June 24, 2005

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club has finalized the track list for its third studio album, “Howl,” which will be released Aug. 23 in North America via RCA. Album opener “Shuffle Your Feet” is available for digital download, but currently only via iTunes in Europe.

The first physical retail single will be the slide guitar-laden stomper “Ain’t No Easy Way” on Aug. 8 internationally. The group is planning to shoot a video for the song in Kiev.

As expected, “Howl” is a major departure from the propulsive, electric guitar-driven rock of BRMC’s first two albums for Virgin. Nearly every track features acoustic guitar, highlighted by the drumless, harmonica-flecked “Fault Line” and the rousing “Still Suspicion Holds You Tight.”

Elsewhere, the band tests out feel-good piano pop (“Promise”), dark blues (“Restless Sinner”) and Bob Dylan-style acoustic strumming (“Complicated Situation”). The album’s final song, “The Line,” includes a hidden track featuring only voice and a fuzzed-out keyboard backing.

BRMC recently concluded a U.K. headlining tour that also featured an opening appearance with U2 on Tuesday in Glasgow. The trio will return to England in late August for the Reading and Leeds festivals, and is eyeing a fall tour of North America.

Here is the track list for “Howl”:

“Shuffle Your Feet”
“Howl”
“Devil’s Waitin'”
“Ain’t No Easy Way”
“Still Suspicion Holds You Tight”
“Fault Line”
“Promise”
“Weight of the World”
“Restless Sinner”
“Gospel Song”
“Complicated Situation”
“Sympathetic Noose”
“The Line”

Source billboard.com.

Neil Young will perform — for the first time since suffering a brain aneurysm — at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium August 15th to 19th. The five-night stand will be taped for the performance DVD Young is working on with filmmaker Jonathan Demme.

Source rollingstone.com.

Expanded versions of the Stooges’ howling, hard-rocking first two albums are headed for record stores on August 16th. Rhino Records’ double-CD deluxe editions of 1969’s The Stooges and 1970’s Fun House will feature the original album plus a bonus CD of demos and rarities.

The bonus disc of the Stooges’ eponymous debut contains alternate takes and mixes of classics like “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” while its Fun House counterpart also includes two songs, “Lost in the Future” and “Slide (Slidin’ the Blues),” that did not appear on the original release.

Formed in 1967, the Stooges were Detroit’s gritty response to what singer Iggy Pop calls the “wockety-wickety-wackety-woo” of the hippie movement. “It didn’t even rock,” he told Rolling Stone in 2003 of the flowery soundtrack to the Summer of Love. “I mean, ‘Marrakesh Express?’ It may be the worst song ever written.”

The Stooges’ noisy anthems resonated with fans looking for a different sound, and later influenced generations of punk and post-punk musicians, such as fellow Detroit denizen Jack White, who wore the digital dots off of his Fun House cassette when he was growing up.

“I played the hell out [that tape], like someone was gonna break in and take my tape deck while I was driving,” the White Stripes frontman writes in the Fun House (Deluxe Edition) liner notes. “I remember screaming in my head, ‘This is Detroit!’ And that’s what Fun House is to me, the very definition of Detroit rock & roll, and by proxy the definitive rock album of America. The record’s passion, attitude, power, emotion and destruction are incalculable.”

Source rollingstone.com.

My Morning Jacket takes its Southern-tinged rock’n’roll to new and exciting places on its fourth studio album, “Z.” As previously reported, the 10-track set will be released Sept. 20 via ATO/RCA and was produced by John Leckie (Radiohead, New Order).

The addition of new members Carl Broemel (guitar) and Bo Koster (keyboards) has helped broaden the band’s sound, with more keyboards and overall sonic texture in the nooks and crannies than on 2003’s “It Still Moves.”

The album opens with the vintage keyboard bounce of the aptly named “Wordless Chorus,” which immediately reintroduces frontman Jim James’ reverb-drenched voice. “We are the innovators / they are the imitators,” he sings, eventually rising to a full-on falsetto of “hoos” as the song concludes.

Here is the track list for “Z”:

“Wordless Chorus”
“It Beats for You”
“Gideon”
“What a Wonderful Man”
“Off the Record”
“Into the Woods”
“Anytime”
“Lay Low”
“Knot Comes Loose”
“Dondante”

To read more visit billboard.com.

In addition to previously announced headliner Nine Inch Nails, the seventh Voodoo Music Experience will feature performances by Queens Of The Stone Age, My Chemical Romance, the Flaming Lips, Billy Idol, the New York Dolls, Secret Machines, DJ Tiesto, the Bravery, Ryan Adams and Mickey Hart’s Voodoo Drum Circle. The event will be held Oct. 29-30 at New Orleans’ City Park; tickets go on sale July 8.

Other acts set to appear include LCD Soundsystem, Handsome Boy Modeling School (plus separate sets from group members Dan the Automator and Prince Paul), Brazilian Girls, Carl Cox, Louis XIV, Social Distortion, the Decemberists, VHS Or Beta and Digable Planets.

A number of eclectic acts will grace the One Basin Street Stage, such as Joss Stone, Dr. John, the Neville Brothers, Kermit Ruffins with the Rebirth Brass Band, Michael Tolcher and the Spam Allstars.

For more information, visit the festival’s official website

Source billboard.com.

Four people were stabbed and one killed during a Corrosion of Conformity show at the Masquerade in Tampa last night. A man was pronounced dead of his wounds at Tampa General early Friday morning, while a woman remains in critical condition, according to Tampa police.

The altercation began around 11:30 last night, in the mosh pit during the North Carolina punk/metal band’s set. According to police, a disagreement between two female fans somehow resulted in one man fatally stabbing another.

The authorities are searching for the suspect, described as a white male in his late twenties to early thirties with a shaved head and red-brown goatee and moustache. The man fled the venue before police arrived, and anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact the Tampa police.

Corrosion of Conformity posted a statement on their official Web site in response to the assaults. “We are stunned, deeply saddened by the brutal stabbings of three [sic] people at the Tampa show last night,” they wrote. “We don’t have much information at this time. Unofficially we heard that one victim didn’t make it. In twenty-plus years of gigging, we’ve never seen anything like this. It’s sad that people can’t come together for a good time listening to music without something tragic happening. We feel for the families of those attacked and wish success to Tampa law enforcement in their quest to solve this pointless crime. Take care of each other and go in peace.”

Corrosion of Conformity are scheduled to continue their tour, in support of their April release In the Arms of God, tonight in Atlanta. The club venue, in an unfortunate coincidence, is also called Masquerade.

Source rollingstone.com.

Jazz/rock trio Soulive has inked with Concord Records for the Sept. 13 release of its next album, “Young, Hungry and Groovin’.” The group was previously signed to Blue Note, which capped its tenure with the late March retrospective “Steady Groovin’.”

The 15-track new album features such guests as Robert Randolph on a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Crosstown Traffic,” Living Colour vocalist Corey Glover on “Freedom,” Chaka Khan on “Back Again” and Ivan Neville on “Take It Easy” and “Got Soul.”

“Young, Hungry and Groovin'” is Soulive’s first studio album since a 2003 self-titled effort, which debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart.

The group will be on the road throughout the summer, including a show on June 24th with Antibalas as part of New York’s Celebrate Brooklyn festival. Soulive will also play at the Shakedown Campout and Music Festival in North Plains, Ore., alongside Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, Michael Franti and Sage Francis, among others.

Source billboard.com.