Mick Signals

Michael Franti & Spearhead are proud to present their first music video from the upcoming album, The Sound of Sunshine! Shot in Venice Beach by veteran music video director Frank Borin, the new video is for the title track of the album which will be released September 21 on Capitol Records/Boo Boo Wax. Michael Franti & Spearhead are currently touring through the fall in support of the new album and will be headlining the upcoming Power to the Peaceful Festival in San Francisco from September 10-12.

The Sound of Sunshine Music Video:

OK Go Launches Fall North American Tour In Los Angeles On October 3rd

OK Go Partners With Indaba Music and the Rock Band Network For Remix Contest Of Thier New Single, “White Knuckles”
Producer Dave Fridmann to Curate Contest

(Los Angeles, CA) OK Go, the most downloaded band ever, will launch an extensive North American tour with a performance at the Los Angeles County Fair on October 3rd. Tickets are on sale now. In addition to its headlining dates, the band will perform at the Discover Louisville Festival (10/12) and the PopTech Conference (10/21, Camden, ME), an annual event that convenes a network of visionary individuals in science, technology, design, the corporate and social sectors, entrepreneurship, education and the arts to explore the nature of creative change. OK Go will also perform at the MTV Brazil Music Awards on September 16th.

“This is what happens when you’re the most intelligent, most innovative, and merriest band of miscreants in rock,” said the Tampa Bay Times in a live review. “You’ve already reinvented the concept of the music video, and you’re doing everything you can to reinvent the music industry as a whole. What’s left? Reinvent the concert experience…a multisensory spectacle.” “It’s a visual adventure as much as it is an audio one in the vein of The Flaming Lips,” said Creative Loafing and the Salt Lake City Weekly marveled: “Getting Salt Lakers on the dance floor on a Tuesday is not a task every band is up to, but OK Go did the trick.”

OK Go have partnered with Indaba Music and the Rock Band Network to launch a remix contest for their new single, “White Knuckles.” OK Go encourages fans to get as creative as possible, to not feel afraid to redefine the song in both genre and feeling. The contest will run from September 7th through October 14th.

Each week starting Sept 21st, Dave Fridmann, producer of “White Knuckles” and the album Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, will choose his favorite remixes to feature across all OK Go web properties. All featured remixes will also be available for fans to download on the database that accompanies the pre-order for the Nov. 2nd U.S. release, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky (Extra Nice Edition). The grand prize winner will be announced on October 29th and will have his/her remix mastered and made available for download in Rock Band. The grand prize winner will also receive a gaming console, a copy of Rock Band 3, and a set of Rock Band instruments to jam with friends to their winning remix.

“White Knuckles,” the follow-up single to the Top 30 hit “This Too Shall Pass,” will impact at Alternative and AAA radio on September 14th. The album received 4 ½ stars from Alternative Press, while Spin hailed it as “ambitious” and absolutepunk.net pronounced it “wholly triumphant.” At mid-year, mtv.com’s Kyle Anderson named Of the Blue Colour of the Sky “the best album of the year (so far)…at the same time incredibly polished and casually chaotic – a fantastically vibrant, surprising combination. I’ve been listening to the album for six months and am still discovering things about it.”

The band’s second video for “This Too Shall Pass,” is a Rube Goldberg machine created by OK Go and Syyn Labs engineers, and is the #1 Top Rated (All Time) music video on YouTube.

OK Go – comprising Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka and Andy Ross – recently contributed a track to the compilation album Dear New Orleans…, which benefits New Orleans-based non-profits working to support the region’s culture and community.

The band members have been strong advocates for internet neutrality, sharing their perspective with leaders on Capitol Hill. This past Sunday, Kulash published an Op-Ed piece on the topic in The Washington Post.

