DudeAsInCool

Radiohead Hail to the Thief [Capitol; 2003] Rating: 9.3 When I head out to my local record shop during my designated lunch break today-- a topic Radiohead's Thom Yorke would readily turn into a melodramatically fatalistic, Orwell-lite meditation on routine and alienation-- I'll mingle with teenagers and CEOs frantic to walk out with their own copy of Hail to the Thief. Because today, Radiohead are U2, Pink Floyd, and Queen-- they could have been bigger than The Beatles if the success of "Creep" hadn't agitated an Oxford-bred guilt complex. As Yorke put it in Meeting People Is Easy: "English people aren't impressed. There's this automatic assumption that any degree of success means that you've cheated. Or you're full of shit." That's a cross Thom no longer has to bear, since whatever shit he was full of was kicked out of him-- in his hometown, no less-- one night in 2000. Like Johnny, the similarly bloodied main character from Mike Leigh's Naked, the assault appears to have Thom dealing with reality for possibly the first time. Protected from street-level human misery-- first by privilege, and then as a celebrity-- by a misguided belief in the world as something definite and easily changed, Yorke's pummeling rightly refocused an unparalleled modern songwriter on more immediate and emotionally resonant issues, stuffing him back in boots he was growing too big for. Which is not to say I advocate violence, or that any end could justify its employment, but there are tertiary benefits when an artist's perspective is forcibly altered. Listen to George Michael's Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1 or-- less sarcastically, this time-- listen to Kid A, the most remarkably finessed redesign of an established band's sound since U2 recorded Achtung Baby. A reaction to overexposure, the undermining effects of commodification and the alienation of celebrity, Kid A hasn't aged a day (even while Amnesiac, a less inspired collection of underdeveloped tunes from the same sessions, has somewhat dulled its glimmer). Kid A and Amnesiac were written and recorded before Thom was attacked, before he became a father, before the world became a lot smaller, when nothing really mattered. Hail to the Thief is almost four years removed from the reality Yorke last wrote about, and for that suspicious title and his recent exploits, it's thankfully less concerned about third world debt and paranoiac global conspiracy theories than I'd expected. Which is reassuring: Radiohead aren't turning into Midnight Oil-- though there's plenty of simplistic condemnation to be found here. Hail to the Thief doesn't dig up Britpop skeletons from The Bends, and it's not OK Computer 2, as Yorke has called it in the press. It is, however, a holding pattern. Thom's excusatory remarks only underscore his chief failing: he can't grasp that pure, radical change isn't always the best option, whatever personal pride he as an artist takes from doing something "new" (and personally, I think Eno and his German collaborators from the late 70s have plenty of reasons to bristle at Kid A). There's nothing to apologize for here: Radiohead are a band, and after a fashion, bands are defined by their music. Much as U2's Zooropa still sounded like U2, anything Radiohead does from here on out will sound like Radiohead. The triumphant "2+2=5" could only work as the set's opener, though the positively begging single "Go to Sleep" (due for release in June) is a close second. "2+2=5" is a more encompassing declaration of intent, defining the exploratory boundaries of Hail to the Thief as well as the professedly temporary return to "rocking out," something Ed O'Brien's been wanting to do ever since Kid A was born. Before any heady analysis (and there's plenty later in the record), Thom deals with his recent political distractions, pointing out the medieval ignorance of inaction in the face of overwhelming odds: "Are you such a dreamer/ To put the world to rights?/ I'll stay home forever/ Where two and two always makes up five." It's a bit grandiose, but he rightly concedes the possible arrogance of his bravado during the tune's neurotically charged finale: "Go and tell the king that the sky is falling in/ When it's not/ Maybe not." "Sit Down. Stand Up.", on the other hand, is, in part, a return to old fears of impotence in the face of global forces at work, but Thom-- a new father-- has every reason to revisit the emotions that dominated one of the great societal laments in rock history, OK Computer. Juxtaposing a dread spawned by media oversaturation with a resigned, hands-over-ears focus on rain falling outside, the tune is devastating in its defeated isolation, the diary of a medicated droog in his chair on a Sunday afternoon, bubbling under the skin. Though it's compositionally identical to "2+2=5", the darker subject matter and more sinister execution-- in the form of far-off piano melodies, icy xylophone hits and maniacal vocal doubling-- reveal a demonic twin caught sideways in a cracked mirror. Leading with such an excellent couplet, it's something of a