Search Results for: Turnover

Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. have nothing to worry about, but a university known more for churning out engineers than hit music is starting its own record label. Drexel University’s MAD Dragon Records expects to put out its first CD – a compilation of eight or nine bands – next year. The student-run label will be an integral part of Drexel’s fledgling music industry program, which in only three years has grown from eight students to more than 150. Students will be in charge of artist development, production, recording, marketing, contracts and distribution, while MAD Dragon musicians – also students… Read more »

Powerman 5000 are heading back into the studio to record a new album with a new rhythm section, bassist Siggy Siursen and drummer Adrian Ost. Last November, following frontman Spider One’s abrupt decision not to release the band’s Anyone for Doomsday? album, bassist Dorian Heartsong and drummer Al Pahanish quit the group. The album was to be the follow-up to the band’s 1999 breakthrough Tonight the Stars Revolt!, but Spider One was not satisfied with it. “We’ve had personnel changes, but the group always survives,” says Spider One of the recent turnover. Guitarists M.33 and Adam 12 round out the… Read more »

C. Michael Greene has resigned as the head of the organization that hands out the music industry’s most prestigious award, the Grammys, following an emergency board of trustees vote to remove him from office. Greene resigned Saturday night at an emergency meeting attended by more than three dozen trustees of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Greene, 52, had three years remaining on his contract and will receive a severance package of $8 million, much of which will be covered by insurance and includes his bonus from the CBS Grammy contract. He is… Read more »

Fresh from his Grammy win for Best Short Form Music Video, Fatboy Slim – a.k.a. Norman Cook – is touring the U.S. looking for samples, prepping for the follow-up to 2000’s Halfway Between the Gutters and the Stars. “I just generally needed the turnover of new source material to work with, and L.A.’s a good place to do it,” Cook says. “I’m just looking for weird noises and little loops. I tend to go on the haircuts on the [album] sleeve. It’s got to be 1970 to 1976. Pre-1970s production wasn’t really too hot, and post-’76 everyone went disco. So… Read more »

Virgin Records vice chairman Nancy Berry, the estranged wife of ousted music executive Ken Berry, Tuesday became the latest casualty of a restructuring at ailing British music company EMI Group Plc, where the couple reigned over rock ‘n’ roll for several years. Alain Levy, who abruptly replaced Ken Berry as chief executive officer of EMI’s recorded music division last week, announced Tuesday that Nancy Berry will leave Virgin immediately after more than two decades at the EMI unit. The news, which was not a surprise to many industry insiders, broke as Virgin prepares to release key albums in coming weeks… Read more »

British music giant EMI Group Plc on Monday appointed former PolyGram president Alain Levy as the new chief of its recorded music division in a move aimed at reversing the decline at one of its main operations. EMI, home to such acts as Mariah Carey, Radiohead, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, said Levy would become the new chairman and chief executive officer at EMI Recorded Music, replacing Ken Berry, who had left the group by “mutual agreement.” Levy also will take up a position on the main board. The company added in a statement its trading remained… Read more »