Brandi Carlile
With Special Guest The Lone Bellow

Friday, June 28 | 8pm
Meyer Theatre
Green Bay, WI

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, April 12th at 11am at TicketStarOnline.com, by phone at 800-895-0071, and at the Resch Center Box Office.

Box Office Hours:
Monday – Friday 11 am – 5 pm
Evenings of events – Until 8 pm
Saturday & Sunday – The Resch Center Box Office will be staffed on Saturdays and Sundays only if the Brown County Veterans Memorial Complex (Resch Center, Shopko Hall, Brown County Arena) has an event or on-sale. Tickets may be purchased one hour before the start of the event at the Meyer Theatre Box office.

Ticket Prices:
$32.50 Advance
$35 Day of Show

All Ages
Reserved Seating

Presented by Frank Productions and True Endeavors

Were we ever gonna get out of this town?
Just Kids – BEAR CREEK

“If you start a band with me, I’ll get us signed and on the road within a year”…… Not only did the determined, confident and tenacious 22-year-old Brandi Carlile come through with her promise to twin bothers and initially reluctant band members Phil and Tim Hanseroth, but she also exceeded their expectations. Carlile landed the prophesied record deal with Columbia Records one year later and with the guidance of producer Rick Rubin, they recorded and released their eponymous debut album in early 2005. “The Twins were local heroes to me, I used to go and watch them play live when they were in The Fighting Machinists, I thought they were cool but more importantly great singers and songwriters.” Carlile, in a vain attempt to impress her newfound comrades, ordered in some dry ice to lure them to their first band rehearsal. “I didn’t know how dangerous overexposure to carbon dioxide could be, so I ended up nearly killing us all from asphyxiation!” Near-death experiences aside, this was the beginning of a unique collaboration. It was a partnership that would see Brandi Carlile and Tim and Phil Hanseroth sharing everything from the stage, songwriting and production credits and all creative business decisions, to bunk beds, road pranks, swine flu, confined spaces and dirty t-shirts too.

On the eve of Carlile’s 5th major label album release BEAR CREEK and after almost a decade of extensive touring, the trio and self-confessed “road dogs” and “dirty pioneers” are back with a bang. But it’s not record sales, industry accolades or commercial success that make Brandi Carlile a uniquely compelling artist; in fact some would say she has purposely gone out of her way to avoid it, “I would never write commercially or dress commercially or behave in any way that would inspire mainstream success”. It’s tales from the road, where she and the twins have spent the best part of their careers building Carlile’s fan base and audience, whilst remaining under the industry radar, that tells you the story of who she really is.

Unaware of years to come
Save Part Of Yourself – BEAR CREEK

“I’ve been singing and performing music since I was seven, so I don’t ever remember making a conscious decision to be a musician. I would’ve had to have made a conscious decision NOT to be a musician” Throughout her late teens Carlile had already built up a local fan base in her home city of Seattle through hard work, determination and an unwavering belief in her talent. Blessed with a truly remarkable voice and an innate gift for performing, she always believed she was destined to be a great singer. She would hone her skills by studying and listening to her favorite vocalists, experimenting and testing the boundaries of her voice to see how long she could hold out a note, and how loud and high she could sing. “I wanted to learn to scream my head off like Thom Yorke and yodel like Patsy Cline”. Carlile busked, played coffee houses and persuaded local business owners to give her residencies by guaranteeing the venues would reach their full capacity on the nights she appeared. Carlile recalls how she would personally ensure her fans attended her gigs. “I passed around mailing lists to my audiences and I would take their numbers and call them myself on the day of my next gig to make sure they would turn up.” And turn up they did and still do, except now they number in the thousands.

Over the last eight years Carlile has enjoyed groundbreaking success, headlining and selling out major shows and venues across the United States and the rest of the world. Working her way up from playing acoustic at Medin’s Ravioli Station and busking at Pikes Place Market, to fronting her six-piece band at The Ryman Auditorium and leading a symphony at Benaroya Hall; Carlile has earned her reputation as a fearless and consummate performer who is undoubtedly in a class of her own.

Collaborators at heart, Carlile and The Twins have written, produced, recorded and shared the stage and with “anyone we can get to sing with us”, touring with friends Ray Lamontage, The Avett Brothers and Dave Matthews, who refers to Carlile affectionately as “a big fat trumpet head”. Sheryl Crow, somewhat more eloquently, describes Carlile’s voice as “the most amazing voice I may have ever heard. Soulful. Country. Perfect in every way…. and propelled by taste.” And it is that same, unmistakable voice that jumps out and shakes your very foundations when you first hear the opening track on BEAR CREEK.

I can be the engine, you can be the wheel
Hard Way Home – BEAR CREEK

BEAR CREEK, named after the studio where it was recorded, is certainly a departure from 2007’s break-though THE STORY and its critically acclaimed follow-up, 2009’s GIVE UP THE GHOST. Having been steered on her previous albums by super-producers T Bone Burnett and Rick Rubin, this time Carlile was determined to take the wheel. “I would liken working with A-list producers to going to college,” she says. “You don’t want to be a perpetual student. At some point, you need to apply your knowledge”. For the first time, Carlile was eager to work in a studio environment closer – both physically and in spirit – to her own rural abode. Bear Creek, a converted turn-of-the-century barn nestled among the tall trees of Woodinville, Washington, proved to be ideal. “Bear Creek is very similar to home for all three of us – musically, you’d be amazed at how you act when you feel at home”

Embracing her own philosophy that “a live show should never sound like a record; a record should sound like a live show,” Carlile and the Twins brought in members of her “road family”, including cellist Josh Neumann and drummer Allison Miller, as well as her touring sound engineer and guitar tech, “We basically pulled our bus up to Bear Creek and then everyone got off of it and made a record, band, crew, cheap tour beer and everything…we wanted it that way for once.” Carlile also realized a long-held ambition to work with Grammy award-winning engineer and producer Trina Shoemaker, who fully embraced and nurtured the band’s live approach in the studio and “rough-around-the-edges sonic appeal”. They veered off into new musical territory, fusing classic rock ‘n’ roll, folk, bluegrass, and “Shoemaker-inspired soul” to create their own distinctive sound. Carlile and her band took full advantage of the vintage equipment at Bear Creek dusting off “pianos that smell like Grandma’s house” and experimenting with bluegrass instruments “feeling no self-consciousness about the fact that we didn’t know how to play them…. without a producer it was like ‘OK, now what are we gonna do while Dad’s gone?’”

