July 2005

The seventh annual Bragg Jam, held in downtown Macon, Georgia, will take place this year on Friday and Saturday, July 29 and 30. Now a full-blown music and arts festival, Bragg Jam will begin with the River Bank Bash Friday night at 7 pm with southern rock torchbearers The Drive By Truckers (pictured) and opening band Hank Vegas. Saturday’s festivities begin at 11 am on the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail at Spring Street landing with an arts festival, children’s activities and bluegrass music.
Bragg Jam’s Saturday afternoon activities will also include a spectator area for watching the contestants of the Ocmulgee Adventure Race navigate an obstacle course near the music stage. The second annual Ocmulgee Adventure Race is a 6 to 10 hour race that involves canoeing, trekking, cycling and orienteering.
National touring act Southern Culture on the Skids will take the river stage at 5 pm. Afterwards, close to 50 bands will play in 13 venues across town. Free transportation to and from participating venues will be provided via the NewTown trolleys. Other headliners for this year’s festival include Billy Joe Shaver, Southern Bitch (pictured), Robert Bradley, Randall Bramblett, Moonshine Still, Kevn Kinney and Tishamingo. Bragg Jam is $25 a night, and a $40 combo ticket grants entry to both nights. Tickets, as well as a complete line-up, are available at www.braggjam.org. For tickets by phone, call 478-301-5470. All proceeds from both the Ocmulgee Adventure Race and Bragg Jam go to the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail.
Bragg Jam began seven years ago as a reaction by friends to the deaths of Brax and Tate Bragg. Both excellent musicians that played in area bands, they died in a car accident in 1999. Russell Walker, a friend of the family, organized a musical celebration to honor their friends. In 2003, Bragg Jam was expanded into a citywide music festival; it was incorporated in 2005 as a non-profit. The goal has consistently been the same: remember the Bragg brothers, showcase the city of Macon and its musical heritage, and raise money for the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail.
“In 1998, the trail was still just a dream of NewTown Macon and many community leaders/volunteers like Chris Sheridan and Ben Porter,” said Wes Griffith, NewTown Director of Development and Bragg Jam, Inc. board member. “Now we’ve got about three miles of trail down and a master plan that includes more than 16 miles and a 180-acre passive park at the old Water Works facility.”
“Brax and Tate loved the river,” said Anne Bragg, sister of the boys, “they both loved to write, play music and hang out on the banks of the Ocmulgee. They would be happy to know that Bragg Jam is helping to draw attention to the development of a permanent trail for all of the community.”
“This is Bragg Jam’s first year as an incorporated non-profit with a board of directors,” said board chair Heather Evans. “It’s really allowed us to expand the festival and effectively recruit a larger, more diverse sponsor base. The local business community has been great in embracing our efforts. We are really poised to become a festival of regional significance, one that will not only play a major role in raising funds for the Trail, but one that will have a profound economic impact on the downtown area for years to come.”
For more information on Bragg Jam, visit www.braggjam.org. For more information on the Ocmulgee Adventure Race, contact Scott Wilson at 478-951-9460 or visit ocmulgeear.org.

Although the Secret Machines just released The Road Leads Where It’s Led EP last month, the New York City-based trio has already finished recording their next album. The as-yet-untitled follow-up to their breakout debut, Now Here Is Nowhere, is due next year. The Machines — bassist/singer Brandon Curtis, guitarist (and brother) Ben Curtis and drummer Josh Garza — recorded at Allaire Studios in the Catskills in upstate New York. The album will be mixed in London in September with producer Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, My Bloody Valentine). “We have tons more material than we had to choose from for the last record,” says Brandon Curtis, “which is a blessing and a curse.”

Much of the new material — including the songs “Lightning Blue Eyes,” “Faded Lines” and “Daddy in the Doldrums” — has been thoroughly road-tested. “We knew we were going to make another record this year, so we took a batch of new songs and performed them pretty regularly,” says Curtis. “So they actually were afforded the chance to be developed in a live setting. By the time we got into the studio, it was almost like we were recording songs that we’d already recorded.” Another live standard on the new LP is “I Want to Know If It’s Still Possible,” which features the Band’s Garth Hudson on accordion.

Source rollingstone.com.

