New Music Alert: Collective Soul

Hollywood

The first single from their upcoming as-yet-untitled new album due in August has hit the 'net (that means MySpace) and will be impacting radio, as much as radio can be impacted these days, imminently as well.

In other CS news, the band will embark on a trifecta bill with Live and Counting Crows, hitting minor league baseball parks all across the country in a series dubbed - are you ready for this - The Rock N' Roll Triple Play Ballpark Tour. Who's the person who comes up with the names for these tours? Thank you, Captain Obvious, for leaving absolutely no confusion about what the nature of the event is (Rock N' Roll) , how many performers there will be (Triple Play), and where it takes place (Ballpark Tour). You got the pun in there, but frankly even that wasn't that good.

New Music Alert: Smashing Pumpkins

Tarantula

Taken from their upcoming album "Zeitgeist," due July 10, their first new studio material since 2000's "Machina/The Machines of God."

Meanwhile, Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain (anybody know who else is in the band yet?) have two residences this summer, one in San Francisco and the other in Asheville, North Carolina.

That's all well and great, but where's the full cross-country tour?

The Rage Reunion Is On!

Following up this story, MTV News has reported (via the LA Times) that Zach De La Rocha, Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, and Brad Wilk will indeed bring their unique blend of turbocharged activist rock to this year's Coachella festival:

...this year's major coup is a reunion of thrashing political rockers Rage Against the Machine, who have not played together for seven years. The band is expected to get together for a one-off headlining show at the eighth edition of the three-day festival, which they last played in 1999.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bjork are also expected to be on the bill, although no official announcement has yet been made. Other acts likely to take the stage include: Arcade Fire, Interpol, the Roots, the Decemberists, Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Kings of Leon, Willie Nelson, Air and a reunited Crowded House, according to the Times. If it all goes down like that, this year's Coachella is set to be one of the best ever, a major accomplishment for the highly respected festival.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival will take place April 27-29 in Indio, CA, with a three-day pass running you a cool $250 (although for this kind of lineup and that much music, it's certainly worth it). Tickets go on sale Saturday.

This is definitely one of those times where I wish I was on the other coast. Damn. What would your ultimate festival lineup be if you could choose, say, 20 bands over 3 days of music?

Dispatch Rock For Zimbabwe!

Reggae-infused rockers Dispatch are ready to give it up for charity and they want you to come along. And apparently you listened, with two sold-out engagements at MSG. From the Dispatch website:

Friends:

It has been a wild 48 hours. What we initially intended to be a one-night charity event at Madison Square Garden turned into two SOLD OUT nights (July 13 and 14), all via our presale. We cannot thank you enough for your generous support of the cause at hand.

In an effort to get more tickets into the hands of fans, and raise further awareness and funds for those in need, we will be adding a third night of DISPATCH: ZIMBABWE, to take place on Sunday, July 15.

There will be no presale for this show. All tickets will be made available to the public at 9:00 AM EST on Saturday, January 20. Tickets can be purchased at that time via Ticketmaster.com, or by calling 212.307.7171. Also, in an attempt to fight some of the folks who thought it would be charitable to use EBAY to turn a profit on a charity show, there will be a 6 ticket limit per customer, and 4 ticket limit per customer for floor seats. Multiple transactions will not be permitted.

We are also working with our production team to explore opening more seats on Friday July 13, and Saturday July 14. More information on this as soon as it becomes available.

For now, all we can say is, Thank you.

**TEAM DISPATCH**

As for what this is all about, Ticketmaster summed it up pretty well on their presale page:

The goal is to raise money to fight the effects of environmental degradation, sustained drought conditions, a distressing disregard for human rights, an HIV population that exceeds 25% and an ill-advised economic policy that has left thousands of Zimbabweans on the brink of starvation.

The proceeds from the event will go towards fighting disease, famine, and social injustice in Zimbabwe--plus, in an effort to bring the fight to their own country, the band will donate a small portion of money raised to the domestic causes they have long supported.

Don't try buying tickets from the page though, as you'll be sorely disappointed if you do. Rather, plug in to the 7/15/07 event page, where you can get in on the action beginning on Jan. 20th. But do follow the rules so some of us ticket-less ones can get in on this too, k?

Be sure to stay tuned to Dispatch:Zimbabwe for the latest updates, news, and info, including how you can get backstage with the band (perverts need not apply).