It came upon a lightning strike
Raise Hell – BEAR CREEK

Comprising of songs inspired by faith, heartache, addiction, childhood, accidental piano chords and thunderstorms, BEAR CREEK promises to be Carlile’s most revealing and personal record to date “It scares me how much of who we are is in this album.” However, she admits “I can talk about making records all day long,” “but what really drives me is what I’ve been doing on the road all this time. When we play these songs for you, what’s going to happen between you and us? That’s what matters most to me.” True to form, Carlile and is now eager to introduce BEAR CREEK to her audience. Summer 2012 will see her biggest headlining tour to date, with stops at world famous venues such as Red Rocks Amphitheater and Wolf Trap.

BEAR CREEK stands as a major milestone for Carlile; the moment in which she and The Twins embraced simplicity, familiar faces and trusted musicianship to craft a stripped-back, honest and timeless record; perhaps her bravest work to date “because without anyone to hide behind or acclaimed cameos and guest appearances, it’s just us….. terrifying but real life.” In fact, the only guest appearance comes from a chorus of frogs (courtesy of Bear Creek) who appear on the closing track of her most definitive album thus far – and listen all the way to the end?….. You most definitely will.

Do I make myself a blessing to everyone I meet?
That Wasn’t Me – BEAR CREEK

Firm believers that artists in the public eye have a social and moral responsibility to promote and marry humanitarian efforts with their musical agenda, Carlile and The Twins have used their success on the road to fund The Looking Out Foundation. Founded in 2008, the foundation serves the chronically underserved through its ongoing philanthropic efforts and involvement with social issues. Brandi Carlile and her fans donate $1 from every concert ticket sold to The Looking Out Foundation, channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars and resources to organizations that support the arts, women, public health, the hungry and the homeless. Carlile is particularly proud of co-founding The Fight The Fear Campaign, a community-oriented violence prevention initiative. “It really isn’t about fighting other people, it’s about respecting the fact that you yourself are worth fighting for.” In true trailblazer style, she and the Twins hope to expand their outreach through music, and make a positive impact on the world for many years to come.

Brandi Carlile Online
Website | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Dawes
With Special Guest Shovels and Rope

Friday, July 12 | 8pm
Barrymore Theatre
Madison, WI

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, March 22nd at 10am at Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 608-241-8864 or 800-745-3000, and at the Barrymore Theatre Box Office.

Ticket Prices:
$20 Advance
$22 Day of Show
(Plus applicable fees)

All Ages
General Admission

Presented by Frank Productions and True Endeavors.

While the city of Los Angeles has been both an inspiration and a home to the four members of Dawes, they found themselves traveling East last fall to record their third album in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina with newly enlisted producer Jacquire King. It was a chance to hunker down and work each day for a month away from familiar landmarks and routines. The tracks they laid down at Asheville’s Echo Mountain Studio have yielded a 12-song disc of tremendous sonic and narrative clarity, book-ended in classic album fashion by two very different versions of the wistful “Just Beneath The Surface” – a misleading title, really, since the songs stacked in between dig so deep. Stories Don’t End is not so much a departure from the quartet’s previous efforts as a distillation of them. It spotlights the group’s maturing skills as arrangers, performers and interpreters who shape the raw material supplied by chief songwriter and lead vocalist Taylor Goldsmith into an artfully concise and increasingly soulful sound.

Once again, Goldsmith displays a particular gift for tunes that balance tough and tender, hardboiled and heartbroken. As a writer, he prowls his psyche like a forties detective, looking for clues to the mysteries of life and love. “Just My Luck” has the irresistible pull of a vintage country tune, though the arrangement is understated and contemporary. If Goldsmith’s vocal delivery weren’t plaintive enough, the band ups the emotional ante with a beautiful wordless coda that intertwines Tay Strathairn’s piano and Goldsmith’s lead guitar. Similarly “Something In Common” is a morning-after shuffle that builds into a bigger and more dramatic track before dropping back to a quiet melancholic finish. Goldsmith takes a few simple words, like “something in common,” and uses them like chapter headings to develop a compelling story, full of unexpected twists, from verse to verse. “Someone Will” includes the same kind of word play while boasting a little more swagger. “Hey Lover,” a cover of a tongue-in-cheek tune by Dawes’ good buddy Blake Mills, is a playful mid-album break with Taylor Goldsmith and his young brother, drummer Griffin Goldsmith, trading off lead vocals.

Before he started composing for the album, says Taylor, “I went through a Joan Didion tear.” It was right after he read the legendary author’s Democracy that he found the title, Stories Don’t End, in her work. Though Didion is currently a New Yorker, she is most associated with Southern California, its culture of the sixties and seventies, a subject she examined in gimlet-eyed prose. When Goldsmith started penning new songs after several months on the road in support of Dawes’ 2011 disc, Nothing Is Wrong, his writing was even more keenly observant. “From a Window Seat” was the first he completed and, he admits, “It’s a very singular song. A lot of the songs on the record can be a little more broad, about a period in someone’s life or trying to explore a certain feeling. This song is about a specific experience of being on an airplane and that’s not a very poetic or lyrical idea.” Yet Goldsmith, employing an accumulation of small details, once again finds the bigger picture, about the narrator’s past and his (and our) uncertain future, about the history lurking beneath the swimming pool-dotted landscape below him. Just as important is the track itself—lean, propulsive and guitar-driven – lending urgency to Goldsmith’s in-flight musings. Similarly, “Bear Witness,” a last-minute addition to the lineup that the band arranged during the Asheville sessions, is an almost cinematically vivid rendering of a man having a conversation with his child from his hospital bed.

