For the first time in seven years, Shaun Cooper and John Nolan shared the stage with the rest of the Tell All Your Friends-era Taking Back Sunday crew, and neither one of them looked out of place.
Coheed and Cambria came, sold out the Central Park SummerStage and rocked so hard a man projectile vomited Wednesday. Though fans were nearly melting, their intensity never skipped a beat.
If you thought U2 selling their new album for $3.99 on Amazon.com was a recession-friendly deal, No Doubt is about to put that to shame. On Saturday, when fans buy the top price-level tickets ($42.50 or more before taxes and fees) to their latest tour, they’ll receive free downloads of the band’s entire catalog, including more than 80 tracks from the Gwen Stefani -fronted group’s seven studio albums The band’s only new track–a cover of Adam and the Ant’s ” Stand and Deliver” which they’ll play on the May 11 season finale of Gossip Girl –is a part of the… Read more »
After years of watching music fans flood online social networks to interact with their favorite recording artists, the music industry is starting to get serious about adding community features to its own websites. Hoping to become a big player in that effort is networking giant Cisco, which during the Consumer Electronics Show January 8-11 in Las Vegas introduced its Eos platform — a set of hosted online tools designed to enable media and entertainment companies to build social networking functions into websites. For record labels that means adding fan community services to artist sites. Warner Music Group (WMG) is the… Read more »
Rolling Stone magazine is shrinking with the times. After more than four decades of standing out with a larger format than other magazines, it will step back and look like everyone else starting with the Oct. 30 issue, due out this week. The adoption of a standard format could boost single-copy sales and reduce production costs for advertising inserts such as scent strips and tear-out postcards. The magazine says any cost savings, though, will be offset by the inclusion of more pages and the shift to thicker, glossier paper. Like other devoted readers, Eddie Ward, 35, said he will miss… Read more »
“SIMPLE PLAN,” the long-awaited new album from Lava/Atlantic recording group Simple Plan, has made a triumphant chart debut, both here and around the world. The Montreal-based band’s third studio effort — which features the singles “When I’m Gone” and “Your Love Is A Lie” — was the Billboard 200’s highest-charting debut of the week at #14, while also placing high on a variety of additional tallies, including #3 on “Top Rock Albums,” #4 on “Top Modern Rock/Alternative Albums,” and #7 on “Top Digital Albums.” In addition, the album reached the #1 spot on the iTunes Store’s “Top Pop Albums” ranking.… Read more »
For Simple Plan, the multimillion-selling pop-punk band from Montreal, “The End” was also a new beginning. After a year writing material for the follow-up to 2004’s “Still Not Getting Any…,” the band was struggling to find a way forward, drummer Chuck Comeau says. But last spring in Miami — where Simple Plan had gone to test-drive some songs in the studio with producer Danja (Nelly Furtafo, Justin Timberlake) — it became clear the group could forge a bold new sound. “It really clicked for the first time in Miami when we came up with ‘The End,”‘ Comeau says, referring to… Read more »
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame swung open its doors Monday night to the latest batch of acts ticketed for music immortality, with the Georgia alt-rock icons and the dysfunctional Pasadena party band leading the way. They were joined by ’70s punk pioneer Patti Smith, ’60s girl group the Ronettes and the first hip-hop act to crash the party, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The 22nd annual induction ceremony–which per tradition was held at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel–felt like an I Love the ’80 special, thanks to its two biggest inductees. R.E.M. received a warm introduction… Read more »
Late in the afternoon of Jan. 16, a SWAT team from the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office, backed up by officers from the Clayton County Sheriff’s Office and the local police department, along with a few drug-sniffing dogs, burst into a unmarked recording studio on a short, quiet street in an industrial neighborhood near the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. The officers entered with their guns drawn; the local police chief said later that they were “prepared for the worst.” They had come to serve a warrant for the arrest of the studio’s owners on the grounds that they had violated the… Read more »
The Killers and the Arctic Monkeys, indie rockers from opposite sides of the Atlantic, took two trophies apiece Wednesday at Britain’s prestigious music-industry awards, the Brits. Las Vegas natives The Killers, who broke out in Britain before finding success at home, were named international group of the year at the British equivalent of the Grammys. They also took the international album prize for “Sam’s Town.” Infectious rockers the Arctic Monkeys – who released Britain’s fastest-selling debut album after building a cult Internet following – were named best British band. The Sheffield quartet also took the British album prize for “Whatever… Read more »
