The Mark Lanegan thread

[jarmo]

Lanegan Feels 'Relief' On New Solo Set

When discussing his upcoming solo album, "Bubblegum," Queens Of The Stone Age vocalist (and former Screaming Trees member) Mark Lanegan tells Billboard.com the project's main criteria is more cathartic than anything else.

"I don't want to use the word therapy, but it is more like relief from the seriousness," says Lanegan. "Queens is pretty serious and focused, and these other things give me a chance to do music but not have such an importance placed on it. And by importance I mean, with Queens, we really take it seriously but it is still a lot of fun. But with these things, I don't really care how it turns out. It is the doing of it that is the important part, not the finishing of it -- if that makes any sense."

The fall album, which will be preceded by an EP, is Lanegan's first for Beggars Banquet. It finds the singer cajoling familiar friends (QOTSA guitarist Josh Homme and bassist Nick Oliveri, Polly Jean Harvey, former Guns N' Roses members Izzy Stradlin and Duff McKagan, Greg Dulli, and Dean Ween, among many others) to lend a hand. "I seek to pretend I am a drummer, and whenever I get the chance to play drums, I'm there," Homme tells Billboard.com of his contributions.

As for Screaming Trees, who broke up for good in 2000, Lanegan says he is still in contact with the members and doesn't rule out recording together, but not under the Trees moniker. For now, Lanegan is reveling in his role with QOTSA. "It is kind of funny because I couldn't have dreamt up a better job, if that's what you call it," he says. "I get to travel around with my friends and not work very hard."

Indeed, while QOTSA has been on the road constantly in support of its latest Interscope album "Songs for the Deaf," Lanegan is one of three vocalists in the group and often finds himself leaving the stage completely. Where does he go during those moments?

"I sleep," jokes Lanegan. "Actually, I'm trying to learn how to read. I have a tutor out on the road. It is great. It's not just a band, it is a program to take inner city kids like myself and to sort of empower them."


-- John Benson, Cleveland


http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1900175



/jarmo

[jarmo]

MARK LANEGAN BAND

Bubblegum
Release Date:2/8/2004

Track Listing:

1 When Your Number Isn?t Up
2 Hit The City
3 Wedding Dress
4 Methamphetamine Blues
5 One Hundred Days
6 Bombed
7 Strange Religion
8 Sideways In Reverse
9 Come To Me
10 Like Little Willie John
11 Can?t Come Down
12 Morning Glory Wine
13 Head
14 Driving Death Valley Blues
15 Out Of Nowhere


 

This might be really interesting.....




/jarmo

[kujo722]

I was wondering what happened to him. I loved the Screaming Trees.

Thanks Jarmo.

[Lineker10]

Hes playing Leeds headlining the Carling Stage as joint headliner with the QOTSA bassist i think. Definalty gonna check out the Duff/Izzy songs and may do the rest seen as how hes at Leeds.

[jarmo]

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1488370/20040611/lanegan_mark.jhtml?headlines=true



/jarmo

[jarmo]

Copied from the best Lanegan fan site, http://www.onewhiskey.com


2004 Bubblegum European Tour

date location venue info/tickets

13 Aug 04 Oslo, Norway The ?yafestival http://www.oyafestivalen.com
14 Aug 04 Efurt, Germany Highfields Festival http://fkpscorpio.com/highfield/  
15 Aug 04 Bielefeld, Germany Strange Build Festival http://www.fkpscorpio.de
17 Aug 04 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg http://ticketmaster.nl
18 Aug 04 Portugal Paredes de Coura Festival http://paredesdecoura.com/
20 Aug 04 Kiewit, Belgium Pukkelpop Festival  http://www.pukkelpop.be  
22 Aug 04 Berlin, Germany Columbiafritz http://www.fkpscorpio.de
23 Aug 04 Koln, Germany Prime Club http://www.fkpscorpio.de
24 Aug 04 Hamburg, Germany Logo http://www.fkpscorpio.de
25 Aug 04 Utrecht, Netherlands De Helling http://ticketmaster.nl
26 Aug 04 Hampshire, UK The Wedgewood Rooms http://wedgewood-rooms.co.uk
28 Aug 04 Reading, UK Carling Weekender http://virtualfestivals.com
29 Aug 04 Leeds, UK Carling Weekender http://virtualfestivals.com
31 Aug 04 Milton Keynes, UK Woughton Centre http://www.woughtoncentre.co.uk/
1 Sept 04 London, UK Islington Academy http://www.ticketweb.co.uk
2 Sept 04 Paris, France Nouveau Casino try http://www.infoconcert.com
4 Sept 04 Bologna, Italy Independent Days Festival http://www.indipendente.com
6 Sept 04 Duddingen, Switzerland Bad Bonn  
7 Sept 04 Geneva, Switzerland Usine http://www.infoconcert.com
8 Sept 04 Zurich, Switzerland Abart Music Club  
10 Sept 04 Vitoria, Spain Azkena Rock Festival  http://azkenarockfestival.com



