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75th Annual Academy Awards nominationation were announced
this week. The Oscars will be presented on March 23, 2003
at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.
'Chicago's' Renee Zellweger and Queen
Latifah.
The Roxie moxie worked its magic as "Chicago" --
the musical tale of murderess Roxie Hart -- mowed down 13
Oscar nominations, including best pic. Miramax scored big
in Tuesday's announcement of noms from the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts & Sciences, as the distrib's best-pic contender
"Gangs of New York" was runner-up with 10 noms
MUSIC
(SONG)
CHICAGO -- "I Move On"
Music by John Kander; Lyric by Fred Ebb
8 MILE -- "Lose Yourself"
Music by Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto; Lyric by Eminem
FRIDA -- "Burn It Blue"
Music by Elliot Goldenthal; Lyric by Julie Taymor
GANGS OF NEW YORK -- "The Hands That Built America"
Music and Lyric by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry
Mullen
THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE -- "Father and Daughter"
Music and Lyric by Paul Simon
 
MUSIC
(SCORE)
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN -- John Williams
FAR FROM HEAVEN -- Elmer Bernstein
FRIDA --Elliot Goldenthal
THE HOURS -- Philip Glass
ROAD TO PERDITION -- Thomas Newman
For details
go to: Academy
of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Madonna's new video targets W. Bush
'American Life' will be released next month
According
to the Drudge Report, Madonna is making the subject of her
'American Life' video anti-War and anti-Bush.
Filming
for the video was shot last week in Los Angeles but director
Jonas Akerlund. He also made the videos for Madonna's 'Ray
of Light' and 'Music'.
Madonna
will be seen in commando gear throwing grenades to the beat
of the music. Drudge reports we will see limbless men and
women, bloodied babies and Iraqi children in the clip.
Previously
George Michael chose an anti-war theme in his video for 'Shoot
The Dog' but it backfired against him. In Michael's video,
he portrayed the British Prime Minister Tony Blair as nothing
more than a loyal little puppy to George Dubya. Madonna however
isn't using any humour in her message.
Lollapalooza
fest revived for Summer 2003
Line up to feature Incubus, Audioslave, Queens of the Stone
Age, Jurassic 5 and Jane's Addiction. The event, initially
spearheaded by Jane's frontman Perry
Farrell, has been off the road since 1997, when Tool,
Korn, Snoop Dogg, Tricky, and Orbital were all part of the
package.
Neither
a full itinerary nor second-stage acts have yet been unveiled,
but 28 North American cities have been nailed down: Atlanta;
Boston; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus, Ohio; Dallas;
Denver; Detroit; Hartford, Conn.; Holmdel, N.J.; Houston;
Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee;
New York; Pittsburgh; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Raleigh; St.
Louis; San Diego; San Francisco; Toronto; Virginia Beach,
Va.; and Washington, D.C
The tour
served as the model for a host of successful festival tours,
including Ozzfest, Lilith Fair, the Vans Warped Tour, and
Moby's Area festival. There will be heavy competition this
summer with events like the Summer Sanitarium Tour featuring
Metallica, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, Vans Warped Tour and
Ozzfest.
Farrell
added that beyond music, Lollapalooza would be focusing on
social issues such as alternative uses of fuel and the Axis
of Justice project, which Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello
founded with System Of A Down (Global
Action) vocalist Serj Tankian. "You select the artists
who are conscious and then they add to the party," Farrell
said.
Demand
a Responsible Energy Plan!
Join Perry and dozens of other artists from Mike Diamond and
Moby to Alanis and James Taylor in stopping a reckless energy
plan which includes drilling in our last wild places from
passing the Senate. Take
action now by sending your Senator a free fax here
Dr.
Dre and Eminem's 50 Cent cd
Interscope will released the highly anticipated 50
Cent album ahead of schedule from Feb 11th to Feb. 6th
due to illegal downloading already underway. The Shady/Aftermath/Interscope
release is expected to be one of the bigger albums of the
year with the help of Eminem and Dr. Dre. Upon release, online
services like Pressplay and Liquid Audio will offer single
song downloads from this album for only $.99 cents each. 50
Cent is already burning up the charts with his single "Get
Rich" which is #1 on Billboard's Hot Rap Tracks chart.
50 Cent is also set to team up with deceased rapper Tupac
Shakur on a new track being engineered by a New York DJ Whoo
Kid with previously unreleased Shakur vocals.
