AOD fans coming off the Gathering of the Vibes show last weekend will likely have to wait to mid-September to see the band again when the kick off their fall tour. Beyond the new tour dates, Assembly of Dust also has a new record out as well.Calling in some friends, Reid Genauer tapped Mike Gordon of Phish, Bela Fleck, Martin Sexton, Richie Havens, David Grisman, John Scofield and Earvolution friend Grace Potter who all lend their talents to Some Assembly Required. The band kicks off the fall in New York and after a mostly northeast run heads west:
Sep 18 2009 Revolution Hall Troy, New York
Sep 19 2009 Higher Ground South Burlington, Vermont
Sep 24 2009 Paradise Rock Club Boston, Massachusetts
Sep 26 2009 Calling Planet Earth Festival Charlestown, Rhode Island
Sep 29 2009 Port City Music Hall Portland, Maine
Sep 30 2009 The Bowery Ballroom New York, New York
Oct 1 2009 River Street Jazz Cafe Plains, Pennsylvania
Oct 2 2009 The Note West Chester, Pennsylvania
Oct 3 2009 Recher Theatre Towson, Maryland
Oct 16 2009 Bluebird Theater Denver, Colorado
Oct 17 2009 Boulder Theater Boulder, Colorado
Oct 18 2009 Community Concert Hall Durango, Colorado
Oct 21 2009 The Mint Los Angeles, California
Oct 22 2009 The Independent San Francisco, California
Oct 23 2009 The Red Fox Tavern Eureka, California
Oct 24 2009 Mississippi Studios Portland, Oregon
Oct 25 2009 Tractor Tavern Seattle, Washington
You can listen to more of the new songs over on the Assembly of Dust Myspace page. You can also download an mp3 for the track "Arc of the Sun" that features Mike Gordon of Phish right here.
Dragonette are one of those bands that seem to have the all of the right ingredients for superstardom - a hip, sassy lead singer; a sharp, well put together sound and mischievous lyrics, yet for some reason, major success has eluded them. Recently, the Canadian electro-pop outfit played a one-off show at New York City's Mercury Lounge to an audience of perhaps about fifty people which, admittedly, was probably a reasonable turnout for a Tuesday night. With a new album Fixin’ To Thrill due out at the end of the summer they were eager to impress this crowd.
The Dodo's have a new "record" - Time to Die - coming out this September but the download version is already selling like hotcakes as they used to say in the old days. The third disc from the band, produced by Phil Ek (Built to Spill, Fleet Foxes, The Shins), is tearing up the Amazon download charts while the old fashioned "cd" version will hit the streets September 15th. The Dodos will also hit the streets shortly thereafter with a two month fall tour. The tour dates are all with New Zealands' .jpg)
On September 15, The Chair In The Doorway, the first studio album from Living Colour since 2003, will hit stores (or what passes for a record store these days). To whet appetites for the return of one of the greatest and often unsung bands of the pre-Grunge era, Living Colour has made one track, "Behind The Sun" available well ahead of the album's release.
The Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a pair of All-Star concerts at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The October 29 show will feature Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Paul Simon playing solo and with Art Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder and Crosby, Stills & Nash and Friends. The next night will showcase U2, Eric Clapton, Metallica and Aretha Franklin. If the Queen of Soul joins Metallica for “Enter Sandman,” it goes down as the greatest show of all time. Everyone announced as performing at the celebration is an inductee in the Hall of Fame. Unlike any sporting event featuring participation from Hall of Famers, this one shouldn’t be embarrassing in the least.
Chicago; one of the most fertile breeding grounds for the blues, a Petri dish for the evolution and urbanization of the Mississippi Delta blues on the northern side of the Mason-Dixon line. With the Blues Brothers and Buddy Guy being amongst the Windy City’s most recognizable icons, a double-take upon hearing praise heaped on a Chicago-based bluegrass band might not be unwarranted. Atypical purveyors of the Southern genre, Cornmeal expand on the traditionally twangy conception of the genre, giving it a weighty, almost psychedelic heft.
