2006

Modern rock outfit Modest Mouse will return Dec. 19 with its highly anticipated new Epic album, “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.”

It’s the follow-up to the band’s 2004 mainstream breakthrough, “Good News for People Who Love Bad News,” which has sold 1.5 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The new album was recorded at Sweet Tea Studios in Oxford, Miss., and, as previously tipped here, features the contributions of former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Marr has since become an official member of Modest Mouse and will tour with the band in the future.

For now, the lone confirmed date on Modest Mouse’s schedule is a Nov. 11 appearance at the Bang! Festival in Miami, alongside Duran Duran, Daft Punk, Gnarls Barkley and Tiesto.

Source billboard.com.

Vegoose at Night is a series of nighttime concerts presenting a variety of artists at marquee venues throughout the city starting on Friday, October 27th and running through Halloween night, Tuesday, October 31st. An initial listing of the Vegoose at Night Concert Series is below. Check vegoose.com for updates in the coming weeks.

Ticket availability for these shows will be limited. Those who have purchased tickets to VEGOOSE will be given the first opportunity to purchase tickets to late-night shows in a special pre-sale. The first round of VIP ticket holder pre-sales will start on Wednesday, September 6th. The first round of regular ticket holder pre-sales will start on Saturday, September 9th. Visit vegoose.com for more ticketing info.

Friday Oct. 27th, 2006
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds MGM Grand Garden

Damian “Jr. Gong” MarleyThe Joint – Hard Rock

Keller WilliamsHouse of Blues

Trey Anastasio w/ Robert Randolph & The Family BandOrleans Arena

Saturday Oct. 28th, 2006
Maceo Parker House of Blues

STS9The Joint – Hard Rock

Phil & Trey…Orleans Arena

Sunday Oct. 29th, 2006

The String Cheese IncidentOrleans Arena

Monday Oct. 30th, 2006

Widespread Panic MGM Grand Garden

More shows to be announced

“Everyone Stare: The Police Inside Out,” the directorial debut of five-time Grammy Award-winning composer and drummer Stewart Copeland, will be released on DVD exclusively by Universal Music Enterprises in September 12, 2006.

The film is a first-person account of The Police

Universal Republic Records will release new music from the legendary rock band The Who, it was announced today by Mel Lewinter, Chairman and CEO of the Universal Motown Records Group, and Monte Lipman, President of Universal Republic Records. The historic signing with Universal Republic will include the first studio album by the band in 25 years, Endless Wire, scheduled to hit stores October 31, 2006.

“We are thrilled beyond words to welcome The Who to Universal Republic,” stated Mr. Lewinter. “They are truly one of the quintessential rock bands of all time. Larger than life, never compromising – The Who’s profound insight and willingness to push the musical envelope embodies everything vital about the indispensable music culture they helped spawn.”

Universal Republic will inaugurate the new pact with the release of the first new Who studio album since 1982. The disc will include all new songs, as well as music culled from a 29 minute operatic work, described by The Who’s co-founder Pete Townshend as “A Mini-Opera inspired by his Novella The Boy Who Heard Music.” Townshend has made the book available online at petetownshend.co.uk/projects/tbwhim.

Celebrating the release of his new studio album “Bar 17,” Trey Anastasio will embark on a fourteen date fall tour across the U.S. The Trey Anastasio Band line up will include Tony Hall, Raymond Weber, Ray Paczkowski, Christina Durfee and Jennifer Hartswick.

The tour will include three two-nighters in some very intimate rooms including The Vic in Chicago, Boulder’s Fox Theater and New York City’s Webster Hall. The Webster Hall shows, on October 8th and 9th, will mark the release of “Bar 17” and the launch of Trey’s new arts initiative as part of his Seven Below Fund. The fund’s purpose is to further arts education in Vermont and will include an artists-in-residence component using The Barn and will also feature outreach to support arts education for children. Trey will end the tour on Halloween at the venerable Stubb’s in Austin.

Tickets for all of these shows will be available through a real time preorder beginning Thursday, August 24th at 5PM EST at treytickets.rlc.net Public ticket on-sales start Wednesday, September 6th. Please be sure to check the Tourdates Page at Trey.com for specific pre-sale and public on-sale information.

