Tenacious D heavy-hitter Jack Black and vampire-slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar will host the 2002 MTV Movie Awards, which are set to be doled out on June 1 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. The show, which again boasts categories such as Best Kiss, Best Villain and Best Fight, will be broadcast June 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. ... Ashanti is keeping busy. She started shooting the video for her second single, "Happy," in New York City on Wednesday, and on Friday (May 3), she'll receive the keys to her home city of Glen Cove, New York, from Mayor Mary Ann Holzkamp. ...

It's more than two months away, and already Filter's new album, The Amalgamut, has just about spanned the gamut of mid-summer release dates. Originally expected to be released in early July, the group's third album was officially set for August 6, then July 23, and now carries a release date of July 30. ... Ed Harcourt is packing up his toybox and heading out on his second North American tour to support his debut LP, Here Be Monsters. The multi-instrumentalist crooner begins the two-week jaunt May 7 in San Francisco and wraps it up May 21 in Boston. ... Maya and Last Train to Lhasa, the first albums by global ambient figurehead Banco De Gaia (a.k.a.Toby Marks), will be reissued on May 14, and a two-CD retrospective, tentatively titled 10 Years, is in the works for September. ...

05.01.02

The 2002 MTV Video Music Awards will once again pitch its tent in New York City. The 2002 VMAs will be broadcast live from Radio City Music Hall on August 29. ... Cher's final tour will begin June 14 and hit 50 North American cities before ending September 15 in Minneapolis. The Living Proof - The Farewell Tour will promote Cher's latest album, Living Proof. ...

Industrial rock purists KMFDM will hit the road for the first time in five years to promote their just-released 11th album, Attak. Pig will open on the outing, which kicks off May 31 in Seattle and returns there for the tour wrap-up July 3. ... Meanwhile, KMFDM frontman Sascha Konietzko has been in the studio remixing singles for Kittie and the Kidney Thieves. ...

Mike Patton, of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas and Tomahawk fame, contributes vocals on the upcoming EP from New Jersey metal band the Dillinger Escape Plan. The record, Irony Is a Dead Scene, is due August 13. ... Mancunian ethereal slow rockers Doves and Elbow will begin a U.S. tour in Seattle on June 3, the day before Doves' second disc, The Last Broadcast, hits shelves. The 11-date tour runs through June 20 in New York ...

• Tenacious D
• Ashanti
• Filter
• Ed Harcourt
• Maya

Sonicnet Music News

The roots of Banco De Gaia's ethno-techno fusion sound extend back to the British space-rock band Hawkwind.

"I saw them on television in 1971," said Toby Marks, the man behind Banco De Gaia, whose sixth album, "Igizeh," has just been released. "I thought they were really weird, and decided being a musician was a lot more interesting than being an accountant."

While Marks finally shared a stage with his early heroes in 1997, their spacey influence has been evident throughout his recording career. Emerging from England's rave/techno scene, Marks, 36, like fellow global explorers Transglobal Underground and Loop Guru, has always incorporated world-music samples into his sound, alongside the beats and ambient textures.

His inner prog-rocker still emerges at times. The Pink Floyd-sounding "Fake It Till You Make It", Marks insisted, "was a bit of fun for myself. I wanted to do something retro and take it to an extreme."

Extremes appeal to Marks. For "Gizeh", he recorded in Egypt's Great Pyramid. He'd first been "blown away" by the structure 10 years before. But this time, he admitted, "it wasn't as big a deal as I expected." The air conditioning added to the structure as a conservation measure caused constant rumbling, so while the acoustics are still stunning, "it's lost a lot of power."

Marks, who began his musical life as a guitarist in rock and folk bands, has always used Middle Eastern musical samples on his albums. "Igizeh" adds a pervasive Indian influence, with sitars and tablas poking through the mix. Although Marks feared including Indian music would be "too obvious," he explained that it was simply the material he had on hand.

Marks has also included vocals for the first time on a reworked version of "Glove Puppet" that first appeared in instrumental form on his last disc, "The Magical Sounds Of Banco De Gaia."

"Originally it was a song," Marks explained. "I tried a couple of singers, and it wasn't quite right, so I stuck a short instrumental version on my last album. But I wanted to hear it done properly, and I found the right person."

That person was Jennifer Folker, who sings with the Portland band Dahlia. Folker also adds her voice to another track, "Obsidian."

With "Igizeh" complete, Marks isn't sure where he'll go next. One possibility is a stripped-down record consisting of "lots and beats and one synth." But, he said, laughing, "I can never write like that because I keep adding more and more, and it just ends up sounding like Banco De Gaia. Again."

• Banco de Gaia