disappointment to find that those reactionary barbs about stagnation Yorke is trying to defuse are critically valid, if irrelevant to fans. "Sail to the Moon" has the serenity to survive its lamentably tired title and refrain, but for its beauty, it's both lyrically and melodically reconstituted from better ballads past, like "Pyramid Song", "How to Disappear Completely", and "The Tourist". For fans, it's another wondrous lullaby from Radiohead; for critics, it's not only nothing new, it's topically laughable, as Thom cautions: "Maybe you'll be president/ But know right from wrong/ Or in the flood/ You'll build an Ark/ And sail us to the moon." An apocalyptic vision with all the emotional impact of AI. "Backdrifts" is the first beacon signaling that Radiohead haven't lost touch with the radical experimentalism of Kid A and Amnesiac. It's a carefully attended piece that's easily overlooked on first listen, featuring a boxed-in, minimal collection of sine waves, gurgling vocal delay and distorted drum machine loops. Toward the middle, the band cuts loose with reverse-echoed piano and guitar swipes to approximate scratching vinyl. "Go to Sleep", a tightened retread of Amnesiac's Smiths tribute "Knives Out", drapes Old West reverb and twang over hugely mixed acoustic guitars. The tune carries through a surprisingly traditional half-time rock and roll chorus as Yorke rambles through placeholder lyrics, alternating tossed-off lines like, "We don't want the loonies taking over," with the constant response, "Over my dead body." This leads into "Where I End and You Begin", which is the only real low point on the album, as aside from Yorke's vocals, it's a U2 song. Shuffling snare rolls usher along an admittedly succulent liquid bassline, but these are only drawn out from their terrestrial locus by a hard-panned pair of keyboard tracks, which, for their simplicity, save an otherwise underdeveloped track. The finale is more alluring with its raspy whispers and excellent melodic interplay, but it's mostly chaos, stacked high to mask the creative nudity underneath. "We Suck Young Blood" returns to the piano mode the band has explored increasingly since Kid A, a sort of drunken New Orleans death dirge that embodies its vampiric title, creeping along at a measured, sickly pace that's punctuated only by languid, distanced handclaps. The approach pays off hugely here, as Yorke's gorgeous, metallic whinny embraces the stumbling progression with harmony after harmony, and moments of depressed, gentle wistfulness. Along with "Backdrifts", "The Gloaming" exposes the band's potential future. Simple, looping glitches and obstinate videogame blurts dash all expectations, remaining resolutely compact, using huge reverb plates that allow Yorke to sing over his own voice. It's arguably academic in its basic composition, a theoretical dare, but it's one of few on this relatively sociable record, a kind of reward for the more studious members of their audience. Which is where the advance single "There There" comes in, the unification of all of Radiohead's recently mixed aims (Jonny wants to play with Moogs, Ed and Colin want to rock out, Thom wants to change music forever). They meet up in this terrifyingly strange yet straightforward anthem, full of beautiful and more universal lyrics, soaring harmonies and a thundering crescendo they've wisely trimmed from its concert length (the band used to launch into "rock" mode after Thom's midpoint scream). Yorke has said he wept uncontrollably when he heard the first mixdown of "There There", and the unmastered MP3s of Hail to the Thief which leaked in March support this: unlike most other tracks, "There There" is essentially unchanged. Possibly even more inspiring and enduring are "Myxomatosis" and "A Wolf at the Door", two of the last tracks on the album. The former is a buzzing prog redux of OK Computer's "Airbag" that shows how the simplicity Radiohead strive for can work wonders with tempo; drums fall all over the track until Thom winds up a layered, head-spinning (drunk?) verse that spills the rhythm on the floor. It's a dizzying stereo-panned stomp, and one of this record's finest moments. As usual, Radiohead save a masterstroke for the closing slot; "A Wolf at the Door" continues in the Slavic New Orleans jazz vein, the same kind of Russo-Bayou parlor waltz as Amnesiac's "Life in a Glasshouse". As with most of Hail to the Thief, "A Wolf at the Door" is thorough, refined and consequently more potent-- almost slick-- in comparison with its drunken, ephemeral predecessor. It's here, at the end of the record, that Yorke most openly deals with the impact of his physical assault three years ago and the fears he holds with regard to role-playing traps in society and relationships (nicely summarized in a quick nod to Bryan Forbes' terrifying The Stepford Wives). Evil is out there-- he's suffered its wrath-- and like a terrified Chechnyan matriarch, he relies on tangible protection from the fuckers and future come to ransom his child. For its moments of gravity and excellence, Hail to the Thief is an arrow