2005

The NYC Charm Sessions is an international music concert series aimed at representing the stylistic diversity of the New York City music scene. The four night series will feature 18 of the best underground musical acts in NYC ranging from African hip-hop to Finnish a cappella, Brazilian Choro to Old Nashville Country, and Hungarian punk music to Middle Eastern dub. All the performances will be held June 19 through the 23 at The Living Room in New York. Headset Productions, a Brooklyn-based artist development company, will produce the shows, which will be recorded live by Uist Media, a Scotland-based production company. BBC Radio will air the performances in a 6-part/2 hour radio series throughout the United Kingdom.

The International music scene in New York is a true melting pot of ethnic and musical influences, and the series will offer quality and diversity in depth. Here

On August 23rd, guitarist Leo Kottke and erstwhile Phish bassist Mike Gordon will release their second collaboration,

Heavenly Jams Band featuring guitarist Yosi Piamenta will return for performances at Ace of Clubs in New York City on July 6th and 7th. Piamenta will be joined for both performances by Yonrico Scott (drums) and Tal Wilkenfeld (bass). Seth Yacovone will join the band on guitar for the show on the 6th, while RANA

Smog’s Bill Callahan will hit the road this summer, beginning with a lengthy tour of Europe that begins June 9 in London before heading back to North America. The artist will be supporting his new album, “A River Ain’t Too Much To Love,” released Tuesday via Drag City.

“People who come to a show like [mine] probably listen to a lot of music,” Callahan tells Billboard.com of playing for European audiences. “It helped when I put a lyric sheet with [1997’s] ‘The Doctor Came at Dawn.’ When I went to Europe people were so happy; it helps them so much to be able to read it.”

]i] To read more, visit billboard.com.

Jeff Tweedy of Wilco will be playing a solo show at the Calgary Folk Music Festival on July 21st. The festival held July 21-24, will also feature a number of acts from Blues, African roots, hip hop, country, bluegrass and swing. Artist to play include Arrested Development, Steve Earle, Mary Gauthier, Del McCoury, Allison Moorer, Buck 65, Christine Fellows, Bill Frisell, Thea Gilmore, Sarah Harmer, Ron Sexsmith and Tortoise.

For more information, please visit, the festival’s website.

Rambo is coming out of hiding and looking for some fresh blood.

After a 17-year layoff, Sylvester Stallone is ready to reprise his role as everyone’s favorite muscle-bound Green Beret for a fourth installment in the popular 1980s film franchise.

After protracted legal wrangling, the rights to Rambo were snapped up in 1997 by Miramax’s genre division, Dimension Films. But a planned Rambo IV stalled. Now, with Miramax heads Harvey and Bob Weinstein exiting Disney, they have sold the sequel rights for the intrepid character to Nu Image/Millennium Films, and the project is finally moving forward.

In addition to breaking the old red bandanna out of mothballs, Stallone, 58, will write the screenplay.

“I’ve signed the deal and I have the old headband, machine gun and bow and arrow ready to go. I am looking forward to showing movie fans the real action hero again,” Stallone said in a statement.

To read more visit yahoo.com.

If the music industry can’t beat the desktop DJs who are slicing and dicing songs into new hybrid forms, they might as well join them.

Some of the world’s most venerable record labels, including Motown, Atlantic and Verve, are opening up the vaults in the hopes that a new generation of listeners will be attracted to remixed versions of classic tunes.

Amid an explosion in remix culture, spurred by technology that enables anyone with a computer to splice together music in new ways, a quartet of albums have been released this year: “Motown Remixed,” “Verve Remixed 3,” “Atlantiquity” and “Mayfield: Remixed – The Curtis Mayfield Collection.”

They take on classic — some would say unimprovable — soul, jazz and R&B songs including “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “We Are Family,” “Let’s Get It On” and “Superfly.”

Previous major-label efforts in a similar vein have included Jay-Z’s collaboration with Linkin Park, and several Blue Note remix albums. There will likely be more to come as music companies seek to extract maximum value from their libraries and to combat the unauthorized “mash-ups” that have become increasingly popular.

DJ Dangermouse’s “The Grey Album,” which mixed The Beatles’ “White Album” with rapper Jay-Z’s “Black Album,” is widely credited with bringing mashups to the forefront.

It was forced underground when EMI, the world’s third-largest music label, filed a slew of lawsuits, but not before Dangermouse and the “Grey Album” achieved worldwide fame.

EMI does not seem to be holding a grudge. DJ Dangermouse is a lead producer for the new album from animated rock band Gorillaz, one of the company’s most crucial releases of the year. He also turned in a track on “Verve Remixed 3,” a remix of Dinah Washington’s “Baby, Did You Hear?.”

The “Motown Remixed” album includes a version of The Temptations’ “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” that is revamped by DJ Jazzy Jeff, and The Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back,” which isgiven a heavy hip-hop breakbeat by DJ Z-Trip.

The “Mayfield: Remixed” and “Atlantiquity” albums were made by Warner Music Group’s Rhino Records. Motown and Verve are both part of Vivendi’s Universal Music Group.

Source yahoo.com.[

The Strokes are nearing the finish line on their as-yet-untitled third studio album, due in late January via RCA. The group has recorded 14 songs for consideration, three of which were co-produced by longtime collaborator Gordon Raphael, while the rest were produced by David Kahne (Paul McCartney, Fiction Plane). Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Rage Against The Machine) will handle mixing.

Source billboard.com.