Friday, June 20, 2003

• Libertines Guitarist Out Of Band?
  It seems so-- at least for the moment. Here's the posting that the above story is based on. Things sound repairable in the long run, as long as everyone in The Libertines sorts out their issues.
  
  
• Apple Gets Indie Bands
  On June 5th, about 150 executives from independent labels attended a summit at Apple's Cupertino, California, headquarters and discussed getting their music on Apple's acclaimed online music store. It will take a few minutes, but indie music will be on the service Real Soon Now.
  
  
• Biafra Must Pay Back Royalties, Damages
  A three-judge panel of a state appeals court ruled Wednesday that former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra must pay $220,000 in back royalties and other damages to the other members of the group and affirmed that the DK's catalog of songs beloned to Decay Music, a partnership formed by four band members. The panel did, however, reverse the lower court's decision to break up the partnership, sending the case back to the trial court to determine whether the partnership among the former DKs should be dissolved and its assets sold.
  
  
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Has 29 Semifinalist Candidates
  The 50 folks on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee have decided that the following artists are semi-finalists to be presented to voters, who will limit the pool down to 15. To get to those 15, voters will chose 3 of the following 50 and the top vote getters will go onto the next round. Those 15 will be voted on again and the top handful of vote getters will be inducted into the HOF. Anyway, here's who is up as semi-finalists:
  
  Jeff Beck, Black Sabbath, Jackson Browne, The Chantels , Chic, The Dells, The "5" Royales, Buddy Guy, The Harptones, George Harrison, J Geils Band, Wanda Jackson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, MC5, John Mellencamp, The Meters, Laura Nyro, Gram Parsons, The Pretenders, Prince, Bob Seger, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, The Stooges, Joe Tex, Traffic, Van Halen, War and ZZ Top.
  
  If I were voting, I'd choose (and it'd be a tough choice): Wanda Jackson, The Stooges and Prince
  
  
• Funeral Fund Provides for Jazz Pioneers
  Nice little piece about The Coda Jazz Fund, an organization that helps pay for funerals and headstones for career jazz musicians.
  
  
• Report: Viacom Interested in CNN Purchase
  Thankfully, CNN passed. Although it had to be tempting for AOLTimeWarner-- they've got a crushing debt. Still, CNN is a crown jewel-- good on them for holding on to it and preventing the further consolidation of the media.
  
  
• Houston, Brown to Hit Big Screen Together
  Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown are in talks to take on "Beffy and Charlie," a film in which they will portray musicians who are also gangsters. Whitney at least hs some sort of acting skills ("The Bodyguard," "Waiting To Exhale")-- Bobby, however, I'm less sure of.
  
  
• Brooks & Dunn Plan to Rest 'Neon Circus'
  Their country-palooza tour will follow Lollapalooza's lead and take a few years off. Though judging by soft sales for this year's come back Lollapalooza, perhaps they shouldn't put the tour in dry dock for too long.
  
  
• Paul Stanley Working On Solo Album
  Don't get too lathered up about this KISS fans-- he's just starting to work on it and won't get down to business on it until the end of this summer's co-headlining tour with Aerosmith.
  
  
• Iron Maiden Ready to "Dance"
  Devil horns up! Iron Maiden are slated to release Dance of Death in September and a double DVD, "Visions of the Beast," on July 15th (click on the title to pre-order, you rocker!). Plus, a summer ampitheatre tour with Motorhead and Dio, booked by some incredibly optimistic promoters! If Maiden/Motorhead/Dio can still pull 10-15,000 screaming metal heads in more than one or two markets (suburban Detroit, I'm looking your way.), I'll eat my hat. Eddie Lives!
  
  
• Snoop makes a stop for burger in Bishop
  Sort of funny account of what happened when Snoop Dogg and his posse stopped for cheeseburgers at a Dairy Queen in a small town outside of Corpus Christi, Texas.
  
  
• College Radio DJ Thinks He Has A Cult Following
  From The Onion, of course. This one hit a little close to home (but I really did have a cult following on my colelge radio show! I swear!), but it hit all the marks correctly. It just as easily coulda been "Blogger Thinks He Has A Cult Following," though. And it still would've hit a little too close to home.
  

posted by Randy on 1:09 PM | permanent link to this entry

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

• CLEAR CHANNEL NEWS: CCE Rethinks Concert Business Model
  Radio/concert promotion monolith Clear Channel is changing its business practices in it's concert promotion division. They are lowering artist guarantees and ticket prices, as well as letting the local promoters they bought a few years back book shows on their own (instead of force feeding national tours that work in some markets and not in others). Read the whole article, it is really interesting. In other Clear Channel news-- diabetics can now go to CC concerts without worrying about dying.
  
