G. Love

A Look Back At Lollapalooza 2007

3 Aug 2007 11:07:00 EDT

Watch our chats with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Lupe Fiasco and more from last year's festival, plus find out how you can contribute to our 2008 Lolla coverage.

Lupe Fiasco
Photo: MTV News

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Now! 22 Ends DMX's Billboard Winning Streak

9 Aug 2006 10:28:00 EDT

Year of the Dog, Again is rapper's first LP to debut at #2.
By Chris Harris

DMX's Year of the Dog, Again
Photo: Sony Music

Until now, DMX had never known what it was like to finish second with a new LP.

The gravel-voiced, traffic-infraction-prone New York rapper's five previous studio discs all debuted at #1 on Billboard's albums chart. It's Dark and Hell Is Hot opened atop the chart in 1998 after selling more than 251,000 copies, while Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, released that same year, crushed the competition with 670,000 sales.

The trend continued in 1999 with ... And Then There Was X, which toppled the opposition with 698,000 scans, and 2002's The Great Depression followed suit with first-week sales of 440,000. The following year, Darkman X's Grand Champ topped the Billboard chart with sales of 312,000.

But the streak ends here. X's latest LP, Year of the Dog, Again just couldn't top the collective might of Rihanna, Chris Brown, Nick Lachey, Kelly Clarkson and more than a dozen other hitmakers — all of whom can be found on Now That's What I Call Music! 22, which takes #1 for a third time, selling 127,000 copies after slipping to #2 on the previous chart.

DMX didn't go quietly. Week-one sales of Year of the Dog, Again were reported at just fewer than 126,000 — putting X only 1,500 copies behind Now 22 — to score the rapper a second-place ribbon.

There's one silver lining to DMX ending his run at the hands of Now 22: He didn't lose out to a bunch of pint-sized singers. Kidz Bop 10 — featuring the Kidz Bop Kids' versions of Daniel Powter's "Bad Day," the All-American Rejects' "Move Along," and Rihanna's "S.O.S." — sold more than 116,000 copies its first week in stores to secure the #3 spot. Following at #4 is Stone Sour's Come What(ever) May — the first studio release in four years from the rock collective featuring members of Slipknot — which racked up close to 81,000 sales.

Previous chart champ LeToya suffered a second-week slump, as her self-titled debut took a 61 percent sales hit and posted just 65,000 scans to land at #5. Tom Petty's Highway Companion follows at #6 with 57,000 copies sold its second week in stores, and Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere finishes at #7 with 53,000 scans.

Five for Fighting's Two Lights opens at #8 with 52,000 units sold, while Pharrell's In My Mind slides seven spots to #9 with week-two sales of 51,000. Nickelback's All the Right Reasons, which has steadily climbed the chart in recent weeks, jumps two spots to #10 after racking up 44,000 scans its 44th week in stores. And after spending 24 consecutive weeks in the top 10, the soundtrack to the Disney Channel original movie "High School Musical" slips to #11.

Panic! at the Disco will be celebrating this week — and not just because of their five MTV Video Music Awards nominations. After 34 weeks on the chart, the band's A Fever You Can't Sweat Out has surpassed the 1 million sold mark, moving more than 35,000 copies to land at #17 on the latest chart.

Lemonade, the latest from G. Love (who've shed the "& Special Sauce" part of their moniker) is the fifth of 10 new releases to crack the top 200, selling 19,000 units to debut at #39. The Pink Spiders open at #84 with their second outing, Teenage Graffiti, which sold 11,000 copies its first week out. Steely Dan's The Definitive Collection bows at #92 with 10,000 scans, followed at #121 by Powerman 5000's Destroy What You Enjoy with 7,000 copies sold.

Jeannie Ortega's No Place Like Bklyn opens at #128 with close to 7,000 sales, and Kill Hannah's Until There's Nothing Left of Us takes #179 with sales nearing 5,000. Christian-minded post-hardcore outfit Showbread's Age of Reptiles just makes the top 200 cut, debuting at #199 with 4,000 scans.

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Mos Def, Black Crowes, David Lee Roth Pour It On At Bumbershoot

4 Sep 2001 06:23:00 EDT

Jurassic 5, Ween, Cake, Cat Power among the 31st annual event's 500 scheduled acts.
By Leah Greenblatt

Black Crowes' Chris Robinson
Photo: V2

SEATTLE — More than 200,000 music fans braved rainy patches and crowded performance areas to pour into the multivenue Seattle Center grounds Friday through Monday for the 31st annual Bumbershoot festival. The $16-per-day ticket price — for such acts as David Lee Roth, Cake, Guided by Voices and Mos Def, along with scores of smaller-caliber bands and a plethora of artists in nearly every creative medium — proved a bargain.