Grammy Nominees Compilation CD
The Recording Academy has teamed up with Warner Music Group
to release the 2003 Grammy Nominees CD, the 9th edition in
the best-selling series that honors many of the year's Grammy-nominated
artists and songs. This year's compilation, due in stores
nationwide on Feb. 11th, includes 19 tracks from nominees.
The Recording Academy pairs with a different label each year
to release the Grammy CD. Last year's edition with the Universal
Music Group sold 370,000 copies in the U.S.
Also check
out the Grammy
Charity Auction on E-Bay to benefit Musicares.
Guitars signed by many celebs including Steve Vai, India.Arie,
Elton John and Elvis!
Sennheiser
Gets Around
Where
do Avril Lavigne, Kylie Minogue, Nora Jones or Beck's Engineers
Turn For Live Sound Support During A World Tour? Their laptop
computers, of course!
Thanks
to the all-new Sennheiser Network, artists and engineers now
have instant access to an array of critical product news and
technical services
support provided by Sennheiser in countries around the world.
This exclusive
Sennheiser web-based
network, the brainchild of Rolf Meyer, Sennheiser GmbH president
of sales and marketing and Paul Whiting, managing director
of Sennheiser UK, affords an unsurpassed new level of Sennheiser
artist-relations support - all in a few clicks of the mouse.
The network is managed by worldwide artist relationship manager
Paul Hugo.
Here's an example of how the network was successful on the
recent Kylie Minogue European tour: Kylie's engineers were
already signed up as members of the network in the UK. While
making plans to go to the USA, they accessed the Sennheiser
Network website and found Paul Hugo's name and contact information
to coordinate the Sennheiser wireless frequencies and gear
needed when Kylie arrived in the U.S. for performances and
television dates. "For decades, Sennheiser has earned
accolades for supporting the artists and engineers who faithfully
use our equipment, whether they're international superstars
or local favorites," Hugo says.
Shania
goes wireless!
Sennheiser MD 5005 wireless
takes Shania "Up" during the recent American
Music Awards Show. (PHOTO CREDIT: IMAGE DIRECT)
Anybody who watched the 30th Annual American Music
Awards on ABC-TV cannot have helped but notice Shania Twain's
performance of her latest single, "Up!" which she
sang while ascending a makeshift staircase from the floor
to the balcony of L.A.'s Shrine Auditorium. The stunt could
only be performed with a wireless microphone which, for Twain,
meant a break with tradition.
"She
has a negative bias against any wireless microphone because
of her previous experience," explains Twain's monitor
engineer, Steve McCale, a self-described Œsimple sound
guy¹ who started in the business with Clair Bros. in
the mid-80s. "Prior to Sennheiser, Shania felt all wireless
equipment dropped out." For the AMA show, sound contractor
AudioTek (ATK) provided Twain with a Sennheiser MD 5005 capsule
on a 5000 wireless
transmitter, making the singer the latest convert to the company's
RF solutions in the process.
Sting & No Doubt Rock Super Bowl XXXVII
Gwen Stefani,
lead singer of No
Doubt and Sting
warm up the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXVII. Gwen and Sting
were both using Sennheiser SKM 5000 wireless mic systems.
Gwen also used Sennheiser 3000 wireless in ear monitors while
Sting was on a wedge for monitoring.
Shipley
keeps good company - Twain & MT
Mike
Shipley Photo
by Edward Colver
Top engineer
Mike Shipley mixed the newest Shania Twain project "Up!"
on a Solid
State Logic MT Plus Digital Multi-track console. The project
required producer Mutt Lange and Shipley to create three separate
styles, Pop, Country and World for each song. Shipley heavily
relied on the MT Plus' automation prowess to sort out the
complex mixing demands for the Pop and Country versions, both
of which were offered in the same CD package.
The entire
project, according to Shipley, consumed several years between
writing and recording. The mix process alone took over three
months of intense work to generate the winning result.
"First
and foremost, the console sounds great and SSL really bent
over backwards to look after our very unique needs. Secondly,
the mix process also included recording new parts as we progressed
and only the MT Plus can handle this type of bouncing back
and forth production mode efficiently. This project would
have taken dramatically longer on an analogue board and certainly
the creative flow would not have been as good. We're very
happy with the MT Plus and the extremely successful results
of 'Up!' "
Chuck's Choice - A/V SAN from Studio Network Solutions
Chuck Ainlay, a music industry veteran with over 25 years
experience producing and engineering, has come to rely on
the Studio Network Solutions' A/V SAN™ for his very demanding
recording needs. The A/V SAN™ (Storage Area Network)
provides the extraordinary data transfer rates and rock-solid
reliability needed for today's 24-bit/96kHz multi-channel
digital workstation operations, and is the heir apparent to
the aging SCSI systems used by the computer industry for so
long. Recently, Ainlay has utilized the drive system on projects
for such artists as George Strait, Everclear, Shedaisy and
a Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris duet.
