Search Results for: new years day

Double duty wasn’t necessarily what new Voivod member (and recently announced Ozzy Osbourne bassist) Jason Newsted had in mind when he left Metallica over two years ago, but that’s exactly what he’ll be doing this summer as Voivod and Ozzy play Ozzfest 2003. Despite the need for two sets of everything (clothes, amps, etc.), Newsted tells Billboard.com that he’s up for the challenge. “I’m definitely looking forward to it,” he says. “I know it is going to be a lot of work, but it is something that you can’t let pass you by. Now, I have one foot into the… Read more »

Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and the funk-metal band Incubus have ended their legal standoff with a lucrative new deal that will pay the Calabasas quintet an estimated $8 million in advances for its next album, it was reported Friday. The deal struck Thursday also requires the band to deliver two additional albums and gives Sony an option for a fourth, with an estimated $2.5 million advance due for each, sources told the Los Angeles Times. The company and the musicians “have amicably resolved their differences, and will continue with their highly successful relationship,” Sony and the band said in a… Read more »

The Beastie Boys recently released a new anti-war song via their official website (beastieboys.com). “In A World Gone Mad…” represents the first new music from the group in three years, and it is free to download. The veteran rap trio-which comprises Ad-Rock, MCA, and Mike D-is currently in New York working on material for a new album. Mike D told MTV what motivated the group to record the new song, “We all got to a point where we felt like, we’re in this room in New York, we’re looking at each other every day, and we felt compelled to speak… Read more »

Setting aside the famous fractures of their friendship, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel reunited Sunday to open the Grammy Awards show with their Vietnam era ballad “The Sound of Silence.” The folk-rock duo, which sold millions of records in the 1960s before breaking up, was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Grammys. Other such honorees included Etta James, Johnny Mathis, Glenn Miller and Tito Puente. Simon and Garfunkel have reunited periodically since ending their partnership, but this was believed to be their first performance together since 1993. Their appearance led to speculation that they may tour together, but… Read more »

The Grammy Awards return to New York for the first time in five years on Sunday, with songs influenced by the Sept. 11 hijacked plane attacks on the city in the running for the music industry’s top annual prizes. Veteran rocker Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” and country singer Alan Jackson’s emotional “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” are both nominated for Song of the Year. Young singer and pianist Norah Jones with her mellow mix of jazz, blues and country song and album “Come Away With Me,” is among eight stars most frequently mentioned by music critics as… Read more »

Paul Simon said he’s celebrating his new chance at an Oscar after a paperwork mistake likely kept his song “Mrs. Robinson” out of the competition 35 years ago. The singer-songwriter received his first Academy Award nomination Tuesday for “Father and Daughter,” from the animated “The Wild Thornberrys Movie.” He said many people erroneously believe he was nominated for “Mrs. Robinson,” which he and former collaborator Art Garfunkel sang in 1967’s “The Graduate.” “We forgot to fill in the forms,” Simon acknowledged with a laugh. “You know, it was the ’60s. We just weren’t paying attention. We went along our way… Read more »

Green Day calls the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area home, but singer-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong is going to head north for the holidays. “I think I’m going to go to Minnesota and experience some cold weather and hang out with my in-laws.” Armstrong shared some Christmas memories. His favorite, he said, was “probably when I got a guitar for Christmas, [that] was the most memorable one.” Asked if he knew he’d find the instrument under the tree. “No, I didn’t really know. I got this guitar when I was 8 years old. It’s an old blue Fernandez Stratocaster, and I’ve had… Read more »

Tower Records, the storied 1960s music chain that launched the music megastore and became a cultural retailing icon, strolls into its 43rd holiday shopping season this weekend struggling with debt and on the ropes. The West Sacramento, Calif.-based Tower hopes four weeks of strong sales will reverse a new image as the tottering giant inside a stumbling music industry. Among the chain’s troubles: deep-discounting rivals, changing consumer habits, lack of hits and its own missteps in the 1990s as the music business began a dramatic shift. Tower exemplifies the even deeper woes in a recording industry beset by piracy, computer… Read more »

Amid a week full of music-related TV specials, U2 offers U2’s Beautiful Day, a one-hour special from the homecoming concerts at Ireland’s Slane Castle in 2001. Besides footage from the shows on August 25 and September 1, the broadcast-at 10 p.m. ET Friday (November 29) on CBS-includes behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the band. U2 guitarist the Edge said that the Slane concerts were among the most memorable moments on the lengthy tour in support of All That You Can’t Leave Behind. “They were very emotional, and came at the, towards the end of a very long tour, but playing… Read more »

The Rolling Stones would have no chance on the music market if they were to start as newcomers today, the band’s former bassist Bill Wyman said on Wednesday. Wyman, who left the Rolling Stones after the band’s 30th anniversary 10 years ago, said record companies would no longer sign people whose style was different to that of the charts. “That’s why many talented young people don’t have a chance. The Rolling Stones would be too different today. They were different then but in those days the record companies and the media were open to new ideas,” Wyman told Reuters in… Read more »