HT faves Barika, the Vermont-based band who blend Craig Myers’ Kamel N’Goni work with Western influences, are currently working on their second album. The group has launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the rest of the recording process, mixing and mastering. Funders who back the project can receive t-shirts, albums and even a N’Goni lesson from Myers depending on how much they contribute. Barika hopes to release the album in early May.
Here’s six links to help you get over the hump this work week…
Finally, Eric Clapton has revealed details of new album, entitled “Old Sock,” which is due out March 12th. Old Sock features two new originals and a collection of covers that Clapton loves such as Further On Down The Road, Goodnight Irene and Peter Tosh’s Till Your Well Runs Dry. Special guests include Paul McCartney, J.J. Cale, Chaka Khan and Steve Winwood. CoS has more details.
In a world’s colliding moment for this writer, Ryan Adams has revealed that he will produce the new Lemonheads’ studio effort. For the upcoming record, Lemonheads head honcho Evan Dando will re-team with the band’s co-founder, Ben Deily, who separated from the group back in 1989. Plus, alt-rocker Juliana Hatfield – who has a long history with Dando and the Lemonheads’ brand – will play bass.
Adams’ tweet about his new behind-the-boards gig mentions he’ll bring the Lemonheads “back to the punker sounds” of the band’s early days. We can’t wait to hear the results.
Here’s a handful of stories to keep you entertained this hump day…
Finally, Primus has extended their 3D tour until the end of the year as the Les Claypool-led band will play a four-show New Year’s Run in California. The holiday action starts on December 27th at The Balboa Theatre in San Diego and moves to L.A.’s The Wiltern on December 29th before concluding with a pair of performances at The Warfield in San Francisco on December 30th and New Year’s Eve.
Coachella promoters Goldenvoice have been working with the city of Indio on a long-term pact which will keep the festival in the California desert town through 2030. This potential deal also would give Goldenvoice the right to stage an additional two festivals besides the two Coachella weekends and the Stagecoach festival. The deal would also grant the promoter a larger capacity for Coachella. Head over to the L.A. Times for a full rundown of the details behind Goldenvoice’s potential deal with Indio.
Here’s links to six more stories of interest this hump day…
Finally, while the Bridge School Benefit lineup for this year’s concerts came out over the weekend, we’ve already got our first addition. HT fave Ray LaMontagne has been added to the event which takes place on October 20th and 21st at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, Calif.
Classic jam-rockers Moonalice played a huge role in the digital music revolution as the first band without a label to achieve one million downloads of a song from its own servers, direct-from-artist. In fact, the group’s It’s 4:20 Somewhere track has been downloaded over two million times, making it the first multiplatinum track to be downloaded directly from a band’s own website. Moonalice has donated their digital logs to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Library and Archives.
“We are honored that the digital logs for ‘It’s 4:20 Somewhere’ are to be included in the Library and Archives historical collections,” said Moonalice’s Roger McNamee in a statement. “Ever since the beginning of pop music, technology has enabled artists to change the world, whether it was the introduction of LP records, stereo sound or subwoofers,” he continued. “Today we have the iPhone, the iPad and social networks that allow artists to create and distribute a wide variety of music-related products on their own. At no other time in the history of music have the creative opportunities offered by technology afforded artists such a bounty of innovative ways to explore their craft and share their music.”
Here’s six other stories of note this hump day…
Lee Boys’ new LP to feat. cameos from Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring
The Bad Plus reveal details about their brand-new album – Made Possible
Finally, Pennsylvania “bluegrassy” act Cabinet will host CABINET SESSIONS, a series of recording sessions at Windmill Agency Studios in northeast Pennsylvania, from Sept. 20 to Sept. 23. The band will be recording their second album and will bring a limited number of fans into the studio environment because they feel that “they play their best in front of their loyal fans, feeding off that energy.” A few tickets remain and are available through Pledge Music.
Comedian and talk show host Stephen Colbert is following up last year’s StePhest Colbchella by curating a second edition of the mini-fest and this time around it will take place on the retired aircraft carrier the USS Intrepid. Dubbed StePhest Colbchella ’012, the multi-band event will take place on Friday, August 10, featuring the Flaming Lips, fun., Grizzly Bear, Santigold and Grandmaster Flash. The resulting performances will air on the following week’s episodes of The Colbert Report.
