What in blazes does soul legend George McRae have to do with Matador Records and Filmworks?  Well, unless you count Yo La Tengo's inspired cover of "You Can Have It All", of the Frogs' paen to George's longtime muse, "Gwedolyn McRae", absolutely nothing.

That disclaimer aside, the official George McRae website is a terrifying blast from the past.  The past in this case being the heady interweb design days of 1994.

Former Panty Line Fever editor Rick Hall was moved to write, "check out his rather primitive WEBPAGE that makes my browser crash. Read his grandiose BIO that, with its superstar hyperbole, deserves an audiobook reading by the guy from J&H PRODUCTIONS".  And Hall's right on the money, it's a doozy.  Were you aware, for instance, that McRae was the recipient of the Luxembourg Golden Lion Award for Outstanding Achievement By A Foreign Artist in Germany ? ("Frank Sinatra is the only other U.S.A. Recipient of this award" – huh, eat shit and die Hasselhoff!)

Anyhow, read it at your own risk. And if there's anything about the site's layout that seems a tad familiar, just remember that George isn't merely "The Disco Pioneer", he's also an HMTL innovator to boot. 

For the second time this summer, I have to ask, what's with all the hidden cameras at 304 Hudson Street?  ("Great World Of Sound" opens in New York on September 14)

Factory Records founder Tony Wilson passed away this evening following a long battle with kidney cancer. 

Wilson will be eulogized far and wide in the days ahead, rightfully so, and rather than add to the pile, we'll instead link to the following bit of youtubage.

Suffice to say, when it comes to newsreaders turned label dudes, Wilson's Factory was a much better label than Chuck Scarborough's.

From the Sun's Thomas Whittaker :

Music chiefs were blasted last night for using computer wizardry to make new albums louder than ever. Bosses are artificially enhancing sound levels as they believe the noisier a record is, the more copies it will sell.But music lovers say some tracks are now so distorted they can make listeners feel nauseous. And Britain’s leading studio engineers have launched a campaign to make records range in levels to avoid one loud blur.

Geoff Emerick (above right, shown with George Martin), an engineer on the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s album, said: “A lot of what is released today is basically a scrunched up mess."

Though I sincerely doubt there is any concerted effort on the part of "music chiefs" to artificially boost noise levels, I must applaud any organized effort to categorize the Red Hot Chilli Peppers as "unlistenable". 

As you've probably heard, Akon's run afoul of moralists and cell phone companies alike after being captured on video engaged in a vaguely lewd act with a 14 year old. Salon's David Marchese says "I think I'm going to go bang my head against a wall."

Akon's antics were definitely on the gross side, but what did Verizon expect? Did anyone at the company even listen to his album ("Konvicted," which has sold more than 2 million copies) before signing the guy? If they had, they'd have heard hit singles like "Smack That" ("Smack that all on the floor/ smack that till you get sore") and "I Wanna Love You," which, in its unedited version substitutes "love" with a different four-letter word. But the problem isn't that Akon is objectionable — he isn't really, and people who complain about him are the same kind of people who would have tied themselves in knots over Elvis — the problem is that Verizon fired Akon for doing the kind of thing it hired him for. The dude is a star because he has a sexy, streetwise image and an album full of sexy, streetwise songs. Verizon was only too happy to bask in Akon's popularity until he took one sideways step from what he always does (which he's since apologized for) and then it drops him like a hot potato. To suddenly treat him as some sort of moral degenerate is ridiculous. Especially considering the fact that, at this very moment, R. Kelly walks the streets as a free man. Would somebody please think about the children?!

There's also a double standard in play that makes Verizon's foolishness even more annoying. Verizon has maintained its associations with both Keith Urban and Fall Out Boy mainman Pete Wentz — even though the former has a well-documented addiction problem and the latter had pictures of his wee wee (inadvertently) plastered all over the Internet last year. Hmm. Cute white stars have more leeway with their indiscretions than does one born with the name Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thaim.

On the 3rd of May, much like every other day, I thank gawd for Blabbermouth.net.

W.A.S.P. frontman frontman Blackie Lawless  (above, left) has shot down as false reports that the group cut short its April 28, 2007 gig in Karlskrona, Sweden after he complained of pain in his chest. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reported in yesterday's edition (Wednesday, May 2) that W.A.S.P. played a shortened set in Karlskrona, Sweden so that Lawless could be rushed to a local hospital for observation.

