Augie Meyers : Alive And Well At Lake Taco
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Neil Young's Entire Letter Home
Over the last decade, Neil Young has presented an overwhelming volume of studio albums, concert films, archival live recordings, free-form improvised guitar excursions, charity fundraisers, books, rants against modern sound-compression technology, boxed sets and Kickstarter campaigns for high-quality digital audio players. His creative spigot never seems to close.
In the 50 years since he released his first recordings, though, Young, 68, hasn't until now sat himself down in a 1940s-era Voice-o-Graph recording booth in front of a single microphone and, with the help of Jack White in his Nashville studio and "ancient electro mechanical technology," recorded a dozen favorite songs using a similar method as did early artists nearly a century ago. The album is entitled A Letter Home
and was released May 27, 2014. Listen to it below (we're guessing for a limited time). MORE HEREofficial website
The Cure's Curfew
The curfew clock struck 10 p.m. in Napa, California and the power to BottleRock's main stage was abruptly cut off.
That didn't stop Friday (May 30, 2014) night's headliners, the Cure, from continuing to play their encore. Nor did it stop the audience, after the microphones and guitar amps fell silent, from singing loudly in unison, in place of iconic frontman Robert Smith's amplified voice.
The band had already played for two-and-a-half hours, and the crowd still wanted more. MORE HERE
MORE Video HERE
official website
Questioning Pixies
Q Magazine will be grilling the Pixies for a future Cash For Questions inquisition and they want you to tell them what to ask.
If you'd like to ask a question send them via Twitter.com/Qmagazine using the hashtag #QPixies (so they can find it), via Facebook.com/Qmagazine, email them at [email protected] or simply leave your question HERE.
The deadline for questions is this Sunday June 1, 2014 at 4pm (BST).
Friday, May 30, 2014
Neil Young Voice-O-Graph Craziness
Neil Young and Jack White teamed up for a bit of show-and-tell on NBC's "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" May 12, 2014, demonstrating to the host and viewers the method by which they made Young's new album, "A Letter Home
."Young said he was already thinking about doing an album of songs that were part of his "musical roots" when White showed him the Voice-O-Graph machine.
Young released the 11-track "A Letter Home
" -- which includes songs by
Willie Nelson, Tim Hardin, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Bert Jansch, Gordon
Lightfoot and others, along with two aural "letters" to his late mother
-- on vinyl for Record Store Day; a special box set edition was released
May 27, 2014 containing both vinyl and CD copies of the album, seven vinyl
singles, a DVD documentary about making the album and more. MORE HERE & HEREofficial website
Country Portraits On Display In L.A.
There are more than 110 in Country: Portraits of an American Sound, a photo exhibit opening Saturday May 31, 2014 at the Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles.
The show, spotlighting such icons as Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, was curated by Shannon Perich of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and Tim Davis and Michael McCall of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. It's expected to travel to other cities when the Annenberg run, free to the public, ends September 28, 2014.
Country music's image and 80-year evolution are explored in a half-hour documentary accompanying the exhibit, which also features albums, posters, a slideshow, archival artifacts and a jukebox of rare audio files. MORE HERE & HERE
Sons Of Anarchy Welcomes Marilyn Manson
FX drama “Sons of Anarchy” has cast musician Marilyn Manson in a recurring role for its upcoming seventh and final season.
Manson will play Ron Tully, an imprisoned white supremacist shot-caller who Jax uses to expand his power base.
“Sons of Anarchy” returns to FX for its final season in September 2014. MORE HERE & HERE
official website
Thursday, May 29, 2014
Anna Calvi & David Byrne Create Strange Weather
Strange Weather is out July 14, 2014 via Domino. source
official website
Dolly Likes Scarlett For Biopic
Dolly Parton has revealed who she thinks might play her in a movie about her life.
The 68-year-old country singer has been in the music industry for decades and has also dipped her toe into acting over the years. Giving hints about an upcoming biopic based on her, Dolly thinks Scarlett Johansson would make a good candidate.
Dolly Parton in her prime was known for her bodacious body and her Hollywood sex appeal, so it's a no-brainer why producers want Scarlett Johansson as their leading lady. Scarlett also released an album of Tom Waits covers in 2008 entitled Anywhere I Lay My Head
. MORE HERE & HEREAlso...
Dolly Parton Makes History With New Album Blue Smoke
official website
Gourmet GWAR
Richmond, Virginia might be getting a rather messy and bloody dining experience this summer in the form of “The GWARbar”, a restaurant/beer garden located in the historic Jackson Ward. The idea came about as a way to honor one of late singer Dave Brockie’s last wishes.
