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The largest North American power blackout in history plunged more than 50 million people into darkness in a 9,600-square-mile swath from the East Coast to the Midwest and Southern Canada on Thursday, affecting everything from subways in New York to the water supply in Cleveland. The outage also cut the power to a number of summer tours, knocking Bob Dylan and Tori Amos offline and sending many other bands scurrying for backup plans and places to crash for the night. An eagerly awaited hometown reunion of punk pioneers the Stooges, scheduled to play their first Detroit show in more than… Read more »

Long an artist’s sanctuary, the commercial recording studio is becoming a virtual fortress, guarding against the potentially devastating consequences of theft. The thieves’ targets are the rough mixes, outtakes, alternative takes and finished masters that traditionally have been loosely handled, even by the artists themselves. Leaks of this material are nothing new, but the advent of unauthorized file sharing on the Internet has greatly increased the consequences of this phenomenon. Recent albums by Eminem, 50 Cent, Korn and Radiohead were all available online prior to release, because unauthorized copies were leaked to unknown parties. In such cases, marketing strategies are… Read more »

Ticket sales are down, and big tours are scaling back to smaller venues. It looks to be a long, hot summer for the touring industry. On the cusp of the industry’s peak period, a number of high-profile tours and festivals have already hit snags, among them highly touted outings from Mariah Carey, the Field Day Music Festival, Lollapalooza, and Beck and Dashboard Confessional. Faced with a crowded tour market combined with high ticket prices, permit hassles, a sluggish economy and poor buzz, these tours and a handful of others have either had to scale back the size of the venues… Read more »

When someone who’s worked on some of the greatest guitar albums of all time, Kiss’ Destroyer and Alice Cooper’s School’s Out among them, calls you a “virtuoso playing at the top of his game,” you can be pretty sure it’s sincere. And that’s exactly what legendary producer Bob Ezrin said of Wes Borland when he first heard the ex-Limp Bizkit guitarist’s new band, Eat the Day. “They played me some stuff which struck me as being not only innovative, but also reminiscent of some of the more adventurous guitar work that had been done in the past by people like… Read more »

Proving that no one does Metallica better than Metallica, acts such as Sum 41, Limp Bizkit, Korn and Avril Lavigne gamely covered songs by the hard rock group at MTV’s annual tribute concert on Saturday while fans impatiently awaited a set by the honorees themselves. Playing in public for the first time with new bassist Rob Trujillo, Metallica ran through a fast and furious medley of songs, including “Creeping Death” and “Sanitarium,” before unveiling the speed-metal song “Frantic” from their upcoming album, “St. Anger.” Still a little rusty from a long layoff, Metallica performed “Frantic” twice after deciding that the… Read more »

Avril Lavigne, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Sum 41 are the first batch of those slated to pay tribute to Metallica in “mtvICON: Metallica,” the third installment in MTV’s annual series. The artists will perform Metallica covers before an audience on May 3 in Los Angeles for the taped 90-minute special, which will air May 6 at 9 p.m. ET/PT, according to a network spokesperson. Metallica – singer James Hetfield, drummer Lars Ulrich, guitarist Kirk Hammett and new bassist Robert Trujillo – will cap off the concert with a performance themselves. Additional performers and artists who will give testimony to the… Read more »

Blink 182, Green Day, and Filter are among the artists featured on an upcoming album saluting Fender musical instruments. The Players: Powered By Fender comes out April 22nd, and it also includes songs played on Fender instruments by Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, Remy Zero, the Goo Goo Dolls, Smash Mouth, Third Eye Blind, the Gin Blossoms, Sugar Ray, Collective Soul, Eric Clapton, Aerosmith, and the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band. The full tracklisting for The Players: Powered By Fender includes: Sheryl Crow, “Steve McQueen”; Eric Clapton, “Superman Inside”; Aerosmith, “Just Push Play”; Alanis Morissette, “Surrendering”; Blink 182, “All The Small Things”;… Read more »

The annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony featured the spirit of 1970s British punk, some anti-war sentiments and probably the loudest noise ever heard at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. In what’s often the case at the glittery ceremony, the honor also brought together a long-estranged group, in this case the Police. The British trio played publicly Monday for the first time in 18 years, singing the reggae-tinged “Roxanne,” the obsessive hit, “Every Breath You Take” and “Message in a Bottle.” “I’d like to make it very clear that there is absolutely no ego in our band whatsoever,”… Read more »

Classic acts such as Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Cher lured more people to concerts in 2002 and helped the industry make a record $2.1 billion in ticket sales, according to figures released Friday. This was the fourth straight year concert receipts reached record levels in America. There were $1.75 billion in sales in 2001, according to trade publication Pollstar, which tracks the concert industry. In 2001, ticket costs rose and sales declined, Pollstar said. Last year, increased ticket sales helped push concert receipts higher. “We had some very big marquee names out on tour this year,” said Pollstar’s… Read more »

‘NSYNC and Britney Spears took a distant back seat to dinosaur rockers Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and Cher this year when it came to concert ticket sales. As alarming as that might seem to Timberlake groupies, it probably has a lot more to do with the limited number of shows the young stars played than with any sort of pop backlash or classic rock revolution. Touring for the first time in almost a decade, McCartney netted $126.1 million, according to data from Billboard Boxscores. The former Beatle landed $98.8 million from U.S. shows and an additional $27.5 million from… Read more »