Nothing Is Wrong had garnered considerable acclaim, with London’s Independent declaring, “It’s as close to a perfect Americana album as there’s been this year.” Up to then, the band had relied on good friend Jonathan Wilson as producer, cutting its 2009 debut disc, North Hills, at Wilson’s Laurel Canyon studio and its follow-up with Wilson at a larger room in Echo Park. But Wilson’s own career as a solo artist was taking off following the release of his Gentle Spirit disc, and the band began a search for a new collaborator. King boasted an impressive and unusual resume, having produced an eclectic range of artists, including Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, Norah Jones and the Punch Brothers. Says keyboardist Strathairn, “He’s really easy to work with. As a producer he doesn’t want to be the artist, he simply tries to make the band sound the best that the band can be. And the work speaks for itself.”

Recording with King and foregoing the quickly cut, straight-to-analog tape approach of its first two recordings was a way, says Taylor, for Dawes “to push the boundaries of what might be expected of us, or feel like a comfort zone for us, while trying to be the same band we always are. That was important to us. We didn’t want to abandon anybody’s sense of who we were and, more importantly, our sense of ourselves. We wanted to stay true to this thing that we had while starting to widen the spectrum a little bit.”

The reprise of “Just Beneath the Surface” at the end of the disc, however, is a first-take document of the band figuring out the tune together, and it was too good not to keep. As bassist Wylie Gelber recalls, “We knew the vibe we were going for and we were running through it while Jacquire was setting up. But we were completely unaware that he was recording us. We were fooling around and towards the end of it, we stopped for a minute and Jacquire said, Hey man, I think we’ve got it. We tried to beat that take but we couldn’t. You can hear it there, you can feel that it’s the first time it’s being played, it’s a simple song and there’s a subtle art to doing it. It ebbs and flows.”

“With Jacquire,” explains Taylor, “we were able to hold on to an essence of what we had been, but I feel now, more than with our first two records, that this makes a case that we’re a band from 2013. There a lot of bands that harken back to a period or style of a different time and that can be really limiting. That was never our intention.”

“The album is very honest,” concludes Strathairn. “It’s us.”

Dawes Online
Website | MySpace | Facebook

Avenged Sevenfold
With Special Guest Fight or Flight

July 16, 2013
La Crosse Center
La Crosse, WI

Presale:
10am-10pm Thursday, June 13th.
Use password rock at Ticketmaster.com.

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, June 14th at 10am at Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 800-745-3000, and at the La Crosse Center Box Office.

Ticket Prices:
$25 | $39.50
(Plus applicable fees)

Doors: 6pm
Show: 7:30pm

All Ages

Presented by Frank Productions and Knitting Factory

The members of metalcore outfit Avenged Sevenfold (or A7X) were still attending high school in Huntington Beach, CA, when they formed their band in 1999. Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for M. Shadows (vocals), Zacky Vengeance (guitar), Synyster Gates (guitar), the Reverend (drums), and Johnny Christ (bass) to make an impression with their aggressive hybrid of metal and punk-pop. The band made its official debut in July 2001, releasing Sounding the Seventh Trumpet on the Good Life label before moving to the Hopeless roster for 2003′s Waking the Fallen. Warner Bros. took interest in the band’s aggressive sound and issued its breakthrough release, City of Evil, in June 2005. The album reached number 30 on Billboard’s Top 200, propelled in part by the Top Ten success of the single “Bat Country.” The accompany music video was heavily rotated on MTV and Fuse, where live appearances also helped boost Avenged’s growing profile, and the band ultimately won the Best New Artist Award (though they were hardly newcomers) at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.

As demand for their music increased, Avenged Sevenfold canceled their tour dates for fall 2006 and set to work on a fourth studio album. Boasting a grittier sound than previous releases, the self-titled/self-produced disc appeared in October 2007, debuting at number four on the Billboard Top 200 and spinning off the radio single “Almost Easy.” The album also fared well in England, where three songs cracked the Top Five of the U.K. rock charts, and Avenged Sevenfold helped support the release by touring North America on the Taste of Chaos tour. Released in September 2008, the CD/DVD package Live in the LBC and Diamonds in the Rough captured the band during a tour stop in Long Beach. In 2009 the band announced plans to begin work on its third studio release. That same year, drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan passed away at the age of 28. In 2010 the band released Nightmare with replacement drummer Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater).

Avenged Sevenfold Online
Website | Facebook | Twitter

Foals
Special Guests Drowners

Wednesday, July 31st
High Noon Saloon
Madison, WI

Tickets On Sale Friday, May 24th at 10am:
at High Noon Saloon and TicketFly.com.

Ticket Prices:
$18 Advance
$20 Day of Show

Doors: 7:30pm
Show: 8:30pm

General Admission.

Presented by Frank Productions and True Endeavors.

Detroit. Willesden. Olympos, on the Greek island of Karpathos. “The inside of our skulls”. These are the places that make up Holy Fire, Foals third album, their most direct and fully realised album yet.  Foals have stepped up from, as Yannis puts it, “songs for indie clubs” to something much, much bigger. Their third album might not sound like Depeche Mode or Nine Inch Nails, but it has much of the same ambitious spirit and grandiose aesthetic that led to those groups touching the lives of millions. This is the sound of Foals arriving.

