Search Results for: a day to remember

As news of Thursday’s (November 29) death of George Harrison spread through the music world, Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards issued the following statements. Jagger spoke of Harrison’s pioneering musicianship, saying, “I am very saddened by George’s death and will miss him enormously. As a guitarist, he invented many classic lines that were much copied by others, and he wrote several very beautiful songs that we will always remember. He was a very complex character, both quiet and funny with a very sweet nature, but he also could be rather combative at times. He was the first musician… Read more »

Several weeks into shooting one film and with two others lined up after it, Ice Cube continues his gradual transition from rapper/actor to actor/rapper. Cube has just begun shooting Friday After Next, the follow-up to 2000’s Next Friday and third in the ghetto-fabulous series that began with 1995’s Friday. Cube again penned the screenplay and serves as producer. The director is Marcus Raboy, who, in addition to directing a host of Cube’s videos (“Guerillas in the Mist,” “Wicked” “You Know How We Do It”), has shot clips for Santana (“Smooth”) and Staind (“Fade”). Like the first two movies, Friday After… Read more »

There are only two days left to bid on a one-of-a-kind U2 collectible, an artificial pumpkin signed by all four members of the rock group, which is being auctioned online at metromix.com. The current bid stands at $1125 and has attracted interest from U2 fans as far away as Canada and France. The pumpkin, signed by the band during the Chicago stop of their Elevation tour, is carved and inked with an American flag and the U2 Elevation Tour logo by artist Hugh McMahon. One hundred percent of the winning bid benefits the Chicago Remembers Fund – established to help… Read more »

John Mellencamp will celebrate his 50th birthday this weekend with a three-day party in the southern part of Indiana. MellenBash begins Friday (October 5) in Bloomington and wraps up on his birthday, Sunday (October 7), with a tribute concert in his hometown of Seymour that will feature more than 20 local groups, including some featuring members of Mellencamp’s bands past and present, although Mellencamp himself is not scheduled to attend. Proceeds from the event will go to the Southern Indiana Center For The Arts, the outdoor venue where it’s being held, as well as the Farm Aid foundation Mellencamp helped… Read more »

In the years since August 1, 1981, when MTV first went on air by broadcasting a song presciently called “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the cable channel has helped to turn musicians as different as Duran Duran, Guns ‘N’ Roses, Tupac Shakur, Marilyn Manson, and Britney Spears into cultural touchstones. MTV helped to mainstream rap music and to pioneer the trend toward reality television with shows like The Real World. And the channel has been at the center of any number of pop culture brouhahas, whether involving cartoon bad boys Beavis and Butt-head, sexually provocative and spiritually outrageous videos by… Read more »

Long before gun-toting rap stars roamed America, the first manager of the Rolling Stones was terrorizing “Swinging” London, throwing errant journalists out of windows and others off bridges. Accompanied by a thuggish bodyguard, teenage pop Svengali Andrew Loog Oldham was said to be quite the rogue 40 years ago: Sporting a cape, he would careen around the city in his Mini Cooper, speakers blaring from the roof of the tiny car. This is not all completely true – especially the bit about the cape – but the anecdotes and rumors metamorphosed into “facts” over the years, a consequence of the… Read more »

Two weeks after Joey Ramone succumbed to cancer, friends and colleagues gathered Monday night at CBGB to remember the good-natured soul behind the tinted sunglasses and long dark bangs who inspired a musical uprising. It was something of a misfit family reunion, with Joan Jett, Deborah Harry, Dictators singer Handsome Dick Manitoba, punk writer Legs McNeil, photographer Roberta Bayley and Ramones manager Danny Fields among those offering brief eulogies. Craig Leon, who produced the Ramones’ 1976 debut album, called Joey “the most unlikely singer, and also the spirit of rock and roll.” Harry put it another way. “Once a cretin,… Read more »

Joey Ramone’s mother promised her son a 50th birthday party and he is going to get one. On May 19 – what would have been the punk-rock icon’s big day – family, friends, fans and, of course, other bands will honor the late Ramones singer at Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. “In the weeks prior to his death, we often talked about his upcoming 50th birthday, and Mickey [Leigh, Ramone’s brother] and I promised Joey that for this very special day, we would throw the best and biggest birthday bash he ever had,” Charlotte Lesher, Ramone’s mother, said in a… Read more »

With the passing of Joey Ramone on Sunday, music fans lost a genius who changed the world, according to the many artists – from Blink-182 to the Go-Go’s – who were influenced by the lanky, leather jacket-clad godfather of punk rock. “I wish I could have met him and told him what a huge influence he had on my life, and what an inspiration his music was, and what a genius he really was,” Blink-182 singer/bassist Mark Hoppus said. “The Ramones came out at a time when music wasn’t being done like that, and they came out with three-chord pop-punk… Read more »

Don’t focus only on major labels’ interests when considering legislation, they say. Alanis Morissette and Don Henley urged the U.S. Senate to heed the voices of artists – and not just their record labels – during a hearing Tuesday morning on the future of online entertainment. Senators should take artists’ concerns into account if they decide to write any legislation related to the online future of the recording industry, Morissette and Henley said in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “The reason that I am here is that although these intermediaries claim to represent the creators, and while there certainly… Read more »