The menu and cocktail list will be put together by Michael Derks (aka GWAR guitarist BalSac The Jaws O’ Death), who will also be overseeing a vision of “gourmet junk food”, including a smokehouse that will be used to craft more GWAR-B-Q and a large meat grinder for hot dogs and hamburgers.
To help make this dream become a reality you can head over to the official Indiegogo page to make your contribution. MORE HERE
official website
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
Dolly Parton's Bust Is Out
To put it simply, Dolly Parton is a force of nature. She is the single most successful female country artist of all time--selling over 100 million records--and she's living up to that title at a fabulous 68 years old. She's invincible.
BUST magazine’s June/July Summer (2014) Music Issue, features Dolly on the cover! There's an exclusive interview with the icon, in which she spills the beans on her inspiration, her childhood, and, of course, feminism.
Recently, Dolly performed live on QVC in front of a Nashville audience with new songs off her latest release “Blue Smoke
”. The QVC package included an exclusive live CD and its still available HEREShe also appeared on NBCs Today show...SEE HERE
official website
Tenacious D's Festival Supreme 2 In The Fall
Rockers Tenacious D have made a living in the rock world for their comedy-laced approach to the genre — and, of course, having Jack Black in the band helps matters.
The band’s annual Festival Supreme, which brings together comedians and musicians alike, is coming back yet again in 2014. The festival, which will take place October 25, 2014 in Los Angeles, will bring out a number of comedy heavy-hitters in addition to the usual headlining set from Tenacious D themselves.
The comedy side of the fest will include Drunk History, Cheech and Chong, Fred Armisen & Bill Hader (billed together), our friends Margaret Cho, Arj Barker, Ron Lynch and Comedy Bang Bang w/Scott Aukerman ...and many more.
But the music side has its own formidable lineup too. Along with Tenacious D, the fest features Eagles of Death Metal, Peaches, the Kyle Gass Band and the Protomen, a rock act known for composing concept albums loosely based on Mega Man. source
official website
R.I.P.: Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou, the renowned author and poet, has died at the age of 86.
Aside from her vast achievements in the worlds of literature and poetry, Angelou also dabbled in music. In 1957, prior to achieving worldwide fame as an author, she released an album of calypso music entitled Miss Calypso
.Angelou capitalized on the Afro-Caribbean genre first made popular by Harry Belafonte, crafting an exotic album suited for the nightclub. She supported the album’s release by touring various venues across the U.S. and achieved mild commercial success. Though she has since dismissed the importance of the album, it’s still considered one of the defining works in the calypso genre and was reissued on CD in 1995. MORE HERE & HERE
Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Metal Knight Sir Christopher Lee Is 92
If it's too loud, you're too young.
Sir Christopher Lee celebrated his 92nd birthday (May 27, 2014) by releasing a heavy metal album.
Though he's older than most head-bangers and a full-fledged knight, Lee says the music has a lot in common with much of the fantasy ("Lord of the Rings") and horror ("Dracula") roles to which he's been drawn over his career.
"I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers," Lee said in a video uploaded late last week teasing the album.
Based on the character of Don Quixote from the 17th-century Miguel de Cervantes novel of the same name, the album, called 'Metal Knight
', features seven songs performed by Sir Lee and Italian symphonic metal band Rhapsody of Fire.The album features two songs from Don Quixote musical Man of La Mancha, "I, Don Quixote" and "The Impossible Dream", as well as covers of "The Toreador March" from the opera "Carmen" and Paul Anka's "My Way". MORE HERE & HERE
official website
The Stones Roll Again
The Rolling Stones, who in March interrupted their 2014 world tour due to singer Mick Jagger's girlfriend's suicide, returned to the road Monday May 26, 2014 with a high-energy show lasting over two hours at Oslo's Telenor Arena.
Playing to a sold-out crowd of 23,000, Jagger did not mention the death of fashion designer L'Wren Scott, but proved himself proficient in Norwegian-language between-song patter. MORE HERE & HERE
official website
R.I.P.: Herb Jefferies
Herb Jeffries, who sang with Duke Ellington and starred in early black westerns as a singing cowboy known as “the Bronze Buckaroo” — a nickname that evoked his malleable racial identity — died on Sunday May 25, 2014. He was believed to be 100.
He was born Umberto Valentino - "My mother was Irish, my father was Sicilian, and one of my great-grandparents was Ethiopian," Jeffries, who took his stepfather's last name, told the Oklahoman in 2004. "So I'm an Italian-looking mongrel with a percentage of Ethiopian blood, which enabled me to get work with black orchestras."
