ALICE COOPER to release exclusive digital single this Tuesday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SHOUT! FACTORY AND ALICE COOPER

ANNOUNCE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT DEAL TO RELEASE

ALICE COOPER’S NEW SINGLE “KEEPIN’ HALLOWEEN ALIVE”

FOR DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION

Theatre of Death World Tour This Fall

Los Angeles, CA – Shout! Factory and Alice Cooper announced an exclusive alliance to bring Alice Cooper’s brand-new Halloween single, “Keepin’ Halloween Alive,” to the digital music entertainment marketplace. The announcement was made today by Shout! Factory founding partner and COO Bob Emmer.

Under its agreement with Cooper, Shout! Factory will be the exclusive digital media distributor for Alice Cooper’s new single, “Keepin’ Halloween Alive,” as well as the track’s bonus Karaoke (aka “Cooperoke”) version for digital music downloads

Alice delivers the song with the garage-punk snarl he is best known for, ensuring that it will soon be a Halloween classic. “At home my family all gathers around an old spooky tree decorated with skulls and bones in the living room, and we exchange gifts,” says Cooper. “It’s our holiday. We even all have matching black-and-orange Halloween sweaters! I wanted a theme song for people like me, and for us Halloween never ends. In the chorus I say, ‘I’m keepin’ Halloween alive, baby, 3–6–5’... and I mean it!”

“Keepin’ Halloween Alive,” was co-written and co-produced by Cooper with Piggy D. (a member of Rob Zombie’s band), who played rhythm guitar/backup vocals. Dave Pino (Powerman 5000) is featured on lead guitar, and David Spreng (Bob Dylan, The Bravery) on drums. Of the recording, Cooper says, “We played it live as a band to capture the vibe. It was the easiest work I think any of us have ever done, not to mention a blast!”

“We are thrilled to be working closely again with the legendary Alice Cooper on his new Halloween-themed single and adding to Shout! Factory’s expansive digital audio library,” said Bob Emmer, Shout! Factory founding partner and COO. “Throughout his long and storied career, Cooper has always been a master entertainer and a consummate showman. His connection to the dark and spooky holiday is definitive. It’s great to be working with him as he is crowned the King of Halloween.”

In addition to releasing the new single, Cooper is busy hosting his “Nights with Alice Cooper” radio program, now syndicated on more than 100 stations worldwide and staying on the road with his Theatre of Death world tour—tour dates below. For more information on “Nights with Alice Cooper” please visit www.nightswithalicecooper.com

Shout! Factory is a diversified entertainment company devoted to producing, uncovering and revitalizing the very best of pop culture. Founders Richard Foos, Bob Emmer and Garson Foos have spent their careers sharing their music, television and film faves with discerning consumers the world over. Shout! Factory’s DVD offerings serve up classic, contemporary and cult TV series, riveting sports programs, live music, animation and documentaries in lavish packages crammed with extras. The company’s audio catalogue boasts GRAMMY®-nominated boxed sets, new releases from storied artists, lovingly assembled album reissues and indispensable “best of” compilations. These riches are the result of a creative acquisitions mandate that has established the company as a hotbed of cultural preservation and commercial reinvention. For more on Shout! Factory, visit www.shoutfactory.com.

LIGHT IN THE ATTIC TO RELEASE LOST BETTY DAVIS ALBUM, REISSUE CLASSIC THIRD RECORD

img: New Betty Davis poster available at lightintheattic.net

We have previously reported the upcoming release of Betty Davis' unreleased album 'Is It Love Or Desire'. That album will now be joined by a deluxe re-release of her 1975 album 'Nasty Gal'. See below for all the details:

On October 6th Light In The Attic Records will release the never before
heard (and never bootlegged) lost album Is It Love Or Desire, as well as
reissue the classic third release Nasty Gal, by unparalleled funkstress
Betty Davis.

Betty Davis was a musical maverick with a vision. Imagine substance, sex,
and grit combined with a badass band that could deliver the funk bed
backbone to the sultry music between the sheets.

Ahead of it's time in 1975, Davis' unapologetically uncompromising,
self-referential album Nasty Gal showed her digging deeper into her
musical and cultural expression that ever before. Riding high with a new
record label, a series of high profile relationships, and an intensely
sexualized live performance, Davis was poised to take the world by storm.
From the title tracks mutant groove to the ballad co-written by one-time
husband Miles Davis, Nasty Gal is Hendrix and Sly Stone inspired funk-rock
at it's finest.

