2005

Queens Of The Stone Age are gearing up for their first tour since late 2003, which comes in support of their highly anticipated Interscope album, “Lullabies To Paralyze.” According to its official Web site, QOTSA will begin touring in Europe and February and touch down in North America in March.

Due March 22 via Interscope, “Lullabies” is led by the single “Little Sister,” which is already burning up the airwaves on such stations as WXRK New York and KNDD Seattle.

Other tracks on the set include the relentless “Everybody Knows That You’re Insane,” the ominous “Tangled Up in Plaid” and a mellower-than-usual album closer, “Long Slow Goodbye.” Short films for “Everybody Knows That You’re Insane” (directed by Chapman Baehler) and “Someone’s in the Wolf” (directed by Terry Richardson) are expected to be posted on the QOTSA site later this month.

“Lullabies” is the follow-up to 2002’s “Songs for the Deaf,” which peaked at No. 17 on The Billboard 200 and has sold more than 917,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

In related news, frontman Josh Homme’s side band, the Eagles Of Death Metal, recently recorded a new album in eight days. The set is tentatively titled “Death by Sexy.”

Source billboard.com.

Somewhat edgier than its better-known Sundance cousin, this year’s Slamdance Film Festival will offer its share of musical treats to entertain moviegoers. This year’s 11th annual event in Park City, Utah — which runs Jan. 21-28, concurrent with the Sundance Film Festival — will see performances by Spearhead’s Michael Franti, DJ/producer Prince Paul and former Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty, among others.

In addition performing, Franti will be on hand for a screening of his documentary “I Know I’m Not Alone.” The film, which will serve as the Slamdance 2005 closing night documentary, is described as personal diary chronicling the artist/activist’s 2004 visit to Israel, Iraq and Palestine.

Franti is slated to stage a solo acoustic show Jan. 27 at Park City’s 608 Interchange gallery. As previously reported, Franti and Spearhead will perform at two Sundance events, including one of that festival’s Jan. 20 opening night galas.

Prince Paul is slated to play a Jan. 28 DJ set at Suede prior to a headlining performance by P-Funk’s Bernie Worrell with Living Colour drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish. Director Phillip DiFiore’s “Stranger: Bernie Worrell on Earth” will receive its world premiere at Slamdance, competing in the short documentary competition.

Doughty will be on hand to headline a Jan. 23 acoustic show at Suede that will also feature the Apex Theory. A number of Park City venues will boast performances by Elliott Sharp, Purr Bats, JW Blackout, the Rubes, Modern Soul Movement and Starmy, along with others to be announced.

Onscreen, the Slamdance “midnight screening” roster includes “Malfunkshun,” director/producer Scot Barbour’s documentary about Andrew Wood, featuring rare performance and interview footage of the late Mother Love Bone singer, as well as unreleased solo music.

In Taylor Neary’s “Liquid Vinyl,” well-known DJs such as Tall Paul and Goldie discuss DJ culture and dance music. The film will receive its world premiere at Slamdance and compete in the documentary field, as will Booker Sim’s “Tragedy: The Story of Queensbridge,” which details the stark reality of hip-hop artist Percy Chapman, aka Tragedy, who released two A&M albums in the early 1990s under the pseudonym Intelligent Hoodlum.

In addition to the Worrell title, the short documentary competition will also feature the music-based “Drummer Wanted.” For Slamdance Film Festival details, including descriptions of the various films being screened and to view titles in the “Anarchy Online Films” category, visit the event’s Web site.

Source billboard.com.

Dave Matthews Band has enlisted producer Mark Batson (Seal, Indie.Arie) for its as-yet-untitled sixth studio album, due later this year via RCA. “Mark met the band at their [Los Angeles] show in August of last year,” reads a message on a new Web site dedicated to the project. “After a late night of musical dialogue and shared experiences, it was obvious to all the guys that they had to work with Mark.”

The site features a brief video of DMB in the studio, working on a song with a major-key groove in the vein of Sting. The unnamed track features the line “everybody wake up / if you’re living with your eyes closed.”

Source billboard.com.

British rock act The Music have announced dates for a winter U.S. club tour. Uk funk/rock outfit Kasabian will be opening. The Music are touring in support of their late 2004 release Welcome To The North.

2/17 New York, NY
Irving Plaza w/Kasabian

2/18 Washington DC
9:30 Club w/Kasabian

2/19 Philadelphia, PA
Theatre of the Living Arts w/ Kasabian

2/22 Providence, RI
The Call w/ Kasabian

2/23 Boston, MA
Paradise Rock Club w/Kasabian

2/24 Quebec City, QUE
Imperial w/ Kasabian

2/26 London, ONT
Centennial Hall w/Kasabian

2/27 Detroit, MI
St. Andrews Hall w/Kasabian

3/2 Chicago, IL
Metro w/Kasabian

3/3 St. Louis, MO
The Pageant w/Kasabian

3/7 Seattle, WA
Neumos w/ Kasabian

3/8 Vancouver, BC
Commodore Ballroom w/Kasabian

3/11 San Francisco, CA
Slim’s w/Kasabian

3/12 Los Angeles, CA
Henry Fonda Theatre w/ Kasabian

3/13 San Diego, CA
Canes Bar & Grill w/Kasabian

3/15 Tempe, AZ
Marquee Theatre w/ Kasabian

3/17 Dallas, TX
Gypsy Tea Room w/Kasabian

3/19 Houston, TX
Meridian w/Kasabian

Apple Computer Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled a very small $499 computer on Tuesday and a flash memory-based music player called the iPod Shuffle.

The new products seek to make inroads against the traditionally more affordable PC market and against lower-cost competitors to Apple’s wildly popular iPod.

