Search Results for: something corporate

With the music industry looking to cut costs amid lower profit margins, record companies see fewer incentives to investing in artist-run label projects. Twelve years ago, Madonna decided to apply the business instincts that made her a superstar toward finding and developing new acts for her own music label. Maverick Records flourished early on. It generated hits by the likes of Alanis Morissette and Prodigy, validating the decision by Warner Music to form a partnership with its biggest star. But Maverick’s good fortunes started to turn during the industrywide sales slump that began in 2000. The label-parent relationship soured, landing… Read more »

Some might call New Found Glory’s Steve Klein a nitpicker. Others may view the way he adds consequence to a person’s seemingly minor quirks as insightful. “If there’s something about someone that bothers you, and you keep on noticing it every time you hang out with that person, it’s like a snowball effect,” the band’s guitarist explained. “Every time, it keeps getting worse and you keep on noticing that one thing and you can’t deal with it. You have to just stop it before it gets too far along.” Such was the inspiration behind “All Downhill From Here,” the first… Read more »

“At the end of every show we’d grab handfuls of these stickers we made at Kinko’s with our name and website,” says Steriogram frontman Brad Carter. “We’d toss ’em to our fans from the stage, 300 or 400 stickers every night.” Carter laughs at the band’s ultra-humble approach to building fan loyalty. But it’s working. Steriogram’s homemade stickers, website and music videos, together with its enthusiastic courting of street teams and high school kids, helped launch the rock-hiphop group from obscurity in Auckland, NZ, to a major deal with Capitol Records. “Our goal was to play in America because our… Read more »

It was a breakthrough deal that would have put the Napster kitty on millions of Hewlett-Packard computers. But in the days leading up to Napster’s re-launch in late October, HP suddenly – and without explanation – returned Napster’s $250,000 check and canceled the agreement to install a link to Napster’s online music service on its computers. Worse, in January HP announced a surprise partnership with Napster rival Apple Computer to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players. Neither HP nor Napster’s parent company, Roxio, would comment on the soured deal, whose details… Read more »

JC Chasez, who headlined countless arena tours with ‘NSYNC, has scheduled something much more modest for his first solo outing. Beginning December 3 at Spreckels in San Diego, Chasez will play a string of club shows to premiere material from his solo debut,Schizophrenic. “I’m going to grass-roots this thing,” the singer said. “To me, I’m at the beginning again and I don’t want to take [everything] for granted and say I’m too big for that. I actually want to earn my way up.” JC’s itinerary currently includes five shows, although more may be added. “There’s just something about [club] shows,”… Read more »

Regardless of their breakthrough success two years ago, Nickelback erred on the side of caution when they were preparing the first tour in support of their new album, The Long Road. Small Texas towns like Grand Prairie and Shiner were selected as the tour’s first testing grounds, and cool, fall evenings at medium-sized halls like Houston’s Verizon Wireless Theater (2,800 capacity) were chosen over summertime assaults at massive amphitheaters and arenas. But somewhere between planning the tour itinerary and building a show that incorporated singles such as “How You Remind Me,” “Too Bad” and their latest hit, “Someday,” someone in… Read more »

At the very least, give credit to New Found Glory and Good Charlotte for getting teenage girls enthusiastic about rock that has real guitars and real drums. More than that, those two pop-punk bands deserve to be saluted for the energy and enthusiasm they displayed at their show Wednesday night at the University of California, Irvine’s Bren Events Center. But no one can applaud them for nuance or finesse. Their performances are like this: Go from zero to 60 in 6.5 seconds, and keep it there. The kids who filled the Bren Center loved it. They screamed, sang along (especially… Read more »

The Blasters’ singer and guitarist Phil Alvin speaks like the band plays: short, fast and furious. “My father was very upset when I quit school,” he said, trying at breakneck speed to make his words catch up with his thoughts. “He took the neck of my guitar and screwed it to the dustpan. Then he scooped the dog crap with it, and left it in the garage. Every time I turned on the light on, I’d have to walk past it.” But Phil ignored his father’s exhortations, and with the help of his younger brother Dave, formed one of the… Read more »

As the lame duck legislative session begins today, the webcasting community continues the fight to keep HR 5469 from passing in the Senate and becoming law. A year that started with the webcasting industry united in a common goal to work on the CARP (Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel) rates and develop reasonable, equitable legislation as an industry standard has ended with the entire U.S.-based webcasting community up in arms over a private deal negotiated between the RIAA (Recording Industry Artists of America) and VOW (Voice of Webcasters). “There is nothing wrong with a group of individual webcasters sitting down at… Read more »

Never one to be constrained by rules, Linkin Park DJ Joseph Hahn has but one when it comes to his band’s new album. “We’re just trying to make it not suck,” the turntablist, remixer and video producer said. Linkin Park, recipients of the Moonman for Best Rock Video at last week’s MTV Video Music Awards for the Hahn-helmed “In the End”, are roughly midway through recording their second album, with about 20 tracks done, Hahn said. They’ll probably prune the lot down to 12 by the end of the year, and hope to have the follow-up to 2000’s Hybrid Theory… Read more »