Thursday, July 12, 2007

The Money Shot: 7.12.07

Today's headlines...

Ritter Unleashes Inner 'Badass' On New Album (Billboard)
The Money Shot: The result is the closest the Idaho native has gotten to a straight-up rock'n'roll record. Where "The Animal Years" contained many of Ritter's quieter thoughts about the United States, politics and war, "Historical Conquests" is meant to be "fun," he says. "'Animal Years' in a lot of ways is about me but now this is about other characters. I started making songs with badass characters, so I'd start singing like a badass."


Fans' MP3 archives are at risk (NME)
MS: A new study by Computing Which? magazine warns that most insurance policies fail to offer any cover for loss of digital music files. It means that music fans who use MP3 players such as iPods risk losing their entire music collection, unless they have it backed up or have the files on another format, such as CD. The study showed that only 22 out of 46 insurance companies examined offered any kind of cover at all. Most of the 22 who did offer cover would only compensate against loss due to fire, theft or flood damage. Some insurers put a cap of £1,000 or £2,000 on claims for digital downloads.


Post-punk pantheon (The Phoenix)
MS: These are the 10 albums that generated the right conditions for the rock that would follow. But they weren’t mere stepping stones. Each has its own story, suggesting other albums and artists that have a place somewhere in the rock pantheon. As Sonic Youth guitarist Lee Ranaldo explains in the 33-1/3 book devoted to Daydream Nation, “We were learning from and being inspired by bands from around the country in this really cool, secret indie world that the mainstream media still doesn’t know anything about. What was really happening in the ’80s — no one has captured any of it. What happened on MTV and what happened in the clubs was totally different. Everyone was drawing from the Velvet Underground and Captain Beefheart and Iggy and the Stooges and Television. . . . That part is lost so far.” This is our effort to find it.


Bookies taking bets on whether Amy Winehouse turns up to gigs (NME)
MS: Bookmakers William Hill are offering 1/2 odds on Amy Winehouse not turning up to her next gig, scheduled to be Tuesday's (July 17) Eden Sessions show at The Eden Project in Cornwall. The odds offer comes after Winehouse cancelled her scheduled appearances at last weekend's T In The Park and Oxegen festivals, and was photographed drinking in her local pub despite citing "exhaustion" as the reason for her cancellation. "Amy has cancelled too many gigs for us not to give out odds," a spokesperson for William Hill said. "The concert is next week so she'll have to sort herself out for that and I can't see it happening."


How Copyright Law Talks to Fans (Electronic Frontier Foundation)
MS: So I'd like to ask the members of the New Pornographers -- Dan Bejar, Kathryn Calder, Neko Case, John Collins, Kurt Dahle, Todd Fancey, Carl Newman, Nora O'Connor, and Blaine Thurier -- are you cool with this? Is this how you would ask someone to take down the song, if you met them at a show, if they had just told you how much they love your music? If not, call Matador and make them fire Web Sheriff. At least get someone who respects your fans, who doesn't leave them feeling "forever disenchanted with all of you."


Take The Low Road (City Paper)
MS: The shows were inspired by a 2001 gig the band did on a farm in North Carolina, part of a series of informal house shows. "We got invited to do it right after Southern Rock Opera came out," Hood recalls. "We basically sat around in a semicircle in this big oversized living room and played the record in its entirety, opening it up and telling stories. We got really drunk and played for about four hours. Somebody sent me CDs of this thing last fall, and there was a spirit about it that I kinda got homesick for."

No comments: