2006

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.

As noted on the official Keane website, Following last week’s announcement that singer Tom Chaplin has been diagnosed with exhaustion, he has admitted himself into a private clinic.

Tom said, “I’ve been having to deal with an increasing problem with drink and drugs, and the time has come to get the professional help I need to sort myself out. I feel desperately disappointed to be letting down our fans, but I want to get myself right now so that I can be back on the road for the rest of the year.”

As a result, the band will be taking a break from touring and some US dates will be postponed.

Joseph Hill, lead vocalist and songwriter for traditional roots reggae group Culture, died Saturday. He was 57. Hill abruptly fell ill and died in Berlin while the group were in the middle of a European tour, according to his daughter Andrea. She did not know the cause of death.

Culture will continue its summer concert tour as a tribute to the smooth-voiced tenor, with Hill’s son Kenyatta taking on lead vocals. Funeral arrangements are pending.

One of reggae’s most enduring bands, Culture was led by Hill for three decades. He penned the group’s best-known songs, including “Two Sevens Clash,” “Natty Never Get Weary” and “I’m Not Ashamed.”

Born in the rural Jamaican parish of St. Catherine in 1949, Hill began his musical career in the late 1960s as a percussionist. As the Rastafarian influence on reggae grew in the 1970s, he formed Culture and remained its driving force through more than 30 albums.

Hill said “Two Sevens Clash,” Culture’s most influential record, was based on a prediction by Pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey, who said there would be chaos on July 7, 1977, when the “sevens” met. With its apocalyptic message, the song created a stir in his Caribbean homeland and many Jamaican businesses and schools shuttered their doors for the day.

In 2005, the singer, a devout Rastafarian, was honored by the Jamaican government for his contribution to the island nation’s culture.

Source billboard.com.

The 12th Annual BayFest Music Festival will be held October 6, 7, & 8, 2006 in the streets of Downtown Mobile. BayFest will host over 100 national, regional and local artists to perform on nine stages over the three-day weekend. This year

Husband-and-wife duo Mates Of State will be on the road for the latter half of September, traversing the East Coast and upper Midwest with Starlight Mints.
The tour launches September 13 at the Middle East Club in Cambridge, Mass., hitting two Canadian cities and 15 more in the U.S.
They’ll finish up at Irving Plaza in New York City September 30.
The two bands both released new albums on Barsuk Records this spring: Mates Of State with Bring It Back in March and Starlight Mints following in April with Drowaton.
Before heading out with the Mints, Mates Of State will play Seattle’s Bumbershoot Festival September 3.

Indie-jam rockers moe. will open on select dates of The Who’s first world tour in 20 years. The upstate New York quintet joins together with the rock legends for the following concerts:

9/25/06 Chicago, IL, United Center
9/26/06 Des Moines, IA, Wells Fargo Arena
9/29/06 Auburn Hills, MI, Palace Of Auburn Hills
9/30/06 London, ON, John Labatt Centre

moe., known for well-crafted songwriting and dynamic jam explorations, is gearing up for moe.down 2006 – the band’s annual Labor Day Weekend event which draws thousands of fans from all over the world to Turin, NY’s Snow Ridge Ski Area. The band will release MOE. LIVE FROM THE FILLMORE, its first DVD, October 3. moe. will also tour this summer and fall performing new songs from their first album in four years, which will be released January 23, 2007. Both will be released on moe.’s Fatboy Records.

The Who will perform songs from their new mini rock opera, WIRE & GLASS, material from their upcoming studio album along with their greatest hits and rarities, certain to please long time fans. The new album, provisionally called “WHO 2,” and the band’s first since 1982’s IT’S HARD, is scheduled for an October 23 release.

“We’re looking forward to reconnecting with our American fans and hopefully seeing some new ones coming along too,” said The Who frontman Roger Daltry.

And speaking on the topic of fans, moe. guitarist Al Schnier fondly recalls his own musical coming-of-age with the legendary band: “I remember as a kid playing my tennis racket, way before I ever played guitar, and jamming to The Who… and listening to Townsend’s EMPTY GLASS in our family room over and over again… seeing The Who when they were touring for IT’S HARD. The Clash were opening – who are also heroes of ours – and we’re worthy?! This is a BIG deal for us.”