Fantastic news for fans of that lovely brooding baritone emanating from the mouth of Leonard Cohen. The legendary Québécois songwriter “will tour with his band in Canada and the U.S. in May and in Europe in the summer, according to leonardcohenforum.com. Details will be announced in February.” Fucking awesome, considering I was like 14 the last time he toured in earnest — so I’ll be there, and I’ll pray they recreate this gem on stage:
Or you can save some cash, wait until Yom Kippur and switch out your local cantor’s sheet music with Seems So Long Ago, Nancy. All yokes aside, we hope this septuagenarian genius genuinely wants to tour and that this isn’t an old man trying to live right after being ripped off for millions by a trusted associate.
Your actual, personal experience at the modern music and/or arts festival rarely centers around the headliners. But when you look at an initial artist announcement, it’s difficult to draw your attention to anyone but the biggest names on the page. Keeping that in view, Coachella’s lineup at first glance looks somewhat suspect, with only three of the big dogs scratching me right where I itch.
Sunday’s most appealing, with the My Morning Jacket > Roger Waters’ Dark Side of the Moon couplet finishing off April’s three-day event. Though if Coachella is any bit as grueling as many patrons have expressed, I’d imagine there’s only so much gas left in the tank for the impending three-hour marathon of awesome rock > classic rock.
Still, the bands on the “undercard” look promising, and you can’t go wrong with daytime sets from Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Rilo Kiley, Spank Rock, Black Lips, The Bees, Akron/Family, MGMT, Gogol Bordello, Les Savy Fav and scores (literally!) more. But no matter what you think of the lineup, you gotta believe that even if it’s just for one day, that can’t be a bad attempt at seeing some good music.
So what are your thoughts? Enough to drag you out to the middle of nowhere?
Day One of this year’s Austin City Limits festival brought me to the WaMu tent for about a half-hour of the first Belizean band to every play the event. I’d never heard of Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective before that day, but I left the tent with a profound respect for this musician, his band and his style of music.
Andy Palacio died at the early age of 47 in his native Belize over the weekend. The cause of death was a massive and extensive stroke to the brain, a heart attack and respiratory failure due to the previous two conditions.
Producers Ivan Duran and Jacob Edgar had this to say about the man who almost single-handedly resurrected Garifuna music: “In the Garifuna culture the death of a loved one is an opportunity to celebrate their memory and rejoice in having been blessed to have had them in your life. We feel so fortunate to have known this incredible individual and we mourn the loss of truly great man.”
And celebrate we will — here’s a clip from the 2007 Dunya Festival in the Netherlands of Palacio with legendary Garifuna singer Paul Nabor:
Record company executives and the RIAA for far too long have turned a blind eye to the pandemic that’s been tearing apart the integrity of the music industry.
Album sales have dwindled and increasing ticket prices have seen many live performances scantily attended, leaving many musicians to secretly take matters into their own hands. You may have noticed several well-known hip hop stars running around the stage with more energy than ever, hitting notes they’ve never hit, producing records at inhuman paces. And we now [allegedly] know why — steroids and human growth hormones, according to the Albany Times-Union:
The names of R&B music star Mary J. Blige, along with rap artists 50 Cent, Timbaland and Wyclef Jean, and award-winning author and producer Tyler Perry, have emerged in an Albany-based investigation of steroids trafficking that has already rocked the professional sports world, according to confidential sources.
How deep-rooted is the problem? Will the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hold public hearings and drag half the hip-hop genre before Congress? Will black activists rise up to claim that Eminem is getting a free pass while 50 Cent is being raked over the coals? Can you imagine any music critics voting these stars into the R&B Hall of Fame? I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to throw an asterisk on every single setlist from the past 10 years.
Radiohead tonight will debut many of the songs off In Rainbows in front of a live audience on London’s Brick Lane. Fans have been queuing up outside the intimate venue — Rough Trade East — for the free show, waiting for their chance to be among the first people to witness the new material in a live setting.
But we’ll all have our chance as well. In addition to outdoor screens and speakers for the poor folks waiting all day who can’t get in to the small shop, Radiohead will once again be turning to the ever-popular webcast. Radiohead seems to be giving overrated presidential candidate Ron Paul a run for his money at having their rabid supporters spend the most time on the Internet.
Streaming a live performance seems like a real no-brainer to us, a total Schiavo, and while other bands have tried to make webcasting an industry standard, maybe it’ll take the support of these beneficent innovators to actually make it stick. So if the show starts at 8 over there, I guess that’s 3 pm Eastern here in the States, right? Man, 28 years old and time zones still fuck me up beyond all comprehension.
AFTERNOON UPDATE: “Radiohead have been forced at the last minute to change the venue for their free London show from the Rough Trade East record shop to the adjoining venue, 93 Feet East.
On the advice of the police and the local council, it was decided to change the venue to the larger one in the interests of public safety and due to the size of the crowd that turned up for the event. Rough Trade and the band apologise for any inconvenience caused.
Allocated wristbands only remain valid for the new venue. Doors open at 9pm prompt. There will be no admittance to anyone without a wristband and there will be no screens or speakers outside the venue - however the show will still be webcast from www.radiohead.tv!”
It may only be one night, but we’d like to welcome back the band that every blogger is required by law to fellate virtually because they’re that damn good. Off the road for far too long, My Morning Jacket just announced its return to New York for what looks like a one-night engagement at Radio City Music Hall.
You’ll likely see the above image on every music blog you visit, and we encourage you to try not to get terribly aroused every time you see it. We know, it’s tough.
Pre-Ed Sullivan even: “Fifteen previously unreleased Beatles tracks recorded live in 1962 have been acquired by Fuego Entertainment, a production company which plans to release them in conjunction with the Echo Vista Group. The new tracks mark the first time the classic Beatles lineup was captured live on tape, shortly after Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the band’s drummer.” [via CMJ]
With apologies to Chris Harford, it’s Chris Robinson that fronts the real Band of Changes. And today the oft-evolving Black Crowes — with Luther Dickinson affixed in the latest incarnation of the lineup surrounding the Brothers Robinson — announced they’ll be playing smaller venues for a run of one-time engagements.
Was the end of that last sentence oxymoronic enough for ya? Regardless of semantics, the Black Crowes sent out a note that they’ll be playing the new album, Warpaint, in its entirety on stage during a special run of “One Night Only” shows. The Crowes will play the material from its first new album in seven years (due out March 4th) at smaller theaters before moving on to “songs from their catalog and selected surprises.” That whole deal sounds pretty sweet to us.
“One Night Only” tour dates:
Mar. 02 - Sayreville, NJ - Starland Ballroom
Mar. 04 - New York, NY - The Fillmore @ Irving Plaza
Mar. 05 - Boston, MA - Somerville Theatre
Mar. 07 - Chicago, IL - Park West
Mar. 09 - Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle
Mar. 15 - Austin, TX - SXSW @ Stubb’s BBQ (not part of the “One Night Only” shows)
Mar. 19 - San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore
Mar. 20 - Los Angeles, CA - The Avalon
Check out the full press release after the jump…but we summed it up fine.
Stephen Malkmus and his equal-opportunity band of Jicks will release Real Emotional Trash on March 4th (Matador Records). That, we already knew. But Pitchfork today has advanced the story, letting us know that two weeks after the release, Malkmus & Co. will be hitting the pavement, er, road. Ah fuck, I just broke my New Year’s resolution of no more bad music puns. Read on for dates…
Some days they giveth gifts, and sometimes, on that same day they taketh, too.
If Oscar Peterson wasn’t the greatest piano player, he’s certainly on the short list.
