Search Results for: MAX

Around the time Brett Gurewitz was launching Epitaph Records in 1981, his father was lecturing him to take guitar lessons. The Bad Religion guitarist and punk-rock entrepreneur never sat down for courses with a guitar instructor, although he did go to school to learn to be a recording engineer. However, no amount of schooling could have prepared Gurewitz for the next 25 years of his life. Epitaph Records brought a new era of punk rock to the masses in 1994 when the Offspring’s “Smash” turned into one of the biggest rock records of the decade. The success of the label’s… Read more »

2007 is off to a great start for Pepper! Once again these Island boys are gearing up for a two month national tour which kicks off February 14th in San Diego with the Mad Caddies. Pepper has been celebrating the attention from their latest album release No Shame on Atlantic/East West Records. Pepper mixes influences like Nirvana with the likes of Bad Brains and Black Sabbath, creating some of the best “kick back, sunny side, back side, grinding mellow guitar picking, cool wave riding sounds” around. The first single “No Control” continues to climb the Alternative Rock charts. Since its… Read more »

With the decade fast approaching it’s musical climax, 2006 proved to be a big winner for an industry hit by piracy. The live music scene proved to be the biggest release for most acts, with top grossing tours for some of the world’s biggest bands, and an explosion in music festivals across the globe. Firstly, let’s recap on albums were still waiting on from last year; OutKast’s first studio album since 2004’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” (which was one of the year’s biggest releases) is rumoured now for the spring, and Guns N’ Roses failed to deliver on their promise of… Read more »

If there’s a self-fulfilling prophecy in the musical landscape of the year, it’s the way the Virgin debut band THE SUMMER OBSESSION is coming into its own, with its crunchy pop-rock combination of guitar, electronics, and faultless songwriting, during the dog days of 2006. The Florida-based quartet — Luke, on keyboards and vocals; Chris, formerly of Good Charlotte, on drums and “shenanigans”; Fin, on guitar and vocals; and Christ, on bass, with Josh Abraham (Velvet Revolver, P!nk) producing and Ryan Williams engineering (OutKast, Rage Against the Machine) — will release the album “THIS IS WHERE YOU BELONG” on Virgin Records… Read more »

Los Angeles – America Online is set to reveal a dramatic new addition to its public Web presence Tuesday (April 19) with the announcement that it will make thousands of music videos available for free and on demand. The media company disclosed an agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG), and a deal with Warner Music Group is expected shortly. Additional labels already are in negotiations as well. AOL has begun encoding the videos and plans to put them up at www.aolmusic.com gradually as the technical work is completed, beginning this week. America Online senior vp programing Bill Wilson said that… Read more »

New York – Radio’s playlist liberation movement hatched in late 2001 at a birthday party in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A radio was blasting when Howard Kroeger, director of operations and programing for CHUM Broadcasting’s Winnipeg stations, arrived at his friend’s 40th-birthday bash. It was a competitor’s classic rock station, and Kroeger used the occasion to conduct an informal focus group among the partygoers, most in their mid- to late 30s. Whenever Boston, the Cars, Meatloaf, Supertramp or some other ’70s staple came on, it got an overwhelming thumbs-up from the Molson-enhanced crowd. But there was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm when… Read more »

New York – As U.S. pop radio stations begin to embrace the Backstreet Boys single “Incomplete,” Jive Records has set June 14 as the release date for the vocal group’s fourth studio album, “Never Gone.” The new album features the writing and production talents of Five For Fighting’s John Ondrasik, Savage Garden’s Darren Hayes, Max Martin, Billy Mann (Pink, Sting), Dan Muckala (Jump5, the Afters) and John Fields (Switchfoot), as well as John Shanks, who in February won the Grammy Award as producer of the year for his work on releases by Sheryl Crow, Clarkson, Hilary Duff and Ashlee Simpson.… Read more »

Washington – Congress is toying with the idea of mandating one standard for all online music platforms. Thanks but no thanks – the industry can figure it out, said music industry and consumer groups at a congressional hearing about the plan Wednesday. During a hearing to discuss mandating interoperability standards between competing music platforms such as Apple’s iTunes and RealNetworks’ Rhapsody, lawmakers sounded off on the lament of some hipsters frustrated by playback snafus when they try to transfer music files from other platforms to their iPods. Although Real and Apple support Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), a compression format defined… Read more »

Perhaps Simple Plan and Good Charlotte will spend their upcoming co-headlining tour discussing the works of existentialist Jean-Paul Sarte or decrying the appointment of ultraconservative Paul Wolfowitz as the head of the World Bank. Because, wow, both groups have gotten plenty serious all of a sudden. It all started last week, when Good Charlotte filmed the woe-is-the-world video for their new single, “We Believe”. And now Simple Plan are upping the angst ante with the clip for their new single, “Untitled.” In the video – directed by Marc Klasfeld (Sum 41, Thursday) – the normally rambunctious Montreal pop-punkers are tackling… Read more »