August 2005

Power pop legends Big Star are set to release In Space, their first studio album in three decades, on September 27th. The album features original members singer/guitarist Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens joined by guitarist Jon Auer and bassist Ken Stringfellow of the Posies.

“Alex announced to the audience that we were going to do another record, unbeknownst to me, Jon and Ken,” says Stephens, referring to a 2001 show in London. Stringfellow, who along with Auer have performed in Big Star since the band’s 1993 reunion, explains, “We’d been playing the same [set list] for ten years, so we said, ‘Look, let’s learn some of the older songs.’ And Alex said, ‘I’m not really into learning any old songs. Let’s make a new record.'”

Source rollingstone.com.

To kickoff a pending August residency at NYC’s Knitting Factory, Club d’Elf will play Wednesday August 3rd and Wednesday August 10th for free. As an added bonus for their first show tomorrow, they have invited their good fiend John Medeski as a special guest. This also makes this show a historic event as it will be the first time Club d’Elf have had two keyboard players (alain mallet being keyboard #2) at the same time.

For more info see clubdelf.com

For the first time in their 10-year history, Ozomatli bring the intensity, energy, and enthusiasm of their live show to a CD & DVD companion package (Concord Records, August 23rd).

The 10-track Live at the Fillmore CD, recorded at the historic San Francisco venue in late 2004, features incendiary live performances of such hits as “Saturday Night,” “Believe,” and “(Who Discovered) America” (all tracks from their GRAMMY

As tipped here in April, singer/songwriter Nellie McKay will return in the fall with her sophomore album. Due Oct. 18 via Columbia, “Pretty Little Head” will feature 23 new songs, including collaborations with k.d. lang (“We Had It Right”) and Cyndi Lauper (“Beecharmer”).

Other tracks set for inclusion are “The Big One,” “Columbia Is Bleeding” and “Cupacake,” which is said to be about the gay marriage controversy.

“Pretty Little Head” is the follow-up to McKay’s 2003 double-disc debut album, “Get Away From Me.” That set peaked at No. 7 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart and has sold 103,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In related news, McKay will star as Polly Peachum in a new Broadway version of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s “The Threepenny Opera,” which will open next April. The translation was provided by Wallace Shawn; Alan Cumming and Edie Falco.

Source billboard.com.

Ben Harper, Ted Leo, the Fiery Furnaces, the Donnas, Dar Williams and Sufjan Stevens are among the artists confirmed to appear on a song-by-song tribute to the Beatles’ “Rubber Soul.”

Due Oct. 25 via Razor & Tie, “This Bird Has Flown — A 40th Anniversary Tribute to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul” even reproduces the sequence of the 14-track original LP. Other acts stepping into the Fab Four’s footprints include Ben Kweller, Nellie McKay, the Yonder Mountain String Band, Ben Lee, Low and Rhett Miller.

“As we looked toward artists we would approach, we felt they should be kindred spirits, whose gifts for singing and arranging lend themselves to these melodies and themes,” says producer Jim Sampas, who previously assembled the Sub Pop set “Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska.” “Each artist on this album brought their own fascinating interpretations and have extracted new meanings from ‘Rubber Soul.'”

Released in December 1965, “Rubber Soul” marked the Beatles’ turning point from pop-driven teen idols to musicians willing to experiment with folk and psychedelica. The set spent six weeks at No. 1 on The Billboard 200.

Here is the track list for “This Bird Has Flown”:

“Drive My Car,” the Donnas
“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” the Fiery Furnaces
“You Won’t See Me,” Dar Williams
“Nowhere Man,” Low
“Think For Yourself,” Yonder Mountain String Band
“The Word,” Mindy Smith
“Michelle,” Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
“What Goes On,” Sufjan Stevens
“Girl,” Rhett Miller
“I’m Looking Through You,” Ted Leo
“In My Life,” Ben Lee
“Wait,” Ben Kweller
“If I Needed Someone,” Nellie McKay
“Run For Your Life,” Cowboy Junkies

Source billboard.com.

In support of their iconic 1983 album “Synchronicity,” the Police finally embraced the bombast of arena rock, expanding their lineup with backing vocalists, hiring a designer to provide their stage outfits and utilizing intricate lighting schemes.

For years, the only available visual document of this tour was the aptly named home video “Synchronicity Concert,” taped in November 1983 in Atlanta. But with its Sept. 5 U.K. re-release via Universal, fans will be treated to the first DVD of the project, comprising a host of previously unreleased features. A North American release date for the DVD has not yet been finalized but is expected to follow shortly on the heels of the U.K. edition.

The DVD will boast remixed 5.1 Surround Sound, multi-angle performances of “Synchronicity II,” “Roxanne,” “Invisible Sun” and “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” from the Atlanta show, a rare 1984 band interview taped in Melbourne and never-before-seen versions of “Demolition Man,” “O My God” and “Murder by Numbers” from a “Synchronicity”-era small venue gig in Montreal.

“The show in Montreal was the first to be shot and was recorded before the ‘Synchronicity’ tour had started with some difficulty in an intimate club environment, which they felt would recreate the band’s early days,” the video’s original executive producer, Derek Power, tells Billboard.com.

That show was filmed in front of radio-station contest winners by Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, who had previously directed videos for the “Synchronicity” singles “Every Breath You Take,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger” and “King of Pain”

“However, the band was ambivalent in its reaction to the Montreal shows, and wanted to have other versions of various songs done with in front of a large stadium audience,” Power says. “At their own expense they re-shot it in Atlanta, and this is why there are tracks shot in both places. The Atlanta recording and filming was done on an expanded and more lavish basis than the Montreal shoot, with the band [in] top form and much happier with [its] performances there.”

Although the Police were nearing the end of the line, Power recalls Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland were getting along “fine, with no obvious clashes, although there were the accumulated tensions that had come with touring and filming. Always a demanding, fatiguing and occasionally painful process.”

Here is the track list for “Synchronicity Concert”:

Intro
“Synchronicity I”
“Walking in Your Footsteps”
“Message in a Bottle”
“Walking on the Moon”
“Wrapped Around Your Finger”
“Hole in My Life”
“King of Pain”
“One World”
“Tea in the Sahara”
“Oh My God”
“De Do Do Do De Da Da Da”
“Every Breath You Take”
“Can’t Stand Losing You”
“Spirits in the Material World”
“So Lonely”

Source billboard.com.

RAQ, the electrifying rock quartet from Burlington, Vermont will embark on an 8 week tour starting in September. The tour will take the band from the Iron Horse Music Hall on September 14th in Northampton, MA to Schuba