By HALLEH KIANFAR

The marriage of yoga and music came to fruition this past weekend at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, as they hosted the two-day Wanderlust Festival featuring Thievery Corporation. Traversing through the hotel lobby, there was a pronounced culture clash of yoga mats and slot machines.

 
  
The idiosyncratic music and yoga festival (which also stages annual festivals in Lake Tahoe, Vermont and elsewhere) kicked off with hundreds participating in poolside yoga workshops with founders John Friend and Schuyler Grant. At the other end of the spectrum, the sounds of mayhem and non-stop partygoers at the Marquee dayclub played to the backdrop of the Sangha of Yogis at the Boulevard Pool.

It was a far different scene that evening, as Wanderlust attendees revisted the transformed poolside space for a cocktail reception filled with burlesque and fire dancers as AM and Shawn Lee warmed up the open-air stage.

Later that night, Thievery Corporation rocked the stage with a full 15 member live band, providing a musical therapy of their own. The band showcased five songs from their newly released album, "Culture of Fear," with hip-hop MC Mr. Lif, Sleepy Wonder, and reggae master Ras Puma in attendance. Staring across the strip at the Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower, Lou Lou transfixed the audience with La Femme Parallel. The night continued with fan favorite Lebanese Blonde and the entrancing sounds of the sitar and Natalia Clavier.

For those troopers that could rally a Sunday yoga workshop, yogi masters worked their healing powers on a detox flow suited to recoup from a night of partying.

This past weekend was one of a number of unconventional music events featured at the hotel. Averaging about three main acts a month, the Cosmopolitan has placed a different view on music than neighboring luxury resorts that typically focus on resident headliners. Their first summer concert series brought everything from Deadmau5 to Adele and upcoming Bright Eyes shows on the calendar.

"Wanderlust’s mash up of organic experiences, centered around personal development and nourishment, appealed to us on a personal level and was a great fit for our resort," said Rehan Choudhry, the Cosmopolitan’s director of entertainment and special events. "We were proud to bring it to Las Vegas for the first time."

Photos: Erik Kabik

In the liner notes for Rage Against the Machine’s eponymous 1992 debut, the band took care to note that no synthesizers, keyboards or samples were used while recording the album. Though odd, it was actually a necessary disclaimer, as most casual listeners would have found it hard to believe that Tom Morello’s humble Strat was producing such wild sounds.

St. Vincent’s Annie Clark makes frequent use of synthesizers, keyboards and samples, but she could still use a similar disclaimer. Jagged and eruptive, Clark’s guitar parts often sound as though they’ve been painstakingly chopped up, modified and pasted back together in the studio from dozens of different takes. They haven’t been. For her ultra-intimate performance in Bob Clearmountain’s Berkeley Street studio in Santa Monica last night, the waifish Texan did it all live – unleashing perfectly placed bursts of distorted, impressionistic riffs, her face expressing Zen-like unawareness of her own playing until she would abruptly knock herself backwards with a loud squall. 

Clark is one of the most interesting guitarists indie rock has seen in some time, and now she’s got an album's-worth of songs to match her chops.

Recorded for an October broadcast on KCRW’s “Morning Becomes Eclectic,” the show was partly a record-release party for St. Vincent’s third album, “Strange Mercy.” Long a critical darling, Clark has mounted quite a publicity blitz in the lead-up to this record: There was last month’s Spin cover, a “Letterman” appearance, and the announcements of an upcoming collaborative album with David Byrne and a song for HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire.” Whether her idiosyncratic music can find a mainstream fit is very much an open question, but for the first time she has a record capable of reaching far beyond the Pitchfork crowd.

For my part, I found Clark’s previous albums, 2007’s “Marry Me” and 2009’s “Actor,” something like the art-pop equivalent of a Faulkner novel. You knew there was great story in there somewhere, and individual passages could be breathtaking, but the attempts to impress with contrived complexity sometimes swallowed those strengths in a cold, constipated sort of muddle.

On “Strange Mercy,” Clark has learned how to tell a simple story, narratively as well as musically. Starting her nine-song set with “Cheerleader,” she sang: “I’ve had good times with some bad guys / I’ve told whole lies with a half smile,” a character description almost Cheever-like in its understatement.  And the opener’s straightforwardness carried through elsewhere. Clark can still catch her audience unaware – as she did with the sludge-metal guitar intrusions on “Chloe in the Afternoon” – but the effect was more playful than confrontational.  Unprecedentedly poppy single “Cruel” was practically begging for a dance remix, and “Year of the Tiger” took what first seemed a clichéd kung-fu-flick theme and developed it into a low-key anthem.  

