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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 »

After a long time out in the cold, Elektra Records has been generating some serious heat on the album charts in recent weeks. When album sales data for the week ended May 27 are released on Wednesday morning, the Warner Music label is expected to secure the No. 1 spot with “Break the Cycle,” the prophetically titled second album from white-hot metal band Staind. For the week, the disc scanned an estimated 716,000 copies, just 16,000 shy of the hottest debut week of the year (the Dave Matthews Band’s “Everyday”). The Staind release follows a No. 2 bow last week… Read more »

Ike Turner may be one of the more influential figures in rock music. He created what many see as the first rock ‘n roll record, “Rocket 88”; his guitar licks on classic blues recordings are considered masterful; he helped launch the careers of Buddy Guy, Howlin’ Wolf, and Otis Rush, among others; and he discovered one of the most dynamic female rock stars ever. But that is not the Ike Turner most people know, or think they know anyway. In the public mind, he remains the man who allegedly broke Tina Turner’s nose and abused her for years, until she… Read more »

The plot was spoiled well before Eric Clapton even took the stage of Dallas’ Reunion Arena for the maiden performance of his 2001 Reptile tour. Opening act Doyle Bramhall II and his band Smokestack may have kicked off Thursday night’s show with a thunderous roar reminiscent of Clapton in his Cream days, but the three chairs brought front and center before the main event was a tell-tale sign that there would be no more of that tomfoolery. Not that Clapton didn1t receive an honest-to-god, three-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, guitar hero’s welcome when he walked out on… Read more »

Long before gun-toting rap stars roamed America, the first manager of the Rolling Stones was terrorizing “Swinging” London, throwing errant journalists out of windows and others off bridges. Accompanied by a thuggish bodyguard, teenage pop Svengali Andrew Loog Oldham was said to be quite the rogue 40 years ago: Sporting a cape, he would careen around the city in his Mini Cooper, speakers blaring from the roof of the tiny car. This is not all completely true – especially the bit about the cape – but the anecdotes and rumors metamorphosed into “facts” over the years, a consequence of the… Read more »

With the Hollywood-Washington war expected to be reignited today, Motion Picture Assn. of America prexy-CEO Jack Valenti on Monday warned lawmakers in no uncertain terms to back off. “May God save the First Amendment,” Valenti said during a keynote speech before the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which is meeting here for its annual confab. Valenti, like his counterparts in the music biz, was gearing up for the release this morning of a Federal Trade Commission report that will chart how well the entertainment biz has done in stopping the marketing of violent or suggestive fare to kids. The FTC reportedly… Read more »

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival’s Web site – Where else in the world but the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival could Paul Simon, Mystikal, the Dave Matthews Band, Celia Cruz, Femi Kuti, the Neville Brothers, Van Morrison, Al Green, Lucinda Williams and more than 400 other acts mix it up with pheasant gumbo, crawfish bread, oyster po-boys and Cajun boudin? If music is the food of love, and Jazzfest is ground zero for the music-as-feast truism, the 32nd annual event – which takes place over seven days between April 27 and May 6 at the city’s Fair Grounds… Read more »

Imagine a ruthlessly efficient army of robots running wild through the nation’s record stores, removing every bit of major label product from the shelves, from Britney to Bob Dylan – but leaving behind CDs from independent labels. Since March, that unlikely scenario has taken place, more or less, on the free but legally precarious online music bazaar that is Napster. A court injunction stemming from the major labels’ copyright infringement suit against Napster has forced it to block access to copyrighted songs – but labels have the burden of naming the songs in question. And many small and mid-size indie… Read more »

With a title like Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, which must be said aloud to be fully appreciated, it’s only appropriate for Blink-182 singer/guitarist Tom DeLonge to describe his band’s fourth full-length album as hard and fast. “This record is the hardest, fastest record that we’ve done,” DeLonge said from a San Diego studio where the band recently wrapped up recording. “It’s way more punk-rock than our previous records, and we’re excited about it.” Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, due June 12, follows 1999’s multiplatinum Enema of the State and last year’s successful live album, The Mark, Tom… Read more »

With Napster a shell of its former self and services like MP3.com paying hefty tribute, record labels are poised to conquer cyberspace with their own streaming and downloading services. Ironically, only one thing stands in the way: copyright. Record companies aren’t the only ones that hold copyright on music recordings. Music publishers, who represent lyricists and composers, do too – owning the rights to the piece of music itself. For every copy a record company distributes, the publisher gets a small cut. That’s how the people who write the songs get paid. Suddenly, the industry finds itself on the other… Read more »