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XM Satellite Radio commenced a nationwide soft launch test program this week, deploying dozens of teams of testers equipped with XM radios to more than 20 markets across the country, in preparation for its commercial service launch later this summer. With both its high-powered satellites broadcasting from their final geostationary positions, XM is road-testing the XM Experience utilizing selected testers comprised of employees and business partners across the nation. Last week, the company launched a newly updated website that allows consumers to test the channels XM will offer, as well as a search function to locate retailers selling XM-capable radio… Read more »

Arista recording group, FROM ZERO, accelerates on the fast track with 40 dates on the road with Godsmack, Deftones and Puddle of Mudd. The summer tour season has kicked-in full force and From Zero will be out smacking you around till your deaf and lying face down in a puddle of mud! Hailing from Chicago indie cult status to landing a major label deal with Arista Records, From Zero finds itself as the first rock band being released from Arista Records under the helm of Antonio “L.A.” Reid. From Zero’s major label release ONE NATION UNDER which was produced in… Read more »

Melissa Etheridge may rank among the world’s most successful openly gay performers and a poster child for gay parenting, but until now the singer/songwriter has never directly referred to women in her songs. “Even though people know exactly what I’m singing about it, sometimes the gay community gets like: ‘When are you going to sing a song about a girl?”‘ Etheridge, 40, told Reuters in an interview at her favorite coffee house in Santa Monica, California. “And I think, haven’t I done enough already?” The musician from Kansas has sold more than 25 million records and has become an icon… Read more »

When the superstar pop vocal group ‘N Sync sat down to pick the songs for its upcoming album, the quintet found itself at odds with its record company. The Florida-based group, which has sold more than 25 million records worldwide since debuting in 1997, wanted to rock the boat with “Celebrity,” which is due in stores July 24. But Jive Records executives worried that too much change might make fans disinclined to buy, buy, buy like they have in the past. “They were like, ‘I don’t know. I don’t like that song. I don’t think you should go there. It’s… Read more »

When the wife of heavy metal god Ozzy Osbourne came up with the idea of a tour featuring the heavy hitters of metal and hard rock, the reaction from the concert industry was lukewarm, at best. “In my gut feeling, I felt that it would definitely work, because there was a huge void in the marketplace for it,” Sharon Osbourne recalled. “Not a lot of people in the market agreed with me at the time.” Certainly, no one can disagree with her now. Ozzfest, now in its sixth year, has consistently ranked as one of the top concert draws of… Read more »

Janet Jackson is calling it her “All For You” tour, but the pop diva may have trouble convincing thousands of Canadian fans that it’s all for them. The day before she was due to open her world tour in Vancouver, British Columbia, Jackson and her managers decided to postpone Thursday night’s show until Monday, July 9, blaming the late arrival of stage equipment for the abrupt schedule change. As a result, Jackson’s tour will kick off Saturday, July 7, in Portland, Ore., and a planned July 10 stop in Edmonton, Alberta, will be canceled altogether, organizers said. “This production is… Read more »

Disturbed is finding some new challenges now that it has moved from its spot as the OzzFest second-stage headliner to a role as support act on the main stage. The group made the switch after an estimated 20,000 fans swarmed the second stage on the tour’s opening day in Disturbed’s hometown of Chicago last month (June 8). Guitarist Dan Donegan tells LAUNCH how things have changed on the big stage. “It’s definitely different,” he says. “I mean it’s a bit more challenging ’cause, you know, a lot of the venues, most of the venues, have pavilion seats so you have… Read more »

A new album from the band named after a place the sun doesn’t shine will finally see the light of day next month, complete with a track co-written by an “American Bad Ass.” Experimental rockers the Butthole Surfers will release their first album in five years, Weird Revolution, on August 28, even though the family of Malcolm X forced the band back to the drawing board at the 11th hour. In the lyrics on the track “The Weird Revolution,” frontman Gibby Haynes copped a passage – save a few words – from one of the assassinated black activist’s most famous… Read more »

As Courtney Love and Nirvana’s surviving members face off in a legal battle over the band’s legacy, 120 tapes of unreleased material featuring Kurt Cobain sit in a vault – and that’s where they’ll remain, says a source close to the Cobain estate, until Nirvana’s record company gives the band a better deal. The collection includes recordings of the late singer alone as well as tapes of the band throughout its career, including Nirvana’s first show in Seattle in April 1988, four-track basement demos, bedroom tapes of Cobain singing and strumming on new songs as well as embryonic versions of… Read more »

Electronic music pioneer Aphex Twin will re-emerge from a two-year, self-imposed retirement this autumn, when he releases a sprawling two-disc set to be titled Drukqz. Due in October on the Warp Records label, the album – which hasn’t been given an official release date yet – boasts thirty tracks of new material. The epic release marks the first full-length recording from Aphex Twin since 1996’s acclaimed acid jungle exercise, Richard D. James Album, a set titled after his birth name. Mastered in London last week, the hotly anticipated project marks the return of a man that many credit for expanding… Read more »