Jack’s Mannequin may not be releasing their sophomore album until September 30th, but their new EP, The Ghost Overground, is available on iTunes now. The 4-song EP features “The Resolution” and “Bloodshot,” two new songs off of The Glass Passenger. Additionally, it includes older tracks “Holiday From Real” (live from SIR) and “Kill The Messenger” (live from Rock Xentral). Catch the band on tour now with Paramore.
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Hailing from Orange County, CA. Zebrahead — Ali Tabatabaee (vocals), Greg Bergdorf (guitar), Matty Lewis (vocals/guitar), Ben Osmundson (bass) and Ed Udhus (drums) — are just back from a successful tour of Europe and the band is set to hit the road for a trek of US dates in support of the group’s highly-anticipated new album ‘Phoenix’.
This full length CD/DVD combo pack features 16 new songs. The DVD features the never-released BROADCAST TO THE WORLD DVD, with live footage, all videos from that album and Zebrahead antics. with most tracks produced by Cameron Webb (Social Distortion, Motorhead, Papa Roach) along with a few tracks produced by Zebrahead’s old friend and producer from their debut release Howard Benson (Daughtry, Saosin, POD Adema).
Excited about their second release for ICON Music Entertainment, the band is revitalized, road-ready and eager to get the party started. The quintet comes out kicking, delivering a flurry of pummeling rhythms, clench-fisted chords and meaty hooks that we have come to expect from Zebrahead. In addition to the new CD the band is already slated to play Japan’s Summersonic Festival, Europe’s Download Festival and Switzerland’s Greenfield Festival. US tour dates to be announced soon.
Zebraheads new CD ‘Phoenix’ is the successor to the bands first ICON Music release ‘Broadcast to the World’, the follow-up to Zebrahead’s critically acclaimed third release, ‘MFZB’. ‘MFZB’ had the highest testing alternative song for months running with “Rescue Me”. ‘MFZB’ also went gold in Japan! ‘Playmate of the Year’, released in 2000 to rave reviews, the album’s infectious title track received over 4000 spins on Modern Rock and Rock radio, garnering airplay on some of the nation’s biggest alternative stations.
CD to hit the street and Internet August 5 on ICON Music Entertainment with Artwork and package design by Shawn Harris of The Matches
Check out the first single “Mental Health”
Tour Dates:
Solo:
8/15 House of Blues San Diego, CA
8/16 House of Blues Anaheim, CA
With City Sleeps and Civet:
8/18 The Sets Phoenix, AZ
8/20 Mesa Theater Grand Junction, CO
8/22 The Bluebird St Louis
8/23 The Rave Milwaukee, WI
8/24 Peabody’s Cleveland, OH
8/25 Crocodile Rock Allentown, PA
8/27 Blender at Gramercy Park NYC, NY
8/28 Stone Pony Asbury Park, NJ
8/30 Magic Stick Detroit, MI
8/31 Diesel Nightclub Pittsburgh, PA
9/2 Intersection Grand Rapids, MI
9/3 Reggie’s Night Club Chicago, IL
9/6 Bluebird Denver, CO
9/8 Club Boom Ogden, UT
9/9 Big Easy Boise, ID
9/11 Boulevard Spokane, WA
9/17 Karma Lounge Ventura, CA
9/18 The Knitting Factory Hollywood, CA
Check out Raphael Saadiq’s first single “Love That Girl” off of his upcoming album The Way I See It, in stores SEPTEMBER 16th.
Quicktime Stream: “Love That Girl”
In an era where any teenager with ProTools can compose an opus on his laptop, it is altogether rare to encounter a wholly live, sample-free, recording such as Raphael Saadiq’s THE WAY I SEE IT (due September 16th on Columbia Records). Particularly one that is a fully realized oeuvre; from the opening snare shots of “Sure Hope You Mean It” through the last string strains of the piece de resistance “Sometimes,” the artist takes us on a journey that is like a lush feature film, not a string of hackneyed trailers.
And his timing couldn’t be better. While plenty of ink has been spilled lauding various upstart ‘Queens of Retro-Soul’ from across the pond, Saadiq has lovingly synthesized the essence of the various regional scenes that underpin our best music – Motown, Stax, Chi-town, Philly – and seamlessly spliced in surprising aesthetic choices (an industrial vocal filter here, a Spanish vocalist there) that clearly earmark THE WAY I SEE IT as, literally, state of the art.
