Word Has It That During the Filming of Capote, Philip Seymour Hoffman Only Listened To One Musician; Holly Golightly Brings Rock To Your Doorstep On Fall Tour

By Joseph Coscarelli on

This is not Spin's retro-rock. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Strokes, and the year 2001 be damned -- take a gander at the real-deal Holyfield. Holly Golightly will go heavy for two fun-filled months on a North American tour that will find her country-fried throwback goodness touching down in venue after venue, from the mountains to the prairies. Sad but true: For the world to understand some warm, analog goodness and the sounds of the Anthology of American Folk Music, you have to slap a gaudy mustache on it, paint it like a candy-cane, and call it a sibling duo. But the fact remains that Ms. Golightly is still most remembered for her album-closing jaunt "Well It's True That We Love One Another" with Jack on The White Stripes LP, Elephant.

Nonetheless, Truman Capote and Audrey Hepburn alike would be more than thrilled to catch a show when it came a-rollin' through their neck of the woods, but it being 2007 and all, it will be up to you to pack 'dem 'der concert halls. Girls rocking garages with a kick and a snarl are a dying breed, but lord knows if Holly's namesake in Breakfast at Tiffany's peeled off her velvet gloves, she'd shred a mean six-string. If I'm not mistaken, she even told us, "I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other." Two words: punk rock.

I'm just crazy about Tiffany's:

Amazon Nation Announces Plans to Launch Attack, All Residents of Amie Street Urged to Evacuate Immediately!

By Nobodaddy on 08-14-2007

We interrupt your regularly scheduled secretive, tabbed internet browsing while the boss isn’t looking to bring you this urgent news bulletin:

To our fellow Americans:

This week, the unthinkable has been realized.

It seems that a particularly impetuous, noticeably agitated, and, in this publication's opinion, incredibly power-hungry group is planning an attack of some kind against the truest, most God-fearing, Freedom-Lovers of this world: Capitalists.

Details are admittedly slim, as we here at TMT were only able to decipher bits and pieces of the radical group’s expertly coded messages. But due to TMT's unbelievable dedication to professional journalism no matter how great the danger, we have managed to uncover secret plans of an apparently gigantic underground syndicate, codenamed "Amazon," who are in the process of planning what can only be described as a massive, web-based attack on Western Civilization’s entire consumer culture in the very near future.

Their target? Music downloaders, the veritable backbone of our great nation's economy.

Their suspected weapon delivery system? Fiendishly competitively priced music downloads made available through a clever legitimate business front: “Amazon.com.”

At this time, little is known about precisely how Amazon plans on implementing this new system when it opens fire on music downloaders later this year. One thing, however, is certain. The base of operations for this nefarious takeover seems be located in a place called "Amie Street," which, according to intelligence reports, is a dynamically priced internet music store that starts every MP3 it sells at the Un-American price of $0.00 and increases that price as a song becomes more popular (up to a maximum of $.98).

Our intelligence suggests that Amazon has been pumping funds into Amie Street lately, allowing the rebel company to flourish and compete with the wholesome, American institution that we all know and love, iTunes. Reports remain unclear as to just how much money Amazon has invested in Amie Street, but one of our agents has uncovered a chilling statement from Amazon despot/SVP of business affairs, which states "Amie Street has a very smart and innovative team... the idea of having customers directly influence the price of songs is an interesting and novel approach to selling digital music."

We are pleased to announce that several Amazon Agents have been captured in recent weeks. However, when they were interrogated about Amazon's plans to incorporate AmieStreet or its sinisterly innovative technology into its own digital music store, which is currently in development, the agents merely laughed and told us that a new pricing model like the one adopted by AmieStreet.com could be the key to overthrowing iTunes and sending prices on all digital music plummeting, which would obviously devastate our proud nation's fragile economy.

According to Amazon's warped mode of thinking, the song-pricing revolution is the result of a divine mandate, which lauds the new system because record labels have been pressuring Apple and iTunes to sell songs at multiple price points rather than all for $.99. Labels, Amazon believes, typically want to charge more for new hits and possibly less for older tunes and music from new, up-and-coming artists.

Needless to say, America, we here at TMT will continue to tirelessly investigate these fateful transpirations, and when Amazon makes its next insidious move, TMT will be there.

May God have mercy on us all.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled Internet bullshitting, already in progress...

Al Sharpton Spending His Life in a Figurative Knife Fight, Slashing At Commercial Hip-Hop

By AJ Pacitti on 08-13-2007

In a recent effort to snag some publicity post-that SNL episode during the 2004 election cycle, Reverend Al Sharpton has been working overtime organizing rallies against glorified violence in hip-hop muzik. Seriously: Sharpton is taking an ever-exhaustive stab at sending AK-47s, switchblades, and coked-up street hookers home and packing, far away from a genre that, as you know, enlightened TMT reader, is typically free of struggle, aggression, and protest.

