Papa Roach reveals new album title

PAPA ROACH has "Days of War, Nights of Love" as the title of his new album, tentatively due before the end of the year. Jay Baumgardner, a veteran producer and head of NRG Studios, have been exploited to produce and mix the CD, which will be recorded later this spring. PAPA ROACH returns to its roots with Baumgardner, and seeks to replicate the energy is met for the first group album, "Infest," which remains the group's best-selling album to date, with nearly 3.5 million copies sold.

PAPA ROACH recently split permanently for a long time with the drummer Dave Buckner, according to a message posted by, Jacoby Shaddix. The singer wrote, "We are witnessing many changes at this time ... Change is a good thing - it keeps things fresh. Y'all For whom do not know, we had to split with Dave, our drummer. He was one of the hardest things we have ever had to make. He's taking this time for his life together. We are still friends and still talk on a regular basis. The road is a difficult place to live, and if you are falling apart, you destroy. He will be missed. "

Buckner first left the group on tour last spring, entering rehabilitation to cope with the problems of addiction. He returned during the summer, but left again later in the year. Shaddix told The pulse of radio than go back on tour was not the best thing for the drummer. "Really, the road is not a place to heal, you know what I say?" Has he said. "It's like the road is, if you are not in good health, it will not make you better, you know what I am saying. And yes, for him, he just simply go a few steps away, Le you know, so ... The show must go on. "

UNWRITTEN LAW drummer Tony Palermo met for Buckner on tour, but it is not clear whether he will become a full member of PAPA ROACH.

Shaddix has also stated in his message that PAPA ROACH will head back to the Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles to begin writing his new album. The group wrote and recorded his last effort, 2006's "The Paramour Sessions" at the same location.

Radiohead Finds Sales, Even After Downloads

By JEFF LEEDS

LOS ANGELES — In a twist for the music industry’s digital revolution, “In Rainbows,” the new Radiohead album that attracted wide attention when it was made available three months ago as a digital download for whatever price fans chose to pay, ranked as the top-selling album in the country this week after the CD version hit record shops and other retailers.
The album, the first in four years from the closely watched British rock act, sold 122,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. That represents a mixed result for the band. It’s a sharp drop compared with the debut of Radiohead’s previous album, 2003’s “Hail to the Thief,” but it’s far from a flop, considering the steep decline in music sales in the last four years and the typically weak sales in the post-Christmas period. “Thief” sold about 300,000 in its first week in 2003.

In any case the figures challenge the conventional wisdom that music fans no longer have an affinity for plastic. The sales of the album, which also snagged the top spot on the British weekly music chart, came despite the fact that “In Rainbows” — in the form of digital files — had been acquired by many fans after the band offered it in an unconventional pay-what-you-want offering through a Web site, inrainbows.com. The album was released on plastic CDs and vinyl LPs on Jan. 1, with the CD priced at $13.98, though it could be found for as little as $7.99 at outlets like Amazon.com.

Some retailers viewed the Radiohead figures as a sign of the continuing market for so-called physical products in the music business, where the popularity of iTunes, music blogs and other sites have made the digital file appear to be the coin of the realm. In particular they said even fans who received the digital files distributed by Radiohead may have decided to pay for the better audio quality versions on CD or LP.

“Having a physical, archival high-fidelity master recording that you can side-load into your MP3 player of choice for a similar price is significantly better than just purchasing zeros and ones,” said Eric Levin, owner of the independent record shop Criminal Records in Atlanta and founder of an 18-member alliance of independent retailers. “I feel like that’s what 75 percent of the people are saying.”

Mr. Levin said that at his store vinyl copies of “In Rainbows” outsold the CD by a wide margin. Demand for the album was such that some record shops put it on sale before the label’s planned “street date,” resulting in sales of about 9,000 copies the previous week.