It’s all a long way from the group’s early years in Oxford, where Yannis Philippakis (26), Jack Bevan (27), Walter Gervers (28), Edwin Congreave (28) and Jimmy Smith (28) convened after spells in various well regarded bands such as The Edmund Fitzgerald, whose intricacies were a league away from the Libertines-influenced indie skiffle and American garage rock that dominated at the time. Debut album Antidotes (2004) attempted to capture the live energy and sense of spontaneity that had made Foals one of the most sought-after live acts in the UK. 2007 follow-up Total Life Forever was a surprise to many (Foals never sit still for long) dealing in more expansive, eloquent sounds and a more mellow feel inspired in part by Foals’ long-time enthusiasm for weed. Now, as they approach their 30s, Foals are moving on from the “kind of lost boys club element to how we’ve lived for the past six years” to make their best music yet.

Yannis gives much of the credit for this huge leap forward to producers Flood and Alan Moulder. “The two of them have a knack of taking something that at its core is fairly leftfield or fairly idiosyncratic, and whatever they capture becomes a universal experience,” he says. “I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t something that attracted us to them.

The feeling is mutual. Alan Moulder, who mixed Total Life Forever, says “I was impressed with their attitude to making a record and their ambition towards achieving something individual and unique but still wanting to appeal to the “masses”.

During the recording sessions at Flood and Moulder’s Assault & Battery studios in Willesden, North West London, the producers encouraged the band to create the right atmosphere in the room. “One of our aims was to capture the feel of the band playing live and to be able to easily experiment,” says Flood, “so we all helped to create an environment that the band felt was creative but also somewhere you could be 12 hours a day.”

“The band couldn’t draw on the external way that it could in the way that it did when it went to Sweden or New York, which were new experiences,” Yannis explains. “Whether it was inside our own skulls or in the studio we formed our own worlds, and one way of doing that was to bring in vegetation. It was all quite tropical vegetation. It enhanced the feeling of the pestilence and the swamps on the tracks where it needed to feel sweaty and marshy.”

This all became part of the influences that went into Holy Fire, described by Yannis as “The Delta, voodoo, the swamp, sexuality, byzantine iconography and music, syrupy rhythms, the mountains, the abyss, the decline of the bee populations, hip hop and stoner rock.” Then there’s the folk music of the American Deep South, captured by Alan Lomax just before it passed into history: “most of the players of the music are long deceased, but you can still be part of these moments that were recorded in fields in the Delta,” says Yannis. “You feel like there’s a direct communion happening between you and a ghost.”

To capture this directness from Foals themselves, Flood and Moulder deployed the devious tactic of letting the band think they were running through demos of tracks, when in fact actual takes were being recorded. “Sometimes early takes have an edge to them,” Moulder explains. “The band aren’t over-thinking as they aren’t aware they are being recorded and sometimes you get some gems; and we did!”

“It’s pure expression, from the emotion, into the instrument, into the microphone, out of the microphone, into the speaker and then to the listener – it feels like raising the dead for three minutes.” Yannis says. “There’s something that’s exciting for us to feel that every time you put on the record, you commune with something that’s in the past.”

This approach was an unqualified success. You can hear it on the astonishing, almost bombastic ‘Inhaler’, the first track to be released from Holy Fire. “It’s heavy, that song; it was liberating,” says Yannis, adding that it is the sound of the band shedding their inhibitions. “Those songs have always been in us the whole time, and there’s always been a self-censorship that’s been prior to this. One thing that was liberating was to feel that we could do whatever we want, there could be a radical freedom to it, but it still ends up sound like we do. We could express a new range of emotions, rage or claustrophobia. There’s less head going on and more heart.”

Yet this is never at the expense of Foals losing the love of rhythm and pop melodies that made them who they are – that much can be heard in the earworm hook of ‘My Number’, about which Yannis says “it could be a very literal thing in terms of people not having each other’s numbers and being unable to communicate, then on a broader sense being part of a community where you’re misunderstood. I like the cocksurety of the emotion, the flippant nature of it.”

Yannis feels that Holy Fire features his strongest lyricism to date. “The lyrics for the first album were like a kiss chase with no payoff,” he says. “It was just abstractions. There was genuine emotion behind it but I wasn’t willing to verbalise it.” Now, though with a philosophy of refusing to self censor, it’s all there, for everyone. “There might be some utility in that for a 15-year-old who’s going to listen to it and get solace from it,” Yannis says. Foals have not made a record for those who might think that it is “going to look great with their latte and their loafers. I want to make songs for people who I feel like have been disenfranchised by alternative rock music”.

Take ‘Late Night’, for instance. “Some of that is to do with my grandmother, and to do with ageing, and being on the verge of passing over into something else, and having remorse and guilt.” Catholic guilt? “Byzantine guilt… bloodlines, and disappointment, and the unwinding of genes.”

Much like the classic Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins albums that Flood and Moulder have previously collaborated on, Holy Fire finds Foals uniting the personal with bigger themes – specifically feelings of contemporary dread. So album closer ‘Moon’ is one of the most affecting pieces the band have written, “describing the end of the world, the destruction of your body and everything disintegrating,” Yannis says. “It’s acceptance, a beautiful type of destruction, you’re in a pacific state with no resentment or sorrow.”

This developed from an experience on Foals’ last tour of the US. “We went to Detroit and it affected me like no other place has before,” Yannis says. “I saw these blue collar workers who you could imagine 15 years ago working as these honest Americans, but everything had obviously been collapsed in by crystal meth. Opposite the venue were these tenement blocks where most of the windows were smashed out and there’d be lights flickering inside, and it was just freakish, it was dystopian. It was the embodiment of the fall of the Empire.”

Yet in contrast to this observed hell is Yannis’ own personal place of solace. Halfway through the recording of Holy Fire, Yannis felt the need to retreat to Olympos, the remote village in Greece that is his family’s home. “I was getting a bit lost being in Willesden and the studio the whole time, whirlwinding a little bit,” Yannis says.  In Greece, he says, “I’ve got a duel identity. I start to get lost and tie myself in knots when I’ve been here too long, and I forget that there’s this whole other thing that I can plug into and it feels like this archaic backbone that’s I’m part of.” There, where his father still makes traditional musical instruments and “creative values are paramount”, people participate in songs, sagas and dances that date back hundreds of years to the Byzantine Empire. “It’s very evocative of this long gone time,” Yannis says. ”Plugging in makes me feel connected to this bloodline. It makes me sturdy again.”

