Search Results for: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Pity the television fan who doesn’t like the music of U2. After a blizzard of Apple iTunes commercials featuring the band’s new single, “Vertigo,” blanketed television screens nationwide in October, the band is once again turning to the tube to usher in a second wave of exposure. To promote their new record, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, which drops Nov. 23, the Irish foursome will pull musical guest duty on NBC’s Saturday Night Live later this month. And, in an even more novel strategy, the band is teaming with CBS’ runaway hit CSI to will roll out tracks from… Read more »

After a 25-year absence from the #1 album spot, J Records artist Rod Stewart with his album Stardust… The Great American Songbook: Volume III enters the Billboard 200 Album chart at #1 on a first week Soundscan total of 240,043 copies sold. The Songbook albums are a musical and cultural phenomenon, and are now the biggest-selling ongoing series of new music recordings in history. This is also Rod Stewart’s first ever #1 debut on the Billboard Top 200 chart. Stardust is the follow-up to 2002’s It Had To Be You… The Great American Songbook (which spent 85 weeks on the… Read more »

Johnny Ramone, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band “The Ramones” that influenced a generation of rockers, has died. He was 55. Ramone, who had been fighting a five-year battle with prostate cancer, died in his sleep Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home surrounded by friends and family, said the band’s longtime artistic director Arturo Vega. “He was the guy with a strategy. He was the guy who not only looked after the band’s interest but he also was their defender,” Vega said in a telephone interview from New York. Ramone, whose birth name is John Cummings, had… Read more »

Forget running. Apparently, Bruce Frederick Springsteen was born to sell. Fans looking to get some truly rare Boss records now can, thanks to a New York auction house that has put up for bid confidential medical documents detailing the Hall of Fame rocker’s birth. Lelands.com, an online auctioneer specializing in Americana and sports memorabilia, has put up for sale nine “historically important” records chronicling Springsteen’s pre-glory diaper days dating back to his September 23, 1949 birth at Monmouth Memorial Hospital in Long Branch, New Jersey. As revealed by a sample of images posted on Lelands’ Website, the records kept by… Read more »

Prince is taking that little red Corvette out of the garage again. On the heels of his blistering Grammy “Purple Rain” performance, the ’80s funk legend has announced he will hit the road with the New Power Generation for his first major arena tour in six years in support of his new CD, Musicology. To help hype the tour, Prince says the upcoming gigs may be the last time fans get to see him jam out some of the best-known hits live. That presumably means that tunes like “Little Red Corvette,” “1999” “Purple Rain,” When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go… Read more »

George Harrison, Prince, John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne are among those who’ve made the list of nominees for the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot, a hall of fame spokesperson confirmed Monday. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria for consideration include “the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll,” according to the organization. Several names that have not made the hall before are back for another try, including the Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, country rock legend Gram Parsons,… Read more »

The surviving members of legendary punk group The Clash will not perform when they are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this month, bass player Paul Simonon said Saturday. One of the most influential bands to emerge from the British punk movement of the 1970s, The Clash split up in the mid-1980s and never reformed. The band’s lead singer, Joe Strummer, died of a heart attack in December at age 50. Simonon scotched rumors that Bruce Springsteen – who sang the band’s “London Calling” in tribute to Strummer at the Grammy Awards last week – would… Read more »

TRUSTcompany is gearing up to hit the road on their first national headline outing. The Alabama-based quartet’s major label debut, “The Lonely Position of Neutral”, has continued to make its mark since its late summer debut at #11 on the Billboard Album Chart. The album was produced by Don Gilmore (Linkin Park, Lit, Eve 6) and mixed by Andy Wallace (Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, Rage Against The Machine). The band recently performed at the ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ and at European festivals to over 30,000 fans. The “Lonely Position of Neutral” is already certified Gold. Comparing the sounds of… Read more »

“Some bands, when they go away for a while, people start talking bad about you.” said Benji, guitarist for Good Charlotte. “It’s good to come home and see all you kids still supporting us,” said lead singer, Joel, finishing his twin’s comment. Good Charlotte has always been a live band. Both their Self-Titled debut, as well as their sophomore effort, The Young and The Hopeless, tries to capture their spirit – and while some of the fun shines through the recording, nothing can match the energy of their live show. Playing to a packed crowd for their CD Release at… Read more »

South by Southwest, Austin’s annual music conference that usually showcases the best new artists coming down the pike, kicked off, oddly enough, with a plea to go back. The call came from Robbie Robertson. The onetime leader of the Band expressed mild alarm at the state of the music business during his keynote address Thursday morning. Go back, he suggested, to that first moment of musical discovery. “Music took us on a journey, and we’re still on that journey,” he told a packed ballroom at the Austin Convention Center, noting that his own first impressions came during childhood visits to… Read more »