Search Results for: Japanese

The Donnas have nothing on the Bens. The three members really are named Ben, and you may have heard of them: Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee. The solo singers officially became a group, or at least a side project, when they recorded four songs together in Nashville last month. “There’s some new wave on there, a piano ballad that Folds sings, a countryish song,” Kweller said Saturday backstage at Coachella. “It’s just all three of us writing songs; there’s not any one particular sound. It’s all three of us singing, big harmonies.” After the three-day studio session, the… Read more »

While the World Health Organization said that it believes the worst of severe acute respiratory syndrome is over in Canada, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam – which got a clean bill of health on Monday for being the first nation to contain the virus – SARS is still affecting tour and promotional plans for many artists who were set to visit those regions. The Rolling Stones were the first to pull out of Asian concerts – their first-ever concerts in China – when news of the disease broke in March, though they did play two shows in Singapore. They also… Read more »

The woman who locked horns with Sharon Osbourne in a Los Angeles restaurant last week has fired back with her own version of how the scrap happened. Renee Tab, a talent agent whose war of words with the metal matriarch escalated to violence at the Japanese restaurant Koi, claims Osbourne spat on and kicked her and made threatening and ethnic remarks. Osbourne “started screaming racial slurs,” Tab’s lawyer, Najila Brent, told New York’s Daily News. She called the Iranian-born Tab a “Persian carpet cleaner” and threatened to “send someone to slash [her] face and break [her] leg,” according to the… Read more »

Britney Spears’ request for a restraining order against a Japanese fan will be dismissed as part of an out-of-court agreement between both parties, court officials said Wednesday. Masahiko Shizawa’s attorney had said Spears’ misunderstood his client’s interest in her. “He’s not a stalker,” Simon R. Hiller said during a February hearing. “He’s an avid fan.” In asking for a court order keeping Shizawa at least 1,000 yards from her, the 21-year-old pop star said he had sent hundreds of love letters and photographs and tracked her to her homes in Louisiana and California. She said one photo bore the words,… Read more »

Like Steven Segal in 1991, Sharon Osbourne is out for justice. But unlike Gino Felino, the character portrayed by the karate champ turned actor, she’s not looking to settle the dispute that took place in a West Hollywood, California, restaurant last week with martial arts. Neither is she taking the matter to a court of law. Rather, she’s about to bring the case before the court of public opinion. Osbourne is set to appear on the television show “Celebrity Justice” Tuesday (April 15), according to a network spokesperson, to tell her version of how an altercation with a talent agent… Read more »

Sharon Osbourne and a woman with whom she’s had an ongoing feud were involved in a scuffle Thursday night in a West Hollywood restaurant, according to police. Officers arrived at the Japanese restaurant Koi on La Cienega Boulevard at 10:45 p.m., after Osbourne and Renee Tab, an entertainment agent for International Creative Management, were involved in an altercation, an LAPD spokesperson said. No one was arrested, though police took reports and photographed each woman. It’s unclear how the argument started, but it escalated into a physical altercation that found Tab hitting Osbourne in the face, according to the report given… Read more »

The Beastie Boys will perform April 25 at Las Vegas’ House of Blues, in a show that will serve both as a tribute to slain Run-D.M.C. DJ Jam Master Jay and a warm-up for the veteran rap trio’s headlining slot the next night at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Longtime Beasties associate DJ Hurricane will also be on the bill for the all-ages Vegas show, tickets for which are now on sale for $75 and $150. Further details regarding the benefit were unavailable at deadline. It is not known if surviving Run-D.M.C. members Joseph “Reverend… Read more »

Japanese electronics and entertainment giant Sony Corp. promoted the executives who run its entertainment and video-game units Monday. Howard Stringer, chief executive of Sony Corp. of America and head of the entertainment group, will become Sony vice chairman. He retains his position as chairman and CEO of Sony Corp. of America. The entertainment group includes music and film operations. Ken Kutaragi, who made the Sony PlayStation console a major moneymaker for the Tokyo-based company, will become executive deputy president of Sony in addition to his current duties as chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment and as a Sony director. The… Read more »

The long-rumored restructuring at Sony Music is expected to take a hefty bite out of the record giant’s sales staff, with some form of combination of sales forces at flagship Sony labels Epic and Columbia to be part of the deal, sources close to the company said. Exact figures are still being worked out, but the sales cuts will likely be well into the dozens when the smoke clears. Recent reports put the total number of expected layoffs around 1,000 staffers – though Sony insiders insist that number is high. Sales cuts would follow a general trend in the industry… Read more »

Sixty years after his birth, one of the most important artists ever to emerge from Seattle is – at least officially – almost invisible here. There’s no Jimi Hendrix Boulevard, no Hendrix Arena, no Hendrix Elementary School. The only thing the city has done to recognize the man many consider the world’s greatest guitar player is to give him a rock – in the African Savanna exhibit at the Woodland Park Zoo. Biographer Charles Cross of Seattle, who has spent years researching Hendrix for an upcoming book, called the oversight “almost criminal.” “The Seattle city government has never given any… Read more »