Detroit Electronic Music Fest set to return in 2010

Sept. 27, 2009

Modern Rock
Kristi Kates 9/28/09

Detroit Electronic Music Fest Set to Return in 2010

This year’s Movement 2009 Electronic Music Festival in Detroit was another resounding success (May 23- 25), and festival organizers are already planning ahead for the 2010 edition, even though we’re just finished with summer. Carl Craig, who co-founded the event as the DEMF (Detroit Electronic Music Festival) in 2000, is set to return next year as creative director, which organizers say will “tie the festival back to its roots, since Craig was responsible for this whole thing to begin with.” This year’s event drew 60,000 people on Saturday and Sunday, and featured sets from the Prodigy, Z-Trip, Afrika Bambaataa, Tiga, and Craig himself...
Singer-songwriter Richard Hawley’s sixth studio set, Truelove’s Gutter, is out on Mute Records this week, as recorded in Hawley’s English hometown of Sheffield at Yellow Arch Studios. The album includes several unusual instruments, including the megabass waterphone and the cristal baschet, which is a rare instrument composed of 54 chromatically-tuned glass rods, that serve as great accompaniment to eight of Hawley’s new, darker-themed songs, from the opener, “As the Dawn Breaks,” through “Remorse Code,” “Soldier On,” and “Don’t You Cry”...
Former Husker Du/Sugar indie-punk veteran Bob Mould has announced that he’ll embark on a fall tour in support of his most recent solo album, Life and Times, a set that’s comprised of all-new Mould songs, each of which contains different influences from all of the bands and musical projects he’s participated in throughout his 30-year career. Mould’s tour will include stops in Washington DC (10/10), Chicago (10/12), Seattle (10/15), Portland (10/16), and San Diego (10/20)...
Drive-By Truckers have already released one CD this year - their July live album - and are following that one with a compilation of songs from the band’s back catalog. The Fine Print (A Collection of Oddities and Rarities 2003-2008) will include a dozen songs, and Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood says he’s really happy now with how cohesive the entire compilation turned out, in spite of the fact that he’d actually “forgotten about” a few of the older tunes...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
Procol Harum’s 1967 classic psychedelic-rocker “A White Shade of Pale” has been named “Britain’s Most-Played Song in Public Places” over the past 75 years, beating Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and The Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do is Dream.” Not familiar with it? Check out the video - complete with psychedelic nehru-collared shirts, ‘70s camera angles, and running through various dried-grass meadows, at www.youtube.com.
MINI BUZZ:
Loney Dear still have a few dates left on their fall North American tour in support of their latest album, Dear John - catch them in Chicago (10/10), Toronto (10/12), and Philly (10/17)...
Guitarist Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) is collaborating with rapper/MC Boots Riley to form the Street Sweeper Social Club, which features what Morello calls “crushing guitar work” and which should also appeal to Rage fans; the band has already begun playing live shows...
Jay-Z is already working on his next album, which he says will be his “most eclectic one yet,” even though his The Blueprint 3 just hit stores last week...
Pinback have put together their own itinerary of live shows for this fall, which will include stops in Dallas (10/20), Atlanta (10/22), Ann Arbor, MI (11/2), Chicago (11/3), Minneapolis (11/4), and Denver (11/6)...
French studio-popsters Phoenix are offering up their fifth studio set, Love 2, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for the suave duo’s latest tunes - Love 2 will be released on October 6...
Chicago singer-songwriter Andrew Bird still has a month or so left on his U.S. tour, with dates scheduled in Kalamazoo, MI (10/18), Columbus, OH (10/19), Philly (10/25), and Providence, Rhode Island (10/27)...
And here are this week’s new releases, available now... ON CD: Muse’s latest, The Resistance... Porcupine Tree’s The Incident... Monsters of Folk’s Monsters of Folk... Volcano Choir’s Unmap... and Phonograph’s OKNO... ON DVD: Jonas Brothers Vol. 1 - Rock’n the House and *Jamaican Music and Soul: Made in Jamaica*... and Elvis Complete: The King of Rock N’ Roll... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.
Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your favorite musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi atmodernrocker@gmail.com”modernrocker@gmail.com