LeBron James to also host the rally.

By Blurt Staff

Add Jay-Z to the list of music artists doing free get-out-the-vote concerts this election season - and, naturally, the list of artists staunchly pro-Obama.  This Wednesday, Oct. 29, the hip-hop superstar along with NBA superstar LeBron James will show up in Cleveland at the Last Chance For Change Rally for a 6:30 show at the Q.

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer the event is free and open to Ohio residents but a ticket is still needed - see the CPD story for ticket locations - and there's a limit of two free tickets per person.

Don't forget some of those other Obama-related events taking place this week either:

*Perry Farrell/Beastie Boys in Youngstown, OH,  Oct. 29

*Reigning Sound, Tift Merritt and others in Asheville, NC, Oct. 28

*dB's, Superchunk and others in Chapel Hill, NC, Nov.1

*Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds in Richmond, VA, Oct. 26 - whoops, that was yesterday. Well, hope everyone had a great time!

Candidate puts on mega-party Election Night in the Windy City.

By Blurt Staff

The undisputed rock star of the year, Barack Obama, will officially wrap up this year's seemingly endless series of rock-stars-appearing-at-rallies on Election Night, Nov. 4, in Chicago. He'll be hosting a potentially 100,000-strong bash at Grant Park, which as MTV News helpfully points out is also the location of the annual Lollapalooza.

For the Obama homecoming, Texas concert promoters C3, who are responsible for bringing Lollapalooza to Grant Park, will be in charge of staging the even.

Also, according to a report filed by the Chicago Tribune, the Obama campaign, and not the city, will most likely be footing the bill. "In addition to the normal permit fees paid for park rentals, the campaign is already making arrangements to assure that city resources are not used to clean up the park following the event," Obama campaign spokesman Justin DeJong told the daily paper. "The campaign is also paying for substantial private security and [emergency medical] services to limit the need for city services surrounding the event."

Band's bassist turns up the volume, Plant or no Plant.

By Matthew Recchia

It's almost been a full year since one of history's greatest rock n' roll band, if not THE greatest, reunited and rocked the O2 Arena in London. Since then, thousands of rumors have leaked from magazines and the web reporting Led Zeppelin reunion shows and tours in the United States.

One thing they all had in common: Discussing the fate of (former) lead singer, Robert Plant.

Sunday, John Paul Jones put some of the rumors to rest, and added to others during a Q&A session at the Mansons Guitar Show in Exeter, United Kingdom. Headlining an impressive list of guests at an occasion labeled "the major guitar event of 2008", Jones confirmed that he, guitarist Jimmy Page, and drummer Jason Bonham have been rehearsing with random singers and are hoping to tour as soon as possible.

Jones also touched on the Robert Plant fiasco while answering questions for fans. From Jones's point of view, Plant "really doesn't want to make loud music anymore", and is more focused on continuing the success he and Allison Krauss enjoyed from their debut acoustic album Raising Sand.

Plant, the main instigator of rumors about the band, has continuously denied reports that he will tour if and when Led Zeppelin reunites (Blurt wonders: should it still be considered a reunion if only half the band is reuniting?). Plant is ready to take a break from touring for a couple years, and hopefully continue to collaborate with Krauss in discovering the beauty of acoustic roots-oriented music. On Sept. 29 he issued an official statement to that effect, adding "I wish Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham nothing but success with any future projects."

Jones left some things to mystery, like who the lead singer will be and where the band will play when they begin to tour. As Jones put it, one thing is for sure:

"When it does come, it will come, and you'll know about it"

In the second edition of the Spinto Band's tour diarty, Jon Eaton checks in from Toronto en route home to the U.S.

We are gathered in Toronto on the first snow day of the season now.  Again, Spiral Beach and Frightened Rabbit have kindly joined us, the only difference is tonite they are all wrapped in scarves... As are we. Well for the most part. I think I packed a little light for this weather.

Enough about weather. We are young, alive, and refuse to kick Father Winter while he's down. He needs an October snow day. He needs people to talk about something besides melting ice caps and he needs us to see more signs like this one. [read more...]

And we barely even got to know the band, sob!

