DURAN DURAN TO LIFT OFF ON TOUR IN FEBRUARY 2005


40 DATES SCHEDULED FROM FEBRUARY - APRIL
AS BAND LAUNCHES NORTH AMERICAN TREK BEHIND "SEDUCTIVE" (ROLLING STONE) ALBUM ASTRONAUT (EPIC)


New York, NY-- Following a run of Japanese dates early next year that will kick off their Astronaut world tour, Duran Duran will hit US shores for the North American leg in February 2005, with 40 dates currently scheduled and more planned. The North American tour is set to launch in Puerto Rico on February 8 and wrap up at New York's Madison Square Garden on April 13.



Duran Duran previously played dates in the US in fall 2003 with the 25th anniversary "78-03" tour, routinely selling out their shows in a matter of minutes. The Washington Post called the D.C. 2003 Duran Duran show "a raucous, sweaty screamathon." The tour dates marked the first time the original members had played together since Live Aid in 1985.



The New York Post said of the momentous NYC Webster Hall show, "The hungry crowd ... went nuts even before the band played the first notes... . As[Duran Duran] tore through hit singles ... raw rock guitars punctuated their signature dance-pop keyboards." Newsday called the show "powerful [and] inventive." The Village Voice said on behalf of the audience "[Duran Duran] swooned us to altitudes ecclesiastic."




Astronaut,Duran Duran's new Epic Records album, has seen a wave of critical acclaim. Rolling Stone lauded the disc for its "radiant melodies," announcing, "'Astronaut' revitalizes Duran's early synth-pop magic." People Magazine declared the album to be "pure new-wave bliss." The Washington Post called it "a raver's dream, complete with lush imagery."

Duran Duran 2005 Tour Dates:

Feb 8 Puerto Rico Coliseo De Puerto Rico
Feb 11 Ft. Lauderdale, FL Office Depot Center
Feb 12 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum
Feb 13 Jacksonville, FL Jacksonville VM Arena
Feb 16 Hidalgo, TX Dodge Arena
Feb 17 Austin, TX PAC
Feb 19 Dallas, TX Nokia @ Grand Prairie
Feb 20 Houston, TX Toyota Center
Feb 22 Mexico City, Mexico National Auditorium
Feb 23 Monterey Mexico Arena Monterey
Feb 25 San Diego, CA San Diego Sports Arena
Feb 26 Los Angeles, CA Staples Center
March 2 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion
March 4 Vancouver, BC GM Place
March 5 Spokane, WA Spokane Opera House
March 7 Calgary, AB Saddledome
March 8 Kelowna, BC Prospera Place
March 9 Seattle, WA Everett Center
March 10 Portland, OR Rose Garden
March 12 Salt Lake City, UT Delta Center
March 13 Las Vegas, NV Hard Rock
March 16 Denver, CO Magness Arena
March 18 Chicago, IL Allstate
March 20 Louisville, KY The Palace Theater
March 22 St. Paul, MN Excel Center
March 23 Moline, IL Mark of the Quad
March 24 Detroit, MI The Palace
March 26 Cincinnati, OH Cincinnati Music Hall
March 28 Columbus, OH Veterans Memorial Aud.
March 29 Cleveland, OH CSU Convocational Center
March 30 Verona, NY Turning Stone Event Center
April 1 Boston, MA Agganis Arena
April 2 Philadelphia, PA The Spectrum
April 3 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Casino
April 5 Toronto, ON ACC
April 6 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
April 8 Fairfax,VA (D.C.) Patriot Center
April 9 Wilkes-Barre, PA Wachovia Arena
April 10 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata Casino
April 13 New York, NY Madison Square Garden



To celebrate their tremendous success in the live arena, in spring '05, a live DVD/CD package will be released that was shot at the band's final London Wembley Arena concert in May 2004. The show - which broke the house record for attendance - was one of 17 sold out arena shows in the UK. Accompanied by a live CD from the same show, the DVD will include Duran Duran's classic hits plus material from Astronaut, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. The DVD/CD was produced by Coming Home Studios and will be distributed in the U.S. through Rounder/Zoe.

