Search Results for: 2003

After reuniting for its first show in more than four years, Blink-182 has announced its summer tour dates. The band’s official return comes when they play the The Late Show With Jay Leno on Tuesday, May 21st. Blink will be joined by Fall Out Boy on the road for two-thirds of their reunion jaunt, with Weezer picking up the remaining dates. Last Thursday evening, Blink-182 closed out their set with 2003’s “The Feeling” and Dude Ranch’s “Dammit.” Bassist Mark Hoppus was overjoyed following the performance, a hugely significant event for the band whose members had spent the last four years… Read more »

The 2006 suicide of Megan Meier, which came after the girl was harassed online, spurred a flurry of new state laws aimed at cracking down on “cyber-bullying.” Now some members of Congress are pushing for a federal law against the practice. The Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act was first introduced last year. But it died in committee. The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., introduced the measure again last month and says she believes she has enough support to make the bill law. “Schoolyard bullies – at least when you went home for the day, you could escape that,” Sanchez… Read more »

Blink-182 has already written a number of new songs, but don’t expect the band to deliver a follow-up to its self-titled smash in 2003 before its big reunion tour this summer. “We started writing a few months ago and got well into the writing process, but now we’ve kind of put the recording of the next album on hold and are doing rehearsals for the upcoming tour,” said frontman Mark Hoppus. After a four-year hiatus, Hoppus, Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge appeared onstage at the 2009 Grammy Awards and announced their reformation as Blink-182. Hoppus also has been busy in… Read more »

Despite the success of online retailers, explosion of Internet downloads and high-profile closings of Virgin Megastores and Tower Records stores, bricks-and-mortar record stores are not all spinning toward oblivion. Although hundreds of independent music retailers have gone out of business in recent years, about 2,000 are still around, and many are thriving. The survivors will celebrate Saturday, as acts such as Erykah Badu and Franz Ferdinand gather to pay homage to the hometown record store. Record Store Day was the idea of Chris Brown, a music guru from Bull Moose, a chain of 10 record stores in Maine and New… Read more »

Death Cab for Cutie kicked off its U.S. tour last night with a stop at Philadelphia’s Tower Theater, a converted movie house with acoustics ready-made for frontman Ben Gibbard’s supernaturally clean and earnest whisper. Gibbard, recently engaged to fellow indie icon Zooey Deschanel, took the stage after solid performances from opening acts Cold War Kids and Ra Ra Riot and delivered an intimate solo rendition of “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” to a quiet, seated crowd. The rest of the band emerged and hit their stride with “The New Year,” a cut off of 2003’s “Transatlanticism” that ended… Read more »

LOS ANGELES —  The diagnosis on Dr. Jan Adams’ career: inoperable. The plastic surgeon who operated on Kanye West’s mother the day before she died in 2007 has given up his license to practice medicine in California after the state’s Medical Board brought charges against him over two criminal convictions for driving under the influence. In court documents, Adams admits “the truth of each and every allegation,” thereby resolving the board’s allegations against him. “The mission of the Medical Board is pubic protection, and this action reflects the Board’s ongoing commitment to that mission,” Barb Johnston, the Medical Board’s executive… Read more »

Apple Inc. and major music labels are betting that the launch of three-tier pricing at the iTunes Music Store will boost music sales with a new mix of song-based packages and give consumers more options. Apple will announce its new three-tier price points at 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29, according to several people familiar with its plans. Since opening in 2003, all songs in the iTunes store have been priced at 99 cents. The previous “one price fits all” strategy has long caused friction between Apple and the music labels, who argued that songs should be priced differently to… Read more »

Fall Out Boy got political at their Mesa, Arizona “Believers Never Die, Part Deux” tour opener Friday night, taking the stage in dress suits and black eyes – and in frontman Patrick Stump’s case, a grey Donald Trump-like wig – as a commentary on the current state of corporate America. Video screens framing Andy Hurley’s elevated drum kit aired footage of riot police and the conservatively dressed bandmembers walking through a backstage area. Hurley appeared onstage first, fervently pounding away on his kit as two men dressed in police riot gear banged on drums for opener “Disloyal Order of Water… Read more »

Punk band  Rancid will release its first album in six years on June 2, two days before it begins a North American tour with  Rise Against  in Vancouver, B.C. “Let the Dominoes Fall” (Hellcat/Epitaph), the band’s seventh album, was recorded at  George Lucas‘  Skywalker Sound Studio  in  San Francisco, with production by Epitaph founder and  Bad Religion  guitarist  Brett Gurewitz. Stax organ legend  Booker T. Jones  plays  Hammond B3  on the track “Up To No Good.” Rancid’s last album, 2003’s “Indestructible,” reached No. 15 on the  Billboard 200. That album marked the band’s first and last for  Warner Bros., though… Read more »

NEW YORK –  Longtime New York radio newsman  George Weber  was found stabbed to death in his  Brooklyn  apartment Sunday morning, cops said. The bloody body of Weber, a passionate fan of the city who spent a decade doing local news on WABC morning radio, was found just after 9 a.m. when he didn’t show up for work. “I used to hear his voice in the top and the bottom of the hour. It’s a voice New Yorkers know. Now that voice has been silenced,” said  Aaron Katersky, 33, an ABC colleague who found himself covering a friend’s murder. Weber,… Read more »