"I
first heard of the A/V SAN™ system through a demonstration
here in town," says Ainlay. "I use the Steinberg
Nuendo recording system for the PC and I am part of the Producers
User Group for that system. Because of the increased demands
on my hard drive, I decided to give the A/V SAN™ a try.
No matter how good the software system is, the piece of equipment
that gets the workout is the hard drive. The hard drive must
work flawlessly or you will lose your project. I put the A/V
SAN™ system in, ran it through its paces, and it did
everything that I could possibly ask of a hard drive system.
It works great."
The A/V SAN™
package includes a 1U enclosure, up to 4 Fibre Channel drives,
a Studio Network Solutions PCI card, custom SNS Software and
optical cables. The A/V SAN PRO™ offers up to 15 drives
per 3U enclosure delivering multiple terabytes of storage. More
info at Studio
Network Solutions
Sound On Sound's studio D goes Pro Tools|HD
The debut of Studio D, designed by Larry Swist of Lawrence
P. Swist Designs, marks one of the first times a major recording
studio has built a room from the ground up dedicated to maximizing
the benefits of Pro
Tools|HD. “What set’s this room apart from all
the other Pro Tools rooms is that it is built with the same
standards as our two SSL rooms and the Sony Oxford studio,”
commented Sound On Sound President, Dave Amlen. “Clients
working in D will also enjoy the same high-end services that
we provide to all clients working at Sound On Sound.”
More
Toys for Ocean
Studios' Clients...
Guitarist Theo from the
Arista band Gob shows his approval to producer/engineer Mark
Trombino
in front of Ocean Studio's large frame 80 series Neve console
Ocean
just added 6 more Neve 1081 modules, expanding their large
frame vintage 80 series Neve console up to (40) 1081, (6)
1073 and (2) 1084 modules, with a total of 96 inputs in mix
mode. Wait there's more...Ridge Farms "Gas Cooker"
stereo Tube DIs, a "Beatles/Pink Floyd" Telefunken
U73b limiter, and some Telefunken / Seimens V78, Langevin
AM-16, Klein & Hummel preamps. Yeah more...pairs of Tannoy
SGM-10B with Mastering Lab crossovers and Tannoy SRM-10B speakers.
ok, we're almost done...channels of API 550a and 560 EQs -
wow!
Who's
been there lately: Producer Danny Saber and engineer Dave
Jenkins tracking for a new album by the band Prong. The band
Indio spent time in January tracking. Bryan Cook was producer
and engineer. .
In December
2002, engineer/producer Sean Beavan and Pro-Tools engineer
Critter were at Ocean with the group Kill Hanna, tracking
their next Atlantic album. Ocean's Dean Nelson & Jason
Cupp assisted the sessions.
'Loud, fast and out of control' Tom Waits on the Ramones.
He's among the artists on an tribute album to the seminal
punk band.
The new
album "We're
a Happy Family," joining an all-star team of artists
ranging from Metallica to Pete Yorn, Pretenders to Eddie Vedder,
KISS to Tom Waits, all wallowing in the primordial mud of
the Ramones' music.
"Proof"
Adam
Wyle is set to release his new album "Proof"
in February. Produced by Marvin
Etzioni (The Counting Crows, Toad the Wet Sprocket) this
album is a collection of songs that were written and recorded
in LA over the past couple years. "PROOF" truly
examines Adam's talent as a singer, songwriter and performer.
Known for his ability to tell a story through melodic hooks
and thought provoking lyrics "PROOF" is a collection
of songs that does just that. From start to finish Adam captures
inspirational moments that others can reflect upon as they
pass through life. Adam and his producer Marvin set out to
make a timeless record in the vein of those albums and artists
that have influenced Wyle's career. An album that make sense
from opening track to final note. This will be Adam Wyle's
second solo album and accompanying him is a host of all-star
musicians that capture the essence of each song. This combination
of Adam's singing and song writing combined with un-parallel
musicianship will make this album a must have for one's record
collection.
