Who do the Voodoo

July 26, 2006

Yet another festival is heading your way in the fall, namely the Voodoo Music Experience Festival, which will help continue revitalizing New Orleans by taking over the city’s City Park on October 28th and 29th. Over 50 performers are schedule to appear, including the likes of My Chemical Romance, The Flaming Lips, Blue October, Broken Social Scene, The Rentals, and Drive-By Truckers; The Red Hot Chili Peppers will open the show, and Duran Duran are set to close. The lineup will likely expand over the next couple of months as more acts are added; tickets can be purchased and updated info can be checked out at the official festival website, www.voodoomusicfest.com...

Indie pop-rocksters Switchfoot have been focusing on work for their new album, having just brought in producer Tim Palmer (U2, Pearl Jam) to help with the effort. The band, who says they are being “more experimental” this time around, are planning a late 2006 release date for the new disc, and are also playing a few summer tour dates in between their studio work, so keep an eye out for them on the road...

Aussie rockers Jet have just started getting things together for their newest album, too, which will serve as the follow-up to their 2003 disc, Get Born. Working with producer David Sardy, the band began writing songs for the set in Barbados late last year, and are now back in Australia, working with Sardy to pare the whopping 40 songs that they put together to a more manageable 15 that will appear on the final album. Tracks already planned for inclusion include “Eleanor,” “Holiday,” and “Stand Up,” which is being described by the band as “the biggest rock song you’ve ever heard.” Jet’s latest is also set to hit stores late in 2006...
And, in more festival news, Jamaica’s Reggae Sunsplash is revamping itself as a full tour, will a 17-city tour schedule that will kick off in early August and will continue through September. Beginning with a three-day stint in Jamaica from August 3rd to 6th, the tour will pack several of its artists up directly afterwards to begin a U.S. theater tour that will start August 10th in West Palm Beach, Florida. Going along for the reggae ride will be performers Maxi Priest, UB40, Third World, and Toots and the Maytals, among others; longtime Sunsplash host Tommy Cowan will be on the tour, too, which will, in addition to the music, feature Jamaican food and a crafts fair...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
The most covered song in music history is perhaps a question that would be hard to answer definitively - but one of those songs is likely the old Led Zeppelin chestnut “Stairway to Heaven.” Well, radio station WFMU has posted a whopping 101 covers of that very song on their online blog, including renditions by the band Redd Kross, the London Symphony Orchestra, and Jeroen Offerman (who sings the song backwards) plus one by a gentleman who offers up a version on accordian - this link has it all: http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/05/stairways_to_he.html
MINI BUZZ:
The spectacular 2006 Lollapalooza Music Festival, is coming up quick on August 4th, 5th, and 6th, keeps making additions even up to the last minute - newly dropped onto the Lolla roster this week are Ben Kweller, My Morning Jacket, The Violent Femmes, Ghostland Observatory, DJ Rashida, and Mixmaster Mike; find out more at www.lollapalooza.com...
L.A. band Darker My Love are hitting the road for a series of West Coast dates - they’ll be in-residence at Silver Lake Club Spaceland through the end of July, and will also play dates in Arizona and Vegas, baby, with buddies AFI; Darker’s new self-titled album will hit stores on August 22nd...
Babyshambles’ singer-slash-Kate-Moss-party-mate Pete Doherty has signed, of all things, a literary publishing deal and will be publishing a set of his journals next year...
The 2007 version of videogame Madden NFL, will, as on past versions, include alt-rock and rap tracks from a variety of musicians, including contributions from 30 Seconds to Mars, Audioslave, Anti-Flag,Dashboard Confessional, Less Than Jake, and Saves the Day...
Portland, Oregon punksters The Gossip have wrapped work on a new EP titled GSSP RMX that will be in stores on August 22nd via Kill Rock Stars Records...
And, right on the heels of frontman Matt Sharp’s announcement of a Rentals reunion, the band has just embarked on the beginnings of their first tour in 10 years, having played in California on July 2nd, and launching a coast-to-coast American tour on July 21st in Bakersfield; their itinerary includes stops in all the major U.S. cities, and the band is also planning to record a new album later this year...
New albums that you won’t have to wait until later this year for include these discs, which are all out this week...

ON CD:
Hans Zimmer’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest soundtrack... India.Arie’s Testimony: Vol. 1 Life and Relationship... Grant Lee Phillips’ Nineteeneighties... Pet Shop Boys’ Fundamental... Golden Smog’s Another Fine Day... and Third Eye Blind’s (cough cough) Greatest Hits... ON DVD: Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi - Rock Forever!...Fame: The DVD... Thelonius Monk - Straight No Chaser.. and We Jam Econo: The Story of the Minutemen ... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com!