Search Results for: hard rock

Over the last few decades, a veteran music act’s best shot at platinum magic usually consisted of pairing up with younger hitmakers (a la Santana) or covering treasured classics (like Rod Stewart. These days, another kind of vehicle has become a path to best-selling success – teaming up with box store chains. Garth Brooks ‘ started the trend in earnest back in 2005, with an exclusive Wal-Mart deal, and the Eagles and AC/DC had multiplatinum-plus success over the last two years by exclusively selling new CDs at Wal-Mart. Guns ‘N Roses sold about a million copies with a special Best… Read more »

For a certain generation who grew up with Commodore 64s and Apple IIcs, downtime in computer class was spent obsessing over one primitive yet lovable educational video game: Oregon Trail. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz was one of the floppy disc’s biggest devotees as a kid, so he was willing to dedicate a “retarded” amount of time to helping build the band’s own version of the game: Fall Out Boy Trail. The online game, which has clocked more than 250,000 plays since its launch on Mar. 3, is a survival exercise like the original. But instead of helping your caravan… Read more »

The average cellphone customer pays more than $3 per minute, according to a report being issued this week by the  Utility Consumers’ Action Network, a San Diego consumer advocacy group. Researchers arrived at the average $3.02-per-minute charge by comparing the average number of minutes charged in more than 700 San Diego consumers’ telecom bills and dividing by the average number of actual minutes used. “We knew it was a myth that wireless costs were going down,” said Michael Shames, UCAN’s executive director. “But we were blown away by the actual costs.” That $3-per-minute figure is skewed by the relatively small… Read more »

When the Silversun Pickups were writing “Swoon,”  the follow-up to their breakout “Carnavas” album, they were given access to parts of the universe where mere mortals dare not tread. And they soaked in them. “We were on jets that landed on hovercrafts that rolled us onto Jacuzzi-shaped planes,” frontman Brian Aubert laughed. “And on one Jacuzzi plane, there was a submarine, and that was the VIP, and that was going crazy. And that’s where we wrote the album. We wrote “Swoon” on the backs of hookers. In crayon.” He’s kidding. But there’s no denying that the past few years have… Read more »

There was a time, long before the multiplatinum records and the pancake makeup, before the Eisner Award-winning comics or the Dylan cover in the “Watchmen” film, when My Chemical Romance were just another band from New Jersey. They would like very much to get back to that time. So that’s goal number one with their new album – the follow-up to the massively successful, massively ambitious “Welcome to the Black Parade” – which they’re currently writing in Los Angeles. They hope to get back to their roots – to make manic, fast-and-furious, spur-of-the-moment punk. And, above all, to keep it… Read more »

It’s early January, and occasional downpours drench thousands of fans as they file into Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium for Sound & Speed, an annual event featuring country stars and NASCAR drivers. Camo-clad devotees and their children, some dressed in miniature racing suits, line up for an autograph and a picture. The event is the perfect mix for those who consider autographs from Dierks Bentley and Dale Earnhardt Jr to be treasured booty. NASCAR fans and country music fans are eager to rub elbows with drivers and artists alike, something both circuits are eager to take advantage of. The 2009 race season… Read more »

Bruce Springsteen has castigated Ticketmaster after it encouraged US fans to buy tickets online for one of his gigs at inflated prices. The Boss also put the boot in about any possible merger between Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation, declaring that such a move would “make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan”. Springsteen, his manager Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen tour team claimed on the Brucemeister’s website that such a move would lead to “a near monopoly situation in music ticketing”. Officials in Connecticut and New Jersey are launching investigations into Ticketmaster’s sales practices, following… Read more »

Just what exactly does Barbadian R&B pop queen Rihanna have to do with the Super Bowl? About as much as Fall Out Boy. Yet there both acts were, playing to a hyped-up crowd on Thursday night at Tampa’s Ford Amphitheater for the VH1-broadcast Pepsi Super Bowl Smash show that served as the unofficial kickoff of Super Bowl XLIII weekend. The one-hour special, hosted for the second year by easily excited actor Jerry O’Connell and a series of NFL guests, kicked off with a mini-set from FOB. The band stormed out to play “I Don’t Care” with their new signature LED-flickering… Read more »

Could the Jonas Brothers become the next Beatles ? Or merely the new Monkees ? The chart-topping teen idols, who elicit piercing shrieks from their young fans wherever they go, are starring in a Disney Channel series inspired by the Beatles’ movies as well as the zany American made-for-TV group the Monkees The Jonas siblings — Kevin, 21, Joe, 19, and Nick, 16 — will appear as themselves in the barely fictional comedy series “Jonas,” premiering on the cable channel in May. The squeaky clean brothers, beloved by the young daughters of President-elect Barack Obama, play members of a popular… Read more »

The Warped Tour, the annual traveling festival that targets the Vans-wearing, emo-loving youth of America, has recently announced the lineup  for their 2009 caravan. As usual (and because the event is celebrating its 15th anniversary), the lineup combines older acts like NOFX, Less Than Jake and Bad Religion with newer artists like 3OH!3 and Black Tide. Other notables on the bill include the hard-rocking Gallows, the Ataris, Thrice, Underoath, Bayside and a bunch of other bands that are currently blasting on Hot Topic stereos. At first glance, the bill lacks the big names of past fests, the Paramores and Gym… Read more »