In November, Capitol Records/EMI Music Catalog Marketing released Duran Duran's Singles Box, Volume 2 (1986-1995), an 81-track collection including single, alternate, and rare versions of the band's smash hits "Notorious," "Ordinary World," "Come Undone," and "All She Wants Is." Housed in a flip-top box with 14-page booklet, the new compilation features remastered versions of all of the band's 7" singles from '86 to '95, including b-sides, live performances and 12" extended mixes, many of which make their CD debut.

DURAN DURAN Article From December Mix Magazine

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Copyright 2004 by PRIMEDIA Business Magazines & Media Inc.
"All Rights Reserved"
December 1, 2004
SECTION: RECORDING NOTES; ISSN: 0164-9957; Pg. 13
By Heather Johnson

I confess: I am a former jazz shoe - wearing, button-collecting Durannie. From age 12 until my sophomore year of high school, I scoured my local mall record store for every album, single, 12-inch dance remix and picture disc I could find. Apparently, I share my obsession with good company. Dallas Austin - producer of chart-topping albums and singles for ABC Another Bad Creation , (Boyz II Men, TLC, Brandy, Monica, Fishbone and, most recently, Pink, Gwen Stefani and Janet Jackson) - was also a self-described "Duran Duran nut." But instead of cutting out Fab Five pictures from Bop magazine, Austin ogled Nick Rhodes' keyboards.
Two decades later, Rhodes, Simon LeBon and John, Roger and Andy Taylor no relation tapped one giddy Austin, along with Don Gilmore (Good Charlotte, Linkin Park, Sugar Ray) and Nile Rodgers (Madonna, David Bowie) to co-produce Astronaut, the band's first studio album with all original members since their 1983 release, Seven and the Ragged Tiger.
After six sub-par, partially Duran albums, the original five got together to discuss a new album. It was the first time they had sat in a room together in 15 years. "Within five minutes, we were arguing about the same things we had the last time we were in a room together," recalls a slightly jetlagged Rhodes from his London home. "But it quickly turned to, ' How are we going to do the album?' There wasn't really much question about anything else."
The initial plan was pretty straightforward: Record and release the album, then go on tour. In 2001, they rented a house near St. Tropez in the south of France, set up a Pro Tools studio and launched into a prolific period of songwriting and pre-production. "I knew from the moment we plugged in that there wasn't much apprehension," says Rhodes. "Everybody came in wanting it to work. Within minutes, we'd hit on something really great and finished a song the first evening."
During their first 12-day writing session, the group wrote three songs that ended up on Astronaut - "Bedroom Toys," "Taste the Summer" and "Nice" - along with the seeds for "Want You More." After a few more sporadic but fruitful writing sessions, the group had more than 30 songs in the works. Unfortunately, when they were ready to hit the studio, the record industry was in one of its worst slumps in years.
"Every time we'd start talking to a label, the CEO would get fired or, in some cases, the whole label had disappeared!" says Rhodes. "It was becoming like a comedy sketch. Then, somebody suggested, 'Let's play some shows. We can test the waters and get our live show up to speed.'"
Their first "test run," at the Budokan Arena in Japan, sold out in 30 minutes and was followed by a 25-city U.S. tour and a sold-out British tour that included five shows at London's Wembley Arena. The New Romantics were back and they had a record to finish - pronto.
In 2003, Duran Duran inked a deal with Epic and hired producer/engineer Gilmore to work on two songs. The sessions went so well, he stayed for six weeks and co-produced and engineered eight of the album's 12 tracks. "Don chose very carefully what needed to be done, so we ended up with all the right parts in the end," Rhodes says. "And he was fun to have around, which is half the battle: finding [a producer] who fits the vibe and makes everyone feel good about what they are doing."
The group recorded on the 72-channel Neve 88R at London-based Sphere Studios' Studio One using a Pro Tools|HD workstation as a tape machine and editing tool. Designed by acoustic consultants Munro Associates, Studio One offers 5.1 monitoring via Dynaudio M4 speakers, ISDN 2 capabilities and a live room large enough to accommodate up to 35 musicians, with four fully floated isolation booths and 6-meter-high ceilings.
The group also welcomed back Rodgers ("Notorious", "Wild Boys") to co-produce "Point of No Return" and add vocal production to two tracks. "We all just love him, and we've worked with him before very successfully," Rhodes says. "In truth, we probably got him in a little too early because a lot of things changed. But 'Point of No Return' remains in its entirety. To me, it's one of the most beautiful moments on the album."
Austin, whom Rhodes likens to a young Rodgers, co-produced three songs, including two of the album's brightest spots: "Want You More" and "Astronaut." "[Dallas] said, 'I want to stack up the harmonies,'" recalls Rhodes. "'I want that uplifting sound that you always had in those big Duran Duran choruses.'" Austin adds, "I wanted to bring back that groove they had, but make them sound modern and hip at the same time."
