Friday, March 07, 2003

• Pseudo spins hip-hop TV show on Kazaa
  Pseudo.com plans to release "One Nation," a weekly TV show hosted by Ice-T that will be distributed on the Internet file-sharing network Kazaa. I've been waiting for some entertainment to be legitimately distriubuted this way, kudos to Pseudo for getting it together. In the super-duper long run, this is how it will all be done. TV shows, movies and music, distributed among consumers-- not from the top down.
  
  
• FCC's Media Chief Inclined To Lift Curbs (L.A. Times registration required)
  Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau Chief W. Kenneth Ferree says he is inclined to lift lbans that prevent TV broadcasters from also owning newspapers or more than a handful of radio stations in a single market and replace those regulations with a
  new "diversity rule." Such an approach might rely on a mathematical formula to measure the diversity of media voices in a local market rather than setting blanket prohibitions. If the formula is legit and not corrupted by media industry lobbyists, I might not have a problem with it. In the meanwhile, the FCC is getting another earful from the public today, this time in Seattle.
  
  
• Vivendi Loses $26B; Most Ever in France
  That's gotta hurt. In a related story, there is interest in buying Vivendi's U.S. entertainment assets, but the suitors only want pieces of it, not the whole thing-- which likely means that Vivendi will get less money than if they were able to sell of the assets whole. Viacom has it's eyes on Vivendi Universal's cable channels, while suitors like Liberty Media Corp. and NBC and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc want Universal's movie and television properties. Nobody, not surprisingly, really wants the music label. Well, except former oil tycoon Marvin Davis, who has made a $20 billion bid for all the entertainment assets. The Vivendi Universal board supposedlu thinks that isn't enough money, but they will decide soon who to sell what to.
  
  
• Red Hot Chili Peppers' Anthony Kiedis To Reveal His 'Scar Tissue'
  Scar Tissue, the autobiography of Red Hot Chilli Peppers singer-- wait, make that "singer"-- is scheduled to hit bookshelves late next year. Larry "Ratso" Sloman, who collaborated with Howard Stern on his two best-sellers Private Parts and Miss America will assist Kiedis in writing the book.
  
  
• Sasquatch Festival tickets Go On Sale
  Saturday, May 24 @ The Gorge Ampitheatre in George, Washington. It's like emo-indie-Woodstock, featuring
  
  : Coldplay
  : Flaming Lips
  : Jurassic 5
  : Modest Mouse
  : Neko Case
  : Jason Mraz
  : Death Cab For Cutie
  : DJ Cherry Canoe
  : Calexico
  : My Morning Jacket
  : Maktub
  : Joseph Arthur
  : Pedro The Lion
  : Sam Roberts
  : Kathleen Edwards
  : Eisley
  : Minus The Bear
  : Reclinerland
  : Brandi Carlile
  : Ron Sexsmith
  : Patrick Park
  
  
• Tiny US Firm Loads MP3 Song Files Onto Cellphones
  Xingtone announced on Thursday said it has developed technology to enable users to load digital songs onto cellphones for the first time, thus allowing your phone to ring with actual songs instead of ringtones. Any MP3 will work-- so it could just as easily be an MP3 of you saying "your cellphone is ringing, asshole!" The techonolgoy currently only works with Sprint PCS vision phones as well as Samsung A500, Samsung N400, Sanyo 4900 and Sanyo 5300. The R.I.A.A. and friends, of course, are not happy.
  

Thursday, March 06, 2003

• Atlanta Denies Event Permit to Urban Hip Hop Festival
  The city of Atlanta has denied the Urban Hip Hop Festival a permit to put on the event due to "serious deficiencies" in the application that " that render it incomplete for the purposes of review."
  
  What was missing? "The applicant failed to provide the names of the persons or organizations sponsoring the festival, together with the addresses and telephone numbers of all such persons or organizations; failed to provide the specific location within the city where the festival is to be held; failed to give the number of people estimated to attend the event; failed to provide a site plan showing the layout of the festival area, the festival production area in detail or specifying the boundaries of the overall festival assembly area; failed to say whether any street closings are requested; failed to say whether any beer, wine or alcoholic beverages are expected to be sold ; failed to provide a specific plan for internal security for the festival, specifying the number of off-duty police officers and private security guards it plans to hire, what arrangements the applicant has made for hiring them and details of the plan for payment; and failed to furnish a fully paid public liability damage insurance policy procured from a company licensed to do business in Georgia." Just a small over sight, I'm sure.
  
