Archive: 2005

A host of top acts have joined the bill for Saturday’s (Sept. 10) “ReAct Now: Music & Relief” special, which, as previously reported, will air live on MTV, VH1 and CMT and raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Among the new additions are the Rolling Stones, Kanye West, Paul McCartney, Kelly Clarkson, Audioslave and Neil Young.

Live or taped performances will also be included from Alan Jackson, Staind, Melissa Etheridge, Motley Crue, Dashboard Confessional, Good Charlotte, Maroon 5, John Mayer, Common, Sheryl Crow, Kid Rock and the Goo Goo Dolls.

Among the performers that have strong connections to areas devastated by Katrina are Nine Inch Nails leader Trent Reznor, 3 Doors Down, the Neville Brothers and rappers Lil’ Wayne and Baby.

“ReAct Now” is already confirmed to feature participation from Green Day, Usher, Alicia Keys, Dave Matthews Band, Rob Thomas, Ludacris, Gretchen Wilson, John Mellencamp and Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington.

Source: billboard

Big Star vocalist/guitarist Alex Chilton has been rescued from New Orleans, according to the group’s longtime producer, Terry Manning. Chilton’s specific whereabouts at this point are unknown, but several friends report that he is now safe after having waited several days to evacuate his New Orleans home.

Source: billboard

A four-disc DVD set of the nine international concerts held on July 2nd as part of Live 8, an initiative organized by Bob Geldof to pressure the G8 to address extreme poverty in Africa, will be released on November 8th. A “generous” royalty from sales of the package — which features performances from artists ranging from Paul McCartney’s duet with U2’s Bono on “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to Pink Floyd’s reunion — will go to the Band Aid Trust for African relief.

The first three discs focus on the shows at London’s Hyde Park and at Philadelphia’s Museum of Art, with highlights from the events in Paris, Rome, Berlin, Tokyo, Moscow, Toronto and Johannesburg. In addition to the McCartney/Bono concert opener, duets include McCartney and George Michael, Stevie Wonder and Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, and Coldplay and Richard Ashcroft.

The third disc closes with the entire Hyde Park lineup performing the Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” The final disc features a behind-the-scenes documentary of the London show, Pink Floyd’s reunion rehearsal and other extras.

Source: RollingStone

Aside from the academy award, established acting career, esteemed directing work, acclaimed screenwriting, notable pitching arm and the enviable Angelina Jolie connection, Billy Bob Thornton also happens to be a lifelong musician and songwriter. And that

An upstart five-some rustling up a serious fuss in their native Philadelphia, the Brakes draw you in with a deceptively laid-back funk-rock thing, probably reminiscent of Sublime, the easy name-check, but also less remembered and way more musical groups of kind like e:verything and the Getaway People.

For all you closet headbangers who thought classic thrash and punk died with Cobain, grab this album, as it will bring you back to those long-ago days.

With the Grateful Dead and his own side projects, Jerry Garcia frequently covered the songs of Bob Dylan. Fifteen of those interpretations have been collected for a two-disc set, “Ladder to the Stars: Garcia Plays Dylan,” due Oct. 11 via Rhino.

An American musical icon in his own right, the late guitarist/singer was a masterful interpreter, and within the poetry of Dylan, a longtime friend and compatriot, he found a wealth of material. The Jerry Garcia Band provides the bulk of the recordings in this collection, touching on such classics as “Positively 4th Street,” “I Shall Be Released” and “Tangled Up in Blue.”

The Dead is also present, with disc two boasting four selections from the group: “She Belongs to Me,” “Visions of Johanna,” “Mighty Quinn (Quinn, The Eskimo)” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” At deadline it was unknown if the latter pair of selections are the same versions that appeared on Arista’s 2002 compilation “Postcards of the Hanging: The Grateful Dead Perform the Songs of Bob Dylan.”

Also included on the first “Ladder” disc is a version of “The Wicked Messenger” by Garcia’s short-lived jazz-leaning side project Legion Of Mary. That group’s version of Dylan’s “Tough Mama” was part of the “”The Jerry Garcia Collection, Volume 1: Legion Of Mary,” released in August by Rhino.

