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  1. ARTIST: Blues Traveler
  2. TITLE: North Hollywood Shootout
  3. LABEL: Verve
  4. GENRE: Rock
  5. BITRATE: 190kbps avg
  6. PLAYTIME: 0h 42m total
  7. RELEASE DATE: 2008-08-26
  8. RIP DATE: 2008-08-06
  9.  
  10. Track List
  11. ----------
  12. 1.  Forever Owed                     4:43
  13. 2.  You, Me and Everything           4:21
  14. 3.  Love Does                        3:31
  15. 4.  Borrowed Time                    3:38
  16. 5.  The Beacons                      3:14
  17. 6.  Orange in the Sun                3:53
  18. 7.  What Remains                     4:48
  19. 8.  How You Remember It              4:06
  20. 9.  The Queen of Sarajevo            4:00
  21. 10. Free Willis, Ruminations from    5:51
  22.     Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop
  23.  
  24. Release Notes:
  25.  
  26. It's not every band that's still staking out new musical territory and embracing
  27. fresh challenges more than 20 years into their career, but that's the case with
  28. Blues Traveler. Having long ago graduated from the jam-band underground to
  29. mainstream stardom, the iconoclastic combo has consistently stuck to its guns
  30. and played by its own rules.
  31.  
  32. For their new release (and Verve Forecast debut) North Hollywood Shootout, the
  33. quintet ventured out of their creative comfort zone to explore some adventurous
  34. new horizons. The resulting album is a landmark in Blues Traveler's large and
  35. widely loved body of work, demonstrating the enduring strengths of the band's
  36. songwriting while capturing the spontaneous spirit of their legendary live
  37. shows.
  38.  
  39. The aforementioned body of work encompasses eight studio albums and four live
  40. discs, six of them certified Gold or Platinum, with combined worldwide sales of
  41. more than ten million units. The band's best-known single, "Run-Around," was the
  42. longest-charting radio single in Billboard history. Along the way, the band has
  43. played more than 2000 live shows in front of more than three million people.
  44.  
  45. "We're still trying to reconcile the different things we do, and cultivate what
  46. we're individually good at into something that's bigger than the sum of its
  47. parts," notes frontman and harmonica-slinger John Popper. "When we're all
  48. playing and it's working, it becomes this separate entity, and that's still the
  49. thing that we're chasing."
  50.  
  51. North Hollywood Shootout -- produced by Grammy-winner David Bianco, whose
  52. diverse resume includes work with the likes of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
  53. Ozzy Osbourne, Mick Jagger and Teenage Fanclub -- makes a strong case for Blues
  54. Traveler's timelessly vital writing and performing abilities. Such memorable
  55. tunes as the uplifting road-trip anthem "You, Me and Everything," the playfully
  56. romantic "Love Does" and the elegant, evocative "Orange in the Sun" boast
  57. infectious melodic hooks while showcasing the interactive instrumental chemistry
  58. that originally endeared the band to its rabidly devoted fan base.
  59.  
  60. The new material also makes a strong case for the introspective side that's
  61. always been a key element of lyricist Popper's persona. The heart-tugging lyrics
  62. of the opening track "Forever Owed" were inspired by the singer's recent USO
  63. trip to Afghanistan and Iraq, while the poignant "Borrowed Time" is a
  64. bittersweet meditation on mortality and transience, inspired both by the recent
  65. passing of bandmates Chan and Tad Kinchla's father, and by Popper's feelings for
  66. his beloved and aging dog. The album's biggest sonic curveball is its closing
  67. track, "Free Willis, Ruminations from Behind Uncle Bob's Machine Shop." The
  68. six-minute spoken-word sound collage finds the band jamming over an insistent
  69. drumbeat, while actor Bruce Willis, a longtime fan and friend, delivers a
  70. colorful freeform monologue/rant.
  71.  
  72. "Free Willis" is a particularly aggressive embodiment of the creative risks that
  73. the ever-restless quintet took in writing and recording North Hollywood
  74. Shootout. Rather than fall back on established routines, the musicians
  75. challenged themselves by adopting some new working methods.
  76.  
  77. As guitarist Chan Kinchla explains, "On the last few records, we concentrated so
  78. much on the craft of the songwriting and arrangements that we started losing
  79. some of the live spontaneity that the five of us created on stage. So on this
  80. album, instead of doing the usual pre-production process, where we really worked
  81. out the songs before taking them into the studio, we decided to go straight into
  82. the studio and do the songwriting there. We recorded all the parts as we were
  83. working them out, and then build the songs from there. We'd find a cool little
  84. pocket and jam on it, or there'd be a drumbeat or a guitar part that was really
  85. happening, and we'd take the best part of that and use it as the foundation of
  86. the song."
  87.  
  88. "That was a completely new way of working for us," Kinchla asserts, "but it