IRT Magazine

Tommy Guerrero press page (album stream + materials)– http://www.quannum.com/site/press2006/TommyGuerrero

TOM WAITS

JOINS KRONOS QUARTET, PHILIP GLASS

AND HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA

FOR ‘HEALING THE DIVIDE: A CONCERT FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION’

LIVE CD OUT JULY 10 ON ANTI-

TO BENEFIT HEALING THE DIVIDE’S

TIBETAN HEALTH INITIATIVE

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, composer Philip Glass, sitarist Anoushka Shankar, the throat-singing Gyoto Tantric Choir, and TOM WAITS – performing with the Kronos Quartet and Greg Cohen – are among those featured on HEALING THE DIVIDE: A CONCERT FOR PEACE AND RECONCILIATION, out July 10 on Anti-. HEALING THE DIVIDE will be available both as a CD and online at the iTunes Store.

Culled from a September 21, 2003 benefit concert at the Lincoln Center ’s Avery Fisher Hall in New York ­– during His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s 20-day tour of the U.S. – HEALING THE DIVIDE is a musical meeting of East and West. Transcending cultural boundaries through music, the performances on HEALING THE DIVIDE range from meditative to theatrical; guttural to beautiful; and always powerful and purposeful in support of a very human cause.

All of the artists, Anti- Records, and Healing the Divide are donating all their proceeds from sales to Healing the Divide’s Tibetan Health Initiative, a program that provides health insurance and medical care to impoverished Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns living in refugee settlements. Each CD purchase provides one year of health insurance.

In this recording of the 2003 event, His Holiness the Dalai Lama affirms, “It brings me great happiness to see artists and musicians gathered together here in support of the people of Tibet and in support of peace and reconciliation. We have to make every effort to promote human affection.”

TOM WAITS headlined the evening in a night that featured a rich mix of musical traditions and cultures from Native American flute to West African kora. Four songs from his 50-minute performance are on the CD, most significantly the previously unreleased “Diamond In Your Mind.”

For fans of WAITS, it’s a pleasure and surprise to hear his voice large and dramatic against the spare, angular and expressive string arrangements that “worked ingenious variations on Mr. Waits’s waltzes and hymnlike tunes, skewing the oom-pah-pah to various places around the beat,” according to New York Times critic Jon Pareles.

When asked how he found himself sharing the stage in what was primarily an evening of sacred traditions in music, WAITS replied, “I’m no fool. It’s a spiritual insurance policy. Hell, at my age, the next group I put together, everyone may be playing a harp. All kidding aside, I owed His Holiness a favor. He did all my papers in school.”

Healing the Divide, a nonprofit organization founded by Richard Gere in 2001, is dedicated to collaborative solutions to humanitarian crises. “The release of this CD helps us raise awareness about the worsening condition of Tibetans both inside and out of the region,” explains Gere. “The funds raised not only allow us to positively change the lives of the Tibetan people, but will also allow us to promote invaluable Tibetan Buddhist concepts of peace and compassion.”

Track listing for the CD is as follows:

ARTIST TITLE

His Holiness the Dalai Lama “His Holiness the Dalai Lama”

The Gyoto Tantric Choir “Invocation”

Anoushka Shankar “Nivedan”

Nawang Khechong and R. Carlos Nakai “Peace Chants”

Philip Glass and Foday Musa Suso “The Gambia ”

Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet w/Greg Cohen “Way Down in the Hole”

Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet w/Greg Cohen “God’s Away on Business”

Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet w/Greg Cohen “Lost in the Harbor”

Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet w/Greg Cohen “Diamond in Your Mind”

The White Stripes announce a very special North American tour this summer in
celebration of their highly anticipated album Icky Thump (Third Man/Warner Bros.Records), due out June 19th.
“This tour marks the first time The White Stripes have taken on all 10 Canadian provinces, as well as the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories. Having never done a full tour of Canada, Meg and I thought it was high time to go whole hog. We want to take this tour to the far reaches of the Canadian landscape. From the ocean to the permafrost. The best way for us to do that is ensure that we perform in every province and territory in the
country, from the Yukon to Prince Edward Island. Another special moment of this tour is the show which will occur in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia on July 14th, The White Stripes’ Tenth Anniversary.” -Jack White

Following Canada, the band will visit the United States to play the first leg of the 16 states they have yet to visit during their career, as well as a handful of performances in other markets including New York City and Boston.

Summer Tour Dates:

6/17/07 Manchester, TN @ Bonnaroo Music Festival (on sale 5/4)
6/24/07 Burnaby, BC @ Deer Lake Park (on sale 5/4)
6/25/07 Whitehorse, YU @ Yukon Arts Centre (on sale 5/4)
6/26/07 Yellowknife, NT @ Shorty Brown Multiplex Arena (on sale 5/4)
6/27/07 Iqaluit, NU @ Arctic Winter Games Arena (on sale 5/4)!
6/29/07 Calgary, AB @ The Pengrowth Saddledome (on sale 5/4)
6/30/07 Edmonton, AB @ Shaw Convention Center (on sale 5/4)
7/1/07 Saskatoon, SK @ TCU Place (on sale 5/4)
7/2/07 Winnipeg, MB @ MTS Centre (on sale 5/4)
7/3/07 Thunder Bay, ON @ Community Auditorium (on sale 5/4)
7/5/07 Toronto, ON @ Molson Amphitheatre (on sale 5/4)
7/6/07 Montreal, QC @ Bell Centre (on sale 5/4)
7/7/07 London, ON @ John Labatt Centre (on sale 5/4)
7/8/07 Ottawa, ON @ Ottawa Bluesfest (on sale TBA)
7/10/07 Moncton, NB @ Moncton Coliseum Arena (on sale 5/4)
7/11/07 Charlottetown, PE @ Charlottetown Civic Centre (on sale 5/4)
7/13/07 Halifax, NS @ Cunard Centre (on sale 5/4)
7/14/07 Glace Bay, NS @ Savoy Theatre (on sale 5/4)
7/16/07 St.John¹s, NF @ Mile One Center (on sale 5/3)
7/22/07 Portland, ME @ Cumberland Co. Civic Center (on sale 5/11)
7/23/07 Boston, MA @ Agganis Arena (on sale TBA)
7/24/07 New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden (on sale 5/4)
7/25/07 Wallingford, CT @ Chevrolet Theatre (on sale 5/4)
7/27/07 Wilmington, DE @ Grand Opera House (on sale 5/5)
7/28/07 Fairfax, VA @ Patriot Center (on sale 5/11)
7/29/07 North Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues (on sale 5/5)
7/30/07 Birmingham, AL @ Sloss Furnaces Nat¹l Hist. Landmark (on sale 5/12)
7/31/07 Southaven, MS @ Snowden Grove Park Amphitheatre (on sale 5/11)

