News

Jay-Z — artist, producer and entrepreneur — has been named president and CEO of Def Jam Recordings. He will report directly to Antonio “LA” Reid, chairman of the Island Def Jam Music Group. Based in IDJ’s New York offices, Jay-Z will officially take his new post on Jan. 3.

Jay-Z (real name: Shawn Carter), will continue to run his record company Roc-a-Fella. IDJ recently bought the remaining 50% stake in the label from Jay-Z and his business partners Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke.

Over nearly a decade the Roc-a-Fella brand has spawned other ventures, including the Roca Wear clothing line, films including “Fade to Black” and “State Property,” the 40/40 nightclub and a Reebok sneaker line.

“After 10 years of successfully running Roc-a-Fella. Shawn has proven himself to be an astute businessman, in addition to the brilliant artistic talent that the world sees and hears,” said Reid in a statement. “I can think of no one more relevant and credible in the hip hop community to build upon Def Jam’s fantastic legacy and move the company into its next groundbreaking era.”

“I have inherited two of the most important brands in hip-hop, Def Jam and Roc-a-Fella,” says Jay-Z. “I feel this is a giant step for me and the entire artistic community.”

Jay-Z announced his “retirement” as an artist after the release of “The Black Album” (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam), which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. But retirement hasn’t been easy for the superstar — as previously reported, his mash-up collaboration “MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups Presents Jay-Z/Linkin Park: Collision Course” (Warner Bros.) debuts at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 this week.

Source billboard.com.

R&B/hip-hop artists reigned supreme last night at the Billboard Music Awards, where Usher walked away the big winner with 11 trophies. Alicia Keys netted seven awards during the ceremony at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Garden Arena, with OutKast grabbing five and Kanye West four.

Usher, who opened the Fox broadcast with a performance of “Bad Girl,” was named as the overall artist of the year, and took that honor in Billboard 200, Hot 100 and R&B/hip-hop categories. His Arista release “Confessions” was named The Billboard 200 and R&B/hip-hop album of the year, while his single “Yeah!” featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris was named the Hot 100 single of the year.

Introduced by Quincy Jones, Stevie Wonder was honored with Billboard’s highest honor, the Century Award, while Destiny’s Child was recognized with the special Artist Achievement Award, presented by the members of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Diana Ross paid tribute to Wonder, performing pieces of “My Cherie Amour,” “I Just Called To Say I Love You” and “For Once in My Life,” while Mary J. Blige turned out a rendition of “As” and Destiny’s Child contributed a version of “Livin’ for the City.”

The band vamped to the strains of “Higher Ground” as Wonder ascended the stage, hugging Jones and others, then surprised and delighted the packed arena by singing the chorus and prompting the band to pick up the beat again. “I

Lennon, the upcoming musical built around the songs of John Lennon, will feature a pair of his unreleased works. Lennon’s widow Yoko Ono granted the show’s writer and director Don Scardino permission to use “India India” and “I Don’t Want to Lose You” during a recent meeting.
“We were going over the calendar and talking about how the show was moving forward when suddenly out of the blue she said, ‘You know, I have these songs that might be perfect,'” Scardino says. “Of course I was jumping out of my skin with the possibility, but casually I said, ‘Oh sure, that sounds good.'”

“India India” was written during the Beatles’ famed 1968 trip to meet with the Maharishi. “It’s about coming to India and trying to follow his heart, but knowing that his heart was really back in England where his love waited,” Scardino says. “I guess he didn’t release it at the time because it would have blown the lid off his feelings for Yoko. His [first] wife [Cynthia] was with him. It’s a beautiful, lilting sort of melody — really pretty.”

Lennon recorded a piano-and-vocals demo of “I Don’t Want to Lose You” late in his solo career. “At one point, Yoko suggested it for the reconstituted Beatles’ Anthology stuff, along with ‘Real Love’ and ‘Free as a Bird,'” says Scardino, “but they couldn’t get a clean track out of it.”

Source: rollingstone.com

A gunman stormed the stage during a heavy metal concert in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday night, firing at the band and audience and killing four people before a police officer shot and killed him, police said.

One of the dead was guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, 38, of the band Damageplan. The gunman also wounded two people.

Columbus police identified the suspect as Nathan Gale, 25, of nearby Marysville but said they had no information about a motive or possible connection to the band.

The man was “targeting members in the band,” Columbus police Sgt. Brent Mull said.

Before the gunman was shot, police said, he grabbed a hostage and fired into the crowd. It was unclear what happened to the hostage.

The attack came shortly after Damageplan began its performance at the Alrosa Villa nightclub on Columbus’ north end.

