Music News & Notes

Pavement Announce More Shows

The band heads to New Zealand and Australia in March.

As of right now, Auckland, New Zealand will be the first city to host the reunited Pavement when the indie gods tour the world next year. The band touches down in Auckland on March 1 before embarking on a six-date trek through Australia that includes a headlining slot at the Golden Plains Festival.

Pavement are also set to play next year's All Tomorrow's Parties festival in May along with a four-night NYC stint in September.

Dates below:

03-01 Auckland, New Zealand - Town Hall
03-04 Sydney, Australia - Enmore Theatre
03-06 Meredith, Australia - Supernatural Amphitheatre (Golden Plains Festival)
03-07 Adelaide, Australia - Thebarton Theatre
03-08 Perth, Australia - Metro City
03-10 Brisbane, Australia - Tivoli
03-12 Melbourne, Australia - Palace Theatre
05-16 Minehead, England - All Tomorrow's Parties
09-21 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-22 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-23 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage
09-24 New York, NY - Central Park Summerstage

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Andrew Bird Deluxe Vinyl Reissue

Originally released in 2001, the third and final album from Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire, The Swimming Hour, will be available October 20th on vinyl for the first time as a Deluxe 2x Vinyl LP set (Gatefold Jacket / 45rpm / 140 Gram vinyl).

Newly remastered under the watchful eyes of Bird himself, this significant album was produced by Mike Napolitano (Blind Melon, the Neville Brothers, and the Squirrel Nut Zippers) and is the last recording to feature Bird's backing band, Bowl of Fire, consisting of Kevin O'Donnell (drums and percussion), Nora O'Connor (backing vocals), Colin Bunn (guitar), and Josh Hirsh (bass). The Swimming Hour is considered a precursor to Bird's subsequent solo records.

As a special addition to this vinyl package, the original CD album art has been reinterpreted by artist Jay Ryan, turning the photograph on the original cover into a pop art illustration. Ryan is the founder of the Skokie-based screenprint poster workshop, The Bird Machine, Inc.

Bird describes the album as, "when the everyday becomes incredulous to you". He relates this as a feeling he experienced in 2000 when walking through a roughed-up neighborhood in his hometown of Chicago. Bird was thinking of the direction of his next album when "everything got really strange-feeling …everything became really slow". Andrew Bird had entered a state of mind he refers to as the "swimming hour".

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Garth Brooks Coming Out of Retirement

Garth Brooks is coming out of retirement and he announced a deal with Wynn at The Encore Theater in Las Vegas that will find the chart topping star performing concerts at the venue beginning on December 11, 2009.

Here is the official announcement: The Chairman of the Board and CEO of Wynn Resorts describes the first time he saw Brooks perform for friends: "Everything about Garth's performances--his artistry, the range of his voice and connection with his audience--is something that I haven't seen since the Rat Pack. In show business, for a single performer to lift an entire audience emotionally to the point where they pray it doesn't end, is an extraordinary and unique thing that only a few gifted people can do. But that is what I experienced when I saw Garth on stage, alone with his guitar, doing a history of his personal journey in music. I watched a man create instant love in real time, right before my eyes. Now we have the privilege at Wynn and Encore in Las Vegas to share this extraordinary, intimate experience with everyone," says Wynn.

"Steve Wynn has done what I thought was impossible. He has given me a chance to sing again for the people, while at the same time never missing a day with my children," says Brooks. "I am naturally nervous, but it feels good to be out from under the low ceiling of 'retirement' I put on myself."

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Flaming Lips to Cover Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon

Track-by-track reinterpretation features Henry Rollins and Peaches.

According to an L.A. Times report, the Flaming Lips are set to follow-up their life- (and death)-affirming LP Embryonic with a full-album redo of Pink Floyd's gazillion-selling 1973 psych-rock classic Dark Side of the Moon.

The Lips version of Dark Side is a collaboration with the band Stardeath and White Dwarfs (which includes Wayne Coyne's nephew Dennis Coyne as a member), and features guest spots from Henry Rollins and Peaches. It will most probably be an iTunes-only release.

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ROB ZOMBIE: New Album Pushed Back To 2010

Rob Zombie's fourth solo studio album, "Hellbilly Deluxe 2: Noble Jackals, Penny Dreadfuls and the Systematic Dehumanization of Cool", has been pushed back to " an undetermined 2010 date" from the previously announced November 17 (via Geffen Records). No reason was given for the delay.

"Hellbilly Deluxe" was the name of Zombie's first and most successful solo outing, issued back in 1998.

"The plan was always to make this kind of like the sequel to 'Hellbilly Deluxe', but I didn't want to force it," Zombie recently told AOL's Noisecreep. "I always figure records dictate their own journey. You might say, 'Oh, we're going to write the heaviest thing ever.' But you get in there and, you know, you might write things that aren't heavy that are great, so you kind of go with it. But this one seems like a great follow-up to that record."

"The record's really varied, just like the first one," Zombie says of the new CD. "There are huge, epic songs with 100-piece orchestras. And then there's something like 'What,' which is just the four of us in a garage literally playing live together and making a big noise."

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SCORPIONS Working On 12 New Songs

Veteran German hard rockers SCORPIONS recently spent time in the studio with Swedish producers Mikael "Nord" Andersson and Martin Hansen (the team behind THE RASMUS' "Dead Letters" CD) recording their new album for an early 2010 release.

"We are working on 12 songs at the moment," guitarist Mathias Jabs tells Scorps News. "Great stuff. Definitely 'Scorpionized' in sound and attitude. More towards the early Eighties."

Although SCORPIONS' new CD is tentatively due in Europe in March, a U.S. release date has yet to be pinned down. "Azoff Management [which represents SCORPIONS] is currently working on the [record] deal," Jabs says. "Simultaneous release is up to the record companies."

He adds, "The weak dollar has been a reason to delay the U.S. release in order to avoid bad imports in the 'rest' of the world, for all non-American bands in recent years."