Streaming
Virtual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash Features Members of Ramones, Green Day, Sex Pistols, More
The legendary Joey Ramone would have turned 69 today (May 19th), and the occasion is being marked with the annual “Birthday Bash” tribute in his honor. Only this time, due to the pandemic, it will be a virtual celebration, with members of Ramones, Green Day, Sex Pistols, and more performing. The “Joey Ramone Virtual Birthday Bash” kicks off tonight at 8:00 p.m. ET on the official Facebook page of the late punk icon. Among the performers are onetime Ramones members CJ Ramone and Richie Ramone, Sex Pistols bassist Glen Matlock, Dictators guitarist Andy Shernoff, David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick, and more. A late addition just announced this morning is a debut performance from Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, who has reworked the Ramones’ “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” into “Now I Wanna Drink...
Clutch to Headline Virtual Show with Support from Crowbar and More
Clutch have announced that they’ll headline a full bill of rock and metal, albeit a streaming-only concert due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The veteran hard rockers will play a virtual show that will feature support from Crowbar, Blacktop Mojo, and Saul. For a ticket price of $9, fans will be able to enjoy four bands from the confines of their own homes. The May 27th concert begins at 4:00 p.m. ET with Saul, followed by Blacktop Mojo at 4:35 p.m., then Crowbar at 5:10 p.m., and finally Clutch at 5:55 p.m. A portion of the ticket proceeds will benefit the nonprofit organization Angel Flight West. The streaming show, dubbed “Live From the Doom Saloon Volume 1”, follows a series of informal mini-concerts that Clutch have been performing from their studio in Maryland. Those shows streamed live fo...
Disney’s Kevin Mayer to Become TikTok CEO
Disney veteran Rebecca Campbell will succeed him as chairman of director-to-consumer and international. Kevin Mayer, the Disney executive who oversaw the launch of the streaming service Disney+, is leaving his post at the entertainment giant to become CEO of the fast-growing social media app TikTok. Disney veteran Rebecca Campbell will succeed him as chairman of director-to-consumer and international. “I am very proud of what our extraordinarily talented direct-to-consumer and international team has accomplished in creating and delivering a world-class portfolio of streaming services, particularly Disney+,” Mayer said Monday in a statement. Mayer joins TikTok at a pivotal moment for the app, which is owned by Chinese conglomerate ByteDance. Less than three years old, it has bee...
Gojira to Stream “Live at Red Rocks” Concert as They Wrap Up New Album
Gojira are completing work on their forthcoming seventh studio album. To tide fans over, the band is streaming its previously unreleased 2017 concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. The show, at which Gojira opened for headliners Opeth, came in the midst of the French metal act’s tour in support of 2016’s Magma album. The open air venue is nestled in the side of a mountain, 10 miles west of Denver — surroundings that the band considered worthy of hiring a professional film crew to shoot the show. The 11-song setlist drew mostly from Magma and 2005’s From Mars to Sirius. The band will also be selling limited-edition merchandise to commemorate the show, including a special edition t-shirt and poster. The apparel and memorabilia will be available during the stream, which will...
#MetallicaMondays: Watch a Young Metallica Play Kill ‘Em All in Chicago in 1983
Metallica are offering up an extra-special treat for the latest installment of their weekly #MetallicaMondays streaming series. This evening (May 18th), the band is airing an August 1983 show from The Metro in Chicago, filmed a few weeks after the thrash masters released their now-legendary debut album, Kill ‘Em All. To put the show in perspective, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett were both 20 years old; Lars Ulrich was 19; and the late, great Cliff Burton was 21. The entire show was comprised of nine songs from Kill ‘Em All, including classics like “Hit the Lights” and “Seek and Destroy”. Plus it featured a guitar solo that ended with fans grabbing and destroying the instrument. Two of the Metro performances — “No Remorse” and “Metal Militia” — were featured on Metallica’s Cliff ‘Em All ho...
Powderfinger Are Reuniting For a Fundraising Virtual Concert
BRISBANE — They’re back. Powderfinger, arguably Australia’s biggest guitar band of the century, are reuniting for a one-off fundraising virtual concert. Dubbed One Night Lonely, the gig will stream Saturday, May 23 on YouTube and will raise much needed money for Support Act, the national charity that helps artists, roadies and music workers in crisis, and Beyond Blue, an organization that provides advice and support on mental health issues. Rumors of a Powderfinger reunion are as regular as a hot Australian summer. A teaser on social media Wednesday confirmed something was up, and the official announcement dropped early Thursday. Testing… is this thing on? — Powderfinger (@powderfinger_au) May 13, 2020 It’s been a decade since the five-piece from Brisbane were an active outfit....