But sales of the plastic and vinyl versions of the album also received a boost from digital services like iTunes, where the album sold about 28,000 copies. The iTunes service, which sells individual songs for 99 cents and albums typically for $9.99, had not carried any of the band’s previous albums, owing in part to Radiohead’s demand that its recordings be sold only as complete works.

But Bryce Edge, one of Radiohead’s managers, said the band decided to sell “In Rainbows” on iTunes because it expects that EMI, the British music giant that released the band’s first six albums, will soon post them for sale on the service, and it would be strange for the new album to be excluded. An EMI representative declined to comment.

The decision to release the music as a digital file so far in advance of the CD also allowed time for the music to circulate on free, unlicensed file-swapping networks. Big Champagne, a tracking service that studies file-sharing, estimates that the album was downloaded more than 100,000 times on free networks in the first 24 hours after Radiohead delivered it to fans who had preordered it from its Web site. But Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, said that by offering the music for as little as zero from their own site, Radiohead “stole market share” from pirate networks.

Mr. Edge said that sales of 100,000 copies of the album this week would be “almost certainly less than the number we would have achieved if we hadn’t” offered it as a digital download. But the band still came out ahead, he said, in part because it attracted so many fans to Radiohead’s Web site, where it collected e-mail addresses from fans looking to acquire the album.

The band has not said how many copies it distributed. Now that the CD is in shops, some fans who paid for the initial downloads may have been tempted to buy the album, in effect, for a second time. But Steve Gottlieb, chief of the independent label TVT Records, said he believed the sales mainly reflected fans who were acquiring the music for the first time.

“Radiohead is one of those really big groups that appeals to people outside the intensely pirating demographic of 16 to 29,” he said. “To the extent Radiohead still has a significant audience in its 30s and 40s, there’s a bigger audience of those people who will still pick up something at Best Buy or don’t want to bother with figuring out how to go to a Radiohead Web site and track it down.”

Still, Mr. Gottlieb said, the sales suggested that the band’s name-your-price offering, and fans’ subsequent free sharing of files, had taken a toll. “Clearly we can’t give it all away and expect to sell CDs,” he said.

But Radiohead will have yet more opportunities to gain fans. The band said yesterday that it planned to perform in more than 20 North American cities this year.

Avenged Sevenfold, Atreyu Set For Taste Of Chaos

Mitchell Peters, L.A.

The 2008 Rockstar Taste of Chaos festival tour will feature performances by Avenged Sevenfold, Atreyu, Bullet For My Valentine, Blessthefall and Idiot Pilot, along with sets by Japanese rock bands D'espairsRay, Mucc and the Underneath.

The fourth edition of the 43-city North American tour begins Feb. 29 at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver, and runs through March 15 at the WaMu Center in Seattle. At deadline, only U.S. tour dates had been released, with Canadian dates to follow in January. No other acts were expected to join the bill.

Tickets go on pre-sale Jan. 5 via rockstartasteofchaos.com. The national on-sale begins Jan. 12, with an average ticket price of approximately $29.

Sponsors for the 2008 Rockstar Taste of Chaos include Hurley, Hard Rock Cafe, Hot Topic, Vans, Music Saves Lives, MySpace and Alternative Press, among others.

T

he 2007 edition of Rockstar Taste of Chaos featured a slew of rock acts including the Used, Senses Fail, 30 Seconds To Mars, Saosin, Chiodos, Aiden and Evaline. The festival jaunt, organized by Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, played more than 130 dates worldwide, including 40-plus cities in North America.

Elvis is still in building

Humorist Dave Barry once wrote, "Eventually everybody has to die, except Elvis."

Barry was being funny, as always - but was he right?

As America marks the 30th anniversary of Elvis Presley's death this week, the singer is still very much with us. Perhaps you've seen the new commemorative DVDs of "Jailhouse Rock" and "Viva Las Vegas," or the custom-made Elvis bikes that Harley-Davidson is offering, or the Elvis banana-and-peanut-butter cups Reese's is selling. Perhaps you bought some of these things with your prepaid Elvis Visa.

