Search Results for: take me away

Marred by fiery riots a year ago, the Leeds leg of Britain’s Carling Weekend made a sold-out, subdued and sunny return this weekend. Metallica, Linkin Park, Staind, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, AFI, the Polyphonic Spree, Hot Hot Heat, Good Charlotte, Sum 41, the Libertines, Blink-182, the Cooper Temple Clause, Death in Vegas, the Streets and many others played the open-air arena and three tents at the festival’s new site, Bramham Park. Fifty thousand people were on hand each of the weekend’s three days, but police reported that only twenty-seven arrests were made this year – in contrast to the chaos… Read more »

We feel like MTV felt twenty years ago,” says Marc Juris, the president of Fuse, a small but flourishing cable channel that’s staking its future on a simple idea: Music television should play music videos. So far, the results are encouraging: Fuse more than doubled its reach to 31 million households in the last twelve months, though that’s a long way from the 86 million homes MTV reaches or the 49 million households of MTV’s music-video spin-off MTV2. Fuse, which debuted in 1994 as a tiny U.S. offshoot of the Canadian music station MuchMusic, hired TV vet Juris away from… Read more »

It was as if the tattooed hand of a punk rock god reached down and anointed Andrew W.K. The hard partying rocker was enthusiastically playing his anthem “I Get Wet” as the skies opened up and a torrential downpour put an early end to the eighth stop on this year’s Vans Warped Tour. He always sports a maniacal smirk and a dirty T-shirt, but even W.K., surrounded on the stage by a dozen head-banging fans, couldn’t help but laugh. Just one week into a grueling cross-country summer trek, the ninth edition of the punk and extreme-sports tour experienced both kinds… Read more »

After surviving the temper tantrums of their previous lead singer, three former members of rock band Guns N’ Roses won’t let a mere drugs bust derail their fledgling supergroup. As the new band, Velvet Revolver, generates early buzz with its first new song, the legal and health problems of frontman Scott Weiland have already cast doubt over its prospects. But bassist Duff McKagan told reporters Thursday, an hour before the band played its first public performance, that Weiland’s woes were a fact of life. “Rock ‘n’ roll is not a safe thing,” McKagan said. “It shouldn’t be a safe thing.… Read more »

No other contemporary chart-topping rock album sounds remotely like Metallica’s St. Anger. Never mind the whirlwind tempos, multiple rhythm changes and seven-minute songs. What’s really unusual are the lo-fi tones and unconventional constructions. The drums don’t crack, they clang, and cymbals cut out abruptly. There are no guitar solos. Once in a while a guitar lick lags behind the beat, and frontman James Hetfield’s vocals occasionally veer off key. Stranger still, that’s exactly the way Metallica and producer Bob Rock wanted it to sound. “I wanted to do something to shake up radio and the way everything else sounds,” said… Read more »

These days, try putting on a CD by your favorite rapper without hearing an endless series of plugs for Burberry, Air Force Ones, Alizé, Maybach, you name it. But are hip-hop’s ubiquitous product mentions just about artists chronicling their high-rollin’ lifestyles, or have the forces of marketing worked their way into your favorite rapper’s tunes? What’s next, a hit track written about Hummers paid for by the car’s manufacturer? Well, maybe. “Unless someone is paying me a billion dollars or offering equity, we don’t play that,” Roc-A-Fella Records co-founder Damon Dash said of writing products into a song on request.… Read more »

For the next Godsmack single, “Serenity,” vocalist Sully Erna reached to one of his idols for inspiration. Not only was Rush drummer Neil Peart a childhood role model for the singer before he traded in drums for a mic and PA, the acrobatic drummer’s obsession with motorcycles is one shared by Godsmack’s frontman. So, when Erna read Peart’s book, “Ghost Rider” – which is about his experiences hopping on a hog and road-tripping around the country to cope with the tragic loss of his daughter and wife – the Godsmack singer was so blown away he wrote “Serenity” in tribute.… Read more »

While most acts go on the road in support of new albums, several Def Jam Records artists will launch a tour next month behind the release of a new video game. Hosted by Method Man, the Def Jam Vendetta tour will encompass concert performances by Capone-N-Noreaga (CNN), Keith Murray, and Joe Budden, as well as a gaming contest where players will go head-to-head on the recently released “Def Jam Vendetta” video game. The tour will kick off May 10 in Milwaukee and visit more than 20 cities through early June. In each market, Murray, CNN, and Budden, as well as… Read more »

Godsmack takes over the Billboard 200 with a No. 1 debut for “Faceless,” and leads the charge of seven top-20 entries on the album chart. The Universal album sold 269,000 copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan, giving the band its best debut week on the chart. The total is easily enough to end the two-week reign of Linkin Park’s “Meteora” (Warner Bros.), which falls to No. 2 on a 30% sales decline to sales of 186,000 copies. “Faceless” is Godsmack’s third major label album and its entry bests the opening position of its last set, “Awake.” That release… Read more »

We know Metallica and Limp Bizkit will headline the Summer Sanitarium Tour, but what we don’t know is who will be in those bands. Or do we? “We got Yngwie Malmsteen,” Fred Durst deadpanned Wednesday at a press conference to announce the tour, which also features Linkin Park, the Deftones and Mudvayne. “Oh man, he was next on my list,” Lars Ulrich said of the Swedish metal guitar virtuoso. “I’ll take Steve Vai and give you him,” Durst shot back. Of course, Durst and Ulrich were joking. Metallica’s bassist slot and Limp Bizkit’s guitarist slot remain vacant. The latter band… Read more »