In addition to the music, which has been remastered in HDCD, the set includes liner notes by Garcia biographer Blair Jackson, with input from the Dead’s Bob Weir.

Here is the “Ladder to the Stars: Garcia Plays Dylan” track list:

Disc one:
“It Takes a Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry / Tough Mama,” Jerry Garcia
“Positively 4th Street,” Jerry Garcia Band
“The Wicked Messenger,” Legion Of Mary
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Jerry Garcia Band
“Simple Twist of Fate,” Jerry Garcia Band
“I Shall Be Released,” Jerry Garcia Band

Disc two:
“When I Paint My Masterpiece,” Jerry Garcia Band
“She Belongs to Me,” Grateful Dead
“Forever Young,” Jerry Garcia Band
“Tangled Up in Blue,” Jerry Garcia Band
“Senor (Tales of Yankee Power),” Jerry Garcia Band
“Visions of Johanna,” Grateful Dead
“Mighty Quinn (Quinn, the Eskimo),” Grateful Dead
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” Grateful Dead

Source billboard.com

Fats Domino, who had been unaccounted for in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, was plucked from the flooded city by a helicopter late Thursday. He was reported to be in good condition.

An APB went out for the musician and his family earlier in the day.

The musician’s niece, Checquoline Davis, posted a plea on Craigslist.com for information on her missing relatives, writing that Domino and his wife, Rosemary, and their children and grandchildren “didn’t get out” of their New Orleans home. Her plea was one of thousands seeking information on missing friends and family on the site.

The R&B legend had last been heard from on Sunday night, a day before the storm struck. During a phone call with longtime agent Al Embry, the 77-year-old performer insisted he would ride out the hurricane in his three-story home.

It is not immediately known if Domino’s family made it to safety.

Domino’s house was located in the city’s 9th Ward, an area that is heavily flooded and littered with dead bodies.

The singer and boogie-woogie pianist, born Antoine Domino, has sold over 110 million records in his nearly five-decade career highlighted by the jukebox staples “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame.” The New Orleans music fixture’s 1949 recording of “The Fat Man” is considered by some to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record, and Domino was among the inaugural group of inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986.

Another Hall of Famer, singer-songwriter Allen Toussaint, was listed among the missing, although Fox News reported that Toussaint may be among the 20,000-plus refugees seeking shelter in the Super Dome.

With New Orleans a hub of jazz, blues and even rap, several musicians were impacted by the storm. Rapper Juvenile’s home was destroyed and he says he has lost several friends. Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner, who was waiting out the storm in his native Minneapolis, told the Associated Press he still hadn’t heard anything about the condition of his home and recording studio in the Crescent City. Pirner moved there seven years ago.

Meanwhile, several high-powered denizens are rallying support. Master P, whose home was swamped and who hasn’t been able to track down his uncle, father-in-law or sister-in-law, has announced the formation of a charity, Team Rescue, and is organizing a “Save Our Hood” concert and benefit album. Wynton Marsalis will play both NBC and BET’s telethons in the coming days. Louisiana natives Tim McGraw and Harry Connick Jr. will also perform at the NBC event and have made public appeals for help.

“I haven’t slept in days,” Connick says in a statement. “Although I now finally know that my immediate family in New Orleans is safe, I have not heard from many, many friends and other family members.

“New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse, and I can only dream that one day she will recapture her glory. I will do everything within my power to make that happen and to help in any way I can to ease the suffering of my city, my people!”

Source yahoo.com.

With eighty percent of New Orleans submerged under up to twenty feet of water in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and thousands of casualties anticipated, the music world is dealing with the emotional impact and trying to imagine the future of one of America’s most influential cultural centers.

“I’ve had, like, an hour’s sleep,” says Dr. John, on tour in Minneapolis. “All my family is MIA — I mean, most everybody I know. They might be anywhere. I’m praying hard.” For the blues legend, a New Orleans native, “my heart’s always gonna be in New Orleans. It ain’t just the place, it’s the whole culture. The music will survive; the people will survive.”