Ensuring that The King stays alive is the job of Elvis Presley Enterprises, the multimillion-dollar company that handles the licensing of the singer's name, image, movies, merchandising and perhaps the most famous piece of Presleyana, the Graceland mansion in Memphis. In 2005, Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, sold her majority ownership in the company for more than $100 million to Robert F.X. Sillerman, the billionaire media mogul. Sillerman, whose company CKX Inc., also owns the television show "American Idol," wants to turn Elvis into an even bigger brand by making massive improvements to the Graceland complex and also by exerting greater control over the Elvis image.

"His influence is increasing, not decreasing," Sillerman says of Presley. "From a simple business standpoint, it seemed to make sense."

Among Sillerman's plans for Graceland are an 80,000- square-foot visitors center, plus additional hotels and nightlife offerings that he hopes will keep tourists on the grounds longer than the usual day-trip. "We're not touching the mansion," Sillerman notes. "That is sacrosanct."

What isn't off-limits, however, are the various small businessmen who have, in their own way, been keeping Presley's legacy alive. Sillerman has already announced plans to close two independent shops near Graceland and a museum in Las Vegas to make room for official Elvis Presley Enterprises establishments. (Cirque du Soleil is reportedly working on an Elvis-themed show at the Las Vegas MGM Mirage.)

Even Elvis impersonators began to fear a crackdown from Sillerman after he appeared on MSNBC's "Countdown" last year and announced he wanted to license impersonators, which the company likes to call "Elvis tribute artists." Sillerman has since stated that he won't persecute "unofficial" Elvises. "It's not clear that they're not infringing on the likeness, but that's fine," Sillerman says. "It perpetuates the image."

King of dead celebrities

In the pantheon of dead celebrities, Elvis is undeniably a king. Born Jan. 8, 1935, in East Tupelo, Miss., Presley became the world's first true rock and roll star. Described by Sun Records owner Sam Phillips as "a white man with the Negro sound and the Negro feel," Presley established a race-based blueprint for rock music that would last for generations. Dreamily handsome but with the rough edges of a working-class boy, he injected a startling sexual energy and sense of rebellion into his music. Eventually he evolved (some would say disintegrated) into a flashy, fleshy, Las Vegas showman. But even in this incarnation Presley defined a certain aspect of American culture.

Thanks in part to his infamously shrewd manager, Colonel Tom Parker, Presley also became one of the first mass-marketed superstars, lending his name to nearly every kind of object from lipstick to luggage to automobiles. In addition to his music, Presley made more than 30 feature films, several television specials and concert films. When he died at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977 (of heart failure, possibly caused by prescription drug abuse), he left an imprint on the world that's still difficult to measure.

But is that imprint fading? Even with Sillerman's strict oversight, Elvis faces some challenges in the years ahead. The rock memorabilia business has in recent years taken a hit thanks to eBay, which is making once-rare items seem common. Presley's music has historically sold well posthumously, but overall CD sales have dropped 25 percent since 2000, a trend that doesn't bode well for the future. And although Sillerman says 40 percent of Graceland visitors are younger than 35 (and unaccompanied by parents), there is no question that Presley's original fans are getting older.

"I do believe it's only going to get harder and harder going forward," says Jeffrey Lotman, CEO of Global Icons, a Los Angeles-based licensing firm that once specialized in dead celebrities but has been phasing them out in favor of more dependable corporate clients such as Chevron and Hershey's. Though he still handles a handful of past stars, including Marlene Dietrich and Bing Crosby, "About five years ago we decided to bury the dead," Lotman says.

Making Elvis relevant

It's difficult to make someone like Presley, who's been dead for 30 years, relevant to a generation that's in thrall to video games, cell phones and MP3s, Lotman said. You can put his music on kiddie-film soundtracks, as Disney did with the animated "Lilo and Stitch," but "can you really youthify him permanently?" Lotman asks skeptically. "Is that going to happen with ringtones? Or cute little animated cell phones?"

