News from the darkest corners...

Jazz composer George Russell, a MacArthur fellow whose theories influenced the modal music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, has died.

His publicist says Russell, who taught at the New England Conservatory, died Monday in Boston at age 86 of complications from Alzheimer’s.

Russell was born in Cincinnati in 1923 and attended Wilberforce University. He played drums in Benny Carter’s band and later wrote “Cubano Be/Cubano Bop” for Dizzy Gillespie’s orchestra. It premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1947 and was the first fusion of Afro-Cuban rhythms with jazz.

Russell developed the Lydian concept in 1953. It’s credited as the first theoretical contribution to come from jazz, and was responsible for introducing modal improvisation which resulted in the seminal recording of Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue.”

Back in October of 2007, Sufjan Stevens debuted The BQE, a visual and musical homage to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM) Howard Gilman Opera House in downtown Brooklyn. Originally commissioned by BAM for the Next Wave Festival, the BQE featured three simultaneous film projections, a 35-piece band and orchestra, and live hula hoopers for a 3-night run.

One week following the performances, Sufjan and his orchestra went into the studio to record the soundtrack, but afterwards, feeling disenfranchised by the magnitude of the universe, Sufjan decided to shelve the project. Until now. Two years later, Sufjan found inspiration to mix the music, edit the video and expand the project to include photographs, liner notes, a comic book, and a stereoscopic image reel – a multi-media package that attempts to render this much-loathed urban expressway into a conscionable work of art.

The release date is set for October 20, 2009. The double-disc album will include the original film on DVD, the original soundtrack on CD, a 40-page booklet (with photos and liner notes), and a stereoscopic image reel (aka View-Master®), created by illustrator Stephen Halker.

The limited edition vinyl is available as a double gatefold and includes the soundtrack on 180-gram vinyl, a large-scale 32-page booklet with liner notes and photographs, and a 40-page Hooper Heroes comic book.

Buy Sufjan Stevens albums from Amazon.com

Dweezil Zappa reports:

Summer time is here and I’m sure many of you have rousing and arresting plans. If your entire summer isn’t completely booked yet and you find yourself in need of a “music transfusion” perhaps you would like to visit Zappa Plays Zappa on the Progressive Nation summer tour. It’s an exciting multi-act tour founded by Mike Portnoy, the drummer from Dream Theater. The concert will feature Zappa Plays Zappa, and of course, headlines Dream Theater.

Mike is a self-confessed hardcore Frank Zappa fan and he has come to several of our shows in the New York area. We were very pleased to be asked to join the impressive line up of the Progressive Nation tour. I’m personally looking forward to the opportunity to introduce Frank’s music to any and all with open ears.

Our setlist will change nightly and will be 75 minutes in length. We also have three Zappa Plays Zappa Headline shows ‘interspersed’ throughout the tour. Keep your eyes open for any additional Headline shows that might get added.

All Zappa Plays Zappa tour dates are here.

Modern Guilt, Beck’s latest album has been out for over a year now. It has inspired him to give us acoustic tracks from the original recordings.

In his own words:

“Modern Guilt was released one year ago this week! For the occasion we are putting up acoustic versions of the entire album recorded earlier this year after returning from the Japan tour (under severe jet lag). Tracks will be released weekly starting with this rendition of Orphans. There will be a limited ep of four tracks from the session available soon. We’ll also be putting up all the promotional videos from the album this week in the new section, Videotheque.”

Weirdomusic.com is always looking for volunteers who would like to contribute reviews (or other content) every once in a while.

Would you like to write about your favorite weird, exotic, strange, bizarre, experimental album, new or old? Drop us a line at webmaster@weirdomusic.com

The reviews section is here, in case you’d like to have a look first:
http://www.weirdomusic.com/reviews.htm

Blood. Horror. Filth. Beauty? Rationality? Education? These are some of the ingredients the Austrian artist Hermann Nitsch uses and some of the questions his work raises. Highly controversial for some, highly regarded by others; Nitsch is someone you need to have an opinion on. Not to have one is not possible once you’ve seen the work of one of the instigators of performance art. Nitsch will be the main guest during the Incubate Festival (Tilburg, The Netherlands), giving you the opportunity to see one of the most important artists that influenced performance art at work on his actions, music and philosophy.

For more info on Hermann Nitsch and his performances, check the Incubate Website!

Artists that will do a Nitsch influenced performance on Incubate are: Franko B, Costes, Marhaug, Justice Yeldham and Micheline Torres.

Infamous record label owner Allen Klein, who played a key role in the demise of the Beatles and also nabbed control of some of the Rolling Stones’ best-known songs, died in New York on Saturday after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, a spokesman said. He was 77.

During a career spanning more than 50 years, the New Jersey-born accountant enjoyed a reputation as a savvy gangster-like figure. His ruthless business practices were reviled by many, but he also earned grudging respect for bullying labels into giving rich deals to his clients.

His company, ABKCO Music & Records, is one of the biggest independent labels in an industry controlled by multinational corporations. The spokesman said it would remain family-controlled. Two of Klein’s three adult children work at the company, including son Jody who runs ABKCO.

