SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK – Apple Inc has acquired digital music service Lala, as the dominant online music retailer explores new models for selling songs.
On an appropriately cold and rainy Friday night in the Minneapolis warehouse district, the Despair Faction, AFI’s fan militia, was working itself up, chanting the intro to Black Sails in the Sunset (”Through/Our bleeding!/We/Are one!”) and throwing up martial fist pumps. The all-ages crowd had already been primed by opening act Gallows, whose lanky, ginger vocalist, Frank Carter, spent half his time singing from the middle of the pit and the rest on stage, gobbing loogies with impressive trajectories. The Faction had just spent three years waiting for AFI to break their hiatus with a new album, Crash Love, and… Read more »
Rock legend Jimi Hendrix’s first recording contract worth $1 and erotic multimedia tapes sent by Madonna to her old bodyguard went on sale in an online auction Monday. The more than 450 items featured in the rock ‘n’ roll and pop art auction on www.gottahaverockandroll.com included personal effects from John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Eminem. The auction will run through August 5th. Hendrix’s earliest known contract for $1, dated October 15th, 1965, could fetch up to $250,000, auctioneers said. It was signed by Hendrix and PPX Enterprises of New York for Hendrix to… Read more »
US Royalty
Sting has confirmed plans to return this fall with a new solo album titled If On a Winter’s Night… The October 27th album, inspired by what Sting calls his favorite season, will feature two original compositions along with carols, lullabies and traditional songs from the British Isles. “The theme of winter is rich in inspiration and material,” Sting said. “By filtering all of these disparate styles into one album I hope we have created something refreshing and new.” The two Sting songs on the disc are called “Lullaby for an Anxious Child” and “The Hounds of Winter,” and both have… Read more »
After reuniting for its first show in more than four years, Blink-182 has announced its summer tour dates. The band’s official return comes when they play the The Late Show With Jay Leno on Tuesday, May 21st. Blink will be joined by Fall Out Boy on the road for two-thirds of their reunion jaunt, with Weezer picking up the remaining dates. Last Thursday evening, Blink-182 closed out their set with 2003’s “The Feeling” and Dude Ranch’s “Dammit.” Bassist Mark Hoppus was overjoyed following the performance, a hugely significant event for the band whose members had spent the last four years… Read more »
If it hadn’t been for drummer Travis Barker’s near-fatal airplane crash last year, Blink-182 might not be touring this summer. But after a five-year hiatus, the rock trio — Barker, Mark Hoppus and Tom DeLonge — will embark on a nearly 50-date North American arena and amphitheater tour, beginning July 24th at the Joint in Las Vegas and wrapping October 3rd at the Borgata Events Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The trek will feature support on various dates from Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, Asher Roth and Chester French. “My goal… Read more »
MIAMI — The little girls who made the New Kids on the Block a boy band sensation in the late 1980s and early 1990s are all grown up, and now they’ve got disposable income. So what better way to show their love for Jordan, Jonathan, Joey, Donnie and Danny than spending three days with them on a Caribbean cruise? About 2,100 women, most in their 20s and 30s, paid more $1,000 each for a sold-out, three-day Carnival Cruise Lines trip that left Miami for the Bahamas on Friday. The voyage kicks off the band’s summer concert tour, when they’ll dust… Read more »
Well, it’s official. More than a month after rumors of a Blink-182/Weezer tour started circulating, and less than a week after the All-American Rejects hinted they’d be joining the bill, we’ve finally gotten to the bottom of what’s sure to be one of the biggest rock tours of the summer. As first reported in Rolling Stone (then subsequently posted on Blink bassist/singer Mark Hoppus’ blog and confirmed by the band’s label, Interscope), Blink and Weezer will be touring together this summer, and they’re taking Fall Out Boy with them. The tour kicks off July 24 and will run until October,… Read more »
For Taking Back Sunday, New Again is more than an album title, it’s a declaration. “We kicked around a bunch of different titles, but that one always remained the top of the list, and that’s because it really does feel like a new band,” vocalist Adam Lazzara said. Taking Back Sunday is not turning their collective back on what is already a storied past. The rejuvenated group is looking clearly to the here and now. “Leading up to this record we took the biggest break that we’ve taken since we started touring just to kind of learn how to be… Read more »