OK GO – FALL 2010 NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES

Date City Venue
10/3 Pomona, CA Los Angeles County Fair
10/6 Boulder, CO Fox Theater
10/10 Chicago, IL House of Blues
10/12 Louisville, KY Discover Louisville Festival
10/13 Cleveland, OH Beachland Ballroom
10/14 Toronto, ON Phoenix Theater
10/15 Ottawa, ON Capital City Music Hall
10/16 Montreal, QC Le National
10/17 Burlington, VT Higher Ground
10/20 Portland, ME Port City Music Hall
10/21 Camden, ME PopTech Conference
10/26 Syracuse, NY Westcott Theater
10/27 Clifton Park, NY Northern Lights
10/28 Hartford, CT Webster Theater
10/29 New York, NY Terminal 5
11/2 Asheville, NC The Orange Peel
11/3 Charleston, SC The Music Farm
11/4 Athens, GA 40 Watt Club
11/5 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge
11/6 New Orleans, LA Tipitina’s Uptown
11/19 Santa Barbara, CA The Hub @ UC Santa Barbara

About Indaba Music:
Launched in New York City in February of 2007, Indaba Music has been a pioneer in the online music collaboration space, enabling anyone with internet access to connect with musicians from around the world to create, edit and mix studio-quality music together online. In addition to social networking, production and collaboration applications, Indaba Music now provides musicians with a growing collection of third-party applications, information resources and lifestyle benefits from a diverse collection of industry leading companies, including iTunes, Alfred Music, Hal Leonard, Sweetwater, Electronic Musician and more. IndabaMusic.com, a “musical ecosystem,” seamlessly guides musicians through all stages of development, fusing music education, creation, promotion, sales and talent discovery into a unified online experience.

Site membership, which has grown over 400% since 2009, currently boasts more than 500,000 users from 205 countries and territories. To date, IndabaMusic.com has provided collaboration opportunities with musicians including Mariah Carey, Crystal Method, Peter Gabriel, John Legend, Linkin Park, Matisyahu, The Roots, Snoop Dogg, T-Pain, Weezer, Yo-Yo Ma and more.

About Rock Band Network:
The Rock Band Network, launched March 4, 2010 by Harmonix Music Systems and its parent company MTV Games, gives Rock Band fans and music lovers a new avenue to discover music and provides musicians and labels the opportunity to produce and promote tracks for the Rock Band platform. This ground-breaking initiative gives musicians, publishers and record labels the ability to author their original recordings into gameplay files to promote and sell their music as playable Rock Band tracks through the RBN Store.

Artists who submit songs for the Rock Band Network Music Store are able to choose from multiple pricing tiers for individual tracks and receive a royalty of 30 percent of the retail selling price (excluding tax) for every track purchased through the RBN Store. There are currently more than 500 songs available for purchase in the RBNStore from artists including Third Eye Blind, Seether, Drowning Pool, Five Finger Death Punch, Flight of the Conchords, Attack Attack!, Flogging Molly, Clutch, The Shins, The Hold Steady, The Main Drag, Bang Camaro, of Montreal, Jonathan Coulton, Band of Skulls, Apples in Stereo, Band of Horses and many more. There are more than 400 artists in the RBN pipeline, with additional tracks already on the way.

With more than 1,580 tracks available to date in the Rock Band platform, the Rock Band Network Music Store has helped boost the number of available songs, further securing MTV Games and Harmonix’s position as the leading provider of downloadable content for music-based video games.

TAUK TO EMBARK ON FALL HEADLINE TOUR
Long Island Band’s Brokedown KingAvailable Now

Tauk will hit the road this fall on a series of dates in support of their brand new album, Brokedown King starting September 17th in St. Louis, MO.

Tauk transform rock ‘n’ roll every time they hit the stage. With a little bit of jazz, funk and soul, the Long Island quintet always twists and turns boundaries. Tauk has already entranced and engaged crowds with their unique sound alongside jam band stalwarts such as O.A.R. and moe. Fans will get to experience Tauk’s funkified fire firsthand at these upcoming shows. Tauk will be touring as support for Tea Leaf Green and doing headline dates intermittently.

In addition to winning over crowds across the nation, Tauk has been getting incredible digital traction. They were featured on ARTISTdirect.com’s home page as a breaking new artist to watch. About Brokedown King, editor in chief Rick Florino writes, “It’s ‘cinematic’ in the purest sense of the word.”

Catch Tauk’s mind-bending progressive funk jams when they cruise through your town. Confirmed tour dates are listed below.