Not familiar with the jammin' sounds of Dispatch? No problem! Just head on over to their official band page, where you can stream their music library for all your listening needs completely free! And remember this is for a good cause so come out for a good time and do some good while you're at it. I'll be hoping to catch you there!

Discuss:

What's the best charity concert ever staged?
(The Concert for Bangladesh, Live Aid, Live 8, others?)
What's the best performance from a charity event?
What's your ideal charity benefit concert lineup? What cause would you support?

2007 Previews: The Arcade Fire

Eclectic Montreal outfit The Arcade Fire are poised to release their next studio effort, "Neon Bible," in March via Merge. The set will be the follow-up to their 2004 debut LP "Funeral," which featured "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and "Rebellion (Lies)." The band, which is self-producing the new disc, recorded the songs in a converted church in their Montreal hometown. In terms of the composition and feel for the new material, NME reports:

Frontman Win Butler added: "We talked about a lot of ideas for orchestration and Regine Butler and him are trading off midi files trying to get three songs arranged for late August...Regine and I are going to sneak away somewhere closer to the ocean for a week..so we can record some vocals...a lot of the songs remind me of being near the ocean at night time."

Commenting on reports that the band used new instruments on the record, Butler wrote: "The pipe organ was amazing...never heard anything quite like it, we also recorded a horn section in the church with microphone 200 feet away with the craziest reverb I have ever heard.

Meanwhile, Monsters and Critics reports on how you can hear the track, "Intervention" from Neon Bible:

The Arcade Fire has unveiled "Intervention," the first track from its hotly anticipated new album, 'Neon Bible,' via a pre-recorded telephone message accessible by calling 866-636-6242, extension 7777...

If a prerecorded telephone message is not your ideal way of sampling The Arcade Fire's new album, you're in luck. The Hype Machine has the track available for listening to on the web by following this link. The aforementioned pipe organ starts us off here by eliciting a Sunday morning church service, which reflects the lyrical imagery Win Butler belts during the chorus: "working for the church while your family dies, little baby sister gonna lose her mind, every spark of friendship and love will die without a hope." The dark, despairing resignation of the opening gives way to somber acoustic tones and pleading instrumentation as Butler gushes on about groaning soldiers and the death of love. The forlorn drama of the tune is only cut deeper by the band's trademark ability to let their music bleed profusely into the heart of the listener.

You can listen to a more stripped down version of, "Intervention," by checking out the video of their performance of the song on KCRW (via YouTube). Even more, you can catch the band on the road beginning next month in London. Billboard reports:

The Arcade Fire will play a Feb. 13-17 stand at Judson Memorial Church near New York's Washington Square in advance of the March release of its next Merge album, "Neon Bible." Tickets go on sale Jan. 5 and are limited to two per person.

The shows will follow previously announced five-night stands at unconventional venues in London and the band's Montreal homebase, beginning in late January.

On-sale and additional information is available at The Arcade Fire's official site. As for the single and the album (via the Billboard article):

frontman Win Butler said the track will soon be available for legal download. Proceeds will benefit Partners in Health, which aims to provide free health care to patients in Haiti.

As for "Neon Bible," he said, "We have probably worked harder in the last three months then in the rest of our lives combined, but we are all really proud of the results."

As with Bloc Party, this is easily on my list as one of the top 10 anticipated albums of 2007. Much more on that subject as time goes on. For now enjoy the Arcade Fire and Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

2007 Previews: Bloc Party

British post-punkers Bloc Party will release their next album, the follow-up to their critically praised 2005 debut "Silent Alarm," on February 6. "A Weekend in the City" is led by the brand new single "The Prayer," which is already getting airplay in their native Great Britain. In describing the upcoming album, MTV clues us in on how the band is moving forward but with no less musical or lyrical complexity:

Over glitchy vocal samples, piston-like drums, swooning synths and prickly guitars, Okereke weaves 11 tales of big-city life, darting between overly lonely narratives about dead-eyed teens, morning commuters, business executives and coked-up clubgoers, while capturing both the fleeting moments of beauty and soul-wrenching nights of desperation that come with 21st-century living in a faceless, unforgiving metropolis.