Those Slick Quarantine Band Performances Are Harder to Pull Off Than You Think
From Dua Lipa to Blue Oyster Cult to Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, bands have been figuring out how to perform remotely during the pandemic. Blue Öyster Cult has played its rampaging-beast classic “Godzilla” 2,270 times, in theaters and casinos, at state fairs and festivals — the first time at the Maple Leaf Gardens, in Toronto, on June 21, 1977, and the last time at Robins Theatre, in Warren, Ohio, on March 8. But until late April, the pioneering hard-rock band’s five members had never done it remotely from their homes, during quarantine, mixed together into a YouTube grid of separate rectangular boxes. “We basically treated it like a gig,” says Richie Castellano, the band’s guitarist and keyboardist, who produced the “lock-down” ve...
SiriusXM CFO Says Satellite Radio Faces Uncertain Coronavirus Impact
Even if people aren’t commuting in their cars as much while they shelter in their homes during the coronavirus pandemic, satellite radio powerhouse and Pandora owner SiriusXM has yet to take a big hit to its bottom line judging by its recently released first-quarter earnings. But while listening of Pandora and SiriusXM offerings is up for stay-at-home consumers, David Frear, senior executive vp and CFO of SiriusXM, warned Tuesday that his industry faces an uncertain future. “I haven’t talked to anybody who has a good picture of what the recovery will look like,” he told the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference during a session that was webcast. Frear said the COVID-19 crisis has driven new- and used-car sales down sharply, relative to y...
Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt to Score Jonas Åkerlund’s New Netflix Miniseries Clark
Fellow Swedish artists Jonas Åkerlund and Opeth frontman Mikael Åkerfeldt are set to collaborate on a new Netflix miniseries called Clark. Åkerlund will direct while Åkerfeldt will provide the soundtrack for the six-part gangster story. Between Åkerlund and Åkerfeldt, there’s some serious metal pedigree. Åkerlund, a former drummer for Bathory, recently helmed the black metal biopic Lords of Chaos, and has directed numerous music videos for bands like Metallica, U2, and others. As for Åkerfeldt, his prolific songwriting output in the bands Opeth and Bloodbath is more than a worthy resume, with Clark being his first music score project. The miniseries is a six episode drama about Swedish criminal Clark Olofsson, who’s considered the country’s first celebrity “pop-gangster” and “has given ris...
Tencent Music Revenue Hit New Highs in Q1 as Coronavirus Spread Through China
The Chinese music streaming company took a hit, but still grew earnings 27.4% year-over-year. Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), the Chinese music streaming company with 657 million monthly listeners, took a hit from the coronavirus pandemic in the first quarter but was able to grow both music subscribers and revenue. According to the company’s earnings report released Monday, Q1 music revenues leapt 27.4% year over year to $288 million while monthly average users grew 0.5%. Even though the pandemic led people to spend more time with entertainment, TME’s social media revenue rose just 3.3% even though 256 million people, a 13.3% gain, used its social app, WeSing. Still, music is a relatively low earner for TME; social media delivered an average revenue per media revenue per user of $15.65 ...
Get a Move On: Google Play Gets Busy Migrating Users to YouTube Music
As Google looks to phase out its music streaming service Google Play by the end of the year, it has begun the process of migrating users over to the Google-owned YouTube Music. Starting today (May 12), Google Play users can expect an email instructing them on how to easily transfer their music libraries, listening histories and playlists to YouTube Music. All users’ Google Play podcast subscriptions, on the other hand, will be moved over to the company’s free Google Podcasts app. Google says in a press release that users will continue to have access to both services until it officially kicks Google Play to the curb later this year. Paying Google Music subscribers will be automatically granted the equivalent tier on YouTube Music, at the same price. As it retires Google Play, th...
#MetallicaMondays: Watch Metallica Perform “The Black Album” in Full at 2012 Austria Show
Metallica have been digging through their vast archive of live performance footage for their weekly #MetallicaMondays concert series. The latest installment should particularly appeal to fans of “The Black Album”, as the band unearths a back-to-front performance of the LP recorded in 2012 in Austria. The footage captures Metallica’s headlining set for the Nova Rock Festival on June 10th, 2012 in Nickelsdorf, Austria. After playing a handful of hits including “Master of Puppets”, the band launched in a full performance of 1991’s Metallica (aka “The Black Album”) in reverse order, starting with “The Struggle Within”. After playing the full album, they finished the lengthy show with a few more hits. The set and the band’s respective European tour celebrated the 20th anniversary of the legenda...
