2006

Sonic Youth has begun recording its next Geffen studio album at Sear Sound Studio in New York, where the group put such prior albums as “Sister” and “Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star” to tape.

According to the band’s official Web site, among the tunes recorded so far are “Pink Steam,” “Do You Believe in Rapture?,” “Or” and “Sleepin Around.” The as-yet-untitled album is due for release sometime this year.

As previously reported, Sonic Youth is recording without the aid of multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, who had been part of the band on stage and in the studio since 2002’s “Murray Street.”

“Some of it seems to be an extension of the last couple of records, but some hearkens forward into territory and also back to earlier, more dissonant and atonal stuff we’ve done,” guitarist Lee Ranaldo told Billboard.com in October of the new material. “There’s definitely some rocking songs and also some sound piece-y kind of things that are pretty interesting as well.”

Also in the Sonic Youth pipeline for the first part of the year are reissues of the band’s 1982 self-titled EP, the peculiar 1988

Atlanta’s 12-year-old outdoor festival Music Midtown won’t be held this year, concert promoter Peter Conlon said January 5.

Conlon said it was too expensive to hold the three-day event at its current location – a tract near the Boisfeuillet Jones Atlanta Civic Center, where the festival was moved from Piedmont Park.

Other sites in and outside Atlanta are under consideration, Conlon said, adding the new site will need to have adequate green space, size and public transportation accessibility.

The first festival was held in 1994 and attracted as many as 300,000 people over a spring weekend with national acts like Bob Dylan and Ashlee Simpson.

“We’re crying guitar-sized tears,” said Greg Pridgeon, Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin’s chief of staff. “It’s become an institution in Atlanta. There’s a hole left by its absence. But we respect and understand the business decision that led to the cancellation. We’re not opposed to working with the festival in the future.”

Source pollstar.com.

To celebrate the launch of the video download service, Phish is offering a New Year’s gift in the form of a free video download of their New Year’s countdown complete with their Gamehendge Time Phactory, the traditional “Auld Lang Syne” and a jaw-dropping rendition of the band’s classic “Weekapaug Groove.” The free download will be available until January 15. Live Phish Videos are offered song by song for $1.99 each and are compatible with Apple’s popular iPod video player as well as all PC and Mac video players. The New Year’s Eve 1995 video is from a single-camera archival source, but the band intends to release a wide variety of video from myriad sources and eras. “This is a chance to share incredible material directly with fans that might otherwise never see the light of day in a more traditional distribution scheme,” says band archivist, Kevin Shapiro.

The following video tracks are available now. Please note that Chalk Dust Torture and Punch You In The Eye will be available on 1/20. They hope to make the cover songs available soon.

Phish
12/31/95 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

The Sloth (3:45)
Reba (14:25)
The Squirming Coil (10:27)
Maze (10:18)
Sparkle (3:46)
The Lizards (10:37)
Axilla (Part II) (4:13)
Runaway Jim (16:05)
Strange Design (3:36)
Mike’s Song (20:31)
Gamehendge Time Phactory (5:03)
Auld Lang Syne (1:44)
Weekapaug Groove (17:42)
You Enjoy Myself (25:37)
Sanity (6:08)

Elvis Costello and longtime keyboardist Steve Nieve are set to team up with various symphonies across the U.S., beginning with the San Francisco Symphony on March 27th, for a string of dates.

The tour will feature two sets: the first dedicated solely to the music of Il Sogno, an interpretation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream originally commissioned by the Italian ballet company Aterballetto in 2004, and the second to Costello’s pop and rock classics. Costello and Nieve will collaborate with the Houston Symphony, the Boston Pops and the Brooklyn Philharmonic, among others, and the tour’s opening night will benefit the San Francisco Symphony musicians’ pension fund.

In addition, Elvis Costello is set to release My Flame Burns Blue, a live CD featuring the fifty-two-piece Dutch jazz orchestra Metropole Orkest in concert at the Hague, the Netherlands, on February 28th. The set features new compositions; re-imagined Costello favorites, such as “Clubland” and “Watching the Detectives”; and “Hora Decubitus,” a Charles Mingus song the late jazz great’s widow invited Costello to add lyrics to. And for fans who would like a preview of the work before he takes it on the road, the set will also include a forty-five-minute suite from Il Sogno.

“This record may explain what I’ve been doing during the last twelve years when I haven’t had a guitar in my hands,” Costello says of My Flame Burns Blue.

