Skip to: Content
Skip to: Site Navigation
Skip to: Search

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009
| Subscribe to Newser's RSS feeds RSS | Follow Newser on Twitter Twitter

NEWS ABOUT: musician

musician stories: 62 news summaries

1 - 20 of 62 Stories | 1 2 3 4 Next >>

Composers Seek Pay Tune-Up With Teamsters

Hollywood composers, lyricists form  alliance with Local 399

(Newser) - A group of composers for movies and TV seeking a better deal now have the Teamsters in their corner. The musicians, who complain that their pay is shriveling as studios expect them to absorb more costs, were one of the few groups of Hollywood workers not covered by union contracts.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
television Hollywood composer musician labor unions Teamsters organized labor

 How to Tell If Your 
 Wedding Band 
 Hates You 

Led Zeppelin and Van Halen are not good signs

(Newser) - The Dexter Lake Club Band is a fixture at a certain type of New York-area wedding. Guests leave exclaiming over how good the music was—if the happy couple and their entourage have behaved in a way that suits the musicians. If they haven't, and what the band members the... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music wedding musician weddings women's issues Dexter Lake Club Band Matthew Stinchcomb

 New Orleans Clinic Gives 
 Jazz Musicians Free Care 

Volunteer doctors eagerly treat musical idols

(Newser) - One New Orleans couple is so passionate about jazz that they give musicians free or low-cost health care, NBC News reports. The New Orleans Musicians' Clinic, founded 11 years ago, tries “to prevent death by lifestyle" for low-paid musicians who can’t afford treatment, says one founder. "We... More »

MORE ABOUT:
health care music New Orleans Louisiana jazz musician clinic Jay-ZTV

 Lavigne, Hubby 
 Headed for Split 

Sources spot her partying solo

(Newser) - Rocker couple Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley are headed for divorce, sources tell the New York Daily News. The two, married since 2006, haven’t been photographed together since last December, and have been spotted at events and on vacations alone. Lavigne recently “wanted to get away from... More »

MORE ABOUT:
entertainment celebrity musician Avril Lavigne celebrity divorces Deryck Whibley

book review

 This Bitch of a Life 
 Offers Frank View of Fela Kuti 

Biography pulls no punches in describing this powerful musician

(Newser) - Carlos Moore’s Fela: This Bitch of a Life, a newly re-released 1982 authorized biography, contains the usual makings of sociomusical hagiography: Fela’s stunning music, his uncompromising anticolonial message, and the many beatings and imprisonments he suffered as a result. But most readers likely already know the legend—what... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music Africa Nigeria revolution musician activist Bob Marley imprisonment Fela Kuti

OPINION

 Rock's Worst Career Moves 

Bob Dylan's Christmas album is just the latest in a long line

(Newser) - Bob Dylan’s decision to record a Christmas album is certainly ill-advised—“fans may have stuck by him throughout the musically self-destructive late '60s, the God-bothering late '70s, and the Grateful Dead-collaborating-Madonna-imitating mid '80s, but surely even Bob's fans have a limit,” writes John Matthew Hall for the... More »

GPS Rescues $600K Violin
Left in NYC Cab

Technology 'cut the driver out of the picture,' says taxi boss

(Newser) - GPS technology reunited a violinist with the $600,000 instrument he left in a New York cab yesterday, the Times reports. After Korean musician Hanh-Bin left a vehicle without his 18th-century instrument, the Taxi and Limousine Commission was able to find it in less than an hour, using the cab’... More »

MORE ABOUT:
New York City taxi violin GPS musician taxi driver Hanh-Bin

 I Fantasize 
 About 
 Killing Ex: 
 Manson 

Plus more fun tidbits from his latest disturbing interview

(Newser) - Marilyn Manson, that fine upstanding Goth rocker, offers his fans a little TMI in the latest issue of Spin—including the admission that, when it comes to ex Evan Rachel Wood, he fantasizes “every day about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.” Other highlights:
  • On the
... More »

MORE ABOUT:
entertainment music violence celebrity musician Marilyn Manson celebrity breakup Evan Rachel Wood

(Newser) - A novel afterschool program, developed in Chicago and Cleveland and just now hitting Denver, uses rap music to make kids better students, the Post reports. “They learn about similes, different poetic devices,” the program’s founder said. They “learn to rap a Shakespearean piece.” One decidedly... More »

MORE ABOUT:
education Denver children musician hip-hop rap music afterschool program Jay-ZTV

 Prince Recalls 
 Childhood 
 Epilepsy, 
 Seizures 

Musician opens up about his past on Tavis Smiley

(Newser) - Prince suffered from epilepsy as a child, the musician told Tavis Smiley on his PBS show last night. "I've never spoken about this before, but I was born epileptic, and I used to have seizures when I was young," Prince told Smiley. "My mother and father didn't... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music seizure epilepsy musician Tavis Smiley Prince childhood seizures

U2 Star Plans 5 Malibu Homes; Locals Annoyed

The Edge's project raises concerns
about environment

(Newser) - U2’s the Edge is ruffling the feathers of some of his fellow Malibu residents with a plan to build five houses atop a hill overlooking the Pacific, the Los Angeles Times reports. Both potential neighbors and California preservation agencies charge that David Evans' project is too ambitious for the... More »

MORE ABOUT:
environment California Malibu musician political activism environmental damage the Edge

 Dylan's 
 Favorite 
 Songwriters 

What do Warren Zevon, Jimmy Buffet and Gordon Lightfoot all have in common?

