Search Results for: east coast

Jimmy Iovine, head of the West Coast operations of Universal Music Group, has signed on for another six years, sources confirmed Thursday. Iovine, the chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, has been in contract negotiations since last year. The multimillion-dollar deal was finally signed late Wednesday night. A label spokeswoman declined comment. As part of the deal, Iovine has the option to partner with Universal for music-driven film projects revolving around his artists. That part of the deal is based on Iovine’s success as the producer of Interscope rap star Eminem’s Oscar-winning film “8 Mile.” Last year was a busy… Read more »

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 »

As Yellowcard’s 2003 Warped Tour commitment winds down (its East Coast-only stint ends Sunday (Aug. 10) in Asbury Park, N.J.), singer/guitarist Ryan Key tells Billboard.com the hardest adjustment for the band has been the repetition of travel. “It’s like ‘Groundhog Day,’ where you just kind of wake up and go outside and you are in another parking lot but next to the same bus you were yesterday,” says Key. “It is kind of like a dream that you never seem to wake up from. It’s cool.” With its Capitol Records debut, “Ocean Avenue,” having debuted this week at No. 99… Read more »

Nielsen SoundScan on Wednesday said it will start tracking digital downloads of music from commercial online services as sentiment for music on the Web brightens with successful offerings like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music store. Nielsen Soundscan, a unit of Nielsen Entertainment, which is owned by VNU NV,, provides weekly retail music sales information that serves as the basis for the popular weekly Billboard Magazine music charts. The company said that it will now be tracking downloads sold on Apple’s service, Pressplay, MusicNet, and also Listen.com and Liquid Audio. Nielsen Soundscan said it will also track data from Napster when… Read more »

Tommy Stinson, founding member and bass player for the seminal rock group The Replacements and bass player of the new Guns N’ Roses, is taking it to the people this summer with an upcoming solo tour, which will include dates in the U.K. and the U.S. On break from Guns N’ Roses until September, Stinson will perform at the Mercury Lounge in New York on July 1st en route to the U.K., where he is set to open for Artemis recording artist Jesse Malin, including July 7th in Liverpool, July 8th in Birmingham and July 9th in London. At the… Read more »

In a pop-punk field increasingly populated with interchangeable sound-alike bands, Good Charlotte has made a bid to break away from the pack with its second CD, “The Young & the Hopeless.” Lead singer Joel Madden, who along with twin brother Benj writes the group’s songs, credits Eric Valentine, the producer of “The Young & the Hopeless,” with helping to expand the group’s musical horizons. “He challenged me to write different songs than just a bunch of songs that were kind of the same thing,” Joel Madden said. “He was like, ‘Why don’t you try writing some songs that you wouldn’t… Read more »

Made Compilation has released a compilation CD of independent artists at the Skate & Surf Festival this weekend. Included on the CD are tracks from Army Of Me, Brand New Disaster, Breaking Pangaea, In Clover, Over It, Power Lloyd, Star Hide Fire, and 555, as well as an acoustic version of Day That I Die by Good Charlotte. Stop by the Made booth and pick one up. Army Of Me (armyofmeonline.com) Army of Me hails from the Washington DC area, and since the middle of 1999, have toured the east coast relentlessly. Army of Me realizes that it takes hard… Read more »

When Good Charlotte last played here in October 2002, their “Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous” was about how the other half lives and they barely filled the 1,500-capacity Rave in Milwaukee. Since then, of course, the band’s sophomore album, The Young and the Hopeless, has gone platinum, and this time through the Brew City they moved upstairs to the much larger Eagles Ballroom, where they sold out 4,000 tickets in a couple of days and packed the place for Friday’s show. They had a little help from their friends this time, too, as they were joined by New… Read more »

The first date of Nick Carter’s solo tour in support of his debut album, Now Or Never, was postponed due to the blizzard that blanketed much of the East Coast with snow on Monday (February 17). “I hope the weather hasn’t affected anyone too badly,” said Carter. “I’m really excited about getting on the road to perform for my fans.” Carter was to perform in Pittston, Pennsylvania, on Monday, but was forced to cancel the scheduled performance. The second date of Carter’s tour-scheduled for the Vanderbilt in Plainview, New York-was postponed from Tuesday (February 18) to Saturday (February 22). Opening… Read more »

Back in 1999, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich confessed to feeling “a tremendous amount of hatred toward Limp Bizkit.” Now Metallica is hitting the road with Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park for the second Summer Sanitarium tour, which will hit at least 18 U.S. markets this year, beginning July 4. All three bands will play headline-length sets. Tickets for most of the shows will be going on sale Feb. 22. Mudvayne and the Deftones will be the opening acts. “We want to play stadiums in the summer, and we need more than just Metallica to fill the seats,” Metallica singer-guitarist James… Read more »