A limited number of VIP tickets will be made available for the Webster Hall shows, proceeds from the sale of the VIP tickets will benefit the Seven Below Arts Initiative. The VIP package will include access to a special balcony viewing area, copies of “Bar 17” and the bonus album “18 Steps,” show poster and an invitation to a special Seven Below Fund post-show reception with Trey in attendance.

For a full list of dates, complete ticketing and show information, visit the official Tourdates Page.

Eight years in the making, Club d’Elf’s long awaited studio debut entitled, Now I Understand, will finally be released on Accurate Records.

Club d’Elf is the brainchild of bassist Mike Rivard, one of the most respected musicians on the Boston music scene, having played with a startling variety of artists, including The Either/Orchestra, Natraj (Indo-jazz), Hypnosonics (with members of Morphine), The Story, Aimee Mann and Paula Cole to name but a few. In 1998, Rivard seized the opportunity to play a residency at Cambridge’s ultra-hip Lizard Lounge by creating a rhythm section-oriented band with a floating cast of guitar, keyboard and horn players. Playing his tunes, which draw on influences ranging from Miles Davis and The Meters to electronica and Moroccan music, Rivard created a distinctly personal style from the bottom up, a sound which varies depending on the sidemen, but is always fascinatingly broad and a mile deep.

Club d’Elf’s existence as an ever-changing live band made it logical that its first seven CDs were live albums. However, d’Elf’s first studio recording reflects another side of leader Mike Rivard’s musical personality. Now I Understand takes fearless improvisations recorded “live in the studio” and weaves them into tight, layered compositions, perfectly paced and meticulously detailed. Primarily occupied with creating virtually a new edition of the band for every show (which would amount to dozens of personnel combinations throughout the collective’s history), it would take Rivard years to construct the studio tracks thereby documenting the composer/bandleader/ensemble’s journey through time.

Collaborators include d’Elf live show regulars John Medeski on Hammond organ, Wurlitzer piano, Mellotron and analog synthesizer, Billy Martin on drums, Mat Maneri on viola, Dave Tronzo, Reeves Gabrels, Duke Levine, Gerry Leonard (aka Spooky Ghost) on guitar, Alain Mallet on keyboards and DJ Logic on turntables. The core of the band, its rhythm section, remains consistent: Rivard on bass and a Moroccan three-stringed bass lute called the Sintir, Brahim Fribgane on oud, dumbek and percussion, Mister Rourke on turntables and Erik Kerr on drums.

“In total, the whole process of making this CD spanned almost 8 years. It became a sort of journey for me, encompassing experiences both personal, such as going through a divorce and the deaths of loved ones, and universal, such as Columbine, 9/11 and Katrina,” notes Rivard. “I remember driving while listening to reports of Columbine on the radio. Later that night while recording I felt such a level of sadness and mourning, which I can still hear in the bass tracks from that session. Though we don’t really speak of such things, after 9/11 especially, I think there was a tacit understanding that what we were doing in the band was perhaps part of some larger global effort at cooperation and mutual love and respect with Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Pagans and what have you playing together and putting aside cultural and religious differences in service of ‘The Music.’ To some extent I think that comes across on this record.”

See clubdelf.com for more info

Beck wants to have a little fun with the artwork for his upcoming album, “The Information,” and he wants his fans to contribute. The set, due Oct. 3 via Interscope, will feature blank packaging and one of four sets of sticker sheets designed by artists from the U.S. and Europe, allowing consumers to customize the cover however they wish.

Although details have yet to be announced, a contest is in the works to select the best album cover creation, with final approval coming from Beck himself. Plans also call for displaying the sticker designs at select art galleries.

In addition, “The Information” will include a video for each of its 15 tracks, led by a Michel Gondry-directed clip for “Cell Phone’s Dead.” A video for the thumping first single “Nausea” that incorporates footage from the Beck-scored skateboarding documentary “1st and Hope” is already making the rounds on YouTube, but it appears a different video will appear on the DVD.

“Nausea” and album track “Strange Apparition” are now streaming on Beck’s Web site. The project also features such tracks as the echo-laden, psychedelic “Movie Theme,” the bass-heavy, “Midnite Vultures”-esque “1000 BPM,” the strummy “No Complaints.”

Beck plays the first of two shows with Radiohead tonight (Aug. 22) in Edinburgh. His lone upcoming U.S. show is Sept. 30 at the San Francisco-area edition of the Download Festival, although a fall tour is in the works.

Source billboard.com.