pointing toward the clearly darker, more frenetic territory the band have up to now only poked at curiously. Experimentation fueled the creativity that gave us Kid A and Amnesiac, but that's old hat to Radiohead, who are trying and largely succeeding in their efforts to shape pop music into as boundless and possible a medium as it should be. Without succumbing to dilettantism, they continue to absorb and refract simpler posits from the underground-- ideas that are usually satisfied to wallow in their mere novelty. The syncretic mania of Radiohead continues unabated, and though Hail to the Thief will likely be viewed as a slight placeholder once their promissory transformation is complete, most of us will long cherish the view from this bridge. Pitchfork-Chris Ott, June 10th, 2003

Tool • Lateralus [Volcano] Eric Partridge's Dictionary of the Underworld (1998 NTC/Contemporary Publishing), a lexicon of 19th Century street slang, defines the idiom "pitch the fork" as "to tell a pitiful tale." The term appeared printed in 1863 in Story of a Lancashire Thief: "Brummagem Joe, a cove ["fellow" or "dude," if you will] as could patter or pitch the fork with anyone." At last, the secret motivation of my schtick and the etymology behind our name can be revealed. These reviews have been less critique than loquacious concept reviews by an entertaining tramp. So you'd think an 80-minute opus by Tool would be right up our alley. You'd be wrong. Undertow, Tool's 1993 debut LP, took studio skill and over-trained chops to metal with aplomb. It was Rush Sabbath. As emotional, melodic metal goes (the cultural impact of which will be left to the reader), it opened doors for bands like the Deftones, and to some degree, Limp Bizkit. However, Tool have always possessed a latent understanding of absurdity and comedy; their videos look like Tim Burton stop-motion, goth Primus. But with popularity and praise, Tool's shadowy tongue-in-cheek turned into the simple biting of tongues. Ænema spiced their sound with electronics and industry, as was the trend at the time. Now, with the early new century demanding "opuses," Tool follows suit. The problem is, Tool defines "opus" as taking their "defining element" (wanking sludge) and stretching it out to the maximum digital capacity of a compact disc. Dictionary of the Underworld also offers several definitions for "tool," including: "a small boy used to creep through windows," "to steal from women's pockets," and "to loaf, to idle, to do nothing in particular." All of which oddly strike the nail on the head in relation to Lateralus. And now, the obligatory pitching of the fork. * * * My Summer Vacation, by Crispin Fubert, Ms. Higgins' Eng. Comp. 901 I believe that music comes and goes in cycles, and some of us are lucky enough to ride the crests. The men in my family are perfect examples of this. Initially, I thought that perfect music appeared every 16 years, which is also the number of years between Fubert generations. My dad was born in 1971. In that year, landmark albums were released. They were Nursery Crime by Genesis (the first with Phil Collins), Yes Album by Yes, Aqualung by Jethro Tull, and In the Land of Grey and Pink by Caravan. My grandfather skipped out on Vietnam-- because Jimi Hendrix himself told him to-- and he moved to Canterbury, which is in the United England. There, he got married to my grandmother, who used to sell baked goods to people at concerts, and they had my dad. After the war, they moved back with a box of awesome records like the ones I mentioned. I think it was cosmic or fate or something that my dad was born the same exact day Chrysalis released Aqualung, in March of 1971. Jump ahead 16 years later and my dad got this girl pregnant, who turned out to be my mom. It was 1987 and a whole bunch of lame dance music was ruling the world, like Hitler or Jesus or something. But all of the sudden, albums like Metallica's ...And Justice for All, Celtic Frost's Into the Pandemonium, Queensryche's Operation: Mindcrime, and Slayer's South of Heaven came out. That's when I was born. All those records were sitting around the house we all live in, and I grew up listening to them in the basement. So I couldn't wait until I was 16, because fate says that would be when 1) more kickass records would come out, and 2) I'd get sex. Both were due, because girls are dumb and listen to stuff like N'S(t)ync and BBSuk. But after this summer of 2001, I've had to rethink my entire cycle theory, like maybe the cycles of music are speeding as time goes forward, since two amazing things happened: Tool put out Lateralus and I saw Tool in concert. I feel like this record was made just for me by super-smart aliens or something, because it's just like a cross of 1971 and 1987. Imagine, like, Peter Gabriel with batwings or a flower on his head singing while Lars Ulrich and Rick Wakeman just hammer it down. It's the best Tool record because it's the longest. All summer I worked at Gadzooks, folding novelty t-shirts, and on each break, I would listen to Lateralus because the store just plays hip-hop and dance. My