Times New Viking Deported… Or Touring UK (Definitely One of The Two Though)
By Nobodaddy on Apr 9 2008
Maybe it's because of all of the recent "Go Green" hype, or maybe it's because of the swell in homeland hope and pride that accompanies an upcoming presidential election, but whatever the reason, one thing is clear: America is ready to clean up its act!
And we're starting with those Columbus, OH speaker-wreckers Times New Viking. Over the past several years, these sludgy noise-poppers have been dumping their noise-polluted records, most recently their Matador Records debut Rip It Off (TMT Review), and no one has had the courage to stand up to their skuzzy onslaughts.
But now, at long last, a new day is dawning. No longer will the United States look the other way about Times New Viking's catchy brand of noise pollution. That's why we're packing them up, cramming them onto a cargo ship, and depositing them (safely) on the other side of the Atlantic. And do you know what else? We're even packing up their dirty, dirty records and shipping them overseas too! That's right, as part of its community service, Matador is spearing-up all of the Rip It Off copies it can find along the side of the highway and shipping them over to the UK on April 28 (where, presumably, they can be recycled into lightweight furniture for Thom Yorke's solar-powered summer house).
Now if only we could pass a bill to clean up all those Dirty Projectors, we'd be in business.
Good riddance to rad rubbish:
* Thanks Hari!
# Thanks Kevin!
Rock ‘N’ Roll Is The New York Dolls: New York Dolls for Live At The Fillmore East (Thanks Again Morrissey)
By Alexis Thomas on Apr 9 2008
This is rock ‘n’ roll: Skinny boys who smoke smack and confidently flip their long hair back like conceited prom queens. It's beer cans crumbled like pieces of paper. It’s sneaking out of your parents' second-story window to go to a show, the show, probably the most important show of your life. (And if it’s not, then fuck it, at least you got drunk and/or laid).
Rock ‘n’ roll is a band like The New York Dolls, who played their very first show on Christmas Eve 1971 at a homeless shelter, who listened to The Rolling Stones, MC5, and The Stooges in the same way Kiss, Blondie, and The Smiths listened to them. Without The New York Dolls, rock record buffs would be missing essential building blocks in their collection: Too Much Too Soon, Seven Day Weekend, and New York Dolls are albums as important as Whiskey Sours and unfiltered cigarettes to every new generation of smut.
The New York Dolls' first break came when Rod Stewart invited them to fill the opening slot in London, but their second break is all because of Morrissey. In 2004, Morrissey organized his heroes to reunite for the Meltdown Festival, which gave way to both an album and DVD on Morrissey’s Attack label. So thank Morrissey for giving us a second chance to catch all the glory.
Which leads me up to the new news: On June 17, The New York Dolls are releasing Live At The Fillmore East, a new live album recorded last December, via Sony BMG. It's supposedly cleaner than any live document released before, but it still sounds like how we prefer them: raw.
Live At The Fillmore East tracklist
NY District Court Supports RIAA In Case Regarding Kazaa; Vague, Hulking Menace of Copyright Law Gradually Lumbering This Way, We Might Want to Move In a Few Years
By Joe B. on Apr 9 2008
On March 31, a federal District Court in New York provided “specific language” for labels to use when suing someone who didn’t necessarily share files per se, but merely placed them in a context in which they’re allowed to be shared.
Basically: A lady got sued in August 2005 for having 600 MP3s in her Kazaa shared folder. The woman, along with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, filed briefs saying, “Wait, guys, you don’t have any proof that these files were shared, just that they were in a shared folder.”
Copyright law regulates “publication,” which has a fancy legal definition wherein you distribute something by selling it or giving it away or lending it or whatever. The labels were accusing the woman of making a work available for “distribution,” which is a situation copyright law that hadn’t really been tackled yet.
Now I’m beginning to understand why this has taken so long.
The District Court spent over two-and-a-half years doing something, then issued a statement at the end of last month agreeing with the labels and alleging that, from a digital copyright law standpoint, “publication” and “distribution” are synonymous. An 11-year-old could have probably told you that the two words mean pretty much the same thing, of course, but from a legal standpoint, this provides a tiny little hole through which the RIAA can continue its string of large-figure lawsuits against just about everybody.
According to the new ruling, it’s kosher to sue for "offer(ing) to distribute copies or phonorecords (MP3s) to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution." Having files in a shared folder can be considered a tacit kind of offering, so here we are. People don’t use Kazaa anymore, but I could see this eventually affecting FTPs or, really, just about any method of transferring files from one computer to another. Of course, as long as legal proceedings move at about one-millionth the pace of file-sharing technology, piracy will probably reign. Woo.
It’s A Cruel, Cruel Summer: Sunn O))) Dude’s New Project Coming Out on Southern Lord
By Liz Louche on Apr 8 2008
I used to have this friend who was obsessed with the Southern Lord label. He would talk non-stop about bands on Southern Lord that I had never heard of. He would bring me to shows by other Southern Lord bands I had never heard of, which he promised would be "awesome" and "incredible." Oftentimes, he was right, but holy shit was this stuff degrading my self-esteem, because we both worked at a record store together. And like most record store employees, I did not want to admit that there could be record labels and entire genres of bands that I knew almost nothing about.
So, this one goes out to you, friend, who introduced me to Sunn O))). Here's a story for you, all the people like you, and all the people like me who hate to claim ignorance about a good thing. In this case, that "good thing" is ASCEND, a new project out on Southern Lord. It features Greg Anderson of Goatsnake, Engine Kid, and Sunn O))) along with Gentry Densley of Iceburn and Eagle Twin. The new album hits stores May 27, 2008 and promises to bring its share of the ominous, heavy jams needed for a killer summer. It features guest performances from pals like Soundgarden's Kim Thayil, Steve Moore of Earth and Sunn O))), and Andy Patterson. But that's not all -- there will also be Wurlitzer organs on this thing! It doesn't get much more rock ‘n’ roll than organs, am I right?
Comcast Admits to Secret Love Affair with BitTorrent
By 8bit on Apr 8 2008
Great duos:
Wait wait wait. Comcast and BitTorrent?! Yes, according to The Wall Street Journal, internet service provider (ISP) giant Comcast will be working with the torrent protocol developers over at BitTorrent, Inc. in an effort to move video content more efficiently through its network.
Comcast has been at odds with the torrent community since August 2007, when it was reported that the ISP was blocking torrent traffic, causing net neutrality proponents to shit their pants. Comcast later issued a press release stating, "Torrents are destroying our network. In the near future, all of our bandwidth will be consumed by a protocol dedicated to illegal file-sharing. And that will leave no bandwidth for Joseph Goldbottom's Bar Mitzah Evite. And imagine how ka'ab Joseph will feel when nobody shows up to his manning party?"
No word yet as to any specifics of the agreement or what could possibly come out of it.
