Search Results for: european

Clear Channel Entertainment, the world’s leading producer and marketer of live entertainment, announced today the acquisition of Italy’s two leading music promotion businesses, Milano Concerti and Trident Agency. The addition of Milano Concerti and Trident Agency represents Clear Channel Entertainment’s entry into the Italian live entertainment market, providing a significant in-market position while expanding the company’s growing European network. The new businesses will be merged and operate as Clear Channel Entertainment Italia. Milano Concerti, founded by Roberto de Luca in 1985, and Trident Agency, founded by Maurizio Salvadori in 1971, work with Italy’s top touring artists, including Vasco Rossi, Eros… Read more »

The head of Bertelsmann’s e-commerce arm became the latest victim of the German media giant’s restructuring on Wednesday when the group announced a major shake-up of its music distribution interests. Bertelsmann said Andreas Schmidt was leaving the company as the German-based group unveiled plans to fold its e-commerce arm into BeMusic, a new unit that will house its record club, music retailer and other music distribution businesses. Guetersloh, Germany-based Bertelsmann is sprucing up its sprawling media empire ahead of an expected stock market flotation in the next two to three years, and has been reviewing its business for possible cost-saving… Read more »

Rock ‘n’ roll will never die. Unless it is being made by classic rockers like Rolling Stone frontman Mick Jagger and former Beatle Paul McCartney, whose new albums are barely registering a pulse at cash registers in the United States. The very youth culture that propelled these music legends to stardom back in the 1960s is now discarding them in favor of a new generation of fresh-faced youngsters, such as perky teen queen Britney Spears and spiritual rockers Creed. According to sales data issued on Wednesday, Jagger’s new album “Goddess in the Doorway” (Virgin) debuted at No. 39 on the… Read more »

Slipknot have postponed their upcoming tour, which was scheduled to kick off on November 21st in Fargo, North Dakota, until next year. The twenty-four-city tour in support of the band’s latest album, Iowa, was also to feature 40 Below Summer. The postponement is due to percussionist Shawn Crahan’s (a.k.a. Number Six, a.k.a. the Clown) wife having just undergone surgery for Crohn’s disease. Her recuperation is expected to take six weeks, during which Crahan will remain in Iowa to care for her and their three young children. Slipknot’s European tour will go on as planned, kicking off on January 20th in… Read more »

Fred Durst was the undisputed star of Thursday’s MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony, accepting three awards and performing with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Limp Bizkit won Best Group, Best Rock Act and the Web Award, besting nominee leaders Gorillaz, who won only two of the six awards they were up for – Best Dance Act and Best Song for “Clint Eastwood.” Durst, Page and Puddle of Mudd’s Wes Scantlin played the Zeppelin song “Thank You,” nearly stealing the show from such fellow performers as Mary J. Blige and Jay-Z, who performed “Girls, Girls, Girls” with 300 German women joining… Read more »

Michael Jackson loves watching “Sesame Street,” plans to make a movie with close friend Liza Minnelli, and says he will build a computer school on the grounds of his Neverland estate so his own kids won’t have to go “into society.” In a rare interview, published on Thursday in TV Guide magazine to promote “Invincible” – his first album of original music in six years – Jackson also said he always felt awkward off stage and that some of his closest friends were celebrities who had also started out as child stars. “People who grew up as child stars have… Read more »

British band Depeche Mode said on Thursday the September 11 suicide hijack attacks in the United States had hardly affected European musicians and concert-goers. He contrasted this to the U.S. situation, where the music industry had slowed down. Andy Fletcher, keyboardist in the technopop band that is still going after 22 years, said Europeans had had more experience of “terrorist attacks” than Americans and as a result were able to get on with their lives more quickly. “A lot of American bands and acts have canceled because they are not really used to terrorism in their own country,” Fletcher said… Read more »

Global music channel MTV will hope to bring a little international glamour to Frankfurt Thursday when Germany’s buttoned-down financial center hosts its European awards show. Although Frankfurt is better known for staid bankers than flashy rockstars, MTV expects to draw up to a billion viewers worldwide for the 2001 European Music Awards with a line-up including performances by Kylie Minogue, R.E.M. and Depeche Mode. Presenters will include local German favourites such as tennis star Boris Becker and supermodel Heidi Klum, as well as American actor Ben Stiller and Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. The show will be hosted this year by… Read more »

Britney Spears’s first live, full-length HBO concert special, Britney Spears Live From Las Vegas at the MGM Grand on November 18, promises to be full of surprises. However, those surprises will not include her highly-anticipated duet with Cher on “The Beat Goes On,” which Spears covered on her 1999 debut album,…Baby One More Time. Cher was forced to cancel the planned duet because of a conflict with the European promotional schedule for her upcoming studio album, Living Proof. “When they asked me, ‘Who would you like to do a duet with?’ I was, like, ‘Please lets do it with Cher… Read more »

Rock legend Bob Dylan has reached a deal to write a multivolume autobiography called “Chronicles,” a spokeswoman for his publisher, Simon & Schuster, said on Monday. “Over the years, he’s engaged in all forms of writing. This is just a natural extension of the experience,” said Elliott Mintz, Dylan’s spokesman. Dylan, 60, won the best-album Grammy award in 1997 for “Time Out of Mind,” an Oscar for best song for last year’s “Things Have Changed,” and has been nominated for a Nobel Prize in literature. This autumn, he released “Love and Theft,” his 43rd album, to critical acclaim and is… Read more »