Is It Love Or Desire (1976), on the other hand, is a little known gem in
the Davis catalog. After cutting Nasty Gal for Island Records, Davis
recorded her most personal and expressive record to date at Louisiana's
remote Studio In The Country. Unfortunately a creative difference with the
label caused the record to be unexpectedly shelved and was never released
to the public. Now, thirty-plus years later, Light In The Attic is proud
to announce that Betty Davis' time has arrived!

Both mastered from the original tapes, Is It Love Or Desire features
detailed liner notes by Oliver Wang (Soul Sides), the originally intended
risqué artwork housed in a lavishly packaged digipak, rare photos,
archival material, and recent interviews with Davis and her skin-tight
band Funk House; while the Nasty Gal re-release features new liner notes
by John Ballon (Wax Poetics 2007 Davis cover story), original album art,
complete lyrics, rare photos, and interviews, all housed in a beautiful
foil-stamped digipak.

These releases cement this bold soul sister's undeniable contributions to
music and popular culture. Long live Betty Davis!

Upcoming releases - October 2009

Here's a quick overview of some of our pick of next month's new releases.

Joe Perry - Have Guitar, Will Travel
Roman Records
Released: October 6th

2009 release, the fifth solo album from the co-founding member, principal co-songwriter, electrifying lead guitarist and co-producer of Aerosmith. Have Guitar, Will Travel is a 10 song collection that contains the legendary guitarist's trademark Rock and Blues ferocity. From the opening bars of the blazing first track and single 'We've Got A Long Way To Go', which showcases the voice of a young German singer known as Hagen, to classic cuts including 'Freedom', 'Head Kicked In Tonight' and 'Do You Wonder', Have Guitar, Will Travel grabs a hold of you, shakes you and doesn't let go. Perry is planning a 'short, fast, hard tour' with the Joe Perry Project after Have Guitar, Will Travel is released.



Vic Chesnutt - Skitter On Take-Off
Vapor Records
Released: October 6th

Vic Chesnutt has recorded with many different people for all kinds of labels, but he’s never made an album like his debut on Vapor Records.
‘Skitter On Take-Off’ allows Vic Chesnutt to create his most dramatic album yet, recording devastating songs like “Rips in the Fabric” and “Dick Cheney” live with no overdubs.


Bob Dylan - Christmas In The Heart
Columbia Records
Released: October 13th

Christmas In The Heart is Bob Dylan’s 47th album. All of his U.S. royalties from sales of these recordings will be donated to Feeding America, guaranteeing that more than four million meals will be provided to more than 1.4 million people in need in this country during the 2009 holiday season. Bob Dylan is also donating all of his future U.S. royalties from this album to Feeding America in perpetuity. Songs performed by Dylan on this new album include, “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy” and “Must Be Santa.”


Leonard Cohen - Live From The Isle Of Wight, 1970 (CD/DVD)
Sony Legacy
Released: October 20th

This CD/DVD package contains the new, beautiful film documentary by Lerner featuring interviews with fellow festival performers, as well as Cohen's full performance on CD. All tracks are previously unreleased (sans bits of "Suzanne" which were featured in the documentary Message to Love, also by Lerner). Included are live versions of classic songs from the first two Leonard Cohen LPs: "So Long, Marianne," "The Stranger Song," "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," "Suzanne," "Bird On The Wire," "You Know Who I Am," and "The Partisan" as well as spoken word and poetry.

Also available on 180-gram Vinyl and Blu-ray.

Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions new album - available worldwide this Tuesday

You can also download the new song 'Blanchard' as part of the most recent episode of Insomnia Cafe (Insomnia Friday #6)


The delicious dichotomy between darkness and light, the space between inspiration and the manifestation of thought, is where Hope Sandoval’s music and lyrics catch fire. Through The Devil Softly, her second album with Warm Inventions partner Colm Ó Cíosóig (My Bloody Valentine), is a rich brocade of pastoral meditations that resonate with the kind of restrained yet provocative intimacy that only these two artists can provide. Well known for their reticence in the media, they’ve once again chosen to pour out their hearts and minds on record.

