Keen on Keane

March 2, 2005

British trio Keane, fresh off a recent Saturday Night Live appearance and snaggers of two Brit Awards for Best Breakthrough Act and Best Album, brought their award-winning musicianship to the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor last week, where they wowed the sold-out crowd with superb renditions of the majority of songs from their current release, Hopes and Fears, plus several brand new songs that are expected to surface on their next album. Opening acts were newbies The Redwalls, who started off playing to a half-empty house that quickly filled as music fans ran in from the lobby to hear their appealing, retro garage-rock sound, and The Zutons, who were good technically but lacked the fresh energy that The Redwalls supplied. Keane’s performance kept the audience spellbound through their entire well-played and emotional set, and the merchandise table was swamped after the show, a testament to the many new fans they won over. Keane will wrap up their current U.S. slate of dates and will then move on to a series of European appearances; their next major U.S. show will be at the famed Coachella Festival on April 30 in California, while The Redwalls will follow up their Keane schedule with an appearance at Austin, Texas’ SXSW Music Festival...
The Foo Fighters have roped in a couple of Jones for their next album, a double set that will include one disc of more acoustic offerings and one disc of more rockin’ “typical” Foos tunes - Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones will appear on the collection, contributing piano, mandolin, and mellotron to several songs, and singer Norah Jones shares vocals on another track. (Now all they need are some custom Jones Soda bottles with Foo photos on ‘em, and they’ll have a Jones triple threat.) Recording is completed on the album, and the Foos hope to have the album out this upcoming summer; however, no domestic tour dates have been announced yet...
Jason Mraz has finished recording his next album, which will be prefaced to stores by the release of the album’s first single, “Wordplay,” which is expected to hit radio at the end of April. The album itself, which Mraz has dubbed Mr. A-Z, is set for release on August 23. While he (and we) is/are waiting for that same album to come out, we can all stay occupied by catching Mr. Mraz on tour, where his stops will include Kauai, Hawaii (2/20), Decatur, Illinois (3/11), Birmingham, Alabama (4/1), Orlando, Florida (4/2), Bowling Green, Ohio (4/9), and Minneapolis (4/15)...
And The Jayhawks, in spite of recently beginning a “reunion” tour with former Jayhawk Mark Olson (Olson left the band in 1995), have announced that they’ll no longer be an active band, due in large part because most of the members have outside interests. The alternative-country band, an indie favorite long known for their folk-pop harmonies and Americana influences, last hit the charts with their 2003 effort, Rainy Day Music; fans can still at least catch singer Gary Louris on tour with Olsen through mid-March, including stops in Albany, NY (2/26), NYC (3/2), Nashville, TN (3/10), and Chicago (3/12)...

MINI BUZZ:
Detroit’s own White Stripes are reportedly heading into the studio this week to record a new album; although no release date has been announced, general buzz is that it won’t take too long, as the Stripes’ Elephant disc was recorded in just 10 days...
The members of Blink 182 have announced that they’ve collectively decided to go on an “indefinite hiatus”...
While Franz Ferdinand are doing the opposite - rushing right back into the studio to get their second album recorded following their honors at the NME and Brit Music Awards; they hope to have their album out in August of this year...
A DVD of Madonna’s recent Re-Invention tour is expected to be released towards the end of this year in time for holiday gift-buying...
The Tears are heading out on the road for a full UK tour starting in April...
Remastered editions of the first four Pennywise studio albums, Pennywise, Unknown Road, About Time, and Full Circle, will be re-released in early March on Epitaph Records...
And being released this week are these discs…ON CD: Thievery Corporation drops Cosmic Game... Ben Lee sez Awake Is The New Sleep... Devo releases Duty Now For The Future... Scritti Politti releases Early... Aesop Rock presents Fast Car Danger Fire and Knives... and Dave Davies releases a remastered Glamour... ON DVD: Mike and the Mechanics and Paul Carrack - Live at Shepherds Bush London... Classic Albums: Nirvana - Nevermind... Sarah McLachlan - Fallen/Stupid... and Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974 - Through the Camera of Barry Feinstein... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

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