Search Results for: AVOID

When was the last time this happened: a breakthrough artist spends the night its album debuted in the top 10 on The Billboard 200 chart playing the opening slot at a tiny Sunset Strip club instead of headlining its own show – or partying like a rock star elsewhere in town? How about Wednesday (June 12) night, when current it-girl Avril Lavigne, who’s all of 17 years old, played an unexpectedly aggressive early set at the Viper Room in Hollywood. Though Lavigne was there, in theory, to warm the mostly-music-industry-crowd up for the hitless bands Lo Cal AM and Plain… Read more »

Former Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby died at his Los Angeles home on Thursday morning following a long battle with AIDS. He was 42. The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to Craig Harvey, operations chief for the Los Angeles coroner’s office. One of the original members of the ’80s metal rockers known for hits such as “Round and Round” and “Lay It Down,” Crosby began speaking out several years ago about his drug use in the band’s heyday and how it led to his contraction of the deadly virus nearly eight years ago. Ratt formed in the… Read more »

Mega-nü-metal bands are kinda like Microsoft. Every time they unveil a product, it’s gotta be more advanced than the last, and each new offering is accompanied with a celebration that upstages the one before. On November 15, 1999, as Korn prepared to release their fourth album, Issues, the band played a rock show at the legendary Apollo Theatre in the Harlem neighborhood of New York, a site usually foreign to rock shows. On Monday night, to christen the release of their new disc, Untouchables, the band simulcast a one-hour concert from the Hammerstein Ballroom to 40 movie theaters across the… Read more »

Popular music has been upended by every technological advance from electricity and the phonograph to cassette tapes and recordable CDs. The switch from analog to digital accelerated the pace of illicit duplication and distribution, sounding the loudest alarm yet. As Napster struggles to survive, other sites from Gnutella to KaZaa are filling the void. Last week, labels and music publishers sued Audiogalaxy, a booming file-swapping network that lured 3.5 million users in March. The complaint: The Recording Industry Association of America, on behalf of labels, is vigorously seeking to stamp out proliferating Web sites that permit free downloads of music.… Read more »

Radio remains one of the most powerful marketing tools available to the recording industry, despite skyrocketing costs of gaining access to the airwaves via independent promoters. While word-of-mouth, video and Internet brush fires occasionally catapult unknowns to stardom, radio remains the most reliable and efficient means of enticing listeners to record stores. Yet many fans surfing the airwaves are far from satisfied. The complaint: Consolidation has made radio even more cookie-cutter bland, with narrow, unimaginative playlists. Demographic targeting and audience testing eliminate variety, stifle regionalism and foist the least objectionable music on the public. Failing to recognize that an individual’s… Read more »

Glazed-eyed rapper Snoop Dogg might want to avoid Cleveland when he’s drawing up tour itineraries – he’ll wind up in the slammer next time he’s caught there holding a bag. On Tuesday, Snoop, a.k.a. Calvin Broadus, pleaded no contest in Ohio’s Oberlin Municipal Court to possession of marijuana, a fourth degree misdemeanor, and was fined $250 plus court costs, which totaled $398.30. The crime normally carries a 30-day stay in Lorain County Jail. However, the court suspended the sentence provided Snoop stays out of trouble for the next two years. He will do time if he’s caught with weed in… Read more »

Elvis Costello and his band, the Imposters, were nearing the end of a rousing, rocking set at a Manhattan club when the audience’s attention began to wander. As he started his final encore, the chilling tale of a jilted sociopath, “I Want You,” loud conversations and laughter could be heard from the Bowery Ballroom bar. Costello didn’t say anything, or even look annoyed. Instead, a malice-filled reading of the song did the work for him. The music quieted to a whisperlike level as Costello stepped away from the microphone to shout the line, “Did you call my name out as… Read more »

For those who think rap-rock is just about tapped out, Quarashi would like to present their spin on the genre. “We’re trying to do rap music the way Joey Ramone would have done rap music,” said Sölvi Blondal, the band’s producer and drummer. “What we are trying to do is punk-rock rap music, but a little bit more 1990s, like when Public Enemy was doing Fear of a Black Planet and when Cypress [Hill] was coming up with their first album. We tried to approach that style…. We didn’t want to be like Limp Bizkit or these bands that are… Read more »

The Who invented it. Nirvana perfected it…. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead got accountants thinking about it. Closing a show in a bout of destruction is one of the great traditions of rock and roll, but when it becomes a routine the spectacle isn’t exactly priceless. Fender bass guitars (approximately $900), Marshall amplifiers (approximately $800) and run-of-the-mill drum sets (approximately $600) – the instruments behind Trail of Dead’s beloved rock – make expensive confetti. So when this buzzed-about band of multi-instrumentalists toss drum and guitars around like balloons waiting to be popped, they are conscious… Read more »