It’s been eight years since the release of the critically acclaimed Bavarian Fruit Bread, but Colm and Hope aren’t ones to adhere to traditional timetables and conventions. “Time is vibrations for us,” he says. “We didn’t feel like [this album] was ready until it was ready.” In the meantime, however, neither artist has been creatively idle. Hope has collaborated with Devendra Banhart, Air, Bert Jansch, Death In Vegas, and is due to appear on Massive Attack’s forthcoming album. And yes, a new Mazzy Star record is on the horizon. (“It’s almost finished,” says Hope, “but when it will be coming out, I don’t know.”) Meanwhile, 2009 saw the reunion of My Bloody Valentine for a select group of live shows, kicking off with an incendiary performance at this year’s Coachella Festival.

“It’s like the opposite ends of the spectrum,” says Cíosóig of the difference between MBV and his work with Sandoval. “I play very held back, but there’s a tension to it.”

Written and recorded over the past two years in both Northern California and the Wicklow Mountains of southeast Ireland, Through The Devil Softly sees Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig sharing production and engineering credits, with Dave Trumfio (Wilco, The Rentals) and Jim Putnam of the Radar Brothers assisting in the mix. Other guests of note include Mazzy Star keyboardist Suki Ewers and cellist Ji Young Moon, who provides the solo on the sublime “Thinking Like That.” But the album’s most broad brush addition comes courtesy of Ireland’s Dirt Blue Gene, the group who tracked the recordings with Sandoval and Ó Cíosóig, and will accompany them on their upcoming tour. While the simplicity of “Lady Jessica and Sam” and the bucolic beauty of “Fall Aside” represent one facet of the record, Dirt Blue Gene help inject an undulating, sultry swagger into songs like “Trouble” and “For The Rest Of Your Life” that compliments the album’s more delicate passages. Elsewhere, autoharps, vibraphones, slide guitars, and crystalline bell chimes flicker across the tape heads like shadows, used so sparingly at times that their sound is barely audible above Hope’s hushed inflection. On “There’s A Willow,” her verses are carried on the back of a simple, singular cymbal, cresting and falling like ocean waves. Meandering guitar and harmonica parts waltz together like old lovers, while the distant knocking of a solitary woodblock and the tapping of a tom provide the only cadence. “I merely standing on holes in the ground. If I fall, well they’ll never know I’m found,” she coos on “Banchard.” Later she muses, “I play death in the space of my life. That’s how I feel, and I never think it twice,” and you’re left to wonder if she’s ruminating on her own taciturn nature. As with the album’s title, the words are not there to be explained. They’re to be felt and interpreted. The mystery is magnetic.

“We just make music for ourselves,” says Colm. “We don’t really pay attention to what’s going on in the big world when it comes to pop music or anything.”

Anyone whose seen Sandoval perform live, either with Mazzy Star or the Warm Inventions, can attest to that intimacy. Often shrouded in low light, she rarely communicates with the crowd outside the boundaries of a song. “I go into myself, close myself off,” says Hope of her relationship with audiences. “But I do know that they’re there.”

Rife with lush sonics and textures, Through The Devil Softly is a deliberate body of work that gently solicits your patience, and like the cover photograph, it’s creators reveal very little so that the art can reveal so much.

Michael Jackson's 'This Is It' single/album

On October 12th, a new Michael song will be released entitled ‘This Is It’. There is also a two disc album available from October 27th which includes a spoken poem from Michael entited ‘Planet Earth’. Below is the official information relating to the releases.

On October 12th, the first new Michael Jackson song to emerge since the world mourned the loss of this musical icon will be released - a brand new single entitled “This Is It.” Soon after, Sony Music Entertainment’s Columbia/Epic Label Group will release the two-disc album This Is It featuring the music that inspired Sony Pictures’ forthcoming film MICHAEL JACKSON’S THIS IS IT. This two-disc album will be available internationally on October 26th and North America on October 27th to coincide with the worldwide release of the motion picture which arrives in theaters on October 28th and runs for a limited two-week engagement.

“This song only defines, once again, what the world already knows - that Michael is one of God’s greatest gifts, “comments John McClain,
co-producer of the album.

Disc one will feature the original album masters of some of Michael’s
biggest hits arranged in the same sequence as they appear in the film. The disc ends with two versions of the never-released “This Is It.” This song is featured in the film’s closing sequence and includes backing vocals by Michael’s brothers, the Jacksons.

Disc two offers previously unreleased versions of some of the artist’s classic tracks. This disc also features a touching spoken word poem from Michael Jackson entitled “Planet Earth” that has never been heard before.

The two-disc This is It is a stand-alone companion to the motion picture and includes a 36-page, commemorative booklet featuring exclusive photos of Michael from his last rehearsal.

