HT fave Beck performed last night at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, California for his first full show of the year. Beck and his band, minus drummer Joey Waronker who’s on tour with Thom Yorke, performed a mix of songs from throughout his career, a handful of covers and the live debut of songs off his Song Reader book of sheet music, aided by a drum machine.
The singer-songwriter paid tribute to the recently deceased George Jones by covering She Still Thinks I Care. Beck also worked in bits of Petty’s Free Fallin’ and The Humpty Dance by Digital Underground into the show. You can download audio of the whole show HERE.
Two videos of Song Reader debuts have surfaced on YouTube….
The always innovative Beck added an old spin to new music last December when he released a book of sheet music containing new original tunes called Song Reader. Since Song Reader came out, its songs have been interpreted by a who’s who of musicians, but not by Beck himself. According to Spin, that will change on July 4.
Beck will team will an all-star cast that includes Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, Franz Ferdinand, the Staves, the Guillemots, Michael Kiwanuka, James Yorkston, Beth Orton, Charlotte Gainsbourg and the Pictish Trail to perform tracks from Song Reader at London’s The Barbican on July 4. Spin reports that more acts will be announced later. The house band backing these wonderful musicians will be made up of drummer Seb Rochford, bassist Tom Herbert, and guitarist Dave Okumu under the musical direction of Ed Harcourt and David Coulter.
As we reported earlier, Beck will perform a handful of shows in the Northeast this summer.
UPDATE: Yesterday we reported on the dates Beck announced around his Newport appearance. There were conflicting reports between his Facebook page and his official site about the format of the shows. Today, Beck has clarified the formats. He’ll perform acoustic in Newport and Wantagh and then electric in Boston and Brooklyn. None of the shows will be solo performances. Beck mentioned he’ll update the format of the Portland (Maine) show soon.
HT fave Beck had already been announced as one of the headliners for this year’s Newport Folk Festival, but that won’t be the only gig he plays in the Northeast this summer. Beck has just revealed three additional dates that will take place in Portland, Maine; Boston and Brooklyn. In addition Beck will perform as part of the Jones Beach date of the AmericanaramA traveling festival on July 27th.
The singer-songwriter’s brief Northeast tour starts with a set at the Jones Beach AmericanaramA date with Wilco, Bob Dylan and Ryan Bingham on July 27th. After that, Beck will offer an acoustic performance at Newport on July 28th. He’ll also play a special acoustic set at the State Theatre in Portland, Maine on July 30th. Then, on August 2nd, Beck will appear at Boston’s Bank Of America Pavilion before the run concludes on August 4th at Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park.
Here’s the full list of shows and on-sale dates…
July 27 Wantagh, NY – Jones Beach – AmericanaramA (special acoustic set) – on sale May 4
July 28 Newport, RI – Newport Folk Festival (special acoustic set) – on sale now
July 30 Portland, ME -State Theatre – on sale Friday, May 3
August 2 Boston, MA – Bank of America Pavilion – on sale Friday, May 3
August 4 Brooklyn, NY – Celebrate Brooklyn at Prospect Park – on sale Friday May 10
The longest festival lineup announcement in history has continued over the past week as Newport Folk Festival organizers are starting to reveal the headliners for this year’s fest. Beck will finally make his Newport Folk debut at the 2013 edition of the long-running festival, which is set to take place at Fort Adams State Park on July 26th – 28th in Newport, Rhode Island.
The Avett Brothers and Feist join Beck towards the top of the stacked lineup which also includes Elizabeth Mitchell and You Are My Flower, The Milk Carton Kids, Phosphorescent, Sarah Jarosz, Amanda Palmer, Old Crow Medicine Show, Berklee Gospel & Roots Choir, Blake Mills, Justin Townes Earle, Cold Specks, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Dawn McCarthy, Colin Meloy, The Felice Brothers, Father John Misty, Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers and many other acts.
Early Bird, 3-day, 2-day passes, individual day passes for Saturday, and individual day passes for Sunday are all sold out. Single day tickets for Friday passes are still available.
