Search Results for: french

“At the end of every show we’d grab handfuls of these stickers we made at Kinko’s with our name and website,” says Steriogram frontman Brad Carter. “We’d toss ’em to our fans from the stage, 300 or 400 stickers every night.” Carter laughs at the band’s ultra-humble approach to building fan loyalty. But it’s working. Steriogram’s homemade stickers, website and music videos, together with its enthusiastic courting of street teams and high school kids, helped launch the rock-hiphop group from obscurity in Auckland, NZ, to a major deal with Capitol Records. “Our goal was to play in America because our… Read more »

A jury Monday found in favor of Sean “P. Diddy” Combs in a lawsuit filed by a TV talk-show host who alleged he was roughed up by the hip-hop impresario’s entourage. Roger Mills said members of Combs’ entourage also stole the tape of the 1999 interview – breaking a camera in the process – after he asked Combs to comment on allegations he contributed to the death of rapper Notorious B.I.G. Mills said Combs immediately ended the interview. The rapper, whose real name was Christopher Wallace, died in a drive-by shooting in March 1997. Combs’ album “No Way Out” featured… Read more »

Beyoncé Knowles, multiplatinum sweetheart of the music award show circuit this year, was exhausted. She’d just appeared on the Vibe Awards and breathlessly arrived across town just in time to change clothes and take bows at the VH1 Awards. “Too many,” she said as she leaned against a wall backstage. Bad planning by VH1 and Vibe? Not really, there were four award shows that week including the American Music Awards and they were bound to butt heads somewhere. With television networks relentlessly reaching for younger viewers, an unprecedented 26 music award shows are now on cable and network TV. “There’s… Read more »

InteractiveCorp chief executive Barry Diller said Monday he is talking to French entertainment and telecommunications firm Vivendi Universal about the sale of his stake in Vivendi’s entertainment arm as it merges with NBC. Diller said he has had “superficial discussions” with Vivendi’s chief executive about unwinding the complicated partnership known as Vivendi Universal Entertainment. But he said the talks cannot be characterized as negotiations and that he is just as happy to keep his shares once General Electric Co.’s NBC division completes its purchase later this year. “We’re not anxious,” Diller said while speaking at a media conference in Phoenix… Read more »

After Simple Plan finish their 2004 headlining tour, the French Canadian pop punkers will hit the studio to work on their second record. And they won’t be starting from scratch. They’ve already written the skeletons for 10 to 15 new songs, not including the new track “Crash and Burn,” which was on a bonus three-song audio CD included with their recent “A Big Package for You: 1999-2003” DVD. The song, which balances an insistent punk beat and buzzing guitars with harmonized vocals, is about the difficulties of returning home after being on the road. “Being away from our families and… Read more »

Like a lot of teens, Pink worked at her share of fast-food restaurants. She wasn’t exactly a candidate for employee of the month at any of them, though. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, the singer recalled her days at a McDonald’s outside Philadelphia. “I was horrible,” said Pink, when asked what kind of worker she was. “I would open (the restaurant), because I’d be tripping on acid… and I would say, ‘Could I have bathroom duty?’ And I would sit in bathroom and watch the tiles.” But despite smoking cigarettes at the drive-thru window and doling out… Read more »

Universal Music Group said Tuesday it reached a deal to buy DreamWorks Records, the music unit of the entertainment company formed by film and music moguls Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The purchase is expected to be completed early next year, subject to regulatory approval. Universal plans to fold DreamWorks Records into its Interscope Geffen A&M label, which is run by veteran music executive Jimmy Iovine, sources said. DreamWorks Records launched in 1996 and is home to a number of established rock and country acts, such as Nelly Furtado, Papa Roach,… Read more »

Bertelsmann AG and Sony Corp. announced a preliminary plan to merge their music businesses Thursday, setting the stage for a music company that would vie for world primacy with Universal Music Group. A merger of Sony Music Entertainment and Bertelsmann’s BMG, if it comes to pass, would bring together the world’s No. 2 and No. 5 music companies as the industry struggles with losses blamed on music piracy. The new company, to be called Sony BMG, would be equally owned by Sony and Bertelsmann and run by Andrew Lack, chairman and chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment. Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, the… Read more »

Incubus have set a February 10 release date for their fifth studio album, but one of the new songs is available now. A live version of “Pistola” is featured on Live at Lollapalooza 2003, the first in a new series of sanctioned bootleg CDs available only at www.incubusbootlegs.com. All profits from the bootlegs will go toward the band’s new Make Yourself Foundation, which will disperse funds each year to charities such as the Painted Turtle and Surfrider foundations. “It’s something all of us have been musing about for the last couple of years, because we’ve all been interested in different… Read more »

Vivendi Universal and General Electric Co. have agreed to merge the French company’s Hollywood studio and other U.S. entertainment assets with GE’s television network NBC, creating a media giant with an estimated value of $43 billion. The terms of the deal announced Wednesday were largely unchanged from a preliminary agreement reached a month ago, when the two companies entered exclusive talks about a merger and sketched out broad outlines for a combined company to be called NBC Universal. The new company will include the NBC television network and its cable channels CNBC, MSNBC and Bravo and Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo. From… Read more »