The motion picture MICHAEL JACKSON’S THIS IS IT will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place beginning this summer in London’s O2 Arena. Chronicling the months from April through June, 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than one hundred hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of his songs for the show. Audiences will be given a chance to discover the man they never knew through this privileged and private look at Jackson. In raw and candid detail, MICHAEL JACKSON’S THIS IS IT captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius and great artist at work as he creates and perfects his final show.

Kenny Ortega, who was both Michael Jackson’s creative partner and the director of the stage show is also directing the film, which is being produced by Randy Phillips, Kenny Ortega and Paul Gongaware. Executive producers are John Branca and John McClain. The film will be distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Releasing.

Tickets for the limited two-week engagement of the film go on sale
beginning September 27. For more information about the motion picture, please visit the website www.thisisit-movie.com

Source: michaeljackson.com

Tori Amos announces 'Midwinter Graces'

After nearly two decades writing and recording some of her generation’s most emotionally powerful music, Tori Amos will release her first seasonal album, Midwinter Graces, on November 10 via Universal Republic. A follow up to Tori’s critically acclaimed studio album, Abnormally Attracted to Sin, Midwinter Graces will find Tori reworking and expanding on classic carols as well as developing some of her very own seasonal tracks.

Midwinter Graces is an album that has been in the making for the past 40 years. Raised in the Baltimore area under the watchful eye of her Methodist minister father, Tori grew up playing holiday carols at Sunday services and Christmas Day celebrations in her father’s church. These were the songs that gave a young Tori her first taste of music, and now almost 40 years later Tori gets her own chance to reimagine the classics.

Midwinter Graces Tracklist:
What Child, Nowell
Star of Wonder
A Silent Night with You
Candle: Coventry Carol
Holly, Ivy, and Rose
Harps of Gold
Snow Angel
Jeanette, Isabella
Pink and Glitter
Emmanuel
Winter’s Carol
Our New Year

Billy Corgan announces new, free 44-song Smashing Pumpkins album

As per Billy Corgan @ SmashingPumpkins.com:

I'm happy to finally announce the plans for the new Smashing Pumpkins album.

Recording began yesterday, September 15th, 2009 on the new record which will be entitled 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope'. The album will feature 44 songs, 4 of which are now being recorded. My desire is to release a song at a time beginning around Halloween of this year, with each new release coming shortly after until all 44 are out. Each song will be made available absolutely for free, to anyone anywhere. There will be no strings attached. Free will mean free, which means you won't have to sign up for anything, give an email address, or jump through a hoop. You will be able to go and take the song or songs as you wish, as many times as you wish.

We will however sell highly limited edition EP's (of 4 songs each times 11), and details of how those EP's will be made available are still being worked out. Because the songs themselves will be free, the EP's will be more like collectors items for the discerning fan who will want the art itself, along with the highest possible audio quality available. The EP's will be more like mini-box sets rather than your normal cd single. We may also offer other variations for sale, say for example a digital single with a demo version of a song. The commitment that is most important is the one I'm making to you: that the music of 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope' will be available for free to everyone. All 44 songs: free for ALL.

When the entire album is finished, it will be compiled into a deluxe box set which will also be made available for sale. Those who have bought the EP's need not worry, as the box set will not be a recompilation of the limited edition pieces.

The story of the album is based on 'The Fool's Journey', as signified in the progress of the Tarot. It is my intention to approach this by breaking down the journey of our life here into four phases as made by these different characters; the Child, the Fool, the Skeptic, and the Mystic.

The music of 'Teargarden by Kaleidyscope' harkens back to the original psychedelic roots of The Smashing Pumpkins: atmospheric, melodic, heavy, and pretty.

I already have 53 songs written for the record, so I am quite confident that I already have much of the material that I would need to undertake such an extensive project. I am very committed to seeing this album through to its completion and very, very excited about the prospect of delivering new Smashing Pumpkins music to you in a unique and exciting way.

Joe Perry's 'Have Guitar, Will Travel' set for October release

Co-founding member, principal co-songwriter, lead guitarist and co-producer of Aerosmith, JOE PERRY, will release his fifth solo CD Have Guitar, Will Travel on Tuesday, October 6th. The hard driving, ten-song, in your face, collection features Perry’s trademark rock and blues ferocity, as well as the CD’s first single, the blazing “We’ve Got A Long Way To Go,” set for release later this summer. Recorded this past spring at the BoneYard, Perry's state-of-the-art home studio, where Aerosmith’s Honkin’ On Bobo and Just Push Play were recorded, Have Guitar, Will Travel is entirely written and produced by Perry.