  
• Ras Kass To Priority And Police: 'Catch Me If You Can'
  Underground rapper Ras Kass did not appear for sentencing in January for a third DUI conviction and as a result faces sentencing to the California state mandatory nine months of time. He's currently on the run, and has tied his flight from the law and his efforts to extract himself from a Priority Records contract. This is the deal he wants: he'll turn himself in and give Priority Records the only copy of his new album as long as the label agrees to drop him. In these tough times in the music industry, I don't see how that could be seen as a bad deal for Priority.
  
  
• Limp Bizkit Land Jay-Z
  Limp Bizkit's upcoming album Bipolar, will feature Jay-Z on a track called "Rebels.' No comment from me-- I'll have to hear the track first.
  
  
• Sony Music Plans Layoffs
  Close to 1,000 folks will get the axe as Sony Music tries to stay afloat in the topsy-turvy music industry.
  
  
• End to PNC Bank Arts Center Tickets Suit Sought
  Clear Channel Entertainment asked a New Jersey judge yesterday to dismiss the state's lawsuit against it for giving American Expresscardholders a crack at tickets for concerts last summer before they were sold to the general public. The state lis arguing that New Jersey law is clear that more than 5 percent of the tickets to shows cannot be withheld from the general public, while up to 50 percent of the tickets to shows at the PNC Arts Center could have been gone by the time the public had a shot at them. The law came as a result of a crack down on scalpers, not pre-sales-- which is why Clear Channel thinks the suit should be thown out.
  
  
• Knopfler Plans Tour, Duets Album
  Former Dire Straits frontman/guitarist Mark Knopfler has lined up a 30-date North American tour in support of his third solo album The Ragpicker's Dream The tour starts June 26 in Portsmouth, Va., and wraps July 31 in Vancouver. More impotantly than all that, he's been recording a duets album with llegendary Americana singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris. No release date set for that, though.
  
  
• GBV Causes An 'Earthquake'
  Earthquake Glue, a new album from indie power-poppers ">Guided By Voices will hit stores on Aug. 19. If you can't wait that long, click here to pre-order Mist King Urth by Lifeguards, which features GBV frontman Robert Pollard and GBV guitarist Doug Gillard. It comes out on March 25.
  
  
• Gangstarr Offers Sneak Preview of New Album
  Get yourself over to GangStarr online and peep "Skillz" and lengthy clips of "Deadly Habits", "Nice Girl Wrong Place", "Rite Where You Stand", and "Sabotage" from their forthcoming album The Ownerz. The tracks are, as they say, hot to death. The Ownerz is due in stores on May 6. Pick up Full Clip: A Decade of Gang Starr if the words "awesome" and "Gang Starr" don't relatively appear together in your vocabulary.
  

Wednesday, March 05, 2003

• NME's Top 100 Albums of All Time
  Here's the top 10:
  1. The Stone Roses, The Stone Roses
  2. Pixies, Doolittle
  3. The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds
  4. Television, Marquee Moon
  5. The Beatles, Revolver
  6. Love, Forever Changes
  7. The Strokes, Is This It
  8. The Smiths, The Queen Is Dead
  9.The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground & Nico
  10. The Sex Pistols, Never Mind The Bollocks...
  
  Of course, I realize they just publish these lists to make people angry and to give themselves publicity-- but still. The Strokes??? Seriously?
  And speaking of lists...
  
  
• Spin Magazine Presents 'The Ultimate List Issue'
  This could also be titled Spin Magazine Presents An Issue We We're Too Lazy To Actually Find Stories For. Contains 115 lists with subjects like "Top 10 Best Butts," "15 Most Influencial Albums (Not Recorded by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Elvis, or the Rolling Stones)," "Seven Rock Stars with Bad Teeth" and more. Coming soon to a newsstand near you.
  
  
• Hall Induction Sparks Interest in Clash
  The Clash, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame blah blah blah. The true story is buried deep in the above linked article: the tracklistings for The 2 CD set The Essential Clash are different in the U.S. and U.K. versions. . "Broadway" or "This is Radio Clash" aren't on the U.K. version, while "Groovy Times" and "Whiteman" are only available overseas.
  
  
• 3LW Become A Trio Again ... Finally
  And the saga continues. 15-year-old Jessica 'J' Benson replaces Naturi Naughton in R&B girl group 3LW. Naughton, you may remember, left the group after some food was allegedly thrown at her, the group allegedly encouraged her to sleep with someone to get on a Nelly tour and she was allegedly mocked for having a nice family life and not being "ghetto enough." A court case between the group and Naughton is still pending. Best o' luck to the supp;oedly "ghetto enough" Benson.
  
