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When The Spinal Tap performed Monday night at Carnegie Hall, it was as if the thirty-four-year-old British heavy metal band was playing for the first time in three days. With the three founding Spinal Tap members – David St. Hubbins, on guitar and vocals; Nigel Tufnel, on lead guitar; and Derek Smalls, on bass – Spinal Tap played “Carnegie ‘Fucking’ Hall” as if they were the same band they have always been. And yet with accompaniment by longtime keyboardist Caucasian Jeffrey Vaston, and with Skippy Skuffelton accepting the suicide mission of drums, Spinal Tap actually are still the same band… Read more »

RealNetworks is scrambling to stem investor jitters that the online streaming-media giant is about to lose its exclusive agreement to provide streaming media services to users of AOL, the world’s most popular ISP. The company’s stock tumbled nearly 20 percent early last week on speculation that AOL Time Warner is poised to dump Real and provide Microsoft the opportunity to replace RealNetworks’ technology as media player of choice for AOL’s estimated 29 million subscribers. Analysts believe that AOL is unlikely to dump RealNetworks anytime soon, but ongoing talks between AOL and Microsoft over a key co-distribution deal within Microsoft’s new… Read more »

As the fight over digital musical copyrights moves into a new stage, song-swap service Napster said it is looking for a new ally – music publishers. “I’m spending a lot of time thinking about publishing,” Napster chief executive officer Hank Barry told Reuters. “We could get all the labels in the world on the service but we still couldn’t do anything without the publishing rights,” said Barry during a recent interview. Barry echoed what many big label executives are grappling with as a growing dispute over publishers’ royalty rates threatens to undermine recently announced plans to launch commercial services as… Read more »

Clear Channel Radio President and Chief Operating Officer Kenneth O’Keefe is retiring from the company, effective June 30. No successor has yet been named, and Clear Channel Radio Chief Executive Officer Randy Michaels will assume Mr. O’Keefe’s duties on an interim basis. O’Keefe served as the President of Clear Channel Radio since its merger with AMFM in August 2000, and had previously been COO of AMFM which, at the time, was the nation’s largest radio broadcasting company with over 400 stations. O’Keefe’s primary role since the merger has been to integrate the operations of the Clear Channel Radio and AMFM… Read more »

Taiwan high-speed Internet access firm GigaMedia Ltd. said on Monday it would sell part of its music Web site to record label EMI Group Plc in a strategic alliance to jointly offer music downloads. U.S.-listed Giga said it spun off its Juice.com music site into a separate company capitalized at T$100 million and EMI would take a minority stake in the firm. Officials declined to give financial details of the agreement. “The alliance supports our goal of creating new platforms to promote our artists and distribute their music in a secure, protected, and commercially viable manner,” Mathew Allison, president of… Read more »

KS95-Minneapolis OM/PD Leighton PeckIn an age of radio where “localness” is being de-emphasized, one example of a station stepping up and serving its community, and a stellar example at that, is KS95 (KSTP/FM)-Minneapolis’s Third Annual “KS95 for Kids Radiothon.” Held last month at the Twin Cities’ Mall of America and hosted by KS95 morning duo Van Patrick & Cheryl Kaye, the 84-hour (!) event helped raise an astounding $1.54 million, breaking the national record for a fundraiser of this type. Amazingly enough, the record the Hot A/C broke was their own, set at last year’s Radiothon. What’s even more amazing… Read more »

Eddie Van Halen acknowledged for the first time that he has cancer, and said he’s winning his battle against the disease. The Van Halen leader and guitar virtuoso said in a message posted on his band’s official Web site that “although it’s hard to say when, there’s a good chance I will be cancer-free in the near future. “I’m sorry for having waited so long to address this issue personally. But cancer can be a very unique and private matter to deal with. So I think it’s about time to tell you where I’m at,” Van Halen said in the… Read more »

Liquid Audio has announced the appointment of Michael R. Bolcerek as chief financial officer and senior vice president of finance. In this position, Bolcerek will be responsible for the company’s strategic and financial planning processes, financial reporting, and investor relations. Bolcerek will have his hands full, as the Internet economy continues to slide. Liquid Audio has in the past three months seen a slow decline in its stock price, entering February with a price of roughly $4 per share and closing April at just more than $2 per share. On May 10, 2001, Liquid Audio is scheduled to announce its… Read more »

Lawyers from popular song-swap company Napster and the Recording Industry Association of America held a conference call on Friday with a court-appointed technical expert to resolve disputes over Napster’s compliance with an injunction barring the trading of copyrighted songs on the service. Both sides declined to comment after the call, held on Friday afternoon, and sources familiar with the situation said that U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel ordered the transcript of the call sealed. Patel, lawyers from both sides and the expert, A.J. “Nick” Nichols, took part in the call, according to sources familiar with the situation. Russell Frackman,… Read more »

Cable TV’s music channel VH1 Tuesday unveiled a service to sell CDs on the Internet weeks before they hit retail shelves, becoming the latest in a string of announcements to spotlight rapid changes in music. Former Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks will kick off the service, dubbed “VH1 Hear Music First, on April 16 when she will make her new CD “Trouble in Shangri-La” available to fans at VH1.com before it lands in record stores on May 1. The service allows computer users to surf their way to www.VH1.com, where they can buy a CD for about the same price… Read more »