They‘re Killin‘ Em in Vegas

April 6, 2005

The Killers - one of the few (only?) modern rockers to make it out of Las Vegas - are currently in the midst of getting ready for their U.S. tour, which will kick off on April 11 in Phoenix, Arizona, and they’re also working on several new songs that will most likely make it both onto their live setlist and onto the next Killers album - among those new songs are the Police-influenced “Where Is She,” and the more organic-sounding “Higher and Higher” and “It’s Only Natural.” Other stops on The Killers tour will include Los Angeles (April 16th and 17), Chicago (May 11), and Toronto (May 31); the tour will keep the band on the road through mid-July. They’ll also be making appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on April 14, at the Music Midtown Festival in Atlanta on June 10 through the 12 (along with The White Stripes, Keane, Coheed and Cambria, and almost two dozen other artists), and at this year’s Carling Weekend Reading and Leeds Festivals in England...

Now she’s here, now she’s not... oh, wait, now she’s here again - “retired” singer Sinead O’Connor, who announced back in the spring of 2003 that she was leaving the music business, has recently confirmed in an interview with an Irish mag that she’s signed a new record deal with Sanctuary Records and is working on several new album projects. Meanwhile, her former label, Capitol, is putting together a collection of the vocalist’s duets with various musicians for a disc that’ll be titled Collaborations, and will feature O’Connor performing with the likes of U2’s Bono (on the track “I’m Not Your Baby”), Peter Gabriel (“Blood of Eden”), Massive Attack (“Special Cases”), Moby (“Harbour”), The The (“Kingdom of Rain”), and Asian Dub Foundation (“1000 Mirrors”) - it’s set to be a pretty cool collection that should keep O’Connor fans happy until her next discs of new material surface to CD stores...

Scottish rockers Teenage Fanclub - otherwise known as Norman Blake, Francis Macdonald, Raymond McGinley, and Gerard Love - have just wrapped work on their first album in five years, which they recorded in the Windy City of Chicago, and are prepping to toss that album to the chart winds. Dubbed Man Made, the new disc is set to ship to stores on May 16, and will be accompanied by the band’s new touring schedule, which will kick off before the album’s release on March 29 in London, England...

And if you’re going to be spending any of your summer days in Los Angeles, don’t miss L.A. radio station KCRW’s World Music Festival - set to be held throughout the summer months at the Hollywood Bowl, the event will be hosted by KCRW music director Nic Harcourt, and will feature a whole slew of eclectic world music artists, from Basement Jaxx, Royskopp, David Byrne, Yo-Yo Ma, and Mos Def to the season’s closing show, Destination Hawaii, which will wrap the series up in September with a host of performers from the Hawaiian islands. Opening the fest will be the aforementioned David Byrne along with The Arcade Fire and Si Se and the Extra Action Marching Band on June 26; another don’t-miss evening will be Reggae Night on August 28, with Desmond Dekker, Maxi Priest, and Black Uhuru...

MINI BUZZ:
Oasis have nabbed both Jet and Kasabian to serve as their opening acts for their North American tour, which was initially slated just for the summer months but has now been extended into the fall; Oasis’ new much-anticipated new album, Don’t Believe The Truth, is due to drop on May 30, and the debut single from that album, “Lyla,” will hit radio on May 16...
The La’s, who are probably best known for their recently-redone-by-Sixpence-None-the-Richer hit “There She Goes,” are set to reform at this year’s Summer Sonic festival in Tokyo, which will take place on August 13-14; in other Summer Sonic news, Weezer, Oasis, and The Black Crowes are all also confirmed to perform...
Audioslave are set to release their as-yet-untitled new album on May 16; listen for the disc’s first single, “Be Yourself” on radio now, and look for an accompanying video to arrive in April...
U2 are already getting rave reviews for their live shows, even though they just started their tour under a week ago; those in attendance heard Ireland’s favorite rockers play both tunes from their newest album, How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, plus plenty of older tracks that haven’t been heard from the boys in years, including “Pride (In the Name of Love),” “The Electric Co.,” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”...
Death Cab for Cutie will perform on the trendoid TV show The O.C. on April 20...
And the third (and much-anticipated) Coldplay album has been titled X and is due out June 7...

ON CD: buzz band Kaiser Chiefs drop Employment while fellow buzzers The Bravery offer up The Bravery... Hot Hot Heat drops The Elevator... Kasabian presents their self-titled disc Kasabian... Everything But The Girl drops Adapt or Die: 10 Years of Remixes... and ex-Toad-the-Wet-Sprocket singer and Interlochen performer Glen Phillips presents Winter Pays For Summer... ON DVD: the blues documentary Lightning in a Bottle... The Mamas and the Papas - California Dreamin’... Sun Ra’s The Magic Sun... Sting’s critically-acclaimed documentary Bring on the Night... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.

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