In a statement released exclusively to BLABBERMOUTH.NET, Blackie said, "Once again someone is trying to kill me off before my time! Whatever happened to the idea of reporters checking their sources before writing their stories? God willing I am going to be around a long time!!"

I think we can all agree that a terrible tragedy has been averted.  I'm very confident that Sir Lawless' finest work is still ahead of him. 

It's like someone had a hidden camera in our offices.  Kitties Aren't People!!!

Gerard vs Bear is reporting that the FCC is "proposing! SHIIIT" to help get radio broadcasters off the payola hook.  

While details of the Enforcement Bureau's proposal were sketchy, sources said that radio station groups would be required to set aside a certain amount of airtime for music produced independently. The radio groups also would agree to a code of conduct and an education program, the sources said. As part of the deal, the radio broadcasters would not admit to any wrongdoing. 

Education?  Codes of conduct?  No more trips to see Nickelback live at Squaw Valley?  Exoneration at a high cost for the Hinder-hugging-set.  And all Pete Doherty had to do was write a hot single.

Full details, and some banner ads targeting you if you happen to be a member of the Academy, at HollywoodReporter.com.

Thanks to Dave Scheid for forwarding the following item from NME.com. I think.

Towers Of London singer Donny Tourette has been challenged to boxing match by punk veterans Cockney Rejects.

You're probably as dismayed as I am to learn there's still some version of the Cockney Rejects kicking around.   This isn't quite up there with the Johnny Lydon/Jimmy Pursey slap-fest that took place at the American Embassy a while back, but points all around for a good try to get everyone's name into the papers. 

From last Thursday's Guardian, Akira The Don, describing his short, abortive tenure as an Interscope recording artist.

I was signed to the home of Eminem, 50 Cent, Bryan Adams and the late Tupac Shakur two years ago, after an A&R man heard my demo whilst getting his hair cut in a New York salon. His noisy barkings on that musky summer night lead to me being flown out to LA to eat ice cream on Dr Iovine's balcony, where I was told I had "changed music", and was offered the production and guest rapping services of Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and The Neptunes if I'd sell them my hot white ass there and then.

Contrary to his promise, Jimmy never did hook me up with Dre, or Snoop, or any Neptunes that I can recall, but we made a brilliant record anyway.The earlier, uberpop songs they heard, like Oh! (What A Glorious Thing), were met by the label with great joy. But when they heard my Live8, legalised genocide and loony Christian right-dissing Thanks For All The Aids, things went a bit Simon Bates. And then, one musky summer night, I got the call: "Interscope aren't going to release this record." While "the world's most controversial record label" were happy enough to sell exploitative images of women and black folk to the West's cash-sloppy teenagers, they evidently weren't ready to promote the message that Bob Geldof's post-Live 8 "mission accomplished" claims were bullcrap.

From the Canadian Press' Neil Davidson.

Led by Toronto singer Lukas Rossi, Supernova delivered a wildly uneven show before some 2,000 at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Rossi was welcomed by a vocal Canadian contingent, with Maple Leaf flags and at least one Leafs jersey with the name Rossi stitched on the back.

All of them must have cringed when guitarist Gilby Clarke (above) introduced Rossi "from the great state of Toronto, Canada."

This has been some kinda week for learning and yearning. Not only did I find out the excruciating Trans-Siberian Orchestra were led by dudes from Mike Piazza's 4th or 5th fave band, Savatage (above), but Leftsetz has the scoop on the TSO's unlikely genesis (link courtesy Vinyl Mine).

So Jason’s all coked up. And not being able to look at the four walls, knowing he’s going to be up all night, he goes miles to a friend’s house, to do more blow, to get him to the sunshine, until he has to show up at Atlantic for work.

And this guy, he keeps pitching Jason this AWFUL band. Heavy metal noise. Every night, while they’re doing coke, this drug buddy says you’ve got to sign SAVATAGE! Finally, to get the guy off his back, Jason offers him a deal, under one condition, the guy doesn’t harangue him about the act ANY MORE!