/jarmo

[jarmo]

Found this on the official ML forum:


MOJO MAGAZINE ? August 2004
Big bubbles, no trouble
Polly Harvey, Queens of the Stone Age, Izzy Stradlin and Dean Ween roll up to help Mark Lanegan rock. Not that he needs much help, says Victoria Segal.

Mark Lanegan Band
Bubblegum ****
Being a survivor is a curious position to hold. While it should indicate vindication and success, a fine tribute to stamina and enduring talent, it also implies cockroaches, skin-of-your-teeth tenacity, by-a-fingernail stubbornness. By rights, Mark Lanegan should have expired in a pyre of plaid at the end of the '90s, a good tarring with the grunge brush helping him to burn. The subterranean-voiced singer of Washington State's Screaming Trees, he could just have been another North-western casualty, eaten up by the lifestyle or the industry. Yet Lanegan, unusually, has become cooler as he's aged, a trick none of his contemporaries have managed ? unless you indulge the sentimental "forever young" rock myth surrounding Kurt Cobain.

While it's hard to imagine Eddie Vedder's new solo album causing much of a frisson, Lanegan, a man with the face of a Wanted: Dead or Alive poster, has increasingly refined his music into high-quality outlaw Americana. He's become the embodiment of the stranger in town, appearing and disappearing at will with his moody solo albums, his songs echoing behind him like a set of saloon doors slamming shut. His recent comradeship with Queens of the Stone Age ? until their surprising, depressing split, very much the modern rock motherlode ? only enhanced his reputation, his tour of service with those notorious hedonists Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri a stem-cell shot of rejuvenating rock'n'roll.

Bubblegum is, at core, updated blues ? yet, while previous solo records saw Lanegan and his six-feet-under voice stuck at the graveside, there's much more light and shade here. None of these songs are exactly merry, largely dealing with fatal bliss or blissed-out fatalism, but musically and texturally, they seem more diverse, complex, striding rangily from seamy rock'n'roll to soulful spirituals. There's not just a little black cloud over his head anymore ? there's a whole weather system. Admittedly, Lanegan uses a pretty well-worn lexicon ? like, say, Spritualized's Jason Pierce, you know where you are with his universe of highways and Jesus, cold turkey and holy ground. "From my fingertips, my cigarette throws ashes to the ground/I'd stop and talk to the girls who work this street but I've got business further down," he sings on the woozy One Hundred Days, and you don't need an A-Z to work out which road to nowhere he's on. A favourable reaction to this album, then, very much depends on accepting this vein of imagery, the classic street-life iconography.

Given its songs of experience, calling the album Bubblegum might at first seem comically flippant ? but anyone feeling uncharitable could say this drugs-and-depression shtick is just as disposable and clich?-ridden as the sparkliest of chart-pop.

Yet, just as painters never get bored with nativities and crucifixions, so Lanegan's purist strain of rock'n'roll manages to tap its own passion with style. Maybe ? if the issue of authenticity still matters ? it's because Lanegan has what might be called a colourful (if largely black-clad) past. Better still, it's because his effortless empathy with the dark side has given him the ability to find new twists, new angles. Like Little Willie John should be the kind of retrograde blues track that makes The White Stripes seem like Kraftwerk ? yet while the railroad chug of the percussion aims for an old-style Americana that's as modern as a barroom spittoon, the layered density and lyrical resonance gives it a crisp new edge. "When I heard the news that night I went down like a satellite," sings Lanegan beautifully, before adding "Lord I'm all alone tonight/Don't the sun love his satellite? I don't know."

The Queens of the Stone Age road-rage of Driving Death Valley Blues seems like a sweat-stained bundle of junkie-clich?s ("Don't wanna go cold turkey") but it's powered by such combustible, kerosene-soaked conviction that even dragging Jesus into things is forgivable.

It's the feeling of almost imperceptible menace that makes Bubblegum so unsettling, a record that focuses on the calm before the storm and sometimes after the storm, too, a record about losing things ? your self, your way, your mind. On the soul-rich spiritual of Morning Glory Wine, the lovely fluting in the background can't hide the glint of the sword-blade over Lanegan's head while the intimate whisper of Bombed ? with flesh-warm backing vocals from Wendy Rae Fowler ? offers a metaphor-rich sense of danger. "When I'm bombed I stretch like bubblegum," he sings, revealing the true source of the title and explaining the psychic stress that weighs heavy on the whole album.