Still as scorching hot on guitar as he is preternaturally cool in his persona, Have Guitar, Will Travel is a departure for Perry in that the CD was conceived as a band recording. From start to finish it took only forty-seven days to complete. "Making this record in such a short period of time gave us a chance to capture an energy and flow that was very different from the last record,” said Perry. “The way the players came together at a time when I had the music and lyrics in my head ready to go was pure synchronicity. The last record rocked, but this one rocks and then some. I’m really proud of it.

“We’ve Got A Long Way To Go,” the CDs first single, showcases the voice of a young German singer known as Hagen, found completely by chance on YouTube by Joe’s wife Billie. “I first called him from Cleveland when I went to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Jam with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Flea and Metallica,” said Perry. “It took several minutes to convince him that it wasn’t a prank call, but a true invitation to audition to sing on the CD.” Hagen mans the microphone for five tracks, while Perry sings lead on four. The remaining tenth song is an instrumental entitled “Wooden Ships.”

In addition, Perry attracted an esteemed roster of some of the best players that the music world has to offer; bassist David Hull, who played with The Buddy Miles Band at 19 and was in the Joe Perry Project in the 80s, drummer Ben Tileston, a Boston University percussion graduate, who plays drums with two of Perry’s sons in TAB The Band, Paul Santo, whose played Hammond Organ/Pipe Organ with the likes of Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Ozzy Osbourne, drummers Scott Meeder and Marty Richards and Willie “Loco” Alexander, Boston’s “Godfather of Punk,” who was part of the Bostown sound of the band “the Bagatelle.”

A six-week Twitter search was conducted to find the CDs title. The winner, out of nearly 2000 entries, was Joe Piscitelli, who used a play on the old CBS television program “Have Gun – Will Travel.”

The release of Have Guitar, Will Travel follows self-produced solo releases including Let The Music Do The Talking (1980), Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker (1983), I've Got The Rock 'N' Rolls Again (1981) and 2005’s Joe Perry, which received universal critical praise and earned Perry his first solo Grammy nomination for Best Instrumental Song (“Mercy”).

Perry is planning a “short, fast, hard tour” with the Joe Perry Project.

COMING SOON: Never before heard Betty Davis album

Betty Davis - Is It Love Or Desire
Coming October 6th to Vinyl & CD

Legendary '70s R&B diva Betty Davis is currently in the midst of a long-overdue resurgence, and with good reason. The charismatic funk/soul iconoclast's vintage work retains a timeless blend of sex and substance that establishes Davis as both a musical visionary and a world-class badass.

The current resurgence of interest in Davis' classic work makes Sundazed Music's vinyl release of Is It Love or Desire a timely one indeed. Recorded in 1976, following the artist's landmark albums Betty Davis, They Say I'm Different and Nasty Gal, Is It Love or Desire was unexpectedly shelved. The artist retreated from the spotlight soon after, and Is It Love or Desire remained unheard by the public for more than three decades. It has never been released--or even bootlegged--until now.

Finally available to Davis' still-growing fan base, Is It Love or Desire is a revelation. Recorded at Louisiana's remote Studio in the Country with Davis' skintight band Funk House, the ten-song album contains some of the most powerful and personal music of the artist's career, with such titles as "It's So Good," "Whorey Angel" and "Crashin' From Passion" ranking with Davis' most memorable work.

This first-ever vinyl edition of Is It Love or Desire maintains Sundazed's usual exacting quality standards. Mastered from the original analog tapes, the album is pressed on high-quality, high-definition 180 gram vinyl, and features new cover art and previously unseen photos.

RECOMMENDED ALBUM: Imogen Heap - Ellipse

Imogen Heap - Ellipse
(RCA)
Out Now

Deluxe two CD edition includes a bonus CD (also available as a digital download) that contains instrumental versions of all 13 of the album's tracks. 2009 album from the British singer/songwriter and one-half of Frou Frou. With over 400,000 copies of her last album sold, Imogen Heap, singer-songwriter-producer and two time Grammy nominee, is back with her much anticipated new solo album Ellipse! Beginning in Hawaii and working her way through Fiji, Imogen has poured her heart and soul into writing and recording this masterpiece. The album was recorded in new studio which she built in her old family home in Essex, UK.