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The Wild Boys are back, and they’re coming to a theater or auditorium near you. Duran Duran have set the first 16 dates of their fall reunion tour, which will kick off November 8 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. So far the outing is scheduled to wrap November 30 in San Diego, although more dates are likely to be added. Cities include Chicago (two nights), Atlanta and Philadelphia, but not New York or Los Angeles, where the band played earlier this year. Advance tickets are available at duranduran.com. The tour, Duran Duran’s first with the original lineup in more than… Read more »

George Harrison, Prince, John Mellencamp and Jackson Browne are among those who’ve made the list of nominees for the 2004 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot, a hall of fame spokesperson confirmed Monday. Artists are eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria for consideration include “the influence and significance of the artist’s contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll,” according to the organization. Several names that have not made the hall before are back for another try, including the Sex Pistols, Lynyrd Skynyrd, ZZ Top, country rock legend Gram Parsons,… Read more »

Kevin Richardson hopes others won’t have to follow his path to superstardom. Richardson left his native Kentucky as a teenager for a job at Walt Disney World before auditioning for an Orlando, Fla.-based group that would eventually become the Backstreet Boys. Now Richardson, 31, and childhood friend and songwriter Keith McGuffey have opened a music academy in downtown Louisville. Called The Music Workshop, its a catchall for performers, songwriters and producers seeking a career in music. “When me and Keith were growing up in central Kentucky there wasn’t any real outlet for us. If we wanted to get information about… Read more »

Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. have nothing to worry about, but a university known more for churning out engineers than hit music is starting its own record label. Drexel University’s MAD Dragon Records expects to put out its first CD – a compilation of eight or nine bands – next year. The student-run label will be an integral part of Drexel’s fledgling music industry program, which in only three years has grown from eight students to more than 150. Students will be in charge of artist development, production, recording, marketing, contracts and distribution, while MAD Dragon musicians – also students… Read more »

The music industry may have begun to figure out how to sell digital downloads, but making money from them is another story. As the 99 cent digital singles model begins to take root across the industry through services like Apple Computer’s iTunes Music Store, Liquid Audio, Rhapsody and a host of others set to bow for the PC this fall, industry executives and artist representatives are questioning whether the pricing model makes sense financially. With all parties involved angling for nickels and dimes in the average download sale, labels, artists and service providers all agree on at least one thing:… Read more »

With his lawsuits threatening to outnumber his album releases, Boston leader Tom Scholz has revved up the litigation machine again and is suing his label, Artemis Records, for more than $4 million. Scholz filed suit in New York on Tuesday, claiming that the band’s first album in eight years, 2002’s Corporate America, failed to take off because the label didn’t promote it properly, despite promises that Boston’s fifth album would be a priority. The suit claims Scholz signed with Danny Goldberg’s Artemis because of Goldberg’s “repeated promises that his label would give the highest priority to promoting [Corporate America]; that… Read more »

Record producer Kenneth Darnell Franklin has filed a multiple-count copyright infringement and breach-of-contract lawsuit against Percy Miller (aka Master P), his label, No Limit Records, Priority Records, and Capitol/EMI Music, among others. The suit – filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court – alleges that material by rapper Clifton Dickson (aka Lil Italy) appeared without permission on the 1999 No Limit/Priority release “On Top of Da World.” The album, which reached No. 20 on Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart, has sold 76,000 units in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan. The suit claims that Franklin, who does business as… Read more »

The lawsuit against Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne brought by Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake has been dismissed by the federal court in Los Angeles. In a ruling issued on August 16, 2002, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ claims for record royalties and additional credits on the classic Ozzy albums “Blizzard of Oz” and “Diary of A Madman.” The ruling ends the lawsuit first filed in 1998. Ozzy and Sharon stated: “This decision recognizes what we have been saying all along: Bob and Lee’s lawsuit was vicious and frivolous. It is truly sad that they felt the need to try to… Read more »

Long before Michael Jackson began his eyebrow-raising attack on Sony, a coalition of influential artists initiated a more civilized crusade against the record industry, and on Tuesday that battle raged on. Representing the Recording Artists Coalition – which includes No Doubt, Beck and others – and similar action groups, several music attorneys and a few artists faced off against major-label representatives in a hearing with the California Senate Committee in Sacramento. Montell Jordan, Sam Moore of legendary soul duo Sam & Dave, and attorney Don Engel were among those who accused record companies of fraudulent accounting practices, mainly underpaying artists… Read more »

Rock ‘n’ roll has turned music fans into rebels. Not only are they pirating tunes on the Internet rather than paying upwards of $20 for a compact disc, they are also increasingly reluctant to fork out for costly concert tickets. A survey of the North American concert industry by trade publication Pollstar showed the top 50 acts sold a combined 10.6 million tickets in the first half of the year, down about three percent from the year-ago period (10.9 million tickets) and off 18 percent from 2000 (12.9 million tickets). The average ticket price for those top 50 tours rose… Read more »