Search Results for: Alan Day

Mike Patton probably owns a Blackberry. The former Faith No More and Mr. Bungle frontman has always juggled his many musical whims like the finest project manager, but in 2005 his personal digital assistants might need their own personal assistants. The 37-year-old musician has recruited Oakland, California, DJ crew the X-ecutioners for his latest project, General Patton Vs. the X-ecutioners. Released February 22, Vs. is a characteristically varied affair, featuring the general’s vocal acrobatics, skittish needle-dropping and quick cut-and-paste genre changes. And, like a growing number of musical collaborations, most notably the Postal Service, the songs were all completed via… Read more »

Los Angeles – Kid Rock took fans on a wild ride through the history of rock ‘n’ roll by jamming with guitarists from Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top and the Allman Brothers Band during a Hollywood club show on Thursday designed to raise money for music education in schools. Grammy nominee Gretchen Wilson and former sidekick Uncle Kracker also joined Kid Rock on stage at the House of Blues, while music industry denizens such as Ahmet Ertegun and Rick Rubin bobbed their heads to the beat from the balcony. “It’s hillbilly night in Hollywood tonight,” Kid Rock said midway through the… Read more »

Sometimes a joke sounds funniest to the one telling it. For example, when it came time for French-Canadian pop-punks Simple Plan to think up a clip for their new single, “Shut Up” – an ode to their many detractors – they decided the haters should be played by old, rich men and women. “The song is about people who told us our band sucked or that we didn’t belong where we were. It was like telling those people to shut up,” singer Pierre Bouvier explained. “The old people are like the people who are telling us we suck, and we’re… Read more »

After he joined the Smashing Pumpkins 17 years ago, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin’s career began to revolve around incidents of death and rebirth. In March of 1996, his father died when the Pumpkins were on tour. Then in July of that same year, road keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died from a heroin overdose while shooting up with Chamberlin. The drummer was arrested for possession and booted from the band for his inability to kick smack, with which he had battled since 1991. Ironically, the seeming death of his career triggered his spiritual rebirth. With help from friends, he got clean and rejoined… Read more »

BAGHDAD, Iraq – While Saddam Hussein spent a second New Year’s Eve in a jail cell, a Southern California rock band known for such albums as “Hitler Bad, Vandals Good” and “Look What I Almost Stepped In” played in the heart of his former empire. The 3rd Brigade of the Army’s 1st Cavalry Division got a one-hour show by punk perennials The Vandals during a modest Friday night party in the Green Zone. The show was one of the few entertainments provided for U.S. troops in Iraq on New Year’s Eve, a day marked chiefly by a relative lull in… Read more »

Los Angles – You only need one word to sum up the year in pop 2004: Usher. Clearly, it was his house. The rest of us were just overnight visitors. It began innocently enough, right at the beginning of the calendar year. On the Billboard Hot 100 dated Jan. 10, 2004 (coincidentally, the 55th anniversary of the introduction of the 45 rpm record), the highest new entry was “Yeah!” by Usher Featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris. Six weeks later, “Yeah!” had assumed pole position, and remained there for 12 weeks, tying it as the longest-running No. 1 (with “Lose Yourself”… Read more »

As promised yesterday, we’re back to update you on the remaining categories in Chart’s Year End Readers’ Poll. Yesterday we reported that Simple Plan were leading the votes in the music-based categories, but who are our readers rooting for in the Sexiest Canadian Musician categories? At press time, about 600 of you had filled out the poll and the majority of you fancy Pierre Bouvier, lead singer of Simple Plan. In a distant second place in our Throw Your Underwear (Male) category is The Tea Party’s Jeff Martin, followed by the more, er, mature William Shatner, who is quite surprisingly… Read more »

BURBANK, Calif. – The inspiring holiday adventure “The Polar Express,” from Warner Bros. Pictures, continues to defy conventional box office fall-off patterns with significantly increasing grosses that crossed the $100 million mark Friday and gained through the weekend for a cumulative total of $109,826,809 and no end in sight. The announcement was made today by Dan Fellman, President of Domestic Theatrical Distribution, Warner Bros. Pictures. Still at full steam in its fifth week, “The Polar Express” remains the only movie in wide release setting an exceptional upward trend in box office receipts, grossing over $9.5 million this weekend and posting… Read more »

Record labels are embracing new technologies in search of music’s next big thing Joe Berman looks for new bands. Typically, that means hanging out in dive bars, enduring hours of unlistenable music by groups whose rock-and-roll dreams far exceed their talent, praying for the occasional act that shows promise. About 16 months ago, however, the Los Angeles-based talent-finder sat at home scouting the globe for groups. He typed “New Zealand indie rock bands” into his computer search engine and found Steriogram, five lads from the town of Whangarei in New Zealand. They had a song and a video posted on… Read more »

Five years after an ugly divorce, the original lineup of 1980s hair-metal legends Mötley Crüe are reuniting for a world tour. The first date of the Red, White & Crüe Tour… Better Live Than Dead is February 17 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, and will be followed by dates in South America and Europe. Singer Vince Neil, drummer Tommy Lee, bassist Nikki Sixx and guitarist Mick Mars, arriving together in a hearse, announced the reunion Monday night in Los Angeles, marking their first tour together since Lee left the group in 1999. A 37-song retrospective, Red, White & Crüe, will hit… Read more »