Search Results for: folk

Irreverent and bordering on insolent, the MTV Movie Awards have built a following over the past decade by mocking Hollywood as much as celebrating it. Best Villain? Best Kiss? Best Fight? Lifetime achievement awards for Chewbacca from “Star Wars,” and for cameo character actor Clint Howard, the squinty-eyed little brother of director Ron Howard? Such are the honors bestowed at the MTV Movie Awards, which in its 11th year comes not to praise cinema but to parody it. This year’s ceremony takes place Saturday and will be broadcast Thursday (June 6). “We’re always looking to make people laugh. That’s more… Read more »

Bennett Zier has a fine idea for a new radio format. His eyes light up as he tells you about it. “We play Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, Bobby Darin,” he says. “The great thing about it is what we call it. You ready?” He pauses. “Vegas Radio! Is that great or what?” Zier can imagine the whole scene – the deejays, the jingles, the ironic retro-swinger patter. It’s his music, the kind he plays in his car. He’s in love with this idea, and with his natural salesman’s charm, he’s making you love it, too. So why doesn’t… Read more »

Alien Ant Farm have canceled all remaining May and June performances due to injuries the band sustained in a bus accident Wednesday on tour in Spain. In addition to the WHFStival, a radio-sponsored festival scheduled for Sunday in Washington, D.C., the band has withdrawn from festivals in Indianapolis, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Atlanta and Norfolk, Virginia, as well as dates with the Color Red, according to a DreamWorks Records spokesperson. Alien Ant Farm are still expected to participate in this year’s Rolling Rock Town Fair, slated for July 27 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. Early Wednesday morning, AAF’s tour bus crashed into… Read more »

Roughly one month after the tragic death of his close friend and former bandmate Layne Staley, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell returned to the town that made them both famous, and despite the feeling that a big hole existed where his former partner once stood, it was a rocking, if bittersweet, trip back in time. With plenty of classic AIC material in tow, Cantrell took a sparse but enthusiastic audience at Key Arena on Friday back to the halcyon days of the early ’90s – a time of lank hair, big angst and bigger guitars, before the Bizkit and its… Read more »

Sean “P. Diddy” Combs is enjoying his biggest hit in five years with “I Need A Girl (Part One)” featuring Usher and Loon, which is currently Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song is the lead single from the mogul’s latest collection, P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records Present…We Invented The Remix, which was released on Tuesday (May 14). Recently LAUNCH spoke with Combs, who explained that he seems to have success when speaking from the heart. “‘I Need A Girl’ was just me speaking from my heart. It was a remix off my original album… Read more »

John Forté conducts all of his interviews by mail. Not because he’s shy or eccentric, but because he doesn’t have a phone. See, he’s the only Grammy-winning convict at Pennsylvania’s Lorreto Federal Penitentiary with a new album to promote. Forté, 27, was behind bars when his confessional second album, I, John, was released in April. That’s why he’s done most of the interviews about it via letters from his cell. “Spiritually, I’ve never been more free in my life,” wrote the former Fugees confidant, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in November after being found guilty of possession… Read more »

Rockers want to act, actors want to rock. What are you gonna do? For musicians who lack thespian aspirations, though, scoring a movie seems to suffice. Following in the footsteps of everyone from Bob Dylan and Jon Bon Jovi to Björk and Peter Gabriel, bandleaders Jonathan Davis, Billy Corgan and Jeff Tweedy and solo act Badly Drawn Boy are scoring some points with the Hollywood crowd this summer. Korn singer Davis teamed up with film scoring veteran and ex-Oingo Boingo keyboardist Richard Gibbs for the soundtrack to “Queen of the Damned,” released earlier this year. The pair co-wrote and performed… Read more »

The Get Up Kids are set to release their third album and will hit the road to support it beginning May 24. The 12-track On a Wire is scheduled for release May 14, according to a Vagrant Records spokesperson. “Overdue” will be the leadoff single from the LP, which was produced by Scott Litt (Incubus, R.E.M.). The album follows the Kansas City, Missouri, quintet’s last album, 1999’s breakthrough Something to Write Home About, a record which helped forge mainstream prominence of what’s often referred to as “emo.” The band will embark on a 40-show tour to support On a Wire… Read more »

Why name a songbird Tweet? It’s a simple question, but Charlene Keys, a.k.a. Tweet, can’t remember exactly how the nickname came about. “Maybe I had a big head like the Tweety Bird character,” she joked recently. “I’ve been Tweet since I was a little girl. It’s been a nickname that everybody in my family wants to get credit for. ‘I named her that. No, I named her that.’ ” The Rochester, New York, native does know how she can justify naming her album Southern Hummingbird, despite hailing from the North. That ties back to her kinfolk as well. “I’m the… Read more »

There’s no money like show money – just ask your favorite performer. Where else can you make tens of thousands of dollars for 90 minutes (or less) of work? Apparently somebody has hipped the guys of N.E.R.D. to this and they have decided to go out on the road in support of their LP, In Search Of…, for 12 dates this spring. In March, one third of the trio, Chad Hugo, said he and his musical mates had no intention of doing any concerts, affirming that their album was done just for “fun” and that the group didn’t consider itself… Read more »