manager would always get on me for taking my breaks 20 minutes too long, but that's how long the album is and it just sucks you in. It's like this big desert world with mountains of riffs, and drum thunderstorms just roll across the sky. The packaging is also cool, since it has this clear book with a skinless guy, and as you turn the pages, it rips off his muscles and stuff. Tool's music does the same thing. It can just rip the muscles and skin off you. I think that's what they meant. So my manager would be like, "Hey, there's a new box of 'Blunt Simpson' shirts I need you to put out and the 'Original Jackass' shelf is getting low." He's a vegan and I would buy him Orange Julius because he didn't know there's egg powder in there. The first song is called "The Grudge," and it's about astrology and how people control stuff. Maynard sings like a robot or clone at the opening, spitting, "Wear the crutch like a crown/ Calculate what we will/ Will not tolerate/ Desperate to control/ All and everything." Tool know about space and math, and it's pretty complex. "Saturn ascends/ Not one but ten," he sings. No Doubt and R.E.M. sang out that, too, but those songs were wimpy and short. Maynard shows his intelligence with raw stats. I think there's meaning behind those numbers, like calculus. He also mentions "prison cell" and "tear it down" and "controlling" and "sinking deeper," which all symbolize how he feels. Seven minutes into the song, he does this awesome scream for 24 seconds straight, which is like the longest scream I've ever heard. Then at the end there's this part where Danny Carey hits every drum he has. This wall of drums just pounds you. Then the next song starts and it's quiet and trippy. Tool are the best metal band, since they can get trippy (almost pretty, but in a dark way) then just really loud. Most bands just do loud, so Tool is more prog. Danny Carey is the best drummer in rock, dispute that and I know you are a dunce. I made a list of all of his gear (from the June issue of Modern Drummer): Drums, Sonor Designer Series (bubinga wood): 8x14 snare (bronze), 8x8 tom, 10x10 tom, 16x14 tom, 18x16 floor tom, two 18x24 bass drums. Cymbals, Paiste: 14" Sound Edge Dry Crisp hi-hats, 6" signature bell over 8" signature bell, 10" signature splash, 24" 2002 China, 18" signature full crash, #3 cup chime over #1 cup chime, 18" signature power crash, 12" signature Micro-Hat, 22" signature Dry Heavy ride, 22" signature Thin China, 20" signature Power crash. Electronics: Simmons SDX pads, Korg Wave Drum, Roland MC-505, Oberheim TVS. Hardware: Sonor stands, Sonor, Axis or Pro-Mark hi-hat stand, Axis or Pearl bass drum petals with Sonor or Pearl beaters (loose string tension, but with long throw). Heads: Evans Power Center on snare batter (medium high tuning, no muffling), G2s on tom batters with G1s underneath (medium tuning with bottom head higher than batter), EQ3 bass drum batter with EQ3 resonant on front (medium tuning, with EQ pad touching front and back heads). Sticks: Trueline Danny Carey model (wood tip). He has his own sticks, even. In "Schism," the double basses just go nuts at the end. They also do in "Eon Blue Apocalypse." And in "The Grudge." And in "Ticks & Leeches." And nobody uses more toms in metal. You can really hear the 8x8 and 10x10 toms in the opening for "Ticks & Leeches." Over the summer, I counted the number of tom hits in that song, and it's 1,023!! Amazing. That's my favorite song, since it's the one that starts with Maynard screaming, "Suck it!" Then he says, "Little parasite." Later he shouts, "This is what you wanted... I hope you choke on it!" Every time I watched my boss suck down those Orange Juliuses I had that stuck in my head. There is simply no way you could just dismiss the music (which is excellent). The bass playing is just really creepy and slow and sometimes it has this watery effect. Tool even follow in the footsteps of Caravan with Middle Eastern or Asian or something sounds. "Disposition" features bongos, and then on the next song, "Reflection," Carey's toms sound like bongos or tablas or whatever is in those Fruitopia commercials. Close your eyes and imagine if Asia had a space program. This is like the music they'd play. The song is called "Reflection" since it's quieter and slower and sounds like it's from India, where people go to reflect. Maynard's voice sounds like that little bleached midget girl flying around inside the walls in Polterghost. It's messed up. In conclusion, there is more emotion on that album than would be on 30 Weezer albums. At the very least, there's 2.5 times as much. Like I said, it's messed up, like the world, which makes it very real. I don't think I'm going to have a kid this year, but that's also a good thing. Just imagine the Tool record that will come out in three years, according to my theory. It will be the future, and albums can be like longer with better compression and technology. Even as amazing as Lateralus is, I feel like there's a monster coming in three years. Music comes in cycles, and works on math, and my life and Tool are proof of that for sure. Pitchfork