Before we leave you, Fantasy Records has just announced a reissue of the famed Jerry Garcia / Merl Saunders Live at Keystone recordings. Dubbed The Keystone Companions / The Complete 1973 Fantasy Recordings, this four-disc set, scheduled for a September 25th release, assembles the original recordings and presents them, remastered, in the order in which the songs were performed at those two shows. The collection includes seven previously unreleased tracks, a special booklet featuring vintage photos, liner notes by Grateful Dead Hour host David Gans, a poster, a coaster, a pin and “scratchbook” (replicating the design of the original album’s promotional matchbooks).
Back in December Wilco embarked on a five-show romp through their hometown billed as the “Incredible Shrinking Tour of Chicago.” Yesterday, the band released an iPad book that includes a collection of photos, show posters and more documenting the run. You can download the book free-of-charge through iTunes. Wilco has also shared a Spanish version of Dawned On Me.
Here’s links to five stories of note this hump day…
Finally, Robert F.X. Sillerman transformed the live music industry in the ’90s by snatching up many major promoters across the country for his SFX outfit that eventually became what we know now as Live Nation. The New York Times has posted a fascinating article detailing Sillerman’s efforts to revive SFX by spending $1 billion to acquire independent rave and dance party promoters with the aim of folding as many as 50 small companies into a more powerful big corporation.
Quintessential Grateful Dead tribute act Dark Star Orchestra are throwing their inaugural Dark Star Jubilee festival at Legend Valley in Thornville, Ohio on August 31 – September 2. In addition to a show a night from DSO, the band will welcome 7 Walkers, the Mickey Hart Band, Keller Williams, Jorma Kaukonen, Infamous Stringdusters, Dumpstaphunk, Donna The Buffalo, Perpetual Groove, Boombox, Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, Cornmeal, the Donna Jean Godchaux Band and more to Dark Star Jubilee. All in all, that’s three former members of the Dead who will participate.
Finally, up-and-coming acts Big Mean Sound Machine, Beat The Grid, and JSAN will play the first-ever Ithaca Bowl event at Brooklyn Bowl in NYC on Tuesday, May 22. The event has been assembled by promoter Brad Tucker to bring together Ithaca College alums living in NYC and is free-of-charge to those who attend/join the show’s Facebook page or shows an Ithaca College ID at the door.
Hot off the group’s big night at The Grammys, Bon Iver will tape a performance for this season of the iconic television show Austin City Limits at The Moody Theater on April 25th according to the show’s blog. Indie pop band The Shins will also appear on this season of ACL as they’ll be at The Moody Theater on March 18. Steve Martin and his Steep Canyon Rangers band will be featured on this weekend’s episode of Austin City Limits.
Here’s six stories of interest to help you over the hump…
Finally, Furthur / RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti has scored a medical hit by creating a device to help people suffering from sleep apnea. Reuters profiles Chimenti’s product and explains how the keyboardist came up with the Gecko nasal pad.
On Tuesday night’s episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Republican Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann was one of the host’s guests and came out to the tune of Fishbone’s Lyin’ Ass Bitch as performed by the show’s house band The Roots. Of course Bachmann wasn’t familiar with the song and didn’t realize the intro music was a slight until every music blog wrote about the situation yesterday. Fallon wasn’t exactly pleased with the bashing and tweeted that Questlove “was grounded” and apologized to Bachmann. Today, Village Voice music editor Maura Johnston penned a wise piece on the fracas and correctly mentioned that the other candidates wouldn’t have been subjected to being called a bitch (or an equivalent) on national television.
I’m all for snark, and I’m certainly no fan of Bachmann, but Questlove was out of line on this one and put his boss, who has been extremely supportive of the drummer, in a bad spot. Plus, he’s making me feel empathy for Bachmann and that’s just not cool Questo.
Finally, as Jeff mentioned in Tour Dates, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band revealed they will hit the road hard in 2012 in support of a new album. The big question on our minds is how do you fill Clarence Clemons’ role? Billboard put the question to E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren who replied, “I know, as always, he’ll do something special and classy as he’s always done, but that’s a real rough thing.” I tend to think Springsteen won’t bring in another horn player and will find a different way to emulate The Big Man’s sound. We shall see…
The String Cheese Incident will embark on their first tour since 2007 later this month and iClips will come along with them to webcast five shows from the run. iClips’ first SCI broadcast will take place on November 25 from the band’s tour opener in Asheville and then iClips will team up with String Cheese to webcast the last four shows of the tour on December 7 – 10. You can pre-order the broadcasts for $7.99 a piece until the day of the show when the price jumps to $11.99. The price for all three evenings of the Chicago run, which takes place from December 8 – 10, is $14.99 in advance and then $17.99 come December 8. A big discount comes in if you order all five webcasts for $21.99. Head over to iClips for more information or to purchase a webcast or five.
