Apple CEO Steve Jobs is going after independent record labels in hopes of adding them to their iTunes music store. This could increase the number of songs the service offers to 400,000 within four months. Labels that would be included are Sub Pop and Bay Area electronica label Delvian Records. Although Apple would make no comment, it
Currently on the East coast leg of their tour, The Dead will make a brief stop in NYC to play The Late Show With David Letterman tonight. Also appearing on the show will be Sarah Jessica Parker.
Check local CBS listings for details
Source cbs.com.
Three of hip hop’s most intriguing groups have been assembled for this year’s version of the Sprite Liquid Mix Tour. The 20-date outing, headlined by the Roots, N.E.R.D. and Talib Kweli with more acts to come, begins with a doubleheader at Denver’s Pepsi Center (August 14 and 15), followed by any eastward progression that concludes with a September 15 performance at the Tweeter Center for the Performing Arts in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
Tickets are on sale now; for more information, check out Sprite’s Web site, www.sprite.com.
A 2000 ruling against former Dead Kennedy’s frontman Jello Biafra was unanimously upheld by a California Court of Appeals yesterday. The three-judge panel found that Biafra still owed bandmates guitarist East Bay Ray, bassist Klaus Flouride and drummer D.H. Peligro more than $200,000 in compensatory and punitive damages because his label, Alternative Tentacles, withheld money from the band partnership, Decay Music. Biafra’s attempts to dissolve the partnership and gain sole custody over the Kennedy’s music was also denied.
Source RollingStone.com.
HBO has announced that it has agreed with producers of the award-winning mob drama, “The Sopranos” in filming a sixth season. The cast currently is wrapping up production on the fifth season, which will begin in March 2004. The sixth season will consist of 10 episodes, shorter than the 13-episode seasons “The Sopranos” usually offers.
Source Yahoo.com.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he favors developing technology to remotely destroy computers used for illegal downloads represents a dramatic escalation in the increasingly contentious rhetoric over pirated music.
During a discussion of methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
“No one is interested in destroying anyone’s computer,” replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to deliberately download pirated material very slowly so other users can’t.
“I’m interested,” Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone’s computer “may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.”
The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song-writing royalties, acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, “then destroy their computer.”
“If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we’d be interested in hearing about that,” Hatch said. “If that’s the only way, then I’m all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize” the seriousness of their actions.
“There’s no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws,” Hatch said.
Source Billbord.com.
Preliminary plans are underway for a Simon and Garfunkel reunion tour for the fall. The agents for Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are collaborating on “initial explorations” regarding a tour, which is tentatively set to play arenas.
Aside from a rendition of “The Sounds of Silence” at the Grammys earlier this year, the famed folk/pop duo hasn’t performed together since the Concert Event of a Lifetime tour in early 1994. On that trek, the pair played to large crowds, including a sold-out run of 21 shows at the Paramount in New York.
Source Billboard.com.
Lollapalooza has canceled its opening date. Lollapalooza was to open July 3 in Ionia, Mich., but organizers have called off that date because of “staging and technical difficulties with the event site.” That’s got Ionia officials hopping mad. Korina Haga of the Ionia Fair Association tells The Grand Rapids Press her office found out about the cancellation from a Lansing radio station, not from the tour. She says they were able to handle 25,000 Metallica fans a few years ago and they could easily handle that many Jane’s Addiction fans. Lollapalooza publicist Laura Cohen says the problem was with the size of the stage in Ionia. Jane’s Addiction didn’t think they could fit all their production onto it. She says slow sales were not behind the cancellation. About 4,000 tickets were sold for that stop. The tour will now open July 4 in Noblesville, Ind.
Source Pollstar.com.
Dashboard Confessional has left its support slot on Beck’s North American tour, effective immediately. The Chris Carrabba-led group played its final gig on the trek Saturday outside Denver. The move is being chalked up to “circumstances beyond our control” on Dashboard’s official Web site, although sources indicate the band left the tour for financial reasons.
Fellow support act the Black Keys will remain on the trek through its June 27 conclusion in Irvine, Calif., and will play a longer set in Dashboard’s absence.
The move comes amid reports that despite respectable business in markets such as Atlanta and Chicago, the tour is not performing as well as had been expected at the box office. Venues for two of the remaining seven shows are being downsized, beginning Wednesday (June 18) in Vancouver. That show has been moved from the 10,000-capacity Plaza of Nations to the 2,788-capacity Orpheum Theatre. Sources say only about 1,400 tickets have been sold for the performance.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s concert at Portland, Ore.’s Rose Garden Arena has been moved to the Keller Auditorium.
Sources say the venue changes would have required Dashboard to accept a lesser performance fee, which the group declined to do, in favor of beginning promotional work for its new Vagrant album. The set, “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar,” is due Aug. 12.
According to the Dashboard site, fans wishing refunds can obtain them at points of purchase. “However, we STRONGLY recommend that you do yourself a favor and take in the rest of their tour dates and experience the creative brilliance that is Beck,” the site says. “We have had a great time on this tour; we were treated so well by Beck and his crew that we will be forever grateful.”
Dashboard Confessional is expected to return to the road later this summer.
Source Billboard.com.
Dispersed throughout the eclectic sets at the 2nd Annual Bonnaroo Music Festival held in Manchester, Tennessee, many artists attended intimate press conferences in order to answer media questions, express their various thoughts on the event, and offer general comments about the industry and specifically the ever-changing improvisational scene. There were many poignant moments, and equally as many humorous ones. Here is a collection of some of our favorites.