And it’s not like Savatage is doing well. After a couple of albums, the deal is the band delivers a record, that THEY pay for, and Atlantic puts it out. The relationship has run its course. But then Jason gets a call saying Scott Shannon is ALL OVER THE RECORD!

Jason protests that this is impossible, that Savatage is a horrible heavy metal band, their record is NEVER gonna appear on Top Forty radio. But then the report comes in that Scott Shannon is TALKING ABOUT THE RECORD, how fucking GREAT IT IS!

Turns out, at the end of the last album, there’s a Christmas track, and THAT’S garnering all the action. So Jason gets Savatage’s producer, Paul O’Neill, on the phone, and tells him to make a whole ALBUM of Christmas music, to come up with a new name, that they’ve got a GOLD MINE! Soon Paul calls back and says he’s got it, "Trans-Siberian Orchestra", what does Jason think?

Jason says he’s clueless, after all he’s a Jew, but it seems fine to him.

But what breaks the record big, after it’s finally recorded, is the appearance on Rosie O’Donnell. Jason calls Bob Daly, who at the time oversees both music and TV, and the TV division produces Rosie’s show. Jason leans on him. And Bob goes around the bookers and gets TSO on the show.

And then all hell breaks loose. A platinum album. Then another.

So some things that start poorly end well. Jason was in rehab when Savatage recorded their debut, he was not heavily invested. He stayed with the band as long as possible, until it no longer made financial sense. And then, when confronted with a moment, a seeming accident of fate, he CAPITALIZED ON IT!

Oh, at first it was difficult. Not working the Savatage album with the Christmas track, there were no PROMOS! Atlantic had to ship sales copies, of which there were very few. But the true genius was in recognizing that this was not an anomaly, that there was a nugget here that was representative of an entire GOLD MINE!

So every Christmas since, for ten years now, Trans-Siberian Orchestra sells hundreds of thousands of albums. And goes on tour, to the point where there are now TWO touring companies, playing ARENAS! Cash is thrown off, people get rich, THIS is why you’re sitting there and Jason’s up in Aspen.</em>

Ahem. If you're hankering for an Xmas musical experience of an entirely different sort, WPRB's Jon Solomon will be doing his annual holiday 24 hour marathon this Sunday.

File this under "no fucking way." From Billboard.com's Jonathan Cohen :

Axl Rose has taken to Guns N' Roses' official Web site to announce a "tentative" March 6 release date for the band's eternally delayed new album, "Chinese Democracy." In the posting, Rose also revealed he has split with longtime manager Merck Mercuriadis due to disagreements over the set up for the album release.

"It takes approximately eight weeks for an album to hit the shelves once it has been turned in to the record company," he said. "For whatever reasons, it appears that it may have been mistakenly inferred by management that this time period could be condensed to three weeks. With that being said, this is not a promise, a lie or a guarantee, but we do wish to announce a tentative release date of March 6. This is the first time we have done this publicly for this album."

Axl, if things don't work out with Guns'n'Roses, you've got a future in the beverage distribution industry independent label product management.

Dear Captors-to be,

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. You've been monitoring our movements via the World Web Interweb and once you caught wind of the Hinder/Eddie Money hookup, there were no remaining questions about humanity's inability to distinguish between right and wrong, good and bad, shit and shinola.

Though I wish it had never come to this, I pledge to do my very best in polishing your spacecraft, sweeping the streets and burying my fellow humans. 

Your humble servant,

Gerard 

To paraphrase Yogi Berra, when you come to a Pitchfork in the road, take 'em to the woodshed.

From Billboard.com :

In the suit filed yesterday (Nov. 2) in the federal District Court in Chicago, Victory alleges that the band was happy with the indie until Virgin executives convinced them to sign with the major. The band then hired a national litigation law firm and a public relations company to help extricate itself from its contract with Victory, the suit says.

I find it disheartening to consider H.H.'s claims that Tony Victory dragged them into a race war and their chart numbers were "tainted like Barry Bonds' statistics" were in fact, the construct of a P.R. firm.  Can't anyone come up with a funny idea on their own anymore?

Elton John, at his concert last night at Nassau Coliseum in Hempstead, NY:

"Interscope is the worst record label ever"
"They spent not one penny advertising the album"
"They can fuck off"
"Please drop me from the label"
"Sorry about all that label stuff…. But I really hate their fucking guts."

