New vibe from The Verve

Ten years after disbanding, UK modern-mood popsters The Verve have reunited and are figuring out how to best offer up some new Verve music. All four original members are apparantly on board - Pete Salisbury, Simon Jones, Nick McCabe, and singer Richard Ashcroft (who’s also had success with his well-written solo work) - and they’ve already booked a half-dozen UK live shows in November to test out some of the new songs that they’re working on for what’s said to be a “potential” follow-up album to their last smash, 1997’s Urban Hymns, the set that brought “Bittersweet Symphony” to radio and beyond...

The Live Earth festival series of concerts is coming up quick - July 7, to be exact - and, as is typical with such events, schedules are still shifting even though the big day is nearly here. The Istanbul edition of the concert series has been cancelled, due to a series of complications involving lack of Turkish government support and a not-surprising preoccupation with the Turkish general elections that are coming up on July 22nd. No alternate gig has been scheduled for the Turkish rock performers, unfortunately - butelsewhere, fans can look forward to recent new adds to some of the other shows, namely Shakira, who will be appearing at the Hamburg event, and Taking Back Sunday, who will hit the stage at Live Earth New York...

In Gwen Stefani + No Doubt news, Gwen surprised a Los Angeles crowd over the weekend by calling her bandmates, Tom Dumont, Adrian Young, and Tony Kanal, out on stage during her solo tour performance at the Verizon Amphitheater. The quartet ripped through a few of No Doubt’s hit singles, including “Just a Girl” and “It’s My Life,” marking the first time in the past three years that the full band had played together at a live show. Dumont recently told the press that he, Adrian, and Tony have been writing the instrumental ends of what is hoped to be the next No Doubt album, and that they’re just waiting for Gwen to write the lyrics once she’s wrapped most of the promotional work on her current solo album, The Sweet Escape...

And here’s your Modern Rockin’ advice for the week - be sure to pick your Pumpkins carefully if you want the best one (although “best” may be a matter of opinion...), as when the new Smashing Pumpkins album Zeitgeist hits stores on July 17, there will be not one, but four different album versions to choose from. A marketing ploy that may or may not backfire (coughcoughillegaldownloading) is offering up one standard version of the album, plus one exclusive to Best Buy stores (with the bonus song “Death from Above”), one exclusive to Target stores (with the bonus song “Zeitgeist”), and a downloadable edition exclusive to iTunes, with the bonus song “Stellar.” Other than the bonus tracks, the discs will remain the same...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK: Weezer fans say yippee! Frontman Rivers Cuomo has confirmed on the band’s website that Weezer have regrouped and are working on songs for recording sessions that are due to start in just a few weeks, with a new Weezer album (their sixth) expected in early 2008. Check out this pivotal news for yourself at www.weezer.com...
MINI BUZZ:
UK band Editors, whose new disc An End Has a Start hits stores July 17th, are set to criss-cross North America for a September tour that will start on 9/4 in Washington, D.C. and will wrap in L.A. on September 24; in between, the band will make stops in Toronto (9/9), Minneapolis (9/12), Seattle (9/18), and Portland, Oregon (9/19)...
Indie singer-songwriter Ben Kweller is getting ready to tour, too, in support of his eponymous third album; he’ll kick his tour off in Detroit on July 20th (at the State Theater) and will wrap in Austin, Texas on September 15...
The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus are currently songwriting and have prepped five songs that are slated for their next album, which is due in summer of 2008...
Ambient-trancer Axel Willner - otherwise known as The Field - is another one oops set to tour this summer; he’ll be appearing at (among other places) Chicago’s Pitchfork Festival on July 15, Brooklyn’s Studio B on July 18, and the RX Gallery in San Francisco on July 21...
Both The Bravery and Malibu, California indie rockers Simon Dawes have been tapped as openers for Incubus’ upcoming national tour, which kicks off in L.A. on July 10 at the Greek Theater...
And presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has finally picked her official campaign song, and there’s no modern rockin’ in this one, folks - Hillary’s official theme is now “You and I (Were Meant to Fly)” by Canadian melodramatist Celine Dion...
ON CD: Kelly Clarkson’s My December... The
Beastie Boys’ The Mix-Up... Rasputina’s Oh Perilous World... Sinead O’Connor’s Theology... David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour Deluxe... and Hans Zimmer’s Film Music of Hans Zimmer... ON DVD: Elvis Costello Live: A Case for Song... Modern Drummer Festival 2006... Dinosaur Jr. Live in the Middle East... and The Moody Blues’ Videobiography... 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 View On Our Website