Sheridan Square shows ArtistEnt intent
Sugar Ray, actress Arquette among featured
ArtistEnt focuses on original content created by such artists as rock group Sugar Ray, actress Rosanna Arquette, J. Geils Band front man Peter Wolf and recording artist-multimedia music pioneer Todd Rundgren. Each will produce a minimum of a half-hour's worth of content per week.
Sugar Ray's site will provide fans with live and behind-the-scenes material, featuring flash animation, characters and music trivia games.
Arquette's "Under the Rainbow" show will be an Internet radio-Webcam interview program -- first up is an hourlong interview with musician Peter Gabriel -- that originates from her kitchen.
Wolf, a former Boston disc jockey, will host a roots music-oriented radio show, "Hour of the Wolf."
Rundgren's contributions will include maintaining his own artist site, using the technologies and systems he created called PatroNet. ArtistEnt acquired this subscription service, which offers musicians integrated Internet distribution and marketing based on fan subscriptions, from Rundgren. PatroNet is designed to facilitate the underwriting of new works of content creators by consumers.
ArtistEnt also acquired Interocitor, a proprietary Internet software technology developed by Rundgren that's based on CD-ROM technology. He plans to reintroduce his PatroNet site in April via the Interociter, which will be linked to ArtistEnt.
Furthermore, ArtistEnt will hold the U.S. digital downloading rights to Sheridan Square-owned Artemis Records, whose current roster includes rapper Kurupt, female hard rockers Kittie and singer-songwriter Warren Zevon. The label also administers singer-songwriter Steve Earle's E Squared label and noted poster artist Frank Kozik's Man's Ruin Records.
Stuart Shapiro, whose credits stretch from co-founder and exec VP of Woodstock.com and Firstlook.com to director-producer of the USA Network series "Night Flight," will serve as prexy-CEO of ArtistEnt, reporting to Goldberg.
