2006

Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music and video store on Wednesday took its first step toward a monthly subscription model with a new service called Multi-Pass that lets users buy TV shows on a monthly basis.

The service is being launched by iTunes in partnership with Viacom Inc.’s Comedy Central cable network, which is rolling out “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” on the service.

Fans will be able to buy the next month’s series of 16 new episodes via Multi-Pass for $9.99, or to pay $1.99 per episode. Four episodes air each week and viewers can download each episode after it’s been broadcast.

TV shows and other video have been available for sale on iTunes since late last year. Comedy Central announced a relationship with iTunes six weeks ago with shows including “South Park,” “Drawn Together” and “Comedy Central Stand-Up.”

Michele Ganeless, executive vice president at Comedy Central, said there would be no advertising on the service for the time being, similar to the network’s DVD business.

Apple has so far resisted calls from media companies and competitors to adopt a monthly subscription fee favored by the likes of Napster and Real Networks Inc.’s Rhapsody, preferring an a la carte download model where music tracks cost 99 cents and videos $1.99.

Videos downloaded from the iTunes Music Store can be played back on a personal computer or an Apple iPod portable media player, among other devices. More than 8 million videos have been sold since it launched at the end of last year.

Shows including Walt Disney Co.’s “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” were among the first to be made available on the service.

Source yahoo.com.

Bruce Springsteen and his new Seeger Sessions Band, Herbie Hancock, Etta James and Warren Haynes have been added to the lineup for the 2006 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which will be held April 28-30 and May 5-7 at the Fair Grounds Race Course.

As previously reported, Springsteen will on April 25 release an album featuring songs long associated with folk icon Pete Seeger. It is not known if the Jazz Fest appearance will be the new band’s first, but at deadline it is the first to be confirmed as part of a spring tour.

Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Dave Matthews Band, Jimmy Buffet, Allen Toussaint with Elvis Costello, Lionel Richie, Keith Urban, Ani DiFranco, the Meters and Fats Domino are among the other superstars on the bill for Jazz Fest, which is moving forward despite New Orleans’ ravaging at the hands of Hurricane Katrina.

Source billboard.com.

Frank Black has wrapped work on a new solo album. The double-disc “Fastman/Raiderman” will arrive June 20 via Back Porch/EMI and is the follow-up to 2005’s country-tinged “Honeycomb.”

Among the musicians that lent a hand on “Fastman/Raiderman” were Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, the Band’s Levon Helm, Bad Company’s Simon Kirke, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, Al Kooper and Rich Gilbert, a member of Black’s one-time solo band, the Catholics. Tracks confirmed to appear include “My Terrible Ways,” “Elijah,” “In the Time of My Ruin,” “Sad Man’s Song,” “Fitzgerald” and “Kiss My Ring.”

Source billboard.com.

The lineup has been confirmed for this year’s V Festival in the U.K., with Radiohead and Morrissey topping the bill.

The two-day event, which sold out all 130,000 tickets within hours of the March 3 on-sale, will take place August 19-20 at Hylands Park in Chelmsford and Weston Park in Staffordshire.

Beck, Faithless, Razorlight, Kasabian, Paul Weller, Fatboy Slim, Bloc Party, Keane, The Charlatans U.K., The Magic Numbers, Rufus Wainwright, The Go! Team, Gavin DeGraw, Fatboy Slim, and Editors are among the names set to appear over the weekend.

Last year’s V Festival featured close to 80 acts, including headliners Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, and Scissor Sisters.

Source pollstar.com.

Billboard.com reports “MMJ are roaring back to life this spring as the support act on the first leg of Pearl Jam’s North American tour. A number of high-profile festival appearances are also confirmed, including Coachella, Bonnaroo and High Sierra. In late summer or early fall, MMJ plans to make up dates it was forced to cancel in Europe after Jim James took ill, to hopefully be followed by a North American headlining run.

And while James says not to expect MMJ back in the studio until the spring of 2007, there will be new product to savor this fall. The band is finishing up work on a double-disc live album as well as a DVD, which will be released separately. Eschewing the straight-up “film the show” approach, the DVD follows a storyline that transports fans to an MMJ show in the middle of a forest (oddly enough, the “Z” track “Into the Woods” is not included).”

My Morning Jacket’s tour dates:

April 21: Nashville (Rites of Spring)
April 29: Indio, Calif. (Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival)
May 9-10: Toronto (Air Canada Centre; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 12: Albany, N.Y. (Pepsi Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 13: Hartford, Conn. (New England Dodge Music Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 16: Chicago (United Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 19: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 20: Cleveland (Quicken Loans Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 22: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 24: Boston (TD Banknorth Garden; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 27: Camden, N.J. (Tweeter Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 30: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
June 1, 3: East Rutherford, N.J. (Continental Airlines Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
June 16-18: Manchester, Tenn. (Bonnaroo Festival)
June 29-July 2: Quincy, Calif. (High Sierra Festival)

Tomorrow evening, (Friday March 10th) Billy Martin (Medeski, Martin and Wood, Illy B)will join forces with fellow percussion master Cyro Baptista for a special intimate show at Brooklyn’s Issue Project Room. The show promises to create “sound-scapes and rhythms-exotique.”

For more info see: issueprojectroom.org

Slayer has lined up a new batch of tour dates as the group’s original four members work on their first album together in more than 15 years.
The tour starts on the ominous date of 6/6/06, and is dubbed The Unholy Alliance Tour – Preaching to the Perverted.
Arenas and amphitheatres in 17 U.S. cities are booked through late July, with more dates to be added soon.
Lamb of God, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed will support.
Slayer’s Tom Araya, Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman haven’t recorded an album with drummer Dave Lombardo since 1990’s Seasons In The Abyss. Paul Bostaph, who handled drum duties through most of the ’90s, left the group after 2001’s God Hates Us All.
“Dave’s been back with us, playing live, for a couple of years now, and we’re all looking forward to recording together again,” Araya said.
“It feels really good being back with the same guys I started out with,” Lombardo added. “The chemistry is definitely there, that’s the exciting part of it, to capture that chemistry again. And that’s what is happening.”
Slayer is recording in a Los Angeles studio with longtime associate Rick Rubin in the executive producer’s chair. The band plans to have the album out this fall.
The upcoming shows will be the group’s first road trip since headlining the Jagermeister Music Tour in late 2004. That same year, they also toured with Slipknot and Ozzfest.

Source pollstar.com.