Search Results for: devo

Some popular online services are using a new kind of software to divert sales commissions that would otherwise be paid to small online merchants by big sites like Amazon and eToys. Critics call the software parasite-ware and stealware. But the sites that use the software, which is made by nearly 20 companies and used by dozens, say that it is perfectly legal, because their users agree to the diversion. The amounts involved are estimated by those in the industry to have mounted into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and are likely to continue to grow – in part because… Read more »

For every Joey McIntyre and Jordan Knight, there is a D-Fuse. If you’ve never heard of the now-defunct solo venture from their fellow New Kid on the Block Danny Wood, that’s proof enough that no matter how famous your boy band is, a solo career is never guaranteed. So with ‘NSYNC’s Justin Timberlake, Backtreet Boys’ Nick Carter and 98 Degrees’ Nick Lachey all releasing albums this fall, the pop world is wondering who will be “Larger Than Life” and who will go “Bye, Bye, Bye.” We asked a few former boy band stars who’ve enjoyed solo success to lend advice… Read more »

In true punk spirit, rowdy music fans pelted the Sex Pistols with beer on Saturday as the one-time scourge of the British establishment played its first U.S. concert in six years outside Los Angeles. The hailstorm may have been meant as an homage to the band’s own anti-establishment roots, but drenched singer John Lydon was having none of it, labeling one thrower a “turd” and a “wuss,” to the delight of the 50,000-strong crowd. The Sex Pistols, who briefly ruled the music world in the late 1970s with such incendiary anthems as “God Save The Queen” and “Anarchy in the… Read more »

Sitting in an outdoor cafe for lunch the other day, Richard McDonnell mentioned he was working on just three hours of sleep. The former investment banker, who founded and runs the small, independent record label MAXJAZZ, was up nearly the entire night before in St. Louis, reading up on key buyers at record retail chains. Now he was in Washington for an afternoon meeting at the Kennedy Center, then had plans to go to Chicago the next day to see one of the singers on his roster, Carla Cook, perform at the Chicago Jazz festival. This whirlwind schedule is not… Read more »

If the Hives are the first offensive in a Swedish rock invasion, then In Flames were the early reconnaissance team, quietly spreading their supercharged melodic death metal in whatever North American clubs would take them. Reroute to Remain, In Flames’ fifth album, is their latest missive, an album that’s heavy and pummeling yet accessible enough to potentially crack the limiting ceiling of the extreme underground. And if that happens, in a way, they’ll have Slipknot to thank for it. “We met Slipknot in Italy a couple of years ago,” vocalist Anders Friden relayed from a Detroit dressing room. “We just… Read more »

A U.S. court hammered the final nail in the coffin of maverick music service Napster on Tuesday when it blocked a bid by German media group Bertelsmann AG to buy the one-time cult and now defunct Web site. Killing off a deal to revive the bankrupt service that millions of fans used to swap music over the Internet, a U.S. bankruptcy court rejected Napster’s sale to Bertelsmann after record labels and songwriters opposed the deal, saying the offer price was not fair. Faced with no financing, no revenues and no other buyers, Napster said it would most likely be forced… Read more »

Like so many one-hit wonders before it, the demise of the once iconic online song-swapping service Napster has failed to stir much sympathy. “Really, who cares?” Sebastian, a student at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, told Reuters as he heard that Napster would likely be forced into Chapter 7 liquidation as early as Thursday. “Everybody’s moved on to other file-sharing (services). The interest for Napster in the Internet community just wasn’t as high as everybody originally thought,” said the 28-year old student of IT engineering. During its heyday in 2000, Napster attracted tens of millions of music fans who… Read more »

The king of rock ‘n’ roll was no businessman. When Elvis Presley died, his finances were in such sad shape that the managers of his estate considered selling Graceland. His white-columned, Georgian-style home was just too expensive to maintain. But instead the house was opened to tourists, and 25 years after his death on Aug. 16, 1977, Graceland attracts 600,000 visitors a year and has made his sole heir, daughter Lisa Marie, a very wealthy woman. Sell Graceland? Don’t be silly. “Every few months, a tabloid somewhere in the world will come out with a screaming headline that Lisa Marie… Read more »

U.S. lawmakers have asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to go after Internet users who download unauthorized songs and other copyrighted material, raising the possibility of jail time for digital-music fans. In a July 25 letter released late Thursday, some 19 lawmakers from both sides of the aisle asked Ashcroft to prosecute “peer-to-peer” networks like Kazaa and Morpheus and the users who swap digital songs, video clips and other files without permission from artists or their record labels. The Justice Department should also devote more resources to policing online copyrights, the lawmakers said in their letter. “Such an effort is increasingly… Read more »

The tiny, unassuming city of Devore, California, will be transformed into a punk-rock Mecca next month when it hosts a show featuring the Sex Pistols, X, Bad Religion, the Vandals, Unwritten Law, New Found Glory and others. The September 14 KROQ Inland Invasion concert at the 65,000-seat Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion will also feature the Damned, the Adolescents, the Distillers, T.S.O.L. and G.B.H, according to a source close to the show. Last month the Sex Pistols played a gig in London and re-released their song “God Save the Queen,” but this will be their first U.S. performance since their 1996… Read more »