Search Results for: the voice

Record labels and artists were out in force Thursday to reiterate their blunt assessment of digital piracy’s effects on their financial well-being at a state government hearing in Sacramento. “I would like to begin with a simple proposition,” said Recording Industry Assn. of America president Cary Sherman. “The one-two punch of physical and digital piracy is threatening the livelihood of the music industry.” The hearing, convened by the California State Assembly’s Committee on Arts, Entertainment, Sports, Tourism & Internet Media, was the second piracy gripefest in as many weeks for the industry, which is increasingly turning to the government for… Read more »

“Surreal” is about the only word to describe it when that kid you remember from “Gremlins” and “Goonies,” all grown up now, is rocking out in the middle of a record store. And surreal it was when Corey Feldman and his band played for a bewildered crowd numbering less than a hundred recently at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. As fans and curious shoppers waited (and waited), a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist named Pharaoh and a keyboard player (none of whom would look lost at a construction site) along with two backup singers crowded onto a makeshift stage, where… Read more »

“I’m getting better each week,” says Alien Ant Farm frontman Dryden Mitchell, in his first interview since a May bus crash that broke his neck, killed the driver, and injured the band and six crew members. “People kept telling me everything was going to be OK, but I could feel it in the doctors’ voices that it wasn’t for sure. I broke my C-2 – Christopher Reeve broke the same one. And my bone flicked into my spinal cord. That’s not good.” It took the fusing of two vertebrae, massive rehab and about three months in a halo brace with… Read more »

While Joey resurrects Broadway and Lance threatens to blast into space, Justin will have to be content with trying to change the face of pop music – again. Justin Timberlake’s debut solo record, Justified (November 12), is a broad, ambitious step from the clean, blissful pop of ‘NSYNC. Timberlake’s vocals still soar, but there’s a lot more funk in his step and a number of R&B artists influencing his sound, including Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Aaliyah and Missy Elliott. “I wanted to do something new that was just completely me,” he said. “I had been so personally drained from… Read more »

Canadian pop diva Celine Dion doesn’t like mockery, or maybe it’s her husband and manager Rene Angelil. Angelil sent a notice of claim to a popular Montreal-based radio station, demanding it stop playing a parody of Dion’s song “I’m Alive,” in which the singer is called, among other things, “annoying.” The radio station claims it was only trying to be funny, but Angelil didn’t laugh at the joke. “They took off her voice and invented vulgar lyrics. It’s unacceptable,” he told reporters on Thursday, stressing that copyright law prevented such unauthorized use of a recording. The Dion parody was withdrawn… Read more »

Now that Triumph the Insult Comic Dog’s run-in with Eminem at the VMAs has blown over, the puppet pooch is about to start static with another pack of rappers. And like them, he’s cooking up his beef on wax. Triumph, who became Eminem’s unwitting sparring partner at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, said he expects to drop Songs in the Key of Poop this winter on Warner Bros. Records, although finishing touches are still being applied and a spokesperson for Warner couldn’t confirm the title at press time. The “Late Night With Conan O’Brien” correspondent has already secured a… Read more »

For the past year, Piebald frontman Travis Shettel has been screaming for crowds almost every night, and when he’s not onstage he’s rarely lacking something to say. But now he’s got to keep his mouth shut for two weeks. The singer overexerted his voice while on tour, damaging his vocal cords. Last month he was diagnosed with a hematoma – a tumorlike collection of blood – that forced the band to cancel a couple of shows with Hey Mercedes. And though doctors felt that he was on the mend, his voice deteriorated. “When the tour ended, my voice didn’t feel… Read more »

Age brings change, but the changes were decidedly for the better Tuesday when the Rolling Stones kicked off their Licks World Tour, named for an upcoming compilation that marks the British supergroup’s 40th anniversary. On their ’90s tours, the Stones had largely become a grizzled stadium jukebox. On this trip, however, in addition to mixing stadium, arena, theater and club dates – often in the same city – the band is taking new liberties with its set lists. Tuesday’s two-hour-plus tour opener at the FleetCenter included its share of rarely and never-played nuggets that thrilled and puzzled the arena crowd.… Read more »

With a nod and a wink to their big-tongued logo, the Rolling Stones kicked off their “Licks” tour on Tuesday night in front of 16,000 roaring fans who lapped up every minute of it. Four decades after the Stones first took their blues-steeped soul to the stage, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and the rest of the band launched what may be their most ambitious tour yet with a two-hour show at Boston’s Fleet Center. “There’s nothing so exciting as starting an American tour on the first night,” the 59-year-old Jagger told the audience. “And there’s nothing so exciting as starting… Read more »

As the Rolling Stones kickoff their “Licks” world tour in Boston this week, patience is finally paying off for fans who were driven out of their heads over the years by the woeful state of the band’s back catalog of 1960s albums. Key works have long been unavailable on CD, while the albums that are available sounded awful: not surprising since the product on the shelves was transferred to CD back in 1986 when the technology was still in its infancy. But satisfaction has arrived with the recent ABKCO Records release of 22 remastered albums, the fruits of a 10-year… Read more »