Search Results for: summer school tour

British rock band the Cure mounted a farewell tour last year to promote what it billed as its last album, and had such a blast playing for more than half a million people in North America and Europe that it now hopes to return to the road in 2002. Retirement at age 42 just never suited the Cure’s leader, singer/guitarist Robert Smith, whose gloomy songs about death and despair have transfixed fans since the Cure released its first single in 1978. “The swan song was actually me… saying the group’s going to end,” Smith told Reuters in a recent interview.… Read more »

For certain punks, there was no Bad Religion from 1996 through 2001. During that dark period, co-songwriter Brett Gurewitz split the seminal act he co-created with his pals in high school. He was disenchanted with the band’s major-label deal (at Atlantic), overwhelmed by the sudden hugeness of Epitaph – the label he founded to release Bad Religion records and eventually home to Rancid and the Offspring – and increasingly strung out on smack. The band would release two albums in his absence, both guided solely by the vision of Gurewitz’s estranged collaborator, Greg Graffin. Both records – 1996’s Gray Race… Read more »

Evan and Jaron Lowenstein are sitting in a restaurant talking about the boy-band thing – an image they say has been pinned on them by teen magazines and their promotional pairings with teen pop singers. The good-looking, clean-cut twins – known simply as Evan and Jaron – say they don’t want that kind of attention. Then two women come up to their table and interrupt to ask if they are the singing twin brothers – the ones who sing THAT song on the radio all the time. “My daughter just loves you…. She’s 12,” says one woman. Afterward, Jaron sighs.… Read more »

For the first time in almost four years, one of Australia’s most successful rock bands, INXS, is playing a few shows in North America. But the crowd at their recent Los Angeles stop consisted of about 70 Rhino Records employees and a few reporters, just two of the band’s six members were on stage, and the bespectacled singer looked nothing like Michael Hutchence, the group’s charismatic vocalist. Hutchence committed suicide in November 1997, and his bandmates are having a hard time deciding whether to carry on. In the meantime, they have released a two-CD anthology, “Shine Like It Does,” via… Read more »

To Lars Frederiksen, his band Rancid, his label-mates on Epitaph and Hell-Cat Records, and his favorite bands are all about being part of a family – a punk rock family. Fresh off a tour playing with tour with two, high-powered Hell-Cat bands, Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards and the Dropkick Murphys, Frederiksen is set for Rancid’s stint on this summer’s Vans Warped Tour and readying a new, high-tech Rancid release. There’s no time to rest for this tattooed, mohawk-sporting, family man. Rancid will join the roving punk festival on June 22nd in Phoenix along with Epitaph label-mates Pennywise, the Bouncing… Read more »

Billy Idol rang in the summer solstice Thursday night with a tight, concise and energetic show befitting one of glam-punk’s most sovereign and feisty pioneers. At 45, His Right and Honorable Rude Dude can still whip crowds into giddy submission, as the 2,000 or so nostalgists and newcomers attending his Kiss the Skull Tour at the Fillmore happily discovered. With the house lights lowered, an introduction of ambient synth washes conjured visions of deep space nebulae (or any fantasy H.R Giger might dream up), before Idol sauntered out, trademark sneer intact, for the first of a long string of chartbusters:… Read more »

Mest has just put the finishing touches on their brand new album, “DESTINATION UNKNOWN,” set for release August 14, with the album’s debut single, “Cadillac,” which features hip-hop legend Young MC, cruising into radio the first week of July. Produced by Goldfinger’s John Feldmann and recorded at his Marina Del Rey studio, “DESTINATION UNKNOWN” is the latest step in the Illinois-based band’s journey across the punk-time continuum. Comprised of singer/guitarist Tony Lovato, bassist Matt Lovato, guitarist Jeremiah Rangel, and drummer Nick Gigler, Mest drew national attention last year with their debut album WASTING TIME. The new album fulfills all the… Read more »

Columbia Records’ Crazy Town, Portrait/Columbia Records’ The Union Underground and American Recordings/Columbia Records’ American Head Charge have all signed on-board on what just might be the heaviest Ozzfest ever. Following a big British blow-out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in England on May 26, Ozzfest 2001 opens full-force stateside at the World Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Launched by the heavy metal pioneer and visionary Ozzy Osbourne, the first Ozzfest, a multi-band festival held in 1996, hit only two markets-Los Angeles and Phoenix-but paved the way for a full-on touring extravaganza the next year. Since then, the Ozzfest has become a… Read more »

Despite protests from a local organization, Marilyn Manson claims that he will indeed be performing at the Denver stop of the Ozzfest summer tour, and he promises a “wholesome Bible reading” during his performance. “I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity,” Manson wrote in a post on his official Web site. “In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear… Read more »

The Goo Goo Dolls will release What I Learned About Ego, Opinion, Art & Commerce (1987-2000), a collection of remixes, on May 29. The twenty-two songs were selected from the group’s six critically acclaimed albums, Goo Goo Dolls, Jed, Hold Me Up, Superstar Carwash, A Boy Named Goo and Dizzy Up The Girl, all recorded between 1987 and 1998. Every song has been remixed and remastered and represents the Goo Goo Dolls unique flair for combining power punk guitar-driven rock with melodic pop hooks, a reputation that has established them as one of the biggest success stories of the last… Read more »