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Fans of Scottish rockers Travis won’t have to search long to find The Invisible Band, the group’s third album. Beginning Monday the group will preview a song a day from the imminent June 12 release at TravisOnlineUSA.com, beginning with the second track, “Dear Diary.” The album’s opening cut, “Sing,” is also its first single. June 8, four days before it hits stores, the album will be streamed on the site in its entirety during listening parties at noon, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. ET. The Invisible Band is the lighthearted, optimistic follow-up to Travis’ The Man Who (1999), which included… Read more »

Baseball, barbecues and Phish on the road. Few things are more reliable each summer. Until this year. For the first time in fifteen years, Phish are taking the summer off. Will they ever get back together? “Phish had a natural life span for that period, and it ended,” says guitarist Trey Anastasio, who’s touring solo this summer. “That’s not to say that it won’t start up again, but I think everyone is happy to get a break. “Phish got to the point last year where if we didn’t get out and have a life outside of Phish, there would be… Read more »

A mere six months after the dissolution of the Ben Folds Five, singer/songwriter/pianist Ben Folds has finished a new album, Rockin’ the Suburbs, which will arrive at your neighborhood CD outlet on September 11th. The album is in truth Folds’ second solo effort, but while 1998’s Fear of Pop was a largely experimental tinkerfest, featuring William Shatner among other guests,… Suburbs follows somewhat closer to the BFF trademarks: hooky piano pop, scrapbook nostalgia and character sketches. Recorded with producer Ben Grosse ( Fuel, Filter, the B-52’s) at Krell Studios in his adopted home nation of Australia, Folds played all the… Read more »

Irish boy band Westlife will rock Indonesia’s capital on Thursday under heavy security as police take no chances following the death of four fans in a stampede when another band toured Jakarta in March. Organizers said 2,000 security personnel including police would guard the 15,000-seat concert stadium in central Jakarta, along with 200 paramedics backed up by a number of ambulances and fire engines for the late afternoon event. Bands such as the chart-topping Westlife are hugely popular with Indonesian teenagers, but visits have become less common since the country sank into crisis in the late 1990s. The British boy… Read more »

The company says that the move to trim staff was made to preserve cash, and that it does not reflect any change in the company’s business focus. According to Challenger, Gray, and Christmas, a Chicago-based firm that tracks dot-bomb layoffs, the number of jobless techies so far in 2001 is well in excess of 51,500. The pink slip parade has gotten longer by a count of 15 now-former RadioWave employees. RadioWave, also based in the windy city, has given the boot to 30 percent of its 51 person work force. The company creates custom audio players that coordinate graphics, advertising… Read more »

The lesson learned in the courtship between Vivendi Universal and MP3.com is that record companies and technology companies need each other to succeed in the whipsaw world of Internet music. The world’s five largest record labels are racing to launch alternatives to Napster, the once popular song-swapping service now barred by a federal court from offering most songs copyrighted by the labels. And Vivendi, which owns the world’s largest record company Universal Music Group, is betting that MP3.com will raise its online presence and offerings above its competitors. Vivendi plans to launch a music subscription service called Duet this summer… Read more »

Launch announced that it will eliminate approximately 60 positions, reducing its staff levels to a total of 175 while consolidating its Santa Monica operations into one facility. Additionally, the company discontinued its European expansion plans. The company reported that net revenues for the first quarter of 2001 were $3.8 million, compared to $6.4 million for the same quarter last year. According to a company announcement, 70 percent of revenues were from advertising and 30 percent from content licensing. Launch also announced today that it has signed a non-binding term sheet providing for $5 million in a secured convertible note financing.… Read more »

Nearly eight months after it was first announced, Napster appears to be almost ready to launch its new pay-as-you-go, copyright-friendly service. The company has begun recruiting users for a beta test of the new version at the Napster Web site, with testing expected to begin within a month, and the full-on launch of the new service set for sometime this summer. A Napster spokesperson said Monday (May 14) that no precise launch dates have been set. The fate of the existing service is unclear, but the company has said in the past that there will always be a free component… Read more »

The combative brothers in English rock band Oasis have buried the hatchet long enough to survive the first two shows of their North American tour, guitarist Noel Gallagher said Monday. Oasis are co-headlining the road trip with the Black Crowes, an American band also fronted by two squabbling siblings, and the package has been slyly dubbed “The Tour of Brotherly Love.” Noel Gallagher and his younger brother, vocalist Liam, are famous for their public spats, with Noel walking off the group’s European tour last year. A few years ago, the group cut short an American tour because of internal strife.… Read more »

Recently-signed band Dakona, currently hard at work on their debut album for Maverick Recording Company, will take a break from recording to headline a benefit concert to help teen suicide prevention. The event takes place May 26th at The Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, NY, just outside of New York City. Proceeds from the concert will go to the Mental Health Association of Westchester, NY, Teen Suicide Prevention Program. Dakona’s concern for the issue of teen suicide prevention stems from last year’s suicide death of a fan of the band’s in Vancouver. Earlier this year, the band staged an SRO… Read more »