Search Results for: The Aces

It has finally come to this: labels are simply giving their music away. A new Web site named SpiralFrog.com allows visitors – with label approval – to download music free of charge. It launched Monday in the U.S. and Canada after a beta-testing period. The fine site features more than 800,000 tracks and 3,500 music videos, and promises hundreds of thousands more soon. It makes money through advertising, rather than by the 99-cent downloads popularized by Apple’s iTunes. The service, founded by Joe Mohen, pays record companies part of its advertising revenue. Thus far, Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, the… Read more »

With an emphasis on the visual over the audio, MTV from its inception has never been “about the music.” But after seeing interest in its signature trophy show wane in recent years, the network put the spotlight where it belongs for a music awards show: on the concert stage. The result of this brainstorm, and a few other format changes to its Video Music Awards? The most watchable show in many a Moon Man outing. Even if that isn’t saying much. And this despite opening with an onstage career suicide by Britney Spears. More on that later. The 2007 VMAs… Read more »

Early in July, Rusty Shaffer, the founder of Optek, a small music company in Reno, Nev., visited Salon’s offices to show me his invention, the Fretlight guitar. Though it looks and feels like a standard, rock ‘n’ roll-ready instrument, the Fretlight contains a set of LEDs invisibly embedded inside its fretboard — connect the guitar to a computer and the lights spark up to indicate where to put your fingers in order to play a chord. Shaffer is certain that his guitar is a great leap forward for the normally tech-averse guitar industry; the Fretlight, he says, will transform guitar… Read more »

When it debuts Tuesday on the Web, My Damn Channel will become the latest attempt by Hollywood professionals to cash in on the huge popularity of online video. Comedian Harry Shearer, filmmaker David Wain and music producer Don Was, among others, also hope to find creative freedom seldom offered by traditional media companies. The site is the brainchild of former MTV and CBS Radio executive Rob Barnett, who believes Internet audiences want to see professionally produced shows other than network TV fare. “The old media companies don’t know how to program for this medium,” Barnett said. “There is a focus… Read more »

Pop-punk band Plain White T’s led the U.S. pop singles chart for a second week Thursday with “Hey There Delilah,” while Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie’s “Big Girls Don’t Cry” rose one to No. 2, swapping places with R&B starlet Rihanna’s former chart-topper “Umbrella.” Timbaland’s “The Way I Are” featuring Keri Hilson rose one to No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, trading places with Shop Boyz’s “Party Like a Rockstar.” At No. 6, the “High School Musical 2” onslaught began as the cast single “What Time Is It” entered the chart after selling 87,000 physical singles and 31,000 downloads.… Read more »

Most of us would love to have a hit song written about us. Seether’s Shaun Morgan isn’t one of those people.But that didn’t stop his ex-girlfriend, Evanescence’s Amy Lee, from penning “Call Me When You’re Sober,” a tune she later admitted was specifically written about her relationship with Morgan . And the timing couldn’t have been worse for Lee’s damning revelation, coming just weeks after Morgan checked himself into rehab for treatment of “a combination of substances” . His rehab stint, coincidentally, began on the very same day the Evanescence track was delivered to the nation’s rock radio stations. As… Read more »

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the creator of the Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync to stay behind bars while attorneys prepare his case. Lou Pearlman, who faces charges of defrauding a bank out of $20 million, will be represented by the federal public defender’s office. The 53-year-old music mogul, dressed in a blue jumpsuit and handcuffed and shackled at the waist, said little in a court appearance Wednesday. The U.S. Attorney’s office opposed bail for Pearlman saying he was a “serious flight risk.” A detention hearing for Pearlman has not been scheduled, the Orlando Sentinel reported. A telephone message… Read more »

There wasn’t a Thursday fan alive who wasn’t floored by last month’s announcement that the New Jersey emo innovators will be working with Victory Records on a retrospective CD/DVD package that, as a press release noted, will “tell Thursday’s 10-year-career story from the beginning to the present.” After all, Thursday’s 2002 split from Victory – which issued the band’s landmark 2001 LP, Full Collapse – was the very definition of cantankerous. Mud was flung from both sides when the band joined Island Records, and lawyers were eventually called in to clean up the mess.At the time of the band’s break… Read more »

In October, the hard-partying, grill-sporting dudes in Avenged Sevenfold will release the self-titled follow-up to 2005’s City of Evil, the band’s breakout LP that’s sold close to 810,000 copies in the U.S. alone. The album is the California metalcore act’s first attempt at self-producing, but according to frontman M. Shadows, that wasn’t always the plan.”We were going to do it with Rob Cavallo,” said Shadows, referring to the producer behind Green Day’s 2004 LP American Idiot and My Chemical Romance’s 2006 effort The Black Parade. “It was such a great match – he loved the songs we’d been working on.… Read more »

Nicole Richie’s not-so-simple life has apparently gotten a lot more complicated.The socialite and reality-TV mainstay is pregnant with a child by Good Charlotte frontman Joel Madden, TMZ.com reported Tuesday (July 3). The 25-year-old Richie has reportedly been dating Madden for more than six months. Rumors of the pregnancy have circulated for several months – spurred, no doubt, by Richie’s noticeably swelled belly. Neither her nor Madden’s representatives would confirm the news at press time. There may be more good news for the expecting couple: The pregnancy comes on the heels of recent reports from In Touch Weekly that Madden and… Read more »