Girls Garage retools the Warped concept

The Lilith Fair tours caught a rising wave of female-made music in the ‘90s.

Kevin Lyman believes that a wave of female-made music today is being missed.

So the man who created the annual punk-rooted Warped Tour is doing something about it. He’s launching a Warped spinoff called Girls Garage, with plans to take the first edition out in October, showcasing young, hard-edged female acts.

Warped has regularly featured women, from an unknown No Doubt in the trek’s inaugural 1995 edition to the Donnas and the Distillers. Los Angeles indie band Tsunami Bomb is on the roster this year for Warped, which plays L.A. in July. But the female presence on the tours has generally been low.

“I’ve had complaints that ‘you don’t have enough girl acts on Warped,’ ” Lyman says. “But the talent wasn’t there. Now I’m seeing so many good artists, and they need to be marketed right. Radio hasn’t picked up on them.”

He says that while rock radio programmers have reacted to strong Warped showings by such male acts as Good Charlotte, they haven’t done so with the female bands.

Regardless of radio interest, initial response to the Girls Garage proposal has been enthusiastic. A letter Lyman sent last week to booking agents and band managers introducing the concept received replies of strong interest within hours of its arrival, he says. And he has already lined up a presenting sponsor, the Hurley Girl apparel line.

Marty Diamond, president of New York-based booking agency Little Big Man and a co-founder of Lilith Fair, believes Lyman is on the right track and that the Garage concept is viable.

“Girls rule,” Diamond says. “I don’t think there’s any question that this market has been underserved. Kevin has really good vision, and he’s very smart about how he builds these things.”

A key to its success, Lyman says, will be following the same formula he has used in building Warped: starting small and establishing the brand.

“Right now I’m looking at the shows being in 750- to 1,200-capacity clubs or theaters,” he says. “Everyone tried to launch things like this too big and got in trouble.

“I just want to get through Year One and make it credible.”

Something old, something new

While planning music for “The In-Laws,” the upcoming remake starring Michael Douglas and Albert Brooks as an unlikely team brought together by their children’s marriage, the film’s executive music producer, Ralph Sall, dreamed of having a new Paul McCartney song. But he also wanted the music to be from the ‘70s, an era the characters would embrace.

He managed to get both in “A Love for You,” a song McCartney wrote and recorded with Wings in sessions for the 1972 album “Ram” but never released.

“I knew of this song and thought it would be perfect,” Sall says.

It turned out they were on the same wavelength.

“When I sent a note to Paul saying I was interested in that song, it turns out his people had talked to him about the movie and he sent a note that crossed mine in the mail suggesting a song, and it was the same song!” Sall says.

Soon Sall found himself in a studio with McCartney, who finished off the rough original recording with new guitar parts and remixing.

What’s more, McCartney contributed a previously unreleased version of “Live and Let Die.”

“What a great thing for the movie and for fans of McCartney,” Sall says. “Most people wouldn’t even know these recordings existed, and even if you are a severe fan you never would think they would show up in this authorized form.”

A third McCartney song, Wings’ “I’m Carrying,” is also used, making him the anchor of the movie’s music, which also features vintage selections from the Bee Gees, Elvis Presley, Badfinger and ELO, among others.

The album will be released on May 20, introducing Sall’s Bulletproof label in a joint venture with Warner Special Marketing. The film opens May 23.

Small faces

* Method Man and Redman have been in a studio in Jamaica with Stephen and Damian Marley to record a song for “Red Star Sounds, Vol. 3: Def Jamaica,” an album pairing Def Jam artists with Jamaican performers and producers. The album, due in August, is the third from Red Star Sounds, the not-for-profit Heineken Music Initiative’s label benefiting music education programs in the U.S.

* Louisville band My Morning Jacket, the subject of much media attention, is working on its first album since signing to ATO Records, the RCA subsidiary founded by Dave Matthews and his manager Coran Capshaw. Primary recording is being done on the farm of guitarist Johnny Quaid’s grandparents, though a recent Memphis trip was made to record horns and vocal contributions by Al Green. The album is due in the summer.

* After loading its first two albums with guest performers, L.A. hip-hop act Dilated Peoples is scaling back to focus on its own group chemistry for its third album, titled “Neighborhood Watch” and due in August from Capitol Records.