Album
release party on: Wednesday, February 19th
The Beat Kitchen
2100 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL
Doors Open at 8 PM - $7.00 cover
With special
guests: The Underbelly & Marvin Etzioni
Sponsored by Gen Art Chicago
Everybody's
ready for the "Next Big Thing"
Vince
Gill says it was a daunting task to self-produce. Even
though he surrounded himself with great musicians, he missed
what Tony Brown added to his records.
"…
we both counted on each other when we made records together.
And so I kinda had to trust myself a little more than maybe
I would have in the past. So we got great musicians and said
"here are the tunes, let's all go in there and knock
'em around and see what we can do with them."
The result
is Vince's new album and title song "Next Big Thing,"
that Gill had a hand in writing. "I
wrote it with Al Anderson and John Hobbs. We were just kind
of poking fun at a little bit of everybody including ourselves
and just, you know… it's got a little bit of that wishing
things rocked like they used to a little bit, and at the same
time it's a take on our pop culture, of how disposable we
are with things. Whether it's a Slinky or a Pet Rock or Elvis
or whoever, you know. It's just like oh man, this is the coolest
thing ever, we got to get one of those, the Next Big Thing."
Legalize it!
The file-swapping networks plaguing movie and music moguls
are starting to figure out how to make a legitimate buck.
Travis Kalanick (above) likes to surf. For sport he takes
to the water outside his Hermosa Beach, Calif. home. For a
living he surfs the Web. His first plunge into this business
was with a little company called Scour,
which knocked off the famous music knockoff site Napster.
Scour became one of the most popular MP3 sites on the Web,
helping larcenous teenagers get free copies of copyrighted
music by sharing files. Scour made its money on advertising.
No surprise,
music publishers sued Scour two years ago, seeking damages
for contributing to copyright infringement. Kalanick settled
the case by giving the publishers $1 million for their trouble
and agreeing to shut down the site. He also sold Scour for
$9 million to CenterSpan Communications (nasdaq: CSCC).
Kalanick left for Hawaii to surf for a bit.
Now the
26-year-old is back with a new company, in Westwood, Calif.:
Red
Swoosh, which aims to use the same file-sharing technology
legitimately. By adding a layer of copy protection and user
authentication to his prior application, Kalanick is making
nice with the people he once drove mad. "We want to make
customers of every one of the 33 litigants in the Scour suit,"
he says.
If you
can't beat 'em, hire 'em. Finding it next to impossible to
shut down all the Napster-like sites that facilitate illegal
copying, Hollywood is trying to make honest businessmen of
some of the perpetrators by teaming up on digital distribution
of content. Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people
) has joined forces with Altnet, a mogul-friendly accessory
to the notorious Kazaa network. One of Napster's cofounders
has launched a movie download service that is in early discussions
with MGM (nyse: MGG - news - people ). The once-anarchic creator
of Freenet has produced an application to help office workers
search one another's hard drives for important memos and documents.
The legal
battle over the unauthorized copying continues. The music
labels shut down Napster and still blame it for their sales
slump. The Motion Picture Association of America is suing
Kazaa, MusicCity and Grokster in a federal district court
in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, operators of some corporate networks
are trying to keep file sharing out of the workplace, lest
they become entangled in copyright suits or simply lose bandwidth
to MP3 frivolity. Home Depot and IBM, for example, ban the
peer-to-peer music-sharing technology that Napster used. Companies
that upgrade to Windows XP can deploy a new feature that prohibits
employees from installing anything on their desktops that
would bypass the server.
But file
sharing is a powerful technology, and its legitimate uses
cannot be denied. The beauty of it is that it doesn't require
a central server. Users who want a file search among other
"peers," scanning all the computers on a network
and then swapping bits. The bottleneck at the file server
is bypassed.
Red Swoosh
has signed up such clients as Cable & Wireless and IGN
Entertainment (nasdaq: IGNX - news - people ) to download
songs, videos and games. As with Kazaa, the Swoosh networks'
content comes from disparate PCs near the user that have already
installed Swoosh. Data is assembled for download on the fly.
But unlike Kazaa, which involves the drudgery of searching
through massive file databases and smears your desktop with
annoying pop-up ads, Swoosh allows its 1.4 million users to
click on a download easily. Its digital-rights-management
feature blocks unauthorized users from downloading, encrypts
the file while in transit and makes it difficult to burn additional
copies.
IGN, a
gaming fan site, would have to pay a traditional content distribution
network about 60 cents to get a 200-megabyte file sent out
to a purchaser. Kalanick charges a fixed fee of a few pennies
per active user per month, regardless of how much users download.
IGN has used Swoosh to promote game hits such as Grand Theft
Auto: Vice City. Kalanick says Swoosh grossed $250,000 in
the last three months of 2002 and is on track to do $2.5 million
this year.
