News on ‘Decades Rock,’ Nada Surf, Foo Fighters.
VH1 Classic and World Productions have created “Decades Rock Live,” a new live concert series featuring rock and soul artists who have influenced popular music over the past 50 years. The show will debut in September on VH1 Classic and will be taped at Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, N.J.
The first show will star the Doors of The 21st Century, featuring Robby Krieger, Ian Astbury and Ray Manzarek. Special guests will include Jane’s Addiction vocalist Perry Farrell, Macy Gray and the original Vanilla Fudge. The music performances will be augmented with special features and behind-the-scenes interview.
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Indie rock act Nada Surf will release its next album, “The Weight Is a Gift,” Sept. 20 via Barsuk. The set was produced by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla and features such tracks as “All Is a Game,” “Imaginary Friends,” “Your Legs Grow,” “Comes a Time,” “Do It Again” and “What Is Your Truth?”
“The Weight Is a Gift” is the follow-up to 2003’s “Let Go,” which debuted at No. 31 on Billboard’s Top Independent Albums tally and has sold 48,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Nada Surf is in the midst of a short European tour that plays Barcelona tonight (June 1). The lone North American show on its schedule for now comes June 18 in San Diego, alongside Pinback, Rocket From The Crypt, the Raveonettes and Kasabian.
Foo Fighters will play a private show June 18 in Roswell, N.M., to celebrate the launch of the digital download service Rhapsody 25. The show will be held at the former Walker Air Force Base, where pieces of a mysterious aircraft were said to have been stored after a July 1947 crash.
“This is a long overdue and historic moment for this band,” says Foo Fighters leader Dave Grohl. “Despite being in a band called Foo Fighters, having a label called Roswell Records, and being a total UFO nut, I have never been to Roswell, N.M. So the fact that we finally get to go to Roswell and play a gig in the same hangar where they allegedly stored the remains of the 1947 UFO crash blows my mind.”
RealNetworks will cybercast the show for free. To enter the contest, visit Rhapsody.com.
— Jonathan Cohen, N.Y.
