Taking Lilith’s Spontaneity to TV, Men Included

One of the creators of the Lilith Fair tour is taking some of that acclaimed and successful venture’s musical ideals to another venue.

And this time, guys are invited.

Concert booking agent Marty Diamond--who teamed with Sarah McLachlan and her manager, Terry McBride, to put the woman-oriented Lilith on the road--has just begun shopping a proposal for a TV show and associated tour that would bring pop musicians from different genres and generations together for spontaneous collaborations.

With the working title “The Living Room,” the project is seen by Diamond as a monthly TV show (probably on a cable outlet) complemented by four brief tours each year taking the concept around the country and an aggressive Internet presence of spinoff programming and events. Personable English singer Beth Orton, who crosses genres from folk to techno and is a Lilith veteran, has expressed interest in acting as host for the shows.

“On Lilith Fair, one of the most exciting things was when Sarah would come out and join someone like Sheryl Crow,” Diamond says. “That happened all the time on that tour. But for the most part, you never see anyone noodling with anyone anymore.”

A lack of such spontaneous interaction has been a major disappointment in such tours as Lollapalooza and H.O.R.D.E., and on such TV shows as PBS’ “Sessions at West 54th” and VH1’s “Storytellers”--which would seem to be the perfect environments for the kind of collaboration. One reason cited by organizers of those projects is that many record companies, artists and managers are totally focused on promoting their own records via these shows and see collaborative spontaneity as a distraction from their primary agendas.

With “The Living Room,” Diamond would give them no choice. In his proposal, he’s suggested sample lineups to illustrate the possibilities. One has Orton with Seattle rock singer Chris Cornell, jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis, gruff poet-musician Tom Waits and the eclectic Beck. A second has electronic guru William Orbit, former Grateful Dead drummer and world music booster Mickey Hart and hip-hop hero Wyclef Jean all joining McLachlan.

“The way I see it, there would be no real rehearsal--they’d meet an hour before the show, and then they’d just go,” says Diamond. “Part of my reason for having a host is to keep everybody up, and Beth is cheeky enough but not going to be dominant ego-wise. And she already plays well with Beck, plays well with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers, yet is perceived as a folkie.”

Can it work? Ron Stone, manager of Bonnie Raitt, Tracy Chapman and others, believes it can. He saw the same spirit drive last year’s tour in which Raitt, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby and Shawn Colvin shared a stage.

And, in fact, he says that Raitt--also a Lilith alumna--is shopping an idea of her own for a TV show with a related approach. Called “Gambit,” it is being designed to put performers such as Raitt and Sting in collaborative settings with musicians from other cultures and traditions to write and perform new songs, with the whole process documented on film.

“These are fantastic ideas,” says Stone of both proposals. “On Lilith, Bonnie played with almost everyone on the show. You couldn’t keep her off stage. That’s what she thought she was there for.”

MODEST GOALS: A No. 118 pop chart debut with first-week sales of about 11,000 is nothing compared to ‘N Sync’s recent 2.4 million sales launch. But they celebrated wildly around the Oakland offices of Hieroglyphics.com and its Hiero Imperium record label when “Both Sides of the Brain,” the first new album from rapper Del the Funky Homosapien in seven years, got those numbers recently.

As relatively small as those sales are, they come as validation for the company, which was started five years ago by producer-manager Domino and several acts he was working with who had found themselves dropped by major labels--including Del, who had two critically praised albums on Elektra in the early ‘90s.

“We’re in a position now where people can see we’re more or less a viable label, not just some groups that put out their own records,” says Domino, 29, president of the enterprise. “Any time you get on the pop charts, people see you have at least some idea of what to do.”

With Del--an Oakland rapper known for a playful approach--going on tour with the group Blackalicious, Domino sees strong enough word of mouth to boost sales beyond the 100,000 mark, which for his company would be a profitable success.

Hiero has several projects in the works that stand to further elevate its presence, including an album by Casual currently being recorded with producer Dante Ross, who made a huge crossover mark collaborating with Everlast. And a “Hieroglyphics Meets the World” compilation is on the boards, with tracks being recorded by Del and other artists with such friends as the Pharcyde, De La Soul and Sadat X.

“Our main thing is being in direct contact with the fan base,” says Domino of the company’s early Web presence. “We like to release some music only through the Internet, and we’re lucky that a high percentage of our fan base is Internet-savvy.”

COLOR COMMENTARY: Using a brand name in a song lyric can sometimes bring a threat of a copyright infringement lawsuit. When Stephin Merritt, in his guise as the “group” Magnetic Fields, sang “You make me blue, Pantone 292,” in one selection on his “69 Love Songs,” released in a three-CD set last year, he got a different kind of approach from Pantone, a New Jersey company that devises color systems for graphic design.

Rather than a lawsuit, Merritt received an offer to design and name a color himself, putting him in such unlikely company on a panel of “color gurus” as internationally acclaimed architect I.M. Pei, fashion designer Randolph Duke, noted graphic artist Milton Glaser and various other design professionals. Merritt’s color, by the way, is not a blue, but rather a shade he has named “Carolyn Eve Green”--officially Pantone 7498.