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May 1997
May 30,
1997
INXS will
be on ABC's In Concert program tonight in the United States. Check local
listings for channel and time.
Elegantly
Wasted is down to #125 this week on the Billboard charts. Time to
release a second single in the US, huh Mercury?
May 29,
1997:
INXS officially
launches its world tour promoting Elegantly Wasted tonight in Cape
Town. In addition to the four shows INXS will play in South Africa, the
band will also make two television appearances on the local station M-Net.
Tonight, they will be on "Front Row" at 1900 GMT+0200, and tomorrow night,
Garry Gary Beers will appear on "Fashion Focus" at 1930 GMT+0200.
Elegantly
Wasted continues to freefall in Australia. The album has slipped to
#89, and the single is now #91 according to ARIA. Just to show that bad
taste is becoming universal, Hanson's "MMMBop," currently #1 in the US,
has debuted at #1 in Australia, and looks to take yet another #1 in the
UK this week.
May 28,
1997:
From the
May 26 issue of Hits Magazine: "Although it was never meant as a single,
INXS will release "Don't Lose Your Head" as a promo tie-in with Paramount's
Summer blockbuster "Face Off" starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage.
A Nick Egan-directed video, with clips from the flick, is being finished
and a Tom Lord-Alge remix will be going to radio to coincide with the
June 27 opening of the flick." Nick Egan is one of the industry's most
famous video directors, having directed clips for Oasis, Duran Duran,
Alanis Morissette, PM Dawn, and Sonic Youth. He has also worked with INXS
in the past on such projects as art direction and design on "X" and "Kick".
The second
single from Elegantly Wasted, "Everything," has been released in
the UK this week -- there are two CD singles. Get out there and buy them!
May 27,
1997:
MTV just
concluded its countdown of the Top 500 videos. Six INXS videos made the
chart: Need You Tonight/Mediate (29), New Sensation (150), Devil Inside
(184), What You Need (225), Never Tear Us Apart (241), and The One Thing
(333). For those of you curious, Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit was
#1.
An INXS webcast
from South Africa will be held tomorrow at 2pm South African time (7am
EST for those in the US, 12noon GMT for those in the UK). See the main
page for more information.
May 23,
1997:
The Rockpalast
Open Air concert can be viewed on German television "West3" on June 21th
11.55 pm (23.55) MEZ featuring Simple Minds, INXS, Midnight Oil, Sheryl
Crow, etc.
INXS will
appear on VH-1's "Hard Rock Live" series on June 8 at 8pm EST. Also appearing
on the hour program will be the Verve Pipe.
May 21,
1997:
Michael,
Andrew, and Kirk appeared on Radio 1 in the UK yesterday, and played acoustic
versions of Never Tear Us Apart and I'm Just A Man. They also talked about
how they would be catching up on some cricket when Australia comes to
the UK with the Ashes Cricket tour. It is on at the same time as the INXS
tour.
May 20,
1997:
"Don't Lose
Your Head" will be included on the soundtrack to the film Face/Off, which
stars John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, and will be released June 27. This
is the only song other than the instrumental music score to be selected
for the John Woo-directed film's soundtrack; it will be tied into the
film's promotional MTV and radio commercials. "Don't Lose Your Head" is
from the band's recent Mercury Records album Elegantly Wasted, which was
released on April 15. INXS is set to shoot the video for "Don't Lose Your
Head" in London, after recently completing work on the video for their
second Elegantly Wasted single, "Everything," which was shot April 26
in Los Angeles. The upcoming "Don't Lose Your Head" video will incorporate
film footage of Face/Off along with images of the band.
May 19,
1997:
Congratulations
to INXS for hitting #1 in South Africa this week with Elegantly Wasted!
The band will launch its world tour in the country in under two weeks...
May 16,
1997:
INXS will
perform live tomorrow night on the National Lottery Show in London. They
are also supposed to be appearing on TFI Friday again, as well as the
Jools Holland Show, in the near future.
The video
for Elegantly Wasted has climbed to #3 on Canada's MuchMusic! To
request the song, email rsvp@muchmusic.com (the more requests, the higher
it will chart). Congrats to the band on hitting the Top 3!
May 15,
1997:
The album
sold 13,442 units this week according to SoundScan, dropping the album
to #94 on the Billboard Album charts. Total sales to date are now 72,277
units, compared to 57,191 copies sold for "Full Moon, Dirty Hearts" after
four weeks. If you haven't yet bought the album, let's get going guys!
