Search Results for: the summer set

CDNow, a division of Bertelsmann’s eCommerce Group, is partnering with Hard Rock Cafe International to stream a series of six live concerts to the Internet. Most of the concerts will be taped at Hard Rock Live at Universal CityWalk in Orlando, Florida with live audiences. The concert series, dubbed “CDNow Presents Sessions at Hard Rock,” is scheduled to begin this summer, although a CDNow spokesperson says that no dates or artists have yet been set. Visitors to the co-branded website (http://cdnow.com/hr) will be able to buy CDs by the featured artists, and will have access to memorabilia and hand-picked items… Read more »

Columbia Records’ Crazy Town, Portrait/Columbia Records’ The Union Underground and American Recordings/Columbia Records’ American Head Charge have all signed on-board on what just might be the heaviest Ozzfest ever. Following a big British blow-out at the Milton Keynes Bowl in England on May 26, Ozzfest 2001 opens full-force stateside at the World Amphitheater in Chicago, Illinois. Launched by the heavy metal pioneer and visionary Ozzy Osbourne, the first Ozzfest, a multi-band festival held in 1996, hit only two markets-Los Angeles and Phoenix-but paved the way for a full-on touring extravaganza the next year. Since then, the Ozzfest has become a… Read more »

The lesson learned in the courtship between Vivendi Universal and MP3.com is that record companies and technology companies need each other to succeed in the whipsaw world of Internet music. The world’s five largest record labels are racing to launch alternatives to Napster, the once popular song-swapping service now barred by a federal court from offering most songs copyrighted by the labels. And Vivendi, which owns the world’s largest record company Universal Music Group, is betting that MP3.com will raise its online presence and offerings above its competitors. Vivendi plans to launch a music subscription service called Duet this summer… Read more »

Despite protests from a local organization, Marilyn Manson claims that he will indeed be performing at the Denver stop of the Ozzfest summer tour, and he promises a “wholesome Bible reading” during his performance. “I am truly amazed that after all this time, religious groups still need to attack entertainment and use these tragedies as a pitiful excuse for their own self-serving publicity,” Manson wrote in a post on his official Web site. “In response to their protests, I will provide a show where I balance my songs with a wholesome Bible reading. This way, fans will not only hear… Read more »

French media giant Vivendi Universal said on Sunday it will buy its one-time legal foe MP3.com Inc. for about $372 million in hopes of bolstering its online music business. MP3.com, which operates a music download Web site and a series of other music services, represents one possible springboard for the distribution of music over the Internet for Vivendi Universal, which owns the world’s largest record company, Universal Music Group. Major record companies have been looking for a way to replace the embattled Napster song swapping service, with services of their own. Vivendi said MP3.com could become an integral part of… Read more »

The release of Amnesiac on June 5 will bring to a conclusion Radiohead’s three-year saga of what to do after OK Computer. And after going in markedly different directions with Amnesiac and last fall’s Kid A, bassist Colin Greenwood says he expects the group to drift back toward something resembling a standard operating procedure. “We’ve talked about doing a guitar album next,” Greenwood reports. “The reason we did these two records is to show that anything is possible rather than everything is expected; the last thing we wanted to do was go into the studio and make another version of… Read more »

Nearly eight months after it was first announced, Napster appears to be almost ready to launch its new pay-as-you-go, copyright-friendly service. The company has begun recruiting users for a beta test of the new version at the Napster Web site, with testing expected to begin within a month, and the full-on launch of the new service set for sometime this summer. A Napster spokesperson said Monday (May 14) that no precise launch dates have been set. The fate of the existing service is unclear, but the company has said in the past that there will always be a free component… Read more »

Capitol recording group OTEP, the provocative Los Angeles-based band whose signing to the label was celebrated with an A-list midnight hour convocation at the Viper Room last month, will join this summer’s all-star OzzFest 2001 lineup, featuring headliners Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and Crazytown. OTEP’s OzzFest 2001 dates, which commence June 8 in Chicago and run through July 13 in West Palm Beach, Fla., coincide with the release of “jihad,” the debut EP by OTEP, whose full-length debut album will follow next spring 2002. OTEP, whose nightly “ritual of mental alchemy” is fronted by the… Read more »

The feud between Eminem and the Insane Clown Posse appears to have led to another violent incident, this time involving a road manager for the Clowns and an Eminem fan in Nebraska. The road manager, William Dail, allegedly choked the Eminem fan until he blacked out after the clown-faced rappers’ show in Omaha on Tuesday, May 8, police said. Dail admits to holding 23-year-old Thomas P. Goonan by his neck and throwing him against a wall but denies the fan lost consciousness. He said Goonan was disrespecting the Detroit duo by waving a T-shirt emblazed with rival rapper Eminem’s image… Read more »

Columbia/Loud Records’ Stereomud will be headlining what promises to be one of the most aggressive, exultant and satisfying underground hard rock tours of the summer: the “Pain & Suffering” Tour featuring Columbia/Dv8 Records’ Endo. The “Pain & Suffering” Tour kicks off Monday, May 21 at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan and will feature either Columbia/Portrait Records’ Spike 1000 or Columbia Records’ Flybanger. Inspiration behind the name of the “Pain & Suffering” Tour can be found in the music of the bands: Stereomud’s current hit, “Pain”; Endo’s first single “Suffer,”; and “Make Me Suffer,” the first single from Spike 1000. Currently… Read more »