"A lot of the ideas for these songs came to me whilst we were touring last year, and I was coming back to the U.K. intermittently and seeing friends that I was at university with," the singer/guitarist explained. "They're all working, all commuting, all getting drunk on the weekend. And no one seemed to be particularly happy. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have this real sort of incongruity between what they thought life was going to be and what life actually was. And I wanted to capture that real sense of optimism fading against the grind and routine of everyday life. It's about getting lots and lots of different perspectives; all the songs are different voices: a teenager, a commuter, an executive type — all these snapshots of people that paint one large picture.

And Bloc Party certainly have had a bustling go of it in the last few years, following "Silent Alarm" with a remix album and several EP's, which included the release of last year's hit "Two More Years". They were also originally a part of the, "Nothing Rhymes with Circus" tour headlined by the pop-punk darlings Panic! at the Disco. Drummer Matt Tong's health brought a quick end to that venture, forcing Bloc Party to cancel the rest of their dates on the trek. But the quartet has regrouped and will begin an overseas tour next month that runs through the middle of March.

As for "The Prayer," it begins with a deep intoning chant which serves to evoke the spiritual undertones of the title, and sets up lead singer Kele Okereke's unrestrained vocals as Tong's drums dutifully play along. Moments later the noise-rock grooves reminiscent of "Silent Alarm" pound in, layering in the second tier of the band's signature multi-layered sound. By the time the chorus arrives, the aesthetic dissonance of guitarist Russel Lissack's chopping guitars moves into a 'synthier' sound and Okereke's insistent harmonics raise the urgency and immediacy of his message:

Tonight make me a unstoppable
I will charm, I will slice,
I will dazzle them with my wit
Tonight make me a unstoppable
And I will charm, I will slice
I will dazzle I will outshine all

(lyrics courtesy of Sing365.com)

You can listen to and watch the reality bending video for the single: The Prayer - Official Video at YouTube.

Alternatively, you can listen to the track (minus the video) at the official Bloc Party MySpace page.

For more: http://www.blocparty.com.

In The News

Time for a wrapup of what's happening in and around the biz, so let's get down to the nitty-gritty:

- The unshakable Rolling Stones earned the highest grossing tour of the year, according to Billboard Boxscore. Mick Jagger and Co. took in a hefty $437 million to claim the top spot. Also noteworthy was Madonna's Confessions tour at the number 2 slot, which became the most profitable tour ever by a female artist at just under $195 million. For the rest of the top ten, click on the link.

- CBS Records will be returning to the global market with the launch of a new record label, the AP reports. CBS will release music online and through iTunes as well as potentially via other digital outlets over time. The company also intends to promote its artists on its cable network television programming.

- Radiohead's often praised yet quite likely overrated 'Kid A' will get an orchestral treatment. Despite being in the camp of people who did not feel that Radiohead's late 90's and early oo's experimental inventiveness was so monumental, I am particularly interested to see how the new arrangement would sound. I have made the argument that one quality of outstanding music is that it has the innate ability not to lose anything, in fact to gain something, when reimagined (such as through stripped down acoustic performances or in this case by an orchestra). Even though the saturation of 'string tributes' has begun to just leave a stale taste in my mouth most of the time, the occasional one will still scintilliate. The best example of this was Apocalyptica's magnificent 1998 metal tribute - Inquisition Symphony. I am most curious, though, to see how the ambience and eerie evocations of songs like 'Everything In Its Right Place' and 'How To Disappear Completely' will sound in a more classic interpretaton.

- Finally, in the category of "been there a thousand times," Axl Rose has declared a tenative March 6 release for the essentially theoretical 'Chinese Democracy' album. This is one of those items that I don't think I will believe until after I see and listen to it. Although in a way, perhaps Axl is the most brilliant marketing genius of our time. His hints, taunts, and whispers about this album, which include less than half-realized tours and celebrity guests (such as Sebastian Bach), have created a buzz of anticipation as to whether or not fans will ever get to hear the fruits of GNR's last 10+ years in and out of studios. That's the flirtatious kind of heat on par with George 'I'm going to wait 16 years to finish my epic and culturally omnipresent story' Lucas's antics, but I am sure Axl is hoping for an ultimately more well-received result. 'Chinese Democacy,' already legendary in the making, will have to overcome the fact that it's been dreadful in execution. Which means the enduringly relevant question remains - What will happen first? Democracy in China, or 'Chinese Democracy'?