  
• Nikki Sixx Book Covers Girls, Girls, Girls And Drugs, Drugs, Drugs
  You've read Kurt Cobain's Journals. You've marveled at The Dirt, the biography of Motley Crue. Coming soon is a combination of the two: The Heroin Diaries, a book of journal entries by Motley Crue bassist and songwriter Nikki Sixx. It apparently is a look at his journals in the year before he quit doing heroin-- lotsa of sex and rock n' roll but lots of drugs (and overdosing and shitting on himself and throwing up) as well. No pre-order link yet, sorry. look for it around the holidays.
  
  
• Mixtapes The Other Music Industry
  Very good MTV News feature about mix tapes, with lots of history and insight. Well worth your time to read (it is kind of long..) and is interesting enough to peep at even if you're not at all into hip-hop.
  
  
• Jewel Sees the Light
  Jewel's next album, due in June, will feature some club beats. "I don't just sit at home and listen to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska," she says. "I love to go out and dance."
  

Tuesday, March 04, 2003

• Congress Seeks to Ban Live Music and Dancing
  Well, sort of. The RAVE Act (H.R. 718) and the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834) would allow the federal government to punish event promoters for the crimes of others, and the result would stifle free speech and musical expression since promoters wouldn't want to put on events where people may smoke a joint in the corner or pop some pills. As a Goody Two Shoes (don't drink, don't smoke, whatdoyoudo?) who likes to go to shows, I am very opposed to the portions of these bills that will effect my entertainment options. I hope my readers will join me in opposing these bills.
  
  Click here or more complete details about the RAVE Act (H.R. 718) and the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834) and/or read the full text of the RAVE Act (H.R. 718) and the CLEAN-UP Act (H.R. 834). After you've read all that and become properly enraged, click here to automatically send your representatives a FAX saying how wrongheaded the anti-culture portions of these bills are.
  
  
• Labels Think Apple Has Perfect Pitch (LATimes registration required)
  Apple is readying the release of a version of a service that would allow people to buy and download tracks onto their computer and into their IPods. Music files would be in the quote-unquote "secure" and higher fidelty MPEG-4 Advanced Audio Codec format. Read the article for fuller details of hat might be a decent, legal service for Macheads.
  
  
• New Music Magazine Readies Fall Launch
  Good Music, which is being developed by ex-Spin and Vibe executives John Rollins, Alan Light and Dana Sacher, has secured a deal for business and back-office services with World Publications, its executives say, to permit publishing two issues. The first two issues are set to appear late this year and will be aimed at music fans in their 30s and up, a demographic that now account for 56% of the music purchases in America. If it's done right, it could be really well-- but I hope they keep and open ear and don'[t immedietly dis all whipersnappers.
  
  
• Has CMJ Become the Monster That Ate College Radio?
  The College Music Journal, the Billboardof the college music scene substituted a compilation they put together on playlists of reporting stations when their computers were unable to verify that a reportd album existed. According to this post on the CMJ message boards, the will now put the word UNVERIFIED if something is too indie to be recognized by their computer system. Still, it is a scandal and the above linked article is juicy reading.
  
  
• Donnas Join Lollapalooza Mainstage
  The chances that I'll go to this year's Lollapalooza just improved, but I'm reserving final judgement until I see who will be on the second stage. It still is pretty tenative-- Incubus does nothing for me and I've yet to hear anything truly great from Audioslave.
  
  
• 50 Cent Discount: How Eminem mishandled rap's new star
  Excellent article (in Slate of all places!) detailing how 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Trying doesn't live up to the hype and pales in comparison to 50's previous work.. It perfect sums up my reactions to what I've heard from the album.
  
  
• Snoop Series Among New MTV Shows
  "Doggy Fizzle Televizzle" is coming back! Woo-hoo!
  
  
• X-ecutioners To Teach Listeners 'Scratchology'
  This is a great idea for a compilation! On April 8, turntabilist group The X-ecutioners will release Scratchology, which will contain tracks outlining a chronological history of the scratch. It will feature tracks from artists like Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore (the inventor of the scratch, yo!), DJ Q-Bert, D-Styles, and the X-ecutioners themselves. Sort of like an audio version of that documentary "Scratch," which you need to rent or buy today if you haven't seen it already. Pre-order Scratchology by clicking here, you sukkaa!
  
  
• Depeche Mode's Gahan Plans Solo Debut, Tour
  Depeche Mode lead singer Dave Gahan will release his debut solo album, Paper Monsters on June 3. Song titles include "Hold On," "A Little Piece," "Stay," "Bitter Apple," "Bottle Living," and "She Said (Goodbye)." In other Depeche solo news, Marin Gore will release Counterfit 2, an album of covers that will serve as a sequel to his 1989 solo EP Counterfit, on April 28. Sorry kids-- no pre-sale links for either album yet.
  
