Search Results for: between you & me

No-Cal scenesters, local yokels, friends and even fans of Jason Newsted’s old band showed up in force to witness the launching of Echobrain’s first tour at an all-ages show at the Mystic Theatre. Echobrain, with drummer Brian Sagrafena and singer/guitarist Dylan Donkin, is Newsted’s first steady gig since leaving Metallica in January 2001. The bassist seemed overjoyed at the intimacy of the show, which took place in a small theater in a town known more for its chicken industry than its cosmopolitan culture. “It’s the first day of spring today, and it’s a fresh start for all of us right… Read more »

If Republicans, “Dukes of Hazzard” reruns and an abundance of heavy metal weren’t enough to convince you, No Doubt’s Rock Steady road show leaves little doubt that the 1980s are back. On the tour’s opening night, the Orange County ska-popsters mined flavors from across the retro-’80s spectrum, mixing driving hardcore and rasta riddims with slap-bass funk, new wave synth and pop queen balladry. With a punked-out rhythm section, two dread-stylie horn players, a guitarist straight out of a Duran Duran video and bare-bellied, necktie-wearing Gwen-just-wanna-have-fun-Stefani up front, they even looked the part. The drum set glowed under the Memorial Auditorium’s… Read more »

South by Southwest, Austin’s annual music conference that usually showcases the best new artists coming down the pike, kicked off, oddly enough, with a plea to go back. The call came from Robbie Robertson. The onetime leader of the Band expressed mild alarm at the state of the music business during his keynote address Thursday morning. Go back, he suggested, to that first moment of musical discovery. “Music took us on a journey, and we’re still on that journey,” he told a packed ballroom at the Austin Convention Center, noting that his own first impressions came during childhood visits to… Read more »

The man of constant sorrow should have plenty of cause to celebrate, though Brandy might be kind of crabby. After 63 weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart, the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack will levitate to #1, beating out the R&B crooner, who seemed headed for a chart-topping debut. Last week, O Brother, which has sold over 4 million copies since its December 2000 release, jumped from #15 to #2 after being graced with a Grammy for Album of the Year. While the album will move up on the chart with sales of 160,000 copies, it sold around… Read more »

Going into his ninth year in the entertainment business, pint-sized rap star Lil’ Bow Wow is branching out – more music, movies and even a clothing line. Heady stuff for someone who turned 15 on March 9. Since being discovered at age 6, the 5-foot protege of rapper-actor Snoop Dogg has set the stage for other young rappers. His teen-age fans have pushed his two albums, “Beware of Dog” and “Doggy Bag,” to platinum status. His story is old hat in hip-hop circles. In 1993 while on the Chronic Tour, Snoop pulled the boy – who was born Shad Moss… Read more »

Music CDs equipped with copy protection will, if Rick Boucher gets his wish, soon be as obsolete as eight-track cassettes. The feisty Democratic congressman from Virginia says he plans to introduce legislation banning, or at least regulating, compact discs outfitted with anti-copying technology. Few discs sold in America currently feature the controversial scheme – but the recording industry expects that as worries over digital piracy grow, the technique will become widespread. “Suffice to say, there probably will be a legislative response to ensure that consumer rights will be protected,” Boucher said in an interview. Boucher’s complaints are twofold: Americans may… Read more »

Britney Spears will do as she pleases no matter who’s watching. Even the protective gaze of a burly bodyguard or a sudden downpour isn’t enough to stand between her and a night of fun. That’s the gist of Spears’ new video, for a remix of “Overprotected,” which was shot last weekend in Los Angeles, according to its director Chris Applebaum (American Hi-Fi, Willa Ford). The clip furthers her “I’m Not a Girl” crusade to shirk her adolescent image, as she and five friends outsmart her bodyguard with the old “you’re wanted elsewhere” trick and sneak out of a hotel and… Read more »

Lance Bass may not get to space as quickly as he’d like, but he shouldn’t worry; his band’s already in the stratosphere, and they didn’t even have to leave Portland to prove it. ‘NSYNC’s Celebrity tour kicked off Sunday at the city’s Rose Garden arena, and glitter-gelled eyelids twinkled in the night as thousands lined up for entrance, though new security measures (full bag check, metal detector wands and pocket-emptying for all) slowed things down considerably, and made not a few young girls cry, as they were forced to leave all posters, flowers and other small gifts for the boys… Read more »

The boxes are stacked outside the Beverly Hills home, ready to be carried in. Each is neatly labeled: “pots and pans,” “linens,” “devil heads,” “dead things.” Plainly, Ozzie and Harriet aren’t moving in. This Ozzy is Ozzy Osbourne, the heavy metal rock star, and his family. Their arrival in the neighborhood heralds a hilarious new MTV series, “The Osbournes,” that premieres 10:30 p.m. EST Tuesday. MTV describes it as television’s first “reality sitcom,” a format that suggested itself naturally because nothing they could invent around the Osbournes would be as funny as their actual lives. Just the idea of the… Read more »

When they first came on the scene, Southern California quintet Phantom Planet were best, if incorrectly, known as the side project of Jonathan Schwartzman, the teen actor who played smug genius Max Fischer in 1998’s “Rushmore.” But Schwartzman formed Phantom Planet with his buddies in 1994, four years before the group released their debut, Phantom Planet Is Missing. So chronologically, Schwartzman has really been moonlighting as an actor for the past several years. Still, because of the band’s movie star drummer and the debut album’s penchant for juvenile lovelorn anthems, Phantom Planet were often given the same knee-jerk dismissal bestowed… Read more »