 News Note: Chicago’s Riot Fest & Carnival has announced it’s first wave of bands to play its flagship festival on Sept. 11-13, 2015 in Douglas Park. Some of the artists: No Doubt, Modest Mouse, Faith No More, Iggy Pop, Snoop Dogg, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, Motörhead, Rancid, Tenacious D, Billy Idol, Ice Cube & Guests, Alkaline Trio, Coheed And Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Drive Like Jehu, Merle Haggard, Flogging Molly, Slightly Stoopid, L7, Alexisonfire, Thrice, The Dirty Heads, Stephen “Ragga” Marley, The Academy Is…, The Lawrence Arms, Kongos, Cypress Hill, Echo & The Bunnymen, Bootsy Collins’ Rubber Band, The Devil Wears Prada, Yelawolf, Pennywise, The Airborne Toxic Event, Manchester Orchestra, Eagles Of Death Metal, Anthrax, De La Soul, The Damned, Andrew McMahon, In The Wilderness, New Politics, Mayday Parade, Jimmy Cliff, Against Me!, Babes In Toyland, OK Go, Bayside, Mest, Andrew W.K., Desaparecidos, The Joy Formidable, The Dead Milkmen, FIDLAR, Atreyu, Millencolin, American Nightmare, Swervedriver, Lee Scratch Perry, GWAR, Less Than Jake, The Expendables, Living Colour, The Thurston Moore Band, Morgan Heritrage, Lifetime, Benjamin Booker, Fishbone, Death, Doomtree, Hum, Tarrus Riley, Mariachi El Bronx, Civ, Joyce Manor, and Every Time I Die. In addition to the first wave of bands, several artists have confirmed that they’ll be performing their seminal albums for this year’s rendition: Snoop Dogg (Doggystyle) Ice Cube & Guests (Straight Outta Compton Remix) Rancid (… And Out Come The Wolves) The Academy Is… (Almost Here) The Dwarves (Blood Guts and P*ssy) More details at www.riotfest.org. (News Notes are edited press releases sent by publicists, labels, bands, or musicians)  News Note: The Avett Brothers will support The Rolling Stones on July 1, 2015 during the Zip Code Tour’s stop in Raleigh, NC at Carter-Finley Stadium. The Avetts kick off a headlining North America tour beginning May 30 at Bottlerock in Napa, CA, hitting major markets all over the country, and eventually wrapping up on Artpark Mainstage in Lewiston, NY on September 19. Support will come from John Prine, Shovels and Rope, Lake Street Dive, Sturgill Simpson, Nicole Atkins, and Shakey Graves on select dates. The band is also in the process of preparing to record their ninth full-length studio album. (News Notes are edited press releases sent by publicists, labels, bands, or musicians)  By Samir Shukla The inimitable Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan opened the doors wide for Qawwali music around the world. Tabla master Dildar Hussain Khan toured extensively with the late vocalist for nearly three decades and now keeps the flames of Qawwali burning with his own combo. Qawwali is a centuries old blend of Persian and Hindustani music imbued with Punjabi folk rhythms. It is deeply spiritual and joyful. The vocalist is the key while the accompaniments – background vocalists, harmonium, tabla, claps – expand the song keep the flow. Dildar Hussain Khan’s new recording, Sur Sangeet (Kanaga System Krush Records), is a soaring collection of Qawwali songs coaxed gently into contemporary ethos while keeping the traditions of this fabled Sufi musical art form alive. The singing and the music are trance-inducing. Khan’s tabla keeps the backbeat while his band, son Abrar Hussain on lead vocals and two of his other sons on vocals and percussion, round out the main combo. “Music should lift the heart and the spirit,” Khan explains. ‘That’s the essence of Qawwali. It’s glorification. But to do that it has to communicate, it has to reach out.” The strongest song on the album is the hypnotic “Ya Farid,” featuring the poetry of Iqbal Ranja for which Dildar Khan composed music while lending his emotive vocals in the lead. Dildar Khan also shows off his tabla chops with extended solos in the compositions “Dhamaal” and “Kaharva.” Khan uses tablas that are different from the ones more commonly heard in Indian classical music. It’s where the treble drum is a shade crisper while the bass has a deeper sound. While most Qawwali recordings focus on the passionate voice and words, on Sur Sangeet the tablas are higher in the mix, joining in the trance and vocal modulations that are as vital as Abrar Hussain’s vocals. Tabla master Israr Hussain has inherited his father’s style. Abrar Hussain is evolving into his own mastery of the voice. “These are my children,” says Dildar. “This is their music, too, and I want them to have the freedom to express it as they wish.”  News Note: The Dean Ween Group has announced their summer tour with the line-up: Dean Ween (guitar), Dave Dreiwitz (bass), Claude Coleman (drums), Glenn McClelland (keyboards) and J. Scott Rednor (guitar). Fans of alt rockers Ween, will recognize all these musicians as alumni of "The Ween," the touring version of Ween. Tour Dates 6/15 - 6/16 The Heath at the McKittrick Hotel - New York, NY 7/30 Mr. Smalls - Pittsburgh, PA 7/31 Union Transfer - Philadelphia, PA 8/1 Stone Pony - Asbury Park, NJ 8/4 Pearl St - Northampton, MA 8/5 Higher Ground - Burlington, VT 8/6 Port City - Portland, ME 8/7 The Paradise - Boston, MA 8/29 The Fillmore - Charlotte, NC www.thedeanweengroup.com (News Notes are edited press releases sent by publicists, labels, bands, or musicians)  By Samir Shukla Devo, the misfits of musical devolution, have been upending, twisting, and reassembling musical forms for over four decades. In this concert recording filmed live on June 28, 2014 at the Fox Theater in Oakland, CA, the band returns to its eclectic, experimental roots by performing tracks written between 1974 and 1977. Their music confounded audiences in those early days. It was the era of arena rock and Devo’s musical shenanigans went right over the heads of most people. But the band persevered and influenced many punk and new wave bands that would emerge later in the decade. Filmmaker Keirda Bahruth captures Devo having a blast revisiting and performing songs they haven’t played in years. Devo barely broke into the world of top-40 with quirky numbers like “Whip It” and “Working in the Coalmine.” But this DVD isn’t about the hits. When they jammed and wrote songs in those early days in the basements and garages of Akron, Ohio, they clearly couldn’t less about commercial success. Hardcore Devo features the band performing 21of those compositions in a concert that became a tribute to the original Devo bandmate, guitarist and keyboardist Robert "Bob 2" Casale, who died a few months before this performance. The tracks include, “Mechanical Man, “Space Girl Blues,” “Bamboo Bimbo, “Satisfaction,” “Be Stiff,” “Uncontrollable Urge,” and “Jocko Homo.” The DVD, with a running time of about 84 minutes, also includes interviews, extra clips like building the “Satisfaction” guitar, an alternate opening of the film and more. |
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