Search Results for: beck

London – A British judge has rejected a bid by American nu-metal band Linkin Park to trademark its name for use on posters, leaving shopkeepers free to sell unofficial posters of music and show business personalities. In a landmark judgment that means the band cannot sue suppliers of unauthorized posters, Judge Richard Arnold said on Tuesday that unlike merchandise such as CDs and books, a famous name appearing on a poster was purely descriptive. “Third parties are, of course, entitled to take and exploit pictures of celebrities – the copyright in a picture of Linkin Park belongs to the creator… Read more »

The hit series The O.C. is becoming known as a hotbed for indie music promotion. Appearances on the show by bands such as The Killers and Modest Mouse have led to increased sales in a genre the industry has pretty much left for dead. Now the show’s expert soundtrackers have put together a new installment of their successful compilation series. This new CD will be the fourth from the show – the previous three all came out last year. The O.C.: Mix 4 is set to come out on April 5. The new comp’s biggest score may be “Scarecrow” by… Read more »

Gertrude Walton of Fayette County hated computers, her daughter said. That did not stop the recording industry from accusing the now deceased 83-year-old Mount Hope woman of illegally trading music over the Internet. More than a month after Walton was buried in Beckley, a group of record companies named her as the only defendant in a federal lawsuit. They claimed Walton made more than 700 pop, rock and rap songs available for free on the Internet under the screen name “smittenedkitten.” On Thursday, a spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten… Read more »

Multiplatinum acts Jay-Z and Linkin Park are the latest to merge musical forces in a legally sanctioned mash-up. With the help of MTV, the two acts have taken the concept – which intertwines two songs, often placing the vocals of one track atop an instrumental section of another track – one step further. Instead of simply doing a mash-up remix of one track, as other artists have done, Jay-Z and Linkin Park have created an entire CD/DVD project based on the mash-up concept. The result, “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups Presents Jay-Z/Linkin Park: Collision Course,” arrived Nov. 30 from Warner Bros. The… Read more »

Milwaukee – Guitar legend Les Paul can use only his left thumb and pinkie to perform at his weekly nightclub gigs in New York. The 89-year-old takes no medication for his painful arthritis and permanent injuries from a car accident 56 years ago, because it exacerbates his ulcers. But twice every Monday night, the renowned musician also known for his innovations on the solid-body electric guitar and multitrack recording gets on stage with his trio at the Iridium Jazz Club. “It’s quite a challenge but I enjoy it,” the Waukesha, Wis., native said in a recent phone interview from his… Read more »

Miami – WHO: Multi-platinum superstar hip-hop artist/producer Missy Elliott WHAT: After 33 days and 26 cities in 10 states on the road, The Hip-Hop Team Vote GOTV Bus Tour, a national joint effort by HSAN and America Coming Together (ACT) to increase youth voter turnout in the presidential election, tomorrow November 2nd, the southern Bus will pick up youth from all over the Miami area and take them to the polls. Missy Elliott will get on the Hip-Hop Team Vote GOTV Bus and drive with some of the kids to a polling place where she will encourage young people to… Read more »

Saturday marks the second anniversary of the death of Jam Master Jay. As his family members have pressed on, they continue to keep their loved one’s name alive. A small gathering is planned in the Hollis neighborhood of Queens, New York, on Saturday (October 30), and in January they want to put on a benefit concert to celebrate what would have been the Run-DMC DJ’s 40th birthday. “Basically, we are doing fine,” Jay’s mother, Connie Mizell, said on Monday in New York. “We thank God we are doing as well as we are. I’d be remiss if I didn’t say… Read more »

“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 »

Beyonce Knowles may be “Crazy in Love,” but she kept her cool Sunday at one of the more sober Grammy Awards shows in memory. She was the night’s big winner, taking home a record-tying five trophies to join recent Grammy queens Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Norah Jones with the most wins in a single year by a female performer. OutKast’s Speakerboxxx/The Love Below won Album of the Year, giving the eccentric Atlanta funk/rap group three wins, including Best Urban Alternative Performance and Best Rap Album. British band Coldplay took home the prize for Record of the Year for “Clocks,”… Read more »

Works by Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and George Harrison are among the major catalog titles slated to be released in the first quarter of 2004. On Feb. 24, Universal Music Enterprises (UME) will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the British Invasion with a multi-disc set on the Hip-O label. UME will also begin a year-long, multi-title campaign feting rock’n’roll’s birth. Rhino delivers “Black Box: The Complete Original Black Sabbath,” an eight-CD set collecting each album issued by the band’s original lineup (plus a bonus DVD) in March. On March 9, Sony catalog division Legacy will honor metal gods Judas Priest… Read more »