Saturday, October 17, 2009

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."

Vinyl Collective Restocks

BON IVER “Blood Bank” LP
BON IVER “For Emma, Forever Ago” LP
BY THE END OF TONIGHT “A Tribute to Tigers” LP
BY THE END OF TONIGHT/ TERA MELOS “Complex Full of Phantoms” LP
DAMIEN JURADO “Caught In The Trees” LP
ENVY “Abyssal” LP
ENVY “All The Footprints You’ve Ever Left” LP
ENVY “Compiled Fragments 1997-2003? LP
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY ìAll Of A Suddenî dbl LP
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY ìThe Earthî dbl LP
EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY ìThose Who Tell Us The Truthî LP
GRAILS “Burning Off Impurities” LP
I LOVE YOU BUT I’VE CHOSEN DARKNESS “Fear Is On Our Side” LP
LIGHTNING DUST “Infinite Light” LP
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. “Josephine” LP
MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC CO. ìFading Trailsî LP
MONO “One Step More And You Die / New York Soundtracks” dbl LP
MONO “Walking Cloud and Deep Red Sky” LP
MONO & WORLDíS END GIRLFRIEND ìPalmless Prayer/Mass Murder Refrain” dbl LP
OKKERVIL RIVER “Don’t Fall In Love With Everyone” LP
OKKERVIL RIVER “Down the River of Golden Dreams” LP
OKKERVIL RIVER “The Stage Names” LP
OKKERVIL RIVER “The Stand Ins” LP
ONEIDA “Rated O” triple LP
STEPHEN O’MALLEY “Keep an Eye Out!” LP orange vinyl
SUFJAN STEVENS “Greetings From Michigan” dbl LP
SUFJAN STEVENS “Illinois” dbl LP
SUFJAN STEVENS “Seven Swans” LP
SUNSET RUBDOWN “Random Spirit Lover” LP
WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS “These Four Walls” LP
YOUNG WIDOWS “Old Wounds” LP
ZERO BOYS “Vicious Circle” LP

Stop by www.vinylcollective.com for some great collectible vinyl records!

This Date In Music History-October 17

This Date In Music History-October 17

Birthdays:

Rico Rodrigues - The Specials (1934)
Alan Howard - Tremeloes (1941)
Jim Seals - Seals & Croft (1941)
Gary Puckett - Gary Puckett & The Union Gap (1942)
Jim Tucker - Turtles (1946)
David St Hubbins - Spinal Tap (1947)
Alan Jackson (1958)
Ziggy Marley - Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers (1968)
Eminem (1972)
Wyclef Jean - The Fugees (1972)
Chris Kirkpatrick - *NSYNC (1977)


They Are Missed:

The late Cozy Cole ("Topsy II") was born in 1909 (died January 31, 1981).

In 1972, Billy Williams, lead singer of the Charioteers, died in Chicago (age 61).

Singer and television presenter Tennessee Ernie Ford ("Sixteen Tons") died of liver failure in 1991. In the 60’s hosted a daytime talk show, The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show on the ABC television network.

Born today in 1933, Floyd Cramer, country piano player. Worked with Elvis Presley on "Heartbreak Hotel" and other hits. Cramer died on December 31, 1997.

Chris Acland drummer with UK indie band Lush committed suicide in 1996 (age 30)

Thomas Durden, who wrote the lyrics to "Heartbreak Hotel" died in 1999 (age 79). Durden had read a newspaper account of a man who had committed suicide, the man had left a note saying, ''I walk a lonely street,'' and Durden used the phrase as the basis for the Elvis hit "Heartbreak Hotel."

Songwriter and composer Jay Livingston died of pneumonia in 2001. Best known for writing hits with Ray Evans for Doris Day, ("Whatever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)" and Nat King Cole, ("Mona Lisa").

Derek Bell, instrumentalist in the Irish folk group The Chieftains, died of cardiac arrest in Phoenix, Arizona in 2002.

Singer Teresa Brewer died in 2007 (age 76). She was one of the most popular US pop singers of the 1950s scoring hits such as "Gonna Get Along Without Ya Now" and "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall." She also sang with Tony Bennett, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie and Wynton Marsalis.

Four Tops singer Levi Stubbs died at his Detroit home in 2008 (age 72). The group signed with Motown Records in 1963 and produced 20 Top 40 hits over the following 10 years, making music history with other acts in Berry Gordy's Motown stable.


History:

The Drifters started a three week run at #1 in 1960 with "Save The Last Dance For Me."

Dion and the Belmonts split up in 1960.

The Beatles performed on TV for the first time in 1962, on the British program People and Places.

The Zombies' "She's Not There" was released in 1964.

Manfred Mann started a two week run at #1 in 1964 with "Do Wah Diddy Diddy."



The musical "Hair" made its premiere off-Broadway at New York's Public Theatre in 1967.

In 1968, Jose Feliciano, the blind Latino singer-guitarist, issues his controversial, bluesy rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" on RCA Records. He first performed it at a 1968 World Series game between the Tigers and Cardinals. The fans booed Feliciano's rendition.

In 1969, Led Zeppelin began its third US tour at New York's Carnegie Hall. It also released "Led Zeppelin II" which many feel is destined to become the heavy-metal Bible.

Eric Clapton's "After Midnight" was released in 1970.

The Jackson Five started a five-week run at #1 in 1970 with "I'll Be There," the group's fourth #1 of 1970. Motown records claimed the group had sold over 10 million records during the year.

In 1977, "Street Survivors" was released by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Three days later vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines (Steve's sister) and road manager Dean Kilpatrick were killed when their plane crashed in Gillsburg, MS. The other four members of the band were seriously injured but survived the crash.

Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand record "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" in 1978.

Frankie Valli hits #1 in 1978 with the title track from "Grease." It's the biggest hit of his solo career and will go on to sell over seven million copies.

Fleetwood Mac's two record set Tusk, an experimental set of songs that cost the band $1 million to record, was released on Warner Brothers Records in 1979.

"Sid And Nancy," the film biography of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen, opened nationally in 1986.

Lisa Lisa and Cold Cut went to #1 in 1987 with "Lost In Emotion."

The Barenaked Ladies went to #1 in 1998 with "One Week."

In 1999, Bruce Springsteen and the reunited E Street Band play the first of four nights at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The concert was the first event in the building.

Usher and Alicia Keys were at #1 in 2004 with "My Boo." The hit gave Usher his fourth #1 of 2004.