  
• iTunes -- the "i" doesn't stand for innovation
  Boo-hoo, the death of the album. Wah-wah, no more experimenting. Hogwash, sez I. MP3s and other low-cost digital distribution options should usher in an age of more experimentation on the part of artists-- it just won't be packaged all together in some bloated, over-priced collection.
  
  
• Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading
  "If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions. There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws." Read the whole article-- scary stuff.
  
  
• Hail to the Geeks
  A sort of over-obvious piece from Salon about Radiohead and Hail To The Thief. Geeks top the pop charts-- what's up with that? I paraphrase, but that's the gist.
  
  
• E-40 Finished "Book Of Slang"
  This slang dictionary has been in the works for a long while now. In facrt, I interviewed E-40 about this book in 1998. Anyway, it's coming out (in conjunction with Murder Dog magazine) on July 22. Also due that day, a new album from E-40 entitled Breaking News. Pre-order that shiznit, yo. Do you overstand me? I thought you thought, beeeyyoootch!
  
  
• Ice Cube's Westside Connection Reconnect For Reunion LP
  West-siiiide!!! Ice Cube, Mack 10 and WC have already concluded eight songs for a Westside Connection album currently called Terrorist Threat that will probably come out in October.
  
  
• Bubba & Nappy Added to Iraq Tour Amidst Accusations of Rap Blackout
  The USO has seen the error of its ways and has booked Nappy Roots and Bubba Sparxxxon its upcoming tour of the middle east. The full line-up of artists partcipating in Project Salute 2003 can be seen here-- I can imagine many an enlisted grunt is psyched to hear they at least have a chance at actually being entertained instead of suffering through, oh, Wayne Newton or the bevvy of country artists who seem to be along for the ride.
  
  
• So Much for The Afterglow: The 20 Worst Post-Break Up Debacles
  Nice stuff from Pitchfork-- a list of the worst post-band-break-up side projects. Some obscure selections, but then I guess it wouldn't be Pitchfork if they kept it all mainstream.
  

posted by Randy on 1:17 PM | permanent link to this entry

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

• Original Duran Duran lineup reunites for album, tour
  Duran Duran's original five members are celebrating the band's 25th anniversary by reuniting for a tour of the U.S. and Japan, and plan to release a new album next year. The original members of the group have not made music together since they performed at Live Aid in 1985. In other Duran Duran news Capitol plans to release remastered versions of the albums Duran Duran (1981) and Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) on Aug. 5.
  
  
• Dashboard Confessional Exits Beck Tour
  Apparently, ticket sales were not as high as some had hoped, so the Beck/Dashboard Confessional mope-a-palooza is no more.
  
  
• Music Biz Files Piracy Suits Vs. 18 Retailers
  If you own a business and you're selling pirated material you've got no one but yourself to blame when The Man shuts you down.
  
  
• Dunn Getting Into Post-Show Stage-Diving
  Suddenly, going to a Brooks & Dunn concert has become like seeing Pearl Jam in 1994.
  
  
• Lollapalooza Cancels Tour's Opening Date
  Who do you believe-- the band who says the stage was to small for their equipment or the promoter who points out that they only sold 4,000 tickets thus far. Hmmmmmmmmm. Anyway, the new first date is July 4 in Noblesville, Ind.
  
  
• Vivendi Eyes Six Bidders in Entertainment Sell-Off
  Marvin Davis, Liberty Media Corp, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Viacom and Edgar Bronfman Jr. are among the bidders for all or part of VivendiUniversal's movie, television and games business. Bids will be collected on June 23.
  
  
• Senators Want Old Media Cross-Ownership Limits
  A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Thursday plan to push legislation to reinstate rules that would bar a company from owning a television station, a newspaper and radio outlets in a single market, a spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan said on Monday, thereby (basically) repealing the recent FCC decision to raise the ownership caps in the media industry. The bummer news: m such legislation is likely to be stalled by rebublicans in the House.
  