Finally, indie-jammers moe. may love improv but they usually don’t perform without a net, ie. they guide their jams and segues through the use of setlists. However that won’t be the case at tonight’s show at Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where the group will “throw out the playbook and reinvent improvisation, calling the show as they go” according to a post on the official moe. Facebook page. We look forward to hearing the results.
HT co-founder Slade “Ace Cowboy” Sohmer has spent the last year-plus working on the fantastic next generation news site HyperVocal. Slade and the HV team has always had a knack for finding unintentionally hilarious headlines from around the world and the latest part of the HyperVocal Network highlights these Headlines That Sucks. HeadlinesThatSuck.com gives readers a chance to “put a little polish on that turd” by submitting punchlines for each headline on HTS.
We’ve already wasted some of our work day poking around HTS and laughing, so we wanted to give our readers a heads up on Slade’s latest project.
Finally, the Zac Brown Band curated last weekend’s Southern Ground festival in Charleston, South Carolina. While we highlighted My Morning Jacket’s sizzling version of Off The Record from the event in yesterday’s video post, Jambands.com hipped us to some of the action that took place during the ZBB’s set of covers. Not only did Warren “The Hardest Working Man in the Jam Scene” Haynes sit in on Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues and Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, but the Zac Brown Band showed off their cover of Ain’t Life Grand by jam titans Widespread Panic. Take a look.
If yesterday was “tour dates release day”, today is “f’awesome video release day.” There were so many great clips that dropped this afternoon that we are doing away with the normal link dump format for today’s column to present some of the fantastic videos we’ve found.
Our first clip comes from the Pearl Jam Twenty documentary. PBS will be airing the Cameron Crowe-directed film on October 21st. Watch as Chris Cornell explains the camaraderie between Seattle bands that led to the formation of Temple of the Dog…
Next up, we’ve got Wilco’s visit to the NYC television show Talk Stoop…
We don’t envy Bruce Springsteen and the members of the E Street Band. The late Clarence Clemons cannot easily be replaced and his signature parts on songs such as Thunder Road, Born To Run and Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out helped make those tunes classics. At the same time, the members of this band love playing together. A decision on the group’s future is coming soon according to E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt.
Van Zandt told reporters at the opening of Paul McCartney’s ballet that the E Street Band will be meeting soon to figure out a gameplan. If we can make a suggestion – how about Sexy Sax Man?
Finally, the 2012 nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame have been announced and once again Rush has been shafted. Luckily, there are worthy acts this time around including Guns N Roses, The Faces, Heart, The Cure and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Only five of the 15 nominated bands will make the cut and will be inducted on April 14 in Cleveland.
Petty Fest returns to NYC this October for “Two Nights To Get Drunk And Celebrate The Songs Of Tom Petty.” The action takes place at the Music Hall of Williamsburg on October 5 and the Bowery Ballroom on October 6 with a lineup that includes Norah Jones, Har Mar Superstar, Guster’s Ryan Miller, Jesse Malin, Cory Chisel and The Sheepdogs as well as “many more surprise guests.” Tickets go on sale this Thursday at Noon EDT.
Here’s a look at six other stories of note this week…
Finally, Sting will put out a four-disc box set next month that includes 45 tracks remastered by the artist himself as well as a DVD featuring previously unreleased footage from a 2005 show at Irving Plaza. Sting: 25 Years comes out on September 27 via Cherrytree/A&M Records/Universal.
Even though Sammy Hagar and Mickey Hart are putting on the bravest of faces in their latest individual interviews with Billboard and Rolling Stone respectively, you can’t help but come away from the pieces feeling like these guys would kill to be back in the bands for which they are best known. Hagar tells Billboard that both he and former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony laughed when they heard that the group’s Australian tour was cancelled before lamenting about how much he misses the Van Halen brothers. Hart refutes Bob Weir’s claim that the jort-wearing guitar player is more “current” than the drummer before telling RS that a Dead tour “is always a possibility.”
There’s nothing wrong with Chickenfoot and the latest Mickey Hart Band, but they ain’t Van Halen and the Grateful Dead. There’s a sadness in both rockers’ words, even as they laugh and try to shrug away the past. For Hagar and Hart’s sake, we hope they do get a chance to reunite with their “real” bands before it’s too late.
Finally, yesterday we showed you a solo acoustic version by Jeff Tweedy of a track off Wilco’s soon-to-be-released The Whole Love called Dawned On Me. Later in the afternoon, the group released an official video for their cover of Nick Lowe’s I Love My Label. What we love is getting to see Wilco’s famed loft in all its glory…