At times, though, he makes it all sound like a lot of fun. "It bites like a fish and kicks like a horse," declares the dirty thrust of Sideways In Reverse, giving the requisite charge of street-slang before a filthy refrain of "going down going down/give me your love". Hit The City, featuring Polly Harvey on bleached-out keening, is a blast of needling staccato, while Methamphetamine Blues ? guitar and drums provided by Josh Homme, backing vocals by Nick Oliveri ? adds adrenalin to Feelgood Hit Of The Summer's menu of narcotics.

Yet balancing the conspicuous consumption of the dark side is the purgative quest for redemption. The Everybody Hurts gospel chords of Strange Religion take a turn into Sparklehorse territory, while Come To Me ? again with Harvey ? is a little bit of human contact amid all the introspection. The enchanting One Hundred Days talks up hopes of a ship coming in with heartbreakingly little faith: "There is no morphine I'm only sleeping/There is no crime to dreams like this?" while the timeless lament of Wedding Dress could be a dank folkloric fable from Polly Harvey's own work. "Will you walk with me underground and forgive all my sicknesses and sorrows? Will you be shamed if I shake like I'm dying/When I fall to my knees and I'm crying?/Will you visit me where my body rests? Will you put on that long white dress?" It certainly gives you some insight into his idea of faith. You're with him for the long haul.

Bubblegum is, in many respects, classic Americana, at its simplest level, wide-screen loneliness, the sound of rattling boxcars and rattling lungs, of dusty roads and endless journeys. As Wedding Dress shows, however, Lanegan demands more than a straightforward coast-to-coast road trip. As befits a survivor, he demands commitment. And as he travels through those parts of the map marked "Here Be Dragons" with his eyes and heart open, you're happy to give it.





/jarmo

[jarmo]

Bubblegum is one of the best albums of 2004. 


If you don't believe me, here are some quotes from reviews: 


A modern-day classic from one of rock's great survivors.
The Age


It is hardly user-friendly, but Bubblegum is too good an album to languish in the margins. There is something thrilling in its unpredictable lurches between darkness and light, noise and melody. In every sense, Bubblegum is a staggering record.
The Guardian


There's something else you should know. Mark Lanegan is a wrinkled, leathery-skinned, uncompromising punk firebrand. A major label MD's nightmare and a stylist's lost cause. He is the antithesis of the Pop Idol conveyor belt of disposable dross that threatens to eclipse the great rock individual. He is the truth and the light, a diamond in the rough and everything that makes this rock'n'roll lark so all-encompassing.
NME



Bubblegum is as rich and fixed a vision as you're likely to find on one CD this year, with little or no room for filler flab.

That rock 'n' roll scenery may be familiar, but its not often it's rendered as beautifully as this.
BBC


Emotionally ravaged terrain is traversed here. Bubblegum is a great rock'n'roll records, but I really would advise getting a good night's sleep before you tackle it head-on.
The Evening Standard



/jarmo

[AdZ]

[K-Rock]

Just came out in the US today.  I'm going to buy it!


http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=DJ53IMq9Qo&ean=607618023720

All Music Guide
With the Screaming Trees an increasingly distant memory and his brief tenure with Queens of the Stone Age seemingly over and done, Mark Lanegan appears to have well and truly become a solo artist, and while the dark and blues-shot introspections of Whiskey for the Holy Ghost and The Winding Sheet felt like a respite from Lanegan's usual musical diet of the time, Bubblegum sounds like an effort to fuse the nocturnal atmospherics of his solo work with the impressive brain/brawn ratio of his better-known bands. Credited to the Mark Lanegan Band (though there's no consistent set of musicians from track to track), Bubblegum is hardly short on the moody stuff, with Lanegan's nicotine-buffered pipes leading these songs though any number of empty streets and unhappy events, as on the jonesed-out road trip of "Strange Religion," the pained drift of "One Hundred Days," and the wasted longing of "Morning Glory Wine" -- notice a common theme yet? (Oh, and in case you were wondering, the album's title refers not to teen-centric pop music, but a line from his song "Bombed": "When I'm bombed, I stretch like bubblegum/And look too long straight at the morning sun.") But Lanegan was also of a mind to rock out a bit while making this album (or figured that his newer fans were expecting it of him), and with his QOTSA pals Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri helping out on a few cuts, he does indeed deliver the rock, most notably the clanking menace of "Methamphetamine Blues," the straightforward bash of "Sideways in Reverse," and the organ-driven ooze of "Hit the City" (the latter featuring Polly Jean Harvey in an inspired duet appearance). But while most guys making a solo album after a stint with a successful band create music that speaks of freedom and release, Bubblegum finds Lanegan digging ever deeper into the obsessions and appetites that drag him into the same corner every time. It sure doesn't sound like a life most of us would wish to lead, but it makes for damned compelling art, and the dank emotional caverns of Bubblegum offer some territory well worth exploring for the strong-willed. Mark Deming

