Thursday, December 18, 2008

New Album Cover Art

Animal Collective reveal Merriweather Post Pavilion cover art


Animal Collective’s new LP, Merriweather Post Pavilion, isn’t due out until Jaunary 20 via Domino, but the band has just released the cover art for the album, which is a nutty optical illusion.






Black Lips unveil hidden image 200 Million Thousand cover art



Animal Collective may have unknowingly started a trend with their trippy art for Merriweather Post Pavilion-- to your left is the cover of the new Black Lips album, 200 Million Thousand, which features the hidden image of a face hidden in vertical lines. The optical illusion part of the cover is a little easier to see when the cover is small, but when it is larger, you have to force yourself to go cross-eyed to see the face.




Lily Allen Unveils New Album Cover Art


Lily Allen's new album cover art for The Fear, which will be out February 10th.

Music News & Notes

Design Album Cover

So, do you think you have what it takes to help Belle and Sebastian avoid paying a real graphic artist to make an album cover?

If you do, it's time to step up and help the Scottish band and Matador Records cut a few production costs: The band and the label are openly soliciting cover art for an upcoming limited-edition version of its The BBC Sessions to be sold as part of next year's Record Store Day.

Just design a front cover image for the recently released BBC Sessions and upload to our gallery below. The band will be reviewing all of the entries on January 15, 2009 and selecting a winner. One lucky winner will have their artwork adorn a limited edition version of the album that will be sold in stores nationwide.

Requirements

Front cover must say "Belle And Sebastian" and "The BBC Sessions"

No nudity or inappropriate images

All images must be your own and not infringe on any copyrights

Prizes 10 finalists will get the entire B&S Matador catalog on CD

1 Grand Prize winner will have their artwork made into the official front cover image on a limited number of BBC Session CDs that will be sold during Record Store Day on April 19, 2009.

Contest ends on January 15, 2009.

for more info: http://www.matadorrecords.com/belle_and_sebastian/lazy_contest/
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NOFX Celebrates 25th Anniversary

NOFX will get out to celebrate a big, big milestone: It's now older than 90 percent of its fans.


The punk veterans earn their "veteran" stripes in 2009, when the act breaks out the photo albums and looks back on its 25-year career. To mark the momentous occasion, the band cracked open the cryogenic tanks and defrosted a couple former members, Dave Casillas and Steve Kidwiller, who'll take the stage and relive their glory days while almost certainly wishing they'd stuck it out. Three shows are slated for February will spotlight a different phase in the band's career:

The Three Piece Era, 1983 ? 1987: Fat Mike, Smelly, Melvin
The Casillas Era, 1987 ? 1988: Fat Mike, Smelly, Melvin, Dave Casillas
The Kidwiler Era, 1988 ? 1991: Fat Mike, Smelly, Melvin, Steve Kidwiler
The El Hefe Era, 1991 ? Present: Fat Mike, Smelly, Melvin, El Hefe

NOFX's anniversary shows are scheduled for:

Feb. 4 - House of Blues, San Diego
Feb. 5 - Henry Fonda Theater, Los Angeles
Feb. 15 - Slim's, San Francisco

SOURCE: http://www.aversion.com

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Sex Pistols May Go Back In The Studio


Glen Matlock, bassist for the Sex Pistols, has told a British website that the group had ideas for a new record and are discussing going back into the studio. If it happens, it would be the first album of new material since 1977's Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.

Matlock told The Queitus that "We've done our bit this year…We'll meet again in the new year and see what we want to do." He also quashed the frequent rumor that they actually started recording new material over the summer. "We were not recording a new album - I think that journalists are making it up, but you can never say never.

"We all got ideas between us. It's a double-edged sword if you do it not good as the original, and if you don't do it people want to know why, but it's up to us. We are the masters of our own destiny."

SOURCE: http://winkscollectibles.blogspot.com

Classic Rock Videos

Tommy James and the Shondells-I Think We're Alone Now

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Announces Huge 2009 Lineup


The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival announced the lineup for their 40th anniversary shows and, for fans of rock, blues, R&B and jazz, this looks like one of the truly great festivals.