By Blurt Staff

It seems that it was just a few short months ago we were singing the praises of indie upstarts the Weather Underground. Wait a minute - it WAS just a few short months ago when we were singing the praises of indie upstarts the Weather Underground! Our very own Andy Tennille first reviewed the group's most excellent Bird In The Hand  EP - you can read his review HERE - and then shortly after penned a profile of the band for the July digital magazine edition of BLURT.

Wrote Tennille, "The Weather Underground isn't just another indie rock band resting on its pseudo-retro laurels in hopes of attaining hipness. In the last calendar year, the group-Prechtel-Cortez on guitar and vocals, Ryan Fitzpatrick on bass, Shoichi Bagley on guitar and keys and Diego Guerrero on drums-has been busy, dropping three EPs, playing a month-long residency at the Silverlake Lounge, hitting SXSW and embarking on their first cross-country tour that included a Thursday night slot at Bonnaroo and opening gigs for the likes of French Kicks, Delta Spirit, Dead Confederate and Matt Costa. And the hectic pace won't stop soon: the band has recently recorded a 7" for release in the U.K. and will tour Europe in the fall. With three EPs in the can and the buzz around the band building, talk of a full-length debut LP is inevitable, but Prechtel-Cortez believes the band will proceed at an organic pace."

So now we learn that the group, having recently shed Shoichi Bagley, has decided to retire the Weather Underground name and regroup as Red Cortez. Here's the poop, courtesy the band's handlers...

***

After a successful summer tour that included multiple dates with Matt Costa, Delta Spirit, and Constantines, plus an appearance at Bonnaroo, The Weather Underground returned to their native Los Angeles and holed themselves up to focus on writing new material.  

The ensuing months were an extremely prolific period for the band, even as some important transitions were simultaneously occurring for the quartet.

Guitarist Shoichi Bagley decided to leave the band amicably for pursuits outside music and Calvin J. Love, a native of Edmonton, Canada, replaced Bagley on lead guitar. Now with a new lineup and an exciting batch of new songs, The Weather Underground has changed their name to Red Cortez.

As frontman Harley Prechtel-Cortez explains it, "we decided we need to keep the focus on the music and didn't want to share our identity with anyone or anything else."

Red Cortez is the continued evolution of the Weather Underground, a band renowned across California for thrilling audiences with their own fresh take on American rock and roll. Now, just as they demonstrated on the three EPs released by The Weather Underground in 2007 and 2008, Red Cortez has delivered powerful songs drawn from the most classic of rock, soul, punk, and blues influences.

Red Cortez' two brand new tracks, recorded with Love on guitar, are now streaming at www.redcortez.com and the band's myspace page, www.myspace.com/redcortezband. "All The Difference" begins with a repeating piano riff before erupting into an anthemic, arena scorcher while "World At Rest" is a jerky, Clash-style punk rocker.

Red Cortez will make their public live debut on November 11 at the premiere of Indie 103.1's Check One Twosdays at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, sharing a bill with Earlimart and Afternoons.

In addition, Dayrotter will release on November 5 the session The Weather Underground recorded over the summer. Red Cortez will continue to play the songs recorded under the Weather Underground moniker, and this session available for download November 5 at www.daytrotter.com features four of these celebrated songs from the band's repertoire.

Red Cortez will be announcing more tour dates in the coming days.

Compiled by Blurt Staff

206 digital, satellite and hi-def channels and nothin' on? Not likely. Here are BLURT's top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

SATURDAY, OCT. 25

11:30 AM FUSE: Loaded: Voodoo 2008 W/Panic at the Disco , N.E.R.D. , Lil Wayne , Nine Inch Nails , R.E.M. , Lupe Fiasco

1:00 PM FLIX: End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones

2:00 PM VH1C: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony: Class of 2008

2:30 PM Smithsonian Channel: The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice w/Wanda Jackson , Elvis Presley , Buddy Holly , Johnny Cash , Jerry Lee Lewis , Elvis Costello

