Best Leisure Time Blog

posted by Adam Johns on Mar 8

The communal bond that keeps fans of Led Zeppelin listening and hoping is strong, if not stronger, than it was when first forged by the hammer of the blues-loving gods in the late 1960s. It has withstood the death of one member, long absences by the other three and occasional cameo reminders of what is and what will never be.

When the three remaining members — Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones — reunited with drummer Jason Bonham, son of the late John, for a concert last December in London to honor the late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, Ron Laffitte considered not attending, even though he obtained a ticket more precious than Willy Wonka’s gold ducats.

“I’ve been a fan since I was 11,” said Laffitte, a managing partner at Red Light Management, which handles acts like Alanis Morissette, The Decemberists and Band of Horses. “I bought ‘Physical Graffiti’ in 1976. I didn’t get to see them when they toured in ’77, when I was 12.

“I almost didn’t go to the show (in December) because I thought, ‘What if I fly all the way to London and they suck?’ All of my life, this band meant so much to me. If they suck, it will destroy the illusion.”

But naturally, he went.
Love or money?

Plant is 59, Page is 64 and Jones is 62. When they were about 27, 31 and 29, respectively, I saw them at Madison Square Garden, in 1975. (The exact ages are unclear because research reveals they played the Garden at three different times of that year on their North American tour, and I can’t find my ticket stub). It was about as spiritual an experience as a high school-aged kid could have while breathing hemp fumes from the blue seats and grooving to “Dazed and Confused” while being wonderfully dazed and confused. I’m not a religious man, but this scripture I could dig.

Roughly 32 years later, the band returned, with Jason being embraced by band members and fans alike for having his dad’s genes and his own wicked beat. The show at London’s O2 arena was a smash hit, fueling speculation that Led Zeppelin might just turn the one-night stand into a thing.

Just why has Led Zeppelin resisted the lure to tour all these years when many of their rock and roll brethren — the Rolling Stones, Eagles, Police, to name a few — have ignored their “been there, done that” instincts to perform for thousands and rake in millions? Why are Plant, Page and Jones the last holdouts?

Obviously, when John Bonham died, something within the other three went with him. Yet with Jason such an accomplished and honorable replacement, there isn’t that obstacle anymore.

I understand the Led Zeppelin fan’s catch-22 as well as anyone: I want them to tour, but I want to remember them as they were. That’s what Laffitte experienced going in.

“It completely lived up to the hype,” he said. “The feeling in the room was incredible. The anticipation was incredible.”

‘Serve the fans, serve the music’

Cameron Crowe understands this better than most. He went looking for that confounded bridge like the rest of us, only he got there. Now an acclaimed writer-director, his experiences as the youngest-ever contributing journalist for Rolling Stone were chronicled in his film, “Almost Famous,” for which he won an Oscar for best original screenplay. Led Zeppelin was one of the famous groups he made even more famous in the ’70s.

Source: msnbc

posted by Adam Johns on Feb 29

Jessica Simpson will join rock act Disturbed and comedian Carlos Mencia in Kuwait during a concert for U.S troops next month.

The event, to be held March 10, is set to be broadcast live on the social networking site MySpace.com.

“It’s truly an honor to perform for the troops,” Simpson said in a statement. “Through Operation MySpace, I get to serve my country by doing what I love to do in front of thousands of brave men in uniform. It’s every girl’s dream!”

Other acts are expected to be added to the bill, which also includes Filter and DJ Z-Trip.

“For years troops stationed all over the world have utilized MySpace as a lifeline to communicate with their loved ones back home,” said MySpace’s co-founder, Tom Anderson. “Many of them have been generous enough to share their unique experiences with me through messages on MySpace. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to thank them in person and bring along the entire MySpace community.”

An abbreviated version of the concert is set to air April 12 on the cable network FX.

posted by Adam Johns on Feb 4

Album will be singer’s last release for Warner Bros.

Madonna has dubbed her final album of new material for her longtime Warner Bros. label “Hard Candy,” and will release it on April 29, her publicist confirmed on Tuesday.

The album, which features such songs as “Candy Store” and the first single “Four Minutes,” is the follow-up to ”Confessions on a Dance Floor,” which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop chart in November 2005.

The title and release date were first reported by Entertainment Weekly’s Web site, and the details were confirmed by Madonna’s spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg. Entertainment Weekly quoted Rosenberg as saying the 49-year-old singer “loves candy.”

“Hard Candy” will be Madonna’s last studio release for Warner Bros. before she begins a wide-ranging 10-year recording, touring and merchandising deal with Artist Nation, a new initiative launched by concert promoter Live Nation. Warner Bros., a unit of Warner Music Group Corp will also release a hits collection.

posted by Adam Johns on Dec 4

CHICAGO — R. Kelly avoided arrested Thursday by appearing in a Chicago court for a hearing in his child pornography case.

