Modern Rock: Beck starts his very own record club

Oct. 18, 2009

Modern Rock
Kristi Kates 10/19/09
Beck Starts His Very Own Record Club
Beck’s snagged some famous musical friends to help him out with a new recording project - a little something he’s dubbed “Record Club,” via which he and his collaborators will re-record classic albums, with songs set to be released once a week via Beck’s official website (the website itself - www.beck.com - will be undergoing a complete redesign to coincide with Record Club.) None of the albums slated to be covered will be rehearsed, and the collaborators involved will only have one day to record the entire album; first up is The Velvet Underground and Nico, on which Beck will work with producer Nigel Godrich and Icelandic singer Thorunn Magnusdottir. Other musicians lined up for Record club include MGMT, Sonic Youth, and Jamie Lidell...
A dozen music legends will join together on October 29 and 30 at NYC’s Madison Square Garden to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. U2, Paul Simon, Simon and Garfunkel, Metallica, Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, and Crosby Stills Nash and Friends will all play live shows, of which the proceeds will go towards creating a permanent endowment for the Hall of Fame Foundation and Museum. A Hollywood-level creative team - including Tom Hanks, Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone), Robbie Robertson, and director Cameron Crowe - will be working with the musicians to curate the show through live performances and filmed segments designed to tell “the story of rock and roll” - and a four-hour program of highlights will be aired on HBO in mid-November...
Aussie modern rockers Silverchair spent most of this past summer in the depths of the (hopefully air-conditioned) recording studio, hard at work on the follow-up album to their 2007 release, Young Modern. According to the band’s website, producer Chris Townend has been working with the band, and singer Daniel Johns is the one focusing on song development - and was also seen playing the xylophone on an “in-studio” band video clip. The band is expected to continue working on the set through the fall, as no release date has yet been announced; Johns’ side project, Hathaway/Palmer (on which he is collaborating with The Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele), are said to have mostly completed the recording of the acoustic pop record they were working on last year, but there’s no release date yet for that one, either...

And NYC is the place to be from October 20th through the 24th this year, as the CMJ Music Marathon and Film Festival makes its 2009 return to the Big Apple. Five days and nights of movies and music will take over 75 of the city’s concert venues, clubs, and theaters, as over 1,200 (yes, you read that correctly) bands and musicians will perform. So if you want to see some of the coolest new bands on the scene today, get more info, schedules, and buy your tix at www.cmj.com...
MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
Plenty of news to keep an eye on from Weezer; the band is keeping busy with a bunch of projects, including a new album (which may even be completed as of press time), and a reissue of one of their other classic albums; get all the details at www.weezer.com...

MINI BUZZ:
Ian Hunter has put together a new backing band and has completed work on his newest solo set, Man Overboard, which is in-stores now....
Kings of Leon are embarking on a trio of Mexican tour dates that will take them to Guadalajara (10/20), Mexico City (10/22), and Monterrey (10/24)...
The Kooks, Seether, The Kills, John Rich, and Maroon 5 are among the bands and musicians who have recorded modernized versions of Frank Sinatra songs for a special iTunes collection meant to introduce Sinatra’s music to a new audience, and introduce Frank’s fans to a few new bands, too...
IFC television network has ordered a half-dozen episodes of the new series “Dinner with the Band,” a show that features NY chef Sam Mason cooking a meal for top indie bands like Final Fantasy and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, mixing meals and musical performances in a Brooklyn loft...
Muse’s arena tour is now set to kick off on November 4 at Sheffield Arena in England...
American Idol’s host Ryan Seacrest is now officially Fox TV’s 45 Million Dollar Man - yes, folks, that’s the amount of money Seacrest has snagged for a three-year hosting deal on Idol...
And hoping to snag your money are this week’s new releases... ON CD: Sting’s If On a Winter’s Night... Thrice’s Beggars... Lou Barlow’s Goodnight Unknown... and the eponymous set from Dead Man’s Bones (actor Ryan Gosling’s new band)... ON DVD: Soundstage: B.B. King Live and Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense on Blu-Ray ... 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 at modernrocker@gmail.com