Even among those who collect old-fashioned memorabilia such as posters and autographs, the market seems to be somewhat down. Marc Zakarin, president of the Huntington-based memorabilia house It's Only Rock and Roll, says prices on many items were higher in the "pre-Bay" era, as he called it.

"A guy like me would travel around the country finding this stuff," Zakarin explains. "I'd buy a box of Elvis perfume and sell it for 500 bucks." The items were fairly common, Zakarin admits, but as eBay gained prominence, "all these people who thought these things were special began to communicate."

Still, he notes, Presley continues to fetch some of the highest prices in the business, just under the Beatles. Even the little gold necklaces that the singer handed out willy-nilly to fans ("TCB," or "Taking Care of Business," for the guys, and "TLC," or "Tender Loving Care," for the girls) still go for about $3,000 apiece, Zakarin says.

There's no doubt that Presley fans have an insatiable appetite for anything related to their idol. Several years ago, when Warner Home Video was about to reissue the 1970 concert film "Elvis: That's the Way It Is," the company discovered several minutes of outtake footage of Presley rehearsing the song "Bridge Over Troubled Water." George Feltenstein, a senior vice president at Warner Home Video, decided to include the footage, but he left out the actual performance of the song, which he thought redundant. Fans, however, thought otherwise.

"We heard from fans that they missed seeing that," he says. "No matter what you do, it's never enough." Warner this month released the film in a two-disc set featuring the "Special Edition" with the outtake footage and the original version with the performance.

Presley's music, too, continues to sell respectably. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the deceased singer sold 410,000 copies of the holiday album "White Christmas" in 2000 and about 900,000 of "Second to None" in 2003. Even his 2004 gospel album, "Ultimate Gospel," racked up 350,000. Most remarkably, the 2002 collection "30 #1 Hits" sold a whopping 4 million copies.

Clearly, the singer's allure "hasn't faded at all," says Ed Christman, retail reporter at Billboard magazine in New York. When it comes to greatest hits packages, he adds, "If you hit the 100,000 unit mark in terms of sales, you're doing your job."

Sillerman expresses no doubts that Presley will live on for many years. He cited two famous quotes: One was Leonard Bernstein's declaration that "Elvis Presley is the greatest cultural force in the 20th century," and the other was John Lennon's rather biblical proclamation, "Before Elvis there was nothing."

If Dave Barry was wrong about Presley, and the singer does indeed have to die, he's had a longer life than most.

BY RAFER GUZMÁN

Interview: Rock Star Dave Navarro on Why He Loves Spreading Entertainment Online

He’s played with Jane’s Addiction and felt the heat of the spotlight in a reality TV show with ex-wife Carmen Elecrtra. But in an interview with Digital Journal, Dave Navarro reveals why his new Web show is one of his most exciting projects so far.

Digital Journal — Dave Navarro is the kind of celebrity interview who talks like he’s known you his whole life. He doesn’t use rehearsed lines or clichés. He speaks bluntly about anything on his mind. The Swiss army knife of celebs — musician, radio host, reality TV star (remember Carmen and Dave?) — is accustomed to sharing his opinion with the world, but now he has the ultimate platform for free expression: an online talk show.

You may best know Navarro as the former guitarist for Jane’s Addiction and Red Hot Chili Peppers. He still has the guitar chops. But he’s extending his range outside alt-rock solos and power chords. In an exclusive interview with Digital Journal, Navarro explains why he’s excited about hosting the weekly Spread Entertainment show found on ManiaTV. The hour-long show features Navarro as a relaxed host chilling an L.A. nightclub, chatting with B-list celebs like Ron Jeremy and Tom Green, or picking the brains of intriguing writers or musicians or even psychotherapists. There’s no one direction Navarro follows, no script he memorizes. It’s a jam session on the Web.

