2005

September 28, Josh Ritter will head out on a fall tour with The Frames, showcasing new material from his forthcoming album for V2 Records, The Animal Years, to be released in early 2006. The fall tour features dates in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia. Please see reverse for full itinerary.

Working with producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine), Ritter spent the first half of this year recording at Engine Studios in Chicago and at Bear Creek Studios in Seattle. This summer, Ritter played a number of tour dates opening for Keane and My Morning Jacket and played at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts. Currently, he is touring in Australia, for the first time, with Martha Wainwright.

V2 Records recently signed Ritter and released his critically acclaimed CD Hello Starling

The Dandy Warhols will release their new album Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars on Tuesday September 13th.

Odditorium finds the Dandys bringing it all back home, but in a different way. Co-producers Courtney Taylor-Taylor and longtime band collaborator Gregg Williams have captured and augmented the sound of the Dandys doing what they do best — making super-seductive music for your head and your hips.

Born of long sessions that found the band experimenting freely with new instrumentation and adding new flavors to their trademark mix of seamless rock hooks, turned-on drone, deep psychedelia and a big shot of the country blues, Odditorium is an expansive rock and roll album that could only come from the minds (and home) of the Dandys.

The band will be playing a short northeast tour in conjunction with the release. The tour dates are listed below.

SUN 9/11 Toronto, ONT Mod Club
TUE 9/13 Philadelphia, PA Beyond
WED 9/14 New York, NY CBGB
FRI 9/16 Portsmouth, NH Red Hook Brewery WFNX Radio Show
SAT 9/17 Albany, NY LarkFest WEQX Radio

Thumbsucker features previously unreleased music from Elliott Smith, who died before he could complete the film soundtrack. Smith’s contributions are the original “Let’s Get Lost,” as well as his versions of Cat Stevens’ “Trouble” and Big Star’s “Thirteen.”
Director Mike Mills spent six years working on the film, the story — based on Walter Kirn’s acclaimed, darkly comic novel about Eighties suburbia — of a thumbsucking seventeen-year-old, played by newcomer Lou Pucci. The movie also stars Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vince Vaughn and Keanu Reeves. Mills, who has directed live DVDs for Moby and Pulp, worked closely with Smith up until the singer-songwriter’s untimely death from self-inflicted stab wounds in October 2003.

“I saw him five days before, and he’d just finished the cover of ‘Trouble’ for us,” Mills says. “It’s one of the last things he must’ve done. It’s just sad . . . He’s a huge hero of mine.”

After Smith’s passing, symphonic choral rockers the Polyphonic Spree, who performed at the film’s Los Angeles premiere last week, stepped in to complete the soundtrack. “I think we were all sensitive to honoring Elliott’s memory,” says frontman Tim DeLaughter. “All we had were the three songs, and obviously it wasn’t enough music. I think Elliott’s single vocal and the choir really complement each other. It’s very emotionally charged.”

The Thumbsucker soundtrack will be in stores Tuesday, while the film opens in select New York and Los Angeles theaters on Friday.

Source rollingstone.com.

Columbia Records is set to release Suspicious Activity?, a genre-smashing new collection of original music from The Bad Plus, on Tuesday, September 20.

Suspicious Activity? is the first new Bad Plus studio album since the critically-acclaimed Give (released March 2004) and the first new Bad Plus release since the group’s internet-only eight-song concert collection Blunt Object Live In Tokyo (released March 2005). (The Bad Plus may also be heard performing its original composition, “Big Eater,” on the compilation album, Bonnaroo Music Festival 2004 [Live].)

In celebration of the release of Suspicious Activity?, the Bad Plus will return to New York City to perform an historic six night run at the fabled Village Vanguard from September 20 – September 25.

Tracks on Suspicious Activity? include ten new tracks including original compositions by each of the group’s members as well as a radical and mind-blowing take on the triumphal “(Theme from) Chariots Of Fire.”

Seven days after its lease expired, legendary New York rock club CBGB received an eviction notice from its landlord — a move the club’s owner predicted yesterday (Sept. 8) would move the bitter fight over the venue’s future into the courtroom.

“This was expected,” said CBGB owner Hilly Kristal. “We were hoping it would come. Now it becomes a court battle.”

The eviction notice was served Wednesday evening. The building landlord, the nonprofit homeless advocacy group the Bowery Resident’s Committee, reiterated its call for CBGB to “vacate the premises both voluntarily and expeditiously.”

BRC executive director Muzzy Rosenblatt confirmed the eviction notice was served, but declined to comment further.

Just hours before the club’s lease expired at midnight on Aug. 31, the BRC announced it would not renew the agreement after a five-year fight over the monthly $19,000 rent. The BRC, which holds a 45-year lease on the building, houses 250 homeless people above the club. CBGB is its lone commercial tenant.

Through it all, CBGB has vowed to remain open and has shows scheduled throughout September.

Source billboard.com.

Jazz legend John Coltrane’s oft-bootlegged 1965 performances at New York’s Half Note will be given their first authorized release next month. Due Oct. 11 via Impulse!, “One Down, One Up: Live at the Half Note” is sourced from the late Coltrane’s own master tapes and produced by his son, Ravi.

The material here was recorded at March 26 and May 7, 1965, shows, with Coltrane backed by pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. Of particular note is a nearly 28-minute version of “One Down, Own Up” that has long been said to be one Coltrane’s most impressive live improvisations.

The album is another fall boon for jazz collectors, coming a few weeks after the Sept. 27 release of the Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane’s “At Carnegie Hall.” As previously reported, the Blue Note set chronicles a previously unreleased 1957 performance at Carnegie Hall by the two acts, who only worked together for six months.

Here is the track list for “One Down, One Up”:

Disc one:
Introductions and Announcements
“One Down, One Up”
Announcements
“Afro Blue”

Disc two:
Introductions and Announcements
“Song of Praise”
Announcements
“My Favorite Things”

Source billboard.com.