Saddle Creek Records, the Nebraska-based indie powerhouse responsible for such acts as Bright Eyes, Cursive, Rilo Kiley and the Faint, is gearing up for a DVD documentary recounting its history.

Due Aug. 23 via Plexifilm, “Spend an Evening With Saddle Creek: The First 10 Years of Saddle Creek Records” will feature approximately 50 live performances of varying length by Saddle Creek acts. A premiere screening in Omaha is in the works for mid-August.

The 90-minute film, produced by Omaha natives Justin Kubel and Rob Walters, includes interviews with every band on the Saddle Creek roster as of the 2003-2004 filming, as well as founders Justin Oberst, Robb Nansel and Mike Mogis. The DVD also boasts 70 minutes of extra footage.

Saddle Creek was formed in 1993 by a group of friends distributing cassette tapes by 13-year-old singer/songwriter Conor Oberst. Today, Oberst, who performs with a rotating cast of musicians as Bright Eyes, has earned a legion of dedicated fans and broad critical acclaim. He has also become the best-selling artist on Saddle Creek, having shifted 950,000 copies of his half-dozen albums in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As previously reported, the label is also looking back with the Aug. 23 release of Cursive’s “The Difference Between Houses and Homes,” which rounds up 12 rare and previously unreleased tracks.

Source billboard.com.

Ray Davis, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, died Tuesday from respiratory complications at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., according to his son, Derrick. He was 65.

Davis provided bass vocals on songs such as “Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucka),” “One Nation Under a Groove” and “Flashlight.” The latter two songs reached No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B charts.

Under leader George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic fused R&B, jazz, gospel and rock styles combined with garish costumes and elaborate stage displays to form one of the most original bands of the 1970s.

Davis was a member of the original Parliaments, a vocal group formed in the 1950s by Clinton while he was a junior high school student. In the early 1970s, Clinton changed the group’s name from plural to singular and also created Funkadelic, a funk band with a sound more influenced by the electric guitar. The two overlapping groups and other affiliated acts became known as “P-Funk.”

Source billboard.com.

Five releases by English singer/songwriter Billy Bragg will be expanded in deluxe two-disc editions later this year by indie Yep Roc Records. Due Sept. 20, the new versions of three EPs and two albums will comprise four two-disc sets, with bonus material making up the second disc of each. One set features a DVD.

In addition to being made available individually, the discs will also be packaged in a box with a separate DVD of unreleased live performance footage and a booklet featuring lyrics and photographs.

To read more visit billboard.com.

Jay Kay is planning an explosive fall return for his pop/dance/funk outfit Jamiroquai. “Dynamite,” the U.K.-based group’s sixth studio album, and first in four years, is due Sept. 20 in the United States via Epic.

The set was released June 20 by Sony Music in the United Kingdom, where lead single “Feels Like It Should” bowed at No. 8 on the official singles chart. Though the album saw a strong debut last week at No. 3, it has the dubious honor of being the first Jamiroquai title not to bow in one of the U.K. album chart’s top two positions.

“Feels Just Like It Should” will also be the first U.S. single from the disc. The Joseph Kahn (U2, Black Eyed Peas) -directed video — and its “making of” featurette — will appear on a Dual Disc version of the title, along with “a collection of various eye and ear candy,” according to Epic.

“The groove in that song is absolutely filthy,” Kay says of the single. “If you haven’t released an album in four years, you want to return with an impact. This song says ‘I’m back with a vengeance.'”

The material on “Dynamite” was recorded in Spain, Italy, Costa Rica, Scotland, New York, Los Angeles and Kay’s own Buckinghamshire, England, studio, and produced by Mike Spencer (Kylie Minogue, Appleton). Other songs on the 12-track album include “Black Devil Car” and Seven Days in Sunny June.”

“Jamiroquai plays Vienna on Saturday (July 9), with stops throughout Europe scheduled into mid-August. A second European leg of dates is planned for September and October, opening Sept. 7 in Birmingham, England. A U.S. visit is being eyed for later in the year.

Here is the “Dynamite” track list:
“Feels Just Like It Should”
“Dynamite”
“Seven Days in Sunny June”
“Electric Mistress”
“Starchild”
“Love Blind”
“Talulah”
“(Don’t) Give Hate a Chance”
“World That He Wants”
“Black Devil Car”
“Hot Tequila Brown”
“Time Won’t”

Source billboard.com.