Spread over two weekends, the festival offers hundreds of acts across numerous stages at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans and, amazingly, the tickets are reasonably priced when you look at what most arena shows cost for just one or two acts. This year, it's $40 per day if bought in advance and $50 at the gate.

Still, nothing can sell a person on this great festival better than the talent lineup. While specific performance dates have not been announced, here is just some of the talent scheduled for each weekend.

Weekend 1 - April 24 to 26, 2009

Wynton Marsalis, Dave Matthews Band, James Taylor, Joe Cocker, Earth Wind & Fire, Wilco, Spoon, Erykah Badu, Irma Thomas, Robert Cray, Etta James & the Roots Band, Mavis Staples, Drive-By Truckers feat. Booker T. Jones, Johnny Winter, Pete Seeger, Pete Fountain, Tribute to Mahalia Jackson featuring Irma Thomas and many more.

Weekend 2 - April 30 to May 3, 2009

Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Sugarland, Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Dr. John, Ben Harper & Relentless7, Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, O'Jays, Toots & the Maytalls,Kings of Leon, Allen Toussaint, John Mayall, Solomon Burke, Doc Watson,Maze featuring Frankie Beverly,Whispers, Jakob Dylan, Rance Allen, Guy Clark, Aaron Neville, Marcia Ball,Frankie Ford, Patty Griffin and many more.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival


Mahalia Jackson, often called the greatest gospel singer, returned to her hometown to appear at the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in April of 1970. While attending the Louisiana Heritage Fair in Congo Square (then known as Beauregard Square), she and Duke Ellington, who also appeared at the event, came upon the Eureka Brass Band leading a crowd of second-line revelers through the Festival grounds. George Wein, producer of the Festival, handed Ms. Jackson a microphone, she sang along with the band and joined the parade…and the spirit of Jazz Fest was born.

This spontaneous, momentous scene—this meeting of jazz and heritage—has stood for decades since as a stirring symbol of the authenticity of the celebration that was destined to become a cultural force.

From the very beginning, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival was envisioned as an important event that would have great cultural significance and popular appeal. The Festival was the culmination of years of discussions and efforts by city leaders who wanted to create an event worthy of the city’s legacy as the birthplace of jazz. A couple of other festivals were held in the years leading up to the first New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, but those events, different in format, did not take hold as the Jazz & Heritage Festival would.

In 1970, George Wein, jazz impresario behind the Newport Jazz Festival and the Newport Folk Festival (begun respectively in 1954 and 1959) was hired to design and produce a unique festival for New Orleans. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit organization, was established to oversee the Festival.

Wein’s concept of the Louisiana Heritage Fair—a large daytime fair with multiple stages featuring a wide variety of indigenous music styles, food booths of Louisiana cuisine, and arts and crafts booths, along with an evening concert series—formed a construct that would prove vastly appealing and enduring.

In addition to Mahalia Jackson and Duke Ellington, the first Festival lineup included Pete Fountain, Al Hirt, Clifton Chenier, Fats Domino, The Meters, The Preservation Hall Band, parades every day with The Olympia Brass Band and Mardi Gras Indians, and many others.

In announcing the first Festival, scheduled for April 22 – 26, Wein said, “The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival represents a new and exciting idea in festival presentation. This festival could only be held in New Orleans because here and here alone is the richest musical heritage in America.” He also noted, with great prescience, “New Orleans, in the long run, should become bigger than Newport in jazz festivals. Newport was manufactured, but New Orleans is the real thing.”

Wein hired Quint Davis and Allison Miner, two young, knowledgeable New Orleans music enthusiasts, to work on the event. Davis would quickly become the main creative force behind the Festival, establishing the event as a dynamic annual showcase of Louisiana music with a bold blend of national and international flavors. Davis remains producer and director of the Festival, guiding the event through its fourth decade of existence. Miner, who passed away in 1995, would make numerous contributions to the Festival’s evolution, including the creation of the Music Heritage Stage, which has been renamed in her honor.

In 1970, only about 350 people attended the Festival, about half the number of musicians and other participants in the event. But the Festival, which became known as “Jazz Fest” almost immediately, was a great artistic success. When Jazz Fest was held the next year, it was clear that the event had already outgrown Congo Square.

