Search Results for: extreme

The more time Wes Borland spent in Limp Bizkit, the more things around him turned black. First his wardrobe – draping cloaks that brought to mind one of his favorite characters, Darth Vader. Then his eyes – gripping contacts that, next to his flaring nostrils, made him look like a guitar-toting monster. His heart was the next to go. “Bells start going off, like, ‘This is what it feels like to sell out,’” Borland recalled. “I’m enjoying all the perks of [Limp Bizkit], but I feel my heart is going black, because this is not what I’m called to do.… Read more »

Pressplay, the online music company, today announced that it has expanded its service availability to all music fans in the Unites States following its launch to several thousand consumers in December. The company also announced the availability of its online subscription service through its fourth affiliate, MP3.com, adding to the roster of sites through which pressplay is available, which includes MSN, Roxio and Yahoo! Music. Pressplay offers its members the ability to stream, download and burn onto CDs songs from a vast online library that includes music from the world’s three largest record companies – Universal Music Group, Sony Music… Read more »

Looking to take advantage of what they say is a large and lucrative niche audience untapped by television programmers, two cable divisions of Viacom (news/quote), MTV Networks and Showtime, are developing a plan to create the first cable channel aimed directly at gay viewers. The still unnamed channel would be offered to cable system operators as a pay channel like HBO or Showtime – only much less costly at $5 or $6 a month – but it would also include advertising. MTV Networks and Showtime have conducted extensive audience testing and concluded that there is, as one Showtime executive put… Read more »

Moby was whisked to a New York City hospital on Tuesday (January 2) for treatment for a cat bite sustained on New Year’s Day. Moby was walking around Chinatown when a nice gesture on the techno rocker’s part went awry. “I was walking around Chinatown (as I’m wont to do…is it ‘want’ or ‘wont’? My Chaucerian English is pretty crappy) and I stopped to pet a street cat (as I’m wont to do) and the street cat attacked me (as they’re wont to do) and it bit my hand very deeply (as they’re wont to do. Ok, I’ll stop now),”… Read more »

Green Day will bring its pop-punk sounds to ESPN’s Winter X Games VI, taking place in Aspen, Colorado next month. The trio will perform January 19, day three of the renowned four-day extreme sports festival. Excerpts from the concert will appear on EXPN 2Day, ESPN’s monthly television series hosted by Tony Hawk and Sal Masekela. Meanwhile, Green Day’s new DVD/VHS video collection International Supervideos! is now in stores. The release is a companion the band’s best-of CD, International Superhits!, which arrived in stores in November. In other ESPN news, the network’s ESPN Action Sports & Music Awards will return to… Read more »

MTV plans to make a documentary film on the life of Tupac Shakur, the 25-year-old rap star killed in a 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. His mother, Afeni Shakur, will be the documentary’s executive producer. “The past five years have been extremely painful watching and listening while others incorrectly attempted to define who my son really was,” Shakur said Monday. “Now, through patience, the strength of my family, and faith in God, the true story of Tupac will finally be shared with the world.” Lauren Lazin, vice president of MTV News and Documentaries, will direct and produce the still… Read more »

Soul Asylum recently celebrated the group’s twentieth anniversary with a show at First Avenue in Minneapolis. “It was extremely touching,” says singer/guitarist Dave Pirner. “It seemed like First Avenue was overflowing with love. I’m getting emotional just thinking about it. I really couldn’t get a grip on the fact that we had been together for that long.” Now that the balloons are popped and the champagne bottles drained, Soul Asylum are back doing what’s kept the group together these last two decades: writing new music. “We don’t know where or when we’re going to put this out,” says Pirner of… Read more »

The world’s big record labels are finally rolling out online subscription services smack in the middle of the holiday season that caps the music industry’s worst year in at least a decade. In coming weeks, music fans – who have for years been pulling everything from Radiohead to Madonna off the Web for free from services like Napster – will be introduced to a new breed of money-for-music services like PressPlay and MusicNet, which have been developed by the major record companies. Several smaller independent firms like FullAudio and Listen.com will soon be launching subscription services too. Industry officials and… Read more »

ARTISTdirect CEO Ted Field today announced that industry veterans Jim Swindel and Marc Benesch have joined the executive management team. Swindel has been named executive vice president of sales and marketing, while Benesch joins as executive vice president of promotion. Both appointments are effective immediately. Swindel is a 25-year veteran of the record business who will oversee all sales and marketing efforts aspects of the label’s roster, beginning with upcoming releases by singer/songwriter Custom, and hip-hop trio NAAM Brigade. He will also work closely with Field and Vice Chairman Marc Geiger on the development of other digital music ventures. As… Read more »

Fleetwood Mac, the Anglo-American pop group that shrugged off bitter internal rivalries to emerge as one of music’s great survival stories, is back in the studio recording its first album since a successful 1997 reunion. The band hopes to tour late next summer “with any luck,” co-founder Mick Fleetwood told Reuters, alluding to its wildly unpredictable 34-year progression from British blues combo to California rock institution. But it would not be a Fleetwood Mac project without some drama. In this case, singer/keyboardist Christine McVie, one of three key songwriters, has retired from rock ‘n’ roll. Tired of the travel, she… Read more »