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Eminem may still be on probation for brandishing a gun two years ago in a jealous rage, but the bad-boy rap artist makes clear on his latest album how close he might have come to doing time for murder. In one of the most chilling passages from “The Eminem Show,” his anxiously awaited third release, the Detroit-based rapper recounts pulling an unloaded pistol on his then-wife, Kim Mathers, and a friend he claimed she was kissing outside a suburban Detroit bar. “The smartest (thing) I did was take the bullets out of the gun, ’cause I’d’ve killed ’em/I would’ve shot… Read more »

Sean Combs’ album “P. Diddy & Bad Boy Records Present… We Invented the Remix” bows at No. 1 atop the Billboard 200 on 255,550 units sold. The album marks the third No. 1 release during the past two months that has hit stores at a discounted price. Last week, Musiq’s “Juslisen,” which sold with a $2.50 rebate debuted at No. 1 on 260,150 copies scanned. The Def Jam album slips to No. 5 this week on 115,775 units scanned. Ashanti’s self-titled debut, offered with a new-artist discount and $2 rebate, sold more than half a million records during its first… Read more »

The people who tried to take away your VCR are at it again. Hollywood has always dreamed of a “well-mannered marketplace” where the only technologies that you can buy are those that do not disrupt its business. Acting through legislators who dance to Hollywood’s tune, the movie studios are racing to lock away the flexible, general-purpose technology that has given us a century of unparalelled prosperity and innovation. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) filed the “Content Protection Status Report” with the Senate Judiciary Committee last month, laying out its plan to remake the technology world to suit its… Read more »

Alien Ant Farm’s tour bus collided with a truck in Cáceres, Spain, early Wednesday morning (May 22), resulting in the bus driver’s death and the band sustaining minor injuries. The members of the band were taken to a nearby hospital, roughly 200 kilometers west of Madrid, according to a Dreamworks Records spokesperson. Singer Dryden Mitchell sustained back injuries, guitarist Terry Corso broke his ankle, bassist Tye Zamora injured his foot and drummer Mike Cosgrove entered the hospital with cuts and bruises as a result of the accident. The bandmembers were asleep in their bunks at the time of the crash,… Read more »

A legal fight that has pitted file-swapping software companies Kazaa BV and StreamCast Networks against big record labels and movie studios is collapsing as the small companies run out of funds. Netherlands-based Kazaa BV, which created the file-swapping technology underlying Kazaa, Grokster and earlier versions of Morpheus, is conceding defeat-although its founders already appear to have started another near-identical company. Meanwhile, StreamCast is losing a high-powered attorney with a winning track record against the music companies in court. The disintegration of the companies’ legal case will have little immediate affect on the popular Kazaa and Morpheus file-trading networks themselves. But… Read more »

Bush guitarist Nigel Pulsford’s break from touring now looks to be a permanent vacation from the band he co-founded a decade ago with frontman Gavin Rossdale. The British rockers will continue with ex-Helmet guitarist Chris Traynor instead of counting on Pulsford’s return, Rossdale said Sunday, shortly before Bush performed at Rock Im Park music festival. Traynor had been subbing for Pulsford on Bush’s tour while he spent time at home with his newly expanded family. “He didn’t get kicked out. He didn’t want to be on tour, and you can’t kick someone out that isn’t there,” Rossdale said as he… Read more »

You know you’re a long way from home when Groove Armada and Faithless play for wilder crowds than the godfather of heavy metal. “I can’t f-ing hear you!” is Ozzy Osbourne’s standard concert rallying cry, but it took on a new urgency Friday night at the kickoff of the three-day Rock Im Park festival in Nuremberg. As the 53-year-old showman peered out at the half-full Frankenstadion, his famous baffled expression – mouth agape, black-lined eyes open wide, arms extended as though desperately soliciting a hug – looked a bit more confounded than usual. Of course the metal madman delivered, leading… Read more »

Roughly one month after the tragic death of his close friend and former bandmate Layne Staley, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell returned to the town that made them both famous, and despite the feeling that a big hole existed where his former partner once stood, it was a rocking, if bittersweet, trip back in time. With plenty of classic AIC material in tow, Cantrell took a sparse but enthusiastic audience at Key Arena on Friday back to the halcyon days of the early ’90s – a time of lank hair, big angst and bigger guitars, before the Bizkit and its… Read more »

Bad-boy rapper Eminem’s eagerly awaited album, “The Eminem Show,” is to be released a week earlier than planned, on May 27, because pirate copies are already in circulation, his record label said on Monday. Interscope Records, a unit of France’s Vivendi Universal, said the early worldwide release of the album, which had been due on June 4, should minimize the impact of the illegally manufactured copies. “We’re disappointed that inferior pirated copies of “The Eminem Show” are in circulation, which is why we’ve decided to make the legitimate version available sooner than originally planned,” said Max Hole, Universal’s head of… Read more »

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers will launch a North American tour on June 27 in Grand Rapids, Michigan-and the band’s original bassist Ron Blair, who left the band in 1982, will return to the fold to replace Howie Epstein. In a statement, the group noted that it has “parted ways with Howie Epstein because of his ongoing personal problems.” Blair, who was on the first four Heartbreakers albums before he left and was replaced by Epstein, played with the band at its Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction in March. Last year, Epstein was arrested in New Mexico with… Read more »