4:30 PM VH1C: VH1 Classic in Concert: Rush - R30

9:00 PM PBS: Austin City Limits: Jakob Dylan / Carrie Rodriguez

10:00 PM ETV: Saturday Night Live (E!): Dane Cook / James Blunt

10:00 PM MTV2: Headbangers Ball Special Anniversary Edition

11:30 PM NBC: Saturday Night Live: Jon Hamm / Coldplay

1:00 AM FUEL: Check 1, 2:  Valient Thorr

SUNDAY, OCT. 26

6:00 AM RAVE HD: Soundstage: Bill Laswell W/ Buckethead , Bootsy Collins , Tabla Beat Science , Pharoah Sanders

9:00 AM Sundance: Live from Abbey Road: Matchbox Twenty, The Script & Def Leppard

12:00 PM FUSE: The Weekly Riff: Butch Walker

12:00 PM HDNet Concert Series: A Night Out with the Funk Brothers

2:00 PM HDNet Concert Series: Lindsey Buckingham - Live at the Bass Performing Hall

3:00 PM Biography: Johnny Cash's America

5:30 PM Noggin: Yo Gabba Gabba!: Halloween w/Shiny Toy Guns , Biz Markie

9:00 PM MTV2: A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE w/50 Cent , Ludacris , Saving Abel , Kanye West , Kid Rock , Angels & Airwaves

11:00 PM Great American Country: My Music Mix: Shooter Jennings

11:30 PM HDNet Concert Series: Keane - Live at the Aragon Ballroom Chicago

12:34 AM HDNet: The Cure - 4Play in Charlotte

Plexifilm and Warhol Museum releasing 13 Most Beautiful… Songs for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests w/ Dean & Britta soundtrack.

By Blurt Staff

Plexifilm and The Andy Warhol Museum will release 13 Most Beautiful... Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, a collection of featuring 13 of Warhol's “classic silent film portraits” of pop culture figures shot between 1964 and 1966 at Warhol’s Factory in NYC. Among the subjects including Nico, Lou Reed, Edie Sedgwick, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, Dennis Hopper and more. Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips have created new soundtracks for the films, comprised of original music and cover songs. (The trailer is embedded at the end of this post.)

The studio will release two versions of 13 Most Beautiful: a limited-edition of 1,300 in a deluxe gatefold LP-style package with an exclusive poster and booklet. In addition, one frame from each of the 13 Screen Tests will be hand-printed as an archival gelatin-silver photograph in an edition of 100, with one print in each limited-edition package. Plexifilm is taking pre-orders for the limited edition ($250 a pop) at www.plexifilm.com in advance of the January 17 street date. The retail edition ($34.99) is due February 17 and is presented in a hardcover book with slipcover.

Bonus features on both editions include a behind-the-scenes documentary and a video interview with Dean & Britta about Warhol, the music, and the project. The booklet features brief biographies of each Screen Test subject as well as liner notes from the Warhol Museum's Thomas Sokolowski, Geralyn Huxley, and Ben Harrison. Wareham supplies notes on the music.

More details from the press release:

Between 1964 and 1966, Andy Warhol shot nearly 500 Screen Tests, beautiful and revealing portraits of hundreds of different individuals, from the famous to the anonymous, all visitors to his studio, the Factory. Subjects were captured in stark relief by a strong keylight, and filmed by Warhol with his stationary 16mm Bolex camera on silent, black and white, 100-foot rolls of film. The resulting two-and-a-half-minute film reels were then screened in slow motion, resulting in a fascinating collection of four-minute masterpieces that startle and entrance, mesmerizing in the purest sense of the word.

The 13 Screen Tests included are Paul America, Susan Bottomly, Ann Buchanan, Freddy Herko, Jane Holzer (Toothbrush), Dennis Hopper, Billy Name, Nico, Richard Rheem, Lou Reed (Coke), Edie Sedgwick, Ingrid Superstar and Mary Woronov.

Songwriters Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, formerly of the band Luna and currently recording as Dean & Britta, created new soundtracks for the 13 films, incorporating original compositions as well as cover songs. The musical sensibilities of Dean & Britta, as well as their keen interest in cinema and their experience with scoring films, including Noah Baumbach's acclaimed feature The Squid & the Whale, make them a perfect match for this project.

