James Hall flew to Los Angeles last month to learn his fate with Geffen Records. Hall’s future with the label was thrown into limbo in December, when the Seagram Co., owner of MCA-Universal, acquired PolyGram NY in a $10.2 billion deal.
Under the rubric of the newly established Universal Music group, Geffen, formerly’ a unit of PolyGram, will be folded into a new Interscope Music Group, headed by Jimmy Iovine, Ted Field and Tom Whalley, Geffen is poised to undergo drastic downsizing as part of Universal’s plan to trim $300 million in costs.
Hall met with Field and Whalley, who expressed their concerns about Hall explicitly: Do you want to be a cult artist or do you want to be played on the radio?
“Of course I want to get played on the radio,” Hall answered. ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to do. I don’t want to be Jon Spencer. That job’s already taken.”
Hall, who is appreciated more in Great Britain and Europe than in the United States, has had his share of bad luck since signing with Geffren in 1996. ‘Hall joined the label, known in the business as an artist-oriented one, just as the company entered a period of transition. His first album for the label, the excellent Pleasure Club, was issued in the midst of a power struggle at the label that ground Geffen’s marketing efforts to a halt.. Amid the conflict, Pleasure Club slipped through the cracks.
A commitment from Interscope was important to Hall, but it’s also important for Hall to live up to his side of the agreement. Seagram first stepped into the entertainment business in 1995 with its purchase of MCA/Universal. With its purchase of PolyGram, Seagram became the biggest music company in the world, with a stable of top artists and ownership of labels including Universal, Island, Geffen, A&M, Mercury, Motown, Def Jam, Interscope and MCA.
They’ve been out of commission for two years thanks to health problems and other maladies,but sources say Blackulais set to come back with a vengeance. Look for more from Blackula, including a CD, in the near future.
We haven’t heard from Rigid in a while, but bassist Rolando Chicas says that a new CD, entitled 9, has been in the works since June 1998. Keep an eye out for it on the horizon. For late-breaking news, check out their official Web site at www.ridgid-web.com
The Universal Chrome, whose full-length CD Closer to Shine should be out in a couple of months, also has a Web site in the works. There wasn’t much there last time I browsed, but it did allow you to sign up for the band’s online mailing list. The URL is www.universalchrome.com
Bob Warner, responsible for the late lamented Burnversion’s trademark filigrees of guitar, has joined Weedeater. Although they haven’t been playing around town very much, I’m told that band mastermind Jason Portera has been working on their CD for God-knows- how-long. Whether Portera’s masterwork will ever see the light of day remains to be seen, but we can always hope.
The Persuaders, who are tearing it up on the road if not at home, returned from a three-week European tour last month with news that their full-length debut should hit record stores in a few weeks. Sweden’s Savage Records will issue the record, as well as the debut 7-inch by the relentlessly rawkin’ MacGillycuddy’s in April. Look for it or visit Savage Records’ Web site.
Local power pop band 3rd Echo are also finishing up a new CD. For updates, check out their Web site at www.3rdecho.com
Novak’s self-titled CD,’ released last year on the band’s own Kavon Records, represents a huge step forward for stripped down power trio. The guitars are still edgy and heavy and the rhythms still jagged, but the CD’s 10 tracks show a band with a growing sense of dynamics and melody. Songs range from melancholy drones to full-wonle rock with confidence and sincerity, and most of them stick with you. Novak is available at record stores around New Orleans. If you’re interested in checking them out this month, they’ll be at Cappicanios on March 5, the Chucker in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 11 and toward the end of the month they’ll make three stops in Texas.
In addition to the new Quintron record (see reviews) unveiled in February, Skin Graft Records released two other records with local connections: The cassette only Engine Engine No.9, a collection of Ninth Ward bands originally issued on Miss Pussycat’s Rhinestone Records label, and Flossie and the Unicorns’ IMNOP, the latest planer by the most famous puppet band in the Ninth Ward. Among the dramas unfurled are “Free Guitar Lessons for Animals,” “The Men with a Million Records,” “Miss Foxyface,” “Jr. Troopers Are Go,” “Underwater Dance Club” and “The Halloween Puppet Show.”
Skin Graft is distributed through Touch and Go, which means. that these latest offerings by Quintron and Flossie will have wider distributions than ever before.
The annual music and film conference South By Southwest takes place this month in Austin. If you’re looking for New Orleans music, the pickings are slim. Only eight artists from New Orleans made the cut to perform at the conference. They are: Jon Cleary, Chris Smither, Plunge, the Continental Drifters, Fred Sanders, Bart Ramsey and Neti Vaan, the Psycho Sisters and the Iguanas.
