live” find Mitchell addressing such as topics as greed and corruption (“No Apologies,” “Dog Eat Dog” and “Passion Play (The Story of Jesus and Zachius … The Little Tax Collector),” featuring actor Rod Steiger), Western culture (“The Three Great Stimulants”) and environmental responsibility (“Cool Water,” “Lakota”).

Also featured are “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” (adapted from a poem by W.B. Yeats), “The Beat of Black Wings,” “The Reoccuring Dream,” “Impossible Dreamer” and “The Windfall (Everything for Nothing).”

Mitchell co-produced the album and contributes an essay plus original artwork. The liner notes include a reproduction of an environmentally themed letter to the President of the United States, thought to have been penned by Susquamish Indian Chief Seattle in 1852.

“The Beginning of Survival” is Geffen’s second recent archival Mitchell release, following last September’s four-disc boxed set “The Complete Geffen Recordings.” The artist has not issued a new studio album since 2002’s Nonesuch set “Travelogue,” which she has said will be her last.

Source billboard.com.

In an article published on Rollingtone online –

“If there’s one thing I discovered since I came back from [Phish’s two-year] hiatus, it’s that you can’t go backwards,” guitarist Trey Anastasio said last Thursday, the day before his twenty-year-old Vermont jam band decided to break up after its summer tour.
“I try to remember, now, that feeling that I had when I was writing [complex early Phish material like] ‘Reba,’ ‘Foam’ and ‘Split Open and Melt.’ There was a single-mindedness. Our relationship hadn’t developed as a foursome, as people. I was very aggressive. So, I came into band practice and I said, ‘Play this, play this, play this.’ . . . I can’t really do that anymore. That’s nature . . . At this point, the whole thing has become a much, much heavier and harder boat to move . . . As the years went by, Phish became about improvisation a little bit more, and that kind of music got pushed to the side.”

Phish have indeed shied away from Anastasio’s more elaborate compositions in recent years and the frontman was left to find other outlets. “Lo and behold, the next thing you know, I’ve got a ten-piece band that has lots of complicated horn charts,” he said of the outfit he has toured with during Phish’s downtime.

Last month, Anastasio’s released the orchestral, instrumental solo effort Seis de Mayo, an album that showcases his ability as a composer. For his June 14th performance on the closing night of this year’s Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee, he will lead the Nashville Chamber Orchestra through selections from the album, before performing a set with his solo band.

“That was the dream from the beginning,” the thirty-nine-year-old former Goddard College composition major said earnestly. “When I met Phish, I was studying orchestral music. I wanted to be a composer. They were kind enough to facilitate me and learn it.”

When Phish took their two-year break between 2000 and 2002, Anastasio was invited to expand Phish’s “Guyute,” from 1998’s Story of the Ghost, into an orchestral work for the Vermont Youth Symphony. The project eventually grew into Seis De Mayo, a varied set which ranges from the string quartet puzzlebox of “All Things Reconsidered” (originally on Phish’s Rift) to the brassy Americana of “Coming To.”

The performance at Bonnaroo will include these, as well as two other new pieces. “I’m seeing this Bonnaroo experience as a big stone in the water to where I wanna go,” Anastasio said. “The first set is going to range from string quartets to eighteen people, twelve people, forty people. The second set will be ten. I would like to have that gap start to close, to have the energy and intensity of the second set meld with the composition of the first set, along the lines of [Frank Zappa’s] The Grand Wazoo.”

“People have done it before,” he continued. “Duke Ellington did it. That was a dance band. That’s dance music, as far as I’m concerned.”

After Bonnaroo, Anastasio will head north to rejoin his smaller ensemble, Phish. On June 15th, they will release their final studio album, Undermind, and on the 17th they will kick off their summer tour at Coney Island’s KeySpan Park. The show will be broadcast to select movie theaters nationwide. The tour will conclude August 14th and 15th with Coventry, the seventh and last installment in Phish’s annual city-sized camping festivals, which will bring their career to a close in their native Vermont.

“In a funny way, I wish I was in a wedding band,” Anastasio said. “[My solo band] just played at a birthday party, and there were grandmas and little teeny kids dancing on the stage. We played for hours, we did an Earth, Wind and Fire song, everybody was dancing, and I was so happy. Along with all this crazy stuff that’s going on, I want to be inclusive. I’m not trying to be high art. Basically, I’d like to have a forty-three-piece wedding band.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Kid Rock, Cypress Hill, Nickelback, Ludacris, Galactic, Our Lady Peace, Lil’ Jon and Tha Eastside Boyz and Molotov are the first acts confirmed for the second Coors Light Mountain Jam. The event will be held Aug. 14 at Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside Denver and will be hosted by comedian Dave Attell. Tickets are $50 and go on sale June 5 via CoorsLight.com.

Among the non-musical diversions will be the Coors Light Oasis Deck, complete with a hot tub, and the Coors Light Kasbah, in which select contest winners will get to mingle with the artists. Early entrants to the venue grounds will receive coupons for free food and drink plus Coors-branded t-shirts and hats.

The first Coors Light Mountain Jam boasted performances by 50 Cent, the Doors of the 21st Century, Korn, P.O.D., the Roots, Evanescence, Gov’t Mule and Toots and the Maytals.

Source billboard.com.