Known for his rich baritone and sensitive phrasing, Jeffries was a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra in the early 1940s when he scored his biggest hit with "Flamingo," which sold in the millions and became his signature tune.
As the African American answer to Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and other white singing cowboys, Jeffries made a handful of low-budget westerns in the '30s.
They had titles such as "Harlem Rides the Range" and "The Bronze Buckaroo" (excerpt above) and featured the tall, handsome, wavy-haired singer with a Gable-esque mustache as a dashing, white-hatted good guy in a black western outfit and riding a white horse named Stardusk. MORE HERE & HERE
Herb Jefferies : The Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again
Harlem Double Feature: Midnight Show / Bronze Buckaroo
Monday, May 26, 2014
The Ride To The Other Side Of Poe
Tuesday night May 13, 2014 in Hollywood marked an unlikely surprise occasion: Poe returned to the stage at the Sayers Club for her first headlining show in about a decade. After her final tour in 2001 the singer only performed at charity events and surprise appearances, so this gig was somewhat of a comeback.
As nostalgia-inducing as it was to witness live versions of “Hey Pretty” and “Angry Johnny,” the evening was anything but a blast to the past because Poe’s sound – and especially her feminist and often subversive lyrics – were ahead of their time. To boot, she closed with new cut “The Other Side,” a roots-y stomper that continued the singer’s tradition of genre-mashing heard in the smoky, seductive “The Ride,” which was referred to as “an intro” of things that may come as opposed to an actual song.
Each was as engaging as the old favorites and instilled hope that there will finally be a third album and another proper Poe tour. MORE HERE
official website
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Relive/Remaster 1974
CSNY 1974, A NEW 40-track box set, will document Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s notorious 1974 stadium tour.
Having first split in 1970, the band reconciled their differences in time for an electric/acoustic reunion jaunt that kicked off on July 9, 1974 and saw them play 31 concerts in 24 cities over a whirlwind two months. Bob Dylan & The Band had played huge gigs earlier in the year, but the CSNY tour (produced by promoter Bill Graham) was the first mammoth stadium tour of its kind. It all ended at London’s Wembley Stadium on September 14, 1974.
CSNY 1974 includes three CDs worth of music alongside previously unreleased live footage and a 188-page booklet. A Pure Audio Blu-ray edition of the set will feature 40 high-resolution 192kHz/24-bit tracks, while a Deluxe Limited Edition version housed in a bespoke wood box features six 180-gram 12” vinyl platters and Pure Audio Blu-Ray disc, plus a digital download of all 40 tracks, the bonus DVD and a coffee table book containing never-before-seen photos from the tour. CSNY 1974 hits shelves on July 8, 2014. MORE HERE, HERE & HERE
official website
Memorial Day 2014
If the point of Memorial Day is to honor the memory of the men and women who died in service to their country, no one's written a more fitting tribute to those fallen soldiers than the Kinks' Ray Davies. MORE HERE
The Kinks : Arthur
Sunday, May 25, 2014
Barry Gibb Carries On
"Lonely Days" was a huge hit for the three Brothers Gibb, the Bee Gees, in 1970. Today that title could well describe the situation of Barry Gibb, the only one of the brothers still alive. He looks back with CBS' Anthony Mason. Transcript is HERE
Barry Gibb's "Mythology" tour was never supposed to happen.
The lone surviving member of the Bee Gees was considering retirement after the death of his brother Robin in 2012, which followed the deaths of their brother Maurice in 2003 and Andy in 1988.
However, the 67-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Famer -- responsible for many of the 20th century's biggest hits, including the soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever
" that set dance
floors around the world and the Billboard charts ablaze -- felt that he should pay tribute to his
brothers. MORE HEREofficial website
Kinky Friedman & Willie Nelson Go To Pot
Icons Willie Nelson and Kinky Friedman recently conducted a Texas Herbal Radio Network tour live from Willie's bus, chatting about a passionate topic for the two Texans - Pot.
The legalization of marijuana, the cultivation of hemp, and the potential benefits to Texas' small farmers were the main topics of discussion.
Radio host Mike Meinke of the Notably Texan program, spoke briefly with the two legends about their favorite green, leafy subject. Listen to the interview HERE
Willie Nelson's new album "Band Of Brothers" is set to release on June 17, 2014, and Kinky Friedman's hat is in the political arena once more with a runoff bid for Texas Agriculture Commissioner on May 27, 2014.
Kinky's official campaign website
Willie's official website
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