(Words by Bernie Taupin)

His new album may not have a hit like "Island Girl" ("what you wantin' wid de white man's world…black boy want you in his island world") but it does feature Elton's dog Arthur and cowbell (more cowbell!) on the single "Just Like Noah's Ark", in which Elton sings about Interscope's radio team:

"Italiano promotion men/Chomping a big cigar/Slapping backs and making cracks/About the fags in the bar/Radio boss dipping his nose in a little white packet/You put it out son and we'll all back it"

Mona lisas and mad hatters, indeed!

…though perhaps he could've saved his neck had the above clip been tacked onto Janet Jackson's most recent opus, perhaps as a bonus DVD.  (link courtesy WFMU's Beware Of The Blog)

“well wired, cyber possessed, digiphile”. Looks like I’ll be moving to greener pastures.

I hate to pick on Victory Records — with the possible exceptions of Zero Hour and Mammoth, no other indie proved as influential to the development of Matador’s early aesthetic. But I couldn’t help but take notice of the following spiel on Victory’s site, supposedly penned by the label’s latest signing, The Warriors.

At one point or another, everyone has had a friend who has pulled you out of a dark place; Someone who has believed and cared enough to provide you with new hope and encouragement. For us, Victory Records is that friend. Victory has released the most progressive and influential hardcore bands for nearly 2 decades (This FACT is undeniable), and we’re more than honored to carry the torch. Will this change the content of our records, musically or visually? Absolutely not. We are now and ever shall be dedicated to creating music that is both honest, progressive and most importantly “Hardcore”, as we have come to define it for ourselves. Our love and dedication for what we do will only be amplified by this new friendship. So from Cause For Alarm, Warzone, Snapcase to Comeback Kid, the Victory hardcore legacy continues. Our friends at Eulogy Recordings will forever remain friends. We will never forget their efforts and generosity. Eulogy gave us life, now Victory will ensure our survival as a band. From this point on any future Warriors records will proudly bare the mark of the Bull Dog.

I’m sorry, but the above testimonial — give or take a few band names substituted — is word for word, culled from the exact same letter the Ponys wrote after their signing to Matador this past July. I should know. I made them write it.

Surely you don’t need an excuse to read Blabbermouth.net several times a day?

Producer Bob Rock recently told Reuters that he feels “20 years younger” after his split with METALLICA, whose albums he had produced since 1991.

The Canadian producer parted company with the metal titan earlier this year and is now devoting his energies to other artists and a return to his own recording career.

According to the 52-year-old Rock, “My life is now about my wife and kids, and recording other bands.”

Rock first teamed with METALLICA for its self-titled 1991 album (aka “The Black Album”). The Elektra set debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the chart for 281 weeks. Rock helmed METALLICA’s subsequent albums, through 2003’s “St. Anger”.

A behind-the-scenes look at that tumultuous project was featured in the following year’s unflinching documentary “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster”. A petition that some 1,500 fans signed subsequently was posted online calling for METALLICA to dump Rock, claiming he had too much influence on the band’s sound.

“The criticism was hurtful for my kids, who read it and don’t understand the circumstances,” Rock says. “Sometimes, even with a great coach, a team keeps losing. You have to get new blood in there.”

From the BBC :

Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by “guerrilla artist” Banksy.

Banksy has replaced Hilton’s CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as “Why am I Famous?”, “What Have I Done?” and “What Am I For?”

He has also changed pictures of her on the CD sleeve to show the US socialite topless and with a dog’s head.

A spokeswoman for Banksy said he had doctored 500 copies of her debut album Paris in 48 record shops across the UK.

She told the BBC News website: “He switched the CDs in store, so he took the old ones out and put his version in.”

But he left the original barcode so people could buy the CD without realising it had been interfered with.

Banksy is certainly capable of the improbable – finding a creative use for the Anti-Nowhere League, for instance (Quicktime required)

In the snail mail days, this would’ve made the Matador Wall Of Shame, easy.

