Reviewing Songs From the Tin Shed, a collaboration between The Big Wu’s Chris Castino and Jeff Austin of the Yonder Mountain String Band, promised to be a no-brainer, a work by representatives of two of today’s hottest jambands. I expected pure acoustic gold with this record. Unfortunately, the chaff prevails.
Some things go in and out of style, but Joe Jackson and his brand of
Time to get out the hairspray and black eyeliner again. Less than a week after headlining the Coachella festival in the Southern California desert, goth pioneers the Cure have unveiled plans for a full U.S. tour this summer.
The Curiosa Festival 2004 will feature the Cure headlining a bill that also includes three bands plainly influenced by Robert Smith and company: Interpol, the Rapture and Mogwai.
A second stage will also be part of the traveling road show, with Muse, Thursday, Cursive, Melissa Auf Der Maur, Cooper Temple Clause and Head Automatica rotating as performers.
The Cure formed in 1976, and only iconoclastic singer/songwriter Smith remains from the group’s initial lineup. Simon Gallup, who joined the group in 1979, is the only other longstanding member in the current lineup. The group plans to release a new eponymous album on June 29, the band’s first LP since 2000’s Bloodflowers. The first single from the album bears the cheery title “The End of the World.”
The tour kicks off July 24 in the unlikely tropical setting of West Palm Beach, Florida, and ends August 27 in Los Angeles. Venues have yet to be confirmed, and additional dates are still being added.
Dates for the Curiosa Festival 2004, according to a band spokesperson:
* 7/24 – West Palm Beach, FL
* 7/25 – Tampa, FL
* 7/28 – Nashville, TN
* 7/29 – Atlanta, GA
* 7/31 – New York, NY
* 8/1 – Camden, NJ
* 8/3 – Cincinnati, OH
* 8/4 – Cleveland, OH
* 8/7 – Boston, MA
* 8/11 – Detroit, MI
* 8/12 – Chicago, IL
* 8/14 – Dallas, TX
* 8/15 – Houston, TX
* 8/17 – Denver, CO
* 8/18 – Salt Lake City, UT
* 8/27 – Los Angeles, CA
Source VH1.com.
The second Northeast Kingdom Music Festival will be held on Friday and Saturday, August 6th and 7th at the Chilly Ranch in Albany, VT. The festival will provide two days and nights of camping, community, culture, circus acts, poetry, performance, and politics. The lineup includes: Hieroglyphics, Israel Vibration, The Breakestra, Cyro Baptista & Beat the Donkey, Oteil Burbridge & The Peacemakers, Snake Oil Medicine Show and Nero. For a full list of performers and festival details, visit their website.
TVT Records today announced the signing of West Coast rap supergroup 213. The trio of Nate Dogg, Snoop Dogg and Warren G will release its long-awaited debut, “The Hard Way,” on July 20. The artists have a long association that predates Snoop’s breakthrough appearance on Dr. Dre’s classic 1992 album “The Chronic” and have frequently collaborated in the years since.
Snoop Dogg has not released an album since 2002’s “Paid tha Cost To Be Da Boss” (Priority), while Warren G’s most recent solo release was that year’s “Return of the Regulator” (Universal). Nate Dogg released a self-titled album in 2003 via Elektra.
Source billboard.com.
Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been wowing audiences for three decades, with a rigorous worldwide touring schedule and an average of at least an album a year.
This summer, the South African group is kicking off a mammoth tour of North America and Europe in support of its latest effort, Raise Your Spirit Higher: Wenyukela.
The trek is set to launch June 11 in Ketchum, Idaho, at Sun Valley Center. The ten-member vocal group will play a few weeks’ worth of U.S. gigs before heading to Europe in July. They’ll do stints in both North America and Europe throughout the fall and winter, including a five-show run in Hawaii in January.
The group is already booked solid for next spring, with North American dates stretching all the way through April. Joseph Shabalala founded Ladysmith Black Mambazo in 1974, combining Zulu vocal traditions with the hymnal music of the Christian church. The ensemble became well-known in South Africa almost immediately and achieved widespread fame in the mid-’80s after performing on Paul Simon’s album Graceland.
Source pollstar.com.
Photos by Chad Anderson of URI Day of Hope festival featuring Rasin Hill in Kingston, RI on April 17th, 2004.
Noted jazz artists Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Dave Holland and Brian Blade are teaming up for a series of tour dates. The quartet will kick off its stateside run June 18 in Jacksonville, Ore. Six dates are on the books through a June 26 performance in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. A brief European schedule in July is expected to follow.
Here are the Hancock, Shorter, Holland and Blade tour dates:
June 18: Jacksonville, Ore. (Britt Pavilion)
June 19: San Francisco (San Francisco Jazz Festival)
June 20: Los Angeles (Playboy Jazz Festival)
June 24: Ottawa (International Jazz Festival)
June 25: New York (Carnegie Hall)
June 26: Saratoga Springs, N.Y. (Saratoga Performing Arts Center)
Mike Doughty is making the rounds through U.S. clubs and theatres this spring and summer, armed with his trusty acoustic guitar and his arsenal of self-described “small rock” tunes. He’s currently finishing up his opening run for New Orleans jazz-funk outfit Galactic. His headlining dates begin June 5 at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, N.J., and stretch through early July, when he’ll do a double-nighter at Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas.
The former Soul Coughing frontman set out on a solo career after that band’s demise in 1998, releasing Skittish, a collection of home-recorded acoustic songs, in 2000. Smofe & Smang: Live In Minneapolis followed in 2002.
For full list of dates visit pollstar.com.
The U.S. Open of Mountain Biking returns to Diablo Freeride Park at Mountain Creek in Vernon, NJ for the second consecutive year. This three-day event boasts a huge $20,000 Downhill Pro Purse, while offering a staggering $5,000 cash prize to first place in both the men
