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Liam Lynch was onstage about two minutes total, yet it was his song that best summed up Saturday’s 11-hour KROQ Weenie Roast. It was truly the “United States of Whatever.” As in, whatever goes. Good Charlotte unplugged, Pink got the party started with the Transplants, and Jane’s Addiction played unannounced, proving nothing was off-limits at the trend-setting radio station’s 11th annual summer festival. The lineup itself was a little bit of whatever, and certainly more diverse than last year’s “diet Ozzfest,” as Jack Osbourne called it. All three stages showcased a variety of bands, although it was surprisingly the main… Read more »

Tech’s big guns are wading into the online music business – and now the big question is whether Microsoft will squash its rivals like a bug, as it has so many others. Industry watchers say this time Bill Gates has his hands full. Microsoft, Amazon.com and Yahoo! are three of the players, along with AOL Time Warner and Viacom’s MTV, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times. While Gates considers a digital music launch, his company will now likely have to face off with the almighty music industry, which he needs to win over if he’s going to… Read more »

The only person who gets to poke fun at Eminem is…himself? That’s the word from Weird Al Yankovic who, despite gaining permission from the rap superstar to parody his hit “Lose Yourself” in a tune called “Couch Potato,” couldn’t convince his Em-inence to let Yankovic do the same in a music video. One would think the hip-hopster would stand up and oblige a comedian who’s made a career out of satirizing the likes of Michael Jackson (“Eat It,” “I’m Fat,”), Madonna (“Like a Surgeon”), Nirvana (“Smells Like Nirvana”) and Coolio (“Amish Paradise”), but the answer was an unequivocal no. While… Read more »

“There are few directors I trust enough to do a Linkin Park video,” the band’s DJ and resident director, Joseph Hahn, said Thursday. Mark Romanek is one of them. On the heels of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Can’t Stop” and Audioslave’s “Cochise,” the acclaimed director is handling Linkin Park’s new single, “Faint.” The group shot the clip at the end of April with about 1,000 fans, Hahn said at the Music Video Production Association Awards. Romanek’s treatment, based around the “I won’t be ignored” portion of the song’s chorus, features the band performing and ignoring the… Read more »

It’s time to buy, mix, and burn, according to Apple Computer Inc. The Silicon Valley company that angered the recording industry with its “Rip. Mix. Burn” ad campaign was expected to launch an online music service Monday that promises to make it easier for consumers to pay for music downloaded from the Internet. The announcement is the result of an intense effort by Apple CEO Steve Jobs to court music industry executives, who have been leery of digital music downloads, and have aggressively filed lawsuits and pushed for new laws to stem the illegal copying and distribution of copyright works.… Read more »

An elementary school is cashing in on a wardrobe decision by pop singer Avril Lavigne. She wears a Wilkesboro Elementary School T-shirt in the video for her song “Sk8er Boi.” The green-and-gold T-shirts hadn’t been sold for at least four years, but with the Canadian singer giving them new currency, the school’s Parent Teacher Organization ordered 500. Principal Mike Dancy said he learned from a Canadian writer that Lavigne probably found the shirt in a New York thrift store. The writer was doing a story on how the singer popularizes almost everything she wears, he said. About 300 of the… Read more »

From rampaging bikers at the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont show in 1969 to deadly stampedes by fans of the Who and Pearl Jam, the most notorious rock concert tragedies have generally been linked to the biggest names in the business. That is, until Great White took the stage of a tiny Rhode Island nightclub Thursday night. The heavy metal “hair” band, which reached the brief apex of its career in the 1980s, will now be forever remembered for a devastating fire that stands in a class by itself as the deadliest episode in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll mayhem.… Read more »

A fast-moving fire – ignited by an indoor pyrotechnics display during a concert – killed at least 54 people late Thursday at a Providence, Rhode Island-area nightclub, officials said. West Warwick Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer said that emergency officials have confirmed 39 deaths and at have counted at least 15 more bodies that are still in the rubble of The Station club. “The building was well involved inside of three minutes,” said Fire Chief Charlie Hall, who told reporters that the building had no sprinklers because its relatively small size didn’t require them. “The whole place got tons of black… Read more »

Instead of visiting a bounty on any single artist, the nominations announced Tuesday for the 45th Annual Grammy Awards were sprinkled around in an unusually equitable manner-eight musicians tied for the most nominations with sounds as diverse the elegiac rock of Bruce Springsteen, the gossamer, jazzy blends of newcomer Norah Jones and the whipsaw rhymes of Eminem. In year’s past, a glut of nominations would push as single artist such as Lauryn Hill or Carlos Santana above the fold, but this year the flattened field presented more subtle story lines amid the sprawl of 104 categories. Among those themes: The… Read more »

The British rock group Oasis canceled its concert in the Philippines after a spate of deadly bombings in the country and in Indonesia. The band was scheduled to perform Wednesday at the Araneta Coliseum in suburban Quezon City. “Due to recent terrorist attacks in both Bali and the Philippines, Oasis has regretfully decided not to play its show in Manila on Wednesday,” the band’s British agent, Ben Winchester, said in a statement released Monday by Midas Promotion. The statement said, “The band did not wish to perform a show under the extreme security precautions that would have to be taken… Read more »