(Newser) - Bob Dylan is one of the most widely influential living songwriters—but who has influenced him? Bill Flanagan got Dylan to dish on some of his favorite songwriters for the Huffington Post. The winners? Jimmy Buffett, Gordon Lightfoot, Randy Newman, John Prine, and Guy Clark all got nods. Though Dylan’... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music Bob Dylan song guitar folk musician Randy Newman Jimmy Buffet Gordon Lightfoot John Prine Guy Clark

(AP) - Joaquin, you have competition. In a radio appearance reminiscent of Letterman's recent interview with actor-turned-rapper Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Bob Thornton gave a puzzling and difficult interview to CBC radio today. Thornton evaded simple questions and criticized the host for mentioning his movie background. "You were instructed not to talk... More »

MORE ABOUT:
musician actor interview Billy Bob Thornton

 Six Weird Tax Deductions 

Are you a whaling captain? Parent of a kidnapped teen? You could benefit!

(Newser) - The tax code is more than 20,000 pages long and packed with loopholes galore. Newsweek lists six deductions you've probably never heard of:
  • Alaskan whaling captains can deduct up to $10,000 for money spent fixing their boats or on other whaling expenses. 
  • Parents of kidnapped
... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Alaska IRS dependence musician tax breaks whaling tax code

 VH1 Brings Back 
 Behind the Music
 

Lil Wayne, Scott Weiland to be featured

(Newser) - VH1 is reviving Behind the Music—yes, it was gone—after the success of last fall’s popular New Kids on the Block special. “It felt like the time was right,” a network exec tells the Hollywood Reporter. “There’s all sorts of new artists who have... More »

MORE ABOUT:
television music VH1 documentary musician Lil Wayne Scott Weiland Behind the Music

 Alcoholism Plagues 
 UK Orchestras 

Musicians drink to deal with performance anxiety

(Newser) - Alcoholism is sounding a sour note in the great orchestras of Britain, the Guardian reports. Though little research has been conducted on the issue—which remains taboo in many corners—there have been some “regrettable incidents,” recalled one official with the Musicians’ Union. One drunk percussionist fell off... More »

MORE ABOUT:
alcohol musician anxiety Britain

glossies

 Kind of Blue 
 Still the Gold 
 Standard at 50 

Topselling jazz album helped redefine American music

(Newser) - Fifty years to the day since its debut, Miles Davis’ signature album Kind of Blue remains beautiful and inviting—"like meeting an old friend," Malcolm Jones writes in Newsweek. The record helped jazz earn its title as America’s classical music and remains the bestselling jazz album ever.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music jazz musician Miles Davis blues

'Cello Scrotum' Exposed as Medical Hoax

Spoof inflammatory condition had fooled experts for 34 years

(Newser) - The world's cellists can rest easy today knowing the dreaded "cello scrotum" is a myth, the Independent reports. A doctor who's a member of Britain's House of Lords has confessed that she invented the condition described in a letter to the British Medical Journal as a spoof. It has... More »

MORE ABOUT:
cello instrument musician hoax British Medical Journal

Yo-Yo Ma 'Finger-Synched' Inauguration Gig

Performers decided to play along to tape in 'wicked cold'

(Newser) - The somber classical sounds that filled the Washington Mall ahead of Barack Obama's swearing-in came from a tape, reports the New York Times. When Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and the rest of the quartet realized that the freezing weather and strong winds would likely wreak havoc with their instruments they... More »

MORE ABOUT:
violin musician inauguration Inauguration Day Yo-Yo Ma Itzhak Perlman

OPINION

Time to Retire the Crotch Shots, Madge

'Trussed chicken'
poses reveal diva's pathetic desperation

(Newser) - More than gloves came off for Madonna during her divorce, and it seems no amount of pleading can stop the 50-year-old’s “forced erotica,” Jan Moir writes in the Daily Mail. Madge’s crotch shots for her new Hard Candy album are “the death rattle of a... More »

MORE ABOUT:
music aging celebrity sexuality musician Madonna feminists sex symbol

1 - 20 of 62 Stories | 1 2 3 4 Next >>