Late last year Beck released Song Reader, a book containing sheet music for 20 originals as well as plenty of artwork. Over the last few months artists from nearly every genre have interpreted the tunes. Today, Beck launched a website in support of Song Reader.
Visitors can download a PDF of the Song Reader track Old Shanghai and share their interpretations. You need to connect your Facebook account to the site in order to participate. By voting for your favorites you can help populate the site with the “most loved” versions of each Song Reader tune.
In what appears to be a winning combination, the new movie Jeff, Who Lives at Home not only sports a 74% fresh tomato at Rotten Tomatoes, plays host to in-their-prime funny guys Jason Segal and Ed Helms, and has a great title, but it also includes a top notch new Beck single that sounds as if it’s from the Sea Change era. Looks like we may have our first solid comedy of 2012.
After tackling the likes of the Velvet Underground, Leonard Cohen, Skip Spence and INXS, for the latest installment of his ongoing Record Club series; Beck has decided to take on Yanni’s seminal classic Live At The Acropolis with help from Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Tortoise. The album, which came out the same day as Mellow Gold, peaked at number five on the Billboard Top 200, and reached number one on the New Age charts. Here’s the first track from the album, Santorini…
While Femme Fatale, which appears on 1967′s The Velvet Underground & Nico, is written about Edie Sedgwick – feel free to think about your favorite Femme Fatale as you listen to this week’s covers. Maybe it’s even someone in your life, has anyone written you down as #37 in her book?
The Contestants:
Beck: Last Summer, Beck announced his Record Club project where he would bring in guest musicians and record entire album covers in one day. The first album they did was The Velvet Underground & Nico. He has since also recorded: Songs of Leonard Cohen, Skip Spence’s Oar, and they are currently still posting new tracks from INXS’s Kick every Thursday. Source: Record Club
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Video of the recording of Record Club:
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
Beck’s Record Club rolls on to album #4 with the release of Guns In The Sky off of INXS’ massively successful Kick LP. For his covers of the songs from Kick, Beck has enlisted the help of Liars, Annie Clark and Daniel Hart from St. Vincent, Sergio Dias from the legendary Brazilian band Os Mutantes, as well as RC veteran Brian Lebarton. Let’s take a peak at Guns In The Sky…
In other Beck-related news, Jambands.com reports that Newfangled Wasteland – a Beck tribute band made up of Trevor Garrod (TLG), Steve Adams (ALO), Dave Brogan and Chris Haugen – will perform at the Connecticut Yankee in San Francisco on April 24 and at the High Sierra Music Festival on July 1. Check out the group’s MySpace site for a ten-minute version of Golden Age and a stirring take on Scarecrow.
As we previously reported, during their swing through California earlier this summer Wilco stopped by Beck’s recording studio to lend a hand to his Record Club project – which has already featured albums by The Velvet Underground and Leonard Cohen. For the third installment, the combo took on Skip Spence’s cult masterpiece Oar. Here’s Beck, Wilco and the lovely Leslie Feist with the album’s opening track, Little Hands…
Last month we brought you news of Beck’s latest project called the Record Club, where the musician planned on teaming up with whomever he could grab to head into the studio and record an album by an artist of his choice in one day. The initial installment brought us Mr. Hansen’s take on the Velvet Underground’s self-titled debut. For the second volume of the project, the alt-rocker has recruited Wilco – who stopped by his recording studio on their recent L.A.-swing to tackle Oar, the revered cult classic from former Jefferson Airplane drummer and Moby Graper founder Skip Spence.
Finally, while rumors of the demise of the one-time blog buzz band CYHSY seemed to have been greatly exaggerated, the band’s from man Alec Ounsworth will release his solo debut Mo Beauty on October 20. Recorded at the famed Piety St. recording studio, the album is said to have a distinct New Orleans flavor thanks in part to Ounsworth’s all-star backing band that included George Porter Jr., Stanton Moore and Robert Walter.
