Search Results for: The Aces

Not much rattles Apple. Disciplined and focused, the company lavishes attention on its own elegant products and rarely deigns to discuss rivals. Yet here was Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer and designated stand-in for ailing CEO Steve Jobs, erupting during an earnings call in late January at the mere mention of a pip-squeak competitor. The pest in question was Palm, the fallen pioneer of handheld digital organizers, which two weeks earlier had unveiled a new smartphone, the Palm Pre, to rave reviews. Not only did the Pre have features the iPhone couldn’t match – snazzy multitasking, universal search, a… Read more »

An Atlanta man was charged Wednesday in connection with the murder of rapper Dolla, according to a statement released by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. Aubrey Louise Berry was set to be arraigned in court, where he will answer to two counts of assault with a firearm and one count of murder. Berry, 23, allegedly encountered Dolla (Roderick Burton) in the Beverly Center in Los Angeles and, after a dispute, fatally shot the rapper. In addition to shooting Burton, 21, Berry’s charges stem from allegedly firing at two other people who were present at the time of the… Read more »

NEW YORK – You can forgive some of the Green Day fans packed inside a Manhattan Best Buy if they got a little bit pushy. After all, some of them had been waiting in line for nearly 30 hours for this moment. On May 15th, 500 lucky GD fanatics who had spent the night camping out on the sidewalk finally got a chance to see their idols at a raucous meet-and-greet filled with tears, screams and lots of hugs. There were autographs signed, pictures snapped and terrified-looking Best Buy employees trying their very, uh, best to keep order. Amid all… Read more »

MIAMI — The little girls who made the New Kids on the Block a boy band sensation in the late 1980s and early 1990s are all grown up, and now they’ve got disposable income. So what better way to show their love for Jordan, Jonathan, Joey, Donnie and Danny than spending three days with them on a Caribbean cruise? About 2,100 women, most in their 20s and 30s, paid more $1,000 each for a sold-out, three-day Carnival Cruise Lines trip that left Miami for the Bahamas on Friday. The voyage kicks off the band’s summer concert tour, when they’ll dust… Read more »

Green Day has been delivering power-punk to the mainstream  since Billie Joe Armstrong clutched a monkey in “Longview” nearly 15 years ago.   The trio has done it all with one foot firmly entrenched in its hometown East Bay punk scene, stating its allegiance to gutter punks and Gilman Street at every possible chance. It’s been both a blessing and a curse, eternally indebted to the past, but inching ever closer to the future. With the reigning punk royalty out of the picture the past couple years, the number of punk releases declined sharply. Anyone hoping Green Day would bring… Read more »

Despite frequent lineup changes, there is one common thread between each Taking Back Sunday song. “If at the end we’re all red-faced and sweaty,” bassist Matt Rubino says, describing the band’s energetic live shows, “then you know it’s a Taking Back Sunday song.” The group’s aptly titled album New Again, due June 2 from Warner Bros, heralds a move toward a more grown-up modern-rock sound, with catchier choruses and beefier guitars. Guitarist Matthew Fazzi replaces Fred Mascherino. Producer David Kahne says his goal was to capture the “power and scope” of the band’s live show and to “make sure all… Read more »

The early word on Green Day‘s 21st Century Breakdown is that the album somehow marks a seismic shift for the band, and with its windmilled guitars, climbing musical interludes and piano-driven ballads, it’s not difficult to see why. “Oh yeah, that’s ground zero for us,” frontman Billie Joe Armstrong smiled. “Coming from Gilman Street, we saw the most creative people I’ve ever seen in my life. There was a band called Schlong, and they did ‘West Side Story,’ and they called it ‘Punk Side Story.’ And then there’s bands like NoMeansNo, [who made] a record like Wrong that’s completely insane.… Read more »

“Stand and Deliver,” the first song recorded by the reunited No Doubt, leaked yesterday, nearly a month before the band was due to perform the song on a flashback episode of Gossip Girl. Like No Doubt’s cover of Talk Talk’s “It’s My Life,” Gwen Stefani and her bandmates manage to take Adam & The Ants’ “Prince Charming” hit and skew it both more modern and more new wave. Stefani replaces Ant’s thick British vocals from the original with her own valley girl cadence, befitting of the band’s role as early 1980s Los Angeles rockers on Gossip Girl. That episode, a… Read more »

When the Silversun Pickups were writing “Swoon,”  the follow-up to their breakout “Carnavas” album, they were given access to parts of the universe where mere mortals dare not tread. And they soaked in them. “We were on jets that landed on hovercrafts that rolled us onto Jacuzzi-shaped planes,” frontman Brian Aubert laughed. “And on one Jacuzzi plane, there was a submarine, and that was the VIP, and that was going crazy. And that’s where we wrote the album. We wrote “Swoon” on the backs of hookers. In crayon.” He’s kidding. But there’s no denying that the past few years have… Read more »

Barely a year after their daughter, Harlow Winter Kate Madden, was born, Nicole Richie and Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden have announced that they’re expecting another child. In a post titled “Better Than Winning an OSCAR” on Good Charlotte’s Web site, Madden, 29, wrote: “What’s better than winning an Oscar? I am so happy to tell everyone that Harlow is going to be a big sister! God has truly blessed my family. Hope you’re all feeling as good as I am right now.” In the months since Harlow’s birth, the couple have spoken extensively about being new parents. Just a few… Read more »