Search Results for: coachella

You can’t get the question right. You’re fumbling for the right words but all you can hear are the lyrics to “Age of Consent” over and over and over again in your brain… It’s almost too easy to toss the word “influential” in front of a band to hype up its place in the pop-music pantheon. Few acts deserve it, and the word is so damn relative. But the culture mill spits out thousands of new bands each year and inevitably even the most wanly creative gets the “influential” stamp if it can hang in there long enough. So, then… Read more »

Hollywood – If imitation is the highest form of flattery, reinterpretation is a close second. Pharrell Williams was certainly flattered by Jamie Cullum’s rendering of “Frontin’,” a bonus track on the British jazz singer and pianist’s breakthrough album, Twentysomething. “He heard it and wanted to meet with me,” Cullum revealed recently. That meeting led to the Neptunes agreeing to work on Cullum’s next album. The odd pairing is scheduled for March, but in the meantime Cullum has been collaborating with another unlikely producer, Dan the Automator of Gorillaz and Handsome Boy Modeling School fame. “We sampled some old jazz records… Read more »

Confirming that interest in the Pixies’ music has not waned since the band’s 1993 demise, 11 of the 12 shows scheduled for the group’s impending reunion tour sold out within minutes over the weekend. At the 1,600-seat Prairieland venue in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, capacity has been doubled to accommodate additional fans. “The demand has been so great,” Prairieland events manager Carl Schlosser told Billboard.com. “We are the largest venue, so we’ll be that overflow for fans who may have been shut out in other cities.” Tickets for the 12th show on April 29 in Davis, Calif., go on sale March 1.… Read more »

Rick Van Santen, a co-president of Goldenvoice, a Los Angeles concert promotion company that ushered punk rock from the fringes of the music scene to a wide audience, died last Sunday at his home in Ventura County of flu-related complications, his Goldenvoice partner Paul Tollett said. He was 41. In the 1980s, a time when major promoters shunned punk because of its reputation as a violent subculture, Goldenvoice presented acts in large, established rooms with quality sound, such as the Hollywood Palladium and the Palace (now the Avalon). “There cannot be any L.A. band since the early ’80s that was… Read more »

Madonna put some luster back into her lust by smooching Britney. Santana gained a fresh perspective with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas. Now the bratty, lovable punks of Sum 41 could put Pop on pop radio. Rock legend Iggy Pop recruited Sum 41 for “Little Know It All,” the melodic, rambunctious first single from Skull Ring, due November 4 Iggy took a shine to Sum frontman Deryck Whibley right away when the two parties met at the recommendation of Pop’s A&R man. In addition to admiring Whibley’s talent, Iggy got a kick out of the Canadian rocker’s youthful zeal. “He’s a… Read more »

After rocking Austin’s SXSW and blowing away the crowd at last month’s Coachella Festival, Blur is all revved up to hit the States touring in support of their new album Think Tank. Just released May 6th, Rolling Stone gave Think Tank four stars citing, “The old Blur have died, but the new, more open Blur come startlingly alive,” and with “Crazy Beat” in heavy rotation on MTV2, its time to show the rest of America what the critics are raving about. 6/9 Long Island Field Day Festival 6/11 Phoenix Marquee Theatre 6/12 Las Vegas House of Blues 6/14 Los Angeles… Read more »

The Donnas have nothing on the Bens. The three members really are named Ben, and you may have heard of them: Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee. The solo singers officially became a group, or at least a side project, when they recorded four songs together in Nashville last month. “There’s some new wave on there, a piano ballad that Folds sings, a countryish song,” Kweller said Saturday backstage at Coachella. “It’s just all three of us writing songs; there’s not any one particular sound. It’s all three of us singing, big harmonies.” After the three-day studio session, the… Read more »

The White Stripes are denying reports about their imminent demise. Mojo magazine and other British publications have quoted Jack White as saying the band will release one more album and then break up. White said he “never made a statement like ‘Elephant is our last record’ or ‘The one after Elephant is the last record.’ That’s stupid. It was actually Mojo magazine misquoting us, which is surprising because they are usually on the ball. I only said that the band isn’t going to last forever, and that maybe we’d just do a couple more albums and that would be it.… Read more »

The Beastie Boys will perform April 25 at Las Vegas’ House of Blues, in a show that will serve both as a tribute to slain Run-D.M.C. DJ Jam Master Jay and a warm-up for the veteran rap trio’s headlining slot the next night at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Longtime Beasties associate DJ Hurricane will also be on the bill for the all-ages Vegas show, tickets for which are now on sale for $75 and $150. Further details regarding the benefit were unavailable at deadline. It is not known if surviving Run-D.M.C. members Joseph “Reverend… Read more »

Spending several years away from the limelight has not changed the Prodigy. It took only one broadcast of their new single and the band that sparked debate with “Smack My Bitch Up” is already stirring up controversy. “Baby’s Got a Temper,” which debuted on Britain’s Radio 1 Thursday night, was heavily edited by the station because of the track’s many references to Rohypnol, a tranquilizer that causes muscle relaxation and memory loss and is often called the “date rape drug.” The song, which the Prodigy performed at last month’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, features Keith Flint singing lyrics… Read more »