2006

After playing multiple shows wearing a brace and taking anti-inflamatory injections, Tommy Lee

Hot off their sold-out tour with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Hollywood/Kemado recording artists ELEFANT are returning to the road with a headlining club tour that begins May 3rd at The Social in Orlando, Florida. Opening for Elefant, from Orlando to Austin will be Austin, TX-based SOUND team and Boston

Following the June 3 close of the first leg of Pearl Jam’s North American tour, the band will return to the road June 23 in Pittsburgh. Fourteen dates are set for the second leg through a July 22 show at the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Wash., with more to be expected.

The Gorge show will be “an evening with” Pearl Jam and won’t feature an opening act. Sonic Youth will support on all but the first two second leg shows, which will boast a performance by former Guided By Voices frontman Robert Pollard.

As tipped here last month, Pearl Jam will also team up with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for a June 26-27 stand in St. Paul, Minn., and a July 2-3 engagement in Denver. In most cases, the summer shows will be available for download immediately after their completion from Pearl Jam’s Web site.

Pearl Jam is touring in support of its self-titled debut for J, which arrives May 2. First single “World Wide Suicide” is No. 1 for a third consecutive week on Billboard’s Modern Rock chart, which will be posted tomorrow (April 6) on Billboard.com.

Fans who preorder the album through Apple’s iTunes Music Store will receive exclusive video footage of the band in the studio plus a bonus audio track of “Why Go,” drawn from a Dec. 31, 1992, show in New York. That full concert is included as a bonus CD for preorders submitted via the Pearl Jam site.

The band has also confirmed an April 15 return to “Saturday Night Live” (its first appearance on the NBC show since 1994) and an April 20 club gig at London’s Astoria.

Here are Pearl Jam’s tour dates:

April 20: London (Astoria)
May 9-10: Toronto (Air Canada Centre)
May 12: Albany, N.Y. (Pepsi Arena)
May 13: Hartford, Conn. (New England Dodge Music Arena)
May 16: Chicago (United Center)
May 19: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena)
May 20: Cleveland (Quicken Loans Arena)
May 22: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills)
May 24-25: Boston (TD Banknorth Garden)
May 27-28: Camden, N.J. (Tweeter Center)
May 30: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center)
June 1, 3: East Rutherford, N.J. (Continental Airlines Arena)
June 23: Pittsburgh (Mellon Arena)
June 24: Cincinnati (US Bank Arena)
June 26-27: St. Paul, Minn. (Xcel Energy Center)
July 2-3: Denver (Pepsi Center)
July 6: Las Vegas (MGM Grand)
July 7: San Diego (Cox Arena)
July 9-10: Los Angeles (Forum)
July 13: Santa Barbara, Calif. (Santa Barbara Bowl)
July 16, 18: San Francisco (Bill Graham Civic Auditorium)
July 22: George, Wash. (the Gorge)
Aug. 25: Leeds, England (Leeds Festival)
Aug. 27: Reading, England (Reading Festival)

Source billboard.com.

Three vintage Rush home videos will make their DVD debut as part of the boxed set “Rush Replay X 3,” due June 13 via Mercury/UME. The collection will include 1982’s “Exit … Stage Left,” 1985’s “Grace Under Pressure” and 1991’s “A Show of Hands,” plus a previously unreleased audio CD version of “Grace Under Pressure.”

As previously reported, Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson created new stereo mixes for the releases, which are presented in 5.1 Surround Sound. Tour booklets from the three concerts have also been reprinted for the set.

Filmed in 1981 in Montreal, “Exit … Stage Left” spotlights Rush in its early career heyday as it performs such tracks as “Red Barchetta,” “YYZ,” “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight” and “Closer to the Heart.”

“Grace Under Pressure” was taped in Rush’s Toronto homebase and blends hits like “New World Man” and “The Spirit of Radio” with more uncommon fare like “Witch Hunt,” “The Enemy Within” and “The Weapon.” The latter track is accompanied by a video featuring actor Joe Flaherty as his “SCTV” character Count Floyd.