The show closed with a truly savage version of “Surgeon,” a slow-burner that nodded to Debussy’s “La mer” and Bjork’s “Pagan Poetry” in equal measure. The song coasted along on a barely-there melody at first, with a fluttering guitar riff introducing a note of threat in the choruses. Clark was busy shifting the capo up and down her guitar neck throughout, as that simple figure moved across various keys and intensity levels, ending in a pulse-heightening crescendo that felt as unexpected as it was inevitable.

It seemed to sum up the guiding principle of both the show and the album: Just because a song is simple doesn’t mean it has to stand still.

Photo: Jeremiah Garcia

By STEVEN GAYDOS

In the early part of this new century, I was based in London and there was an amazing new musical act just breaking out. Over the phone between L.A. and London, my longtime Variety colleague Steve Chagollan and I shared our enthusiasm for the very retro and very now British rhythm and blues belter, Amy Winehouse.

In 2005, I was producing a charity event for Variety in London and I secured Amy Winehouse's services to sing at the event, which wound up drawing such luminaries as Cate Blanchett, Martin Scorsese, Charlie Kaufman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Claudia Schiffer, et al.

 At the last minute, Amy Winehouse cancelled on us.

I was pretty angry, but when Winehouse became notorious for canceling seemingly ALL her gigs, I still found humor in this.

We did a short blog piece on Variety.com claiming, with photographic proof, that this charity event was "the first gig Amy Winehouse ever cancelled." It contained a copy of the note from her manager stating it was "the first time we have had to pull a performance by Amy..."

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Unsung history: The first time Amy Winehouse canceled a gig

So now there's a Grammy Museum, only it seems to be short on actual, you know, Grammys. Variety to the rescue! Our recent move to new offices exposed the darkest reaches of executive editor Steve Gaydos' questionable filing system and he found a fax that claims to commemorate the first time Amy Winehouse canceled a gig.

It's a letter dated Feb. 22, 2005 from Nick Godwyn, the man who discovered Winehouse when she was 16 and became her first manager. More importantly, he's also the man who inspired her hit "Rehab," according to the Times: "It was Godwyn’s attempt to encourage Winehouse to seek professional help at a clinic in Guildford, after discovering her in her Camden flat one day, crying inconsolably and skinny as a rake, that inspired her bolshie riposte in Rehab: 'I said, no, no, no!' "

However, first Godwyn wrote this letter to then-UIP chairman Stewart Till, apologizing for "your disappointment that Amy was unable to perform on the night of the 11th February." And isn't that a hell of a lot more impressive, not mention more relevant, than a goldish mini gramophone?

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By February 2008, when Winehouse had been refused a visa to travel to the USA because of her well-publicized battle with addictions, there was no anger or humor, just sadness and it was summed up succinctly in an interview I did with singer-songwriter Steve Earle after a powerful performance Earle gave in Berlin.

"When the subject of the Amy Winehouse rehab/visa travails controversy came up, Earle, a long-time outspoken advocate for treatment programs for musicians, was adamant in his concern about the troubled Brit chanteuse. 'The woman is dying. It's that simple and very very sad.' "

And now the woman is dead.

 Winehouse's passing underscores the seriousness of the battles against addictions that so many individuals, not just gifted musicians, face. And it's a reminder that even when you're rich and famous and the whole world knows you're hurting and you need help, it takes more than hit songs and sold-out shows to make the trip from "no no no" to "yes yes yes."

Ask Steve Earle.

Paul McCartney, who has come to seem something of a default Mets fan due to his history of high-profile performances at the team’s stadiums, will be defecting to a different borough for his first ever show at Yankee Stadium on July 15, Live Nation announced today. Macca’s concert will take place a month after the re-release of his solo albums “McCartney” and “McCartney II.”

McCartney made an appearance at the last-ever concert held at Shea Stadium (headlined by Billy Joel) in 2008, and played the inaugural musical set in current Mets ballpark, Citi Field, shortly thereafter. There was also, of course, the matter of the Beatles’ half-hour appearance at Shea in 1965, which attracted a bit of local attention at the time.

The Bombers relied on a more demographically appropriate headliner for their current stadium’s inaugural concert, with Yankee super-fan Jay-Z breaking in the venue last fall. Though unlikely to take place next month, a collaboration between the two would not be without precedent.