13 Most Beautiful…Songs for Andy Warhol's Screen Tests with Dean & Britta is also being presented by The Andy Warhol Museum as a series of live multi-media performances. The original project was jointly commissioned by The Andy Warhol Museum and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust for the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts 2008 and will have its world premiere at The Byham Theater in Pittsburgh on Friday, October 24th. It will travel to contemporary arts centers, museums and festivals throughout the U.S. including the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio on November 20, 2008; Lincoln Center (American Song Book Series), New York, NY on January 17, 2009; Vancouver, PuSH Festival, January 30, 2009; Seattle Art Museum on February 6, 2009; Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN on February 28, 2009; MCA Chicago on March 7, 2009; and Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA on March 28, 2009. Additional US dates and European performances will be announced soon.

DVD COVER:

13 MOST BEAUTIFUL… TRAILER:

Compiled by Blurt Staff

206 digital, satellite and hi-def channels and nothin' on? Not likely. Here are BLURT's top music television picks of the day. The time is followed by the network/cable/satellite channel, then the name of the program and/or featured artist(s). All times are EST. For a comprehensive hour-by-hour listing, go to the VH1 Rock On TV site. Note that for certain channels, shows frequently repeat during the day on or subsequent days.

TIME (EST) / CHANNEL / PROGRAM / ARTIST(S)

11:30 AM NICK: Yo Gabba Gabba!: Paul Williams 

12:00 PM NICK: Yo Gabba Gabba!: I'm from Barcelona , Mark Mothersbaugh

2:30 PM MOJO:  London Live!: The Kills , Sugababes , Boy Kill Boy , Elbow

5:00 PM VH1 Classic in Concert: AC/DC Live at Donnington

6:00 PM FUSE: The Weekly Riff: Butch Walker

8:00 PM FUSE: Loaded: Voodoo 2008 w/Panic at the Disco , N.E.R.D. , Lil Wayne , Nine Inch Nails , R.E.M. , Lupe Fiasco

8:00 PM MTV2: mtvICON: Metallica w/ Aerosmith , Korn , Limp Bizkit , Staind , Sum 41

9:00 PM FUEL: The Daily Habit: Deerhoof

9:00 PM MOJO: London Live!: Boy Kill Boy , The Pipettes , Graham Coxon , Dirty Pretty Things

10:00 PM Biography: Johnny Cash's America

10:00 PM Sundance: Kurt Cobain: About a Son

11:35 PM CBS: The Late Show With David Letterman: Beck

11:35 PM NBC: The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Al Green

12:05 AM  ABC: Jimmy Kimmel Live: Smashing Pumpkins

12:37 AM CBS: The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: Lenka

Soliciting input from the fans to remix latest album.

By Matthew Recchia

I'm from Barcelona, fresh off the release of sophomore album Who Killed Harry Houdini?, are conforming to the new trends of band and audience interaction by announcing a remix contest for a track off their new album.

Fans are encouraged to create a remix of the group's new single, "Music Killed Me". The winning submission will be posted on the band's website and Myspace page, plus the winner will receive free tickets to upcoming I'm From Barcelona shows.

The deadline for the Remix Contest is November 3, 2008. To submit your project, visit the band's Myspace page and follow the directions posted in the top-left corner.

Who Killed Harry Houdini?, a follow-up to I'm From Barcelona's debut album, Let Me Introduce My Friends, has huge footsteps to follow. Let Me Introduce My Friends, released in March 2007, brought the twenty-something member band their first United States performance at the Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago, IL.

Check out the band's tour dates and new album, released October 14, 2008 on Mute Records, at their website or Myspace pages.

Tracklist:

Andy
Paper Planes
Headphones
Music Killed Me
Gunhild (feat. SoKo)
Mingus
Ophelia
Houdini
Little Ghost
Rufus

Ron Howard, Andy Griffith and Henry "The Fonz" Winkler say it's about darn time for some change...

By Fred Mills

As a friend noted when he emailed me the link - "I think this settles the issue."

If you've ever wondered what Opie ‘n' Andy, and for that matter Richie and The Fonz, would look like all grown up, here's your one and only chance. That Ron Howard, Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler - the latter, admitting that he was "wrong" eight years ago, no less - would team up to do a pro-Obama, get-out-and-vote video for the good folks over at FunnyOrDie.com is just plain awesome.

Find out whether or not Sarah Palin is "loose"....