The Strokes - Room on Fire [RCA; 2003] Rating: 8.0 Okay, can someone please remind me why The Strokes were such a polarizing force about two years ago? Listening to Is This It last week had me scratching my head over how it managed to become the Roe vs. Wade of the rock crit world in 2001, with everyone forced to choose sides: "saviors of rock!" or "everything that's wrong with music today!" At the time, I found myself in the latter category, ironically earning myself a spot on this very staff with a lengthy diatribe against the band's hype machine, socioeconomic background, and rampant influence-pilfering. You know, basically everything but the music. I feel pretty silly about such grandstanding nowadays, having finally listened to, and embraced, at least the show-stopping middle third of The Strokes' debut. But with the release of Room on Fire, both sides of The Great Strokes Debate look a little foolish; NYC's finest have all but given birth to an identical twin. In the interim, a perplexing flirtation with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich ("hey guys, 'Last Nite' was just a few lasers away from being perfect!") was scrapped, and the band's relentless touring failed to lead them down a cockier, arena-rock path. Instead, Room on Fire is eleven songs sharing DNA with its predecessor, a follow-up of more sleepy, contagious Mono-pop that doesn't sound diligently recorded so much as yawned out. This is far from a bad thing, largely because The Strokes seem almost pathologically unable to write a song that isn't immediately catchy. Tracks like "Reptilia", "Meet Me in the Bathroom", and "Under Control" take their place alongside the highlights of the band's debut, all hitting that perfect contrast of woozy nonchalance and taut guitarplay that appears to be the alpha and omega of their stylistic inventory. That there's nothing new or innovative to be found here is sure to be a common complaint, though only those who prize evolution over knowing one's strengths will cry fraud. Speaking of the originality quotient-- and not to add more historical tinder to the fire of what bands The Strokes supposedly owe a debt to, but-- lead guitarist Nick Valensi is sweating The Pixies' Joey Santiago something fierce here. His development is the only newish detail I can detect on Room on Fire, and it's an inspiration that lends improvement; Santiago's beautifully simple lead lines were The Pixies' secret weapon, and Hammond employs a similar humble style to lend a melodic counterpoint to the proceedings. Whether showing up at the Halloween party as The Cars' keyboard on "12:51" or contributing slow-hand solos to "What Ever Happened?" and "You Talk Way Too Much", it's an extra spritz of tuneship that only assists The Strokes' infectious ways. Of course, Julian Casablancas is a far cry from Frank Black as vocalists go, but it can at least be said that he knows his place through Room on Fire. Wisely avoiding the unbecoming screaminess of subpar Is This It tracks like "Take It or Leave It" and "New York City Cops", he instead applies a cough syrupy croon to "Under Control" and "The End is No End", its bum notes smoothed out by his payphone vocal effect addiction. Casablancas also appears to have moved beyond the smirking misogyny of his early lyrics, just as the cover art is sagely chosen to continue the abstract graphic theme of the Stateside edition of Is This It rather than the Smell the Glove UK version. Meanwhile, the rhythm section, the band's Achilles' Heel, continues to miraculously scrape by, lending these tracks a vaguely new wave air despite slack-limp playing (hey guys, trade Godrich's number for the DFA's and you might be onto something). Drummer Fabrizio Moretti has always tended to sound a bit like a drum machine, and here his best work happens when he shares the drummer's stool with a sampler-- "The Way It Is" and "Meet Me in the Bathroom" shuffle with the best technology 1983 had to offer. Bassman Nikolai Fraiture, mostly relegated to backbone status on this outing, carries less of the band's melodic weight than he did on Is This It but gets a front-of-stage moment on the perfectly choreographed breakdown of "Reptilia". It remains to be seen whether old white men will continue to trumpet The Strokes as leading the cause of hiphopicide, and if young white idealists will stand firm on the opposite side, regarding them as the Nike of indie rock (and no doubt fixating their conspiracy theories on Casablancas' sarcastic aside "keepin' down the underground, oh no!"); what's clear is that The Fab(rizio) Five neither deserve, nor desire, either status-- their goals are about as unpretentious and uncomplicated as possible. They may not be able to get away with milking this formula for many more albums, but for now, Room on Fire's eleven songs find them drowsily getting away with what they do best. Pitchfork-Rob Mitchum, October 27th, 2003

Some New Age thing off the Satellite... At One With You - Mars Laser (Quite catchy, with only a few syrupy moments :)

$$K-Ching.$$ Shake that THING.....

