July 13, 2005

Big Head Todd & The Mnsters’ new song “Blue Sky” has been recognized as the theme song of the Space Shuttle’s much-anticipated return to flight. As a result of this, NASA has invited the rock trio to be on hand as VIP guests at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, July 13 when the space shuttle Discovery lifts off on its highly anticipated 13-day mission commanded by Eileen Collins, the first woman to helm a shuttle mission. “Blue Sky” will be available exclusively through iTunes starting on the morning of July 12. The song will also be on the group’s next album.

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Todd Park Mohr wrote “Blue Sky” at the urging of John Horan, Deputy Program Manager for ASRC Aerospace Corporation, NASA’s research and development contractor. “John’s a fan and came on our BHTM Fan Cruise in January,” says MOHR, referring to a week-long excursion of the British Virgin Islands which the band hosts for 240 fans each spring. “We got to talking, and he said they’ve used ‘Rocket Man’ so much and wanted a song specifically about the American shuttle program.” After the tour, Mohr returned to his solar-powered studio in the Colorado mountains and started doing research about NASA. “I drew on my experience from visiting the visiting the Kennedy Space Center with Brian and Rob, where we were given a behind-the-scenes tour, as well as astronauts’ autobiographical material posted on the NASA website. I am a believer in space exploration and believe the effort is in many ways the cream and flower of human achievement.”

Perpetually touring Bob Dylan is packing his bags and taking his show across the pond in November for seven shows in the United Kingdom.

Kicking off November 15 at the Nottingham Arena, Dylan will spend the rest of the month trekking through Manchester, Glasgow, and Birmingham before closing out with two nights at London’s Brixton Academy.

The European jaunt marks Dylan’s first dates after the August 30 drop date of his Starbucks exclusive release, Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962 and coinciding release of Martin Scorsese’s feature film about Dylan, “No Direction Home.”

The soundtrack will be available through the coffee mega-chain, as well as other stores. But the Gaslight disc will be a Starbucks exclusive for 18 months.

Currently, Dylan is wrapping up his second tour of minor league baseball stadiums with Willie Nelson, then going solo for a swing through Canada and the upper Midwest states.

Source pollstar.com.

Live and on-demand concerts and comedy shows will serve as the foundation of a new America Online Inc.-backed joint venture announced Tuesday for delivering entertainment via the Internet, satellite, wireless and other platforms.
The formation of the company, Network Live, follows AOL’s success in delivering seven separate feeds from the July 2 Live 8 concerts – all without any meltdowns common with early high-interest events online. Some 5 million people viewed the shows online, and AOL broke its own records with a peak of 175,000 simultaneous users.
Kevin Wall, who oversaw production of the Live 8 video broadcasts for AOL and other outlets worldwide, will serve as chief executive of the joint venture involving AOL, XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Anschutz Corp.’s AEG unit, which owns sports and entertainment arenas and produces concerts and other shows.
“We’re creating the network of the future, being able to access entertainment digital content anytime, anywhere on any particular device,” Wall said.

Source: pollstar.com

A fuel gauge that mistakenly read empty instead of full forced NASA to call off Wednesday’s launch of Discovery on the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster 2 1/2 years ago. The space agency’s chief said the mission is off until at least Monday.

The decision to scrub the launch came with less than 2 1/2 hours to go, while the seven astronauts were boarding the spacecraft for their journey to the international space station. Up until then, rain and thunder over the launch site appeared to be the only potential obstacle to an on-time liftoff.

The problem involved one of the external fuel tank’s four engine cutoff sensors, which are responsible for making sure the spacecraft’s main engines shut down at the right moment during the ascent. A launch could end in tragedy if faulty sensors caused the engines to cut out too early or too late.

Source: boston.com

My Morning Jacket has often drawn comparisons to such southern rock forebears as Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers Band, even if they’re rooted more in its members’ long-haired, bearded appearances than their music.

