Great concerts live from the Artists Den

Dec. 30, 2007

Great Concerts Live from the Artists Den
Live from the Artists Den is a new TV series determined to take musicians out of traditional performance venues and into more “magical” performance settings. Helmed by producer Mark Lieberman, who began his idea with living room shows and who says that “not all music fans want to necessarily sit in smoky clubs until the middle of the night,” just to see great music, the series has partnered with cable network Ovation TV, who have already commissioned eight concerts. Those concerts will include Crowded House at the Masonic Hall Grand Lodge in New York; The Swell Season at the Good Shepherd Center Chapel in Seattle; KT Tunstall at the restored Prince George Ballroom in Manhattan; and Fountains of Wayne on a 100-year old ship at the South Street Seaport also in NYC. After the premiere episode airs on January 13, fans can expect Live from the Artists Den to settle into its regular Thursday night at the 8 p.m. spot on Ovation...

Staking its claim as the CMJ Fest of Europe, The EuroSonic Weekend (aka Noorderslag Weekend) presents a whopping 250 bands, all gathered in Groningen, Netherlands to showcase their tunes to both industry folk and fans alike. The 2008 event is now slated for January 10-12, with performances expected by I’m From Barcelona, Robyn, Lightspeed Champion, Mugison, Hooverphonic, Shining, Para One, Calvin Harris, and plenty (and we do mean plenty) of others. If you can’t get to the Netherlands, a good portion of EuroSonic will be broadcast on the radio via the European Broadcasting Union, so check your internet radio links. More info on the whole weekend can be found at
www.noorderslag.nl...

Alanis Morissette is certainly keeping herself busy as the new year approaches. In addition to a book that she’s planning to write over the next year, Morissette is also prepping for the release of her seventh studio album, Flavors of Entanglement, that she says is a “snapshot of her last year” and that is due in stores in April; in addition to the album tracks, she also recorded an additional 10 songs that will be doled out to fans via streaming audio and various downloads. As if all of that weren’t enough, Morissette has also been tapped to play the part of Sylvia in the movie “Radio Free Albemuth,” an adaptation of a story by one of Morissette’s favorite (and most esteemed) sci-fi writers, Philip K. Dick; the movie began filming in Los Angeles a couple of months ago and is expected in theaters next year as well...

And the still-overrated Kanye West has managed to nab eight Grammy nominations, proving once again that NARAS still isn’t paying attention to what’s really going on in the music community. Also nominated in major categories were Justin Timberlake, The Foo Fighters, Carrie Underwood, Maroon 5, Corinne Bailey Rae, Daughtry, Wilco, Fantasia, and Common. And, relegated to the Best Alternative Album category, we find the talented quintet of Bjork, The Shins, The White Stripes, Lily Allen, and The Arcade Fire. The 50th Annual Grammy Awards will air at 8 p.m. on February 10...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK: Silverchair and Powderfinger, embarking on their Across the Great Divide Tour, are offering up a free download for your telephone, which is also serving as an ode to their tour manager, Jake Denny. The track, dubbed “Jake You Took Us the Long Way,” can be snagged on the tour website at
www.acrossthegreatdivide.com.au...

MINI BUZZ:
Although they’re not announcing even a tentative release date for a new album, Green Day have nonetheless booked studio time beginning in January to start work on the follow-up to their smash 2004 set, American Idiot...
Casting Crowns have added a plethora of live dates to their 2008 schedule in further support of their recent release, The Altar and the Door...
With The Strokes still on hiatus, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr., who just released his solo debut disc, Yours to Keep in the States back in March, is already at work on the album’s follow-up, which is due in-stores in the spring; song titles so far include “Modern Jazz,” “And So We Go,” and “Victory at Monterey”...
Singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens has announced a series of new world tour dates that kicked off in Brooklyn, NY on December 17th and will take Stevens through Australia and Japan, for starters...
Wilco, fresh from a Barack Obama benefit performance, are packing up for a string of 2008 tour dates that will include stops in Cleveland (2/22), Philly (2/23), Nashville (3/2) and New Orleans (3/4 and 3/5) before the band takes their tour over to Australia...
And a guitar once owned by the Rolling Stones that has been missing since the early ‘60s has been recovered in London, where it was given to a dentist to pay a dental bill by a Rolling Stones crew member; it’s now thought to be worth almost half a million bucks (which would’ve been one heck of a dental bill)...
And here are a few things that are a little more affordable, all out this week... ON CD: Philip Glass’ Book of Longing... The Frames’ The Cost... Take That’s Beautiful World - Tour Souvenir... Frank Sinatra Sings the Great American Songbook... Various Artists’ Pure ‘60s... and Nicholas Gunn’s Seasons’ Greetings from the Grand Canyon... ON DVD: Cactus: Live... Foo Fighters: DVD Collector’s Box Unauthorized... Nick Drake: Under Review... and Yusef Islam - Yusef’s Cafe Session... 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.