Dunedin Free Press

First the Hip Hop Against Hunger Benefit, then the SOUNDGARDEN REUNION!

Chris Cornell, Soundgarden frontman, announced in a Twitter Message on New Year’s Day that the band will reunite for shows in 2010, directing fans to a new band web site, soundgardenworld.com. “The 12 year break is over,” he wrote. “school is back in session. Sign up now. Knights of the Soundtable ride again!”.The four founding members, Cornell, guitar player Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer Matt Cameron, have not played together since the break up in 1997.

Cameron became Pearl Jam’s permanent drummer in 2009. Thayil, Shepherd and Cameron reportedly turned down an offer to reform Soundgarden for Sub Pop’s Records 2008 20th anniversary concert series in Seattle. Chris Cornell wasn’t there when the three gave an unscheduled performance together on March 24, 2009 at Seattle’s Crocodile Cafe, playing Soundgarden’s “Hunted Down,” “Nothing To Say” and “Spoonman” with Tad Doyle on vocals. All four members of the band were at the October 6, 09 Pearl Jam concert in Los Angeles, where Cornell joined the band, including Cameron, onstage for the Temple of The Dog song “Hunger Strike.” According to RS Thayil and Shepherd were there to check out Cornell and Cameron back onstage together.

Concrete tour dates were delayed due to Cameron’s commitment to play with Pearl Jam on their Spring and Summer tours of North America and Europe. Pearl Jam recently announced its first 2010 North American date in the second weekend of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, April 29 - May 2, and announced 10 European dates beginning on June 22 in Dublin and ending in Oeiras, Portugal on July 10.

Cornell told Rolling Stone in July 2009 that the band was talking about putting together a release of Soundgarden B Sides and a box set of unreleased songs, saying “We all feel it’s time to do that, and we have a lot of fans out there, and we have a lot of new fans discovering our music, and I think the catalog and the legacy of the band has been ignored by the record label and previous management, so we decided to get together and start working towards putting something like that out.”

Thayil told RS in 09 that the SG reunion could happen. “People would have to want to,” he said. “We all play enough and are acquainted with the material enough that I think it would take a few rehearsals. When Ben, Matt, and I got together with Tad, it was like falling off our bike and getting back on.”

Soundgardenworld.com originally only included a space for fans to give contact info for reunion updates. In early April, fans who had signed up received the following email: “We are proud to announce the official launch of Soundgardenworld.com. We will be adding more content in the very near future, so stay tuned. One last thing....Soundgarden will be one of the headliners at this year’s festival. We hope to see you all on August 8th at Grant Park, Chicago Illinois. - Ben, Chris, Kim and Matt.”

Nude Dragons (an anagram for Soundgarden) played a show at the Showbox in Seattle on April 16th, performing “Rusty Cage,” “Nothing To Say” and “Fell On Black Days,” as well as a cover of The Doors' “Waiting For The Sun” for lucky ticket holders in a 90-minute set packed with renditions of classics including , reports Billboard.com.

Stone Gossard, of Pearl Jam, the Fastbacks' Kurt Bloch and Mark Arm from Mudhoney attended the show, according to the Seattle Post-Intellegencer. Shortly after the show, Soundgardenworld.com posted video of the band doing “Behind The Wheel” currently available in its media section.

Life in 2010 continued to get even better with the Jyme Records Party on January 30th at Gasoline Alley with performances from Esky, Drive Like June, Studio Pilot and special guests The Pursuit, The Trio and Variety Workshop. Check out our LOCAL ARTIST FEATURE on Esky and our feature the artists who performed there in this issue, and get the update on Jyme from their latest corporate zombie themed event, We Come Out At Night.

Nina Winters, a locally based, international award-winning bronze sculptor, is currently taking commissions and offering incredibly beautiful works for sale for both small and monumental venues. Known for their small and abstract lines and powerful statements about human nature, Ms. Winters works are part of collections in the U.S., Canada, England, France, Australia and Columbia.

“My sculptures are about the invisible quality of powerful and direct emotion,” she said. “My works are statements, not about what the human condition can be, my sculptures mirror my belief that we are capable of far more than we are led to believe. I want my art to inspire you to dream.”

“Without any exception,” one Swiss critic said of her work, “each creation gives something to confront honestly. I’ve not been touched, elated and disturbed by art in such a way for a long time.”