So Holy Fire is a record of contrasts, of Foals feeling themselves liberated to create a record that perhaps they didn’t even realise they had within them. “It’s been the least harrowing of all the records,” says Yannis, before adding, ”in a lot of ways it’s not been harrowing at all, and I think a lot of that has been Flood and Moulder. We vacillate between our experimental side and the side that enjoys the possibilities of what pop music can do, that it can speak outside it’s own barrier. If anything we feel that we’ve made a record that doesn’t exist between those two subsets. I feel content that we’ve made a record that is just what it should have been.”

Foals Online
Website | Facebook | MySpace | Twitter

Steve Earle and The Dukes
Special Guests The Mastersons

Saturday, Aug. 3rd
Barrymore Theater
Madison, WI

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, May 31st at 10am at Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 608-241-8864 or 800-745-3000, and at the Barrymore Theatre Box Office.

Ticket Prices:
$37.50 (plus applicable fees)

Doors: 7pm
Show: 8pm

All Ages

Presented by True Endeavors

New West Records is pleased to announce Steve Earle’s new album, The Low Highway, is out now. The 12-track LP, his 15th overall and fourth studio album for New West, following his 2011 Grammy Award-nominated I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, has been garnering some of the best reviews of his career.

Billed as “Steve Earle & The Dukes (& Duchesses),” The Low Highway features Earle’s live band consisting of Chris Masterson & Eleanor Whitmore (of The Mastersons, who will open the shows), Kelley Looney, Will Rigby and Allison Moorer (Note: Allison Moorer not on this tour) and was co-produced by Earle and Ray Kennedy.

The album was awarded four stars by Mojo and The Guardian, a cover feature by Magnet Magazine and a riveting feature in the Wall Street Journal, which hailed him as “one of the most gifted and consistent singer-songwriters of the generation that followed Bob Dylan.”

American Songwriter exclaimed: “If you’re listening to a Steve Earle album, you know you’re going to get the truth. The good news is that this one is so powerful and varied that it will make those hard truths a little easier to bear even after the disc ends.”

Ever the road warriors, Earle and his band will hit the highways and byways of North America to play these new songs influenced by life on the road, amongst heaps of other tunes from his catalog.

Steve Earle Online
Website | MySpace

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Monday, Aug. 5 – SOLD OUT!
Tuesday, Aug. 6 – JUST ADDED!
Sullivan Arena
Anchorage, AK

Tickets for the Aug. 5th show are SOLD OUT.

Tickets for the Aug. 6th show are ON SALE NOW:
at Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 800-745-3000, and at the Sullivan Arena Box Office.

Ticket Prices:
$65 (plus applicable fees)

Both shows: 7pm

Presented by NS2 | Frank Productions | C3

Few rock groups of the ’80s broke down as many musical barriers and were as original as the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Creating an intoxicating new musical style by combining funk and punk rock together (with an explosive stage show to boot), the Chili Peppers spawned a slew of imitators in their wake, but still managed to be the leaders of the pack by the dawn of the 21st century. The roots of the band lay in a friendship forged by three school chums, Anthony Kiedis, Michael Balzary, and Hillel Slovak, while they attended Fairfax High School in California back in the late ’70s/early ’80s. While Balzary and Slovak showed great musical promise (on trumpet and guitar, respectively), Kiedis focused on poetry and acting during his high-school career. During this time, Slovak taught Balzary how to play bass, while the duo encouraged Kiedis to start putting his poetry to music, which he soon did. Influenced heavily by the burgeoning L.A. punk scene (the Germs, Black Flag, Fear, Minutemen, X, etc.) as well as funk (Parliament-Funkadelic, Sly & the Family Stone, etc.), the trio began to rehearse with another friend, drummer Jack Irons, leading to the formation of Tony Flow & the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem, a quartet that played strip bars along the Sunset Strip during the early ’80s. It was during this time that the four honed their sound and live act (as they stumbled across a stage gimmick that would soon become their trademark — performing on-stage completely naked, except for a tube sock covering a certain part of their anatomy). By 1983, Balzary had begun to go by the name “Flea,” and the group changed its name to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Word spread quickly about the up-and-coming band, resulting in a recording contract with EMI. But before the Chili Peppers could begin work on their debut, Flea and Kiedis were dealt a disappointing blow when both Slovak and Irons announced that they were leaving to focus more on another band they were in, What Is This. With replacement members Jack Sherman (guitar) and Cliff Martinez (drums) filling in, the Peppers released their self-titled debut in 1984. But the absence of the two original members showed, as the album failed to capture the excitement of their live show. While the album didn’t set the world on fire sales-wise, the group began to build a dedicated underground following with college radio buffs. By 1985, What Is This were kaput (after issuing a single self-titled album) and Slovak and Irons returned to the Peppers, resulting in the George Clinton-produced Freaky Styley. While the album was an improvement over its predecessor, it still lacked the fire of the band’s in-concert experience, a problem that would finally be solved with their next album, 1987′s The Uplift Mofo Party Plan. The album was the group’s first to make an impression on the charts, and they followed it up a year later with a stopgap five-track release, The Abbey Road EP, in 1988. But just as the world was warming up to the Peppers, tragedy struck when Slovak died on June 25, 1988.

