The latest John Hiatt offering was produced by Jim Dickinson and features his two sons, Cody and Luther (from the North Mississippi Allstars) on guitar and drums. With impassionate lyrics, the singer/songwriter paints confessional narratives with a sundry assortment of styles.
Punk acts young, old and reunited have pledged their support for embattled New York club CBGB, which is fighting to renew a soon-to-expire lease and may be forced to close up shop entirely. Artists such as the Misfits, Thursday, Against Me, Liars, Dead Boys, Gorilla Biscuits and the Vandals will perform at a series of benefit concerts at the club in the coming weeks to raise funds for the effort.
The Save CBGB fund is earmarked for the club’s legal fees as it lobbies its landlord, the Bowery Residents Committee (BRC), a not-for-profit organization that provides services and shelter to homeless and disabled New Yorkers.
Additional artists set to appear include Living Colour, Flipper, Kid Dynamite, Bush Tetras, Chevelle, the Exit and World Inferno Friendship Society.
Full Story: Billboard
Tony Bennett, Sonny Rollins, the Pat Metheny Trio, Branford Marsalis and John Scofield are among the artists lined up for California’s 48th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival, which will be held Sept. 16-18.
Showcase artist Scofield and artist-in-residence Marsalis will be the festival’s most ubiquitous artists. Among Scofield’s plans is a tribute to Ray Charles with Mavis Staples and a “New Grooves” segment featuring the John Scofield Uberjam Band and Banyan.
Marsalis, meanwhile, will headline a final night show with his quintet and participate in one of the festival’s “conversations” a day earlier, discussing “Jazz: The Big Picture.” Others taking part in such discourse will be artists Carla Bley and Steve Swallow (“The Creative Process”) and Billboard jazz columnist Dan Ouellette, who will lead a journalists’ panel discussion.
Saxophonist John Handy is planning to commemorate his legendary 1965 Monterey performance with a 40th anniversary reunion of several members of that quintet. That ’65 set featured then virtually unknown players Michael White (violin), Jerry Hahn (guitar), Terry Clarke (drums) and Don Thompson (bass) who played just two songs: a 27-minute version of “If Only We Knew” and a 19-minute take on “Spanish Lady.” The performance was recorded and released the following year as Handy’s Columbia Records debut.
Other highlights for the 48th annual event include the debut Monterey appearance by Bennett, Rollins’ first appearance there since 1997 and performances by Larry Carlton & Sapphire Blue with Ledisi, Lee Ritenour & Friends with Dave Grusin, the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and vocalist Madeleine Peyroux.
Source billboard.com.
Liz Phair has finalized the track list for her fifth album, “Somebody’s Miracle.” As previously reported, the 14-track set will arrive Oct. 4 via Capitol. First single “Everything to Me,” one of the album’s three co-writes with producer John Shanks, will arrive imminently at U.S. radio outlets.
“Somebody’s Miracle” is the follow-up to Phair’s 2003 self-titled effort, which spawned her first crossover hit in the form of “Why Can’t I?,” but alienated longtime fans with its glossy sound and mainstream ambitions.
Phair has not exactly returned to her lo-fi, indie-rock roots; streamlined cuts like “Stars and Planets,” “Giving It All to You” and “Count on My Love” seem primed for pop radio airplay.
But several tracks here should bring a smile to the face of devotees of her 1993 Matador debut, “Exile in Guyville,” and its 1994 follow-up, “Whip-Smart.” “Why I Lie” rides a sexy, Stones-style rock groove, while “Got My Own Thing” lopes along on a detuned riff that recalls the “Guyville” touchstone “Stratford-on-Guy.”
While not as openly sexual as an earlier single like “Supernova,” “Can’t Get Out of What I’m Into” is a similarly fast, fun rocker about a relationship that flies in the face of better judgment. “It gives me something to laugh about / because my real life ain’t f***in’ funny,” she sings.
Fresh off an appearance last weekend at Lollapalooza in her Chicago hometown, Phair kicked off a solo acoustic tour last night (July 26) in Boston and will be on the road through Aug. 19 in San Francisco.
Here is the track list for “Somebody’s Miracle”:
“Leap of Innocence”
“Wind in the Mountain”
“Stars and Planets”
“Somebody’s Miracle”
“Got My Own Thing”
“Count on My Love”
“Lazy Dreamer”
“Everything to Me”
“Can’t Get Out of What I’m Into”
“Table for One”
“Why I Lie”
“Lost Tonight”
“Everything (Between Us)”
“Giving It All to You”
Source billboard.com.
The Steve Kimock Band will tour this fall in support of his long anticipated stuio album Eudemonic, and like their studio work, the band’s live show is bold, inventive, and dynamic. As always, Kimock and Holmes have hand-picked a group of ace musicians, and the cast will rotate slightly – promising fresh material and inspired interpretations.
Joining SKB for August’s west coast run is old friend Reed Mathis on bass, David Nelson Band keyboardist extraordinaire Mookie Siegel, and Mitch “Moose” Stein on guitar. Tour dates include:
July 28
D12 member Proof is gearing up for the Aug. 9 release of his first solo album, “Searching for Jerry Garcia.” The set will be issued via the artist’s own Iron Fist label and features such guests as longtime collaborator Eminem, 50 Cent, Method Man, Nate Dogg, Obie Trice and his D12 cohorts.
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Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden just released his latest Domino album, “Everything Ecstatic,” but the electronica artist is already busy with several other projects. Among them are a new album with his band Fridge, a collaborative project with veteran drummer Steve Reid and a DVD of videos for tracks from “Everything Ecstatic.”
The album with Reid came about after he and Hebden played one-off shows together in Paris and London. “He’s a jazz drummer and he use to play with James Brown for a while and he played with Motown,” Hebden tells Billboard.com. “It’s just improvised music — just drums and electronics.”
The set will likely be dubbed “The Exchange Sessions,” after the London studio where it was recorded. “We literally have just finished it so we are going to start organizing a release next week,” Hebden says.
As for Fridge, with which Hebden began his rock career as a teenager, the group began assembling ideas last Christmas for its first album since 2001’s “Happiness,” with an eye on having it ready by next year.
“The last few sessions we did were literally throwing all sorts of ideas around,” he says. “Some of it was coming out quite aggressive [with] really quite heavy pounding drums. There’s lots of really sparse, sort of folk bits as well. o we are all over the place. I have no idea what the album is going to sound like.”
Hebden is cautiously optimistic Fridge could mount a tour in support of the album. “I’d like to think so,” he says. “It’s just the eventual timing in our lives. I don’t know how available everyone is going to be, but it’d be nice to.”
Beginning Sept. 15 in Orlando, Fla., Hebden will hit the road in support of “Everything Ecstatic” on what will be his longest headlining tour in North America to date. The album’s companion DVD will be released in November and will feature “a different director on each different track,” according to the artist.
One of the things I wanted to do was give opportunities to people who have never made a video before and see what I came up with,” Hebden offers. “I have a friend who does these animations by painting directly on the film and then putting them through a projector. I think it’s 45 drawings for one second of footage. It’s really, really nice — she’s done an incredible video.”
Source billboard.com.
