Search Results for: Alan Day

Those surprised to hear the brothers Hanson had been co-writing with the likes of Matthew Sweet and ex- New Radical Gregg Alexander, may be downright shocked to hear they’ve expanded their collaboration roster to include legendary tunesmith Carole King. The Hansons – Isaac, Taylor and Zac – have just returned from mega-manager Miles Copeland’s annual “songwriting bootcamp” at Chateau de Marouatte in France where they penned and demoed two tracks, “Let You Go” and “One More Time” with King. While at Copeland’s chateau, the trio also co-wrote a number, “Never Love Again,” with the Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson and Donny… Read more »

Alanis Morissette has returned to the jagged little sound that made her famous. The Canadian singer debuted eight new songs during a show Friday night, providing a generous preview of her next album, which is sitting in limbo while she fights a contract dispute with Maverick Records. Much of the new material harked back to the edgier pop-rock of Morissette’s 1995 smash, Jagged Little Pill, and steered away from the moody, Eastern-influenced sound of its follow-up, 1998’s Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. Accordingly, the two-hour performance – the first of two consecutive nights at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theatre – was… Read more »

Columbia Records’ Crazy Town, Portrait/Columbia Records’ The Union Underground and American Recordings/Columbia Records’ American Head Charge have all signed on-board on what just might be the heaviest Ozzfest ever. Following a big British blow-out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in England on May 26, Ozzfest 2001 opens full-force stateside at the World Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Launched by the heavy metal pioneer and visionary Ozzy Osbourne, the first Ozzfest, a multi-band festival held in 1996, hit only two markets-Los Angeles and Phoenix-but paved the way for a full-on touring extravaganza the next year. Since then, the Ozzfest has become a… Read more »

Alanis Morissette is not letting a contract dispute with her label prevent her from hitting the road to try out some new songs. The Canadian pop singer will begin a 12-country tour of European festivals, arenas and clubs in Nuremberg, Germany on June 1, which also happens to be her 27th birthday. She will warm up with two shows at Los Angeles’ El Rey Theater on May 25 and 26, her publicist announced Thursday. Tickets for the El Rey shows will be available exclusively at http://www.alanismorissette.com on May 13 at 10 a.m. PDT. The El Rey holds about 700 people.… Read more »

A federal appeals court in Manhattan heard oral arguments yesterday in a case that questions the constitutionality of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The DMCA was passed by Congress in 1998 when a number of entertainment companies and trade organizations pressured lawmakers to make unauthorized electronic distribution of digital copyrighted materials illegal. The DMCA legislation has given rise to a move by the RIAA to require radio stations streaming on the Internet to pay both performance and publishing royalty fees. If it is upheld in the online world, it’s also possible that the practice will be extended to on-air broadcasts,… Read more »

When the members of U2 walked off the stage on their 1997-1998 “PopMart” tour, the final image was a heart framed by the outsized “golden” arch – a juxtaposition that perfectly encapsulated that tour’s muddy concept, as the group had strained to find a balance between earnest emotion and smirking irony. On their current “Elevation” tour, the band wears their hearts on their sleeves or, to be more precise, on the heart-shaped runway that surrounds them and a portion of crowd, reaching halfway into the arena. Allowing much of the audience close contact with the band, the stage, along with… Read more »

A group of researchers who foiled four different copyright protection technologies in a contest launched last year by the music industry is now being asked by the record companies to suppress its findings, one of the researchers said Tuesday. The research group – composed of students and professors from Princeton and Rice Universities and an employee of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center – had initially planned to present its findings Thursday at a Pittsburgh conference on information security but was then threatened with legal action by the forum, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI), a forum representing music and technology… Read more »

One day Australia’s hottest new rock exports are opening for heavy metal heroes AC/DC, the next day they are sharing the bill with race horses. Bands that want to make it big sometimes have to swallow their pride. During the 1960s, rock acts appearing on Ed Sullivan’s prestigious TV variety show were squeezed in between chimpanzees and circus clowns. In 2001, Australian punk-rock trio the Living End recently played for several thousand fans at a Los Angeles racetrack. But their afternoon set was punctuated by a 10-minute break so the horses would not panic as they galloped past the makeshift… Read more »

Along with a tall stack of budget documents, a White House official Monday gave a handful of reporters a copy of their unofficial theme song: the 1969 Rolling Stones classic “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The song’s refrain “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need,” has become a mantra for President Bush’s budget writers as they have tried to balance the many interests vying for a piece of the $1.96 trillion U.S. federal budget. “It’s been kind of our internal battle cry for the last… Read more »

Napster interim CEO Hank Barry calls upon Congress to enact compulsory license laws that include direct payment to artists. Testifying before U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Napster’s chief executive officer said that an act of Congress is required to remedy the issues facing Internet music. Barry called on Congress to enact a compulsory license analogous to laws already in place for radio, for the delivery of music over the Internet. He urged that any such license should include language that enables direct payment to artists similar to the “writer’s share” of public performance payments that are collected by ASCAP and BMI.… Read more »