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Though slumping record sales have forced a number of veteran rappers – Jay-Z, Nas, Wu-Tang Clan and Snoop Dogg among them – into the same sort of heavy touring regimens that their rock peers have long endured, one big name has been missing from that list. After a long hiatus, seminal Queens duo Mobb Deep seem set to establish their live bona fides, playing a warm-up show to the packed House of Blues on Saturday in advance of a summer slot on the Rock the Bells stadium tour. But the Mobb’s comeback trail could be rockier than most.

 Of all the acts to emerge during gangsta rap’s 1990s golden age, Mobb Deep were among the best, and certainly among the most influential. Nonetheless, their acceptance into the hip-hop pantheon has been a slow one, with the group’s Pierre Boulez-like stubbornness largely to blame. While most West Coast gangsta rappers delivered their gritty narratives with a breezy, top-down insouciance, and fellow East Coasters were savvy enough to temper their malevolence with radio-friendly odes to the good life, Deep’s music is forever shot through with a bleak, uncompromising sense of sadness.  

Such darkness can make for an awkward transition to the stage – especially in a genre that still values party-starting in its live shows above all else – and though they had the good sense to skip mood-killers like “Party Over,” Mobb Deep’s 70-minute set studiously avoided any out-of-character frivolity. Turning recorded soliloquys into two-part routines while a DJ punctuated each song transition with gunshot effects, rappers Prodigy and Havoc offered as straightforward and old-school a rap show as 2011 audiences are likely to find.

Fresh off a three-year prison stint, and promoting new memoir, “My Infamous Life” (which took the place of t-shirts and CDs at the merch table), flagship MC Prodigy looked just as moody and sullen as ever. Boasting a bulging new set of muscles on his formerly slight frame – his childhood struggles with sickle-cell anemia are documented in strangely heartbreaking detail in his book – the rapper huddled in close to his partner for a kinetic rendition of “Eye for an Eye (Your Beef is Mines)” and slowly stalked the stage with sleepy-eyed confidence. 

If the duo’s lyrical chemistry was at a high, the instrumental backline of their music got the short shrift. While the ominous synths of “G.O.D. Pt. III” and buzzsaw alarm peals of “Shook Ones Pt. II” startled the aud into hysterics, the creaky, cobwebby subtleties that distinguish some of their most famous productions were largely absent, absorbed into the booming live mix. More straightforward tracks like “Keep It Thoro” and “Quiet Storm” fared better, but these are issues that could only be exacerbated when the group takes to bigger stages.

Longtime group associate Big Noyd emerged onstage early on and stayed until the end, with his hyperactive gestures providing a nice counterpoint to the low-key menace of the two headliners. Otherwise, the show was largely free of stage-cluttering guests, save for an appearance from Lakers star Ron Artest – who hails from the same housing project as the duo – to recreate one of his more memorable post-game interviews.

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Variety's own Stuart Oldham reports from the 11th Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona.

BY STUART OLDHAM

The Primavera Sound music festival celebrated its 11th anniversary this past weekend in Barcelona, Spain, with an energetic reunion show from Pulp, one of the most influential bands of the ‘90s.

"What have you been up to the past 15 years?" frontman Jarvis Cocker wryly asked the audience. 

The British pop group, who split up in 1996, kicked off their two-hour set at the Parc del Forum with "Do You Remember the First Time?" before launching into fan favorites "Disco 2000," "This is Hardcore" and "Common People."

Pulp's Cocker even gave one audience member a chance to propose to his girlfriend in the first few rows before letting the possible bride-to-be "think about it" and leaping back onstage to perform "Underwear."

Other headlining acts on the San Miguel Stage included Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, PJ Harvey, The Flaming Lips, Belle and Sebastian and Grinderman, although it’s difficult to characterize any stage at the eclectic Primavera fest as the “main stage,” with each one nestled uniquely along the ocean or underneath a sprawling solar panel. 

Veteran synth punkers Suicide performed their entire 1997 self-titled album to the delight of fans and artists at the Ray Ban stage on Thursday night, while indie darlings The National, Girl Talk, Deerhunter and Warpaint wowed auds at the Llevant Stage (Girl Talk's set didn't start until 4:30AM Friday).

Pitchfork's stage along the Balearic Sea featured several of the site's most-written about indie acts, including L.A. rap outfit Odd Future, pop hearthrob James Blake and Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Tour.

Co-founded by Alberto Guijarro and Gabi Ruiz, Primavera Sound was attended by more than an estimated 100,000 people this past weekend. The festival, which also is looking to expand to the U.S. sometime in the next few years, is one of the more organized fests you'll ever go to. On Saturday night, fans decked out in FC Barcelona jerseys were able to come and go as they pleased to watch their famous soccer club defeat Manchester United in the UEFA Champions League final. A fitting celebration to a magical weekend, indeed. 