Belle & Sebastian Dear Catastrophe Waitress [Rough Trade; 2003] Rating: 7.5 One of the most beloved, bewitching, misunderstood, and eventually disappointing bands in recent history, Belle & Sebastian did the near-impossible in the Internet era: They seemed to appear out of nowhere. Admittedly, there was also a time (recently, in fact) when I'd wished they'd have mysteriously vanished as well, exorcising the dark spots of their post-1998 output in order to keep their reputation-- or at least Stuart Murdoch's-- in respectable shape. From their inauspicious beginnings in 1995, the collective emerged from Scotland with wistful, nostalgia-laden indie pop that examined sexual frustration, shiftlessness, loneliness, and isolation. Murdoch's songs-- often punctuated by proper and place names-- painted expressionist, detail-oriented worlds that, when they connected with a listener, often left an indelible, deep impression. What went wrong is typically chalked up to a split in songwriting duties, a practice that made their third and fourth albums, The Boy With the Arab Strap and Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant, disjointed, frustrating listens. The band's choice to democratize, allowing a fair number of songs from each band member, negated the singularity of Murdoch's vision, often at the cost of his wit and charm. This all-inclusive measure also resulted in the band drifting toward a pastiche of too-familiar touchstones: 60s baroque pop, Northern Soul/Motown, and folk-rock. On their fifth proper album, Dear Catastrophe Waitress, Belle & Sebastian continue their exploration of pastiche, diversifying their sonic palate to include 70s soft-rock, the irreverent pop of 10cc and Squeeze, and bubblegum. Here, the band's once-misguided ambition is tailored and cut by famed producer (and founder of notorious 1980s art-pop groups The Buggles and The Art of Noise), Trevor Horn, who aids the band in making a complete 180-degree turn from wry, wistful folk-pop to sophisticated, tight, sometimes-complex arrangements with a keen attention to detail. Horn's touch is most effective on "Stay Loose" and "I'm a Cuckoo", two ambitious classic AM pop gems that-- like the best of his past production work-- threaten to spill over into the absurd but instead remain delightfully audacious. Ironically, with a new-found ability to rectify their once at-odds musical interests, Belle & Sebastian have emerged as shiny happy people, becoming that of which they were always falsely accused: t*ee. That label was always more appropriate to the infantilism-obsessed, Sanrio-loving element in their fanbase, while the band itself traded in innuendo, sinisterism, anxiety, and sketches of unfulfilled childhoods. But here, songs such as "Roy Walker", "You Don't Send Me", and the semi-creepy Godspellian "If You Find Yourself Caught in Love" are so bubblegum they could have been staples of any number of early 70s TV families, from the Bradys to the Osmonds to the Partridges. That may sound dreadful but Belle & Sebastian manage to do a lot of things right-- including "You Don't Send Me", whose strength lies in its effective application of aesthetic. "Piazza, New York Catcher" manages to come off like a woozy, drunken version of the Murdoch demo "Rhoda", and it's his most lyrically complex work here, reminiscent of highlights from the past couple of albums such as "Sleep the Clock Around", "The Boy With the Arab Strap", "The Model", and "There's Too Much Love". Certain tracks do flirt with reminders of Belle & Sebastian Mk I-- namely "Lord Anthony", finally given a proper release years after it was written, and "Wrapped Up in Books"-- but these throwbacks are temporary, bones tossed to diehards unable to cope with the band's decision to trade their bedsit infamy for bouncy, pogo-pop. On one hand, Dear Catastrophe Waitress ranks as one of the most delightful surprises of the year, although that's primarily because I'd completely given up on them. On the other hand, it's a very flawed record that at its quirky worst features harmonies so brow-furringly cheery they'd be comfortable amidst a cruise-ship revue or one of Up With People's halftime routines. It's not at all what one might call a "return to form"; rather, it's a large step toward a new, more appealing direction than the band had otherwise been heading. At present, they're almost a new entity entirely, which makes this the Belle & Sebastian album for people who never really liked Belle & Sebastian. I realize that for a large portion of Belle & Sebastian fans-- most of them young and American-- lots of elements of the band's past matter little. The myth, the shambolic performances, the radio sessions, the dubbed cassettes of Tigermilk, the band's refusal to talk to the press, releasing only non-LP tracks as singles, not featuring the band on its sleeves, Murdoch's place in a songwriting lineage that includes early Orange Juice, The Smiths, and Felt-- it's now all ancient history. If that's indicative to you of what's become problematic with the band, you may want to approach this album with caution. If, however, "Legal Man" is among your favorite Belle & Sebastian songs, buy this immediately. Pitchfork -Scott Plagenhoef, October 6th, 2003