In the wake of Slovak’s death, Irons left the group for the second and final time, while Kiedis and Flea decided to soldier on After a new lineup featuring former Parliament guitarist Blackbyrd McKnight and former Dead Kennedys drummer D.H. Peligro didn’t work out, the duo found worthy replacements in newcomers John Frusciante and Chad Smith. The new-look Chili Peppers hit pay dirt straight away, as their first album together, 1989′s Mother’s Milk, became a surprise hit due to MTV’s exposure of their videos for a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” and a song about their fallen friend Slovak, “Knock Me Down,” as the album was certified gold by early 1990. The bandmembers knew that their next release would be the most important one of their career, so they moved into a mansion-turned-recording studio with producer Rick Rubin to work on what would become their most successful release yet, the stripped-down Blood Sugar Sex Magik (their first for the Warner Bros. label). The album became a monster hit upon its September 1991 release (eventually going on to sell a staggering seven million copies in the U.S. alone), as it spawned such hits as “Give It Away” and the group’s first Top Ten single, “Under the Bridge.”

Like his predecessor, Frusciante abruptly left the band mid-tour in early 1992. Undeterred, the band enlisted new member Arik Marshall, and headlined Lollapalooza II in the summer. When the band returned to the studio to work on its sixth release overall, it quickly became apparent that Marshall didn’t fit in, and he was replaced by Jesse Tobias. But before Tobias could record a note with the group, he was handed his walking papers as well, and former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro signed on. After a layoff of four years, the Peppers’ much delayed follow-up to BSSM was released in 1995, One Hot Minute. While the album was a sizable hit, it failed to match the success and musical focus of its predecessor, as it became apparent during the album’s ensuing tour that Navarro wasn’t fitting in as well as originally hoped, and he left the band in early 1998.

Frusciante emerged once again refocused and re-energized, and promptly accepted an invitation to rejoin the Peppers once more. The group’s reunion album, 1999′s Californication, proved to be another monster success, reconfirming the Chili Peppers as one of alternative rock’s top bands. The band put in a quick guest appearance on Fishbone’s Psychotic Friends Nuttwerx before hitting the road to support the album. Tours with the Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam brought them into the next year without problems, but they stepped off the road after a planned stop in Israel was halted due to security worries. They returned to the studio in November of 2001 and by the summer of 2002 they had a new album ready to drop, By the Way. Warner Bros. released a Greatest Hits compilation in 2003, followed by a chart-topping two-CD album of all-new material, Stadium Arcadium, in 2006.

After an extensive supporting tour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers took an extended hiatus and the members pursued individual interests. Flea began studying music theory at USC and played in a variety of side projects. Kiedis attempted to turn his autobiography, Scar Tissue, into a television show. Smith joined Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Joe Satriani in the party supergroup Chickenfoot. Frusciante released The Empyrean in 2009, by which time he left the band. His replacement was Josh Klinghoffer, who played secondary guitar on the Stadium Arcadium tour. Klinghoffer’s first album with the band, I’m with You, was released in late summer of 2011.

Red Hot Chili Peppers online
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Big Time Rush
Big Time Summer Tour 

In overwhelming response to their sold-out “Better With U Tour,” Big Time Rush announced today that they will kick off “Big Time Summer Tour,” performing in over 50 cities across the US and Canada including stops in New York, Chicago, Boston and Toronto. Beginning on July 5th in Columbus, OH, the Nickelodeon stars and Columbia Recording artists will perform songs off their latest album Elevate including “Music Sounds Better With U,” “All Over Again” and “Elevate.” During select dates, emerging Australian pop phenomenon Cody Simpson and X-Factor finalist and newly signed Nickelodeon talent Rachel Crow will open for Big Time Rush.  Additional acts will be announced shortly.  Tickets for the tour go on sale to the public beginning March 10th at 10 a.m. at www.ticketmaster.com or by calling 1-800-745-3000.

“We can’t wait to hit the road again!” said Big Time Rush. “The Better With U tour has been amazing and we’re incredibly grateful to our fans who have supported us and made our first headlining tour a success.”

The “Big Time Summer Tour” will hit famed arenas such as PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, NJ, First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Chicago, IL and Comcast Center in Boston, MA, once again, bringing their powerhouse performance to fans across the country.

Big Time Rush was recently nominated for “Favorite Music Group” at the 2012 Kids’ Choice Awards along with LMFAO, Black Eyed Peas, and Lady Antebellum. This is their second nomination in the category. They are also scheduled to perform on “Live with Kelly” on March 9.

Big Time Rush – Kendall Schmidt, James Maslow, Carlos Pena Jr. and Logan Henderson – recently released their second album, Elevate. The highly anticipated follow-up to the group’s Gold-certified debut BTR, Elevate features tracks including “Music Sounds Better With U (featuring Mann),” “Show Me” and “All Over Again,” plus brand-new music that will debut on upcoming episodes of the TV series. And on March 6th, Big Time Rush will release the soundtrack for their movie, Big Time Movie, exclusively on iTunes. The soundtrack features covers of beloved Beatles songs including “Help,” “Revolution” and “Hard Day’s Night.” Big Time Movie will premiere on Saturday, March 10th at 8pm, only on Nickelodeon.

Now in its second season, Big Time Rush – which follows four best friends from Minnesota who trade in their hockey sticks for music superstardom in Los Angeles — averages 3.6 million total viewers (+2%, over season one). The launch of the hit series on Nickelodeon drew 6.8 million viewers, making it the most watched live-action series premiere in the network’s history.

Big Time Rush Online
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Ratt
With Special Guests
Sebastian Bach
Dokken
Lita Ford

Aug. 15
Vetter Stone Amphitheater
Mankato, MN

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, May 17th at 12pm Noon at Ticketmaster.com, all Ticketmaster outlets, by phone at 800-745-3000, and at the Vetter Stone Amphitheater Box Office.

Doors: 5pm
Show: 6pm

Rain or shine.
No coolers.

Presented by Frank Productions

As the story goes, RATT helped pioneer Hollywood’s legendary Sunset Strip sound and scene. Created by lead singer songwriter Stephen Pearcy, the band played the clubs in and around L.A. releasing their own six song E.P. RATT in 1983.

Signed to Atlantic Records in 1984 the band (Warren De Martini, Stephen Pearcy, Bobby Blotzer, Robbin Crosby and Juan Croucier) went 3x Platinum behind the hit single “Round & Round”.

