I made that headline so I could make that picture.
But that business ain’t no lie! On July 7 (and June 23 digitally) U.K. second-wave ska royalty Madness will release their ninth studio album The Liberty of Norton Folgate on Yeproc . The band spent three years of ska, sweat, and tears and finally pulled themselves up by the Olivers and achieved their dream record and blah blah blah these guys are from England and who gives a shit ! The real show is at the box set. Available for pre-order only until June 30, the box set includes a three-disc expanded edition of the new album, a vinyl copy of the standard album, and one sure spiffy poster.
And all that shit is bogus, too. The dopest of the dope stuff lies in Madness’ very own Dumbledore’s Army, the mystifying conclave of M. What is M, you indulge? Well, that’s a fucking secret to mere Muggles like you and me. That is, unless you can drop 65 bones from the throne and pre-order that sick set now , affording you an official M badge and identification card to bear wherevs you treads and the official M handbook to soak in whene’er the drought of uncertainty strikes you. In fact, legends tell of an invisible alcove at Madness’ official website where only those chosen of M are “showered with a myriad of exclusive features, content, and opportunities.” But alack, none know now of such a place, unless ye think ye have the sorcerer’s stones to join M’s eternal order today. “And so he entered and so he led me in / To the first circle of the abyss.”
Do you fuckin’ remember when ska was about short hair and trumpets?
Jay Bennett, a rock musician with deep ties to Chicago best known as a former member of Wilco, died early Sunday morning in downstate Urbana, where he had been running a recording studio, according to a spokesman for his family.
The singer and multi-instrumentalist was 45 years old.
"Early this morning, Jay died in his sleep and an autopsy is being performed," said Edward Burch, a friend and musician who collaborated with Bennett on the 2005 album "The Palace at 4 a.m." "The family is in mourning and is unavailable for comment at this time."
From Wikipedia:
In May 2009, Bennett sued Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy for breach of contract stemming from his work for Wilco. The suit came less than two weeks after Bennett publicly revealed that he needed hip replacement surgery which he could not afford due to lack of health insurance.
So, Eyedea & Abilities are amazing right? The group is comprised of one of the best MCs ever and an amazingly talented DJ who's extremely entertaining to watch. My personal favorites of the Rhymesayers collective, these two dudes have so much credibility that they simply laugh at people who forget that they're one of the best hip-hop duos around. In their faces!
The thing is… they haven’t really done that much in a couple years. And, to be honest, the “rock” band that Eyedea had for awhile… they kinda sucked. But Eyedea has won like a BILLION rap battles, and DJ Abilities did all the turntable work for El-P’s phenomenal album Fantastic Damage (old-school TMT Review), so I always give them the benefit of the doubt based solely on what they're capable of, even if not everything they do is "awesome."
In support of the new album Eyedea & Abilities are scheduled to appear this Sunday at Rhymesayers' Soundset ’09, as previously reported. The band also expects to headline a tour in the fall, including dates at this year's Rock the Bells.
Here are some dates, all properly formatted and such: 06.27.09 - Chicago, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheater 06.28.09 - Detroit, MI - DTE Energy Music Theatre 07.05.09 - Toronto, ON - Molson Amphitheater 07.12.09 - Washington, DC - Merriweather Post Pavilion 07.18.09 - Boston, MA - Comcast Center 07.19.09 - New York, NY - Jones Beach Amphitheater 08.01.09 - Vancouver, BC - Deer Lake Park 08.06.09 - Denver, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheater 08.08.09 - Los Angeles, CA - San Manuel Amphitheater 08.09.09 - San Francisco, CA - Shoreline Amphitheater
After five years of publication, UK indie music rag Plan B will print its last issue on June 1 according to this Porky Pig-style farewell tweet.
Launched by rogue journalist Everett True in 2004, Plan B set out to provide an incisive, content-driven alternative to the mainstream UK hype mills. In its short history, Plan B succeeded in dodging the slings and arrows of tacky tabloidification with loose and fun news coverage and spectacularly entertaining and thoughtful reviews. There’s no word yet if Plan B will retain an online presence, but since that’s been my only exposure to the magazine (and I must say I’ve quite enjoyed it), let’s hope it sticks around on the digital plane in some form or fashion.
Earlier today, I bought a Colt 45 forty ouncer, and tonight I’ll be pouring out a triple-sip or so of that sucker on the curb for you, Plan B. See you at the crossroads.
Seriously, is there anything that I can write that will make this story less fucked up?
Not really. I didn’t think that Mr. Manson was still cool enough to illicit suicide and/or murder, and did the kid honestly have a “love” for “knowledge of Hitler facts”?? Yuck.
Call me crazy, but usually when people pay money for something, they like to own it. The good people at Microsoft, however, beg (kinda literally) to differ, as they clearly demonstrate in their recent “sharp guy who talks to you the camera in a conversational way” commercial (which is also being advertised right here on TMT):
Bypassing the fact that you only get to actually keep and own 10 of the songs that you download with your Zune subscription, the ad proceeds to claim that it costs $30,000 to fill the largest iPod with 99¢ songs from iTunes. Never mind the fact that, even at iTunes’ 99¢ per track, the “average” music fan probably doesn’t add more than 15 tracks a month to their collection. And double-never mind the fact that, at the same 10 songs per month rate, it’d take you (hang on, let me get my iPhone to calculate this) 250 years to buy this much music on iTunes. So hopefully you’ll still be into that new Ruben Studdard in 2259 A.D.
Even the market leader in music subscription services, Rhapsody, has managed to amass a mere 800,000 willing to pay the same $14.95 a month for its service. The young folks seem to prefer to own their music, and, you know, NOT get lectured by elderly Aryan “Financial Planners” about saving money on downloads that they typically yank off of LimeWire anyway. But even if the guy in the suit is a tool and the background music is inane and the math is fuzzy and skewed, Microsoft has one thing going for it: those Zunes that they show in the commercial sure are cool-looking... oh wait.
