October 2006

The New York Dolls will kick off their first extended headlining tour in more than 30 years on Nov. 6 in San Diego. The Supersuckers will support on the outing, which runs through Dec. 2 in St. Louis.

Here are the New York Dolls’ tour dates:

Nov. 6: San Diego (Belly Up)
Nov. 7: Los Angeles (Avalon)
Nov. 8: San Francisco (the Independent)
Nov. 10: Portland, Ore. (Berbati’s Pan)
Nov. 11: Seattle (El Corazon)
Nov. 14: Minneapolis (Fine Line)
Nov. 15: Chicago (Vic Theatre)
Nov. 16: Detroit (St. Andrews)
Nov. 17: Cleveland (Beachland Ballroom)
Nov. 18: Buffalo, N.Y. (Town Ballroom)
Nov. 20: Boston (Axis)
Nov. 21: Providence, R.I. (Lupo’s)
Nov. 22: New York (Irving Plaza)
Nov. 24: Atlantic City, N.J. (Borgata)
Nov. 25: Philadelphia (TLA)
Nov. 26: Washington, D.C. (Black Cat)
Nov. 28: Charleston, S.C. (Music Farm)
Nov. 29: Atlanta (Variety Playhouse)
Dec. 1: Nashville (City Hall)
Dec. 2: St. Louis (TBA)

Source billboard.com.

Modest Mouse will play a host of live dates in Los Angeles, New York and London next month. The bad news? The band’s highly anticipated new Epic album, “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” has been bumped from its previously announced Dec. 19 release date to early next year.

A pre-sale is underway via the band’s Web site for four shows in Los Angeles, five more in New York and a one-off gig in London. These dates, which also include a previously announced Nov. 11 appearance at the Bang! Festival in Miami, will be Modest Mouse’s first with former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who is now a full-time member of the band.

Marr also appears on “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank,” which is the follow-up to 2004’s breakthrough “Good News for People Who Love Bad News.”

Here are Modest Mouse’s tour dates:

Nov. 5: Los Angeles (Avalon)
Nov. 6: Los Angeles (Wiltern Theatre)

Nov. 7, 9: Anaheim, Calif. (The Grove)
Nov. 11: Miami (Bang! Festival)
Nov. 13: New York (Nokia Theatre)
Nov. 14-15: New York (Webster Hall)
Nov. 17-18: New York (Bowery Ballroom)
Nov. 21: London (Koko)

Source billboard.com.

In agreeing to acquire YouTube for $1.65 billion on Monday, Google is making a big bet that it can harness its considerable advertising expertise to turn YouTube’s vast collection of video content into a media gold mine.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt went further, saying that the deal marked “the next step in the revolution of the Internet.”

Top executives at both Google and YouTube likewise offered few details on what types of advertising they plan to jointly develop. In response to a question about whether YouTube will adopt pre-roll ads, the company’s founder and CEO Chad Hurley said they “will explore a lot of options,” without giving specifics.

In its deal with CBS, Hurley also pointed out that YouTube is introducing a new automated system for protecting intellectual property rights. It will allow media partners to identify and remove copyright-infringing material from the site. The system is also intended to assure marketers that their ads won’t be linked to pirated or otherwise inappropriate content.

See MediaPost for more details

After a lengthy auction stretching over two days, a federal bankruptcy judge on Friday approved the sale of California-based Tower Records to Great American Group, which plans to liquidate the music retailer.
After almost 30 hours of what attorneys described as “robust” and “vigorous” bidding, Great American won with a bid of $134.3 million, beating Trans World Entertainment, which had hoped to continue operating at least some Tower stores, by a single bid increment of $500,000.
Peter Gurfein, an attorney representing Tower Records, said the company will be sold for an aggregate of $150 million, including the sale of various leases and properties.
Gurfein said Great American plans to begin the liquidation process and going out of business sales on Saturday, which eventually will result in the elimination of the jobs of some 3,000 Tower employees.
“This is not an easy decision,” said bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon, who nevertheless noted that the Tower debtors and other parties had agreed the bidding process was conducted fairly and in good faith, resulting in a substantial premium for the debtors over Great American’s stalking horse bid of about $90 million.

For full story see pollstar