On their latest release, the underwhelming Push the Button, the Chemical Brothers return to a technique last explored, to far greater success, on 1997
In between summer tour dates supporting Santana, Los Lonely Boys will be hitting the road with Ozomatli for the Brotherhood Tour. The tour begins on May 3rd in Hidalgo, Texas, ending August 20th in Highland, Illinois. Indie rockers Calexico will join the trek for its first six shows and Robert Randolph will be on the last leg for shows.
To see the full list of tour dates, please visit LosLonelyBoys.org.
Sprightly indie rockers the Shins will take a break from recording the follow-up to 2003’s widely lauded Chutes Too Narrow to launch a month-long tour tonight in Portland, Oregon.
“That’s what I’m supposed to be doing,” says singer James Mercer of the new album, which is due by year’s end. “But it’s fun to go out on the road.”
As for the new material, he warns that early projections may be deceiving. “I’ll have thirty or so songs that I’ll be messing with, and then a month or two before we have to have the record done I’ll decide, ‘OK, these ten,'” he says. “So it’s hard to say exactly what songs will be on the record.”
Still, Mercer’s method does not preclude him from envisioning the album’s general vibe. “This record is more bedroom-y,” he says. “It’s hopefully something closer to your ear, and recorded in-the-bedroom style, where we really work over pieces instead of going into the studio for three days and cranking them out. I actually want to get back to a slow, painstaking process of production.”
The tour will see the Shins courting a growing audience after a high-profile mention in last year’s film Garden State, in which Natalie Portman’s character implores Zach Braff’s to listen to the song “New Slang,” saying “It’ll change your life.” “It was such a flattering way to be in a movie from a guy who seems to be a fan,” Mercer says of Braff, also the film’s writer and director.
But, for the Shins, the spotlight is not cause to rush the new record. “Since there’s a lot of people who just learned about us, I suppose if we were really clever we’d get it out right now,” Mercer says, laughing. “But I think it’s probably a good time to let all those people forget about us . . . so we don’t tip over that hill.”
Shins tour dates:
4/7: Portland, OR, Crystal Ballroom
4/11: Minneapolis, First Avenue
4/12: Minneapolis, First Avenue
4/13: Milwaukee, WI, Eagles Ballroom
4/14: Chicago, Congress Theater
4/17: Toronto, Kool Haus
4/19: Montreal, Spectrum
4/21: Providence, RI, Brown University
4/23: New York, Webster Hall
4/24: New York, Webster Hall
4/27: Philadelphia, Electric Factory
4/28: Norfolk, VA, Norva
4/29: Asheville, NC, Orange Peel
4/30: Asheville, NC, Orange Peel
5/3: Atlanta, Variety Playhouse
5/4: Nashville, Cannery Ballroom
5/6: Oklahoma City, Diamond Ballroom
5/8: Lawrence, KS, Liberty Hall
5/9: Omaha, NE, Sokol Underground
5/10: Denver, Fillmore
5/11: Salt Lake City, Olpin Union Ballroom
5/13: Seattle, Bank of America Arena
5/15: Portland, Crystal Ballroom
5/16: Portland, Crystal Ballroom
Source rollingstone.com.
Tommy, the Who’s 1969 rock opera, is the subject of the largest exhibit ever dedicated to a single work at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Tommy: The Amazing Journey, which opens today, fills two floors of the Cleveland museum with guitars, handwritten lyrics, poster art and concert footage. “You’ll hear and feel this exhibit,” says its designer, Matthew Smith. “It will rock and feel like a concert.”
Pete Townshend conceived Tommy — the story of an abused “deaf, dumb and blind kid” so good at pinball that people come to think he’s a prophet — as a cautionary tale about false idols. The album reached Number Four in the U.S. and stayed on the charts for nearly a year on the strength of songs like “Pinball Wizard,” “I’m Free” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” The exhibit traces Tommy through its various incarnations as a movie, a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, a London Orchestra production and even a ballet. “Tommy brought rock a kind of critical respect it had never received,” says curator Howard Kramer.
Townshend lent the Hall of Fame revealing early manuscripts. A draft of the “Sally Simpson” lyrics shows that Townshend originally named the album’s title character Danine. The exhibit also features excerpted recordings from an hours-long interview that Rolling Stone editor and publisher Jann S. Wenner conducted with Townshend in 1968, when Tommy was still in the works. “Fans get to see the creative process at its earliest moments,” says curator Craig Inciardi.
The Amazing Journey promises a visceral experience. The first floor is set up to resemble a pinball machine, with display cases in the shape of bumpers. A mock stage on the second floor displays the band’s Tommy-era costumes and instruments, including the Gibson J-200 guitar Townshend used to write “Pinball Wizard”; above the stage, footage from the band’s legendary 1970 Isle of Wight show will play on a twelve-foot screen.
Other highlights include correspondence from Townshend — such as a letter sent to Tommy film director Ken Russell, suggesting that Lou Reed, Tiny Tim and Frank Zappa be cast — and Keith Moon’s silver Premier drum kit, played at Woodstock. Particularly rare is the Gibson SG guitar that Townshend played onstage in 1968. “In those days,” says New York collector David Swartz, who donated it, “Pete broke most of them.”
Source rollingtone.