First single “Love That Girl” lays it down with a club-ready update of classic Temptations-era swing – right down to the impeccable strings and Saadiq’s clarion, falsetto vocals. In an album full of high points, “Never Give You Up” slays with its multi-generational line-up: the track includes Raphael’s musical protégé C.J., as well as the legendary Stevie Wonder on harmonica. And the quick-paced shuffle of “Big Easy” finds Saadiq longing for a child lost in Hurricane Katrina with classic honky tonk flair replete with overlapping horn solos.
The album’s inspiration was indeed global. “I was cooling out and surfing in Costa Rica and The Bahamas,” recounts Saadiq, “and ran into people from all kinds of places. I noticed everybody was listening to classic soul music. When I came back home the music for this album flowed organically, naturally. Since I have my own studio, I was able to perfect it, take my time to make it right. I was able to live with it, day after day and that had a lot to do with how the album turned out.”
Grammy-winning Joss Stone (with whom Raphael worked on the best-selling 2007 set INTRODUCING JOSS STONE) is a special guest on the song “Just One Kiss.” Says Raphael, “The track reminds me of early ‘70s soul songs and getting Joss to sing on it wasn’t hard because she has a profound appreciation for great classic music.”
Saadiq’s innate musical facility – he learned to play guitar, drums and bass by the age of six, was singing with a professional gospel group at nine and toured with Prince and Sheila E. upon graduating from high school – goes a long way in explaining his ability to craft an album that will delight baby boomers and groovesters alike. Saadiq, founder of hybrid super group Lucy Pearl, member and producer of Tony! Toni! Toné!, as well as acclaimed producer of artists like Joss Stone, D’Angelo, Mary J. Blige, The Roots, Snoop Dogg, and John Legend – is a virtual one-man show. He wrote, produced, arranged and performed the flawless grooves (drums, bass and guitar) and effervescent vocals on every song. And it is that combination of elements that will make THE WAY I SEE IT the go-to album for any setting. A worthy follow-up to his 2002 solo debut INSTANT VINTAGE – the first independent release to receive five Grammy nominations – THE WAY I SEE IT sets a welcome new standard.
Pigeonhole Carrie Rodriguez at your peril. Sure, she’s done a lot of duets. She plays a fiddle (a mean one at that.) She’s recorded songs with a pleasing, folksy twang. But don’t think you know what you’re getting.
Not yet 30, and with a critically-acclaimed solo record and several well-received duet records in her wake, the classically trained singer/songwriter has just begun flexing her artistic muscles, still figuring out how far her talents will take her. If you’re looking for someone playing it safe and sticking to tried-and-true ways of music making, as the title of Rodriguez’s daring new album aptly states, SHE AIN’T ME.
Stream “She Ain’t Me”
“Because I took some chances, wrote with some new people and actually co-wrote most of the songs on the album, it’s very different,” Rodriguez notes.
Also different: Malcolm Burn’s dense production, bulging with thoughtful details, yet always serving the song. “If the song doesn’t hold up on its own, without all the production, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with it,” Rodriguez says. “And he was much more into the vibe than perfection—which is good for me, because my tendency is to try to make things perfect.”
The songs on SHE AIN’T ME, Rodriguez’s second solo outing for Manhattan/Back Porch, come from an introspective place, rife with self-assessment and questioning. “It comes from having to really look within yourself when you’re forced to be alone, and to not be afraid of that process,” Rodriguez says. “Taking some time off from the road this year to write allowed me to do some growing and reflecting that I often put aside when I’m touring all the time.”
Long before Carrie Rodriguez was a fiddle-toting, mandoguitar-slinging Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter, she was a junior violin student in Austin, Texas, absorbing the influences of an opera-obsessed mom and folk-singing dad. “In kindergarten, we had a pilot program at my public elementary school to teach five year olds Suzuki violin lessons,” Rodriguez recalls. “They would give the lessons during naptime, and I must have gotten out to go to the bathroom. And I remember walking down the hallway and hearing these violins scratching out ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’ I was immediately drawn to that and came home and told mom I wanted to take violin lessons.
“Also,” she adds, “I really hated naptime.”