Universal Vibe From South America By BEN RATLIFF Published: December 1, 2003 These records carry new sounds from South America — folk-electronica, rock and jazz. They're the opposite of regional: they reflect the country of their origin to various degrees, but basically this is all universal music. 'Segundo' Juana Molina The Argentine television actress Juana Molina changed careers in the mid-90's to music and made one rock album before stumbling on the curious, lonely, misty dimensions of sound that you hear in "Segundo" (Domino), which is more or less a very high-functioning home recording. The album was originally finished in 2000, was released in Argentina first and has been out since the summer in the United States; she has already made a third album, as yet unavailable in America. Ms. Molina will perform on Wednesday night at Joe's Pub, and it will be interesting to see how much she has gone beyond "Segundo." Advertisement Ms. Molina had used a producer — in fact a very good one, Gustavo Santaolalla — for her first album. But she made a decisive hard-left turn for her follow-up: this is an album in which the person multi-tracking her quiet, breathy voice is unquestionably the same one playing the guitar and making the keyboard sounds, and here and there you come across bits that sound hesitant or unfinished. Parts of "Segundo" — like the instrumental "Medlong" — are sleepy and interior, as diffident as Ms. Molina's pose on the cover, which shows her face hidden behind veils of hair. Others, like the wordless "Mantra del Bicho Feo," grow into dense, confident, swirling dance music. There are strong melodies, too, and harmonies for multiple voices. But the basic compelling idea here is mixing the folk sound of acoustic guitars with electronic keyboards and beats. Not that it has never happened before: that's Beth Orton's idea, too, and she's the better singer. But Ms. Molina's sensibility is more mysterious, less trendy, her voice sleepy and disembodied; some of keyboard tones have a seasick, wavering pitch or rattle like an outboard motor. It's hard to tell where she's coming from exactly: it's an original. 'Amarelo Manga' Soundtrack Various Artists Containing the songs and incidental music heard in a recent Brazilian film by Claudio Assis, "Amarelo Manga: Trilha Sonora" (Ybrazil) functions as both moody background music and an index of a fascinating little scene in pop music. That's the scene around Recife, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco. In the mid-90's, the exciting new rock from that region was called Mangue Beat; an eternity in pop years has gone by since then, and the music has changed sufficiently that this soundtrack album offers a progress report on the post-Mangue. What's changed is that D.J.'s and electronic artists have opened up the Recife scene and made a deep mark on the instrumental bands. The grooves have spread out, become spacier, the low end deeper; the old punk aggression has been replaced by a dub-reggae influence. In short, Mangue Beat has grown up and become some of the best mature pop around. Some songs on the soundtrack CD are fragmentary — ropy surf-guitar with reggae grooves and melodica, or in one amazing little piece, a trio of didjeridoo, spitfire metal guitar and parade drums. Its main contributors are Lucio Maia and Jorge du Peixe of the band Naçao Zumbi, working in various spinoff groupings. But there are complete songs too, and very nearly great ones. Fred Zero Quatro, leader of the band Mundo Livre S/A, contributes a lovely track, "Ligia," as good as anything he has done with his band; his pleading voice, unspooling irregularly over rhythm, complements a slow, percolating beat, with nylon-string acoustic guitar, Hammond organ and snippets of backward-running samples threading through the background. And the magnificent Naçao Zumbi itself contributes one killer track, "Tempo Amarelo," with its thunderous batucada drums. (Available from www.dustygroove.com.) 'Soundances' Diego Urcola A jazz trumpeter from Argentina who has shuttled between his home country and New York for some years, Diego Urcola plays with unusual dexterity and strength. He's an orderly musician, and like so many young jazz players, he's looking far and wide for music that will sum up himself and his generation. "Soundances" (Sunnyside), made in Buenos Aires with an entirely Argentine band, moves from nimble Nuevo tango with bandoneon ("Blues for Astor"), to deep, discursive ballads that have their roots in early Pat Metheny and the best Brazilian songwriters of the 70's ("La Milonga," written by the band's bassist, Willy González), to Weather Report-style levels of intertwining melody with electric piano and bass, to old Argentine songs, to a beautiful bandoneon-and-trumpet duet on Miles Davis's "Blue in Green." "Soundances" offers more proof that a training in jazz isn't just the thing-in-itself it used to be; it's also a jumping-off place for exploring music from different areas, from different traditions, from past and present. NY Times.com • The Arts