If this were 1973, the Mercury Lounge would not be the locale for a Leroy Justice gig, they would be further uptown headlining Madison Square Garden as part of a rambling caravan style tour. Alas, in 2009, heartfelt Let It Bleed style rock and roll that soars to enthralling levels when aired out on stage doesn’t have the ready-built audience that it did in the Seventies. The Baby Boomers that would eat this stuff up won’t put up with the dearth of parking spaces for their minivans on the Lower East Side and they have likely lost their ability to feel comfortable within the Spartan conditions of the Mercury Lounge. It’s truly a shame that classic rock radio, where it still exists, doesn’t reach down to find those bands keeping that spirit alive. Unless you are NPR-approved indie rock or singer-songwriter mooted Adult Album Alternative ready, there’s no way to connect with an audience that’s unlikely to leave their living room on a weekday night.
For anyone that might have heard of Karen Dreijer Andersson before reading this, it’s likely as the sisterly half of the enigmatic familial Swedish duo, The Knife. On her recently released solo debut, released under the not-so-secret guise of Fever Ray, Andersson has crafted the soundtrack from any episode of Miami Vice that featured a troubled Crockett & Tubbs pensively travelling down the highway or required Don Johnson to dump a girlfriend who just happened to be involved in the crime being investigated. Occasionally using studio distortion to completely mask her identity, Andersson uses her vocals to accentuate the mood of the variety of thumping ambient beats. It creates a slyly seductive form of industrial raga, like unleashing the Swedish pop demons that lurk beneath the slickest of mainstream hits upon the sound system of a dank, basement club.
Today marks the 25th anniversary of 
I imagine that when NBC executives discussed who should take over Conan O'Brien's late night slot when he moved to 11:30 p.m., they came up with the names of numerous comedians that were worthy of sitting in the seat once occupied by David Letterman, I also imagine that at that point, full of hubris, they dared Lorne Michaels to be successful with someone who showed no ability whatsoever to do anything but laugh at his own jokes and ruin movie adaptations of Nick Hornby novels. Jimmy Fallon has destroyed much of what he touches in the name of comedy, including The Bee Gees' 1975 hit "Nights On Broadway," which he and Justin Timberlake uproariously send up as the theme to 
Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong took what he described as “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” descending from Apollo 11 onto the surface of the moon. In Cleveland, Ohio, my father set his 3 month old son in front of the television to watch this historic event with the thought that as I grew older I would be able to tell people that I saw man walk on the moon. While I can’t proclaim to have any recollection of the event, I know Mr. Schultz will be happy that I am telling you this story on the 40th anniversary of the moonwalk. (I’ve never been clear where my mother was for all of this. She’s always silent when Dad recounts the story).
Unless you are new to this whole classic rock thing, you might have heard that in 1965 The Beatles played a relatively historic show at the recently opened Shea Stadium in Flushing Meadows, New York. About a year ago, when Billy Joel played Shea’s last concert in July of 2008, you couldn’t avoid hearing about the stadium’s memorable first one, especially when Paul McCartney appeared to play “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Let It Be.” With Shea Stadium demolished, the Beatle bassist’s return to play the first three shows at the glossy, spanking new Citi Field felt right and proper. At Friday night’s show, the first of three while the Mets are on a road trip, McCartney made no attempt to avoid talking about the 44 year old elephant in the stadium, referring often to the fact that when he played there many, many years ago, no one could hear a thing due to the girls in the crowd screaming their heads off. This Beatles’ no rookie; every time he mentioned this fact with an impish grin on his face, he produced the intended effect of getting every girl to howl as if the 67-year-old musician was once again a mop-topped youth.
