Search Results for: no cure

Sam Phillips, the man who discovered Elvis Presley and helped kickstart the rock and roll era, died of respiratory failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, on Wednesday (July 30). He was 80. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, Phillips founded the Sun Records label in Memphis in 1952 and recorded the debut single from Elvis Presley (“That’s All Right, Mama” b/w “Blue Moon of Kentucky”) in 1954. Elvis’ first recording helped secure both his and Phillips’ places in rock history and set the stage for Phillips’ work with some of the giants of… Read more »

Leading up to the 2004 date targeted for the release of his sixth album, Ben Folds will release a three-EP series of new material online. The first set, Speed Graphic, will be available starting tomorrow at Folds’ Web site, attackedbyplastic.com. The set features a cover of the Cure’s “In Between Days” as well as four new songs, “Protection,” “Dog,” “Wandering” and “Give Judy My Notice.” The second EP, called Sunny 16, will be ready in September, and the third, yet-to-be-titled set is scheduled for November. The point of the EPs? “I have twenty-four hour access to a studio now,” Folds… Read more »

A new Internet music download site for PCs debuting Tuesday boasts the cheapest per-song rates yet but many of the same restrictions on copying that have stymied wider use of other music services. Although online retailer BuyMusic.com will offer a catalog of more than 300,000 songs from the five major record labels, users of the service will not necessarily have the freedom afforded customers of Apple Inc.’s iTunes service to transfer the music purchased to multiple computers and portable devices, or to burn it to compact discs. BuyMusic hopes to score the sort of attention that helped drive sales for… Read more »

Long an artist’s sanctuary, the commercial recording studio is becoming a virtual fortress, guarding against the potentially devastating consequences of theft. The thieves’ targets are the rough mixes, outtakes, alternative takes and finished masters that traditionally have been loosely handled, even by the artists themselves. Leaks of this material are nothing new, but the advent of unauthorized file sharing on the Internet has greatly increased the consequences of this phenomenon. Recent albums by Eminem, 50 Cent, Korn and Radiohead were all available online prior to release, because unauthorized copies were leaked to unknown parties. In such cases, marketing strategies are… Read more »

Nielsen SoundScan on Wednesday said it will start tracking digital downloads of music from commercial online services as sentiment for music on the Web brightens with successful offerings like Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music store. Nielsen Soundscan, a unit of Nielsen Entertainment, which is owned by VNU NV,, provides weekly retail music sales information that serves as the basis for the popular weekly Billboard Magazine music charts. The company said that it will now be tracking downloads sold on Apple’s service, Pressplay, MusicNet, and also Listen.com and Liquid Audio. Nielsen Soundscan said it will also track data from Napster when… Read more »

A U.S. tour by ’80s metal bands Great White, L.A. Guns and XYZ aimed at raising funds for the families of victims of the Rhode Island nightclub fire has been called off due to an inability to secure insurance. The 55-city tour was to raise money for the Station Family Fund, a nonprofit organization set up to assist the families and survivors of the February fire at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, Rhode Island, which claimed the lives of 100 victims when a Great White pyrotechnics display went awry and set the club ablaze. The tour was to launch… Read more »

Even though it’s due in stores today, KRS-One has done everything he can to make sure nobody buys his latest album – at least not yet. “This is insane, this is insane, this is so egregious, this is so devious,” KRS-One fumed on Monday, angry at Koch Records’ plan to release an album by him called Kristyles. The Bronx battle king, alleging that the record Koch was putting out not only did a disservice to him as an artist and a businessman, but that it was an affront to hip-hop culture as a whole, won a court injunction on Monday… Read more »

Ticket sales are down, and big tours are scaling back to smaller venues. It looks to be a long, hot summer for the touring industry. On the cusp of the industry’s peak period, a number of high-profile tours and festivals have already hit snags, among them highly touted outings from Mariah Carey, the Field Day Music Festival, Lollapalooza, and Beck and Dashboard Confessional. Faced with a crowded tour market combined with high ticket prices, permit hassles, a sluggish economy and poor buzz, these tours and a handful of others have either had to scale back the size of the venues… Read more »

In late April, Madonna gave a rare in-store concert before 400 fans to plug her new American Life album. Outside the event, which took place at Tower Records in New York’s Greenwich Village, another 2,000-plus fans thronged. For years, Tower has harnessed such star power to burnish its credentials as a purveyor of hipness. “It was the buzz around town,” boasts store manager David Montes of the Madonna love-in. But the splashy appearance obscured a harsh backstage truth: Tower Records is in such deep trouble that its parent, privately held MTS Inc. in West Sacramento, has put the company on… Read more »

Pearl Jam canceled its Thursday (June 19) night show at the Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati. The region has been experiencing heavy rains, and the water from the rise of the Ohio River has flooded the riverfront amphitheater. Another venue couldn’t be secured with such short notice. Pearl Jam’s manager Kelly Curtis said in a statement, “The band is very disappointed they won’t be able to play Cincinnati but we understand fully the promoters’ and venue’s decision to cancel as safety is everyone’s main priority.” All tickets will be refunded at the point of purchase. Pearl Jam’s next gig is… Read more »