TAUK ON TOUR:
9/17 St. Louis, MO Fubar
9/23 Petaluma, CA The Mystic Theatre
9/24 Chico, CA El Rey
9/25 Santa Cruz, CA Moe’s Alley
9/26 Santa Barbara, CA Velvet Jones
9/28 San Francisco, CA Hotel Utah
9/30 San Luis Obispo, CA Downtown Brewing Company
10/1 San Diego, CA SoundWave
10/2 West Holllywood, CA Troubadour
10/3 Hermosa Beach, CA Sainte Rocke
10/6 Las Vegas, NV Hard Rock Cafe
10/7 Phoenix, AZ The Compound Grill
10/8 Tuscon, AZ Plush
10/9 Flagstaff, AZ The Green Room
10/10 Taos, NM KTAOS Solar Center

NEIL YOUNG TO RELEASE BRAND-NEW SOLO ALBUM, ENTITLED LE NOISE, ON SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2010, ON REPRISE RECORDS

ROCKER COLLABORATED ON GUITAR-DRIVEN ALBUM WITH MUSICIAN, SONGWRITER, AND PRODUCER DANIEL LANOIS

Burbank, CA –Neil Young will release a brand-new solo album, entitled Le Noise, on September 28th on Reprise Records. The eight-song album is a collaboration between the acclaimed rock icon and musician, songwriter, and producer Daniel Lanois, known for his work with U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, The Neville Brothers and many others. As producer or co-producer Lanois won Grammy Awards in 1987, 1992, 1997, 2000, and 2001.

Young and Lanois have crossed paths musically over the course of many years, including Lanois’ performances at Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert and Young’s performance at Farm Aid when Lanois was Willie Nelson’s music director, but this is the first time the two have recorded together. Recorded in Lanois’ home in the Silverlake area of Los Angeles, Le Noise features Young on acoustic and electric guitars with Lanois adding his trademark sonic textures, creating one of the most sonically arresting albums Young has ever recorded. No band, no overdubs, just “a man on a stool and me doing a nice job on the recording,” as Lanois puts it.

“Neil was so appreciative of the sonics that we presented to him,” Lanois says. “He walked in the door and I put an acoustic guitar into his hands — one that I had been working on to build a new sound. That’s the multi-layered acoustic sound that you hear on the songs ‘Love and War’ and ‘Peaceful Valley Boulevard.’ I wanted him to understand that I’ve spent years dedicated to the sonics in my home and that I wanted to give him something he’d never heard before. He picked up that instrument, which had everything — an acoustic sound, electronica, bass sounds — and he knew as soon as he played it that we had taken the acoustic guitar to a new level. It’s hard to come up with a new sound at the back end of 50 years of rock and roll, but I think we did it.”

Le Noise will be released in several formats, including standard CD, vinyl, digital download, and as a deluxe CD/DVD. The DVD portion, shot by cinematographer Adam Vollick, will feature eight black and white films of Young performing each song solo on acoustic and electric guitar live in the studio. In November, Reprise will also release a Blu-Ray edition, featuring Lanois and Vollick’s beautifully shot films of Young.

Writing about Le Noise after hearing it at Lanois’ home, The Los Angeles Times commented: “What’s striking about Le Noise is the way it both summarizes and distills Young’s singular approach to music, predominantly just Neil and a guitar: his big, white hollow-body Gretsch electric slashing and burning for most of the tracks, a couple built around picked and strummed acoustic instruments. Both are recorded and amplified — literally and metaphorically — by Lanois’ signature soundscapes that loop vocals, and enhance the guitars’ bass notes through distortion boxes, synthesizers and other electronics.”

The track-listing for Le Noise is as follows:

Walk With Me
Sign of Love
Rescue Me
Love And War
Angry World
Hitchhiker
Peaceful Valley Blvd.
Rumblin’

AMERICAN BANG’S SELF-TITLED MAJOR LABEL DEBUT RELEASED TODAY, AUGUST 31ST, ON REPRISE RECORDS

FREE DOWNLOAD OF FIRST SINGLE “WILD & YOUNG” NOW AVAILABLE ON THE ITUNES STORE AS PART OF “DISCOVERY DOWNLOAD” ARTIST OF THE WEEK FEATURE

Burbank, CA – American Bang released their self-titled major-label debut album for Reprise Records today, August 31st. To celebrate, iTunes selected them as “Discovery Download” artist of the week. The album’s debut single, “Wild and Young,” is currently available as a free download on the iTunes Store along with the album being on sale for $7.99.

