Search Results for: Andy Black

Nashville – The Pixies, Weezer, Widespread Panic, the Killers, the Arcade Fire, Liz Phair, the Black Keys and Death Cab For Cutie are among the acts that will play the reconfigured Lollapalooza festival, which will take place July 23-24 in Chicago’s Grant Park. Also on the bill are Cake, Dashboard Confessional, Dinosaur Jr., Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, Louis XIV, Tegan & Sara, M83, Los Amigos Invisibles, Blue Merle, the Redwalls, the Changes, Dandy Warhols, Digable Planets, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Billy Idol, the Bravery and Blonde Redhead. The lineup was announced Friday in Chicago. Lollapalooza 2005 will be produced by Capital Sports… Read more »

Partial list of winners at Sunday’s 47th Annual Grammy Awards: Engineered Album, Classical – “Higdon – City Scape Concerto for Orchestra,” Jack Renner, engineer – Robert Spano. Producer of the Year, Classical – David Frost. Classical Album – “Adams – On the Transmigration of Souls,” Lorin Maazel, conductor John Adams and Lawrence Rock, producers. Orchestral Performance – “Adams – On the Transmigration of Souls,” Lorin Maazel, conductor John Adams and Lawrence Rock, producers. Opera Recording – “Mozart – Le Nozze di Figaro,” Rene Jacobs, conductor Patrizia Ciofi, Veronique Gens, Simon Keenlyside, Angelika Kirchschlager and Lorenzo Regazzo Martin Sauer, producer –… Read more »

New York – OK, let’s see: The former Guns N’ Roses bandmates have exchanged one loose cannon, Axl Rose, for another who seems even more volatile, Scott Weiland. And rock critics are placing bets on whether Weiland can get through a worldwide tour without winding up in either rehab, jail or a body bag. But after three Grammy nominations and one hit album, the supergroup known as Velvet Revolver is just getting started. The band consists of heavyweights from two of the biggest – and most troubled – rock bands of the past 15 years: Former Stone Temple Pilots frontman… Read more »

Los Angeles – Epitaph Records built its foundation on punk rock. But just before last year’s presidential election, the label’s most biting political commentary arrived courtesy of Sage Francis, a 27-year-old rapper from Providence, R.I. The song “Slow Down Gandhi” sarcastically rips into liberals and conservatives alike, casting a cynical eye at warmongers and the “cool kids” who “were rocking votes.” With a perfectly articulated delivery that recalls Chuck D, Francis builds each verse with a mixture of activism, paranoia and humor. “If they could sell sanity in a bottle, they would be charging for compressed air,” he quips. Epitaph… Read more »

What do you do if you’ve been touring the world for the past decade and, at 25, you’re having what amounts to your first midlife crisis? If you are coming off a very public breakup with your longtime movie-star girlfriend? If you are headline news at home, but just another face in the crowd in your adopted hometown of New York? If you’re Ben Lee, you write an album of existential pop songs and call it Awake Is the New Sleep (February 22) and enjoy how you’ve turned heartbreak and the search for life’s big answers into the strongest album… Read more »

Mississippi blues label Fat Possum Records and its owner Matthew Johnson have sued former joint-venture partner Epitaph Records, alleging that Epitaph hatched “a malicious plot… to financially destroy Johnson and Fat Possum.” The suit, filed Tuesday in California Superior Court in L.A., charges Epitaph with breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, interference with contractual relations and a host of other abuses. According to the suit, Oxford, Miss.-based Fat Possum – home to R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and other contemporary bluesmen – was being funded by L.A.-based Epitaph under the terms of a joint-venture agreement reached in July 1997.… Read more »

Hoobastank have a choice to make with their next single – not which song to pick, but which video. The group has made two clips for “Same Direction,” the follow-up to “The Reason.” The first is a sequel to that song’s clip, and in the second video, Hoobastank’s fictional former fifth member, “Ted,” runs the show. Ted, according to a treatment conceived by a fan who wrote it as part of a contest, was once the band’s triangle player, let go in the fifth grade for artistic differences. Ted, now 25, is still obsessed with Hoobastank, and he builds shoebox… Read more »

The Rolling Stones and Radiohead got theirs from song titles, U2 and the B-52’s from military aircrafts and Lynyrd Skynyrd from their old gym teacher. And the stories behind new millennium band names are no less random: Yellowcard According to these So-Cal pop-punkers, “yellowcard” is a take on the ever-popular Frat house idiom, “party foul,” proving drunks can be simultaneously obnoxious and witty. Perhaps Ewan McKegger was already in use. Coldplay Chris Martin and his mates, originally called Starfish, were friends with a band called Coldplay. When that band gave up the name, Starfish asked if they could use it.… Read more »

Ray Charles, the Grammy-winning crooner who blended gospel and blues in such crowd-pleasers as “What’d I Say” and ballads like “Georgia on My Mind,” died Thursday, a spokesman said. He was 73. Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney. Charles’ last public appearance was alongside Clint Eastwood on April 30, when the city of Los Angeles designated the singer’s studios, built 40 years ago in central Los Angeles, as a historic landmark. Blind by age 7 and an orphan at 15, Charles spent his life shattering any notion of musical boundaries… Read more »

With a couple of modern rock radio staples behind them (such as the smash, “Bound For The Floor,” off of their second album, As Good As Dead) Local H is back with a 14-song assault entitled, Whatever Happened To PJ Soles?, set for release on April 6th. Featuring Scott Lucas on vocals/guitar, Brian St. Clair on drums, plenty of hooks and of course, an abundance of Lewis‚ acerbic wit and wry observations, Whatever Happened To PJ Soles?, finds the Chicago two-piece sounding better than ever. Tracks such as “California Songs,” “Dick Jones,” “Everyone Alive,” “PJ Soles,” (named after the forgotten… Read more »