Search Results for: every time i die

When the culture began to change in the late 1960s – when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam – George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it’s hard to think of Carlin as one of America’s most radical and courageous popular artists. But he was. Carlin started doing stand-up… Read more »

BROOKLYN, New York – What does Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig have in common with Sting and Gene Simmons? It’s definitely not a shared sense of style. But like Sting and Simmons, the cardigan-and-Top-Sider-sporting 23-year-old spent a year as the antithesis of the flashy, rule-breaking rock star: a teacher. Before belting out tunes like “Oxford Comma” and “A Punk” in front of sold-out crowds and landing on the cover of Spin – along with bassist Chris Baio, keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and drummer Chris Tomson – Koenig was juggling band practice and performances with a day job as an eighth-grade teacher… Read more »

Tapping on fake instruments and screeching into microphones connected to video game consoles has become lucrative for both the music and gaming industries. Downloadable tunes for music-based games “Guitar Hero,” “Rock Band” and “SingStar” have become as vital as iTunes itself – and one of the last ways to expose youngsters to classic rock. The genre will evolve again later this month when game publisher Activision and developer Neversoft release “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith,” the first such play-along rhythm game pegged to one music group, instead of featuring a multi-artist compilation more akin to one of those “Now That’s What I… Read more »

AFTER SPENDING two years on the road promoting their debut album, 2005’s “A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out,” the members of Panic at the Disco focused on two new efforts. The first was recording a new disc. The second? “We’ve been playing a lot of hacky sack and getting really good at it,” bassist Jon Walker said with a laugh. “We’ve been bringing it back. It’s the best exercise you can ever get – and it’s fun.” Which just goes to show that even though the group, once known as Panic! at the Disco, has dropped its exclamation point, it… Read more »

Harp magazine, which folded last month, is at least the third music magazine to cease publishing in 2008, joining alt-country title No Depression and indie rock mag Resonance in the dead pool. For a certain section of the indie world focused on a more mature, college-educated demographic, the loss of Harp and No Depression hit especially hard. “Those two outlets really spoke to our consumer,” says John Biondolillo, general manager at Dave Matthews’ ATO Records, which handles such critical darlings as singer/songwriters Patty Griffin and David Gray. Josh Wittman, group marketing director at Redeye Distribution and Yep Roc Records, home… Read more »

As I write this, iTunes ranks as the 2nd largest seller of music in the U.S. — only Wal-Mart’s physical stores sell more. Digital revenue is real, and there is a lot of it being earned. Sales from iTunes alone can provide a band enough revenue to achieve true financial success. Don’t take my word for it, just look at some of the sales by the following unsigned artists utilizing the Net for both digital distribution and marketing: Kelly sold over 500,000 songs in five months, Eric Hutchinson sold 120,000 songs in three weeks, The Medic Droid sold over 25,000… Read more »

After having traveled more than 3,000 miles, spent nearly 100 hours trapped in their hotel rooms and survived roughly 76 borderline terrifying interactions with mobs of screaming fans to get to this very moment, the fate of Fall Out Boy’s record-setting trip to Antarctica came down to a very small number: one. To be more specific, one percent, as in “there is a 1 percent chance the weather on Antarctica will cooperate and allow us to land there on Thursday,” which is what organizers of the trip were telling the band and their management late Wednesday night. On Thursday morning… Read more »

When the Redwalls recently performed on David Letterman’s “Late Show,” it wasn’t just a boost for the indie rock band trying to make a name for itself. It was also a point of pride for the band’s label – student-run MAD Dragon Records at Drexel University. “Everyone around the country could see something that we were working on,” said junior Amanda Melczer, 20. At a school more known for engineering and technology, Drexel’s music industry program is an emerging gem. It’s one of the most selective programs at the Philadelphia university, with close to 600 applications for 54 freshman seats,… Read more »

You’ll usually find R.E.M. playing arenas and esteemed concert halls. But this week, the rock hall of famers were among the acts trying to catch a break and artists looking to build their audience at the sprawling South by Southwest music festival. The multiplatinum rockers played Stubbs BBQ shortly after midnight Wednesday before an energetic crowd of a couple thousand, marking the first time they’ve played the annual extravaganza in their nearly three-decade career. But it’s hardly a downgrade: Playing a showcase at SXSW has often been a way for a veteran act to make a big splash with a… Read more »

Amid ongoing competitive pressure from Facebook, MySpace is taking its latest shot at entering the music business as other social networking peers, such as Last.fm and imeem, are making big audience gains with ad-supported music offerings. According to sources, MySpace is planning a service that would combine free ad-supported music listening with paid MP3 downloads and music subscriptions. MySpace parent company News Corp. has approached the major labels about forming a joint-venture music site, similar to its partnership with the major Hollywood studios for video site hulu.com. The new service would be operated by MySpace and seemingly be positioned to… Read more »