Brooks & Dunn Are Done

We will release our #1's and then some" on September 8th and bid you farewell one last time in 2010, with The Last Rodeo Tour...(dates to be announced). - more on this story

Michael Jackson Trial and Triumph On Demand

MVD reports: RockCity Entertainment, Elbow Grease Productions, and MVD Visual are pleased to announce the debut of Michael Jackson: The Trial and Triumph of The King of Pop on cable and internet Video-on-Demand (VOD) platforms across North American in up to 50 million homes. Over 100 operators and digital destinations are offering the film including, Apple iTunes, Amazon VOD, Charter, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon FiOS.

The documentary raises and debunks the various charges, trials, and conspiracies surrounding Michael over the last 17 years. The film features director/hostess Pearl Jr. talking to dozens of Michael's fans and interviews with Michael's trial lawyer Tom Mesereau as well as his brother Jermaine Jackson. Also included are celebrity well wishers Kanye West, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top), Jon Voight, Fantasia, Mo'Nique, Aphrodite Jones and Linda Deutsch. The film also features Michael's final riveting press conference in London in March of 2009.

Even in death, Michael Jackson is the world's biggest superstar, but his achievements almost came crashing down during his child molestation trials. This film goes behind the scenes of those sometimes chaotic and outrageous trials. MJ's fans all over the world always believed his innocence. - more on this story

Bands to Battle for Opening Slot for Cold War Kids

PR reports: Live music will hit the sidewalks of the East Village Arts District (of Long Beach, Ca) on Friday, Aug. 21, from 6p.m. to 11 p.m., as local bands play for wooden nickels, cash prizes and a chance to open up for Cold War Kids—fresh off the plane from a tour of international summer music festivals.

A handful of bands-turned-buskers will play 25 minute, outdoor sets for a roving audience that will drop wooden nickels into the guitar cases of their favorite acts. Skirting the EVAD's perimeter in six different locations, performers will play in three rounds of stripped-down, acoustic-style sets sure to resonate off the historic buildings, downtown restaurants and sidewalk cafes.

Confirmed street performers at press time include Free Moral Agents, Deep Sea Diver, So Many Wizards, Chris Paul Overall, Pawn Shop Kings, Brook Lee Catastrophe, Forcefield ON and 60 Watt Kid, to name a few. - more on this story

Greg Laswell Returns with Covers EP

Hype reports: Greg Laswell, the supremely talented [at least according to this press release] Los Angeles based producer and songwriter, has been on the rise since his debut Vanguard release, Through Toledo, in 2006.

Greg Laswell displays his knack for lush orchestral arrangements and captivating vocals on his new Covers EP which will be released October 6 on Vanguard Records.

The five-song album features covers of Echo & The Bunnymen, Morphine, Mazzy Star, Kate Bush and Kristin Hersh's "Your Ghost" which was recently featured on KCRW's "Today's Top Tune." - more on this story

The Wooden Sky Set Release

PR reports: Currently in the midst of their Bedrooms and Backstreets Tour, Toronto-based outfit known as The Wooden Sky are preparing for the release of their second album under the name If I Don't Come Home You'll Know I'm Gone. The CD drops on August 25th through Black Box, distributed by Fontana North.

The 13-track LP brilliantly sweeps through countless rock and roll subgenres. It is sure to please even the harshest music critics with the deftness of Allman Brothers, the songwriting focus of Wilco, and the experimental sonic cacophony of the Flaming Lips. This is certainly a career-defining record for The Wooden Sky, composed over months spent living, writing and recording between Toronto and Montreal.

The band has spent the last few weeks pleasing audiences all over Canada playing unconventional spaces like rooftops, backyards, campfires and parks, but is now pleased to announce a more traditional tour through Canada supporting Elliott Brood starting on 9/26 in Sudbury and ending up in Victoria on 10/8. - more on this story

Cinema Bizarre To Bang The U.S.

Universal reports: Berlin's Cinema Bizarre will release their U.S. full length set BANG! digitally on August 25th, a day after the release of their second European album Toyz hits stores.

