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As Johnny Rotten once snarled, “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” To the dismay of aging punk fans, a British television company announced Monday that the former Sex Pistols singer and angry punk icon – now known by his real name, John Lydonhas agreed to appear in the reality show “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!” “I’m gobsmacked,” said Tony Wilson, a British journalist and music entrepreneur who knows Lydon. “I’m shocked, but I have faith… I’m sure he’s doing it for the right reasons.” Other punk fans were appalled. “The announcement made me feel instantly old….… Read more »

Platinum rockers Simple Plan are ringing in the new year by celebrating the rise of their debut album No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls ascent into the Billboard Top 40. The band’s album officially charted at #35 this week on the Billboard Top 200, marking the band’s highest charting position of their entire career. Since the release of their album in March 2002, Simple Plan is considered by many to be one of the biggest artist development stories in recent history. No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls first entered the Billboard Top 200 57 weeks ago and has continued to move up… Read more »

Working to provide consumers with the most compelling digital content whenever and wherever they desire, HP and Apple(R) today announced a strategic alliance to deliver an HP-branded digital music player based on Apple’s iPodâ„¢, the number one digital music player in the world, and Apple’s award-winning iTunes digital music jukebox and pioneering online music store to HP’s customers. As part of the alliance, HP consumer PCs and notebooks will come preinstalled with Apple’s iTunes(R) jukebox software and an easy-reference desktop icon to point consumers directly to the iTunes Music Store, ensuring a simple, seamless music experience. This offering is yet… Read more »

Maroon 5 has an incredible 2004 planned with the launch of “This Love,” their second single and video (premiering on MTV on January 6), an upcoming tour with John Mayer and a special live performance on MTV’s Total Request Live on January 13. In 2003, LA’s Maroon 5 saw the fruits of their labors when their debut album, Songs About Jane, was certified gold and their first national headlining tour was all but completely sold out in every market. The band’s first single and video for “Harder To Breathe,” received massive airplay at Top 40, VH1 and MTV. The video… Read more »

Rick Van Santen, a co-president of Goldenvoice, a Los Angeles concert promotion company that ushered punk rock from the fringes of the music scene to a wide audience, died last Sunday at his home in Ventura County of flu-related complications, his Goldenvoice partner Paul Tollett said. He was 41. In the 1980s, a time when major promoters shunned punk because of its reputation as a violent subculture, Goldenvoice presented acts in large, established rooms with quality sound, such as the Hollywood Palladium and the Palace (now the Avalon). “There cannot be any L.A. band since the early ’80s that was… Read more »

Cris Kirkwood, former bassist for influential alternative rock band the Meat Puppets, remained hospitalized Monday after being shot in the abdomen on Friday. Kirkwood was shot outside a post office in downtown Phoenix by a security guard escorting him off the premises after he was involved in an argument with a woman over a parking space, according to a spokesperson for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was taken to Good Samaritan Medical Center in nearby Banner, Arizona, in critical condition and underwent surgery on the wound, a hospital spokesperson said. As the 43-year-old Kirkwood attempted to back into a… Read more »

Multi-platinum-selling rapper Juvenile has returned to the Cash Money fold and is set to release his fifth solo album, Juve The Great on December 23. This marks Juvenile’s first release since 2001’s gold certified, Project English. The first single from the CD, “In My Life,” was produced by Cash Money’s in-house hitmaker, Mannie Fresh. The track has already garnered massive early radio airplay in major markets such as Washington D.C., Norfolk, Dallas, Raleigh and Juvenile’s native New Orleans. The video is in regular rotation at BET’s Rap City and will hit MTV2 Friday, December 19th. As a pioneering southern rapper,… Read more »

Once again the Swiss are remaining neutral. Swiss authorities have decided not to press charges against the rock ‘n’ roll oddity in the wake of a criminal investigation following complaints from a religious group offended by Manson’s February 2001 concert in Zurich. The city’s examining magistrate, Marcel Scherrer, declared on Monday that his office had found no evidence to suggest that Manson (real name: Brian Warner) incited violence or breached Swiss law that protects the sanctity of religion. In deciding not to file charges, the district prosecutor essentially rejected a grievance filed by Christians for Truth, a Swiss-based fundamentalist group… Read more »

The Lostprophets are preparing for the release of Start Something, the successor to the group’s 2001 independently released, The Fake Sound of Progress. The new Lostprophets album is produced by Eric Valentine (Queens of the Stone Age, Good Charlotte) and features the first single, “Last Train Home,” which was the unexpected #1 most added track at modern rock radio this week and #2 most added at the active rock format. The stations who have added the track include the Los Angeles based modern rock pacesetter KROQ. Start Something is scheduled to be released on February 3, 2004. The group recently… Read more »

In their 13 years together, the members of P.O.D. have never denied their faith. And frontman Sonny Sandoval says the group never will. “It’s going to come out, whether I build houses or collect garbage,” he says. Spirituality and positivity have saturated the band’s material to date and have helped turn P.O.D. into a multiplatinum-selling act in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. With the new Atlantic effort, “Payable on Death,” both band and label hope that the faith of the 2.7 million U.S. fans who bought P.O.D.’s previous album also remains intact, as the new set – the group’s… Read more »