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NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE iTUNES: David Steele's great new EP "Rust".

NOW AVAILABLE AT APPLE iTUNES: The Alright's hot new singles "Getting Ready for Love" and "How Long".

Check out City Canyons artist Jacki B's cool new alt-country single "Gone," available for play on this page right now! Available now at Tarnius Music and coming to iTunes!

June 27-- Hello Diary,

Peter Ulrich here. I might seem an unlikely person to pitch my thoughts into the huge mass of discussion about Michael Jackson's death, but I have a special link with him in that we were born on the exact same day - 29 August 1958. For me, this puts his achievements in context in a very particular way.

I was listening to Michael's early hit records (as part of The Jackson Five) when I was still at primary school, and he had already completed that first phase of his musical career before I ever held a drum stick or sat behind a kit. As a teenager, he was establishing himself as a major solo artist while I was still sitting in my bedroom working out my first guitar chords.

In December 1982 "Thriller" was released here in the UK - exactly the same month that I met Brendan and Lisa and was invited to join Dead Can Dance - the start of my recording career and the zenith of Michael's. In 1984, DCD's first album was released and around the same time it was announced that "Thriller" had won seven grammy awards.

DCD went on to sell a few million albums and has a worldwide fan base, and Brendan and Lisa inspire an incredible level of respect and admiration amongst our audience which I have experienced at close hand. But they can still go about their daily lives without being recognised or raising any interest. Michael Jackson, I gather, sold in excess of 750 million albums and was hounded by the media and mobbed by fans every time he set foot in any public space. It is impossible to imagine what that must have been like - and he had to endure that from his earliest childhood until his death.

Whatever the truth is behind all the crazy stories, I think Michael truly deserves to "rest in peace" now and be remembered for his extraordinary contribution to music, video and performance. Although I am not a great fan of the wider body of Michael's work, he undoubtedly wrote some classics and "Billie Jean" would almost certainly sneak into my personal top 10 singles of all time.

It seems that he has in some way touched the lives of just about everyone. I heard of his death by text from my 18 year old daughter, and watched the ensuing news reports with my 87 year old mother. It is the biggest news story on the planet by far.

I feel strangely sad about his passing and yet relieved for him that it is all over. If there is really some form of afterlife, and Michael is right now taking his seat to watch the incredible effects of his death, I think he might really relax and enjoy himself for the first time. I hope so.

Peter




June 9-- Hello Diary and all of you readers of the Diary.

The summer looks pretty nice for The Alrights, by the time it's over we'll have played a good 5 or 6 shows down Minneapolis way. We're still getting a little radio play down there and hopefully between that and the summer gigs we'll have added considerably to our Twin Cities fan base.

One of the shows is at a new Minneapolis club in which we'll share the bill with a pretty well-to-do midwest act "Kid Dakota", we'll also be part of an annual festival of the arts, a lot of traffic comes through I'm told.

There's a pretty cool anuall Block party in August that we're a part of too. We'll also be performing on the Moon, and in the kitchen of your chilhood home. Info on these gigs can always be found on our website or myspace, and etched on the pages of my heart. The Moon.

In the not too distant future we'll also head back in to the studio. We have new stuff, as we always do, and are excited to commit it to the halls of audio history. No doubt we will be going it again with our go-to engineer, Ben Durrant. Working with him has been the greatest pleasure of our musical careers, even when we become famous on the moon, we'll probably still come back to record with him at Crazy Beast. Swiss Cheese.

Best best,

Toby/ The Alrights

June 7-- Dearest Diary,   What have I been listening to lately?  Glad you asked!br />
  While I've at times tended toward some heavier (but always melodic) music - stuff like Nirvana, Type O Negative, Taproot, Chevelle, Incubus, Alice in Chains, Puddle of Mudd, etc. - I've more recently over the last few years found room in my diet for some less heavy-hitting, but still melodic, offerings.  Stuff that maybe ten years ago I would have scoffed at, even while listening to Radiohead, Blind Melon, and Fountains of Wayne.

Death Cab for Cutie's latest record "Narrow Stairs" has really grown on me a lot.  Nada Surf's album "Lucky" is really pretty as well, sort of in the same vein as DCFC, which makes sense as they've worked with the same producers over the years.  (Forget about that song "Popular"; this is absolutely nothing like that.)

Barenaked Ladies' "double album" of sorts "Barenaked Ladies Are Me" and "Barenaked Ladies Are Men" finally got me on board a couple years ago and made me take another listen to their discography.  Really great songwriting and musicianship - who knew?

