Archive: 2005

The Brothers Past, three days into a month long tour, hit Burlington with a hard punch to the head. The show at Higher Ground was a duel headlining gig with The New Deal. Both sides of the club would take turns presenting each band back to back, and his night really exemplified why having two “clubs” in one for Higher Ground can make live music so interesting.

Capturing the sound of Minneapolis bands like the Replacements and Husker Du, The Hold Steady are lead by Craig Finn’s Kerouac-like observations. The Brooklyn band’s songs radiate with nightlife energy and vivid characters you

Friends, tour mates and titans of the

Wilco has put the finishing touches on a benefit concert at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on Tuesday, November 1. Proceeds from this show will benefit the New Orleans Musician Relief and Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

Pre-sale via wilcoworld will take place on Thursday, October 13 at 10 am CDT, and the remaining tickets go on sale Saturday, October 15 at 11 am at the Auditorium Theatre Box Office and via Ticketmaster. Tickets are $50 and $35 and both Ticketmaster and Musictoday have agreed to reduce their processing fees for this show.In addition, the band has reserved 36 of the Auditorium Theatre’s private opera boxes, which will be sold exclusively via wilcoworld. Boxes include an equal number of passes to the soundcheck party on the day of the show.

Mid-winter conditions arrived early in Colorado allowing Loveland Ski Area, situated atop the Continental Divide in central Colorado, to announce they will open for the 2005-06 ski season on Friday, Oct. 14 at 9 a.m. Loveland will be the first resort in North America to open for the sixth year in a row.

Former Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard has signed a new deal with Merge Records, which will on Jan. 26 issue a double-disc album, “From a Compound Eye.” Billboard.com understands Pollard will continue to release projects on his own Fading Captain imprint but that future solo releases under his name will go through Merge.

Pollard previously told Billboard.com that “From a Compound Eye” has “all four P’s: pop, punk, prog and psychedelic.” The 26-track project was recorded at frequent GBV outpost Waterloo Sound in Kent, Ohio.

Although the itinerary is not yet finalized, Pollard will mount his first post-GBV tour around the release of “From a Compound Eye” with a band of notable musicians to be determined. Sources also say the artist has Fading Captain projects with three different groups in the works for 2006.

To read more visit billboard.com.

Percy Hill singer/songwriter/drummer/producer Aaron Katz is bringing Geminatrix to The Stone Church in Newmarket NH this Friday Oct 14th. One dollar from each ticket sold is going to the New Hampshire Red Cross Hurricane Katrina benefit fund.

For more information please visit one of the links below:

geminatrix.com
stonechurch.com
myspace.com
percyhill.com

In the true essence of keeping an old sound new again, Soulive has enlisted a number of very special guests for Break Out, their first release with the Concord Music Group after breaking ties with Blue Note. This time Ivan Neville, Corey Glover, Robert Randolph, Chaka Khan and Reggie Watts lend their talents in the key of soul to the mix. Not to be overlooked, the

hankfully once ever decade or so Neil Young gets back together with his most underrated band, The Stray Gators (in this case the surviving members of the band), and releases an album that is an immediate masterpiece. Young ditches his electric guitar and gets back to a rootsy, acoustic sound with songs that seemed ripped from some small Midwestern town that has tumbleweeds blowing down the street, and an old man on every porch with a story to tell. Completing the trilogy that started with 1972

After two albums of lushly orchestrated pop that brought them to a new level of acclaim, the Flaming Lips are returning to guitar-based rock’n’roll as they finish up their next studio set. “At War With the Mystics” is due in February or March via Warner Bros. Lips frontman Wayne Coyne tells Billboard.com the group was inspired to plug in after featuring a cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs” in its live shows.

“You can’t tell if [the members of Sabbath] are farmers, wizards, hippies or members of a cult,” Coyne says. “It’s mysterious territory. Part of that, we really fell in love with. So, there are some tracks we’ve delved into production-wise, where we’re trying to get some of that heavy rock’n’roll with heavy guitar riffs, but not just to be aggressive. On the last couple of records, we’ve tried to be more expressive in beautiful ways. But sometimes, volume and intensity are great too.”

The idea for one particularly Sabbath-influenced cut, “The Wand,” came to Coyne after observing a homeless man wandering around Oklahoma City who always carries a giant stick with him.

To read more visit billboard.com.