trouser shorts: joanna newsom, thea gilmore, shirley manson

A new documentary featuring exclusive footage and commentary from Joanna Newsom’s 2004 tour with Devendra Banhart and Vetiver is due to premiere at the Sarasota Film Festival in California early next month. Filmed by occasional Vetiver member Kevin Barker, who also fronts the band Currituck Co., ‘The Family Jams’ provides a fascinating insight into the rise of “freak-folk” with performances from all three acts and from like-minded musical guests such Espers, Antony & The Johnsons and more. The festival runs from March 27–April 5 and will host the first public screenings of the documentary on April 2nd and 3rd. More info here. Watch the trailer here.

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Thea Gilmore will release her first ever live album, Recorded Delivery, in late May through Fulfill Records and distributor Universal (tracklist TBC), and she’s inviting fans to send in any live photos they may have – of her, obviously – for potential use as the album cover. If you have a photo you think could be suitable, email it along to Thea at info@theagilmore.net before April 10th. Thea is currently in the process of writing her ninth studio album and has a couple of festival dates lined up for the summer. More info on her Myspace.

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Rumours circulated in recent news reports that Shirley Manson’s budding solo career had been put on ice indefinitely – seemingly provoked by comments made by the Garbage frontwoman during her recent appearance at America’s WonderCon convention – were promptly dismissed as “absolute nonsense” by the lady herself. As if to underline this, she has provided her Facebook fans with an exclusive listen to a demo of new song ‘In The Snow’, co-written with The Bird & The Bee’s Greg Kurstin “a year or so ago”.

“It’s one from the ‘So Called Noir’ Series,” she writes. “I just stumbled upon it tonight when I was looking for something else and I listened to it and thought: fuck it why not post it for all the people who wrote me lovely things about my mum when she died. It’s the least I can do. I owe you a song for sure.” Listen to it here.

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Marina & The Diamonds have announced a short series of live dates kicking off next month in Lancaster and finishing up at the beginning of May in Salford. Catch her/them at the following venues:

11.04.09 The Library, Lancaster
16.04.09 Limbo, Edinburgh
17.04.09 Twisted Wheel, Manchester
18.04.09 Moshulu, Aberdeen
19.04.09 Home Game Festival, Anthuser
30.04.09 Deaf Institute, Manchester
03.05.09 Live At Leeds, Leeds [early show]
03.05.09 Sounds From The Other City, Salford 

Marina is currently working on her debut album with producers Pascal Gabriel (New Order, Kylie) and Liam Howe (Sneaker Pimps, Catherine AD).

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Ostensibly a jazz singer, double Grammy winner Cassandra Wilson has recorded several ‘pop’ covers throughout her career, including Cyndi Lauper/Rob Hyman’s ‘Time After Time’ and Ann Peebles’ ‘I Can’t Stand The Rain’, and you’ll soon be able to get a bunch of the best on a single disc. Collated from her seven albums for the legendary Blue Note label, Closer To You: The Pop Side features 11 tracks spanning 15 years from 1993 to 2008. It’s out on April 7th.

Closer To You: The Pop Side
01 Love Is Blindness [U2 cover]
02 Time After Time [Cyndi Lauper cover]
03 Fragile [Sting cover]
04 Closer To You [Jakob Dylan cover]
05 Last Train To Clarksville [Monkees cover]
06 The Weight [The Band cover]
07 Tupelo Honey [Van Morrison cover]
08 Harvest Moon [Neil Young cover]
09 I Can’t Stand The Rain [Ann Peebles cover]
10 Lay Lady Lay [Bob Dylan cover]
11 Wichita Lineman [Glen Campbell cover]

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Alan Pedder

Written by: Wears The Trousers magazine

Tags: alan pedder, cassandra wilson, joanna newsom, marina and the diamonds, news, shirley manson, thea gilmore

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 9:53 pm and is filed under news, trouser shorts, where's the gigs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.