2003

Rock music played lead in giving Hungarian baby boomers the resolve to bring down their communist state, says one of those reformers who today is a government official.
Andras Simonyi, Hungary’s ambassador to the United States, spent an hour Saturday night discussing the impact of Western songs on Eastern European politics before an invitation-only audience of 250 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Simonyi, 51, was a devoted fan of the Beatles, Cream, Traffic and Jimi Hendrix (news) when their releases weren’t officially permitted in Hungary. Records and tapes sometimes were smuggled in or recorded from foreign radio broadcasts.
Hungary became a democracy in 1990

Moby has reactivated his Voodoo Child alter ego for the album “Baby Monkey,” due Jan. 27 via V2. The 12-track set is the seven-years-in-the-making follow-up to Voodoo Child’s lone full-length, 1996’s “The End of Everything.”
Moby says he was inspired to unearth Voodoo Child after attending an underground dance party in Glasgow last winter. “The DJ’s were playing hard, sexy, straightforward dance music, and it was perfect,” he says. “I was reminded of just how much I love hard, sexy, straightforward dance music, and when I arrived home the next day I decided to make a simple, straightforward dance record. Not an experimental record, not an avant-garde record, but a straightforward, underground, electronic dance record.”
A 12-inch vinyl single for “Light in Your Eyes” b/w “Electronic” will be available Tuesday (Nov. 11), with a single for “Take It Home” b/w “Strings” to follow in December.
Also on the horizon is “18 B-Sides & DVD,” due Nov. 18 from V2. The release combines an audio disc of B-sides from last year’s “18” album along with four new songs, while the DVD features the videos from that set.
Source Billboard.com.

U.S. Tour dates for Ryan Adams have been released on the heels of his two latest releases Rock N Rolland Love is Hell pt.1, released last Tuesday, November 4th. Love is Hell pt.2 is due out on December 9th. The seven date tour includes many small club venues that will bring the always unpredictable, yet musically reniventable musician up close and personal with his fans.
Tour Dates –
12/06/03 Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory 12/07/03 Washington, DC 9:30 Club 12/09/03 Ithaca, NY Cornell University 12/10/03 Tontonto, ONT Opera House 12/11/03 Ann Arbor, MI Michigan Theatre 12/13/03 Chicago, IL Riviera 12/14/03 Minneapolis, MN 1st Ave
Source losthighwayrecords.com.

Hip-hop ensemble Arrested Development has filed a trademark-infringement suit against Fox claiming ownership of the moniker, which the network is using for one of its new series. Filed October 16 in Georgia’s DeKalb County Superior Court, the suit claims that use of the name by Fox is “not only confusing to the public but also has the potential to significantly dilute what the

They’ve been laying low since playing a few weeks’ worth of shows in the U.S. last spring, but Gomez are hardly hibernating this winter. And now the British quintet is heading for American shores again beginning early next year. Dates include shows at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club, NYC’s Irving Plaza and The Fox in Boulder, CO among other select markets.
More dates are likely.
Source pollstar.com.

Bobby Hatfield, who with partner Bill Medley pioneered “blue-eyed soul” as the Righteous Brothers with hits like “Unchained Melody” and “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” died Wednesday night of undetermined causes at a hotel, his manager said. He was 63.
Hatfield’s body was discovered in his bed at 7 p.m. EST, a half-hour before the duo was to perform at Miller Auditorium on the Western Michigan University campus, manager David Cohen said.
“It’s a shock, a real shock,” Cohen said during a telephone interview. Medley, who teamed with Hatfield 42 years ago, was “broken up. He’s not even coherent,” Cohen said.
Hatfield’s body was taken from the hotel about 10 p.m. directly to Lansing, where an autopsy was to be performed, Joe Hakim, an executive with the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Kalamazoo, told the Kalamazoo Gazette.
Miller Auditorium executive director Bill Biddle told the audience at 7:05 p.m. that the 7:30 p.m. show had been canceled because of “a personal emergency of an unspecified nature.”
Hatfield had been sleeping most of the day in his room, Hakim said. When he didn’t answer a wakeup call about 6 p.m., hotel staff and authorities entered the room and found the singer’s body.
The Righteous Brothers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.
Source cnn.com.

Johnny Cash won the Country Music Association’s album of the year, single of the year and video of the year awards Wednesday for his rendition of the rock song “Hurt.”
“It’s amazing my father had such a life that he could expose himself and still never lose his dignity and his charm,” said Cash’s son John Carter Cash, who accepted the awards with Cash’s daughter, Kathy Cash.
The announcements drew a standing ovation at the CMA’s 37th Annual Country Music Awards.
Cash, who died Sept. 12 at age 71 of complications from diabetes, was nominated for four CMA awards this year.
Wednesday’s show included a tribute to Cash, with Sheryl Crow , Kris Kristofferson , Willie Nelson , Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Travis Tritt and Hank Williams Jr. performing his music.
Source launch.com.

With tongue planted firmly in cheek, the members of Tenacious D announced today (Nov. 3) that they would begin a 45-day hunger strike at 5 p.m.
In a satirical move to promote the DVD “The Complete Masterworks,” due tomorrow via Epic, members Jack Black and Kyle Gass said they will climb into a seven-foot by three-foot by seven-foot glass box 50 yards above Times Square at the intersection of 45th Street and Broadway, where they will remain for the length of the strike.
The intersection is the location of MTV studios, where they are to appear on today’s episode of “Total Request Live.”
Actor/singer/guitarist Black said the strike would end early one three conditions: if “The Complete Masterworks” goes platinum, if “hunger is solved” or if there is peace in Middle East.
The duo made the announcement dressed in silver and white superhero costumes, with the letter “D” covering their barrel-shaped chests, white gloves on their hands and white capes tied around their necks. In addition to water and one red cell phone, Black quipped that they would bring one guitar into the glass box with them. “If we need extra nourishment, we will live off each others’ rock.”
When the pair was asked the longest duration either had gone without sustenance, Gass replied that one time he had gone eight hours between meals. Black said that once he slept for 12 hours, effectively spending 13 hours in-between meals. “It’s gonna test our will, but I feel confident we’re gonna make it,” said Gass.
Source Billboard.com.

When Brian Bowe learned that Creem, a defunct rock magazine he’d read as a child, was making a comeback after 15 years, he sat down and wrote an E-mail to publisher Robert Matheu. As a music fanatic, the 31-year-old Laketown Township, Mich., resident wanted to work for the magazine in some way. After writing back and forth with Matheu for a while, Bowe submitted a few reviews and essays.
“I started writing stuff, and he liked the stuff I was writing,” Bowe told the Holland Sentinel. “He sent me some copy to edit, and he liked the way I was editing stuff.”
Less than a year later, Matheu asked Bowe, a spokesman for Grand Valley State University, to edit the new Creem. “When he asked me, I was floored,” Bowe said. “I couldn’t have been happier. To this day, it just, the very idea, blows my mind. I feel very honored, and I take it very seriously.”
Creem began in Detroit in March 1969 and ran monthly until folding in November 1988. A revival was launched in the early 1990s, but the publication largely lay dormant until fall 2000, when Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical movie “Almost Famous” was released.
Crowe wrote for Creem as a teenager under the editing of the late Lester Bangs, an eccentric, prolific writer who became synonymous with the publication.
The film renewed interest in Bangs and Creem, and Matheu decided to try to restore luster to the magazine’s name. He contacted the owners of the publication rights and obtained permission to bring it back. Currently a Web-only publication, Creem is expected be on store shelves in a print edition next spring, Matheu said.
Source billboard.com.