A warrant for the R&B superstar was entered Wednesday after he missed a scheduled appearance. Kelly’s lawyer said his tour bus was stopped by police in Utah after a log showed the driver hadn’t had enough rest, causing him to miss the 9 a.m. hearing.

Kelly is in the midst of a prolonged legal fight after prosecutors say he allegedly videotaped sex acts with a teenage girl. He has pleaded not guilty.

A judge is expected to set a trial date during his Thursday appearance.

posted by Adam Johns on Nov 29

CD sales were sluggish industry-wide in 2007. Then Oprah Winfrey recommended Josh Groban’s ‘Noël.’

A truly dismal year for the recording industry is ending with a December surprise — thanks in large part to an Oprah Winfrey endorsement (yes, she does that a lot these days): The bestselling album of the year is now “Noël,” Josh Groban’s lushly orchestrated Christmas collection.

“Noël” has now sold close to 2.8 million copies and it’s ramping up by the week as holiday shoppers reach for it as this season’s designated dinner-party soundtrack. The only person, it seems, who is tired of hearing Groban’s pa-rum-pa-pum-pum-ing is the 26-year-old singer himself.

“I’ve been singing Christmas songs since June,” the 26-year-old Los Angeles native said this week with a mock moan. “I’m ready to move on. I’m sure the album will be in the bargain bin by Dec. 26.”

That’s false modesty: “Noël” has already assured itself a spot in music history by breaking a 50-year-old record by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll. “Elvis’ Christmas Album,” by Elvis Presley, logged three consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album charts in 1957, and no holiday collection matched that until this week. Groban’s album has now spent four weeks at No. 1 and just posted its strongest week (669,000 copies sold) since its October release.

It has also eclipsed the other top-sellers of 2007: the soundtrack to the Disney Channel’s “High School Musical 2″ (2.7 million copies sold in the U.S. since its August release) and “Daughtry” (more than 2 million this year, in addition to the 1.1 million copies sold in 2006) by “American Idol” alumnus Chris Daughtry and his namesake band.

All three bestsellers were success stories that started on television, not radio — the traditional physics of the music business don’t apply anymore.

Groban pointed to the recent pay-what-you-want initiative by the esteemed rock band Radiohead as an example of the novel ways that artist need to approach the marketplace.

“It’s a revolutionary time. Look at Radiohead — you have to find ways to get out there,” Groban said Thursday by phone from a promotional stop in Paris. Groban’s style is a burnished throwback of sorts to operatic pop tenors such as Mario Lanza — hardly the type of music that gets embraced by mainstream pop radio. But he has sold more than 16 million albums since his 2001 debut album by using television, be it his singing-and-acting role on “Ally McBeal,” his PBS music special or his six visits to the career-shaping soundstage of “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Winfrey has banged the drum for Groban’s Christmas collection in an especially big way. His most recent week was the strongest for any holiday collection since Kenny G’s “Miracles — The Holiday Album” in 1994. Geoff Mayfield of Billboard also points out that “Noël” is the first No. 1 album to show sales increases four weeks in a row since “Tragic Kingdom” by No Doubt in 1996.

“It was enormous. I can’t emphasize enough how big it is to have Oprah’s endorsement,” Groban said.

The recording industry will take any and all support these days. This year started on a sour note when the soundtrack for “Dreamgirls” had the dubious honor of hitting No. 1 on the charts with just 60,000 copies sold, the lowest one-week sales total for a chart champ since SoundScan began tracking retail sales in 1991.

Tom Whalley, chairman of Warner Bros. Records, said the state of the marketplace is “disheartening,” and he frets about the long-term effect on artistry. “It’s a sad day in the culture of music around the world,” he said of the widespread “devaluing” of music due to file-sharing.

Against that bleak winter backdrop, Whalley said, “Noël” has been a bright spot, thanks in part to a fan base that skews older (”These are fans who aren’t using peer-to-peer sites to download music for free or burning 25 copies for their friends”). He also cited the ambition of recording sessions by Groban and his Grammy-winning producer and mentor, David Foster, which also included the London Symphony Orchestra and several guest vocalists, among them Faith Hill, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and gospel star Kirk Franklin.

“People have fallen in love with this record, and they are inspired by it,” Whalley said. “It’s not your standard Christmas album. It goes beyond that . . . and I think it’s going to sell into January and well after Christmas.”

Source: Los Angeles Times

posted by Adam Johns on Nov 24

Classic rock acts like the Police, Van Halen and Genesis packed arenas in 2007, but it was Hannah Montana’s year.

Contentious or congenial, rock reunions were the hot tickets in 2007, as three high-profile band resurrections finished among the 10 highest-grossing concert tours of the year.

