05.31.05 (MusicPortal.com) KASABIAN are currently on a worldwide tour in support of their new self-titled album. As they describe it, the band are not making music to be famous, they're making music because they need to. "This is what I've wanted to do ever since I was four. This is why I'm here," says KASABIAN vocalist Tom Meighan. Tour Dates: 05/31 Salt Lake City, UT [Club Sound] • 06/02 Portland, OR [Doug Fir Lounge] • 06/03 Vancouver, BC [Commodore Ballroom] • 06/04 Seattle, WA [Radio Show] • 06/06 Sacramento, CA [Harlow's] • 06/07 Los Angeles, CA [Henry Fonda Theatre] • 06/09 San Francisco, CA [Popscene] • 06/10 San Francisco, CA [Shoreline Amphiteatre] • 06/11 Santa Ana, CA [Galaxy Concert Theater] • 06/12 Tempe, AZ [The Clubhouse] • 06/14 Dallas, TX [Tree's] • 06/15 Houston, TX [The Meridian] • 06/16 Austin, TX [The Parish] • 06/18 San Diego, CA [Open Air Theatre/SDSU Campus Radio] • 06/20 Hyde Park, [UK Festival] • 06/25 Glastonbury, [UK Festival] • 06/30 Hyde Park, [UK Festival] • 07/18 Pittsburgh, PA [Mr. Small's Theatre] • 07/19 Rochester, NY [Water Street Music Hall] • 07/20 Cleveland, OH [Grog Shop] • 07/21 Cincinnati, OH [Bogart's Front Room] • 07/23 Detroit, MI [St. Andrews Hall] • 07/24 Chicago, IL [Lollapalooza] • 07/25 Columbia, MO [Mojo's] • 07/26 Tulsa, OK [Cain's Ballroom] • 07/29 San Diego, CA [Street Scene] • 08/01 Denver, CO [Bluebird Theatre] • 08/13 Osaka, Japan [Summersonic] • 08/14 Tokyo, Japan [Summersonic] • 08/26 Reading, UK [Reading Festival] • 08/27 Leeds, UK [Leeds Festival] • 09/08 Vancouver, BC [GM Place] • 09/09 Everett, WA [Everett Events Center] • 09/11 Mountain View, CA [Shoreline Amphitheatre] • 09/12 Los Angeles, CA [Hollywood Bowl] • 09/14 San Diego, CA [Coors Ampitheatre] • 09/15 Las Vegas, NV [House Of Blues] • 09/17 Los Angeles, CA [Hyundai Pavilion] • 09/18 Phoenix, AZ [Dodge Theater] • 09/20 Morrison, CO [Red Rocks Amphitheatre] • 09/22 Dallas, TX [Smirnoff Music Center] • 09/25 Spring, TX [Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion] • 09/27 Atlanta, GA [Hi-Fi Buys Amp] • 09/29 Columbia, MD [Merriweather Post Pavilion] • 09/30 Cuyahoga Falls, OH [Blossom Music Center]
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05.19.05 (MusicPortal.com) "The Curious City," the second full-length release from Pittsburgh Rockers MODEY LEMON, is slated to be released on May 31st via Mute Recordings. The band's new album sees them not only blasting away from their retro-obsessed Garage Rock peers at Mach 10 speed, but also subtly shifting the shape of the Psychedelic Synth Rock that defined them with 2004's "Thunder & Lightning." Where abrasive guitar riffs, serrated keyboard runs and wild, textured Electronic noise once dominated, structure -- if somewhat wayward -- now has a strong presence. MODEY LEMON's sound is no less quirky, it's simply been pulled more into focus on "The Curious City" without compromising the raw sonic attitude of the band. Guitar, drums and Moog synthesizers, part late '60s and early '70s Hard Rock, part early '90s Grunge, filtered with Punk from all three decades all comprise MODEY LEMON's highly unique sound. "The Curious City" is also polymorphously perverse beast, 'Bucket Of Butterflies' suggesting THE TEARDROP EXPLODES as mauled by NIRVANA, through the compulsive, motorik groove of 'Red Lights' to the deranged Folk/Rock of 'In The Cemetery' and the sombre, Leonard Cohen-like lament of 'Countries.' In between, the SUICIDE take on STEPPENWOLF suggested by 'Sleepwalkers.' 'Trapped Rabbits', arguably the album's piece de la resistance, is a hypnotic exercise in controlled chaos running at 16 minutes. It lays paranoid, needling guitar notes over looped, heavy drum patterns and rumbling bass tones, building to a compulsive, Krautrock crescendo. The prevailing mood on "The Curious City" is best encapsulated in the album's cover - the work of APES bassist Erick Jackson. MODEY LEMON frontman Phil Boyd's inspiration for the image came from the book "Watership Down." "It talked about how rabbits constantly live in fear," Boyd recalls. "There are all these things you love and hate about the space that you inhabit, and that's where our band is at its best - when it's teetering in between those things. The songs on this new album really ride that line. They're either a celebration of life, or they're caught up in the claws of the monster we live with."