Beck has always had a knack for keeping his fans on their toes – whether its been his evolving musical style or quietly teaming with Danger Mouse for last year’s Modern Guilt album. For his latest project, everyone’s favorite Scientologist/musician has recruited a veritable who’s who of indie-cool for something he’s dubbed Record Club – where he and his pals will head into the studio for one-day unrehearsed sessions to rerecord classic albums.
According to the singer’s website, after some deliberation the musicians settled on tackling The Velvet Underground’s debut album The Velvet Underground & Nico in lieu of The Digital Underground’s highly underrated gem Sex Packets. The project, which coincides with the relaunch of his website, just unveiled the collective’s first video for the album’s lead track Sunday Morning, check it out…
Beck & Co. will release a new song each week from the album, so keep checking back for your favorite tracks.
For his latest jaunt to promote Invisible Baby, Duo/GRAB/Solo Artist Extraordinary Marco Benevento has put two extremely different trios together to play seven shows. Frequent trio members Reed Mathis and Andrew Barr join Marco for shows on November 7 (Hartford, CT), 8 (New York City, NY) and 10 (Burlington, VT), while the pianist leads Slip bassist Marc Friedman and JFJO drummer for gigs on the 12 (Boston, MA), 13 (Northampton, MA), 14 (Fall River, MA) and 16 (Philadelphia, PA).
Here’s a batch of stories to help your Friday fly by…
Finally, Ron Wood’s money hangups are the latest snag in the long and winding road to a reunion of The Faces. According to Music-News.com the other members of the band are disturbed by Ronnie’s financial demands and insistence on bringing his 20-year-old girlfriend on the road. Drama!
On Saturday night, local boy done good Beck Hansen came home for his first-ever gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Towards the middle of Beck’s set, he was joined by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by David Campbell – the troubadour’s father. Our buddy SG attended this memorable gig and came back with quite the souvenir: an outstanding recording of the show.
He’s shared the recording with us, and of course we’re sharing it with you!
1. Loser 2. Girl 3. Nausea 4. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat 5. Minus
6. Qué Onda Guero 7. Nicotine & Gravy
8. Mixed Bizness / I Want to Take You Higher Medley
9. Devils Haircut 10. Timebomb 11. Soul Of A Man
12. Gamma Ray 13. Hell Yes 14. Black Tambourine
15. Modern Guilt* 16. Paper Tiger* 17. Think I’m In Love*
18. Missing* 19. Lonesome Tears* 20. Replica*
21. Round the Bend* 22. Chemtrails*
23. Where It’s At / High 5 (Rock the Catskills) Medley 24. E-Pro
* With the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra conducted by Beck’s father, David Campbell.
As you may remember from our three-part B List series, we’re disturbingly enamored with stage setlists. Just today, our new friends at Rolling Stone posted a kickass photo of Beck preparing the official setlist for his tour opener in Reno.
[Photo by Chris Tuite for Rolling Stone]
Be sure to check out the entire article for more on Beck’s tour, including his scrapped lighting ideas and his collaborations with opener Devendra Banhart.
with help from Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) and Tortoise. The album, which came out the same day as 
, peaked at number five on the Billboard Top 200, and reached number one on the New Age charts. Here’s the first track from the album, Santorini…
LP. For his covers of the songs from Kick, Beck has enlisted the help of Liars, Annie Clark and Daniel Hart from St. Vincent, Sergio Dias from the legendary Brazilian band Os Mutantes, as well as RC veteran Brian Lebarton. Let’s take a peak at Guns In The Sky…
, the revered cult classic from former Jefferson Airplane drummer and Moby Graper founder 
album. For his latest project, everyone’s favorite Scientologist/musician has recruited a veritable who’s who of indie-cool for something he’s dubbed Record Club – where he and his pals will head into the studio for one-day unrehearsed sessions to rerecord classic albums.
in lieu of 
. The project, which coincides with the relaunch of his website, just unveiled the collective’s first video for the album’s lead track Sunday Morning, check it out…