Its assets include recordings by the Rolling Stones, the Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Bobby Womack, the Kinks, Chubby Checker, Bobby Rydell and many others.

The publishing arm boasts more than 2,000 copyrights including compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Cooke, Womack, Ray Davies of the Kinks and Pete Townshend of the Who.

Klein broke into the music business by auditing record labels on behalf of clients including Bobby Darin and Connie Francis. When he found they were owed royalties, he took half of the difference as a fee.

His first big management client was Sam Cooke, for whom he negotiated a lucrative recording deal in 1963 that gave the soul star unprecedented control over his own catalog.

Klein, who was already representing “British Invasion” artists such as the Animals, Dave Clark Five and Herman’s Hermits, set his sights on the Rolling Stones, who were laboring under an onerous deal. He renegotiated their pact in 1965, and ended up managing the group for about five years — taking a 20 percent fee.

The Stones eventually tired of Klein. But the only way to break free of him was to give up the rights to their master recordings and rights to such timeless tunes as “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.”

By then, Klein was focused on the ultimate prize, the Beatles. He offered his help to Lennon in early 1969, when the Fab Four’s idealistic Apple Corps. label was fast draining the fractured group’s coffers.

George Harrison and Ringo Starr also warmed to his pitch, but Paul McCartney was fiercely opposed. He preferred the expertise of his father-in-law, high-powered New York attorney Lee Eastman.

Amid a series of complex maneuverings that have consequences to this day, Klein unsuccessfully tried to secure control of the Beatles’ copyrights on behalf of the group. Michael Jackson ended up with the rights 16 years later.

Klein did score a rich recording deal for the Beatles, but relations within the group were past frayed, and it dissolved in 1970.

McCartney sued his bandmates in an effort to break free from Klein, an action once unthinkable among the harmonious foursome. The other Beatles lost faith in Klein and sued him in the mid-1970s. Lennon sent him off in song in “Steel and Glass,” which describes how “your mouthpiece squawks as he spreads your lies.”

In 1970, Harrison “honored” Klein in a rough version of his song “Beware of Darkness” with the line “beware of ABKCO.” “It might have ended up being prophetic. But at the time it was just a little joke,” Harrison told Reuters in 2000.

Indeed, Harrison and Klein reunited in 1971 to put on the all-star Concert for Bangladesh shows at Madison Square Garden in New York. It took a decade for the money to reach the refugees because of complex tax problems.

The Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen will be traveling the spaceways for an European tour that starts July 4, 2009. The Arkestra will be making visitations in Portugal, France, Italy, and England.

Members of the Arkestra will also be on tour in the Republic of Tuva in the Russian state of Siberia during July. This manifestion of Arkestra members called “Children of the Sun!” will be appearing at the Ustu-Hure Music World Festival in Ustu-Hure, Tuva, Siberia, Russia. The “Children of the Sun!” band will include Danny Thompson (baritone sax, alto sax, flute), Knoel Scott (alto sax, vocals), Yahya Abdul-Majid (tenor sax), Fred Adams (trumpet), Dave Davis (trombone, baritone horn), Elson Nascimento (surdo, percussion), Dave Hotep (guitar), and Wayne Anthony Smith, Jr. (drums).

For more information on the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen, including upcoming 2009 tourdates, please visit www.thesunraarkestra.com.

Sometimes something is just entirely too weird, quirky & brilliant for words to describe—but for lack of a better method, we’re still obligated to try. Such is the case with The Eelwax Jesus Show. The brainchild of a group of professional stage and film actors with a penchant for underground rock and severely overactive imaginations, Eelwax Jesus is an audiovisual mad scientist’s experiment—a Frankensteinian endeavor that fuses theater, live music, and visual art into an unprecedented and entirely unforgettable new organism.

Featuring the talents of critically-acclaimed actors from Broadway, film and television hits like West Side Story, The Farnsworth Invention, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and FX hit TV show “Damages,” The Eelwax Jesus Show’s mind-bendingly kitschy visuals and infectious, high-concept tunes have already amassed a sizable cult following, including such notable fans as Pulitzer Price nominated playwright Adam Rapp and actor Jimmi Simpson (Lyle the Intern), of Late Night With David Letterman fame.

This month, The Eelwax Jesus Show is coming home—bringing its signature brand of “Suspiciously Entertaining 3-D Pop Music” back to New York City for four sense-shattering shows at the HERE Art Center in Greenwich Village, where it promises to once again show the Big Apple that sometimes it’s a good thing to have Wax in your ears.

The Eelwax Jesus Show has been called “part Blue Man Group, part They Might Be Giants” and “the three way love child of Bowie, The Breeders, and William S. Burroughs,” but that’s only scratching the surface. To get the full picture, experience EELWAX for yourself at http://www.myspace.com/eelwaxjesus and www.eelwaxjesus.com.

Show Info:
Wednesday July 8th thru Saturday July 11th at 8:30PM
HERE Arts Center
145 6th Ave. (Enter on Dominick, 1 Block South of Spring)
For tickets: Visit www.here.org or call 212-352-3101
Tickets are $15