Month: April 2015

Tidal’s New CEO Is Confident Jay Z’s Music Service Will Take Off

After its widely covered, star-studded, and much maligned media event at the end of March, Jay Z’s music streaming company Tidal is gearing up to take on well-funded rivals like Google’s music offering Google Play, Spotify and Apple’s Beats….


Music Startup Jukely Pulls In $8 Million To Expand Its Concert Subscription Service

Monthly concert subscription service Jukely has raised $8 million in a seed extension round from existing investors to expand into at least 20 more cities in the next year….


Exclusive: Bonnaroo Founders Talk Impact of Live Nation Deal, Including More Events at ‘The Farm’

In yet another aggressive move into the North American festival space, Live Nation has acquired a controlling interest in the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., as well as an interest in the 750-acre site it sits on known as The Farm, for an undisclosed amount….


Despite Pleas from Amanda Palmer, Morrissey Calls Crowdfunding ‘Desperate’ and ‘Insulting’

Several months ago, Amanda Palmer penned an open letter to Morrissey, urging the singer to start a crowdfunding campaign and ditch the label system shackles forever. Palmer outlined a plan that would give the label-less Morrissey $2.5 million in funding through $5 donations from 500,000 fans, more than double what Palmer earned on Kickstarter….


Americans really don’t want to pay for music in their cars

The Holy Grail for the future of the music business, we’re told, is billions of people around the world paying a monthly subscription fee for digital audio services….


Apple Launched the iTunes Store 12 Years Ago Today

On April 28, 2003, the iTunes Music Store launched, promising a “revolutionary online music store” that would make it even simpler to fill those new-fangled iPods with all the latest hits from Ashanti, Nelly, and Nickelback….


George Clinton: Doctor Atomic

George Clinton, whenever he’s not on the road, likes to spend at least a portion of each day at his Tallahassee, Florida, recording studio. It’s nothing fancy, a former PC repair shop on an unremarkable commercial strip. In the rehearsal room, padded seats pulled from the backs of vans make do for benches. A framed…


The Owner of Canter’s Deli Has a Plan to Reunite Guns N’ Roses

I think about the possibility of the Appetite for Destruction lineup reuniting more often than I think about many of my dead relatives. So pop-culture website Uproxx’s three-part mini-documentary, One Man’s Plan to Reunite Guns N’ Roses, grabbed my fascination by its imaginary leather pants within seven opening seconds: A mid-’80s clip of grimy guitar hero Slash…


KROQ Weenie Roast revamps with Florence + the Machine, Death Cab for Cutie

KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast festival has always balanced brains and brawn in its selections of rock and roll acts. For 2015, they’ve dialed back on muscly skate punk in favor of some more grandiose indie rock….


This Fake FYF Flyer Proves It’s Not That Hard for Festivals to Book More Women

These days, in most genres of music — especially rock, as demonstrated by last year’s wildly successful, female-focused Burger a-Go-Go festival —  women are just as active as men. So why are so many major music festivals still big, hairy bro-fests?…