May 13,
1997:
More on the
video for Everything from another source:
Worked on
the new vid for "Everything" at Ren-Mar Studios in Hollywood. It was shot
in one day, and the band was only on the set for abour 6 hours. They were
great guys to work with and real appreciative of the extras that showed
up for the shoot. The video will look great once it is edited as it will
appear that the band is playing and the crowd is moving around them, due
to the fact that the stage was rotating.
May 11,
1997:
Elegantly
Wasted continues to perform very well around the world. In South Africa,
where the band will kick off its world tour in two weeks, the single has
jumped to the #2 position in the country, up four places. Odds are very
very good that the single will next week take #1! Also, on the Canadian
video charts, the single is up to #5 on MuchMusic.
For those
wondering about the Everything singles, CD1 will contain Everything
(LP Version), Everything (Basement Jacks Remix), Girl On Fire (Dirty Beatnick
Mix), and Let It Ride. This final track is currently only available on
the Japanese version of the album. CD2 will be Everything (Live) backed
by three other live tracks. The singles will be released May 19 in the
UK.
May 9,
1997:
The director
for the forthcoming video to Everything is Paul Boyd, who has previously
directed clips for Seal ("Prayer For The Dying"), Lenny Kravitz ("Stand
By Your Woman"), Satchel ("Mr Pink"), Chris Whitley ("God My Heart Is
Ready Now"), and many many others. The video will premiere in the UK on
May 10, and the standard two singles will be released in the UK on May
19.
Audionet
will be broadcasting INXS' recent show in LA at the Mayan Theatre this
Saturday, May 10 at 8:30 CST via RealAudio.
May 7,
1997:
Chart news
-- The album slipped to #79 (from #67) on this week's Billboard charts
with sales of 15,530. Total sales after three weeks are now 58,835 copies.
(In comparison, Full Moon had sold 47,142 after three weeks.) On other
charts, Elegantly Wasted moved down to #33 on the Australian album
charts from #16 last week, and the album is currently #41 in the Czech
Republic.
As there
hasn't been much "hard" news of late, I thought I would post a little
report on the video shoot for the second single, Everything (the
author has requested anonymity):
Band: live
performance, no "scenarios" that i know of
Set: built a circular "amphitheater" rising about 15 rows high, wooden
bleachers style.
Band in a pared down set-up on small center "stage", which rotated as
they shot the video.
Half the shots had three cameras on the rotating stage, then mid-way thru
the shoot, they moved two cameras up to the top rows (stationary) and
shot down thru the crowd; also, the third camera was moved onto a crane
overhead.
The director picked 50+ extras to feature; they stood at the top row,
walked down into the lower rows, and sat in informal groups. after that
was laid down, he brought in the rest of the extras (total=200+). The
featured extras stayed in place; Group 2 circled the top row, walked down
on cue, and sat among the featured extras, filling in the rows as we moved
in.
The main action, besides the band playing and folks moving in, is that
the extras (all) become a chorus...repeating key words from "Everything"
after Michael sings...Faith, trust, pray, alone, etc....and also singing
the chorus, clapping etc. I think the music will fade out and end with
the audience singing quite loudly.
The band left for a period of time, and all the extras sang without the
band in order to catch the live sound of the extras. They started shooting
without playback sound, but there were some tempo problems. Kirk came
back in, and sat on the stage, coaching us for the tempo. Then the cameras
were moved, and the band came back in.
All throughout, in between takes, folks came down from the benches and
brought various items for signing, which the band was happy to oblige...
I saw them signing dollar bills, t-shirts, ticket stubs, even a few albums.
The guys were very friendly, and posed for pictures throughout the day
as well.
All in all: My take on it, even without seeing any of the footage... It
will be an excellent video. Something much closer to "Guns in the Sky",
with the twist being the audience participating, interacting, welcoming
the band back with their new album. Potential is excellent for heavy video
rotation, IMHO ;)
May 5,
1997:
INXS appeared
on the French television show "Taratata" on May 1 (the program was taped
in early March). In addition to playing some tracks from the new album,
the band performed a cover of T. Rex's famous "Get It On."
Current chart
action -- the single for Elegantly Wasted is currently #11 in Japan
and #36 in Switzerland. The video is up to #6 on Much Music, and has dropped
to #3 on MTV Latino.
The Scottish
band Gun release their new album 014163263626 today in the UK.
The first single, "Crazy You," was released on April 14. Andrew co-wrote
and produced the album.
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