In the days when MTV showed music videos as its prime form of entertainment, Sunday nights were always unique. On 120 Minutes, MTV would devote two hours of airtime to alternative rock music, featuring videos from the likes of R.E.M., The Replacements, Jane's Addiction and The Smiths. Most of the acts that 120 Minutes covered gained a hefty bit of renown as alt-rock morphed into modern rock, leaving the show without a scene to unearth. The spirit of 120 Minutes has been revived on New York television with NYC TV's New York Noise. which airs every Wednesday night at 11:00 p.m. and Sunday night at midnight (120 Minutes' old time slot). Focusing primarily on New York based bands, the one hour video show has a decidedly indie-bent to it and is probably the only show airing clips from The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, Lykke Li and Yeasayer. YouTube knocks the show down from being essential viewing but doesn't make the minimalist little video show any less entertaining.
A new Michael Jackson recording has been released. According to 
In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser’s expose on all facets of the fast food industry, he confronts the fact that McDonald’s does an incredible amount of business despite the low nutritional value of their food. Basically, McDonald’s tastes good and it tastes good because it’s designed and engineered to taste good. Schlosser’s thoughts popped into my head while listening to Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. Not that the Dave Matthews Band’s music has little value; to the contrary, any band with Stefan Lessard, Boyd Tinsley and especially Carter Beauford has a lot going on. Rather, the DMB sounds good cause they’re built to sound that way. It may not sound like it but that’s a compliment.
THIS SUMMER, THE NEW YORK City Department of Parks & Recreation and the Union Square Partnership are putting on a series of shows entitled Summer In The Square, which they describe as a "vibrant mixture of children's entertainment, fitness activities, and musical performances." Unless BuzzUniverse has undergone a radical transformation, they would fall into the "musical performance" category and a fine choice at that. Their Thursday night set will start at 6:00 p.m. and only last an hour, so use this as a great excuse to leave work at a normal hour and go get Buzzed. Photo by 
PROVING THAT ANY BAND THAT enjoyed a modicum of success in the Seventies can make a go with a reunion tour, Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina are travelling around America at the end of the summer. Starting August 20 in Hyannis, MA, 
In 1968, Chess Records thought it would be a fantastic idea to modernize Muddy Waters by bringing him into the studio to record an album of psychedelic blues. Re-recording classics like “Mannish Boy,” “I Just Want To Make Love To You” and “Hoochie Coochie Man,” Electric Mud attempted to introduce Waters to the same group of blues aficionados that were buying Hendrix and Cream albums in droves. Even though the legendary bluesman didn’t think much of the results, the album became one of Water’s best-selling albums and influenced quite a few musicians. One such group of musicians that loved Waters before and after Electric Mud was The Band, especially Levon Helm. In later years Waters would record at Helm’s studio and the drummer was insistent on Waters being part of The Last Waltz.
A couple weeks back on Real Time with Bill Maher, Billy Bob Thornton veered into a digression about the disposable nature of the current spate of popular music. In support of his point that no great artists have emerged over the past thirty years, he posed the question, “One hundred years from now, who will we still be talking about that began their career after 1980?” The default answer is usually Michael Jackson but despite becoming the icon of the 80s, his career started well before then with The Jackson 5. “He’s one of mine,” said Thornton. In the end, Thornton thought there would be only two: R.E.M. and U2. While most will immediately realize that we will likely still be talking about Madonna and Nirvana in 2109, I tend to think we will also be talking about Pearl Jam.
YESTERDAY MARKED THE 30TH ANNIVERSARY of Disco Demolition Night, the date that is traditionally considered the night Disco died. In between games of a doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers at the old Comiskey Park in Chicago, disc jockey Steve Dahl blew up a crate of disco records in centerfield. The ensuing riot that broke out afterwards rivaled the Cleveland Indians' infamous 10 cent beer night promotion and resulted in the cancellation of the second game. Besides getting a chance to see a young Greg Gumbel and Gene Siskel, 
For a band that doesn’t get a whole lot of recognition, you need a scorecard to keep track of the members of Wolf Parade and their various side projects. Spencer Krug moonlights as the leader of Sunset Rubdown, whose fourth full length album, Dragonslayer, recently came out on Jagjaguwar, as well as Swan Lake; Dante DeCaro moonlights with Hot Hot Heat and more relevant to this discussion, Dan Boeckner keeps everything in the family, teaming up with his lusty wife Alexei Perry as the Handsome Furs.
