Friday, May 31, 2002

• You crazy kids with your Internets and your World Wide Webs-- you have no idea how cool it was back in the day! Read about it how awesome BBS' were and feel the nostalgia rush over you! Respect your elders, you whippersnappers!
  
  
• From Ja Rule To Cam'ron, MCs Blaze Airwaves With Unauthorized Remixes. The unwritten part of this story is about how copyright law once again threatens to clamp down on artists expressing themselves, but it still is worth reading.
  
  
• Ruling assures trial for Love's Viv Uni lawsuit. The bad news is that Courtney Love's suit against Universal will no longer decide if the "7 Year Statute Exemption" is illegal, but the good news is that she and Universal will go head to head over breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, breach of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty.
  
  
• Fugazi have postponed their U.K./Ireland tour due to a death in the family. No word on who died, but Rocktober.com sends our condolences to whomever needs 'em.
  
  
• Def Leppard's next album, X, will feature tracks produced by Andreas Carlsson and Per Aldeheim, whose credits include Britney Spears and *NSync. "Song is King," said frontman Joe Elliott. My fave quote: "These guys worked with Celine Dion, Britney Spears, N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, but ... They are the biggest Dio fans on the planet!" How is this encouraging news?
  
  
• Ex-Massive Attack member jailed over $44 debt. The BBC reports that Claude Williams, 41, used a fork and his fists to beat up a former friend, John Hamer, over a debt worth the Canadian equivalent of about $44. Williams was sentenced to 18 months in jail. Williams was a founding member of Massive Attack, but left after Blue Lines.
  
  
• Why can't British acts make it in America these days? Here's a article that pretty much spells out the troubles U.K. acts have in the U.S.
  
  
• So, where did Gary Glitter end up after serving time for possessing kiddie porn? In kidde porn capital Cambodia, though he now seems to be on to Vietnam-- another hotbed of child-sex tourism.
  

Thursday, May 30, 2002

• Marilyn Manson Splits With Bassist Twiggy Ramirez. Aside from Marilyn himself, he had the best Model/Serial Killer name. He's being replaced by KMFDM's Tim Skold.
  
  
• Grammys To Introduce New R&B Categories. Wonders never cease! Last year, they finally recognized rap/song collaborations. Now they will be adding best contemporary R&B album and best urban alternative performance as well as changing the best traditional R&B vocal album award to best traditional R&B performance. Kudos to the academy to keeping up with the times-- and this time only a few years too late!! My humble opinion is that they should break "alternative urban performance" into "alternative R&B" and "alternative rap."
  
  
• Bowie Dusts Off 'Ziggy Stardust' Movie. It's all part of the 30th anniversary celebration of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The film will open July 10 at New York's Film Forum, followed by a national rollout this summer and fall while EMI will release an enhanced version of the album containing an additional CD with outtakes and demos on June 6.
  
  
• Dixie Chicks, Dave Matthews Will Tape "Crossroads". Hank Williams Jr. and Kid Rock made sense. Elton John & Ryan Adams was a good pairing. Have they run out of ideas already? Not that I even get CMT here is sophisticated San Francisco. Harumph.
  
  
• Jay-Z, Ja Rule, Wu-Tang Protesting NYC School Budget Cuts. Not the first artists I think of when I look for people to encourage kids to stay in school, but good on them anyway.
  
  
• Osbournes Sued Over T-Shirt Slogan. The Osbourne clan have a shirt which reads "*&@# my family! I'm moving in with...The Osbourne Family." T-Shirt Hell, Inc apparently already sells a shirt which reads "Fuck My Family I'm Moving In With The Osbournes." Follow this link to see the two designs side by side .
  
  
• Government Will Ease Limits on Domestic Spying by F.B.I.. The only part of this that really bugs me is that government agents are now allowed to spy on religious institutions. The rest of the new rules allow agents to collect things in public places on the Internet and do database work to prevent crimes. However, I do acknowledge this a slippery slope into Hoover territory. I hope the F.B.I. watches what they are doing. On the other hand, current evidence suggests that they can't even get e-mail surrvailance right.
  
  
• Salmon Rushdie wrote a compelling NYT editorial about Pakistan and India. The reason I mention it here is the final line: In the immortal words of the Spice Girls, "Will this déjà vu never end?" How righteous is that?!?
  
  
• More Trouble In Big Media Land: The board of embattled French media giant Vivendi Universal on Wednesday said it will create a committee to oversee corporate governance, as Chief Executive Officer Jean-Marie Messier aims to reduce debt and recover from the company’s sagging stock price. Much talk about selling off units of the company. Unfortunately, no talks about selling off the record labels. A boy can dream, though.
  
  
• Big Labels Keep Brushing Off Internet Music. When outlets like The Street.com start harping on the major labels for not doing more on the Internet and with file-trading, you know the tide as turned.
  
  
• The Sammy Hagar vs. David Lee Roth tour has kicked off. No one has been killed yet, but check out the opening night set lists. Go, Dave, go!
  
  
• Dave Marsh sez: Ticketmaster is evil. He's right.
  

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

• 'The Osbournes' To Return For Second Season. That's great news, but scheduling 20 episodes might be overkill. This is a phenom which has peaked, though I certainly can't wait for more. Life is strange that way.
  
  
• Pistol Used to Kill Selena Is Found. Guess where? In the home of that case's court reporter. It allegedly was accidently boxed up when she quit. Call me a skeptic, but I ain't buying it. And even if it did accidfently get boxed up with her stuff, what was it doing near her stuff and not in the trail records? Fishy stuff
  
  
• Fatboy Slim was supposd to be working on Blur's new album, but that apparently isn't happening any more.
  
  
• Do the terroists win if Primal Scream change the title of a song?. They had one in the can entitled "Bomb The Pentagon," but they've gone back and made changes to it. The new song is called 'Rise." They've also ditched the titled for thier upcoming album. It was to be called Evil Heat, but that has also gone by the wayside.
  
  
• Musicians Sticking With Labels is an AP story that lays out all the "why-do-artists-need-labels-today?" facts but fails to make the obvious conclusion: we are none to far away from the day when an artist will essentially pay labels to market them (with payment coming from a percentage of sales).
  
  
• Popular `Hot Dog Man' Sidelined By Surgery. You know, smoking and eating hot dogs every day for 22 years will do that to a man.
  

Tuesday, May 28, 2002

• Alan Ball's Life After Death is a very good profile of Allan Ball, writer of "American Beauty" and creator of "Six Feet Under."
  
  
• Eminem News Item #1: Dozens Injured During Eminem Performance At Radio Festival. One heart attack. The rest, just scrapes and bruises.
  
  
• Eminem News Item #2: Eminem's The Eminem Show Release Date Moves To Sunday. In their rush to beat bootleggers and the Internet, Eminem's label got product into stores quicker than expected, so they decided to release The Eminem Show two days early.
  
  
• Jazzy Jeff Finally Getting The Spotlight On Upcoming Solo LP. Thank goodness. I remember back when it was DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince-- note the order of billing!
  
  
• The R.I.A.A.'s Lawyers Are The Hardest Working People In Show Business: They're back in court, now suing audiogalaxy due to their alleged bad filtering software.
  
  
• Which party is the bigger idiot in this story? The radio station that promised $30,000 a year for five years to anyone who would tatoo their call letters on their foreheads or the two (count 'em, two) men who actually did it and are now suing for they money the never recieved?
  
  
• I remember what it was like to be a slacker-- half-employed, chilling in cafe's all day, doing some freelance work and then hanging out with my buddies at night. The SF Chronicle printed a story today that took me back to my broke, but more care-free days. Ahhh, memories.