Search Results for: Summer School

Evan and Jaron Lowenstein are sitting in a restaurant talking about the boy-band thing – an image they say has been pinned on them by teen magazines and their promotional pairings with teen pop singers. The good-looking, clean-cut twins – known simply as Evan and Jaron – say they don’t want that kind of attention. Then two women come up to their table and interrupt to ask if they are the singing twin brothers – the ones who sing THAT song on the radio all the time. “My daughter just loves you…. She’s 12,” says one woman. Afterward, Jaron sighs.… Read more »

Papa Roach aren’t about to let touring get in the way of making a new album. So for this summer’s Ozzfest, the Northern California quartet has outfitted a spare bus with enough recording equipment to lay down rough tracks. “It’s a great opportunity to write music, because you’re in a pretty stimulating environment,” says frontman Coby Dick. “There is pressure to write a good second record, but we’re not trying to rush it.” Dick describes the songs written so far as “definitely bangin’ and groovin’,” and he says they explore serious themes without rehashing past hits such as “Last Resort”… Read more »

For the first time in almost four years, one of Australia’s most successful rock bands, INXS, is playing a few shows in North America. But the crowd at their recent Los Angeles stop consisted of about 70 Rhino Records employees and a few reporters, just two of the band’s six members were on stage, and the bespectacled singer looked nothing like Michael Hutchence, the group’s charismatic vocalist. Hutchence committed suicide in November 1997, and his bandmates are having a hard time deciding whether to carry on. In the meantime, they have released a two-CD anthology, “Shine Like It Does,” via… Read more »

Napster’s still down, and there’s no telling when it’ll be back up again. As the file-sharing service headed for the fifth day of its longest service outage ever on Thursday (July 5), the company couldn’t say when users would be able to start swapping songs again. Since early Monday morning, Napster has blocked all file transfers, blaming problems in assembling the database needed for its new filters, which use acoustic fingerprinting technology. The new filters should allow Napster to block files based on musical content instead of simply relying on user-provided filenames. “Napster’s goal is to start file transfers again… Read more »

To Lars Frederiksen, his band Rancid, his label-mates on Epitaph and Hell-Cat Records, and his favorite bands are all about being part of a family – a punk rock family. Fresh off a tour playing with tour with two, high-powered Hell-Cat bands, Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards and the Dropkick Murphys, Frederiksen is set for Rancid’s stint on this summer’s Vans Warped Tour and readying a new, high-tech Rancid release. There’s no time to rest for this tattooed, mohawk-sporting, family man. Rancid will join the roving punk festival on June 22nd in Phoenix along with Epitaph label-mates Pennywise, the Bouncing… Read more »

Billy Idol rang in the summer solstice Thursday night with a tight, concise and energetic show befitting one of glam-punk’s most sovereign and feisty pioneers. At 45, His Right and Honorable Rude Dude can still whip crowds into giddy submission, as the 2,000 or so nostalgists and newcomers attending his Kiss the Skull Tour at the Fillmore happily discovered. With the house lights lowered, an introduction of ambient synth washes conjured visions of deep space nebulae (or any fantasy H.R Giger might dream up), before Idol sauntered out, trademark sneer intact, for the first of a long string of chartbusters:… Read more »

Mest has just put the finishing touches on their brand new album, “DESTINATION UNKNOWN,” set for release August 14, with the album’s debut single, “Cadillac,” which features hip-hop legend Young MC, cruising into radio the first week of July. Produced by Goldfinger’s John Feldmann and recorded at his Marina Del Rey studio, “DESTINATION UNKNOWN” is the latest step in the Illinois-based band’s journey across the punk-time continuum. Comprised of singer/guitarist Tony Lovato, bassist Matt Lovato, guitarist Jeremiah Rangel, and drummer Nick Gigler, Mest drew national attention last year with their debut album WASTING TIME. The new album fulfills all the… Read more »

It’s got plenty of the right ingredients – lawsuits, money and rock ‘n’ roll. That’s right. Napster the movie may be coming to a screen near you! “I can confirm we’re in development on a project called ‘Napster’,” said Marc McCarthy, a spokesman for Starz Encore, a provider of movie programming for cable television operators that is a unit of Liberty Media Group. McCarthy said there was no commitment for production of the movie on Napster. Nevertheless, the story of the phenomenally popular song-swap service that turned the $40 billion recording industry upside down is a natural for Hollywood spin… Read more »

Fat chance Melanie Szepvolgyi is going to forget this year’s HFStival. Out of the 30-plus bands at the two-day musical extravaganza going on at RFK Stadium, she had wanted most to see Coldplay, the up and coming Britpop band. She was as surprised as anyone yesterday when lead singer Chris Martin pulled her up on stage to sing. “I was in the front of the stage, and nobody knew them up there. [People in the crowd] were being so rude and obnoxious,” said the still-glowing 24-year-old who had flown in from Columbus, Ohio. “Then they started playing my favorite song,… Read more »

Columbia Records’ Crazy Town, Portrait/Columbia Records’ The Union Underground and American Recordings/Columbia Records’ American Head Charge have all signed on-board on what just might be the heaviest Ozzfest ever. Following a big British blow-out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in England on May 26, Ozzfest 2001 opens full-force stateside at the World Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Launched by the heavy metal pioneer and visionary Ozzy Osbourne, the first Ozzfest, a multi-band festival held in 1996, hit only two markets-Los Angeles and Phoenix-but paved the way for a full-on touring extravaganza the next year. Since then, the Ozzfest has become a… Read more »