Search Results for: european

Ozzy Osbourne, on his first tour of Japan in four years, will tape his performance Friday at Tokyo’s legendary Budokan Hall for a live album and DVD. Live at Budokan, a title most music fans associate with Cheap Trick’s bombastic 1979 live effort, is scheduled for a summer release. Although it’s not yet known which performance songs will appear in the video, the live album will contain some B-sides from import singles, according to Osbourne’s publicist. The bonus tracks were recorded during the sessions for last year’s Down to Earth, his latest solo album. Following the Budokan show, Ozzy will… Read more »

Pop star Janet Jackson, whose current North American tour got off to a rocky start last summer, said Tuesday she may retire from the road after the jaunt ends next month because of the exhaustion. Jackson, 35, launched her “All For You” tour in July, and several shows in the first few weeks were either canceled or postponed because of production or health problems. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, she canceled the European leg, which was set to run from Oct. 31 to Dec. 17. She played four shows in Japan earlier this month, and will resume… Read more »

Midem kicked off with more flash than usual Saturday with a touch of Britneymania, a surprise appearance from Virgin mogul Richard Branson and the NRJ awards, France’s answer to the Grammys. Pop icon Britney Spears, braving the chill at the 36th installment of the annual music market in a skimpy floral dress, was on hand to promote her upcoming feature film, “Crossroads,” scheduled for Valentine’s Day release in the United States, as well as her third album, “Britney,” already approaching 8 million units worldwide At a packed Carlton hotel press conference, Spears expressed her hopes for her first foray onto… Read more »

Kazaa, the wildly popular free music-swapping service that emerged in the wake of Napster’s decline, may finally have shown a chink in its armor. Consumer Empowerment, the Amsterdam-based company that developed Kazaa and the Fasttrack file-sharing network on which it operates, has suspended all new downloads of the software, pending a decision by a Dutch judge in a copyright suit filed against the company by a European publishers’ rights group. The move doesn’t affect users who have already downloaded the Kazaa software; they were still able to swap music and other digital files via Fasttrack last week. Consumer Empowerment also… Read more »

311’s spring tour with Hoobastank, which launches next month, will include a very, very special holiday show in New Orleans. No, not Valentine’s Day. Not Saint Patrick’s Day. We’re talking 311 Day, and for the second time in three years, the hip-hop-reggae-rockers will celebrate their self-declared March 11 holiday in the Big Easy, complete with a proclamation by New Orleans Mayor Marc H. Morial. Circus performers and other surprise guests are expected at the concert, which will be an extended show with rare live items on the set list. Hotel packages are being offered in New Orleans for out-of-town guests,… Read more »

Jon Lee, drummer for the Brit-rock band Feeder, was found dead in at his home in Miami on Monday. He was 33. Lee hanged himself in his garage and was discovered by his wife, Brazilian model Tatiana Englehart, according to a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office. “We will miss him more than melody,” Feeder frontman Grant Nicholas and bassist Taka Hirose said in a statement. “We’re utterly devastated.” Nicholas elaborated in an interview he gave to BBC Radio 1 on Wednesday, saying he “really can’t understand why he chose to take his own life when he had… Read more »

Five months after being hospitalized for what was called an “overindulgence,” Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins is healthy, happy and making music with his bandmates once again. The 29-year-old drummer was hospitalized in the U.K. in August for a health crisis that led to the cancellation of the Foo Fighters’ European tour (see “Foo Fighters’ Drummer Hospitalized; European Tour Canceled”). Hawkins came clean on the causes of his recent hospitalization this week, and admitted that the “overindulgence” was drug-related and that he has taken subsequent steps to get clean and sober. “I was just definitely a little out of control,… Read more »

Napster launched a test version of its new copyright-compliant service Thursday in a bid to restart the once wildly popular song-swap Web site that was shut down by a record industry lawsuit. The test or “beta” version, which lacks content from the major music labels, is not open to the public. Instead, it will be offered to 20,000 people randomly selected from a group of more than two million who e-mailed Napster showing interest in participating in the beta test. Napster’s service has been sidelined since July as a result of an injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn… Read more »

The music industry is having to rethink its drive towards copy-protecting music CDs, following people-power protests and probing questions from US politicians. BMG in Europe had launched two of its chart CDs, Natalie Imbruglia’s White Lilies Island and Five’s Greatest Hits, with copy protection technology but have now switched production to “clean” unprotected CDs, following consumer complaints. The discs were launched “clean” in Australia. In the US, Universal’s new compilation CD of Fast and Furious rock music is copy-protected but is clearly marked with consumer warnings, unlike previous discs. BMG released both their CDs with only a small print reference… Read more »

They may be critical of the U.S. government, but System of a Down love the people of this nation – so much so that they’re slipping in 12 North American theater dates between tours in Australia and Europe instead of taking a well-deserved month off. The band will start the jaunt with openers Clutch on Valentine’s Day in Las Vegas at the Joint, and then they’ll hit 11 other cities. The tour will conclude in Verdun, Quebec, on March 1. System of a Down will begin their European tour in Coimbra, Portugal, on March 5. That trip will conclude in… Read more »