“A Show of Hands” was taped in 1988 in Birmingham, England, and was issued in tandem with a live album of the same name. Peart’s nightly drum solo appears here for the first time on an official release. Other highlights include “Turn the Page,” “Marathon” and a closing medley of “2112”/”La Villa Strangiato”/”In the Mood.”

Rush is in the early stages of work on its first studio album since 2002’s “Vapor Trails.”

Source billboard.com.

Columbia Records announced that innovative rock band Coheed and Cambria have elected to hit the road for a spring co-headlining jaunt across North America with Avenged Sevenfold. The band will be using their full live production and lights during their shows, which are now legendary for their progressive dynamics, and high-energy post-punk drama.

The stage props and projections used during the shows will include images borrowed from singer Claudio Sanchez’s 124-page graphic novel that reveals the story behind their current, internationally successful third record, “Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Volume 1: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness.” The album was released late last year to glowing reviews, widespread radio airplay and strong sales. The NY Times proclaimed that “no other band is better at turning hard rock into something so wild and sweet,” while Blender gave the record four out of five stars and said that Coheed and Cambria are “an ambitious band that get to balance their charismatic music with a biblically epic take encompassing all human experience.” Alternative Press put the band on their cover and rewarded the record five out five stars, while Rolling Stone hailed: “Good Apollo” is “so over the top, it’s damn near awe-inspiring.” Guitar World said that with the new record, “Coheed and Cambria take prog-rock to the outer limits.”

The dates for the spring tour with Avenged Sevenfold are below:

Date City Venue
Fri. 4/7 Poughkeepsie, NY Mid Hudson Civic Center
Sat. 4/8 Providence, RI Dunkin Donuts Arena
Sun. 4/9 Asbury Park, NJ Convention Hall
Tue. 4/11 Norfolk, VA Convocation Center at ODU
Thu. 4/13 Louisville, KY Louisville Gardens
Fri. 4/14 Atlanta, GA Hi Fi Buys Amphitheatre
Sat. 4/15 Orlando, FL UCF Arena
Mon. 4/17 Houston, TX Verizon Wireless Theatre
Tues. 4/18 San Antonio, TX Freeman Coliseum
Wed. 4/19 Dallas, TX Nokia Live
Fri. 4/21 Denver, CO Magness Auditorium
Sat. 4/22 Salt Lake City, UT The Great Salt Air
Mon. 4/24 Sacramento, CA Memorial Hall
Tue. 4/25 Reno, NV Lawler Events Center
Thu. 4/27 San Jose, CA SJSU Events Center
Fri. 4/28 San Diego, CA San Diego Sports Arena
Tue. 5/2 Phoenix, AZ Mesa Amphitheatre
Wed. 5/3 Albuquerque, NM Albuquerque Convention Ctr
Fri. 5/5 Kansas City, MO City Market
Mon. 5/8 Minneapolis, MN Myth
Tue. 5/9 Milwaukee, WI Eagles Ballroom
Wed. 5/10 Chicago, IL Aragon Ballroom
Fri. 5/12 Detroit, MI Cobo Arena
Sat. 5/13 Cleveland, OH Tower City Amphitheatre
Sun. 5/14 Pittsburgh, PA Chevy Amphitheatre
Fri. 5/19 New York, NY Hammerstein Ballroom

Gov’t Mule has returned to the studio to record the follow-up to its 2004 ATO Records release D

MerleFest 2006, the 19th annual festival in celebration of the music of the late Merle Watson and his father Doc Watson, will once again share its performers with some 12,000 members of the local community through the Outreach program. Sponsored by Sprint, Outreach will facilitate performances by MerleFest artists on April 27-28 at 32 different locations.