Austin accomplished the task by not only using his Grammy-winning production skills, but by throwing a bash in their honor. "The lights were completely down, wine bottles were piling up and there was gear... everywhere! Mountains of gear," Rhodes recalls. "It was really party time for us, and I think that shows in the tracks we worked on with him."
Rhodes' all-analog synth cache includes many used on Duran Duran's first albums, such as the Roland Jupiter8, Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Memorymoog. He also uses the Minimoog and admits to "quite liking" the microKORG synthesizer/vocoder. "But I used the original Roland vocoder on 'Nice,'" he says, "and I process a lot of things through cheap, nasty pedals."
"He had so many things I'd never seen in my life before," Austin adds. "He'd pop in with a different keyboard and go, 'Look at this! What do you think about this!' He's like the mad scientist of analog keyboards!"
Austin usually brings his own keyboard collection to sessions; he and engineer Rick Sheppard have been known to travel with 7,800 pounds of gear stripped from Austin's DARP Studios in Atlanta. However, due to time and customs constraints, the duo brought only two laptops and two 250-gig hard drives loaded with Sheppard's entire library - sounds he's collected as Austin's programmer and engineer for the past 15 years.
With Austin onboard, "Astronaut" evolved from a ballad to an assured dance-pop hit. "I said, 'Can I just take it and put it on speed?'" recalls Austin. "They re-wrote the verses and took it in another direction. When they finished, we were like, 'Whoa!' It became the title track for the album."
Sheppard recorded the band through Sphere's Neve to a Pro Tools|HD4 with Logic Audio on the front end. They had rented Pro Tools|HD and HD3 units, but both lacked the processing power needed to handle Sheppard's massive library. "I use [Tascam] GigaStudio for my sample library," he says. "I run that on a PC and run Logic on the Mac, so I just use the PC as a sampler. I have a couple hundred thousand .WAV files and tons of Gig files - I pretty much own all the Gig libraries out there - plus I converted all my Akai libraries to CD-ROM."
Needless to say, Sheppard uses more plug-ins than outboard gear. Aside from the Neve's EQs and effects, an API 500-6B Lunchbox EQ and a Universal Audio 6176 for LeBon's vocals, Sheppard relied mainly on SoundToys, McDSP and Emagic's Logic plug-ins. LeBon sang through a Neumann TLM 103. "It sounded crisp and clear with the UA 6176," he says. "I put it on the One setting to give it color. I set a Mac flat screen on top of the 6176, so I have it right by my keyboard."
Andy Taylor's guitars were miked with a Shure SM57 through a Peavey amp. Other times, Taylor used Line 6's Variax guitar modeling tool, sent through Line 6's Vetta II tube amp and the PODxt.
Sheppard used a standard mic setup for Roger Taylor's drums, choosing Sennheiser 421s, AKG C 414s and a modified, custom-made Audix sub kick mic. "We take a [Yamaha] NS-10 subwoofer, lead it to an XLR and run it through an attenuator," says Sheppard. "It gives you a lot of low-end thump."
Rhodes, known as "the vampire" of the group because of his night owl tendencies and preference for dark control rooms, often spends several days going through sounds and layering keyboard parts with his technician, Mark Tinley. "I see what fits where, what melodies need to be doubled up or what snare drums need an extra little crack on top of them," Rhodes says. "Andy will see if he can double my parts, and I'll see if he needs chords under his rhythms. Then, once we've got a track we're really happy with, I'll work on detail again." Sheppard adds, "Nick is so into coming up with something different and innovative and spends the time to make a patch and not just use what's stock."
Rhodes and the rest of the group's tweaking continued well into mix mode, which was handled by Jeremy Wheatley (David Gahan, Sugarbabes, Dandy Warhols) at Sanctuary Town House Studios and Olympic Studios, both in London. "He really had an enormous input," Rhodes says of Wheatley. "He makes things sound so lush, and feel as though in cinemascope - very exciting, dynamic and warm all at the same time."
Wheatley had his work cut out for him; most songs contained more than 100 tracks, some of which dated back three years. To further complicate matters, the band had to listen to and approve mixes via edNET due to a series of U.S. radio promotions that took place in the middle of mixing. "We were running all over America, and in each city we hooked up the satellite link and directly listened to the mixes live and tweaked everything like that," says Rhodes. "On some songs, we completely changed things at the last minute. John and I changed the whole vibe of verse two of 'Bedroom Toys' with Jeremy over the edNET system."
Astronaut dropped to Planet Earth on October 12, along with a limited-edition "deluxe" DVD. Based on the positive reviews and rapid-fire arena sellouts, Birmingham, England's pretty boys have got more than nostalgia on their side. "They're model is that they're only as strong as their weakest link, so if somebody doesn't like [a part], they work it out," says Austin. "Everybody had a goal to stand up to their legacy," Sheppard adds. "Besides the lack of sleep and 18 hour days, it was a really great experience."