The Suggestions have finally officially released their album "Get Through", and it's really really good, as expected.  Harvey Danger's last album (I'm still in mourning that they've broken up again) "Little By Little" is awesome.  Guster continues to do the impossible by releasing album after album that is somehow better than its predecessor; "Ganging Up On the Sun" is amazing.  Other notable new-ish albums that frequent my playlist:  Silverchair's "Young Modern", Brian Vander Ark's self-titled release, and The Shins' "Wincing the Night Away".

  I've also re-discovered the genius that is "Revolver".  I've been a huge Beatles fan since before I can remember, but I never really felt super-strongly about that album until I randomly decided to put it on again recently.  "She Said, She Said" is absolute musical perfection that I can listen to on repeat without getting sick of it.  I never put songs on repeat.

I'm running out of superlatives. Good music makes me happy.  It's a good thing there's still quite a bit of it being made.

In closing, just want you to know that Fig and Bruce, my bandmates in the Velmas, asked me to send their good wishes.

--Mike Grosshandler ("Harvey")
The Velmas

June 6--Hello Diary and All:

I'm just now working on a productions/plays around the story of The Senile Weaver, an old parable about a Mahasiddha from ancient India.  

It's been really fun writing the music and sharing the lyric writing with another friend.  I've not been much of a collaborator in the past but now I'm great at it and I've been hoping to collaborate more with Peter Ulrich and Trebor Lloyd aka Big T of City Canyons Records.  As many of you know the three of us created Hanging Man and I think it's made a great splash. If you haven't already, you can check out Hanging Man on this very page.

I'm gearing up to go to England once again this summer and write and create more music for a play we do there every summer.  I'm in charge of the chorus and the music I write is much like Philip Glass type of minimalist music.  I've got some new songs for my own music, one being The Deepest Kind.  Here are the lyrics for you and until we meet again, I'm sending my love.

The Deepest Kind

I set you apart
to be the one who hits the spot
I singled you out
and then forgot  . . .

The ceiling and the floor
I lost my memory of
The east, the west, the south, the north
I lost my loving  . . . thoughts,  oh

I set you apart
To be my special perfect one
Thought you’d stay that way forever
And then forgot  . . .

The where and the when
You held me as your friend
The closest calm we’d ever spent
I lost my dearest  . . . .rest.

                I remember something far into the past
Something’s coming back, something that you said
Bring me home . . . . Bring me home . . . Bring me home . . .

I set you apart
Held you up and put you out

I floated and I flew
In a vast and windy land
Without you, without you, without you
I couldn’t stand  . . . it

All for naught this silly mind
Forgot that all this long sad time
You were here, and you were love

One and the same, the deepest kind.
You were home, you were home
With me here, the deepest kind.

xo Sara

June 5--Hi Diary! Cheers from ANEMO!

ANEMO have been spending a lot of time kicking ideas around in the studio. Some good, some rather strange and some that by right should be locked away in a deep vault and never spoken of again. We've also been enjoying some well earned nights out and Kingsley has been listening to some old 80s classics, spurred on by seeing Ultravox on their recent re-union UK tour. It is, however, unlikely that shoulder pads will appear any time soon on Hazelle and Erika in stage appearances.

We also just got a rather cool review from a website in Norway, check out www.melodichardrocktoday.tk. Click on Melodic Hard Rock, then new reviews.

Kings

JACKI B. NOW AT TARNIUS MUSIC!

Get a piece of the new alt-country sound everybody is talking about! It’s City Canyons artist Jacki B. and her debut single, "Burning Star (The Astronaut)" at Tarnius Music.

ALRIGHTS NEW EP AT iTUNES!


Hey music fans, you can now get The Alrights' great new EP, "Meeting of the St. Louis County League of Volunteer Astronauts: Excerpts from the Keynote Address" on Apple iTunes. Own the entire EP or such great individual tunes as "When I Get Born". Rock sweet people, rock!

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About City Canyons Records

Hear City Canyons Records artists as well as other great indie and mainstream artists on The Best Radio You Have Never Heard Podcast! Treat your ears. Go visit the Podcast at Apple iTunes now! Find out more about your favorite City Canyons artists: www.CityCanyons.com Join the Mailing List: Get updates on upcoming events, exciting news, and great deals... New and Recent Releases: .. Download Rust on iTunes Download Stentorian on iTunes Download Meeting of the St. Louis... on iTunes Download songs from Pray on iTunes Download songs from Weightless with Love on iTunes Download songs from Guerilla Fighting Method on iTunes Download songs from Station on iTunes Download songs from 8 Days Down on iTunes Download songs from High School on iTunes Download songs from slowburn on iTunes Download songs from Enter the Mysterium on iTunes Download songs from Underneath the Ice on iTunes Purchase City Canyons albums at CD Baby   City Canyons Banners: To get this and other banners like it, go to Citycanyons.com/banners