Artists will appear in all twenty-one Wilkes County K-12 schools, Ashe County High School, Alexander Central High School, Wilkes Development Day School, Montessori Learning School, the Wilkesboro Methodist Church After-School Program, Camp E-Ma-Etu, and several nursing and assisted living facilities. The Outreach performances, designed to expose students and seniors to different kinds of Americana music live, are not open to the general public.Some of the artists scheduled to participate in the Outreach Program include Richard Watson & Charles Welch, the Alison Brown Quartet with Joe Craven, John Cowan Band, Feufollet, David Holt & the Lightning Bolts, Jim Lauderdale & his Bluegrass Band, Chatham County Line, Laura Love Band, the Wilders, the Avett Brothers, the Biscuit Burners, and Darrell Scott.

Repeat artists are rotated to different venues than prior years. Every effort is made to match performances to the ages of the audiences. More than 3000 Wilkes County school students also attend MerleFest as part of organized school groups admitted without charge each year on Friday.

Wilkes Community College will present MerleFest 2006 on April 27 30, 2006 on its campus in Wilkesboro, NC. Among those previously announced as joining Doc Watson and Merle

The Dancing Wu Li Festival is a semi-annual arts and music gathering located at Snipes Farm in Morrisville, PA (40min north of Phila, 1hr south of NYC). These festivals will bookend the season, with a spring occurrence May 19-20, 2006, as well as a fall soiree Oct 6-7, 2006. Being artists ourselves, Goodie Goodie Productions prides itself upon our impeccable taste in addition to our attention to detail. Thus, Wu Li Festivals are being sculpted as small to medium (3-5k) sized events whose national appeal attracts fans and musicians alike as a destination on their festival itinerary.

The spring Wu Li Festival takes place May 19th and 20th in Morrisville, Pa and will feature two days of music, camping, food, arts & crafts, and theater. The spring festival

Prodigious British rock band GOMEZ will kick off a two-month North American tour on May 3, one day after their new album HOW WE OPERATE hits U.S. stores. The tour will comprise two legs: the first, running through May 27, will hit Southeast, Midwest and West Coast markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco; the second, planned to start in mid June after a U.K. tour, will find Gomez visiting the East Coast and additional Midwest cities. In addition to headline dates in theaters and large club venues, Gomez will perform at several U.S. music festivals, including the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis; Sasquatch! in George, Washington; and the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Tennessee. See below for a complete list of confirmed tour dates.

Gomez’s recent sold-out promo tour earned great reviews and captivated audiences who were treated to a sampling of new material from their forthcoming album HOW WE OPERATE. After a full-band performance at SXSW, the group’s three principal songwriters — Ben Ottewell, Ian Ball and Tom Gray — embarked for the first time as a trio, performing in select markets and making stops at key radio stations including KEXP in Seattle, WFUV in New York and the syndicated radio program E-Town in Boulder, CO. In addition, the band performed a special four-song acoustic set for A&E’s “Breakfast with the Arts,” which will air nationally in May.

HOW WE OPERATE, Gomez’s fifth studio album, will be released on May 2; it’s their first studio release via ATO Records (following last year’s live album Out West). Working with producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters), the members of Gomez took a different approach to recording than on previous albums. Focusing on pre-production work, the band created their most cohesive and accessible collection of songs feature yet, including the powerhouse title track “How We Operate,” the uplifting gem “See The World,” and the playfully longing “girlshapedlovedrug.”

GOMEZ
U.S. TOUR DATES 2006

May 3 – Asheville NC – The Orange Peel

May 4 – Atlanta GA – Variety Playhouse

May 5 – New Orleans LA – Tipitina’s Uptown

May 6 – Memphis TN – Beale Street Music Festival

May 8 – Cincinnati OH – Bogart’s Front Room

May 10 – Pontiac MI – Clutch Cargo’s

May 11 – Chicago IL – Vic Theatre

May 12 – Minneapolis MN – The Quest

May 13 – Omaha NE – Sokol Underground

May 15 – Kansas City MO – Grand Emporium

May 16 – Boulder CO – Fox Theater

May 20 – San Diego CA – House Of Blues

May 23 – Hollywood CA – Avalon

May 24 – San Francisco CA – The Fillmore

May 26 – Portland OR – Wonder Ballroom

May 27 – George WA – Sasquatch! Festival