Group lessons soon led to private lessons, which led Carrie to a conservatory program at Oberlin. Enter Lyle Lovett, a family friend, who invited Carrie to sit in with his band at soundcheck in Cleveland, an experience that was both inspiring and frustrating. “My feel was awful and I knew it,” she recalls. “But I was mesmerized by [Lovett fiddler] Andrea Zonn. I wanted to do what she was doing.”
Stream “El Dorado”
Rodriguez transferred to Boston’s Berklee College of Music, where she found no shortage of resources for transforming “violin” into “fiddle. “Casey Driessen is now one of the greatest American fiddle players on the scene (plays with Bela Fleck, Tim O’Brien), and he was my roommate,” Rodriguez recalls. “He taught me one of the first fiddle tunes I ever learned.”
Berklee also set the table for a love of collaboration, which led to three duet records (and many touring miles) with singer/songwriter Chip Taylor, who was instrumental in helping Carrie to realize her debut album, SEVEN ANGELS ON A BICYCLE. The Associated Press raved, ““…her voice has a character few achieve. Rather than a support player taking a minor turn, she uses her first solo album to mark her ground as a singular talent.” For SHE AIN’T ME, Rodriguez knew it was time to form new collaborations and she ended up with an impressive list of co-writers, including Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Dan Wilson (Semisonic), Jim Boquist (Son Volt) and Mary Gauthier.
“I feel the most comfortable when I have someone to react to,” Rodriguez says. “The process was completely different with each person I wrote with. For example, with Mary Gauthier we sat down one rainy afternoon in New York City and wrote the entire song, more or less. With Dan Wilson we just came up with a little melody and a few snippets of words while we were in the same room. Later, I wrote the verses, he came up with a great chorus, and we put the song together via e-mail and a few phone calls.”
Lucinda Williams wasn’t among the co-writers, but she makes her presence felt, singing backup on “Mask of Moses” while singing Carrie’s praises elsewhere. After receiving a copy of SEVEN ANGELS ON A BICYCLE from Chip Taylor, Lucinda told the New York Times “…I have to say I am very impressed. She’s got something unique in her voice that’s very subtle and a little smoky and sweet. I detect a certain wisdom in her, and yet a sense of wonder as well.” Rodriguez recalls, “Lucinda had sent me this beautiful email, saying how much she loved my record, and how she really saw something special there. And if I ever wanted to open up for her, that’d be great. It was like, wow! Merry Christmas!”
Rodriguez subsequently toured with Williams, and also sat in on fiddle during Lucinda’s sets. And it was on the heels of a night out with Williams that Rodriguez met Malcolm Burn—whose work she’d admired on Emmylou Harris’s WRECKING BALL (engineer and musician) and Chris Whitley’s LIVING WITH THE LAW (producer and musician)– for an early chat about her next record. “I was pretty hung-over that morning, in my pajamas, looking like a train wreck,” Rodriguez admits. “And Malcolm comes over, looking all dapper in his vintage three-piece suit.”
Appearances were quickly dismissed as Malcolm made spot-on suggestions about Carrie’s songs, and offered production ideas that made her feel her own project would be a worthy addition to the “desert island discs” Burn has already recorded. “I knew immediately that this was the guy,” she recalls.
The result is a record that lives up to its name—an expectation-confounding statement, equal parts organic folk and expansive atmosphere, yet one that comes closest to revealing what Carrie Rodriguez is all about. Think you already know? Think again.
Link to Official Site:
http://www.carrierodriguez.com
Carrie Rodriguez on MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/carrielrodriguez
Tour Dates:
8/06 Joe¹s Pub - New York, NY Lucinda Black Bear
8/08 Tin Angel – Philadelphia, PA w/ Laura Cantrell
8/10 Mountain Stage – Charleston, WV
8/28 The Seasons Performance Center - The Seasons Music Festival Yakima, WA multi-act event
8/30 Pig Out in the Park – Spokane, WA multi-act festival
9/03 One Longfellow Square – Portland, ME w/ Mark Erelli
9/04 WAMC Performing Arts Studio’s Linda Norris Auditorium – Albany, NY
9/07 Narrows Festival of The Arts - Fall River, MA multi-act festival
9/19 The Soiled Dove Underground – Denver, CO
9/20 Lake City Wine and Music Festival – Lake City, CO multi-act festival
10/18 Lobero Theatre - Santa Barbara, CA w/ Austin Jug Band
10/24 The Sooner Theatre – Norman, OK support to Ruthie Foster
10/25 Houston Women¹s Festival – Houston, TX multi-act festival
With the UK and Australia already conquered, electro-rockers, Pendulum are set to invade North and South America this fall. The band have just announced the dates for their debut U.S. tour with one appearance at Brazil’s Skol Beats Festival and a couple of dates in Mexico. To help celebrate the tour the band has released a new video for their new single, “The Other Side.” Directed by Rob Chandler (Depeche Mode, Moby), the song comes off the band’s Atlantic Records debut, In Silico which came out this past spring.