In essence, though, Sharpton’s mega-thirsty for a time long past: when West Coast hip-hop was a land of milk and honey, ruled by woman-loving, nonviolent pacifists N.W.A. and the like. Those were the days, Rev.

Sharpton got down and cleaned recently in Motown and New York City, in his it-won’t-make-a-difference endeavor to pull violent, woman-bashing lyrical weeds from labels Viacom, Time Warner and Vivendi. Apparently, Sharpton’s supporting legislation proposed in New York that may or may not affect your favorite artists, listening habits, or daily indie-hair-swooping lives.

Instead, enjoy a cleaned-up version of Jay Z’s woman-loving classic. You’ll notice the flower-power happy-Volvo-driving-house-owning love theme doesn’t really affect the lyrical continuity. Or the struggle. That’s hip-hop, ladies and gents.

----

"99 PROBLEMS" (Al Sharpton Remix)

If you're havin' girl problems I feel bad for you, MY FELLOW BROTHER IN THE STRUGGLE TO UPHOLD THE VALUES OF MLK IN A SOCIETY MAINTAINING A FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS SURROUNDING OUR CULTURE

I got 99 problems but a LOVELY WIFE TO COME HOME TO WHO WILL COOK MY MEALS AND SLEEP WITH ME IN MATCHING PAJAMAS ain't one

I got the rap patrol on the gat patrol

Foes that wanna make sure my casket's closed

Rap critics they say he's "Money Cash ATTRACTIVE YOUNG WOMEN"

I'm from the hood LESS INTELLIGENT ONE, what type of facts are those

If you grew up with holes in ya zapatos

You'd be celebrating the minute you was havin' dough

I'm like YOU GOSH DARN critics you can kiss my whole BEAUTIFUL SMILING FACE

If you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forward

I got beef with radio if i don't play they show

They don't play my hits well I don't give a GOSH DARN CARE IN THE WORLD

So

Rap mags try and use my UPSTANDING AFRICAN AMERICAN IDENTITY

So advertisers can give 'em more cash for ads, LOVERS

I don't know what you take me as,

Or understand the intelligence that Jay-Z has

I'm from rags to riches SIMILARLY UPRIGHT AND EMPASSIONED AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE

I ain't dumb

I got 99 problems but a WELL-SPOKEN YOUNG WOMAN WHO SPENDS HER FREE TIME PICKING FLOWERS, SMELLING THE RAIN, AND READING DANIELLE STEELE NOVELS ain't one

[DON’T] Hit me

[Chorus]
99 problems but the BEAUTIFUL WOMAN WHO KISSES MY FOREHEAD BEFORE BED ain’t one

If you're havin’ girl problems i feel bad for you son

I got 99 problems but a COLLEGE-EDUCATED WOMAN WITH EQUAL INCOME, HER OWN HEALTH INSURANCE, AND PRETTY EYES ain’t one

The year's '94 and my trunk is raw

In my rear view mirror is the mother-SLOPPY SUNDAY MORNING LOVING law

I got two choices y'all pull over the car or (hmmm)

Bounce on the devil put the pedal to the floor

Now I ain’t tryin’ to see no highway chase with Jake.

Plus I got a few dollars I can fight the case

So I...pull over to the side of the road

I heard "Son do you know why I'm stoppin’ you for?"

Cause I'm young and I'm A NONVIOLENT, UPSTANDING AFRICAN AMERICAN and my hat’s real low?

Do I look like a mind reader sir, I don't know

Am I under arrest or should I guess some mo'?

"Well you was doin’ fifty-five in a fifty-fo’ "

"License and registration and step out of the car"

"Are you carryin’ a BOUQUET OF ROSES on you I know a lot of you are"

I ain’t steppin’ out of THIS REGISTERED VEHICLE all my paper's legit

"Well, do you mind if I look round the car a little bit?"

Well my glove compartment is locked so are the trunk in the back

And I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that

"Aren't you sharp as a tack, you some type of lawyer or something'?"

"Or somebody important or somethin’?"

Nah, I ain’t pass the bar but i know a little bit

Enough that you won't illegally search my REGISTERED VEHICLE

“We’ll see how smart you are when the K9 come"

I got 99 problems but a WIFE THAT BAKES HOT APPLE PIE IN A ‘KISS THE COOK’ APRON ain't one

[DON’T] Hit me
99 Problems but a WOMAN THAT CONSISTENTLY LETS ME HOLD HER IN MY ARMS AND READS THE BIBLE BEFORE BED ain't one

if you havin’ girl problems

I feel bad for you son

I got 99 problems but a YOUNG WOMAN HUMBLED BY THE EXISTENCE OF GOD ain't one

[DON’T] hit me

Google Teams Up With Universal To Create A DRM-Free Rival To The iTunes Music Store called gBox. Daaaaaaaamn!