  
• AC/DC Member First Person Thrown Out of Rock Hall Of Fame
  The headline is wrong, becuase former AC/DC bassist Mark Evans was never a member. His was, however, supposed to be inducted in with the rest of AC/DC this year, but something happened. Namely, Suzan Evans, Executive Director of the Hall of Fame, stated in December that Mark's inclusion, and the fact that this was widely publicized by the Hall of Fame since early November, was "an error." Many requests for clarification of this statement and an explanation of the extraordinary actions by the Hall of Fame have met with no success.
  
  
• Media Meltdown Obscures FCC Debate
  A very good report from John Nichols about the recent public FCC hearings regarding removing caps to media ownership-- especially the effects of big media barely covering this major overhaul in policy.
  
  
• The people's First Amendment rights should not be auctioned off to media barons
  From a speech by Mark Cooper of The Stanford Center for Internet & Society. Very well put and worth reading.
  
  
• Two New Pete Rock & CL Smooth Songs!
  "Shine On Me" and "Climax" will be released on vinyl on April 4th. Click the above link to pre-order. For those of you saying "Pete What and C.L. Who?", just buy this album and get to studying.
  

Monday, March 03, 2003

• Singer-Songwriter Hank Ballard Dies
  A big R.I.P. and maximum respect paid to a true pioneer from all of us at Rocktober.com For you youngstas who don't know, here's why you need to give props to the late, great Hank Ballard:
  
  1) He wrote "The Twist," which was covered by Chubby Checker. "The Twist" was the first American rock/pop dance done by yourself (i.e. not in tandum with a partner that you were touching) and cleared the way for dances ranging from The Watsusi and The Mashed Potato all the way up to The Running Man, The Cabbage Patch and the "So Fresh, So Clean." (is there a name for that dance?)
  
  2) His "Work With Me Annie" was one of the first songs to be banned by radio for lewdness, which led the way for many a more explicit artist to do battle with the FCC further down the road.
  
  3) "Work With Me Annie" was the first song to generate response songs-- most famously Etta James' "Roll With Me Henry" but also "Annie Had a Baby" and "Annie's Aunt Fannie." This series of songs laid the groundwork for everything from hip-hop battle response songs to pop gender war response songs ("No Scrubs" vs. "No Pigeons," for example).
  
  
• Clash Nixes Plans for Rock Hall Reunion
  Thank goodness.
  
  
• Michael Records War Protest Song
  After grousing about a possible boy-band Band-Aid 2, George Michael has put his money where his whine is and recorded a cover of Don McLean 's "The Grave". It is set to be broadcast in Europe really soon, but dollars to donuts says we never hear it in the U.S. (except for you crafty file traders).
  
  
• And They Said He Couldn't Run a Major Record Label (NYTimes registaration required)
  L.A. Reid, head of Arista Records gets a puff piece in The New York Times. There's nothing in there that isn't true, but it reads a lot like someting from In Style, not the paper of record. To get a more even-handed story, read the above linked profile and then peep this Fox News bit about what is missing from the New York Times story.
  
  
• E-Music Sites Settle on Prices. It's a Start. (NYTimes registaration required)
  Very interesting NY Times article about how the legitimate online music services are arriving at their pricing structures.
  
  
• Reaching Out to the Multitasking Modern Teenager (NYTimes registaration required)
  A kind of interesting article about how MTV-competitior MuchMusicUSA is harnessing the inbred multi-tasking of the net generation to produce shows that incorporate the Internet-- from requesting videos to selecting VJs. Unlime most of what MTV does with their web site, a lotof what happens on MuchMusic's site effects what happens on the air.
  
  
• AOL Takes 'Sessions' To MuchMusic USA
  Speaking of MMUSA, they've signed a deal with AOL to move the popular broadband online music program "Sessions@AOL" from computers to televisions. Check your local listings (or the story linked above) for broadcast times.
  
  
• Britpop Boom and Bust Laid Bare
  Fellow music geeks, be on the look-out for "Live Forever," a documentary about Brit-pop from the days of The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses through the end of the Blur vs. Oasis wars. It debuted it London today and gets wider U.K. release on March 21. The above linked article has details about what's in the documentary. Looks good to me, can't wait to see it.
  
  Here's the "Live Forever" website, which has more info and trailers. The soundtrack kicks ass too, but you gotta get it as an import.
  
  
• Happy 20th Birthday to the CD
  The BBC offers up a pretty interesting look at the effects of March 1, 1983-- the date the CD was introduced in the U.K.