But in Cameron Crowe’s new film “Elizabethtown,” set in MMJ’s home state of Kentucky, the group openly embraces the similarities, portraying a local band rocking through a cover of Skynyrd’s classic “Freebird.” The performance elevates to another level when a stuffed bird intended as a stage prop catches fire and activates the sprinkler system, soaking the patronage.

Source billboard.com.

Pearl Jam continues to add shows to its 2005 tour itinerary, the newest being an Aug. 29 date in Missoula, Mont., where bassist Jeff Ament went to college. Proceeds from the gig at the Adams Center will benefit Montana Senate president Jon Tester’s bid for the U.S. Senate. Tickets go on sale July 23 via Tickets West.

The benefit comes on the heels of a recently announced Sept. 1 show in George, Wash., which sold out in three hours, and a Sept. 30-Oct. 1 stand at the Borgata in Atlantic City, N.J., which sold out in two minutes. In between, Pearl Jam will play a 16-date Canadian tour beginning Sept. 2 in Vancouver and open a Sept. 28 show for the Rolling Stones in Pittsburgh.

The group is still at work on its as-yet-untitled eighth studio album, due early next year via J Records.

Source billboard.com.

More than two-dozen previously unreleased tracks will be found on “No Direction Home: The Soundtrack,” the seventh volume in Columbia/Legacy’s Bob Dylan “Bootleg Series.” As previously reported, the double-disc set is the companion to Martin Scorsese’s Dylan documentary of the same name. The album is due Aug. 30; the film premieres Sept. 26 on PBS.

Sequenced in chronological order, “No Direction Home” boasts 26 rarities, beginning with what is believed to be a recording of the first original song Dylan ever recorded (“When I Got Troubles,” taped by a high school friend in Minnesota in 1959).

Also featured are two tracks recorded in Minneapolis in December 1961, a live version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” from a 1961 show at New York’s Carnegie Hall that was previously not known to exist and alternate takes of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” and “She Belongs to Me” from the 1964-65 “Bringing It All Back Home” sessions.

The album’s second disc sports five alternate takes from the 1965 sessions for “Highway 61 Revisited” and three from the following year’s “Blonde on Blonde,” plus live versions of “Ballad of a Thin Man” and “Like a Rolling Stone” from Dylan’s 1966 U.K. tour.

Liner notes for “No Direction Home” were penned by producer Andrew Loog Oldham and Dylan collaborator Al Kooper, while journalist Eddie Gorodetsky offers track-by-track analysis.

Dylan himself narrates the film version of “No Direction Home,” which boasts new interviews with such seminal figures as Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Al Kooper, Pete Seeger and Dave Von Ronk.

On the same day “No Direction Home” hits stores, another Dylan album will begin an 18-month window of exclusivity at Starbucks locations. “Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962” features restored recordings culled from the artist’s early performances at the New York cafe.

Here is the track list for “No Direction Home”:

Disc one:
“When I Got Troubles” (1959)
“Rambler, Gambler” (1960)
“This Land Is Your Land” (live at New York’s Carnegie Chapter Hall, 1961)
“Song to Woody” (1961)
“Dink’s Song” (1961)
“I Was Young When I Left Home” (1961)
“Sally Gal” (“The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” outtake, 1962)
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” (demo, 1963)
“Man of Constant Sorrow” (1963)
“Blowin’ in the Wind” (live at New York’s Town Hall, 1963)
“Masters of War” (live at New York’s Town Hall, 1963)
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (live at New York’s Carnegie Hall, 1963)
“When the Ship Comes In” (live at New York’s Carnegie Hall, 1963)
“Mr. Tambourine Man” (“Bringing It All Back Home” alternate take, 1964)
“Chimes of Freedom” (live at Newport, R.I. Folk Festival, 1964)
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” (“Bringing It All Back Home” alternate take, 1965)

Disc two:
“She Belongs To Me” (