The weekend kicked off with a Memorial Stadium hip-hop showcase featuring Mos Def, Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples. Dilated kicked out the jams with a high-energy set of favorites and a sneak preview of their upcoming album, Expansion Team. Seeming loath to release the stage to the next act, they led the massive crowd in a bouncing call-and-response session of hip-hop aerobics.

The energy came down a notch when J5 hit the stage. Although they delivered an easygoing vibe, the Los Angeles collective demonstrated less SoCal chill and more urban grit in person than they do on record. Turntablists DJ Nu-Mark and Cut Chemist pumped addictive beats and the audience responded appropriately.

Perhaps the night's biggest surprise was headliner Mos Def, who Mos Definitely ran half an hour late. The reason became apparent when he hit the stage. The artist sometimes considered hip-hop's conscience has begun playing more rockcentric shows, and this one required a full backing band. Once the beats-happy crowd got used to the idea, wah-wah guitar and all (the less enthusiastic headed for the exits), hundreds jumped for classic tracks off last year's Black on Both Sides filtered through a Hendrix/Chili Peppers/Rage Against the Machine kaleidoscope. Mos' band contained members of black rock groups Funkadelic, Living Colour and Bad Brains.

A different sort of rock emerged from the same stage Saturday, when the bluesy, whisky-soaked Black Crowes played to an equally packed stadium. Frontman Chris Robinson is an anomaly in the current climate of shoegazers and Fred Durst-y nü-metallers: a reborn, Southern-fried Jagger, all sexy prancing and dirty lyricism. Barefoot and clad in a voluminous red scarf, unbuttoned-to-the-navel shirt and second-skin bell-bottoms, Robinson (and band) delivered a hard-charging selection of tracks from the Crowes' recent Lions before pleasing the crowd with older favorites such as "Remedy" and "Hard to Handle."

Lines snaked around the Key Arena for joke-rockers Ween, who indulged their astonishingly enthusiastic fans with such inspiring ditties as "Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)," "Waving My Di-- in the Wind" and the always-endearing, country-tinged "Piss Up a Rope."

Many shows saw as many as 500 ticket holders left grumbling in line as venues reached their capacity, a problem the festival tried to alleviate by requiring free, limited-number wristbands (available at kiosks) for the more popular shows.

On the other end of the Center, quietly elegiac rockers Low and the aching, otherworldly cult figure Cat Power played to a rapt audience in the Opera House. Even the notoriously skittish Power was buoyant, running through gorgeously stripped-down covers of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and "Free Bird." Power posed the rhetorical question "What would Keith Richards do?" as she exited the stage with Richards-esque hip swivels.

David Lee Roth whiplashed a full arena straight back to 1984 as the festival hurtled forward Sunday, proving himself just as loud, lewd and double-jointed as ever. Rock's long-reigning showman doused the audience in Jack Daniels and belted out Van Halen classics while showcasing his genital area and undiminished mid-air toe-touching abilities.

On Monday, a far more subdued Cake followed G Love and Special Sauce with a solid set of new and old. After enlisting a large portion of the high-energy crowd as backing singers, the group introduced "mountaineer dancers" Project Bandaloop, whose acrobatic Spider-Man antics above the band provided the set with its finale.

High-wire acrobatics like these — not to mention underground heroics, top-40 hall-of-famers and surprise guests, including former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic, who joined Los Angeles rockers Bluebird for three songs on Friday in the Liquid Lounge — are what keep Bumbershoot fans coming back for more after three decades.

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Tool, Snoop, Gov't Mule To Share Bill At Voodoo Music Experience

7 Aug 2001 11:11:00 EDT

Missy Elliott, Black Crowes, G. Love & Special Sauce also slated to play New Orleans fest.
By Corey Moss

Snoop Dogg
Photo: No Limit

Tool, Snoop Dogg and G. Love & Special Sauce on the same bill? That's scary.

An eclectic lineup of musicians has been announced for the Voodoo Music Experience, New Orleans' third annual Halloween celebration, that also includes Missy Elliott, the Black Crowes and Better Than Ezra.

Set for October 27 at City Park, the concert will feature Gov't Mule, Spooks, Karl Denson's Tiny Universe and Will Hoge as well, according to organizers.

Voodoo Music Experience will be broadcast on the festival's official Web site (www.voodoomusicfest.com). Tickets for the event are $25 and are available on the Web site.

Eminem and Stone Temple Pilots headlined last year's concert, which attracted more than 60,000 people.