Following his tour with local symphony orchestras, Costello will debut the opera The Secret Arias in Copenhagen, Denmark. The work is based on songs the renowned Danish fairy-tale writer Hans Christian Andersen wrote for Swedish soprano Jenny Lind, who did not return his love.

Elvis Costello tour dates:

3/27: San Francisco, Davies Symphony Hall
4/13: Houston, Jones Hall for Performing Arts
4/20: North Bethesda, MD, Strathmore Hall
4/21: Baltimore, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
4/22: Baltimore, Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
5/10: Boston, Symphony Hall
5/12: Brooklyn, Academy of Music
5/13: Atlanta, Fox Theatre

Source rollingstone.com.

America’s favorite mind-bending, hallucination-inducing jazz trio from Tulsa, OK, the Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, gets back to business in February 2006 with a string of tour dates on the Left Coast, a run of high profile appearances on the East Coast and a jump over the Atlantic for a stretch of shows in Europe. The European leg of the treck will be JFJO’s first official tour of the continent, including performances at Bimhuis in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Turku International Jazz Festival in Turku, Finland. All of this in support of their latest release, The Sameness of Difference, on HYENA Records.

JFJO’s west coast tour dates in the U.S. will include special guests, The Dead Kenny Gs, who are comprised of JFJO’s own Brian Haas on keys, the irrepressible modern tenor giant Skerik on saxophones and the multi-dimensional big beat master Mike Dillon on percussion. The Dead Kenny Gs tour sparingly, so every show is a rare opportunity to witness their very own rendering of musical madness. JFJO drummer Jason Smart will also pair with freestyle poet Al Howard for a collaboration dubbed, Echoes Consciousness.

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey’s Winter 2006 tour dates are:

February 14 / Winstons / San Diego, CA
February 15 / The Palmer Room / West Los Angeles, CA
February 16 / Moe’s Alley / Santa Cruz, CA
February 17 / Cafe Du Nord / San Francisco, CA
February 18 / Cafe Du Nord / San Francisco, CA
February 19 / Six Rivers Brewery / McKinleyville, CA
February 21 / Mobius / Ashland, OR
February 22 / Luna Jazz / Eugene, OR
February 23 / The Goodfoot Lounge / Portland, OR
February 24 / Tractor Tavern / Seattle, WA
February 25 / The Nightlight Lounge / Bellingham, WA
March 8 / Casadesus Hall / Binghamton, NY
March 9 / Regatta Bar / Boston, MA
March 10 / Blue Note / New York, NY
March 11 / Blue Note / New York, NY
March 17 / Lantaren / Rotterdam, The Netherlands
March 18 / Sugar Factory / Amsterdam, The Netherlands
March 21 / Stadtgarten / Cologne, Germany
March 22 / Bimhuis / Amsterdam, The Netherlands
March 24 – 27 / Dates TBA / Italy
March 29 / Rytmihairioklubi @ Juttutupa / Helsinki, Finland
March 30 / Turku International Jazz Festival / Turku, Finland
April 7 / The Parking Garage / Norman, OK
April 8 / Cain’s Ballroom / Tulsa, OK

Today Langerado announces a Friday night “Sound Check” onsite at Markham Park. Starting at 3:30 PM until 9 PM, the pre-party event will feature six bands -Perpetual Groove,the Benevento Russo Duo, Buckethead, Hot Buttered Rum String Band, Theresa Andersson and Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes. Tickets are only $15 advance / $20 day of show andFREEfor those who purchase Langerado weekend VIP or Camping Passes. For more information visit:
www.langerado.com/soundcheck.html

Langerado has also announced their late night club schedule in Ft. Lauderdale. Shows are as follows:

3/10 -The Disco Biscuits @ Revolution / 18+ / doors 8pm
3/10 -The Drive-By Truckers with Rose Hill Drive @ The Culture Room / all ages / doors 8pm
3/11 -Umphrey’s McGee @ Revolution / 18+ / doors 9pm 3/11 -MOFRO with the New Mastersounds @ The Culture Room / all ages / doors 9pm
3/12 -Conspirator with Brothers Past @ The Culture Room / all ages / doors 9pm

All late night shows are $18 advance / $20 day of show. A presale will begin on Saturday January 14th at noon EST for those who have purchased tickets to the festival. (Music Today will be emailing access codes to those who bought tickets to Langerado so they will have the first chance to get tickets to the late night shows) General on-sale is Friday, January 27th. More information at:
www.langerado.com/late.html.