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05.17.05 (AP) NINE INCH NAILS frontman TRENT REZNOR testified Monday against his long-time manager, saying he was stunned to learn in 2003 that despite millions of dollars in earnings by his band, he was left with as little as $400,000 in cash. "I felt I had an accountant I couldn't trust," he said in his federal civil lawsuit against John Malm. Reznor contends that his former friend duped him into signing a contract that allowed Malm to collect 20 percent of the singer's gross earnings rather than net earnings. A lawyer for Malm, Alan Hirth, said in an opening statement that his client worked many years for no salary and kept nothing secret from Reznor. "Of the millions upon millions upon millions that Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails made, the vast majority went into his (Reznor's) pocket," Hirth said. Reznor testified he trusted Malm more than anyone in his life when he agreed to let him handle his finances in the 1980s as the band signed its first recording contract with TVT Records. "John was the business guy, and I was the guy working for nothing in the studio," Reznor told jurors. He also said the pair created their own production company and managed sales of merchandise but the expenses piled up, draining large portions of the millions of dollars the band earned with its music releases and concert tours. He admitted he ignored his finances, and sometimes signed documents without reading or understanding them. Reznor said he began to grow worried about finances when he was told during a meeting with Malm and a lawyer in 2002 that there was "cause for alarm." The following year, he said, he asked Malm to tell him how much money he had. He said he was sent a financial statement that revealed he had at most $3 million in total assets, and as little as $400,000 in cash. Pre-NINE INCH NAILS, TRENT REZNOR (whose full name is Michael Trent Reznor) played keyboards in an AOR band called THE INNOCENT in the mid-80s, who released one album entitled "Livin' In The Street" on Red Label Records.
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05.13.05 (MusicPortal.com) On July 4th, all three of Electronic music pioneer GARY NUMAN's "Living Ornaments" live albums will be officially released by Beggars Banquet Records. "Living Ornaments '79" and "Living Ornaments '81" had previously been available only via mail order and specialty product sources. In 1981, GARY NUMAN released a box set of two live albums, entitled "Living Ornaments '79 and '80," which charted in the UK at #2, and also -- with the albums sold individually -- charted at #47 and #39, respectively. In the late 1990's, the multi-track tapes to the 1979 show were located and remixed to expand the original 10-track vinyl release to a double CD of the entire concert. Similarly, one of the complete Wembley "farewell" shows from 1981 was also released as a double CD. Diehard GARY NUMAN fans have always demanded a complete show from the "Teletour" of 1980, the "machine-music" period when Numan was at the peak of his commercial success. Unfortunately, the multi-tracks for the 1980 show have never been located, and the show never reissued in its entirety. However, recently a recording of a complete "Teletour" show -- a live reference mix made by the sound crew -- was discovered which, with some sonic tweaking, is of major release quality. The performances at the previously unknown UK show even eclipse those on the official release, and include rare outings for the tracks 'Telekon' and 'Stories,' which have never been available on a GARY NUMAN live album. "Living Ornaments '80" has thus now also become a double CD, featuring the original 10 tracks from the vinyl release, newly remastered from the mixing tapes, plus the newly discovered complete show, which comprise a total of 29 tracks in all. At the end of the 1970s, GARY NUMAN, a 20-year old ex-punk from West London was virtually alone in seeing the possibility of a "synthesizer star." In late 1978, Beggars Banquet released TUBEWAY ARMY's self-titled debut, mixing Electronic music with post-Punk guitar and solid, no-frills drumming by Numan's uncle Jess Lidyard. He immediately created a fresh Garage Electronic style, but by the time the album came out, he was already back in the... [full story]
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05.11.05 (MusicPortal.com) Sanctuary Records Group has announced a new multi-album, creatively scopic label deal with producer, arranger and musician extraordinaire BILL LASWELL. Drawing on the diverse musical vision he has established over his decades-long career, Laswell will bring six broad ranging projects to the Sanctuary label group on his new Nagual label. Included will be his own dub re-interpretations of songs he personally selected from the legendary Trojan Records archives, new albums from PRAXIS and TABLA BEAT SCIENCE, as well as a groundbreaking Drum 'N' Bass project called DAMAGED. The remarkably prolific and shapeshifting BILL LASWELL has worked as a collaborator or producer with such artists as Herbie Hancock, Mick Jagger, Peter Gabriel, Yoko Ono, George Clinton, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, Afrika Bambaataa and many others. Laswell has also created live/recording bands such as MATERIAL and PRAXIS, released more than 30 albums under his own name, and originated or contributed to more than 700 other projects. BILL LASWELL notes about his new label, "Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan separates the 'tonal,' that is the predictable universe, from the 'nagual,' the unpredictable universe of intuition, where anything is possible. These productions/records are 'nagual' by necessity. Clear recognizable sounds/forms do emerge, but not always through conscious control. Nothing exists until it is observed." For BILL LASWELL, the Grammy-winning electric bass player, producer and re-mixer, all sound is equal. By extension, power structures such as genre, tradition and commerce are tools to be utilized but should never determine the flow, process or priorities of his music. "Sometime in the past," he once commented, "I decided that freedom interests me more than stability or security. I never had any kind of show business or entertainment aesthetic. I always just followed the thing that was interesting to me." His willingness to take risks is unparalleled in the world of music, as is his ability to unite seemingly disparate voices. A traveler from the time he was born, BILL LASWELL's discography reads like a series of postcards from around the planet.

[Electronic News: April 2005]
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