One of the wounded is in critical condition, and the other is hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Two others were hurt and treated at the scene, although the nature of their injuries was not clear.

The gunman initially shot the band’s guitarist, Abbott, witnesses said.

He and his brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott, 40, formed Damageplan after Pantera — a group they formed in the 1980s — broke up last year. Their father is Jerry Abbott, a country and western songwriter and producer.

Police were notified of the shooting around 10:18 p.m., Mull said. A uniformed police officer who was near the scene slipped into the venue from a back entrance, confronted the gunman during the rampage and killed him, authorities said.

Source: cnn.com

Pearl Jams Fan Club, The Ten Club is releasing a very special limited edition CD, titled “The Molo Sessions,” featuring Eddie Vedder singing with the Walmer High School choir from South Africa. The CD will have a number of tracks of the choir and a few tracks with Ed and the choir together. “The Molo Sessions” will be available for purchase December 15th on Pearl Jam’s website. Sales will benefit Molo Care, a Seattle non-profit that raises money for schools in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Track Listing

01. Long Road
02. Love Boat Captain
03. Mandela Siyakuthanda
04. Emarabini
05. Theledi
06. Nombayi
07. Ootsotsi Base Benoni
08. Betterman
09. Iyelele
10. Sana Iwami
11. Nora
12. Jabula Ntliziyo Yam
13. Izintombi Ezilishumi
14. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (South African National Anthem)

Ray LaMontagne will kick off a brief slate of tour dates Jan. 14 in Portland, Maine. The 11-date tour will also accommodate at Jan. 19 performance on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” The singer/songwriter’s debut album RCA album “Trouble” is No. 38 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart.

Here are LaMontagne’s tour dates:

Jan. 14: Portland, Maine (Asylum)
Jan. 15: Boston (Paradise Rock Club)
Jan. 16: Northhampton, Mass. (Iron Horse)
Jan. 18: Philadelphia (Theatre of the Living Arts)
Jan. 19: New York (Bowery Ballroom)
Jan. 20: Arlington, Va. (Iota)
Jan. 21: Carrboro, N.C. (Carrboro Arts Center)
Jan. 23: Nashville (3rd and Lindsay)
Jan. 25: Birmingham, Ala. (Workplay Theatre)
Jan. 26: Louisville, Ky. (Rudyard Kipling)
Jan. 29: Los Angeles (Troubador)

Source billboard.com.

After a five-year recording break, experimental rockers Mr. Bungle are officially done. “I’m at a point now where I crave healthy musical environments, where there is a genuine exchange of ideas without repressed envy or resentment, and where people in the band want to be there regardless of what public accolades may come their way,” says singer Mike Patton. “Unfortunately, Mr. Bungle was not one of those places.”

The multi-member band (whose core members included Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn, saxophonist Clinton “Bar” McKinnon and drummer Danny Heifetz) originally formed back in the mid-Eighties in Eureka, California, while its members were still in high school. Then Patton joined Faith No More before their commercial breakthrough, 1989’s The Real Thing. The boost in exposure landed Bungle a recording contract with Warner Bros., which released 1991’s Mr. Bungle, 1995’s Disco Volante and 1999’s California.

Although Bungle never matched Faith No More’s commercial success, they gained a large cult following and influenced recent funk/metal chart-toppers — most notably Korn, whose guitarists utilize what they’ve dubbed the “Mr. Bungle chord.” Also, long before Slipknot, Bungle donned masks onstage to hide their identities.

“We could have probably squeezed out a couple more records but the collective personality of this group became so dysfunctional,” Patton says. “This band was poisoned by one person’s petty jealousy and insecurity, and it led us to a slow, unnatural death. And I’m at peace with that, because I know I tried all I could.”

With Bungle now removed from his schedule planner, Patton will spend next year focusing on his myriad other bands. Peeping Tom, for which Patton plays all of the instruments himself, will finally release an oft-delayed debut, and there will be records by Fantomas and Tomahawk, as well as General Patton vs. the X-ecutioners, a collaboration with turntable specialists the X-ecutioners. The singer has also recently branched out beyond rock — into acting, in Steve Balderson’s Firecracker; and scoring, for the forthcoming video game, Bully.

And of course, Patton continues to run his label, Ipecac, which will release new material from the likes of Washington, D.C., noise-mongers Orthrelm, British prog-rock duo Guapo and ambient one-man band the Locust. “When something is important to you, you find a way to make the time,” the multi-tasking Patton says. “Or rather, the time makes itself.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Shawn Fanning’s Napster software enabled countless music fans to swap songs on the Internet for free, turning him into the recording industry’s enemy No. 1 in the process.
Five years later, now heading San Francisco-based Snocap Inc., Fanning is touting a new technology designed to help the music companies who once sued him into submission cash in on file-sharing between computer users, also known as peer-to-peer.
Rough details of the venture, in the works the past four years, surfaced in recent weeks, but Fanning spoke publicly about it for the first time Thursday, hailing it as a means to create a licensed online music service with the nearly unlimited selection of music now available on file-sharing networks.

