A Little Pixie Dust

Jan. 5, 2005

The currently-on-tour Pixies have been recording their live shows since December 6 and are planning to release each show as a live album, including the 8 sold-out nights they played at New York City’s Hammerstein Ballroom. The discs will be pressed in a limited edition of just 1000 discs per show (with the exception of the Boston show and the final New York show, which will be treated to pressings of 2500 each) - each disc will be individually numbered and will also include photos from the show, and all discs will be up for purchase at www.pixiesdiscs.com...

KROQ’s famed Almost Acoustic Christmas concert took place over the holidays, and fans of both The Police and Incubus got quite a thrill at the event - Police drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers, who have not performed together since the Police were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, hopped on stage with the Incubus boys to perform group renditions of “Message in a Bottle” and “Roxanne.” Incubus, all huge Police fans, now plan to post a recording of “Roxanne” up for paid download on the Apple itunes Music Store, with proceeds to benefit charity. In other Incubus news, the band has just completed touring in support of their latest album, A Crow Left of the Murder, and will spend the beginning of the year working on soundtrack music for the upcoming action movie Stealth...

The new band that brings together former Jane’s Addiction members Dave Navarro, Chris Chaney, and Stephen Perkins - and tops ‘em off with frontman Steve Isaacs, formerly of Skycycle - is now called The Panic Channel, and played their first official show at Los Angeles venue The Key Club last week. They are also hard at work recording a full-length album with Brian Virtue, and will spend the rest of this year completing their debut recording, which is reportedly close to done, although no release date has been announced as of yet...

And the 2005 Noise Pop Festival has been set for February 22 through 27 in San Francisco - the 13th annual event will take up an entire week, spreading live music over 10 venues and featuring dozens of artists. Among this year’s performers are Ted Leo and The Pharmacists, The Polyphonic Spree, Nada Surf, Rogue Wave, Mates of State, breakbeat guru Amon Tobin, and many, many, many more; to find out more or get tickets, check it all out online at www.noisepop.com...

MINI BUZZ:
Sonic Youth are packing up for a trip to Japan in March, during which they’ll play five live dates in Tokyo; tix go on sale next week...
Once known as “Baby Spice,” singer Emma Bunton has now completed her solo debut disc, Free Me, and it will hit stores on January 25; the tracklisting is said to be equal parts Motown, bossa nova, and Petula Clark...
The Killers, who will be playing a sold-out show in London on February 9 as part of the ShockWaves NME Awards tour, have added two extra shows to their schedule due to demand, both on February 19 (one matinee and one evening show)...
Brian Wilson’s Smile album is set to be released in a vinyl edition, a 2 LP set including the original tracklist plus 4 instrumentals not featured on the original CD...
Maroon 5 won the Digital Artist of the Year award at the Billboard Music Awards last week in Las Vegas, and the band is also up for two Grammy Awards, which will be handed out on February 13 in Los Angeles...

New this week in busy CD/DVD stores everywhere... ON CD: ABC re-releases Lexicon of Love... Groove Armada drops Best of Groove Armada... Interpol drops Antics... Kylie Minogue presents Ultimate Kylie... Westlife says, Allow Us To Be Frank... and Graham Coxon releases Crow Sit On Blood Tree... ON DVD: Hoobastank - Let It Out... ABBA - Super Troupers... Classic Albums: U2 - The Joshua Tree... and Best of Mandy Moore... 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!