[jarmo]

Interesting to see so many positive reviews.

I'm not used to liking the same albums as the critics.   

I bet a lot of listeners are expecting a QOTSA album, they won't get it by buying Bubblegum.



/jarmo

[badapple81]

Tried to d/l your recommendations Jarmo, but had no luck

[Christos AG]

Bubblegum is one of the best albums of 2004.?


If you don't believe me, here are some quotes from reviews:?


A modern-day classic from one of rock's great survivors.
The Age


It is hardly user-friendly, but Bubblegum is too good an album to languish in the margins. There is something thrilling in its unpredictable lurches between darkness and light, noise and melody. In every sense, Bubblegum is a staggering record.
The Guardian


There's something else you should know. Mark Lanegan is a wrinkled, leathery-skinned, uncompromising punk firebrand. A major label MD's nightmare and a stylist's lost cause. He is the antithesis of the Pop Idol conveyor belt of disposable dross that threatens to eclipse the great rock individual. He is the truth and the light, a diamond in the rough and everything that makes this rock'n'roll lark so all-encompassing.
NME



Bubblegum is as rich and fixed a vision as you're likely to find on one CD this year, with little or no room for filler flab.

That rock 'n' roll scenery may be familiar, but its not often it's rendered as beautifully as this.
BBC


Emotionally ravaged terrain is traversed here. Bubblegum is a great rock'n'roll records, but I really would advise getting a good night's sleep before you tackle it head-on.
The Evening Standard



/jarmo

The gave great reviews for Contraband too and you don't like the album THAT much... 

[jarmo]

At least they got some taste. 

4 out of 5 in today's Aftonbladet (Swedish paper). 





/jarmo

[K-Rock]

No, this album is not a QOTSA album.  It just might be better. 

This album is one of the best albums of 2004.

I can't stop listening to it. 

[Christos AG]

Ok, I was j/k...

I really like Lanegan... Well, basically he's the reason I met Bruce Dickinson and Nicko McBrain... 

[jarmo]

No, this album is not a QOTSA album.? It just might be better.?

This album is one of the best albums of 2004.

I can't stop listening to it.?

Glad to hear you like it.

Certainly not the most accessible albums of 2004. It just sounds weird at first.....



Setlist from last night's show in Amsterdam:

1. Hit The City
2. Wedding Dress
3. No Easy Action
4. Miracle
5. One Way Street
6. Come To Me
7. Sideways In Reverse
8. Low
9. Creeping Coastline Of Lights
10.Like Little Willie John
11.I'll Take Care Of You
12.Resurrection Song
13.Death Don't Have No Mercy
14.Metamphetamine Blues

Encore:
1. When Your Number Isn't Up
2. Sleep With Me
3. Fix

from http://marklanegan.com/forum/



/jarmo

[GypsySoul]

SPIN >> SEPTEMBER 2004
Breakdown
More bands, more albums, more opinions.
Let's do this.
By Charles Aaron, Doug Brod, Adrienne Day, Jon Dolan, Caryn Ganz, and Alex Pappedemas

Mark Lanegan
Bubblegum
Beggars Banquet

As Screaming Trees' chief lumberjack and Queens of the Stone Age's go-to vocalist, Lanegan and his barrel-chested baritone have been grunge's closest sonic connection to the blues.? His sixth solo album is gruff stuff, moving beyond his Beefheart fixation to nail a genuine, slow-burning Leadbelly brutalism.? A few rockers lighten the load, but not by much.? B+

[Butch Français]

saw him live on ?ya-festivalen on Friday the 13th, awesome music! but he only did about 5 songs...why, I don't know!
he had this tattoo covered girl with him on backup vocals, and from where i was standing, she looked pretty damn hot! anyone know who it was?

[jarmo]

I think he had a 45 minute slot at Oya (that's what I heard).


Nobody seems to know who that girl singing with him is. She's not listed as part of the touring band.



/jarmo