guess noone cared to see i posted this like 3 days ago.

http://www.prince.org/msg/8/124791

purplegypsy said:

HEY! I posted it FIRST!!! http://www.prince.org/msg/8/124739

Rhodes, known as "the vampire" of the group because of his night owl tendencies and preference for dark control rooms, often spends several days going through sounds and layering keyboard parts with his technician, Mark Tinley. "I see what fits where, what melodies need to be doubled up or what snare drums need an extra little crack on top of them," Rhodes says. "Andy will see if he can double my parts, and I'll see if he needs chords under his rhythms. Then, once we've got a track we're really happy with, I'll work on detail again." Sheppard adds, "Nick is so into coming up with something different and innovative and spends the time to make a patch and not just use what's stock."

I love the way he works.

VinaBlue said:

Another mad genius!

you know i liked Duran Duran when I was growing up, but I was never a hard core fan or anything. had a few of their albums in tape and arena in vinyl. I had a friend who absolutely had everything. Import 12 inchs you name it. he got religious and threw it all away. Man I wish i had that stuff.

anyway a few years ago something clicked and i bought a couple of their cds and i was like WOW this shit was good. i guess most stuff from the 80's was better than now, that or I'm just reaching that old foggie age. funny how I buy stuff now that I either just casualy liked or didn't like back then, but now it seems that much better. Nostasia I guess

anyway I saw them last year and it was awesome and I'm going to try and make the Jax show next year

Rhastus said:

I have always gotten flack for liking Duran Duran,DeBarge,and Prince..hell,I even used to like Journey...even more hell..I'm a fan of the song "mr.roboto"..I just like what I like.

Tix for Detroit go on sale this Saturday. Guess who's gettin' 'em???

Case said:

We got presales happening tomorrow through www.duranduranmusic.com and some went on sale today. I gotta make a decision by 10am tomorow to buy regular tickets, or VIP seats for $300. Decisions, decisions.

VIP packages typically include a Pre-show Party, 1 Ticket in the 1st 5 rows, Exclusive Merchandise, Laminate and a contest to win a chance to Meet the Band


[Edited 12/8/04 19:57pm]

VinaBlue said:

I have to make the same decision. Although it's becoming a bit easier since I have friend's blessing. This would be a one-time only deal anyway. At least I have until 12pm to make the final call.

funkyslsistah said:

Yeah, I'm pretty sure my friend wouldn't mind sitting in different sections. Heck, I got her into the VH1 taping! It all evens out. She just wants to be there.

Going to their New YEar's Eve taping with Carson Daly tonight! who hoo!!!

purplegypsy said:

AWESOME!!! You GO girl!!! Did you see my VH1 review? http://www.prince.org/msg/8/124986

VinaBlue said:

Of course! I'm sure my show tonight will not COMPARE to yours...I expect only 3-4 songs in tonight's set...I'm sooooo jealous you heard SAVE A PRAYER. I haven't seen that live since 1984 and I barely remember it! They didn't play it on the shows I saw on Notorious, Wedding Album and Meddazaland tours.

I AM SOOOOO THERE!!!!!

And if they play "My Own Way", I'm gonna freak out!