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A slew of big names have been added to the NME ShockWaves Award shows line-up next month in London in the build up to their annual award ceremony. Confirmed today are Kasabian, who join the bill with a show at the Hammersmith Palais on Feb. 13, as well as Lostprophets, who headline the Astoria on Feb. 15. Also named during the three week live spell are Pete Doherty’s Babyshambles, playing a big show at the Brixton Academy on February 16th and Jamie T at the Hammersmith Apollo on March 2nd, the final show of the series. “I love that venue,… Read more »

It’s often said by, you know, people like Hulk Hogan or Chuck “The Iceman” Liddell, that into every life, a little fisticuffs must fall. For Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz, that moment happened late Sunday night. And luckily for the rest of us, the whole thing was captured on a camera phone. As seen in a video now wildly making the rounds on the Net, Wentz and a member of Fall Out Boy’s security team took umbrage at the way one beefy security guard was treating a fan during the band’s sold-out gig at the Sunshine Theatre in Albuquerque,… Read more »

Rock bands Van Halen and R.E.M. have made the cut for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with punk poet Patti Smith, pioneering rappers Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and 1960s girl group the Ronettes, organizers said on Monday. They will be honored at a black-tie ceremony in New York on March 12, the main fund-raiser for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. Inductees are chosen by music industry insiders from a short-list of acts who become eligible for consideration 25 years after their first recording. Those who did not make the… Read more »

It’s New Year’s Eve in New York and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is headlining the buzziest indie rock bill in town. The eclectic quintet — which has risen to notoriety for selling more than 110,000 copies of its 2005 debut album in the United States without the help of a record label — has plenty to celebrate. The band is using the show at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom to preview a half-dozen tracks from its self-released sophomore set, “Some Loud Thunder,” due January 30. CYHSY’s most rabid fans don’t need much of an introduction to some of the new material.… Read more »

OSAKA (Kyodo) Momofuku Ando, the founder of Nissin Food Products Co. and inventor of instant ramen, died of heart failure Friday evening at a hospital in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, his family said. He was 96. Born on March 5, 1910, in Taiwan, Ando initially ran clothing companies in Taipei and Osaka while he was a student at Ritsumeikan University. In 1948, he founded the precursor to Nissin and in 1958 unveiled Chicken Ramen, the world’s first instant noodle product. Ando was inspired to develop the instant noodle after coming upon a long line of people on a cold night shortly… Read more »

The end of 2006 also marks the end of the current congressional session in the House and Senate, closing the door on the Deleting Online Predators Act. Let’s take a look at why this legislation, which passed overwhelmingly in the House this summer, died such a slow death. Those of you who’ve been following this blog from the get-go are undoubtedly aware of the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA. But for those of you who don’t frequent my humble column on a regular basis, here’s the skinny. DOPA, introduced last May by Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick and a coalition of… Read more »

High School Musical officially graduated at the top of its class. The surprise monster hit soundtrack accompaniment to the Disney Channel’s tween song-and-dance fest, finished as 2006’s chart valedictorian, selling more than 3.7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan figures released Thursday. In the SoundScan era, the only other soundtracks to finish atop the yearend chart were The Bodyguard in 1993 and Titanic in 1998. Remarkably, High School Musical debuted on the charts way down at number 143 in January 2006. The disc increased its position each week, eventually hitting the top spot on two nonconsecutive weeks in March. It… Read more »

LOS ANGELES – U.S. album sales, which include CDs and digital albums, fell 4.9 percent in 2006 as an increasing number of consumers preferred to download individual songs from the Web, Nielsen SoundScan said on Thursday. While data from the music tracking company showed overall music unit sales rose 19.4 percent last year due to digital downloads, the growth momentum of that category also disappointed some market watchers. “Not only did year-end 2006 digital sales fall short of our expectations, more concerning is the deceleration in growth during the fourth quarter,” Richard Greenfield, an analyst with Pali Research, wrote in… Read more »

With the decade fast approaching it’s musical climax, 2006 proved to be a big winner for an industry hit by piracy. The live music scene proved to be the biggest release for most acts, with top grossing tours for some of the world’s biggest bands, and an explosion in music festivals across the globe. Firstly, let’s recap on albums were still waiting on from last year; OutKast’s first studio album since 2004’s “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below” (which was one of the year’s biggest releases) is rumoured now for the spring, and Guns N’ Roses failed to deliver on their promise of… Read more »

Apparently when the bell tolled for Marissa Cooper, it also spelled curtains for the entire O.C. After ordering up an abbreviated season of what was once TV’s hottest prime-time teen drama (Beverly Hills, 90210 with even more beach time, if you will), Fox announced Wednesday that it has officially deep-sixed The O.C. The finale will air Feb. 22 after a non-stop run of new episodes starting Thursday. “The O.C. season four finale will also be the series finale. This feels like the best time to bring the show to its close,” O.C. creator and executive producer Josh Schwartz said in… Read more »