Search Results for: Nick Gross

The owner of a Detroit studio where Eminem purportedly cut his best-selling debut album, The Slim Shady LP, was found dead Tuesday, the victim of an apparent vendetta, according to local authorities. A business acquaintance discovered the body of Amjed A. Abdallah lying in a pool his own blood on the floor of Studio 8. Investigators said the 36-year-old Jordanian engineer was shot at least twice, most likely on Sunday, based on the bloated condition of the corpse. A bullet casing from a.357-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. Police do not have a definitive motive in the slaying. Initially… Read more »

Making a case for hard music, stadium tours in general and Metallica’s own status as a headliner, Summer Sanitarium 2003 goes down as a winner, taking in $46.4 million and drawing 683,472 headbangers to 19 dates. The tour reaffirms the box-office clout of Metallica, which is currently in the planning stages of an extensive headlining tour next year, tentatively set to begin in March. Metallica last toured in 2000, taking in $40.5 million from only 20 shows. About a dozen of those concerts were Summer Sanitarium dates, featuring Kid Rock, Korn and others. This year’s Summer Sanitarium lineup featured Limp… Read more »

The music industry may have begun to figure out how to sell digital downloads, but making money from them is another story. As the 99 cent digital singles model begins to take root across the industry through services like Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, Liquid Audio, Rhapsody and a host of others set to bow for the PC this fall, industry executives and artist representatives are questioning whether the pricing model makes sense financially. With all parties involved angling for nickels and dimes in the average download sale, labels, artists and service providers all agree on at least one thing:… Read more »

Ticket sales are down, and big tours are scaling back to smaller venues. It looks to be a long, hot summer for the touring industry. On the cusp of the industry’s peak period, a number of high-profile tours and festivals have already hit snags, among them highly touted outings from Mariah Carey, the Field Day Music Festival, Lollapalooza, and Beck and Dashboard Confessional. Faced with a crowded tour market combined with high ticket prices, permit hassles, a sluggish economy and poor buzz, these tours and a handful of others have either had to scale back the size of the venues… Read more »

The concert business is thanking Paul McCartney for a big first half in 2002. But don’t be fooled: A closer look shows that attendance is actually down, and the increase in revenue is due solely to a hike in ticket prices, which have jumped by about four dollars. Rock concerts in 2002 have split into two separate markets: nostalgia fests for baby boomers willing to pay as much as $100 a ticket, and tours by current bands whose younger fans usually aren’t expected to pony up more than $30. The result? More money spent on fewer tickets. According to concert-industry… Read more »

Music fans eagerly anticipating the return of the pioneering Lollapalooza tour will have to wait at least another year. After declaring in November that the mobile festival would end its four-year hiatus in 2002, organizers have delayed its return until next summer. “Having gotten a late start, we felt it would be smart to start building now for summer 2003,” Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell said in a statement. “It will afford us a chance to get the headliner we really want.” The right lineup has always been important to Lollapalooza, which was planning to come back this year in part… Read more »

The rock band U2 had the second biggest tour ever during a year in which concert industry business was off but ticket prices continued to rise, an industry trade publication said Thursday. The top 100 concert tours sold 34.4 million tickets in 2001, down about 7 percent from 37.1 million the year before, according to an analysis by Pollstar magazine. U2, coming off one of its strongest albums, sold out arenas across the country with a well-received back-to-basics show. They even added dates after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The band’s $109.7 million in estimated ticket sales is second only… Read more »

By the close of business Wednesday, concert promoters across the country will know how many Internet-savvy baby boomers are hungry for the music of a generational hero, Bob Dylan. Dylan, whose “Love & Theft” album will be released Sept. 11, is taking a page from mega-sellers such as the Backstreet Boys and U2: a limited number of tickets for 32 North American concerts will go on sale Wednesday for fans who follow his activities on the Web site http://www.BobDylan.com. Although Dylan has toured relentlessly since the release four years ago of the album “Time Out of Mind,” which won three… Read more »

In what will mark her first regular TV involvement since she began her career dancing in the Flygirl ensemble of the Fox comedy series “In Living Color,” Jennifer Lopez has made a deal with NBC to star in and produce a special this fall. She will produce three additional specials for the network and also develop a half-hour sitcom based on her family and upbringing in the Bronx. At the same time, Lopez, who returns to theaters on Friday in the Luis Mandoki-directed drama “Angel Eyes,” is in talks to star in “One,” a Nick Kazan-written romance with supernatural overtones.… Read more »