McDonalds co-opts Devo: Devo litigates right back

This from New Zealand:
Devo – the seminal new wave band who are still an active touring act – are suing McDonalds over the fast food chain’s Happy Meal toy that’s characterized by an extraordinary likeness to the costumed Devo and their trademarked and copyrighted “energy dome” (the Devo red hat.) The story and photo of [...]

MySpace Drags on and on and on

Has anyone out there noticed how noticeably worse the lag time on MySpace has become ever since they (the new owners, that is) jacked it up with new, superheavy bandwidth content?
It is SO annoying, that I can’t even send an e-mail from their help page…
Is this just me? Just askin’.

NY Times Gets Music Biz Partly Right

Yesterday’s Times Business Section published an article by David Carr noting that, though the retail part of the music industry is in the dumps, the live concert side of things is a boon for musicians, as exhibited by Bonaroo and the kazillions of other summer fests this year.
Well, duh!
Carr is a first-class writer and always [...]

Sub Pop Turns 20, Nostalgic

As if I didn’t need something to make me feel older, Sub Pop has decided to throw itself a birthday party, which has brought to the surface some bands that I haven’t thought about in ages, namely:
Seaweed; Big Chief; Green River; Love Battery; and Les Thugs.
Memory is a funny thing: I recall the first song [...]

Metallica Returns to Thrash Roots

Word at Rolling Stone mag has it that Rick Rubin – who coaxed both Johnny Cash, in a series of recordings for the American Recordings label, and Neil Diamond, to develop a pared-down, mostly-acoustic sound for their late-in-life recordings – has coaxed Metallica to do just the opposite: return to its thrash metal roots.
In the [...]