Rene Schlegel, previously lead guitar player for boon, is now playing with Sunset Bridge,
joining frontwoman, singer-songwriter Gracie Grieshop and bassist A.J. Topp. They recently played at the WMNF Talking Animals Festival on April 11th, the Earth Day Festival on April 18th at Lowery Park Zoo in Tampa and at Dunedin House of Beer’s Best Pizza in Dunedin Contest on Sat. May 15th. See sunsetbridgeband.com and www.myspace.com/sunsetbridge for upcoming shows.

Them Crooked Vultures - Joshua Homme from Queens of The Stone Age, Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters on drums and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin on bass, start a North American Tour this month in Canada, with US Dates on May 17 in Indianapolis and May 18 at Chicago‘s Aragon Ballroom.

Their album, out now, was recorded from February to July of last year. They played their first show on August 9, 2009.

Dave Grohl played drums on the 2002 Queens of The Stone Age classic, Songs for the Deaf, and played on the early part of the tour supporting the album. JPJ played piano, mandolin and mellotron on the second disc of the Foo Fighters 2005 album, In Your Honor and conducted the orchestra for their 2008 Grammy performance. He also sat in with them, along with Jimmy Page, for the Foo Fighters 2008 Wembley Stadium encores of “Rock and Roll,” and
“Ramble On.”

Grohl came up with the idea for the band, and got Joshua and John Paul Jones together at his 40th Birthday party last year at Medieval Times in Buena Park, CA.

Here’s an ad for Swiftcover, a British online insurance company, featuring Iggy Pop in a convertible with a lifesize puppet replica of himself www. youtube. com /watch?v= MhBnEV3ElvY.

Pop’s first gig for the company caused by controversy in UK advertising and was initially
banned by industry regulators there after 12 viewers complained that it was misleading because
the company did not insure musicians by policy.

Swiftcover initially responded that the ad made no reference to Iggy’s profession and had chosen him “ because of his reputation for living life to the full, but later pre-tempted the ban by announcing that it would change its policy and begin insuring musicians.

You can check out both ads in the official Iggy Pop You Tube Channel, along with “The King Of The Dogs,” an interactive video from Iggy’s latest jazz album, Preliminaires, out May 25, and check out the new Preliminaires widget at http://blog.iggypoppreliminaires.com/?lang=en ! You can hear 4 tracks, flip through the pages of the box set booklet and check out some cool videos! A King Of The Dogs 3 track digital EP is currently available on all legal download sites.

The recent re-release, or is it the re-re-release of a deluxe edition of Raw Power this month is getting mixed reviews. Many say the earlier anniversary edition, mixed by Iggy himself, is a much better version of the album, but the extras on this new reissue, including a Stooges 1973 Atlanta show, make it worth it. Iggy will celebrate the album’s anniversary with a string of shows featuring guitarist James Williamson stepping in for the late Ron Asheton.

2010 was graced by the opening of the newly renovated Capitol Theater in Clearwater. Ruth Eckerd Hall purchased the theater in Dec. 2008. The renovated theater reopened in January.The Capitol, built in 1921, is Florida’s second oldest theatre and has presented celebrities including Elvis Presley, Fred Astaire, Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra in its 89 year history. Since its reopening, the theatre has presented a series of choice shows by acts including Henry Rollins, Leo Kottke, Yngwie Malmsteen and Arlo Guthrie.

The Pixies have been celebrating the 20th Anniversary of their Doolittle album by releasing live recordings of each show on their Doolittle Live Tour. The limited edition, double disc CD sets are individually numbered and include the date and venue of the performance. They are fully mixed and mastered.

This february Visa World Cup ad on You Tube features the Pixies’ song “Isla de Encanta.

In Alternative Tentacles news....You can listen to a podcast featuring songs
from the latest AT discs by Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Triclops at www.alternativetentacles.com/batcasts/batcast-082-2010-04-29.m4a.
The songs were pulled from Slim Cessna’s new album,Buried Behind The Barn, and Triclops!’ latest, Helpers On The Other Side.

Three Alternative Tentacles interns will take part in this month’s “Skate Till You Die Fest,” May 28-30. The event is a three-day skateboard trip from Richmond, CA to San Jose, with stops to play three punk shows in Richmond, Berkeley and San Jose along the way. The shows will all benefit the Melanoma Research Foundation, www.melanoma.org, and Skatopia, www.skatopia.org, an 88-acre lot of anarchic skateboarding heaven.

Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine are on tour Europe in June. On May 28 they play the Rocks Off Concert Cruise Aboard the Temptress New York, on June 11 they’re at the The Shire Road Club Sacramento, CA on June 17 and then across the ocean to play for the really cultured . On June 30 they play the Love and Peace Festival Borlange, Sweden. Get all the details at www.myspace.com/jellobiafraandthegsm.

SF Punk Rock legends Filth and The Fleshies play a reunion show with Monster Squad and Gr’ups on June 4 at the Gilman in Berkeley.

Check out AT on Facebook at http://facebook.com/Alternative Tentacles.

Adam "Ad Rock" Horowitz of The Beastie Boys recently sent an email to fans about the All Ages Movement Project. (AMP). The AMP is a national non-profit network of all ages venues and youth music organizations. It works to make community music organizations stronger and more widespread, spanning hip hop to punk, teen centers to youth run record labels to DIY collectives. It’s goals are to provide intensive one-on-one consulting to 15 communities to increase access to all ages music in underserved areas, and to distribute 2 to 3 thousand resource books to all ages music organizers and provide training and networking opportunities to 1200 organizers.

The AMP is taking their recently released sourcebook, In Every Town: An All Ages Music Manifesto, on the road. The book includes lessons from the nation’s best known all ages venues and youth music programs, concrete advice and a soundtrack from renowned musicians.

This year they will host six regional gatherings in Washington, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Colorado to support training, networking and resource sharing for young people wishing to make all ages music happen in their towns. Each gathering will aim to reach 300 attendees. They will support at least 100 all ages music projects from diverse communities and music scenes.

The Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch sent out the following email on Tues., 4/20: “a few friends and I are meditating at the same time twice a day, 9:30am and 6:30pm EST, for about an hour and half. we are picturing smashing apart all of the cancer cells in the world. we are visualizing taking the energy away from the cancer, and then sending it back at the cancer as lightening bolts that will break apart the DNA and RNA of the cells. if you have the time, please join us in whipping up this lightening storm. mind over matter......if you prefer to sit then sit, but if you are not used to meditating, or sitting quietly doesn’t sound like fun, put on some music and dance while you do the visualization, and if you want to do it at some other time, or picture curing some other illness that’s fine too. yoko will be joining the meditation by visualizing all of us dancing with joy to celebrate the world without cancer. all variations are welcome. this is really just being done with a wish for all beings to be cured of all illnesses and to find true lasting happiness. i’ll also be saying prayers for the earthquake victims in tibet, so join in on that if you can too. please feel free to pass this onto anyone who you think may find it interesting. with all my love, adam yauch.”

The latest album by Exene Cervenka of X, “Somewhere Gone,” has received continuing critical acclaim since its release last fall. Exene plays guitar on most of the album, joined by Amy Farris (Dave Alvin’s Guilty Women, Alejandro Escovedo and Kelly Willis) on cello/viola, Skeletons Lou Whitney(bass) and Joe Terry (also of The Morells) on Barrelhouse piano, Dex Romwebber of Dex Romwebber Duo and the Flat Duo Jets on keyboard, and Cindy Wasserman of Dead Rock West and Jason Edge on guitar.

The Runaways Movie, released on April 9, is based on singer Cherie Currie’s book, Neon Angels. I’ll always remember her in that crazy movie Foxes, with Jodie Foster ... The Runaways movie tells the true story of the legendary all girl band formed by teenage girls, all 16 or younger, living near Hollywood in 1975, the first all girl band to break into arena rock on their own merits as musicians. The five girl hard rock act of Joan Jett, Currie, Sandy West, Lita Ford and Jackie Fox opened for Rush, The Ramones, Cheap Trick, Tom Petty and more. The movie follows the band from 1975 to 1977, culminating in Currie’s decision to leave the group after their Japanese tour, followed by Fox, and Joan Jett’s decision to continue on with the other three members.
The movie stars Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, Stella Maeve as Sandy West, Scout Taylor-Compton as Lita Ford, Michael Shannon as Kim Fowley and Tatum O’Neal as Cherie’s mom. Watch a trailer of The Runaways at movies.yahoo.com/movie/ 1810129048/info.

Get ready for RAMONES TRIBUTE 6, Saturday May 22 at The Dunedin Brewery.

And, my other FAVORITE band, Public Image Limited is back on tour!

Chris Pack of Sarge and The Aeromen sets his drums on fire.