Search Results for: System of a Down

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 »

Renee Gilinger was on Philadelphia’s South Street recently asking the youthful, jeans-and-T-shirt crowd waiting in line for a heavy-metal concert, “Are you planning to vote?” Gilinger’s outreach is part of what is shaping up to be the nation’s biggest and most expensive effort ever to get out the youth vote. “It’s crazy to ignore this constituency,” said Gilinger, Pennsylvania director for the Young Voter Alliance, a coalition of Democratic and Independent groups working to register young people in five swing-vote states, including Pennsylvania. “I got names and contact information for 40 to 50 people,” she said. “That’s 40 to 50… Read more »

A quarter century after Sony Corp. first shipped the legendary Walkman personal stereo, the electronics giant is launching a high-tech model that aims to topple Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod as today’s leading digital music player and status symbol. Sony has its work cut out: In less than three years, the simple white iPod has undergone four revisions, each time capturing more customers and acclaim with slick designs, clean interfaces and ever increasing versatility. For now, Apple has nothing to fear. Sony’s Network Walkman NW-HD1 is as clunky as its name. The gadget looks great, but it’s ruined by a bizarre… Read more »

Despite their hackneyed interchangeability, there’s a difference between a rock concert and rock show. Anyone thinking of challenging this should check out a stop on Blink-182 and No Doubt’s monthlong co-headlining trek. Even though they recorded a song called “The Rock Show,” Blink’s set Thursday night at the PNC Bank Arts Center definitely fell on the concert side of the spectrum. Bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge stood dwarfed by the vast, mostly barren stage, save for five trapezoidal video screens positioned behind them. Were it not for a shirtless, mohawked Travis Barker peering down from a massive drum… Read more »

A year after Apple Computer Inc. launched its iTunes Music Service, the online music industry is selling songs by the millions – and that may not bode well for the major record labels. Online services account for just a fraction of overall music sales, but they’re growing rapidly. And the new choices they give consumers threaten to remix the recording industry’s traditional revenue streams, pumping up the volume of singles and subscriptions and turning down album sales. Customers at three of the leading online services – iTunes, Musicmatch Inc.’s Musicmatch Downloads and RealNetworks Inc.’s Rhapsody – buy about 10 times… Read more »

This copyright showdown isn’t as clear as black and white. Today has been dubbed Grey Tuesday by the music activist group Downhill Battle, which is heading up an effort by some 200 Websites to make available the Grey Album, a controversial new remix disc by hip-hop deejay-producer Danger Mouse. In the spirit of bastard pop bootlegs or “mash-ups,” the L.A.-based Danger Mouse lifted the vocal tracks from Jay-Z’s The Black Album and dropped them over new musical tracks created by reworking the Beatles’ White Album. The resulting disc, The Grey Album, was originally distributed undergound in very limited release but… Read more »

Trademark rivalry between Apple Computers and Beatles company Apple Corps re-emerged in court today in a clash over the computer giant’s iTunes online music store. London-based Apple Corps, owned by Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison, is suing the United States computer company for allegedly breaching the terms of a 1991 peace pact signed after a long-running multi-million pound trademark war. ple Corps claims that the use of the Apple name and logo to promote music products through the iTunes facility – which enables computer users to download and save thousands of… Read more »

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know – we all want to change the world. Except for Chris Colus. He’s the drummer for a reggae-roots-rock band, freshly signed to a major record label, and he’s trying to explain that band’s name, which is O.A.R. – Of A Revolution. “There’s no political motive,” the 25-year-old Rockville, MD native insists. “This is the music we’ve wanted to play, the music we wanted to hear – that’s a revolution for ourselves and our fans.” The “Of A Revolution” name actually comes from “The Wanderer,” a short story singer-guitarist Marc Roberge wrote… Read more »

On Jan. 6, San Francisco’s Moscone convention center pulses with all the energy of a rock concert. A crowd sprinkled with hip-hop teenagers, digerati, and aging hippies streams in to hear the annual state-of-the-Mac keynote from Apple Computer Inc. Chief Executive Steven P. Jobs. Every facet of the event bears the fingerprints of the obsessive Jobs – right down to the music that fills the air. This year, it’s the King himself, Elvis Presley. Later, Jobs rolls the tape of Apple’s famous “1984” ad that ran on Super Bowl Sunday that year – and hasn’t been broadcast since. Only this… Read more »

A dispute over royalty rights on copy-protected CDs and other types of music discs is helping to stall the release of some new music technology, and could result in record labels owing tens of millions of dollars in back payments to music publishers. At issue are “double session” CDs that include two versions of each song on a disc, formatted for playback on different kinds of devices. The most widely distributed type are copy-protected discs that prevent CD tracks from being copied to a hard drive, but that also include a digital version of the songs, often in Microsoft’s Windows… Read more »