Melodic punk rockers Make Do and Mend are excited to announce the band’s first European tour, which will take the band through the UK, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Italy in just two weeks, beginning January 1st.
The secret’s out: MySpace Music Secret Shows are a hit. Social networking pioneer MySpace has created its most successful music program with the intimate Secret Shows series, whose 150th installment will feature Gnarls Barkley on June 8 at Irving Plaza in New York. MySpace Music launched the Secret Shows franchise in January 2006 and has since hosted such acts as Rilo Kiley, Moby, Maroon 5, the Killers, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tenacious D, Lily Allen, Ice Cube, James Blunt and Neil Diamond in cities around the world. The concept is the brainchild of MySpace Music editor Isac Walter, who wanted… Read more »
“SIMPLE PLAN,” the long-awaited new album from Lava/Atlantic recording group Simple Plan, has made a triumphant chart debut, both here and around the world. The Montreal-based band’s third studio effort — which features the singles “When I’m Gone” and “Your Love Is A Lie” — was the Billboard 200’s highest-charting debut of the week at #14, while also placing high on a variety of additional tallies, including #3 on “Top Rock Albums,” #4 on “Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums,” and #7 on “Top Digital Albums.” In addition, the album reached the #1 spot on the iTunes Store’s “Top Pop Albums” ranking.… Read more »
Feist’s musical palette contains many emotional colors, but there’s something to be said for joy. More than anything, a playful spirit explains why this was the Canadian singer-songwriter’s breakout year – that, and a well-timed iPod commercial. She’s up for four Grammy Awards at the Feb. 10 ceremony, including best new artist. One of Feist’s videos shows her flying through the air and literally being pulled back to Earth by someone suspicious of her fun. Another depicts her dancing through fireworks in what one onlooker at the production told her “looks like what falling in love feels like.” Her clip… Read more »
What could be better after a hard day’s sightseeing? Visitors to Liverpool, birthplace of the Beatles, can rest their heads in the Lennon or McCartney suites at the Fab Four-themed Hard Days Night Hotel that opened Friday. More than 45 years after John, Paul, George and Ringo emerged from Liverpool’s tiny, sweaty clubs to conquer the world, the Beatles industry is key to this battered-but-proud city’s attempt to transform itself from fading commercial hub to thriving cultural hotbed. The 110-room Hard Days Night Hotel hopes to be its newest attraction. “It’s stunning, spectacular,” said Julia Baird, John Lennon’s half-sister, after… Read more »
Radiohead has confirmed 16 European summer concert dates for 2008, including an appearance at Denmark’s giant Roskilde Festival. The British rock band’s first confirmed concert will take place June 7 at the Malahide in Dublin. The tour, announced Wednesday on Radiohead’s official Web site, will roll on to France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium and Germany. The band will be promoting its new release, “In Rainbows,” which fans can download from the Web for a price of their own choosing. It will come out on CD early next year. Radiohead manager Bryce Edge said dates… Read more »
Former Smiths frontman Morrissey is suing music magazine NME for defamation after it printed an article in which he discussed his views on immigration in Britain. The magazine criticized the 48-year-old singer for allegedly saying Britain had lost its identity as a result of higher levels of immigration than other European countries. “We can confirm we have received two writs from Morrissey’s legal representatives pertaining to NME and its editor Conor McNicholas,” a spokesman for NME said on Friday. “NME takes this matter — and the issues it highlights — extremely seriously and we are currently in discussion with our… Read more »
Opera superstar Luciano Pavarotti, who was diagnosed with cancer last year, has been admitted to hospital in northern Italy and is in a satisfactory condition, a hospital spokesman said on Thursday. Pavarotti was hospitalized with a fever in his home town of Modena on Wednesday, the spokesman said. He is likely to be discharged in the next few days. The singer, who had surgery to remove a pancreatic tumor in July 2006, was suffering from pneumonia, a newspaper reported. The cancer surgery forced Pavarotti, regarded by many as the greatest tenor of his generation, to cancel the remaining dates of… Read more »
Avril Lavigne was the best damn thing on the charts this week. Literally. The Canadian pop-punker debuted atop the Billboard 200 for a second consecutive time as her latest, The Best Damn Thing, sold 286,000 copies for the week ended Sunday, according to newly released Nielsen SoundScan numbers. The singer previously topped the charts with 2004’s Under My Skin, which followed the number two opening for her 2002 debut, Let Go. Powered by the hit single “Girlfriend,” The Best Damn Thing sold more than 1.5 million copies worldwide, opening at number one in 11 countries, including the U.K., Japan, Germany,… Read more »
Los Angeles – Recording industry executive Andy Gershon sees opportunity in the online file-sharing networks that most of his rivals decry as havens for music pirates. As president of V2 Records, home to such established acts as The White Stripes and Moby, Gershon mines such Internet distribution channels for new fans and revenues. “The cat is so far out of the bag and so far gone that it’s pointless to keep fighting it,” Gershon said. “I might as well make as many people fans of our music, whether they illegally download it or not.” A number of mostly independent recording… Read more »