Former Phish bassist Mike Gordon, who has played the city numerous times adds, “I’m very passionate about the city — I’ve had amazing experiences there. We used to go canoeing on the bayou, go to Mother’s Restaurant and see these hip brass bands that no one knows about. New Orleans is such a fuel for the entire country’s music. There is such a looseness to the city and the people, a happy-go-lucky quality, throwing caution to the wind. I don’t think the pure essence of the place can be wiped away by natural disaster.”

To read more visit rollingstone.com.

Already battling an injured knee, Queens Of The Stone Age frontman Josh Homme collapsed after a Monday show in Hamburg, forcing the cancellation of the next evening’s concert in Stuttgart. According to QOTSA’s Web site, Homme “was diagnosed with exhaustion and ordered to bed by a local doctor.”

The statement adds that Homme “has been performing every night on this tour despite his physical condition (due to a knee operation less than a week before he left for tour), and it finally caught up with him. He is resting now and in a stable condition.”

The remaining dates on the group’s European tour are scheduled to resume tomorrow (Sept. 3) at Spain’s Azkena Rock Festival. Homme is also expected to be healthy enough to begin QOTSA’s North American tour with Nine Inch Nails, which begins Sept. 16 in San Diego.

It’s been a rough few months for the California-based rock act, which have found Homme battling the aforementioned knee injury as well as a lung infection that required the cancellation of a February European tour.

But QOTSA fans do have a lot to look forward to. An Aug. 23 show at London’s Brixton Academy was taped for an as-yet-untitled CD/DVD due Nov. 22 via Interscope, and the group has also recorded a cover of Joe Walsh’s “In the City” for the soundtrack to the upcoming video game “The Warriors.” In addition, Homme has remixed two songs from Death From Above 1979, which will join QOTSA and NIN on the road this fall.

Source billboard.com.

The White Stripes’ Sept. 27 concert at the Merriweather Post Pavilion Theatre in Columbia, Md., will be streamed live online via the National Public Radio Web site, NPR.org. The show will mark the first time the band has Webcast one of its performances and will also include sets by support acts the Shins and M. Ward.

The Columbia gig will fall in the midst of the White Stripes’ fall tour in support of its latest album, “Get Behind Me Satan.” The run kicks off Thursday (Sept. 8) in Milwaukee and closes with an Oct. 1-2 stand in Detroit.

Released in June, the Third Man/V2 disc debuted at No. 3 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 507,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Source billboard.com.

Having sung with Canadian indie-popsters Broken Social Scene to female rapper Peaches to the Kings, Leslie Feist has paid her dues. But it

Try as it might, Blue Eyed in the Red Room ends up as a collection of near-miss electro instrumentals which could have advanced past golf-cart-cruise-music status with just a little improvement on the arrangements. It

As several hundred enthusiastic supporters rallied to keep CBGB’s open, the landlord of the venerable punk club announced Wednesday that the lease on the 32-year-old landmark will not be renewed.

The Bowery Residents’ Committee, landlord of the building on the Bowery, “believes it is in the best interest of our clients

Blues veteran R.L. Burnside, who experienced a late career renaissance after being rediscovered by Fat Possum Records in the 1990s, died today in a Memphis hospital. He was 78. Fans wishing to make a donation can write the Freeland & Freeland Trust Account at P.O. Box 269, Oxford, MS 38655. All proceeds will benefit Burnside’s widow, Alice Mae. Burnside is also survived by 12 children and numerous grandchildren.

“His health was declining,” Fat Possum founder Matthew Johnson tells Billboard.com. “I’m trying to get an official cause of death, but the hospital can’t get it out. He was our man. He was the first artist we signed, and our biggest. We were lucky to have a relationship.”

Born in Harmontown, Miss., on Nov. 21, 1926, Burnside worked as a farmer in nearby Coldwater, Miss. As a youth, he was exposed to the blues of such local masters as Fred McDowell and Joe Callicott and began playing in his late teens.