Snocap’s system would allow record labels to manage whether computer users could swap their recordings over file-sharing software that has been equipped with the technology. Computer users would also be given the option to pay to download songs.
This would purportedly afford some manner of assurance to record labels that unauthorized versions of their music, specifically the tracks they register with Snocap, would not be shared, while also allowing the freewheeling exchange of other files, Fanning said.
The technology employs an acoustic fingerprinting system to identify tracks and compare them to a database of licensed songs submitted by record labels. The program also would filter out spoofed, damaged or unlicensed versions of songs in the database, Fanning said.
Record companies would also be able to specify an array of restrictions, including how many times a track can be played on a computer before the user is required to buy it, or whether it can be burned to CD, or shared, Fanning said.

Source: pollstar.com

A longtime friend of late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton has a batch of his unreleased demo tapes, which he hopes to donate to a burgeoning musician. Burton was killed in 1986 when the band’s bus crashed in Sweden on the Master of Puppets tour.
“There are Metallica mega-hits that will never be,” says Dave DiDonato, a drummer in his own right, of the tapes. “All these killer riffs . . . he was working on them until he died.”

Such tapes were key to Metallica’s songwriting process. Burton, singer-guitarist James Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett (and his predecessor, Dave Mustaine) would record them, and bandleaders Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich would then sift through them to construct songs. After Burton’s death, the bassist earned a posthumous songwriting credit when one of his riffs served as the foundation for “To Live Is to Die,” from 1988’s …And Justice for All.

Burton’s parents gave DiDonato the tapes after their son’s death, and DiDonato wants to get them in the hands of someone who can continue in Burton’s spirit. “I would love to find a young bass musician following in [Cliff’s] footsteps,” he says, “someone who would utilize this material to improve his craft and appreciate the music, and devote himself to doing what Cliff was doing.” (Interested parties can contact DiDonato through his rotgrub.com Web site.)

The tapes were recorded in the Burton family’s Castro Valley, California, home, and — not surprisingly — the sound quality is often rough. “It was usually late at night, and he couldn’t play loud,” says DiDonato, “and he had this really crummy little bass amp. On a lot these, you hear string slapping, grunting and his equipment squeaking . . . His mom would walk in and go, ‘Cliff, turn it down!’ [laughs].”

DiDonato’s Web site has begun selling CDs of jam sessions from the early to mid-Eighties, featuring Burton on bass, ex-Faith No More member Jim Martin on guitar and DiDonato beating on empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums. The setting for these jams was also late at night, outdoors at Martin’s parents’ California ranch. “We never really talked or practiced,” says DiDonato, “and sometimes it’s really absurd and the time signatures are completely wrong.” But the jams are not without charm, or significance: Metallica and Faith No More songs such as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Woodpecker From Mars” were birthed during these sessions.

As for his reaction to hearing the works of his old friend, DiDonato says, “I get goosebumps.”

Source rollingstone.com.

Kanye West — a rapper who has steered away from hard-core topics in favor of lyrics about everyday life — led nominations Tuesday for the 47th annual Grammy Awards, earning 10 nods, including song of the year, album of the year and best new artist.

Several artists — including Alicia Keys, Ray Charles, Green Day and Usher — earned nominations in two of the big three categories: song, album and record of the year.

Usher’s hit single “Yeah!” and album “Confessions” are nominated for record of the year and album of the year, respectively, while Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” and “The Diary of Alicia Keys” are up for song of the year (a songwriter’s award) and album of the year.

Rounding out the latter category are Charles’ “Genius Loves Company,” Green Day’s “American Idiot” and newcomer West’s “College Dropout.” West’s song of the year nomination is for “Jesus Calls.”

Other record of the year nominees are “Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas; “Here We Go Again” by Charles and Norah Jones; “American Idiot” by Green Day; and “Heaven” by Los Lonely Boys.

Song of the year nods went to “Daughters,” written and performed by John Mayer; “Jesus Walks,” written by West and C. Smith; Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman; Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” by Daniel Estrin and Douglas Robb; and Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” which she wrote and performed.

West, Los Lonely Boys, Maroon 5, Joss Stone and Gretchen Wilson are up for best new artist.

The Grammys will be given out February 13 in Los Angeles, California, during a broadcast on CBS.

Source CNN.com.

The full list of nominations is available at grammys.com