In the Mid-Eighties, World of Music, Arts & Dance co-founder Peter Gabriel regularly brought Youssou N'Dour on tour with him, introducing the Senegalese superstar to audiences outside of Africa. Customarily, N'Dour would open each show with his own band and return for Gabriel's encore to provide backing vocals for "In Your Eyes" and "Biko." For the 3rd annual WOMAD Charlton Park festival in Wiltshire, England, taking place July 24-26, the two will share a bill once more with the former Genesis lead singer headlining Saturday night and N'Dour and his band, Super Etoile de Dakar, as Sunday night's featured attraction.
Long before Michael Jackson’s death reawakened interest in his back catalog or that guy from American Idol got unfairly lauded for his stripped down version of “Billie Jean,” Boston area singer-songwriter Will Dailey had already been offering up his own acoustic rendition of The King of Pop’s Thriller classic as part of his live sets. Naturally, everyone gravitated towards Chris Cornell’s take after the its resurrection on Fox’s glorified talent show, once more proving the sad inclination of the mass media to fail to do their homework in favor of the easy access of YouTube.
When did the music business become such a mess? Why is there an expectation that music should be free? When people seem to be more interested in new music then ever before, why are the major labels hurting so badly? How did the most informed and highest paid executives in the music industry - the best and the brightest - completely bungle the digital transformation of the business? Through countless interviews and meticulous research, Rolling Stone’s Steve Knopper answers these questions, compiling the myriad of stories and anecdotes about the major label’s handling of the emergence of digital technology into Appetite For Self-Destruction, a compact narrative that moves briskly through thirty years of colorful characters, questionable calls and misguided decisions.
Paul McCartney posted a tribute to Michael Jackson over the weekend. McCartney, of course, dueted with Michael on "The Girl Is Mine" from the 
Since Phish burst out of Vermont, the state has rightfully gained a reputation as a breeding ground for earthy, rootsy bands. Coming from the closeknit group of friends and musicians that includes Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, Blues & Lasers and Jen Crowell, Burlington favorites The Leaves, fronted by the sweet and powerful Aya Inoue, are ready to emerge from the state’s snowy confines onto a larger stage. Fans of Mike Gordon’s Ramble Dove will remember Inoue as one of the collective’s sprightly young singers and anyone who has seen Blues & Lasers will recognize Steve Sharon as one half of the band’s potent double drum assault. On Saving Your Side, their first full-length release, The Leaves live up to the potential they showed on 
Come this fall, the adorable and awesome St. Vincent will be joining Andrew Bird for a month's worth of shows. Without veering into the realm of pretentiousness both St. Vincent (nee Annie Clark) and Bird have carved out nice niches for themselves: she as a rockin' version of Holly Golightly and he as a hip whistling, violin player with a neat looping machine. If St. Vincent's 
U2 paid tribute to Michael Jackson during their concert Tuesday night in Barcelona. The band dedicated the iconic "
Brooklyn . . . the County of Kings . . . home of the hipsters. If you have a black T-shirt, thick blocky glasses and can quote lyrics from The National’s last album with the gravitas of Walt Whitman poetry, this is the locale for you. For all the things that you can say about Brooklyn, there is one deep truth about the borough: Brooklyn don’t jam. It’s a fact that can be said with the same certainty that Robert Duvall knew that Charlie didn’t surf. Despite Brooklyn’s preference for the pithy and concise, every so often a band from the jamband community makes a bit of a dent in the aloof community and this past weekend it was U-Melt’s turn to introduce their blend of electronica and progressive rock to Park Slope’s Southpaw.
As I went along to Radio City Music Hall to see Keane perform, I admit to a slight suspicion of a rock band whose music relies more heavily on pianos than guitars. My fears that it would take the “rock’’ edge off that “rock-n-roll” experience though turned out to unfounded.
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