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Independent record labels behind artists like The White Stripes, Deep Purple and Arctic Monkeys announced a global deal Saturday to pool access to their catalogs, seeking to grab a bigger share of online music sales from the major record companies. Indies and their trade groups from more than a dozen countries signed up to Merlin, a nonprofit licensing agency that will cut deals on their behalf with download sites under the terms of the agreement unveiled at Midem, a music industry gathering in the French Riviera town of Cannes. Smaller record companies with just a handful of successful artists fear… Read more »

EMI Group Plc, which ousted its two top music executives last week after issuing a profit warning, announced on Thursday two key appointments to its EMI Music management team. JF Cecillon will become chairman and chief executive of the newly established EMI Music International unit which will focus on EMI’s recorded music business outside the UK and North America. Cecillon, who was previously in charge of EMI Music for continental Europe, will now oversee Asia, Latin America and Australia and New Zealand. Ian Hanson, previously senior vice president, chairman’s office, EMI Music, has been promoted to the global role of… Read more »

UNIVERSAL CITY, California – Brandon Flowers is finally talking about something he likes. While the Killers frontman is often chided for publicly announcing what he doesn’t care for, we can now add his band’s new single to the list of things he enjoys praising . “The next single is gonna be ‘Read My Mind’ and it’s kind of our favorite song,” Flowers revealed recently. “I guess our album kind of weaves in and out of different subjects and ‘Read My Mind’ is just holding on to the way we were raised and not letting go.” The band is still deciding… Read more »

UNIVERSAL CITY, California – My Chemical Romance have already given the new year a new name: “Tour thousand and seven.” After spending much of 2006 recording the ambitious concept album The Black Parade, MCR are dedicating the upcoming year to the road. “We’re going to try to bring the music on the record to life with a really good live show,” frontman Gerard Way said. “Something special, something big.” The singer actually predicted they’d be touring “for the next two years.” The band will get started January 19 in New Zealand before launching a North American headlining trek that kicks… Read more »

You can’t blame U2’s concert promoter for wondering just how big the band’s Vertigo world tour could have been if it had simply kept on playing. After all, not one ticket went unsold for the 131 shows on the trek, which began March 28, 2005, in San Diego and wrapped December 9 in front of 47,000 fans at Honolulu’s Aloha Stadium. Having been on the road in fits and starts since March 2005, U2 was clearly in a celebratory mood in Hawaii, as Bono danced onstage with a woman from the crowd during “Mysterious Ways” and even pulled a lucky… Read more »

A valuable lesson was learned when we last spoke to Finch guitarist Randy Strohmeyer – don’t describe his band as emo. But now they’re about to release their third album and have garnered a new classification – screamo punk. How does Strohmeyer feel about that? “I think it’s even worse than emo. It’s fucking retarded. I hate that shit,” he says. “I’d just like people to call us Finch, and that’s it. We’re Finch and we make an effort to be Finch and we don’t want to be categorized as something else. I would like Finch to stand up on… Read more »

SYDNEY, Australia – The drummer from 1980s Australian rock band Crowded House hanged himself in a park in southern Australia, an emergency services spokeswoman said Monday. Paul Hester, 46, went missing on Friday. His body was found Saturday in a park near his home in the southern city of Melbourne, said Metropolitan Ambulance Service spokeswoman Liraje Memishi. Hester played in several small bands before joining the New Zealand group Split Enz in 1983. He and Split Enz singer Neil Finn formed Crowded House in 1985 with bass player Nick Seymour. Crowded House was one of Australia’s most successful bands in… Read more »

Yes, Bright Eyes just finished a tour in support of their acoustic-based I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning LP last month. But indefatigable frontman Conor Oberst is hitting the road again next month with friends/Saddle Creek labelmates the Faint; this tour will focus on Bright Eyes’ other new LP, the more experimental, electronic Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. The Faint will be pulling double duty throughout the entire tour, playing their own set and serving as Oberst’s backing band, along with cellist Gretta Cohn from Cursive, guitarist Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and others. The 30-date trek begins… Read more »

Los Angeles – Punk trio Green Day, up for six prizes at the Grammy Awards on Sunday will launch a five-week North American arena tour on April 15, the group’s Reprise Records label said. The 27-date trek, heavy on college towns, begins in Coral Gables, Fla. at the University of Miami’s Convocation Center, and wraps May 20 at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary. Green Day will perform during the Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and will then play New Zealand, Australia and Japan in March. Their Grammy nominations include album of the year and rock album… Read more »