Music Industry News

The Mars Volta Add Datesomar Shares Greatest GTR Cover

Source: All About Jazz
June 3, 2008

THE MARS VOLTA ANNOUNCE ADDITIONAL U.S. HEADLINE DATES AUSTIN CITY LIMITS FESTIVAL APPEARANCE CONFIRMED OMAR RODRIGUEZ LOPEZ ON ROLLING STONE GREATEST GUITARISTS COVER

The Mars Volta “The Mars Volta is a progressive-rock whirlwind, constructing maniacally complex music and performing it with a mixture of rigorous virtuosity, psychedelic euphoria and punk intensity... still rock's finest avatar of excess." -Jon Pareles, New York Times

Upon completion of their current trek through Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and ...

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Individualism: Gil Evans in the 1960s

Source: All About Jazz
June 2, 2008

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Hal McKusick

Source: All About Jazz
June 2, 2008

The Rifftides staff has no more intention of making this blog a birthday watch than of making it a death watch, although there is an endless supply of both phenomena. However, on the Jazz West Coast listserve, Desne Villepigue pointed out that yesterday was the eighty-fourth anniversary of Hal McKusick's appearance in the world, and that is worth noting. McKusick was one of the most rewarding alto saxophone soloists of the fifties and sixties. He is still active as a ...

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Old 97's Summer Tour

Source: All About Jazz
June 2, 2008

INDIE ROOTS ROCK FAVES HIT ROAD WITH BRAND NEW ALBUM

Old 97's Old 97's, one of the most acclaimed and beloved bands to spring from the '90s indie rock scene, released their seventh studio album, Blame It On Gravity, May 13th via New West Records. Forming 15 years ago, the band credits the new album's enthusiasm and spark to their return to its native Dallas to record for the first time since their debut. Produced by up and ...

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Back to the Future Set Sent Back to the Past

Source: Michael Ricci
June 1, 2008

Major fire burns on Universal Studios back lot A soundstage and several sets are lost as billowing smoke raises health concerns. Low water pressure hampered efforts today to fight a fire that raged through the Universal Studios back lot in Universal City, destroying a soundstage, the theme park's King Kong attraction, a video vault and sets such as the Courthouse Square seen in Back to the Future and the New York streetscape from Bruce Almighty. As the equivalent of two ...

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Musicologists May Score Mozart's Work

Source: All About Jazz
June 1, 2008

Musicologists may find new works by Mozart Scores “could be unknown authentic Mozart," says the head researcher

WARSAW, Poland - A team of musicologists is reviewing 19th-century copies of musical scores from a Polish monastery's archives in hopes that some might prove to be previously unknown works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the lead scholar said Tuesday. The team is focused on nine scores, though the musicologists will review 2,000 from the Jasna Gora monastery in Czestochowa, southern Poland. ...

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Grimes Times! June 2008

Source: Margaret Davis Grimes
June 1, 2008

Sunday, June 1st (tonight!), 8 p.m: Julie Patton's “Ghost of a Chance Defense Fun(d) Band" rent party, w/ Julie Patton ("voicesays"), special guest Henry Grimes, “Poet of the Air" (words, instrumental voicing), Brad Jones (bass), Drew Gardner (percussion), Rod Williams (piano), Paul Van Curen (guitar), and more, at the Stone, northwest corner of Ave. C at 2nd St., Manhattan (NYC), 212-473-OO43. Julie says: “So accustomed to throwing my own voice I no longer own it. Who does? I exchange the ...

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Sat Eye Candy: John Bonham

Source: All About Jazz
June 1, 2008

WE MISS YOU, BONZO

John Bonham would have turned 60 today. The Led Zeppelin drummer was a majestic beast, equally capable of shaking Olympus as he was at turning a tear with his delicacy. Possessed of Keith Moon's brutality and the complexity of Elvin Jones, Bonham was all things rough 'n' tumble about rock with a much more complex undercurrent than history often affords him. From the water-on-leaves softness of “The Rain Song" through crushing blues workouts like “When The ...

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