Navarro, 40, isn’t just knowledgeable about the workings of the Web (he’s been online since the late 1990s). His conversational repertoire spans the cultural map — he riffs on the trouble with mainstream media, the freedom of indie music labels and why he enjoys being the interviewer this time around.

DJ: What do you find appealing about doing an online talk show? How is it different from anything you’ve done before?

Navarro: I love the fact that Spread Entertainment is an open discussion-based forum. It’s conversational, so there’s no list of questions, no hawking the guests’ wares. And the guests are mainly all individuals who have compelling stories, so it’s not just a music or celeb show.

The good and bad thing about the Internet is that it allows the freedom to say whatever you want, but it allows the freedom to say whatever you want. [Laughs]. I love how there’s no regulation, no censorship. It’s all live. And I don’t do cookie-cutter interviews because I know that experience being interviewed. I try to share my own experiences with the interviewees so it’s a give-and-take situation.

DJ: What kind of guests do you look for?

Navarro: Someone like recent guest Alix Lambert. She’s a writer, director and producer, a true jack-of-all-trades creating incredible documentaries and art installations. She’s fascinating to talk to.

A few weeks ago, we had a woman who was a cutter, who slashed her arms up with a knife. We also had a psychotherapist to have a close and personal moment to discuss the disorder of cutting. In the future, I'd like to get an FBI profiler on the show, as well as an alien abductee and a Holocaust survivor. I’m primarily interested in going after people that don’t get a lot of attention.

Dave Navarro, host of Sread Entertainment, sits with supermodel Janice Dickenson at an L.A. nightclub moonlighting as his show's set. -Photos courtesy of ManiaTV

DJ: It’s well known you’re not a fan of how the news is being run. How would you give the mainstream media a makeover?

Navarro: I think newspapers are more interested in selling copies than having information get out there. When I was 21, I did way worse shit than Lindsay Lohan, big deal! Some people think it’s big news; others just think it’s someone growing up.

People are fascinated by what people shouldn’t be seeing, whether it’s porn or a car accident. This celebrity coverage has become porn, and it’s acceptable to the public. But the difference is that in porn, no personal lives are being invaded. Well, if they are, then at least those actors are getting paid.

DJ: You know all about celebrity coverage because you were hounded by paparazzi when you were married to Carmen Electra. Are you frustrated by how the media stalks celebrities?

Navarro: If I go to a club or red-carpet event, I expect the paparazzi, it’s par for the course. My problem is when I’m being followed or they go through my garbage like I’m part of the Mafia. If you follow anyone around long enough, you’ll obviously capture a pic that is either funny or will catch someone not looking their best.

DJ: A lot of people know you as Dave Navarro the guitarist. What are you doing with music today? Is it on the back burner because Spread Entertainment has becomes the focus?

Navarro: The art of music is never on the back burner. I’m playing with Camp Freddy [rock cover band], and I’m still with Panic Channel [band with former members of Jane’s Addiction]. But the difference is I’m done playing the game with major labels because the whole thing is falling apart. They’re not taking chances on artists. In rock especially, corporate structures are making decisions on what’s best suited for them rather than what’s best for the artists. I was lucky because Jane’s was with Warner Bros. and they were amazing. Not so today, man. There’s no artist development with major labels. If “Stairway to Heaven” were written today, the labels would think it would be too long and they’d chop it in half.

Indie labels stick behind their artists and help them develop and grow. They understand how real art is done, and a true source of expression doesn’t need a massive audience to be fulfilled.

DJ: Speaking of being fulfilled, where do you want Spread Entertainment go? Any future plans you’d care to unveil?

Navarro: I don’t know where we’ll go. I’d love to let it unfold and see what happens. My best experiences are those that I didn’t expect or plan for, and I always try to keep that outlook. The beautiful reality of my life is that I don’t do things I don’t love.