PENDULUM fall tour dates:
SEPTEMBER ’08
27TH - SAO PAULO – SKOL BEATS (FESTIVAL)
OCTOBER ’08
1ST- BOSTON – MIDDLE EAST
3RD - CHICAGO – HOUSE OF BLUES
4TH - TORONTO – KOOL HAUS
5TH – DETROIT – IROCK
7TH - MILWAUKEE – TURNER HALL BALLROOM
9TH - DENVER – BLUE BIRD THEATER
11TH - SALT LAKE CITY – MURRAY THEATRE
13TH - LOS ANGELES - THE MAYAN
14TH - SAN FRANCISCO – THE FILMORE
18TH - MEXICO CITY – MOTORKR (FESTIVAL)
19TH - GUADALAJARA – MOTORKR (FESTIVAL)
22ND – ATLANTA – THE LOFT
24TH - BALTIMORE – OTTOBAR
25TH - NEW YORK – WEBSTER HALL
26TH – NEW YORK – BOWERY BALLROOM
Lloyd’s new album “Lessons In Love” In Stores Today featuring the hit single “Girls Around The World” w/ Lil Wayne:
Debut album from KeAnthony - “A Hustlaz Story” - In Stores Today
“Each line on the album sounds honest, from the heart, whether he’s striving to satisfy his woman emotionally, admitting his faults, or looking to the past with the eyes of a realist.” – Andy Kellman, AllMusic.com
The guys of Menudo are keeping busy this summer and taking you along for the ride! Stay up-to-date with Chris, Carlos, Emmanuel, Monti and José on their Kyte channel where you can watch tons of cool videos of them performing, traveling on the road, and goofing off backstage. “Lost,” their smash summer single, is doing great at radio across the country and has broken 2,000 digital single sales a week.
According to AOL Music’s PopEater, Lesley Roy is “About to Pop!” The 21-year-old singer/songwriter/guitarist from Ireland is blowing up in the US with her explosive debut single “I’m Gone, I’m Going.” Roy recently premiered the video on FN MTV, and she is set to release her debut album, Unbeautiful, on September 30th through Jive Records. Unbeautiful was produced by Max Martin (NSYNC, Kelly Clarkson) and boasts songwriting credits from the likes of Katy Perry and Desmond Child (Bon Jovi, Aerosmith).
Check out the PopEater article in full at http://www.popeater.com/2008/07/28/about-to-pop-lesley-roy/ where the Irish rocker talks about her favorite song on the record and the inspiration behind her lyrics.
“I’m Gone, I’m Going” video:
After the rise-from-the-ashes success of their last album, 15, Buckcherry are coming back and this time, the world is waiting! On September 16th, the sleaze-n-rollers will be releasing their new full-length, Black Butterfly. Produced by the band’s guitarist Keith Nelson along with Marti Frederiksen who has also worked with Aerosmith, Mötley Crüe, and Fuel, Black Butterfly continues the L.A. band’s potent brand of rock which is packed with melodic hooks and hard-charging guitars.
Black Butterfly will be out September 16th through Eleven Seven/Atlantic Records.
Off the up and coming 20/20 EP Manhattan lyricist Fokis aligned himself with his namesake and Aftermath production genius Focus who produced the project in its entirety. With features from a who is who on the West coast, Fokis drops another classic joint on fans and music lovers with Do What It Do. This single from the highly anticipated EP which will be available on various websites and media platforms very soon sees Fokis call on Mistah F.A.B and Young Dre to accompany him on this Summer hit.
Fokis will also be performing at the AZ Mixtape Release Party this coming Thursday at the Knitting Factory in NYC.
Check out the new track here:
DO WHAT IT DO feat Mistah Fab and Young Dre Produced by Focus
PLAY
