Search Results for: Not My Weekend

In early 1984, when Epic Records executives presented their slate of upcoming releases at the convention in Hawaii of parent company CBS Records they couldn’t resist playing up the success they were experiencing. So between the pitches for new albums, Epic inserted stock footage of semi trucks and a voice-over that thunderously announced, “There goes another load of Michael Jackson’s Thriller albums!” Trucks weren’t really leaving the warehouse every few minutes, but Thriller was still shattering expectations more than a year after its November 30, 1982, release. Epic was selling more than 1 million copies per month in the United… Read more »

TV stations across the U.S. started cutting their analog signals Friday morning, ending a 60-year run for the technology and likely stranding more than 1 million unprepared homes without TV service. The Federal Communications Commission put 4,000 operators on standby for calls from confused viewers, and set up demonstration centers in several cities. Volunteer groups and local government agencies were helping elderly viewers set up digital converter boxes that keep older TVs functioning. Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected. “When you’re alone like me, that’s my partner,” Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.… Read more »

What’s one way to ensure your mega music festival is well attended in the middle of a recession? Book a reunited Phish. The jam band’s legions of ardent followers sell out arenas in minutes, so with little difficulty they will flood the Tennessee fields of the Bonnaroo Music Festival, which begins Thursday and runs through Sunday. In its eighth year, Bonnaroo – arguably the country’s biggest festival – will have a distinctive Phish flavor. Oh, and a guy named Bruce Springsteen is playing, too. With that lineup, organizers expect that tickets to sell without a hitch along the way, in… Read more »

“As individuals, we’re misfits,” says Fergie, the sultry female singer of the Black Eyed Peas “Together, we’re like one big misfit. People are always questioning who the hell we are.” It is the day after the group’s May 6th performance, on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Chilling out in a small, sparsely furnished room at Center Staging in Burbank, California, she and fellow members of the multiracial group resemble a live version of a United Colors of Benetton ad. Fergie is dressed in black-and-white capri-length leggings set off by a hot pink shirt and a sharp pair of black ankle-strapped heels… Read more »

Forget the crumbling economy and those scary Somali pirates. The big presidential decision everyone has been waiting for since Barack Obama took office was finally resolved over the weekend, when the first family welcomed Bo the Portuguese water dog to the White House. According to TMZ, Sasha and Malia finally got their dog on Saturday, but not before the eagerly awaited unveiling almost turned into a controversy. While the Washington Post had been promised dibs on the feel-good story, TMZ tried to spoil the surprise by breaking the news over the weekend, despite the Obamas’ plan to keep the news… Read more »

LILONGWE, Malawi — Wealthy, famous, fabulous at 50 – but not a mother of four. Pop star extraordinaire Madonna lost a bid Friday to adopt a second child from Malawi rejected by a judge who said she would not bend the country’s strict residency rules even for a wealthy celebrity. The decision came as a surprise since Malawi’s child welfare minister came out Thursday in support of the singer’s application to adopt 3-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James. And it was a rare setback for the material girl who has projected an image of being able to attain whatever she sets her… Read more »

NEW YORK –  Longtime New York radio newsman  George Weber  was found stabbed to death in his  Brooklyn  apartment Sunday morning, cops said. The bloody body of Weber, a passionate fan of the city who spent a decade doing local news on WABC morning radio, was found just after 9 a.m. when he didn’t show up for work. “I used to hear his voice in the top and the bottom of the hour. It’s a voice New Yorkers know. Now that voice has been silenced,” said  Aaron Katersky, 33, an ABC colleague who found himself covering a friend’s murder. Weber,… Read more »

Up from the bottom, indeed. Five years after going belly up, Phish resurfaced with a vengeance Friday night, playing the first of three sold-out reunion concerts in Hampton, Va, in a bid to reclaim their position at the top of the jam-band heap. Sharing in the groove at Hampton Coliseum otherwise known as “the Mothership,” 13,000 Phishheads nearly brought the house down with a collective roar as Trey Anastasio keyboardist Page McConnell bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman hit the stage. It was an emotional homecoming, though not everyone was a Phish veteran. “We flew in from Seattle to… Read more »

Katy Perry is talking about boys again. But this time around, it’s pretty clear she’s not opening up about her split from Gym Class Heroes singer Travis McCoy Perry revealed at a concert in L.A. this weekend that she first started learning about the opposite sex at a roller-skating rink. “I used to never even be able to see a boy,” the Grammy nominee said to a packed house at the Wiltern “I didn’t even know what a boy was. They were so foreign to me. I used to go roller-skating just so I could see the opposite sex.” And… Read more »