The Police led the way, topping Pollstar magazine’s annual ranking of the North American concert business. The trio’s reunion tour pulled in $131.9 million over 54 shows, coming close to the Rolling Stones’ $138.5-million take that topped last year’s list.

As much as the reunion of the three frequently bickering musicians had been eagerly anticipated, “I don’t think anyone, including the band, expected the Police to be as huge as they were this year, not just here but worldwide,” Pollstar Editor Gary Bongiovanni said Friday.

The return of “Diamond Dave” Lee Roth to the Van Halen fold in 2007 put that historically squabbling group’s tour No. 5 on the list, generating $56.7 million in ticket sales in 39 tour stops. And even though veteran British rock band Genesis played only 25 shows in North America, it placed No. 8 on the list with $47.6 million in sales.

Nevertheless, the tour that placed only No. 15 on Pollstar’s ranking was, by most accounts, “the hardest ticket of all to get last year,” Bongiovanni said of the “Hannah Montana”/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds tour.

The Disney Channel star generated sellouts at virtually all 49 shows she played and created near-hysteria among parents desperately trying to score seats for their preteen children. EBay’s auction listings were rife with offers of tickets commonly selling for hundreds or even thousands of dollars for seats with an average face value of $54.16.

The tour wound up only at No. 15, Bongiovanni noted, because Pollstar’s rankings are based on face-value ticket sales, not real-world dollars generated through second-party transactions by individuals or ticket brokers, which are impossible to monitor.

The year also was something of a breakthrough for Justin Timberlake, who finished No. 3, with $70.6 million in ticket sales.

“Justin definitely got beyond the teen-pop/N* Sync image and the transitory nature of that audience,” Bongiovanni said. “That’s something Miley Cyrus will have to face at some point as well, but right now she’s on top of the world.”

Operatic pop singer Josh Groban, who as of this week has the year’s top-selling album with his “Noël” holiday collection, finished in the top 10 for the first time. His 2007 tour came in at No. 9 with $43 million in ticket sales from 56 shows. Last year, Groban didn’t even break the top 50, Bongiovanni said.

In the final year of Celine Dion’s long-running engagement at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the Canadian pop diva made No. 4 on Pollstar’s list, with $65.3 million. After last week’s final performance, she’ll be going back on the road in 2008 and “doing it the old-fashioned way,” Bongiovanni said of her plans to resume touring the world.

Country acts fared well, scoring four slots in Pollstar’s top 20 tours as finalized Friday. Kenny Chesney again finished near the top of the heap, at No. 2 with $71.1 million in sales. Chesney and the Police were the only two acts last year that sold more than 1 million tickets in North America, a sign of a measurable drop for the overall concert business during the year.

The Tim McGraw/Faith Hill husband-wife tour finished sixth, with $52.3 million; Rascal Flatts just made the top 10 with $41.5 million in ticket sales; and Toby Keith placed No. 19 with $34.3 million.

Given that all those acts have come into their prime in the last decade, as opposed to the classic-rock acts that dominate the rest of the list, “country music has been doing very well developing so many younger, fresher faces,” Bongiovanni said.

One other notable presence in the top 20 is Mexican rock band Maná, one of the first Latin rock acts to make the upper reaches of Pollstar’s ranking. The group sold $33.9 million worth of tickets over 46 dates, and while Colombian rocker Shakira has make the top 20 previously, “Maná’s a different case — they’re not quite the pop star she is,” Bongiovanni said.

On the other hand, he pointed out that the combined take for the top 20 tours is down 16% to 18% in terms of both revenue and the total number of tickets sold compared with 2006.

“This clearly was not the best year for concert business,” he said, “but it wasn’t a disaster year either, like 2000 or 2001, when the bottom of the business just dropped out. . . . And as the business has continued to push the boundaries with ticket prices, the margin for error gets greater and greater.”

Information is taken from: Los Angeles Times

posted by Adam Johns on Nov 7

I’ve just come across some funny things about music and musical stars, never heard of this before… Here:

Record-holder in gathering the biggest number of fans is “A-ha”. They managed to gather 195 000 people on their concert in Brazil. That was back in 1991. After that they managed to give 10000 autographs to their fans. I always thought that Michael Jackson or “The Beatles” were record-holders…

Speaking of Jackson – he is still convinced that all his problems have begun after a “Pepsi” commercial. A hot floodlight fell on him and burned his hair, eyebrows and eyelashes.

Sting left “The Police” and started a new project because he had a bad dream. He saw a wonderful garden spoiled by thousands of blue turtles. He decided that it was a sign for him to leave “The Police” and create a new musical project.

In the beginning of his career, Elton John was put in the list of “The most bizarre dressed women”. Elton is still angry with the author of the list.

The most popular wedding music in the USA is a song of Whitney Houston “I will always love you”. In Britain this song is mostly used during funerals.