By Nat Towsen on 08-13-2007

Universal Music Group, the biggest record label in the goddamn world, announced last Thursday that it would begin selling DRM-free MP3s through a variety of digital vendors. Music from a test selection of artists in Universal’s catalog will be available through Wal-Mart, Best Buy Digital Music Store, Rhapsody, Transworld, Passalong Networks, Amazon, Puretracks, and Google -- though not through iTunes. Daaaamn!

Google plans to continue its current music service, which links searchers to music vendors, and to create its own online music store called gBox (PC-only, at least for now). Google has chosen to avoid the centrally located business model of digital music stores like iTunes, instead adopting a method of distribution that relies on advertising. Universal will buy advertising from Google’s AdWords program, which displays advertisements based on the content of a website. The advertisements for Universal will contain a link to gBox, where MP3s from the advertised artist will be available for purchase. So, for example, if you send an e-mail containing the words “Reba McEntire” to my Gmail account, I will be provided with a link to gBox’s collection of Reba McEntire hits. Daaaaaaaamn!

With their announced price of $.99-per-track, it is hard to imagine that Universal is not intentionally challenging Apple, whose DRM-free offerings cost a full $.30 more. Universal has referred to this experiment as a “test [of] the implications of selling our music in an open format,” though it will also test the potential for MP3 sales without the power of the iPod. Though their DRM-free tracks will likely play on the iPod, Universal and Google may have a hard time pulling consumers away from iTunes without a vertically integrated system to offer. Daaaaaaaaaaaamn!

Hopefully, this bit of competition will help to loosen Apple’s stranglehold on digital music sales and prevent them from arbitrarily raising prices. And with two of the Big Four moving away from DRM (the other being EMI), perhaps the encryption is on its way out. It should be noted, however, that gBox will also offer DRM-encrypted MP3s for the same price as their non-encrypted equivalent, which are expected to make great gag gifts for music listeners. Shiiiiiiiiiiit!

Who Says File Sharing Takes the Elitism Out of Being a Music Fan? Application Allows Sharing Within Private, Encrypted Rings

By Joe B. on 08-13-2007

Finally, your Dave Clark Five fan club can find electronic solace somewhere unsullied by legions of Herman’s Hermits and Monkees fans. GigaTribe “lets you share entire folders with friends in a private peer to peer (P2P) environment.” It's also free.

My favorite part about whenever a new service like this launches is the semantic race it has to run in order to pretend people will only use it legally. The GigaTribe website, for one, features a random quote at the bottom that outlines a sham reason someone might use GigaTribe for something other than illegal file-sharing. “Oliver H,” for example, “a real estate agent, uses GigaTribe to exchange pictures of houses and apartments with his clients and co-workers.” How ethical! “Thanks to GigaTribe, Nanny can grab all of the movies and pictures of her grandchildren who live far from her.” Hey Nanny, I didn’t know Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker were your grandchildren! Cool!

There’s also something about some sound engineer sending recordings to his bandmates or whatever, but let’s get down to business: This is a streamlined, secure new way for you and your friends to exchange countless illegal copies of stuff you’d otherwise have to pay for. You can even make a fun, immature show out of excluding people you don’t like. For example: Maybe there’ll be a TinyMixTapes GigaTribe. You’ll never know. You’re not invited. Long live the new file-sharing flesh.

100% Original Headline: The National Tour Internationally

By C. Schell on 08-13-2007

The National are having quite a year. The eight-year-old Brooklyn via Ohio group has overcome the familiar chorus of "the new LP is not as good as the last one" and rode it to a fair amount of success. That previous LP, 2005's Alligator (Beggars Banquet) was like an earthquake setting up the indie rock Tsunami known as Boxer (TMT Review). If Alligator is the Preamble, Boxer is the Constitution of the USfuk'nA. Awkward (a.k.a. my bread) metaphors (e.g. my butter) aside, to paraphrase the Zombies, this will be their year, took a long time to come. So, whether you think of the band's upcoming transcontinental tour (with openers including The Rosebuds, St. Vincent, and Hayden) as merely a doing-what-is-expected-of-them move or a victory lap, either way, the wave is coming to your town. You can either run for the hills or put on your bathing suit and enjoy.*

Tourdates:

* Disclaimer: No matter what you, the reader, thinks, I am not making light of any Tsunami or water-related tragedies, even if HP turns them into another reason to buy their products.

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