Search Results for: free throw

When Courtney Love has her day in court to argue her case against Geffen Records, Inc., she and her attorney won’t be able to use a pivotal claim Love has touted since the dispute started over a year ago. One of Love’s key arguments has been that recording artists are unfairly excluded from a labor law provision that allows other entertainment workers, such as actors, to be freed from their contracts after seven years. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Fumiko Wasserman dismissed that argument from the suit on Wednesday, according to a court spokesperson. Wasserman green-lighted Love’s other claims… Read more »

Pete Yorn plans to release two albums next year – the follow-up to 2001’s acclaimed Musicforthemorningafter and a record he made before his major-label debut. While the former will feature the same introspective singer/songwriter roots rock showcased in singles like “For Nancy (‘Cos It Already Is)” and “Strange Condition,” the latter will reveal another side of Yorn, who is currently touring with Weezer. “At the time, I was really into Guided by Voices, so it’s lo-fi, really blown-out vocals and guitars,” Yorn said backstage at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California, this weekend. “A lot of reverb. I started every… Read more »

The harsh realization that Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes is no longer with us is settling in with some of her peers in the music industry. Some are still expressing their words of mourning, and some are reflecting on fond memories. “We are saddened today, and we have suffered a true loss to our industry,” ‘NSYNC said in a statement on Friday. “Lisa was a wonderful person who always brought high energy and a great vibe when she walked into a room. It was a pleasure and a lot of fun to work with her. She will be truly missed.” “It… Read more »

The Who invented it. Nirvana perfected it…. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead got accountants thinking about it. Closing a show in a bout of destruction is one of the great traditions of rock and roll, but when it becomes a routine the spectacle isn’t exactly priceless. Fender bass guitars (approximately $900), Marshall amplifiers (approximately $800) and run-of-the-mill drum sets (approximately $600) – the instruments behind Trail of Dead’s beloved rock – make expensive confetti. So when this buzzed-about band of multi-instrumentalists toss drum and guitars around like balloons waiting to be popped, they are conscious… Read more »

Nearly 40 years after he wrote the lyric “He not busy being born is busy dying,” Bob Dylan clearly still believes that estimation is right on the mark. Looking snazzy in a black cowboy hat and old-school Western suit, the 60-year-old folk-rock icon was tireless, fearless and masterful throughout his 140-minute show Thursday at the Arena. Within shouting range of Treptow Park, where he played in 1987 when the area was still communist East Germany, the Arena is a onetime bus depot and hangar that now serves as one of the city’s largest music venues. The 7,500-capacity, standing-room-only space served… Read more »

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck was cleared of all charges alleging he behaved badly on a trans-Atlantic flight last April. An Isleworth Crown Court in London found the guitarist not guilty Friday (April 5) of assault, being drunk on an aircraft and damaging airline dishes, plates and other meal-service items, according to a court spokesperson. Buck waited with wife Stephanie and bandmates Michael Stipe and Mike Mills for the jury to render its verdict, which came after a five-and-a-half-hour deliberation. Buck, 45, was aboard a British Airways flight from Seattle to London on April 21 when he was accused of displaying drunken… Read more »

In the era of MP3s, CD-Rs, iPods and the ubiquitous mix-CD, everyone from Starbucks to your parents has tried their hand at the DJ game, often with perfectly positive results. But after four arduous days of hearing dance music permeate every sonic inch of the Winter Music Conference, this cultural development bolstered the status of every DJ – the real kind – that performed, laying plain the artistry of their craft. That said, the vast majority of WMC parties fell into the risk-free category of monochromatic, genre-based music, whether progressive house, tech-house or any other permutation in between. DJs who… Read more »

Accused of drunken debauchery on an international flight last April, Peter Buck was painted a saint in his air rage trial Monday (March 25) by someone who would be considered a powerful witness in any courtroom: U2 singer and worldwide philanthropist Bono. Providing character reference for the R.E.M. guitarist, who has pleaded not guilty to assault charges and all other allegations, Bono took the stand at Isleworth Crown Court for five minutes and testified that his friend “is famously known for being a peaceable person.” “I have never ever seen him drunk,” Bono told the jury, according to reports. “I… Read more »

R.E.M.’s Peter Buck says he has no recollection of behavior on a Seattle-to-London flight that now finds him facing charges, including assault, in a London court, the BBC reports. Testifying on Wednesday (March 20), Buck claimed that after taking a sleeping pill on the April, 2001 flight, he felt “woozy” and “fear[ed] I had had a heart attack and was in a weird hospital in Disneyland.” When asked if he remembered details for which he is charged, the guitarist told the jury: “None whatsoever.” What Buck does remember is being in a police cell at London’s Heathrow Airport, saying he… Read more »

The Stone Pony, a mecca for fans of Jersey shore rock ‘n’ roll, appears to have survived a brush with destruction, officials said on Thursday. The dilapidated nightclub, a musical home to such legends as Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, will be incorporated into a tentative plan to help revitalize the decayed beachfront of Asbury Park, New Jersey, they said. Original plans called for the Stone Pony – the best-known place to catch an impromptu Springsteen appearance – to be demolished or moved, but a rollicking campaign by devoted patrons ensued to preserve the squat, grimy building now sitting amid… Read more »