  
• The MP3 Economy
  Nice pie graph from Business 2.0 showing who gets what cut of the money you spend on legally downloading a track. The lesson to aspiring musicians is simple-- start your own label, write your songs and control your publishing for maximum dollar potential.
  
  
• Beat At Their Own Game (L.A. Times registration required)
  Pretty interstiung article about how session drummers have been basically squeezed out of the music industry by drum machines, sampling and the rise of smaller, home based studios. The best chestnut is buried deep in the story. Rick Rubin is working on Jay-Z's next album (his alleged retirement album), using a vintage 808 to create the beats. Can you imagine Jigga gettin' ill on some old-skool-LL-Cool-J's-first-album-shit? "I Can't Live Without My Radio 2K3" or something like that? Word up, that'd be funky fresh.
  
  
• Can anyone stop the music cops?
  Very good Salon piece about the state of the file-sharing battles now that the R.I.A.A. has won a major battle when the courts forced Verizon to hand over the names of people suspected of uploading copyrighted material onto Kazaa. The piece suggests that the next stepfor pro-file trading forces in this battle is to take it to Congress, but finding a Democratic sponsor for "The Brownback Bill" has been hard. The Brownback Bill would make companies fully disclose their DRM systems to consumers, prevent the government from forcing manufacturers to install DRM schemes and make content owners first file a civil lawsuit against an anonymous alleged digital thief and then get identifying informationonly if a judge decides the case has merit.
  
  
• Dexy's To Reform
  Dexy's Midnight Runners have announced plans to reform and embark upon a UK tour later this year. In the crazy world of U.K pop this makes sense-- DMR actually had a career over there beyond "Come On Eileen."
  
  
• Bonnaroo Part Two Goes Off Without A Hitch
  Congrtats to the organizers and all the stinky hippies who attended. They were upposed to do it again later this year at the same site that Field Day was supposed to take place at, but they've cancelled it because it looked like they were going to have the same kinds of permit problems.
  
  
• Blink-182 LP Gets Title From GN'R, Gloom From Robert Smith
  I think I mentioned this here before, but it is worth posting again since it is just so weird: for their next album (now titled Use Your Erection Iand II), punk-poppers Blink-182 will be working with DJ Shadow, Dan the Automator, Robert Smith of The Cure and possibly The Neptunes. The album(s) will hit store shelves sometime this fall.
  
  
• Hip-Hop & Money: Def Jam CEO Being Wooed by AOL For Top Spot
  Lyor Cohen is just the kind of guy a href="http://www.aol.com" target="NEW">AOLTW needs to get their music operation back on its feet. It is for that very reason that Universal probaly won't let him go-- but I suppose we'll see what happens under Universal's new owners.
  
  
• DEA Uses RAVE Act Threats to Block Montana NORML/SSDP Benefit
  Remember when all those supporters of The RAVE Act said we were being paranoid when we worried about The Man using the law to stop events they didn't politically agree with from happening? Tunns out we were right.
  
  
• Dylan Reissues Due in August
  August 19, to be percise. In chronological order, the fifteen Dylan albums to be reissued are: The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964), Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Blonde on Blonde (1966), John Wesley Harding (1967), Nashville Skyline (1969), Planet Waves (1974), Blood on the Tracks (1975), Desire (1976), Street Legal (1978), Slow Train Coming (1978), Infidels (1983), Oh Mercy (1989) and his last studio release, Love and Theft (2001). All will be remastered and also super-duper remastered in Sony's SACD format. Another Side, Bringing It All Back Home, Blood on the Tracks, Slow Train Coming and Love and Theft -- will be reissued in 5.1 surround sound format, the top of the food chain for sound quality. There's no way I'm doing Amazon links for all those albums.. Sorry.
  
  
• Dennis Miller of 2003 Meets Dennis Miller of 1988
  Hi;arity ensues. Seriously. Check it out.
  
  
• MP3s of Every Song Ever Plyed Or Mentioned On "The Gillmore Girls"
  

posted by Randy on 2:59 PM | permanent link to this entry

Monday, June 16, 2003

Hello my good people! I have returned from Hawaii! I have lots of news and blogs and e-mails to catch up on, so I'll hit you back tomorrow with that Rocktober.com goodness you have come to know and love. I promise. Right now I am too jet lagged and behind in my readings to do any blogging that would be worthwhile. Gimmie 24 hours and I'll be back on top!

posted by Randy on 12:47 PM | permanent link to this entry