Since their inception the band has sold in excess of 15 million records in the US alone.

The band returned sounding fired up and better than ever on their last record 2010 “Infestation”, Ratt’s first studio album in years.

“Infestation”, was a return to their heavy, riff driven roots. The band has reinvented their sound by rediscovering their strengths, shuttling listeners to a time when metal ruled the earth.

Also releasing the best of CD Tell the World: The Very Best of Ratt and their 3rd long form DVD, RATT Videos from the Cellar: The Atlantic Years.

This year 2013 Rhino/Warner Music Group recently released RATT “Original Album Series, a five album box set with the albums “Out of the Cellar’ thru “Detonator” for the rabid RATT fans to have something to sink their teeth into.

“Our music is like it was in the beginning; it means everything to us,” Pearcy says. “And here we are 25-30 years later, keeping Ratt N’ Roll alive.”

When we play concerts now, there’s a new generation. We’re seeing kids of people who grew up with us, but the reaction is the same,” adds DeMartini. “It doesn’t seem to matter where we are in the world.”

With all surviving original members; Pearcy, De Martini, Croucier, Blotzer and Carlos Cavazo (replacing original member Robbin Crosby) back in the Ratt pack, the band will again start work on a new studio record and tour for 2013.

Ratt Online
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The Wiggles

Sunday, Aug. 25 | 2013
Capitol Theater
Overture Center for the Performing Arts
Madison, WI

Presale:
10am-10pm Thursday, June 6th.
Use password EMMA at OvertureCenter.com.

Tickets On Sale:
Friday, June 7th at 11am at OvertureCenter.com, 608-258-4141, and at the Overture Center Box Office.

Ticket Prices:
$65 | $39.50 | $29.50 | $19.50
(Plus applicable fees)

Doors: 1pm
Show: 2pm

Reserved Seating.
All ages are welcome.

Presented by Frank Productions and True Endeavors

The world’s most popular children’s entertainment group, The Wiggles, are heading out on the road to introduce their new team on their national tour.

After 21 years of entertaining children around the globe, it’s the beginning of an exciting new era for The Wiggles as they head out on their ‘Taking Off’ tour.

All of your Wiggly friends, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Captain Feathersword, Wags the Dog and Henry the Octopus, will be along as well to dance and sing along to Hot Potato, Rock-a-Bye Your Bear and all your favorite Wiggles hits.

Blue Wiggle, Anthony Field, who started The Wiggles over 21 years ago selected the new team to join Dorothy and our friends from Wiggles cast he had worked with over many years. There’s red Wiggle Simon; our first female Wiggle, Emma, the yellow Wiggle; and a Brisbane boy, Lachy, the purple Wiggle!

2013 is a new chapter in The Wiggles’ amazing story.

Anthony enthused, “It’s such a great way to start the year. There’s so much energy with these young guys. We introduced Simon, Emma and Lachy on the Celebration tour around the world and audiences loved them and I’m so excited to be heading out on the road across Australia so that all our Wiggly fans can meet the new team”

Our ‘Taking Off’ tour audiences will also be some of the first to hear some new Wiggles material from the now available CD and DVD also titled Taking Off!

Get you tickets now as they will sell like Hot Potatoes!

The Wiggles Online
Website | Facebook

With Special Guest Cage The Elephant

Wednesday, Sept. 4 | 7pm
The Arena at Gwinnett Center
Duluth, GA

Tickets On Sale Now:
at GwinnettCenter.com, The Arena at Gwinnett Center Box Office, or by calling 1-888-9-AXS-TIX.

Ticket Prices:
$59.50 | $49.50
(Plus applicable fees)

Produced by Frank Productions

It’s hard to imagine a more rapturous critical reception than the one poured out for the U.K. trio Muse on the release of their third album, and Warner Bros. debut, Absolution. A representative sampling tells the tale: “Earth-shattering and life-saving,” declared NME, while Rock Sound joined the chorus with “A sure-fire ticket to world domination,” and Bang boasted ,“A hyperspace jump into the future.” While Time Out trumpeted, “Sheer, blistering rock splendor,” the Daily Mirror declared, “Dazzling,” and the Guardian gushed, “Utterly beguiling.”

Rock Sound’s quote turned out to be positively prophetic, with Absolution topping charts in the U.K. and France, climbing into the top five in 12 countries (including the Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Norway, and Belgium), the top 10 in 15 countries. and the top 20 in 20 countries–all within weeks of its release. Currently all of Muse’s albums are platinum in the U.K., and predominantly gold in the major European territories.

So, with all those words and numbers you might well be asking where Muse has been all your life. The answer, if you’ve been paying attention, has been there the whole time, or at least back to 1999, when the trio released their debut American album, Showbiz. What’s happened since conclusively proves that timing is everything, and while Muse has yet to generate the sort of manic sensation Stateside that greeted them internationally, the time is now totally ripe for their triumphant return with Absolution.

Consider this: With a recent nomination for Best Rock Group at the prestigious Brits (the U.K. version of the Grammys) and a sold-out international arena tour that has taken them through Europe, Australia, and Japan, Muse arrives in America with an album where “every track is built on a gigantic scale” (The Times), and a front-and-center slot at the year’s premier music event, the Coachella Music & Arts Festival.

Not that Muse is out to prove anything. They are, simply and sincerely, in it for the music, and always have been. Hailing from the hamlet of Teignmouth in the picturesque Devon countryside, Matt Bellamy (lead vocals, guitar, and keyboards), Dominic Howard (drums and percussion), and Chris Wolstenholme (bass and backing vocals) had known each other since childhood before joining forces as Muse in 1994, performing their first gig at a local battle of the bands after being together one week.

Six years later, on the strength of a series of independent EPs, a growing reputation as an electrifying live attraction, and some timely exposure on the influential national British station Radio One, Muse signed in America with Maverick and released the above-mentioned Showbiz. The album helped build initial word of mouth, yet budding Muse fans in the U.S. were only able to hear their second offering, 2001’s Origin Of Symmetry, as an import.

By that time the band was already far too busy to let the vagaries of the music business slow them down. “If anything,” asserts Wolstenholme, “it brought us back to the basics. We toured pretty much nonstop, selling our records through a series of small deals, country by country, and really concentrating on our live show. Playing for an audience night after night is what kept us and the music true and honest. It gave us an opportunity to grow naturally.”

It was an opportunity the trio put to good use after taking a yearlong hiatus in 2002 to regroup and recharge. Already a major musical phenomenon in their home country as well as a dozen other Muse hotbeds around the world, the band could afford to take their time. “We were a lot more focused,” Howard explains. “Whereas before we always felt a bit rushed, putting together new songs during sound checks and such, this time we rented a space in London where we lived and worked together for three months. We had time to play out lots of different ideas, do a lot of demos and develop the sound we were after.”

While some things may have changed for the relentlessly innovative threesome, others stayed exactly the same. “The songs are always a reflection of what we’re feeling personally and what’s happening around us,” says Bellamy, chief lyricist for Muse. “We didn’t do a concept album as such, but a theme did develop, built around a sense of things coming to an end. I think because we’re a little older, we’ve had a chance to experience different chapters of our lives closing and others opening up. It’s how you deal with those changes that is at the core of these songs.”

With a range that Bellamy describes as “melancholy to hopeful,” the 14 tracks of Absolution, including the single “Time Is Running Out,” eloquently express life’s inevitable transitions and the elemental emotions that accompany them. But however else the music of Muse may be described, it is quintessentially genuine, the integrated expression of three creatively charged artists whose dynamic interaction makes for some of the most dramatic music on either side of the Atlantic.

Muse Online
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Cage The Elephant

When Cage the Elephant released their self-titled debut in 2009, they were heralded as saviors of slacker funk-punk thanks to their hit “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked.” The title turned out to be more prescient than they’d bargained for: the band has been battling adversity of many stripes. But the struggles never pushed singer Matt Shultz, guitarist Brad Shultz, bassist Daniel Tichenor, guitarist Lincoln Parish, and drummer Jared Champion off track — they only strengthened the group’s bond and fueled the revved-up roar of its new album, Thank You Happy Birthday, released January 11, 2011. Debuting at #2 on the Billboard 200 Chart, Cage The Elephant launched the new year with a ferocious kick of gut-grabbing rock & roll.

“This album brought me back to life,” says Matt Shultz. “We totally turned away from fear-based writing. We just wanted to make music that we loved.” Cage the Elephant were literally itching to get new music into fans’ hands after spending years promoting their debut, which has sold close to 400,000 copies and spawned three Top 5 singles. In the time since they laid down their first album, the band has done a lot of living — and a lot of growing — and the maturity of their fresh sound shines through on the new album.

The band sketched out 80 song ideas during a nearly two-year stint living in England, but wound up scrapping all the work once they returned to the U.S. and dove into a period of intense musical growth. They listened to the Pixies, Mudhoney and Butthole Surfers and explored ’50s surf rock for inspiration. After two weeks of total isolation in remote Kentucky cabins, they emerged with a fresh slate of songs and a renewed promise to be honest to themselves.

“On the first record I think I was really frustrated and angry at the world and writing about its problems and my frustrations with them,” Matt Shultz says, “but on this record I realized I was part of the hypocrisy. And I was like, wow, I’m a real piece of shit.” On opener “Always Something,” he sings ominously about how there’s “always something waiting for you” over creepy, slinky guitars. “There were a lot of things in my life I was trying to control and it all unraveled in a real bad way,” Matt says. “Because everything fell apart I had to face up to everything. Some songs are a direct attack on myself.”

“Shake Me Down” is packed with explosive loud-quiet-loud interludes that showcase Champion’s skills on a set of toy drums that were expertly recorded by Jay Joyce, who also produced Cage the Elephant’s debut. The guitar riff was actually borrowed from a song Tichenor’s dad had written years ago (“I ripped him off,” the bassist jokes), and the bass line was inspired by the Shins.

One of the band’s biggest goals for the disc — not to conform to a popular sound or look — became a bit of a crusade. “Sell Yourself” is a ferocious, thrashing ode to staying true to their identity despite the pressures of the industry. “Indy Kidz” skewers the pretentiousness of music scenes where everyone just wants to fit in before it stretches out into a trippy jam. And Matt Shultz breaks out his best Frank Black yell to let off steam on “Around My Head” one of several amped-up songs he’s looking forward to tearing apart live during the band’s mind-blowingly energetic shows. (Matt is known for his head-banging, stage-diving and crazy punk-rock antics.)

While Matt says he had plenty of material to draw on — everything from the end of his five-year relationship to watching a close friend self-destruct to feeling frustrated with how Americans are “slaves to advertisements” — at times his lyrics didn’t exactly flow. Brad Shultz cracks up recalling how he found Matt outside the Nashville studio, “Laying in the leaves, like, ‘I need to be inspired!’ “I was trying to generate some sort of inspiration, so I was grabbing leaves and smelling them and smelling dirt,” Matt explains. “I just wanted a sound or a texture or a feel or a smell to generate some sort of memory from childhood.”

Sometimes the studio’s struggles brought the band its greatest rewards. Super-catchy anthem “Aberdeen” required three days of agonizing work. When the band slowed down the chorus, the tune finally clicked and a worthwhile lesson emerged. “It was definitely realizing you don’t always have control of a situation,” Matt Shultz says. “If you want to make something you love it doesn’t always happen the first time around.”

“We didn’t have all the answers on our first album,” Brad Shultz adds. “But we were just like, fuck this, we’re going to write the music we’re going to write. This album was like a breath of fresh air.”

Cage The Elephant Online
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