2005

Although the Secret Machines just released The Road Leads Where It’s Led EP last month, the New York City-based trio has already finished recording their next album. The as-yet-untitled follow-up to their breakout debut, Now Here Is Nowhere, is due next year. The Machines — bassist/singer Brandon Curtis, guitarist (and brother) Ben Curtis and drummer Josh Garza — recorded at Allaire Studios in the Catskills in upstate New York. The album will be mixed in London in September with producer Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, My Bloody Valentine). “We have tons more material than we had to choose from for the last record,” says Brandon Curtis, “which is a blessing and a curse.”

Much of the new material — including the songs “Lightning Blue Eyes,” “Faded Lines” and “Daddy in the Doldrums” — has been thoroughly road-tested. “We knew we were going to make another record this year, so we took a batch of new songs and performed them pretty regularly,” says Curtis. “So they actually were afforded the chance to be developed in a live setting. By the time we got into the studio, it was almost like we were recording songs that we’d already recorded.” Another live standard on the new LP is “I Want to Know If It’s Still Possible,” which features the Band’s Garth Hudson on accordion.

Source rollingstone.com.

Five releases by English singer/songwriter Billy Bragg will be expanded in deluxe two-disc editions later this year by indie Yep Roc Records. Due Sept. 20, the new versions of three EPs and two albums will comprise four two-disc sets, with bonus material making up the second disc of each. One set features a DVD.

In addition to being made available individually, the discs will also be packaged in a box with a separate DVD of unreleased live performance footage and a booklet featuring lyrics and photographs.

To read more visit billboard.com.

Ray Davis, a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic, died Tuesday from respiratory complications at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J., according to his son, Derrick. He was 65.

Davis provided bass vocals on songs such as “Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucka),” “One Nation Under a Groove” and “Flashlight.” The latter two songs reached No. 1 on Billboard’s R&B charts.

Under leader George Clinton, Parliament-Funkadelic fused R&B, jazz, gospel and rock styles combined with garish costumes and elaborate stage displays to form one of the most original bands of the 1970s.

Davis was a member of the original Parliaments, a vocal group formed in the 1950s by Clinton while he was a junior high school student. In the early 1970s, Clinton changed the group’s name from plural to singular and also created Funkadelic, a funk band with a sound more influenced by the electric guitar. The two overlapping groups and other affiliated acts became known as “P-Funk.”

Source billboard.com.

Guitarist Bill Frisell captures two trio performances on an upcoming live album, “East/West.” Due Aug. 9 via Nonesuch, the double-disc chronicles a set with drummer Kenny Wolleson and bassist Tony Scherr at New York’s Village Vanguard, as well as a show with Wolleson and bassist Viktor Krauss at Yoshi’s in Oakland, Calif.

Beyond covers of Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” the “West” disc sports such Frisell originals as “Blues for Los Angeles,” “Boubacar” and “Pipe Down.”

“East” rounds up originals like “Ron Carter” and “The Vanguard” alongside covers of Henry Mancini’s “The Days of Wine and Roses,” Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene,” Johnny Cash’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box” and George and Ira Gershwin’s “My Man’s Gone Now.”

Nonesuch is planning to make second sets from both performances available as a special download, but specific details have yet to be confirmed.

The always-busy Frisell has tour dates lined up in various incarnations through early 2006, and will next play the Winnipeg Folk Festival Thursday (July 7) and Friday with violinist Jenny Scheinman, guitarist Greg Leisz and banjo player Danny Barnes.

Frisell has also recorded a new album with multi-instrumentalist Petra Haden, due in October via Sovereign Artists. The set features interpretations of the Foo Fighters’ “Floaty,” Coldplay’s “Yellow,” Elliott Smith’s “Satellite,” Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe” and Tom Waits’ “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up,” among others.

Of perhaps most interest to fans is Frisell’s contribution to Paul Simon’s long-in-the-works new album, but no release date has been announced for the Warner Bros. set, which is being produced by Brian Eno.

Here is the track list for “East/West”:

Disc one (“West”):
“I Heard It Through the Grapevine”
“Blues for Los Angeles”
“Shenandoah”
“Boubacar”
“Pipe Down”
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”

Disc two (“East”):
“My Man’s Gone Now”
“The Days of Wine and Roses”
“You Can Run”
“Ron Carter”
“Interlude”
“Goodnight Irene”
“The Vanguard”
“People”
“Crazy”
“Tennessee Flat Top Box”

]i] Source billboard.com.

JamCam Chronicles (www.jamcamdvd.com) DVD Magazine will be running tape at this coming weekend’s BIG Summer Classic stop in Schaumburg, Illinois, for the third installment of its second season of festival centered DVDs. The String Cheese Incident, Keller Williams, Umphrey’s McGee, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Yonder Mountain String Band and New Monsoon are all on board, and JamCam Director and spokesperson Tom Ledermann has assured “BIG performances, BIG interviews, and BIG Behind the ‘Scene’ extras” for what promises to be one “BIG” DVD. The first three issues of JamCam season two (Summer Camp, Wakarusa & The BIG Summer Classic) can be pre-ordered individually at a special advance-order rate or as part of a more heavily discounted 6 DVD (plus one free year of An Honest Tune Magazine) subscription, by visiting www.jamcamdvd.com.

The Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey have been moving at a dizzying pace since the release of their critically-acclaimed recording, Walking With Giants, on HYENA Records in August 2004. Tour dates have led them from California to New York and back again multiple times over, while individually, pianist Brian Haas has just released his first ever solo album, The Truth About Hollywood, bassist Reed Mathis has stepped up his appearances as a special guest of the Steve Kimock Band and drummer Jason Smart continues to split his time as the drummer for Robert Walter’s 20th Congress.

In July 2005, the Tulsa/Cincinnati-based trio will head out for a string of shows as the hand-selected opening act for ingenious bassist, Les Claypool. The tour comes on the heels of high profile performances at the JVC Jazz Festival’s “New York Now” night and the High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA. The band has also just completed the recording of basic tracks in New York City for a new album being produced by veteran producer Joel Dorn (Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Neville Brothers, Leon Redbone). The album, tentatively scheduled for release in October 2005, is set to include JFJO’s highly distinctive and one-of-a-kind interpretations of music by Bjork, The Flaming Lips and Charles Mingus, as well as, original material developed “live” over the last year, including audience favorites “Santiago” and “Halliburton Breakdown.”

In addition to upcoming opening dates with Les Claypool, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey will appear at Minnesota’s “10, 000 Lakes Music Festival,” Chicago’s “Wicker Park Music Festival” and launch a West Coast headline tour in August.

The tour dates are:

July 7 & 8 / Boulder, CO / The Fox Theater (w/ Les Claypool)
July 9 / Lawrence, KS / The Grenada (w/ Les Claypool)
July 11 / Atlanta, GA / The Variety (w/ Les Claypool)
July 12 / Asheville, NC / Orange Peel (w/ Les Claypool)
July 14 / Columbus, OH / Newport Music Hall (w/ Les Claypool)
July 15 / Covington, KY / The Madison Theater (Headline Show)
July 16 / Cleveland Heights, OH / The Grog Shop (Headline Show)
July 19 / Hamilton, Ontario / Pepperjacks
July 20 / Royal Oak, MI / Royal Oak Theater (w/ Les Claypool)
July 22 / Detroit Lakes, MN / 10, 000 Lakes Music Festival
July 30 / Chicago, IL / Wicker Park Music Festival

August Dates To Be Announced Shortly.