“I watched him,” Burnside said of McDowell in a 1996 interview with Billboard. “We lived pretty close to him at one time. I watched him and picked up a lot of stuff from him (and guitarist) Ranie Barnett. They was guys that was all around, close. I watched them play, and I kinda put my style with it.’

In 1967, fife-and-drum bandleader Othar Turner led folklorist George Mitchell to Burnside, who recorded several performances released by Arhoolie Records in 1968. For many years thereafter, he performed regularly in local juke joints, including one run by bluesman (and future labelmate) Junior Kimbrough.

By the ’70s, his notoriety had spread to the point that he toured in Europe and recorded for Swing Master in the Netherlands and Arion in France.

It wasn’t until the ’90s that Burnside gained fame in the U.S. He appeared in director Robert Mugge’s 1991 documentary “Deep Blues” and on the 1992 Atlantic soundtrack album. He cut two acclaimed albums for Fat Possum; the records, “Bad Luck City” (1993) and “Too Bad Jim” (1994), were produced by writer Robert Palmer, whose 1981 book was the basis for Mugge’s film. In 1996, he also recorded an album with underground rock act Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, “Ass Pocket of Whiskey” (Matador).

After 1999 heart surgery, Burnside kept his appearance schedule to a minimum, but continued to release music for Fat Possum, including last year’s “A Bothered Mind,” which debuted at No. 6 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart.

Source billboard.com.

Any compilation of artists regardless of the theme is going to be uneven. It is just something you have to accept, and when you keep in mind the range of talent you might experience day to day on your commute, a compilation of buskers from the New York City subway system is going to be especially so.

In a very rare U..S. club show to kick off a northeast tour featuring fellow Dead co-conspirators Bruce Hornsby and Steve Miller, Ratdog loaded their 18 wheeler full of gear into South Burlington

David Gans knows his Grateful Dead: The radio show he hosts, the beloved “Grateful Dead Hour,” is still broadcasted on KPFA 94.1 in Berkeley, California and syndicated nationwide. However, the show itself is but the tip of the iceberg in Gans’ music career.

The Central Square Business Association in Cambridge, MA is hosting ArtsCentral, the FIRST EVER arts festival in Central Square on Sunday September 18th from 12PM to 6 PM (with many events occurring the evening of Saturday the 17th). The goal is to shine a spotlight on the many accomplished artists living and working in Cambridge’s Central Square. It will be an art-infused weekend with over 100 local artists and performers made possible by the support of area businesses, community organizations and property owners.

Mediate, a Digital Video and Multi-Channel Sound Installation by Brian Knoth and Theta State Collective #1 is a spiritually and sociopolitically charged thirty-minute looping multimedia installation intended for alternative art spaces will be displayed. Mixed-media sculptor Sharon LaFrenaye, performer/vocalist Kerry Schneider and video artist Ed Guild were Knoth’s collaborative partners.

Knoth is an artist specializing in the use of multi-channel sound and moving image in abstract works exploring the transformation of consciousness and perception. Brian considers nature

Alicia Keys has resurrected “MTV Unplugged.” The singer and pianist has performed an acoustic set for the dormant MTV series, to air Sept. 23 (10 p.m. ET). MTV also announced Tuesday that the show will first premiere Sept. 15 on Overdrive, MTV’s broadband network.

“I’ve always been a very big fan of the show and when they stopped doing it, I was like, what happened to ‘MTV Unplugged?’ I specifically went in there and said we have to do an ‘Unplugged,'” Keys told AP Radio.

Keys’ performance, filmed July 14 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is a group effort. Mos Def, Common and Damian Marley are her guests, as well as Maroon 5’s Adam Levine.

“Adam Levine and I remade the Rolling Stones’ classic ‘Wild Horses’ and it is right up my alley, that whole style” Keys said. “It has a style of its own but still stays very true to the classic arrangement and I love it.”

Previous bare-bones performances on “Unplugged,” which debuted in 1989, include those by Eric Clapton, Nirvana and Jay-Z. Dashboard Confessional and Shakira were two of the most recent acts on the series back in 2002.

After Keys’ “MTV Unplugged” episode airs, it will be released as a CD and DVD on October 11.

Source yahoo.com.