After touring all summer, American Bang will continue on the road for an extensive fall trek in support of the album. The tour, which runs through mid-December, includes a visit to New York City’s Fillmore @ Irving Plaza on November 3rd.

The eleven-track album will stream in its entirety beginning August 31st on AOL Music for the official online listening party. In addition, American Bang continues as the latest “Incoming!” artist on the Fuse network, which is also currently hosting a series of exclusive behind-the-scenes webisodes online at Fuse.tv.

“Whiskey Walk” is already bringing in early spins at key radio stations across the country, which officially goes for adds September 7th.

American Bang is Jaren Johnston (singer / guitar), Ben Brown (lead guitar), Kelby Ray (bass), and Neil Mason (drums). The band’s upcoming tour dates are as follows:

August 31 Jackson, MS Club Fire*
September 1 Huntsville, AL Sammy T’s*
September 2 Nashville, TN Mercy Lounge (Record Release Party)
September 3 Pensacola, FL Seville Quarter*
September 4 Tallahassee, FL Floyds Music Store*
September 5 Jacksonville, FL Freebird Live*
September 7 Columbia, SC Jillians
September 8 Charlotte, NC Amos’ Southend*
September 9 Goose Creek, SC The Dive*
September 10 Johnson City, TN Chrome*
September 12 Dayton, OH WXEG X-Fest 15
September 13 Knoxville, TN Valarium*
September 15 Allentown, PA Crocodile Rock Café*
September 16 Albany, NY Jillians
September 17 Buffalo, NY The Tralf*
September 19 Hartford, CT Webster Theater*
September 21 Youngstown, OH Wedgewood*
September 22 Toledo, OH Headliners*
September 25 Peoria, IL The Whammy Bar*
September 28 Boston, MA Paradise Ballroom**
September 29 Baltimore, MD Bourbon Street Ballroom**
October 1 Philadelphia, PA Fillmore at TLA**
October 2 Falls Church, VA State Theatre**
October 3 Richmond, VA The Hat Factory**
October 5 Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre**
October 6 Greenville, SC The Handlebar**
October 8 Charlotte, NC Visulite Theatre**
October 9 Charleston, SC The Music Farm**
October 10 Atlanta, GA The Masquerade**
October 13 Houston, TX The Warehouse**
October 14 Dallas, TX The Loft**
October 15 Austin, TX The Independent**
October 16 Little Rock, AR Revolution Music Room**
October 19 Memphis, TN Newby’s**
October 20 New Orleans, LA Tipitinas**
October 26 Cincinnati, OH 20th Century Theatre**
October 28 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall**
October 29 Flint, MI The Machine Shop**
October 30 Lancaster, PA The Chameleon**
November 3 New York, NY Fillmore @ Irving Plaza**
November 4 Northampton, MA Pearl Street**
November 5 Asbury Park, NJ The Stone Pony**
November 6 Pittsburgh, PA Altar Bar**
November 9 Indianapolis, IN The Vouge**
November 12 Chicago, IL The Metro**
November 13 Des Moines, IA People’s Court
November 14 Madison, WI Majestic Theatre**
November 16 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue**
November 17 Council Bluffs, IA Whiskey Roadhouse**
November 19 Denver, CO Bluebird Theatre**
November 20 Colorado Springs, CO The Black Sheep**
November 30 Spokane, WA Knitting Factory**
December 1 Seattle, WA Snowbox Market**
December 3 Portland, OR Wonder Ballroom
December 4 Reno, NV Knitting Factory**
December 6 Sacramento, CA Harlow’s**
December 7 San Francisco, CA The Independent**
December 9 San Diego, CA House of Blues**
December 10 Anaheim, CA House of Blues**
December 11 Ventura, CA Ventura Theatre**

* denotes show with Cavo
**denotes show with The Gracious Few