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Megadeth, Blur, G. Love Donate Exclusive Songs For Food Drive

19 Nov 1999 04:30:00 EST

Megadeth's Dave Mustaine

Megadeth, Blur, Moby, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Stereophonics have all contributed exclusive tracks to a limited edition album, "Music 4 Food," being passed out to students on campuses in San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago as part of a food drive being organized by Food.com and America's Second Harvest.

Students can receive the 16-track disc by bringing in and donating canned goods at drop-off locations that Food.com has set up at several schools in the three cities between now and December 6.

In addition to previously released songs from Eve 6, Guster, and Manic Street Preachers, the "Music 4 Food" album also features five songs exclusive to the collection.

Blur has offered up "All We Want," an import b-side, while Moby has donated "Flying Foxes," a previously unreleased song. G. Love and Megadeth have both contributed remixes of "Rude Clown" and "Insomnia," respectively, and Stereophonics have supplied a live version of "The Bartender And The Thief."

The foodstuffs are being gathered for America's Second Harvest, a national network of regional food banks that have banded together for the holiday season. All contributions made as part of this particular drive will be split among the Greater Chicago Food Depository, the Food Lifeline of Seattle, and the San Francisco Food Bank.

Schools participating in the music for food swap include the University of Illinois, Loyola University, the University of Chicago, the University of Washington, Washington State University, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, the University of Puget Sound, the University of California at Berkeley, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Stanford University, and Santa Clara University.

For more information about the Music 4 Food Drive, check out Food.com's Web site at www.food.com/music.

-- David Basham

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Limp Bizkit, Filter, G. Love Unveiled At Blind Date Show

20 Sep 1999 02:15:00 EDT

Filter's Richard Patrick

Limp Bizkit is the latest act to wallop an unsuspecting crowd as part of Miller Genuine Draft's ongoing "Blind Date" concert series.

As part of a promotion for the beer company, a crowd of close to 1,000 contest winners turned out at Chicago's Riviera Theatre on Saturday night not knowing that Limp Bizkit, Filter, and G. Love & Special Sauce would be providing the night's entertainment.

The gig proved to be a warm-up of sorts for Limp and Filter, who will join Method Man, Redman, DMX, Staind, and Crystal Method for the kickoff of the Family Values tour Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. That tour will also see Primus and System Of A Down stopping by and will hit the following venues:

9/21 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Pittsburgh Civic Center
9/22 - Detroit, MI @ Palace of Auburn Hills
9/24 - Penn State, PA @ Bryce Jordan Center
9/26 - Hampton, VA @ Hampton Coliseum
9/28 - Worcester, MA @ Centrum
9/29 - Albany, NY @ Pepsi Arena
10/1 - Hartford, CT @ Civic Center
10/2 - Uniondale, NY @ Nassau Coliseum
10/3 - Philadelphia, PA @ First Union Center
10/5 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Van Andel Arena
10/8 - Columbus, OH @ Schottenstein Center
10/9 - Chicago, IL @ Rosemont Horizon
10/10 - St. Louis, MO @ Keil Center
10/12 - Kansas City, MO @ Kemper Arena
10/13 - Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center
10/16 - Portland, OR @ Rose Garden Arena
10/17 - Tacoma, WA @ Tacoma Dome
10/19 - San Francisco, CA @ Cow Palace
10/20 - Sacramento, CA @ Arco Arena
10/22 - Phoenix, AZ @ America West
10/23 - Anaheim, CA @ Arrowhead Pond
10/25 - Denver, CO @ Pepsi Center
10/27 - Dallas, TX @ Reunion Arena
10/28 - Houston, TX @ Compaq Center
10/30 - San Antonio, TX @ Alamo Dome
10/31 - Biloxi, MS @ Mississippi Coast Coliseum

-- Robert Mancini

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G. Love & Special Sauce Looking For Big Break With "Philadelphonic"

3 Aug 1999 10:45:00 EDT

G. Love & Special Sauce

Woodstock '99 was chock full of ugly surprises, but it was a fairly happy event for the members of G. Love & Special Sauce.

The blues-folk-rap act was brought in as a last-minute replacement for Sugar Ray, whose singer, Mark McGrath, had come down with the flu (see "Sugar Ray Off Woodstock As McGrath Takes Ill").

The long-running Philadelphia group has been striving for mainstream recognition for some time now, and as drummer Jeff Clemens told MTV News' John Norris at Woodstock, the band is hoping that its latest album, "Philadelphonic," will do the trick.

"We'd all like to see a break, you know," Clemens told MTV News.

G. Love & Special Sauce's latest, "Philadelphonic," will hit stores on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the group is currently touring North America. If you'd like a taste of its "Cold Beverage," here's where to get it: