Search Results for: Andy Black

Why do rock stars have to get old? That’s all I kept thinking Wednesday night (8/15), watching Dave Gahan try to twirl up a storm onstage as Depeche Mode brought the Exciter tour to the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Gahan is game, strutting around stage but sliding up his mic stand, he looks more like a middle-aged stripper, and Martin Gore’s all energy, moving to the music but that guitar looks way too big for his tiny frame. And Andy Fletcher … well, Andy Fletcher’s doing nothing, but it’s cool ’cause its Depeche Mode, right? The answer is a… Read more »

Time was, pop stars who hit it big would ride out the success of an album and then lie low for awhile, presumably restoring their creative energies and also whetting the public’s appetite for the next record. Not any more. Today’s acts – wary of fickle fans and short attention spans – are pumping out albums in quick succession so as not to lose the spotlight to someone else. “Unfortunately right now, you have to just hit while you’re hot,” said teen pop starlet Jessica Simpson, who released her self-titled second album in June, a year and a half after… Read more »

By all accounts, Madonna’s first world tour in eight years kicked off with a roaring success in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday (June 10). The Material Girl continued the theme of her Scottish Highlands wedding by donning a Jean Paul Gaultier-designed kilt and sleeveless black top for the opening bars of the Drowned World Tour 2001 at the Palau Sant Jordi stadium, according to various media accounts. The 18,000-plus sold-out crowd of Spanish revelers was reportedly so loud throughout the 20-song, two-hour set that the noise drowned out the music itself, clocking in at over 120 decibels at one point, according… Read more »

When The Spinal Tap performed Monday night at Carnegie Hall, it was as if the thirty-four-year-old British heavy metal band was playing for the first time in three days. With the three founding Spinal Tap members – David St. Hubbins, on guitar and vocals; Nigel Tufnel, on lead guitar; and Derek Smalls, on bass – Spinal Tap played “Carnegie ‘Fucking’ Hall” as if they were the same band they have always been. And yet with accompaniment by longtime keyboardist Caucasian Jeffrey Vaston, and with Skippy Skuffelton accepting the suicide mission of drums, Spinal Tap actually are still the same band… Read more »

The combative brothers in English rock band Oasis have buried the hatchet long enough to survive the first two shows of their North American tour, guitarist Noel Gallagher said Monday. Oasis are co-headlining the road trip with the Black Crowes, an American band also fronted by two squabbling siblings, and the package has been slyly dubbed “The Tour of Brotherly Love.” Noel Gallagher and his younger brother, vocalist Liam, are famous for their public spats, with Noel walking off the group’s European tour last year. A few years ago, the group cut short an American tour because of internal strife.… Read more »

The feud between Eminem and the Insane Clown Posse appears to have led to another violent incident, this time involving a road manager for the Clowns and an Eminem fan in Nebraska. The road manager, William Dail, allegedly choked the Eminem fan until he blacked out after the clown-faced rappers’ show in Omaha on Tuesday, May 8, police said. Dail admits to holding 23-year-old Thomas P. Goonan by his neck and throwing him against a wall but denies the fan lost consciousness. He said Goonan was disrespecting the Detroit duo by waving a T-shirt emblazed with rival rapper Eminem’s image… Read more »

Joey Ramone, lead singer of legendary punk band the Ramones, passed away at 2:40 p.m. Sunday at the age of 49. The towering front man, born Jeffrey Hyman, did not respond to treatment for lymphatic cancer, a disease that attacks the body’s ability to fight infection. Along with his cohorts Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee – all of whom adopted Ramone as a surname – Joey was credited with helping found the modern punk movement. In mixing the griminess of the New York streets with a love of bubblegum pop, ’60s girl groups and the Stooges, the Ramones inspired everyone… Read more »

Bertelsmann’s planned merger with British music giant EMI is expected to be scrapped shortly, highly placed sources close to the action reported yesterday. Official word of the nixing of a BMG-EMI joint entity will likely come from the congloms in the next couple of weeks. Surprisingly, the companies dropped plans for a merger before a finalized proposition was even formally presented to the EU regulatory board for approval. In an attempt to make the BMG-EMI deal happen, sources said, Clive Calder and his Zomba/Jive Records were going to play a major role in solving some of the monopolistic concerns raised… Read more »