For the 1972 Festival, the event moved to the infield of the Fair Grounds Race Course, the third-oldest racetrack in America (open since 1872). Jazz Fest would grow quickly over the next few years, constantly expanding its use of the 145-acre site. In 1975, the Festival, still just a five-day event with only three days of the Louisiana Heritage Fair, had an anticipated attendance of 80,000. This was also the first year of the Festival’s popular, limited-edition silkscreen poster, now recognized as the most popular poster series in the world.

From 1976 to 1978, Jazz Fest expanded to two full weekends of the Heritage Fair, and in 1979, for the 10th anniversary, the Festival scheduled three weekends, though one entire weekend was cancelled due to rain.

In the 1980s, Jazz Fest continued to experience a tremendous growth in popularity and began to gain wide acclaim as one of the world’s greatest cultural celebrations. By the end of the decade, more than 300,000 people attended the Heritage Fair, evening concerts, and workshops. The 1989 Festival marked the 20th annual event, which was commemorated with a classic poster featuring Fats Domino, ushering in an era during which the poster would celebrate many of Louisiana’s music legends with iconic portraits.

The decade of the 1990s saw the appeal of Jazz Fest and the Festival’s significance as a cultural symbol soar. The New York Times would note that the Jazz Festival had “become inseparable from the culture it presents.” The Festival added features like the Thursday that kicks off the second weekend (1991); an International Pavilion that celebrates other cultures (Haiti, Mali, Panama, Brazil, Martinique, and in 2004, South Africa); and the Native American stage and area.

In 2001, the Festival celebrated Louis Armstrong’s centennial, and the total attendance eclipsed 650,000, shattering records for virtually every day of the Heritage Fair, including the all-time single-day attendance record of 160,000. Wein’s prediction that New Orleans would become the first city of jazz festivals had clearly come true.


With 12 stages of soul-stirring music—jazz, gospel, Cajun, zydeco, blues, R&B, rock, funk, African, Latin, Caribbean, folk, and much more—the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is a singular celebration. The event has showcased most of the great artists of New Orleans and Louisiana of the last half century: Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, The Neville Brothers, Wynton Marsalis, Dr. John, Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., Ellis Marsalis, The Radiators, Irma Thomas, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Allen Toussaint, Buckwheat Zydeco, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Better Than Ezra, Ernie K-Doe, Vernel Bagneris, The Zion Harmonizers, Beausoleil and many others.

The Festival has always blended in a wide mix of internationally renowned guests, among them: Aretha Franklin, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Santana, Sarah Vaughan, Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett, Max Roach, B.B. King, Dave Matthews Band, Patti LaBelle, Tito Puente, the Allman Brothers Band, Joni Mitchell, Al Green, Linda Ronstadt, Lenny Kravitz, Sonny Rollins, Bonnie Raitt, James Brown, Celia Cruz, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Hugh Masekela, Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, The Temptations, Burning Spear,Van Morrison, LL Cool J, Abbey Lincoln, Erykah Badu, Dave Brubeck, Gladys Knight, Youssou N’Dour and many, many others.

Over the years Jazz Fest has received many honors, including being named the Festival of the Year four times by Pollstar magazine. The 2004 event marks the 35th anniversary of Jazz Fest, which the Wall Street Journal says “showcases a wider, deeper lineup of essential American musical styles than any festival in the nation…” and which Life magazine has called “the country’s very best music festival.’’

Inspired by the spirit of Mahalia Jackson and the Eureka Brass Band back in 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival continues to celebrate the culture of Louisiana with the combined fervor of a gospel hymn and the joy of a jazz parade.

for more info: http://www.nojazzfest.com/

Album Cover Art

Let's continue with our look at the Gigwise.com list of the dirtiest and sexiest album covers, this time #5 on their list (Gigwise comments in quotes):

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5. Spank Rock: ‘Bangers & Cash’ – "Heavily influenced by The 2 Live Crew’s infamous cover (okay, they actually copied it), in 2005 Spank Rock parodied it with this hilarious offering in 2007. The overweight, cellulite-ridden podium dancers add to the hilarity of it all."

I'm all for imitation, didn't we just see this yesterday? I like yesterday's version, tighter, uh...butts.