Search Results for: dr dre

The people who tried to take away your VCR are at it again. Hollywood has always dreamed of a “well-mannered marketplace” where the only technologies that you can buy are those that do not disrupt its business. Acting through legislators who dance to Hollywood’s tune, the movie studios are racing to lock away the flexible, general-purpose technology that has given us a century of unparalelled prosperity and innovation. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the “Content Protection Status Report” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, laying out its plan to remake the technology world to suit its… Read more »

Alien Ant Farm’s tour bus collided with a truck in Cáceres, Spain, early Wednesday morning (May 22), resulting in the bus driver’s death and the band sustaining minor injuries. The members of the band were taken to a nearby hospital, roughly 200 kilometers west of Madrid, according to a Dreamworks Records spokesperson. Singer Dryden Mitchell sustained back injuries, guitarist Terry Corso broke his ankle, bassist Tye Zamora injured his foot and drummer Mike Cosgrove entered the hospital with cuts and bruises as a result of the accident. The bandmembers were asleep in their bunks at the time of the crash,… Read more »

Trey Anastasio spent 17 years ripping genres apart and sticking them back together at odd angles with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink uber-jam band Phish. So maybe it’s no surprise he’s whipped up another unusual concoction: a jam/swing hybrid dotted with sugary-sweet love songs and chamber music. The self-titled release has the elements you’d expect from Anastasio, from the drawn-out, frenetic jams to the catchy guitar riffs. But it’s also a departure: It’s got horns, it’s got soul, it’s got more horns. It’s clearly not a Phish album hiding under a different name. “I’ve been listening to a lot of big band music,”… Read more »

A legal fight that has pitted file-swapping software companies Kazaa BV and StreamCast Networks against big record labels and movie studios is collapsing as the small companies run out of funds. Netherlands-based Kazaa BV, which created the file-swapping technology underlying Kazaa, Grokster and earlier versions of Morpheus, is conceding defeat-although its founders already appear to have started another near-identical company. Meanwhile, StreamCast is losing a high-powered attorney with a winning track record against the music companies in court. The disintegration of the companies’ legal case will have little immediate affect on the popular Kazaa and Morpheus file-trading networks themselves. But… Read more »

The Librarian of Congress has rejected proposed royalty rates that would have charged Internet broadcasters based on each Web user that listens in. Librarian James H. Billington will issue a final decision setting the new rates by June 20, the U.S. Copyright Office said Tuesday. The Copyright Office ruled in December 2000 that organizations distributing music and other radio content over the Internet must pay additional fees to record companies that hold song copyrights. In February, an arbitration panel proposed rates based on each person who is receiving a broadcast sent online. The rates ranged from.07 of a penny per… Read more »

You know you’re a long way from home when Groove Armada and Faithless play for wilder crowds than the godfather of heavy metal. “I can’t f-ing hear you!” is Ozzy Osbourne’s standard concert rallying cry, but it took on a new urgency Friday night at the kickoff of the three-day Rock Im Park festival in Nuremberg. As the 53-year-old showman peered out at the half-full Frankenstadion, his famous baffled expression – mouth agape, black-lined eyes open wide, arms extended as though desperately soliciting a hug – looked a bit more confounded than usual. Of course the metal madman delivered, leading… Read more »

Roughly one month after the tragic death of his close friend and former bandmate Layne Staley, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell returned to the town that made them both famous, and despite the feeling that a big hole existed where his former partner once stood, it was a rocking, if bittersweet, trip back in time. With plenty of classic AIC material in tow, Cantrell took a sparse but enthusiastic audience at Key Arena on Friday back to the halcyon days of the early ’90s – a time of lank hair, big angst and bigger guitars, before the Bizkit and its… Read more »

Sean “P. Diddy” Combs is enjoying his biggest hit in five years with “I Need A Girl (Part One)” featuring Usher and Loon, which is currently Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song is the lead single from the mogul’s latest collection, P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records Present…We Invented The Remix, which was released on Tuesday (May 14). Recently LAUNCH spoke with Combs, who explained that he seems to have success when speaking from the heart. “‘I Need A Girl’ was just me speaking from my heart. It was a remix off my original album… Read more »

Move over, Lara Croft, there’s a new digitally rendered heroine in town who’s sure to keep gamers up way past their bedtimes. No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani lends her voice to the title character in “Malice,” an action-adventure game due this fall for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, according to a spokesperson for game developer Sierra Entertainment Inc. Stefani’s bandmates, Tony Kanal (bass), Tom Dumont (guitar) and Adrian Young (drums), provide vocals for other characters in the game. Three songs from No Doubt’s latest album, Rock Steady, “Platinum Blonde Life,” “In My Head” and “Detective,” are also featured in “Malice,” either… Read more »

John Forté conducts all of his interviews by mail. Not because he’s shy or eccentric, but because he doesn’t have a phone. See, he’s the only Grammy-winning convict at Pennsylvania’s Lorreto Federal Penitentiary with a new album to promote. Forté, 27, was behind bars when his confessional second album, I, John, was released in April. That’s why he’s done most of the interviews about it via letters from his cell. “Spiritually, I’ve never been more free in my life,” wrote the former Fugees confidant, who was sentenced to 14 years in prison in November after being found guilty of possession… Read more »