The Mini Mac computers, smaller than even some standalone external computer drives, go on sale Jan. 22. They lack a monitor, mouse and keyboard. The 40-gigabyte Mini Mac will cost $499, an 80-gigabyte model $599.

“People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses,” Jobs said during a keynote speech at Macworld and Expo. “It’s the newest and most affordable Mac ever.”

The product for the first time puts Apple in the budget desktop PC arena, which so has been largely confined to personal computers that rely on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system.

Building upon the success in a rapidly growing niche that it already dominates, Apple also is rolling out two lower-priced versions of its iPod music players.

The iPod Shuffle, available immediately, is smaller than most packs of gum, weighing less than an ounce.

Unlike the hard drive-based iPod Mini, it doesn’t have a display. There’s a scroll wheel for the controls so a user can either play the songs in order or have the device automatically shuffle stored songs in a random order.

Apple is selling two versions of the iPod Shuffle.

The smallest will have 512 megabytes of storage and cost $99. A one-gigabyte version, which holds 240 songs, will sell for $149. The lowest cost iPod is the mini, which costs $249 for four gigabytes

Michael Moore’s anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 has won best film at the US People’s Choice Awards, voted for by the US public.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ won best drama, despite both films being snubbed so far at US film awards in the run-up to February’s Oscars.

Nominees for the People’s Choice Awards were picked by a 6,000-strong Entertainment Weekly magazine panel, and winners were subsequently chosen by 21 million online voters.

Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore dedicated his trophy to soldiers in Iraq.

His film was highly critical of President George W Bush and the US-led invasion of Iraq, and Moore was an outspoken Bush critic in the 2004 presidential campaign inwhich Democratic challenger John Kerry lost.

“This country is still all of ours, not right or left or Democrat or Republican,” Moore told the audience at the ceremony in Pasadena, California.

Moore said it was “an historic occasion” that the 31-year-old awards ceremony would name a documentary its best film.

Source: bbc

Ringo Garza, drummer for the Los Lonely Boys was arrested Thursday along with his wife on a marijuana possession charge after police searched their home, authorities said.

Ringo Garza, 23, and Lenora Garza, 24, were booked on $1,000 bail Thursday morning and released shortly after, according to jail records.

Authorities said the search was conducted after two women filed a police report a day earlier after a night of drinking at the couple’s home. The women filed the report at a hospital. Further information about the report wasn’t available.

Garza and his wife each face a misdemeanor charge of possession of less than two ounces of marijuana.

“Ringo and his wife would never do anything like what is being said about them,” Los Lonely Boys manager Kevin Wommack told the San Angelo Standard-Times for its Friday editions. “We have faith that the people of San Angelo, the courts, the prosecutors and the jury will be fair in this matter.”

The arrest was the drummer’s second for possession of marijuana. He pleaded no contest to a similar charge in 2003.

The Tex-Mex flavored rock ‘n’ roll group hit the national spotlight in 2004 with their Grammy award-nominated debut album “Los Lonely Boys.”

Source: cnn

Library officials in two southern Mississippi counties have banned Jon Stewart’s best-selling “America (The Book)” over the satirical textbook’s nude depictions of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices.

“I’ve been a librarian for 40 years and this is the only book I’ve objected to so strongly that I wouldn’t allow it to circulate,” said Robert Willits, director of the Jackson-George Regional Library System of eight libraries in Jackson and George counties.

“We’re not an adult bookstore. Our entire collection is open to the entire public,” Willits said. “If they had published the book without that one picture, that one page, we’d have the book.”

Wal-Mart has declined to stock the book because of the page, which features the faces of the nine Supreme Court justices superimposed over naked bodies.

The facing page has cutouts of the justices’ robes, complete with a caption asking readers to “restore their dignity by matching each justice with his or her respective robe.”

The book by Stewart and the writers of “The Daily Show,” the Comedy Central fake-news program he hosts, was released in September. It has spent 15 weeks on The New York Times best seller list for hardcover nonfiction, and was named Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly, the industry trade magazine.

Former English teacher Tara Skelton of Ocean Springs said the libraries shouldn’t decide what is in poor taste.

“It just really seemed kind of silly to me,” she said. “I don’t think the Supreme Court justices have filed any defamation of character or libel suits. It’s humor.”

Source CNN.com.

Scottish rock act Franz Ferdinand leads the field with five nominations for the Brit Awards, which will celebrate their 25th anniversary this year. Muse was close behind with four nominations, while American acts Maroon 5 and Scissor Sisters garnered three each.

Franz Ferdinand’s nominations include best British group, best British album for its self-titled Domino/Epic debut, best British rock act, best British live act and best British breakthrough act.

The group will compete in the best British album category with Keane’s “Hopes and Fears” (Polydor), Snow Patrol’s “Final Straw” (Polydor), Muse’s “Absolution” (Mushroom) and Kasabian’s self-titled RCA debut.

Scissor Sisters’ self-titled Universal debut and Maroon 5’s “Songs About Jane” (J) share nominations in the best international album category with U2’s “How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb” (Universal Island), the Killers’ “Hot Fuss” (Lizard King) and OutKast’s “Speakerboxx/The Love Below” (Arista).

In the best British single category, nominees include Will Young’s “Your Game,” Shapeshifters’ “Lola’s Theme,” LMC vs. U2’s “Take Me to the Clouds Above,” Jamelia’s “Thank You” and Band Aid 20’s recent charity remake of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”

Franz Ferdinand, U2 and Scissor Sisters will perform at the ceremony, to be held Feb. 9 at London’s Earl’s Court.

For a full list of the 2005 Brit Awards nominees visit billboard.com.