Being There

Also out on Anti. in October is an all-new Tom Waits album entitled Real Gone. Out on October 5th, the album draws from African and Latin influences and continues to be weird as one would expect.	Look, it’s Ringo!” Well, at least that’s what citizens of St. Augustine, Florida thought, when a bearded man wearing dark specs similar to those one would normally associate with Ringo went around town signing autographs and posing for pictures. It did not seem to occur to any of the locals that the man bore little resemblance to Starr, who was in England at the time.	UK’s The Beta Band have decided to split up, ending a career that started with The Three EPs.
September 9th will mark the beginning of the 29th Annual Toronto International Film Festival. A full list of films won’t be announced until August 24th, but those already announced include the Ray Charles biopic Ray!, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, starring Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, and Sideways, the latest film by director Alexander Payne (Election, About Schmidt). Keep your eyes on http://www.e.bell.ca/filmfest/2004/default.asp for more details as they come.	Some of the biggest names in music are getting together in an attempt to rally support for presidential candidate John Kerry. The “Vote for Change” tour will begin in Pennsylvania on October 1st, with simultaneous shows in various cities in that state. It will go on to visit several other battleground states. The gimmick of the tour is that it will match-up two major artists on the same bill. These include Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M. in Philadelphia, The Dixie Chicks and James Taylor in Pittsburgh, and Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt in Williamsport. Visit www.moveonpac.org for more details.	Who would have thought that Morrissey, Calexico, Bono and The Edge, Jon Spencer, and Thurston Moore would show up to lend a hand on a new album by Nancy Sinatra? Will the self-titled Nancy Sinatra be a surprise success? I suppose we’ll find out on September 14th when the album is released on Attack/Sanctuary.
The final studio recordings made by Elliott Smith before his death will finally see the light of day on October 19th, when Anti. releases from a basement on a hill.	Quentin Tarantino is beginning to worry that splitting Kill Bill into two separate films may have been a poor decision after all. Although initially encouraged to do so for marketing reasons, it may have, in Tarantino’s mind, spoiled Uma Thurman’s chances at being nominated for Best Actress. Luckily, with the August release of Kill Bill, Volume 2, fans of the films will finally be able to watch them as they were intended to be seen: as a single film.	Brian Wilson is also touring this fall, bringing his newly completed version of Smile, which wowed British audiences in February, to North America. The tour (which will mostly be playing theatres) begins on September 30th in Minneapolis, and continues through cities such as Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Tampa, and Austin, before wrapping up in Los Angeles on November 2nd. See www.brianwilson.com for full tour details.
The voting panel for the 2004 Shortlist competition has been selected. The panel, which this year includes Jack Black, Norah Jones, Jim Jarmusch, and The Cure’s Robert Smith, will select, as the website’s mission statement reads, “the most adventurous and creative albums of the year across all genres of music, focusing on emerging artists rather than established hitmakers.” Last year’s winner was Damien Rice. Visit http://www.shortlistofmusic.com for more details	Country-rock singer Shelby Lynne is the latest to join the cast of the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic I Walk The Line. She will star alongside Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, who have been cast as Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash respectively. The film is being directed by James Mangold.	Television fans will be glad to know that the DVD release schedule over the next few months includes the first two seasons of Seinfeld, coming in November. Also coming out will be Fox's Greg The Bunny.
Jack White & The Dust Brothers lend a hand to Beck, who will be releasing a new album on DGC/Geffen in October. A tour is expected to follow.	Canadian-born actress Fay Wray, who will forever be remembered as the screaming girl being clutched by a giant ape in the original 1933 version of King Kong, has died at age 96.	Founding Kinks guitarist Dave Davies has been left partially paralyzed after suffering from a stroke in June. Davies will require intensive physiotherapy, but doctors believe that he will recover enough to resume playing the guitar.
A Toronto computer store near the set of Ron Howard’s upcoming Cinderella Man, starring Russell Crowe was recently vandalized with what appears to be Russell Crowe’s signature on the glass storefront. It may have been the result of a drunken spree. Coincidence? Who knows, but Retail Manager Vince Berani asks, “Do you know how hard it is to sell a 6x6 pane of glass on eBay?”	Elvis Costello has two new albums coming out in September. The Delivery Man is a new rock ‘n’ roll album featuring his band The Imposters. The album features guest appearances by Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams. Il Sogno is an all-new orchestral album with music written by Elvis Costello and conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas.	Well, that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more news in September!