BANG! will contain songs from both their debut European release Final Attraction and Toyz as well as exclusive tracks - namely the song "Wasted," "Love Songs (They Kill Me)" Twiggy Ramirez mix and "Love Songs (They Kill Me)" Dave Aude Remix (bonus track).

Lead single "I Came 2 Party" is already a hit in Germany and is taking the dance floors by storm here in the U.S. The track and video features label mate Space Cowboy, whom Cinema Bizarre met while on tour with Lady Gaga earlier this year, and will be available on iTunes August 11th. - more on this story

Landon Pigg To Tour with Erin McCarley

PR reports: Singer-Songwriter Landon Pigg will set out on a club tour in support of his sophomore release The Boy Who Never with Erin McCarley beginning on September 19th in Tucson, AZ and wrapping on October 13th in Columbus, OH. Tickets go on sale on August 14th.

The Boy Who Never will be released on September 29th on RCA Records. Produced by Jacquire King (Kings of Leon, Modest Mouse, Tom Waits) the record includes a new arrangement of Pigg's fantastic single "Falling In Love At A Coffee Shop," which features additional production by Eric Rosse. Currently featured in AT&T's latest ad campaign and spotlighted as in the 2007 "A Diamond Is Forever" holiday season commercial, the track has sold more than 400,000 digital tracks.

26-year-old Pigg is also making his feature film debut later this year co-starring opposite Ellen Page in the Drew Barrymore directed film Whip It which will be released on October 9th through Mandate Pictures and Fox Searchlight. Pigg plays the role of Oliver, a musician who falls for Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Page), a teen girl with a passion for roller derby. - more on this story

Capgun Coup Go All Soph and Maudlin

PR reports: Omaha, NE-based Capgun Coup will release their sophomore album, Maudlin, November 3, 2009 on Team Love Records.

While Capgun Coup's 2007 debut, Brought To You By Nebraskafish, was a wonderfully motley snapshot collection of their evolution as a band, Maudlin is focused and lyrically personal. The new album is often a satiric commentary on the state of contemporary life, from the futility of sadness, self-pity, and ennui ("Sitting On The Sidewalk", "Now That I'm Home") to economic and social inequities ("Got Alot Of Gull", "Only The Times Are Changing") to the anesthetizing effects of technology ("Computer Screens And TVs"). With dishwater-colored and cracked glasses, Capgun Coup are almost modern, Midwestern Holden Caulfields - howling with restless dissatisfaction in anguished, dissonant vocals and armed with guitars.

Maudlin is in many ways a sonic homage to Capgun Coup's renowned energetic performances at house parties and Hotel Frank. The famed and notorious Hotel Frank in Omaha has served as a refuge for, and breeding ground of, young musicians and artists since the late '80s. It's also where the band used to live with 23 friends and where the new album was born. The album radiates with youthful, impish verve, from songs like the raw "Bad Bands" to the languid, loudly murmuring "Farnam Street" to the surf-rocking, whirlwind tempest "When I'm Gone". Exploring the ups and downs of a culture of carousing, frontman Sam Martin delivers clever, lyrical turns of phrase. Capgun Coup recorded Maudlin live, all together in one room, with the help of AJ Mogis, who captured their live sound and highlighted the innate pop sensibility that threads through their vibrant cacophony of alternately angular and loosely jangling guitars and rattling drums. - more on this story

Cotton Jones EP

PR reports: 2009 has already turned out to be a banner year for Cotton Jones, the recording alias for Michael Nau and Whitney McGraw. What began as an early experimental outlet following the demise of Page France has grown into a fully cohesive songwriting, recording and touring entity.

Their sun-soaked brand of psychedelia took them across the country in several directions during the first half of 2009, capped off by an appearance at Bonnaroo, and the band is set to hit the road again with upcoming performances at Colorado's Monolith Festival and Austin City Limits.

To coincide with the band's upcoming fall tour, On September 8th, 2009 Quite Scientific Records will release a brand new five song set of Cotton Jones material, the Rio Ranger EP. - more on this story

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