Category: Radio (Page 2 of 4)

Road Warriors 31

September 14, 2007 / Mike Farley

Meg White of the White Stripes is suffering from “acute anxiety,” prompting the band to cancel its upcoming US tour that was set to begin this week. Refunds are available at points of purchase. So far, the Stripes are still planning to tour the UK beginning October 24.

Word is that this year’s American Idol tour of the top 10 finalists didn’t do so well. Maybe it was the cost of concert tickets, or maybe it was the declining interest in the show as a whole. But the fact is, this show keeps pumping new pop artists into the system like no other medium. A few of the more popular alumni from the show are now in the early stages of planning a spring 2008 tour: Season 2 champ Ruben Studdard, as well as Clay Aiken and Kimberley Locke.

After winning the VMA for Best Group, Fall Out Boy is planning some intimate shows to give back to their fans. Since the shows are unannounced, we have no information to announce, but that’s the beauty of events like this. Bassist Pete Wentz says that the shows will be in some small venues, and will be primarily acoustic versions of FOB songs as well as some covers.

After being on the road for two years, The Fray are taking a break and recharging their batteries. Plans are in place to tour Europe in the fall, and the band is also working on their next album.

After postponing a bunch of tour dates this fall because they wanted to finish recording, The Cure has announced it will head back to the US in the spring of 2008 beginning May 9 in Washington DC. Tickets for the postponed dates will be honored for the newly scheduled shows. In addition, shows were added to the tour including stops in Kansas City, Phoenix, Austin, Fort Lauderdale and Cleveland.

The concert to raise funs for a Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial at the National Mall in Washington DC this coming Tuesday has added a few more high profile artists: Ludacris, Talib Kweli, and Wyclef Jean. Among the other acts already confirmed are John Legend, Robin Thicke, Stevie Wonder and Joss Stone.

Another band foregoing a US tour to work on new material is the Kaiser Chiefs, who will still be playing their New York and Austin shows but canceling the dates in between. Here is the updated Continue reading »

Alternative, American Idol, Concerts, Hip Hop, Indie Labels, Pop, Radio

Your latest reason to join the RIAA boycott

March 5, 2007 / Will Harris

First off, go read this article, which has a parenthetical subtitle – “It ain’t good news” – that’s likely to win the award for Biggest Understatement of 2007.

If you’re too lazy to click on the link…well, first off, that’s embarrassingly lazy. But since I’m nothing if not an enabler, I’ll summarize for you, anyway: the Copyright Royalty Board has made its decree on the royalty rates that are to be paid by internet radio stations.

Per Orbitcast.com, the ruling is on a “per play” basis – so Internet radio stations will have to pay the cost of one song to one listener – effective retroactively for 2006, plus an additional fee of $500 per channel per year.

The rates to be paid are:

2006 – $.0008 per performance
2007 – $.0011 per performance
2008 – $.0014 per performance
2009 – $.0018 per performance
2010 – $.0019 per performance

Can anyone explain to me how one of the largest music-related organizations in the country can be run by people who are apparently not diehard music fans? Internet radio is such an awesome tool for people to discover new music…and this royalty schedule is likely to kill it stone dead, or – at the very least – knock out those participants who tend to offer the widest variety in their playlists. This strikes me as a move no less damaging than removing the limit of radio stations any one company can own in an area; it immediately blows the little guy out of the water, which inevitably results in less choice and more stations interested in business over an actual interest in music.

Disgusting.

News, Online Radio, Radio

Note to country music fans: grow up already

February 14, 2007 / Captain Capm

It still seems The Dixie Chicks can’t get a break as country radio stations are still refusing to play their music. This despite their Grammy slam dunk. Look, people who have your heads buried in your behinds over this matter: it’s time to get over it and move on. If you haven’t noticed lately, the president’s approval ratings are completely in the toilet, and even many of his Republican yes men are starting to turn on him. Oh wait, I forgot. The only “America” worth living in is the closed-minded kind where everyone agrees and is still living in the backwoods Dark Ages. Being a free-thinking adult sure is a bitch, huh?

Artists, News, Radio

You’re killing me, KROQ!

November 30, 2006 / John Paulsen

Around this time each year, LA’s most well-known rock station, KROQ, puts on a benefit concert that they call “Acoustic Christmas.” I’ve gone twice, including the great show last December.

There are two nights – here’s the lineup:

Night One: Foo Fighters, AFI, Incubus, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Papa Roach, 30 Seconds to Mars, +44, Wolfmother, Saosin

Night Two: Foo Fighters, The Killers, Beck, The Raconteurs, Evanescence, Panic! At The Disco, Angles & Airwaves, Gnarls Barkley, Snow Patrol, She Wants Revenge

For me, Night Two is infinitely better than Night One, though I would like to catch Wolfmother eventually. Beck, the Ranconeurs, the Killers and Gnarls Barkley make the second night more than worthwhile.

So why is KROQ killing me? Usually, they send out an email to their “Street Team” announcing a presale which gives me a reasonable shot at landing tickets. This morning, they announced that this year tickets will go on sale (on TicketBastard) when they play “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. Well, I guess that’s all well and good, but play the f’ng song already! I’ve been listening all day, heard more AFI and My Chemical Romance (and other Foo Fighters songs) than I would otherwise listen to in a lifetime, and I still haven’t heard “Everlong.” To make matters worse, the late afternoon DJ (“Stryker”) said that tickets could go on sale anytime…today or two days before the show (which is next weekend).

Now that the clock has struck 5 on the West Coast, I’m pretty sure they won’t play the song today. But as I type this, My Chemical Romance is playing (yet again) in the background.

Man, this is irritating.

Alternative, Concerts, Radio, Rock

BBC dicks around with Sparks

September 25, 2006 / Deb Medsker

Look: Another album cover with kitties!!

Sparks, the quirky team best known in the U.S. for their duet with Jane Wiedlin on “Cool Places” back in 1983, has run into a spot of trouble with the BBC. Though Sparks has enjoyed a reasonable level of success throughout Europe for the past two decades, the BBC is refusing to play their new single because of its naughty, naughty title — “Dick Around:”

Despite the fact that Ron and Russell were invited into the studio as guests of the Breakfast Show on BBC London 94.9FM, the host Jono Coleman was banned from playing the single ‘Dick Around’. Jono and his co-host Jo good were obviously embarrassed – particularly as they quite clearly knew that the term means wasting time. The Maels were upset that they had been asked to be interviewed live in the studio, and then not have their single played.

Ron Mael this morning raged: “the BBC has officially killed off our new single ‘Dick Around’, ostensibly through rather childish objections to the title, an innocent reference to the idle life. That a piece of music can be condemned purely by its title without the ‘decision makers’ even having the decency to open the CD case is a travesty and an insult to both us as the creators of the music and to the listeners of the BBC.”

Ahhh, those beloved, misguided, uptight Brits: Always trying to protect their children from the perverse influences of popular culture. But since they’re the ones who gave the world “Trainspotting”…are they really entitled to be quite so judgmental?

Artists, News, Pop, Radio, Songs