**Fan presales begin April 30th on www.whitestripes.com**

Gojira/Machinehead/Trvium/Lamb Of God

Last week Gojira, Machine Head, Trivium and Lamb Of God played the Roseland.

First up Gojira – France’s favorite metal sons, Gojira did their best to rock people who came to the show early. The band has a following among hipsters and tastemakers, but is largely unknown to the metal masses. All those who did see Gojira were converts.

Machine Head – MH are legends in the metal world and their latest, The Blackening, ranks easily as one of their best. The opened with Clenching The Fists Of Dissent, the first track on their new album. The crowd responded as if they’ve known this song for years. The passion and intensity never eased up. Simply put their set was devastating from start to finish and was a hard act to follow.

Trivium – This band has wanted to be Metallica SOOOOOO bad since they started. In England they are huge. Put those together and you have a band with a huge ego. They tried to be fierce but came across sounding flat. The fame and adulation has taken the hunger away from Trivium. They have to get it back if they want to follow a band like Machine Head.

Lamb Of God – What can be said about this band that hasn’t already? One of the most consistently amazing live bands working in metal today. They didn’t disappoint. Every metal band these days calls out for circle pits. Randy Blithe didn’t have to. They just spontaneously erupted. -  Brad Filicky

SONIC YOUTH w/ WOODEN WAND

Webster Hall 2/16/08, 6:30 PM

KURT ELLING

The Blue Note 2/16/08, 10:45 PM

It was perhaps the most dynamic shift I had ever seen between an opening act and the headliner in all my years. In the last 12 years, I was lucky enough to see Sonic Youth 9 times, the last being the group’s second appearance at “The Ritz”, as Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore have so lovingly referred to Webster Hall as onstage, this past Valentine’s weekend. And I’ve seen a lot of different acts open up for them, from the Dirty Three to US Maple. But Wooden Wand, former IRT cover star and recent signee to Thurston Moore’s Universal-distributed Ecstatic Peace!, was by far the most relaxing. Eschewing his Brooklyn-based free rock ensemble the Vanishing Voice in favor of an acoustic guitar and vocal accompaniment from frequent collaborator and wife Jessica, James Toth gracefully took us through a little over a half hour’s worth of Martyn-esque British folk by way of Staten Island’s only known Shaolin troubadour, including tracks from his upcoming release James and the Quiet.

As for Sonic Youth, they were amazing as always, although they did stick “rather” heavily to their Rather Ripped material, dipping into their catalog only sporadically, breaking out gems like “Silver Rocket” and “Bull in the Heather” for the veteran Geffen-era fans. Nevertheless, they were joined by former Pavement bassist Marc Ibold, who Moore accidentally introduced him to the crowd as “Mark Arm” in one of the Sonic Youth guitar man’s livelier stage appearances in recent memory. From my vantage point, I wasn’t sure if he was just being drunk or being a dick, that was, until he swipeed the beer off Ibold’s amp shortly thereafter. Whatever, man, take the new guy to school. Kim Gordon seemed happy to have her hands free from that heavy bass to dance around like a grrl half her age.

Taking off before the encore, just as the dance club early birds are starting to perch themselves on the line outside Webster Hall, Michele and I race over to the Blue Note for a comedown. When I met Michele that night at McSorley’s, she had told me how she always wanted to check out the Blue Note, albeit when we went, she thought it was going to look different inside. And when she described the atmosphere she had in mind, she was talking about the Village Vanguard, which we will be going to very soon, yes noodle? Regardless, it’s not the place but the talent they have on stage that makes the night, and the Blue Note has some pretty good food, and they were giving out snorts of vintage whiskey to the crowd on the second-to-last night of NYC improv crooner Kurt Elling’s Valentine’s Day week stand at the club. The guy is 39, which is practically high school age in jazz years, but shines with the wit and charm of a performer who has been wooing the Catskills for the last 50 years. Pulling predominantly from his brand new all-covers release and debut on Concord Records, Nightmoves, Mr. Elling and his band were definitely on top of his game on this evening, particularly during their exceptional renditions of The Guess Who’s “Undun” and a “vocalese” take on Dexter Gordon’s 1962 Blue Note nugget “Where Are You”, which was just about as sweet as the Blue Note’s delicious honey-glazed wings we were chowing down on before the show.

All in all (for lack of time and a better term –ed.), it was a great night of music that rang in me and Michele’s third year together as a couple. Next year, however, I plan on taking her to a real jazz club. -Ed.