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A wealth of digital music news has been flooding the wires today, with the most notable being Radiohead’s sudden decision to release its 8th studio album, “The King of Limbs,” a day early. The band just announced the record’s digital-only release date of Saturday four days ago, but apparently decided that even that wait-time was too long. Thus far the album is only available at the band’s website, and there have been remarkably few reports of traffic crashing the site. (The band’s fansite editor wasn’t so lucky earlier this week.) 

Sony’s Qriocity music streaming service saw its U.S. launch yesterday for PCs, Macs, HDTVs, Blu-ray players and Playstation 3 consoles. It remains to be seen how the service will fare against immediate competitors like Internet radio providers Pandora and Slacker: Qriocity has a much larger catalog – 6 million songs versus less than 4 million for Slacker and just under one million for Pandora – though its present lack of availability on mobile devices could hurt. (In an interview last November, Pandora CEO Tim Westergren told me that half of all Pandora usage occurs on mobile devices.)

Off in more speculative territory, ZDNet’s All Things Microsoft blog takes stock of the curious lack of Zune-related offerings (or company mentions thereof) from the Land of Gates, and ponders if the company is killing off its beleaguered music platform. Microsoft denies this, though considering its recent dealings with Nokia -- which just killed off its own Ovi music streaming service last month, and is switching to a Windows OS -- it seems that at least a rebranding could be in the cards.

Even further off in rumor land, bloggers are still parsing the statements made to the Guardian by Motorola mobility CEO Sanjay Jha, which seem to indicate that the long-discussed Google music project does, in fact, exist. Nothing he said gives any indication as to what it might look like, or when it could launch. But since when has lack of concrete information ever stopped anyone?

Today saw good news and bad news for late-1990s music monoliths, as the once-indispensible book and music chain Borders filed for Chapter 11, while the 37th edition of the seemingly unkillable “NOW That’s What I Call Music!” hits-compilation series nabbed the top spot on the charts, with the first six-figure sales week of 2011.

The “NOW” compilations, launched in the U.S. in late 1998, were very much products of the era, when CD singles were extremely marginal as consumer commodities. (Indeed, a mere month after “NOW” first launched, the Billboard Hot 100 began to include radio airplay in its accounting of the week’s hot songs, instead of merely tracking singles sales.) Even though singles-oriented artists like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys ruled the airwaves, the recorded music market was still overwhelmingly album-driven, and the “NOW” series offered casual fans a way to sample the biggest radio hits of the day without plunking down $18 each for full-length records that might have only contained a solitary hit.

In an iTunes world, the collections seem like something of a relic. (Last year even saw critic Nathan Rabin begin to take historical stock of the series with his consistently hilarious “THEN That’s What They Called Music!” columns.) Almost every song on the present compilation has been available for individual download for some time, with buyers able to preview and purchase only the songs they want.

The series’ continued success could indicate that consumers still crave a more traditionally curated experience, or it could be seen as a reminder that however badly physical album sales may be suffering, there’s still a healthy percentage of record-buyers who don’t purchase their music digitally. (For comparison, “NOW” presently sits at No. 24 on the iTunes album charts, and No. 60 on Amazon’s digital album chart.) 

When given an attractive product, it seems traditional album-buyers can still show up in large numbers. The problem, then, is where they can still actually show up to buy it.

 

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Recent No. 1 record-holders the Decemberists played L.A.'s Wiltern Theater over the weekend, and the veteran indie band now seem to be firmly ensconced in marquee headliner territory. As Matt Kivel writes, the 2,200-capacity theater "can now be considered an intimate venue for witnessing a Decemberists concert."

Read the full review here.

Very cool stuff here, and in case you didn't know, 'Viva Elvis by Cirque du Soleil' is playing at the Aria in Vegas - show is a tribute to the King, featuring all his music (and original vocals) reimagined.

When working on the music for 'Viva Elvis,' producer/arranger Erich van Tourneau -- aided by Hugo Bombardier, Assistant Producer and Assistant Arranger -- spent more than 3,000 hours reviewing countless albums, films, concert recordings, interviews and home recordings of Elvis. More than 17,000 samples of Elvis’ songs -- the raw material for the show -- were made during the process.

Click here for more info about the show - and make sure to check out the 'Viva Elvis' album in iTunes. First single is 'Suspicios Minds,' check out the vid:



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