Search Results for: Rock am Ring

The biggest winners turned out to be MIAs at the 30th annual AMAs, including Eminem, winner of a leading four American Music Awards. Others absent when their names were called at Monday night’s American Music Awards were the bands Creed and the Dixie Chicks, who won two awards apiece. Tim McGraw, who sang a “Tiny Dancer” duet with Elton John at the start of the nationally televised show, left for Nashville before winning favorite male country artist, and Mary J. Blige – another absentee – was named favorite female hip-hop artist. Eminem won in every category in which he was… Read more »

After scoring a hit in 2000 with their first single, “Flavor of the Weak,” American Hi-Fi were showered with praise and press. The experience of playing stadiums and landing mainstream radio play influenced frontman Stacy Jones to write the title track of the band’s new album, The Art of Losing. “We started out playing these sh-ty little clubs all over the country, and it was f-ing great,” explained Jones. “Then when ‘Flavor of the Weak’ started getting played, we found ourselves on these bills where we were playing between Dream and the ‘Moulin Rouge’ chicks. I just remember looking at… Read more »

Instead of visiting a bounty on any single artist, the nominations announced Tuesday for the 45th Annual Grammy Awards were sprinkled around in an unusually equitable manner-eight musicians tied for the most nominations with sounds as diverse the elegiac rock of Bruce Springsteen, the gossamer, jazzy blends of newcomer Norah Jones and the whipsaw rhymes of Eminem. In year’s past, a glut of nominations would push as single artist such as Lauryn Hill or Carlos Santana above the fold, but this year the flattened field presented more subtle story lines amid the sprawl of 104 categories. Among those themes: The… Read more »

Ground control to Avril Lavigne: It’s David Bowie, like doughy – not Bowie, like Howie. That’s how the 18-year-old Canadian singer pronounced the veteran rock star’s name when the Grammy nominations were announced Tuesday. Lavigne was helping announce the nominees for best male rock vocal performance at Madison Square Garden when she made the gaffe, pronouncing Bowie’s name like “Howie.” When an Associated Press reporter told her afterward that she’d flubbed Bowie’s name, Lavigne said: “Oops! I knew that was going to happen, I knew I was going to pronounce someone’s name wrong.” Lavigne – that’s pronounced luh-VEEN – received… Read more »

Papa Roach spent some time in the studio with the Neptunes last week, recording a song for the soundtrack to “Biker Boyz,” starring Laurence Fishburne and Kid Rock. Jacoby Shaddix and company shacked up with producers du jour Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo in Los Angeles’ Record Plant, according to a DreamWorks Records spokesperson. The resulting track, tentatively titled “Don’t Look Back,” is slated for the “Biker Boyz” soundtrack, due January 28. The album’s other tracks had not been finalized at press time. “Biker Boyz” stars Fishburne as Manuel “Smoke” Galloway, leader of a black motorcycle club. Rock, following up… Read more »

Though some artists have been known to exaggerate a broken heart for the sake of art, the All-American Rejects have no need for such artistic license. For them, the truth is often sadder than fiction. “There’s rarely a happy ending in any of my songs,” singer/bassist Tyson Ritter said. “As far as the guy getting the girl in the end, it’s all fictitious. It’s all made up in my mind, I guess; all wishful thinking.” Such weighty fare fills the self-titled full-length debut by Ritter, 18, and multi-instrumentalist Nick Wheeler, 20. Two kids from Stillwater, Oklahoma, shouldn’t know so much… Read more »

In an historic decision handed down by a federal jury in Pittsburgh, PA, SESAC has been awarded more than $1.2 million in damages, including the maximum damages on 6 songs, in a copyright infringement litigation. The verdict was returned against WPNT, Inc., the operator of radio stations WLTJ-FM and WRRK-FM in Pittsburgh, and its president, Saul Frischling. In their complaint, SESAC and 15 affiliated music publishers alleged that on numerous occasions WPNT’s stations performed the music of SESAC-affiliated songwriters without authorization. SESAC sought statutory damages under U.S. Copyright Law Title 17 U.S.C. # 504 and charged willful infringement. The music… Read more »

Peter Garrett, the energetic lead singer of Australian rock band Midnight Oil, has quit the band after 25 years. With his distinctive bald head, wild dancing and strident voice, Garrett was one of the most recognizable Australian singers of the last generation. Midnight Oil’s protest song about Aboriginal land rights, “Beds are Burning,” was a hit around the world and the band played it at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. “The last 25 years have been incredibly fulfilling for me, and I leave with the greatest respect for the whole of Midnight Oil,” Garrett said in a… Read more »

A founder member of British rock group Oasis has lost his bid to sue the band’s lawyers over his firing because he took too long to start legal action. London’s High Court threw out the claim by drummer Anthony McCarroll that solicitors Statham Gill Davies had negligently handled Oasis’s 1993 recording agreement with Sony, allowing the band to get rid of him instantly without compensation. The judge, awarding summary judgment to the solicitors without the need for a full trial, said McCarroll had failed to bring his claim within the legal limit of six years from the date his cause… Read more »

More than a decade after the height of the Seattle rock explosion, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains are long gone and Mudhoney have become a cult band. Pearl Jam are the last man standing. And despite their best efforts to maintain a low profile, their Riot Act debuted at #5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling more than 165,000 copies. No one could be more surprised than guitarist Mike McCready. “I’m amazed that people are even still wanting to listen to us,” he said. “With all the other music out there and the shifting times, I’m surprised that… Read more »