Search Results for: Eli Hurts

The urge to merge within both the recording and satellite radio industries this week reflects how tough it is to compete profitably within the evolving digital media market. Struggling satellite radio operators XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. announced a proposed $4.9 billion merger and Warner Music Group Corp. this week said it had approached Britain’s EMI Group Plc about a possible takeover bid in the latest twist in a seven-year mating saga between the two. The deals are seen as defensive reactions to an increasingly complicated digital entertainment market. “Both these potential deals in the… Read more »

A Sacramento area radio station fired 10 employees Tuesday, including three morning disc jockeys, in reaction to a tragedy in which a woman died Friday after an on-air water-drinking contest at the station’s studios. The hosts of the KDND-FM “Morning Rave” show – who go by the on-air names Trish, Maney and Lukas – were fired a day after the station suspended the show and said it is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death. Jennifer Lea Strange, 28, died after participating in a water-drinking contest on the hit music radio station, which calls itself — playing on the sound of… Read more »

Few things are sadder than aging punk rockers attempting to cash in on their misspent youth, especially their desperate act of trying to recapture the glory days of fickle preadolescents with disposable incomes. Such is the lot of Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, purveyors of a Splenda version of pop-punk so lightweight that only Top 40 radio will touch it. Not that the bands resemble glossy pop stars, per se: GC’s members look like thugged-out suburbanites who overdosed at the tattoo parlor, and the Plansters are the mischievous skater kids hellbent on crashing keggers thrown by the football jocks. Good… Read more »

The odds are stacked against Velvet Revolver. Their singer, Scott Weiland, is currently in drug rehab for the umpteenth time. Who knows if he’ll be a free man when it’s time to tour, and judging from his past history, it could be a struggle for him to stay clean when the band hits the road. As for his bandmates – ex-Guns N’ Roses members Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums), and former Suicidal Tendencies guitarist Dave Kushner – they’re ready to rock, but there’s some question whether the rock community is ready to embrace them. Over a… Read more »

R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck is a bit miffed that the group’s newer music doesn’t get much air time. “We do really good work, and I hate to brag but our records are better than most people’s records,” Buck told reporters. “So sometimes it kind of hurts my feelings when I see a record that is obviously a piece of garbage, and everyone knows its garbage, and the guy can’t sing, and then we put out a really good record and they don’t put it on the radio because it doesn’t fit the formats.” R.E.M. is releasing a greatest hits album… Read more »

George Harrison, Prince, John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne are among those who’ve made the list of nominees for the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot, a hall of fame spokesperson confirmed Monday. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria for consideration include “the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll,” according to the organization. Several names that have not made the hall before are back for another try, including the Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, country rock legend Gram Parsons,… Read more »

This news is either going to ease Prince and John Mellencamp’s possible midlife crises, or agitate them: They’re nominees for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The late George Harrison and Jackson Browne are other first-timers on the ballot determining the hall’s class of 2004. Others looking to gain admittance to the Cleveland-based mecca after coming up short in previous voting, include: Punk pioneers the Sex Pistols; Ozzy Osbourne’s first family, Black Sabbath; “Freebird” purveyors Lynyrd Skynyrd; ZZ Top, the bearded rockers who were once MTV’s unlikeliest video stars; and poet/rocker Patti Smith. Nominees become eligible for… Read more »

The week the music industry brought suit against 261 users of Internet file-sharing services, Donald L. McCabe was in St. Louis to talk about a different form of digital copying. Mr. McCabe, a Rutgers University professor, has made a career of studying the cheating of American high school and college students. His most recent study found that cheating was spreading almost like file-sharing. Of more than 18,000 students surveyed, 38 percent said they had lifted material from the Internet for use in papers in the last year. More striking to Mr. McCabe, 44 percent said they considered this sampling no… Read more »

The air-rage trial of American rock star Peter Buck collapsed after the judge discharged the jury, court officials said Tuesday. Buck, guitarist for renowned rock band R.E.M., was due to begin the second day of his trial for an alleged drunken attack on a plane in April. No reason was given for the dismissal of the jury. Buck, 44, had pleaded not guilty to charges of assaulting cabin crew, being drunk on an aircraft and damaging property on board a British Airways flight from Seattle to London. The prosecution will return to the court at a future date to say… Read more »

British prosecutors described the guitarist for renowned rock band R.E.M. as having acted like a naughty child on a plane in April during the first day of his air-rage trial in a London courtroom. Peter Buck, who avoided photographers and fans at the entrance to the court, pleaded not guilty to charges of assaulting cabin crew, being drunk on an aircraft, and damaging property on board a British Airways flight from Seattle to London. Prosecutor Edward Lewis told the court the 44-year-old Buck began drinking with his tour manager in the first-class cabin soon after boarding the flight. When crew… Read more »