Times a-changing for live music

Racine club of national note going to DJs as turnout across area dwindles

George's Tavern was never a particularly genre-specific place, despite being recognized as part of the University of Mississippi's list of best blues music venues.

The style was eclectic.

On a recent afternoon, the stage at George's Tavern - 1201 N. Main St., Racine, just a few blocks from Lake Michigan - was empty, and that's the way it's going to stay, at least while the market for live music remains weak at best.

George's Tavern has three final live performances planned, after which live music is being replaced by disc jockeys. It's a change that George's owner, David Popoff, made with great difficulty and much melancholy.

The tavern has been losing money by offering live music for about three years, he said.

Gone are the days when a live act would push the limits of the establishment's capacity of 130, or at least draw a healthy 60 to 80 people.

Popoff recalls one night when only six people showed up for a show.

When a low turnout started to become the rule rather than the exception, Popoff decided the time had come to pull the plug on live music.

"I kept telling myself that 'Tomorrow will be a better day' and, 'Things will get better; people will come back and support live music again,' but, well, it's a different world now. There's no doubt that I'm saddened by it," said Popoff, whose own love for live music was an inspiration to open a tavern.

Cover charge didn't cover

It became clear Popoff could no longer shoulder the cost of live music when cover charges didn't support the effort.

"In my opinion, a lot of the musicians were playing for less than they deserved, but it was their love of performing and appreciation of the space here that kept our working relationship going. Ultimately, the club could not afford it anymore," Popoff said.

He added that he has 11 employees to consider. Since Popoff switched to DJsin mid-July, the crowds are back, reaching numbers near or at capacity on some nights.

"The place is doing fantastic," Popoff said.

Popoff isn't the only club owner finding it difficult to attract an audience to live music.

Both Jim Linneman of Linneman's Riverwest Inn in Milwaukee and Bill Camplin of Café Carpe in Fort Atkinson, agree that it's a challenging time for live-music lovers.

"It is a struggle," said Camplin, who, along with operating the Café Carpe "listening room," is also a singer-songwriter finding fewer venues to play. "We're never happy with the attendance overall. And yet there are so many wonderful, magical moments that occur with live music. It really does exist - music does exist. But, we live in a world where people can turn on a channel or push a button where the music they like already exists."

For love, not money

Linneman admits he's lucky. He doesn't do it for the money, but for the love of live music.

"I'm a music lover, and I always have been," Linneman said. "I'm in this business to stay, but I tell my friends all the time that if I wanted to be making money, I wouldn't be in this business."

The reasons why the audiences for live music have dwindled depends on perspective.

Linneman thinks the region's blue collar workers simply don't want to pay a cover charge.

Camplin and Popoff believe that modern 20-somethings are used to going to the Internet and downloading music for free and can't fathom paying a cover charge for a band they might not know.

Popoff points to the elimination of arts and music education in public schools, where the value of creative expression is neither taught nor appreciated.

Musicians see trend, too

But no matter the reason, musicians also agree the audience for live music is smaller than in years past.

John Sieger, whose former band, the R&B Cadets, got their start at George's Tavern, said his current band, the Subcontinentals, finds work when it wants it, but he admits it's getting more difficult.

"More people should support live music. It's a skill, like being a blacksmith, and, these days, it seems to be just as relevant," said Sieger, who will be with the Subcontinentals at the Kenosha Yacht Club on Saturday.

Steve Cohen, musician and booking agent, said musicians have had to be creative by reinventing themselves to remain busy, such as doing solo acts or duets rather than having a full band.

"Back in the old days, you could play every night of the week, if you wanted to, in a different neighborhood," Cohen said.

Although the audience may be smaller for live music, it still exists, Cohen said.

He's optimistic that the audience pendulum will swing back to live music.

Popoff is not so optimistic, but he'll be ready if it happens.

"Music is the common bonding that brings people together, but I'm not seeing that with live music today," he said.