Hi,

Motley Crue* Meat Loaf* Blondie* Yes* Everclear* The New Cars* Hanson* Buckcherry* Marion Raven* Jonny Lives* Exies*

Those bastions of corporate journalistic integrity – that’s right, MTV News (a division of Viacom, Inc.) – are reporting the following hilariousness involving the new Mastodon album:

There’s a certain English journalist that Mastodon’s drummer, Bränn Dailor (above), would love to meet. But there’d be no handshake between the two men, given the Brit is the one behind the online leak of the Atlanta metallers’ forthcoming album, Blood Mountain, last week.

“Hopefully one day, he’ll introduce himself,” Dailor joked about the journalist, who claimed he was one of the band’s biggest fans. “[Our record label] traced it back to the guy who did it, and he got fired from wherever he was working. It’s just so stupid. And it’s such a sh—y copy. It sounds like sh–. I’m not concerned with record sales, because I think that if anyone’s looking for it online to download it and listen to it, when it comes out [on September 12], they’ll buy it anyways. They’re fans.

“My problem is, I can equate it to when I was 11 years old,” he continued, relaying a story about discovering his Christmas presents in his mother’s closet a month before the holiday. “I wrapped it all back up, and then Christmas came, and I went downstairs, and I knew everything I was going to get. And that sucked. It totally ruined the whole thing. Up until then, I had never done that before and I was always really excited to wake up and open that first present. But that wasn’t awesome, and I never did it again.

“When I was a kid, you had to wait for that Iron Maiden record,” he recalled. “The whole thing was, this is the day it comes out, and you cannot have it before that day. But these days, with the Internet, everything just leaks. I urge people not to download it if they see it there, but I understand if they do. I want people to be excited for it and to hear it for the first time and hear it the way it was supposed to be heard.”

I’m definitely looking forward to hearing the new Mastodon, as are a lot of people, but I can wait. Though if it is anything like the Christmas Day when my mom got me the G.I. Joe USS Flagg Aircraft Carrier and the damn thing was missing half the parts, I can wait.

Furthermore, the MTV.com story has this hilarious tidbit about their recent video shoot:

Mastodon traveled 1,000 feet below the ground to complete the video inside Ruby Falls, and when it begins airing next month, expect to see lots of yetis, sasquatch and Dailor banging away on his drum kit under a 100-foot-tall, blood-red waterfall. Rej even shot footage atop Atlanta’s Stone Mountain, with “a bunch of people in crazy yeti costumes and sh–,” Dailor said. “We’ve cornered the market on the sasquatch and the yeti. No other band can use it.”

Defunct yet totally awesome mid-1990s NYC band Ruby Falls and super-great Yeti publisher Mike McGonigal were unavailable for comment.

Though I’m sure our terrific legal system will sort this one out, isn’t there a way that both the plantiff and the accused can be sent to Camp X-Ray, at least for a few weeks?

From Billboard.com

Hawthorne Heights has filed a lawsuit against its record label, Victory Records, and label head Tony Brummel today (Aug. 7). The band claims that Brummel’s “overly-aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics,” including physically threatening music industry figures and scheming against other artists, have severely damaged the band’s reputation and its relationship with fans.

In February, Hawthorne Heights and Ne-Yo were vying for the top of The Billboard 200. On Feb. 28, an email from someone at Victory appeared to urge its street promotions team to tamper with Ne-Yo’s sales potential. “If you were to pick up [a] handful of Ne-Yo CDs, as if you were about to buy them, but then changed your mind and didn’t bother to put them back in the same place,” the message read, “That would work … just relocating a handful creates issues.”

Within hours of the email’s appearance on an industry message board on March 1, a second email appeared calling the first message “a joke.”

Band members Eron Bucciarelli-Tieger, Casey Calvert, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff claim that Brummel then signed the band’s name without their knowledge or approval to a so-called manifesto, which falsely stated that the band believed it was in some type of war with artists in the hip-hop and R&B music genres, leading many to brand the band as racist.

The members of H.H. say their most recent album reaching no.3 on the charts “is now tainted much like Barry Bonds’ statistics,” an interesting analogy from guys who don’t wanna be called racists, and perhaps a more fitting one had they reached no. 1.

Anyhow, I look forward to these two parties kissing and making up, as I suspect at the end of the day, they’re made for each other. To paraphrase the Del Fuegos from their excellent Miller Beer commercial, “good luck to all bands.”

Except Hawthorne Heights.