Last October,
in its ongoing effort to insinuate itself into Hollywood,
Microsoft paid $18,000 to promote Lions Gate Films' coming-of-age
movie Rules of Attraction, using the Altnet peer-to-peer service.
Altnet happens to be bundled with Kazaa. For a fee, its search
technology will push legitimate music files and videogames
to the top of Kazaa search queries. Hundreds of games are
downloaded on Altnet daily, for $10 to $25. Music files cost
users between a dime and a dollar; a 30-day movie license
runs up to $4.
Even Napster
cofounder John Fanning is making a comeback. Fanning, uncle
of Shawn Fanning, is chief technology officer and founder
of NetMovies, a movie subscription service. The Hull,
Mass. company, similar to studio-backed Movielink, is testing
its publishing system, which, for $5 a month, will allow viewers
to download old classics and purchase new releases, like Bruce
Willis' Hart's War. Blockbuster (nyse: BBI - news - people
) is an investor (Aliya Sternstein,
Forbes 02.17.03)
Echo
On Downloads
The music
industry has identified another means by which it can fend
off free digital downloads, and this time six major record
retailers are leading the charge.
Best Buy
(nyse: BBY - news - people ), Tower Records, Virgin Entertainment,
Wherehouse Music, Hastings Entertainment (nasdaq: HAST - news
- people ) and Trans World Entertainment (nasdaq: TWMC - news
- people ) have teamed up in a joint venture called Echo
that will sell downloadable music tracks, both online and
in stores.
The effort
faces considerable challenges but, though it is only just
getting started, it looks to be the most promising pay-to-play
business on the horizon thus far. There will be critical differences
between the download service Echo plans and those currently
being offered--without much success--by the record labels.
The primary
problem with both MusicNet--owned by AOL Time Warner (nyse:
AOL - news - people ), Bertelsmann and EMI Group (nyse: EMI
- news - people )--and Pressplay--owned by Sony's (nyse: SNE
- news - people ) Sony Music Group and Universal Music, a
unit of Vivendi Universal (nyse: V - news - people )--is that
they are subscription services. On those Web sites, a consumer
pays a monthly fee for access to a certain number of downloads.
But people don't like being forced to buy a certain number
of tracks per month, says Forrester Research analyst Josh
Bernoff. Echo will sell individual tracks.
Perhaps
Echo's biggest advantage will be its ability to cross-promote
downloads to consumers in retailers' stores. "I might
buy a Sheryl Crow album and then get two or three more downloadable
bonus tracks for free," says Yankee Group analyst Michael
Goodman. He expects to see prepaid cards issued in stores
so that teens who don't have credit cards can make purchases
online. Echo will further differentiate itself from the free
services, as well as the labels' online efforts, by offering
plenty of sneak peeks and bonus tracks that can't be found
elsewhere. "Retailers are looking at models that will
supplement sales, not undercut them," he says.
The labels'
online efforts have been dogged by regulatory scrutiny. Goodman
says Echo won't face that kind of examination from the Federal
Trade Commission, which watches carefully for industry collusion.
"A third party will have much more flexibility with its
business model," he says.
The gaping
hole in Echo's strategy is that it has yet to cut any deals
with the record labels that control the content it plans to
sell. It will take another six months, but they'll eventually
climb aboard, if only out of desperation.
All things
being equal, the labels would certainly prefer to control
digital distribution via Pressplay and MusicNet--but all things
are not even close to being equal. Those services are foundering
and CD sales are plummeting, down 9% in 2002.
"The
retailers are the labels' best customers," says Goodman.
"The labels need [retail] distribution--this is where
their revenues come from."
Bernoff
cautions that while working with Echo would be in the labels'
best interests, "giving a consortium of retailers power
over both physical and digital distribution will definitely
give them pause." He adds, "The more flexible labels,
like EMI, will sign on, but there won't be a flood. It will
take time to negotiate the terms."
Another
wrench in the works hinges upon the Jan. 24 news that Andersen
Merchandisers, which is Wal-Mart Stores' (nyse: WMT - news
- people ) music distributor, will purchase the download technology
of Liquid Audio, which also holds licenses to sell 350,000
songs. Although it has no deal in place, Andersen plans to
sell downloads through the Web sites of its retailers, including
Wal-Mart, which happens to be the country's biggest music
retailer.
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Michael
Schenker's famous Gibson Flying V guitars are now available exclusively
from Andy Brauer!