Burning down the house A definitive new box set will proclaim the eclectic greatness of Talking Heads when the ugliness between David Byrne and Tina Weymouth has long been forgotten. - - - - - - - - - - - - By David Bowman Dec. 3, 2003 | The pages of "Anna Karenina" contain Tolstoy's renowned quip, "All happy families resemble one another while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." His platitude also applies to those artificial family-like groupings called rock bands. Consider Talking Heads. Led by art school dropout David Byrne, and manned by Army brats Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, as well as Harvard architectural graduate Jerry Harrison, Talking Heads' repertoire included everything from edgy love songs about Washington bureaucracy to African-influenced techno chants that could turn one's ears into savannas and jungles. Although Mick Jagger and Keith Richards started out as art students like Tina and Chris, the Rolling Stones never wrote a song called "Artists Only" that began with the line "I'm painting again!" Talking Heads were born of the punk movement, but with their Brady Bunch haircuts and Lacoste shirts, they were obviously not of that brood. The band was also present at the birth of rock videos, yet they transcended the limits of MTV lip-sync fodder, instead producing videos that were the rock 'n' roll equivalent of Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's surrealistic masterpiece "L'Age d'Or." Then there was David Byrne's "big suit." Byrne, normally the hipster generation's answer to Mister Rogers, would lumber onstage wearing a white suit padded to the size of a sumo wrestler, then sing, "Who took the money? Who took the money away?" While your parents never knew that the Beatles almost broke up three or four times before they actually did, the members of Talking Heads aired their dirty laundry in public all the time. At the time of their first album, "Talking Heads '77," we all learned that Weymouth was a bass prodigy who only first began playing her instrument a few months before the band played in public. We also learned that after the band got a record contract David Byrne heartlessly made Tina re-audition. (Apparently she passed.) Several years later, after the group began working with musical savant (and former art school student) Brian Eno, Weymouth bitterly remarked, "By the time Brian and David finished working together for three months, they were dressing like one another. I can see them when they're 80 years old and all alone. There'll be David Bowie, David Byrne and Brian Eno, and they'll just talk to each other." Doesn't that sound like something best said after your group has broken up? Fans were surprised that Talking Heads lasted as long as they did. We wouldn't have been surprised to learn about such backstage backstabbing as Weymouth trying to pull a coup d'état by pleading with visiting guitarist Adrian Belew to replace Byrne as the band's singer. Belew wisely declined. On the other hand, in the early 1980s a Czech reporter surprised Weymouth by asking, "How do you feel now about the fact that David has announced he's leaving the group?" This was news to her. Byrne later changed his mind, but it came as no surprise that when he finally broke the band up for good in 1991, he did it in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. I dredge this up because the first Talking Heads box set, "Once in a Lifetime," has just arrived, and already the publicity wheels are turning to sanitize the band's history. Before anything more is said here, it must be pointed out that as an object "Once in a Lifetime" is the most intriguing box set ever created. Rather than some squat Kleenex box, it is a long rectangle the width of three CDs placed side by side, with a cover graced by a poppish painting by Vladimir Dubosarsky and Alexander Vinogradov of a baby among gentle wolf puppies. Inside the booklet are full-frontal nudes of naked suburban men and women, along with a smiling boy whose genitals are bleeding down his leg. On another page, a wolf triumphantly clutches the severed arm of another boy in his jaws. As we will soon see, this is the story of Talking Heads in a nutshell. Interestingly, Rhino reports that the band was only gingerly involved in this deceptively psychotic package design. Mutilation aside, the box is a reminder that Talking Heads used to spend as much energy creating album covers as they did on recording the records themselves. Byrne and Weymouth labored together to create the mosaic of 529 Polaroids for the cover to the band's second album, "More Songs About Buildings and Food." Several years later, Jerry Harrison spent six months trying to find someone to manufacture the cover that artist Robert Rauschenberg had created for "Speaking in Tongues." Harrison finally found a company in Minneapolis that could do it -- it manufactured Oscar Mayer wiener packages. As for the music in the box, the 55 tracks demonstrate that Talking Heads followed through on the Beatles-Dylan tenet that a band should change musical directions at least several times in its career. The box contains their early minimalist terse-titled numbers like "Pulled Up" and "No Compassion" as well as their brittle funk cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River" and the neo-Eno-psychedelia of songs like "Drugs" to the neo-Funkadelic "Burning Down the House" to the simple pop of later Heads tracks like "Creatures of Love." Byrne once said, "I think Talking Heads can be as popular as the Carpenters." As unlikely as this goal seemed at the time, the box shows the band almost was. The box set isn't a complete history, however. In their time, the songs on the Eno-Byrne album "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts," as well as the songs Byrne wrote (with production assistance from Jerry Harrison) for choreographer Twyla Tharp's "The Catherine Wheel," fit perfectly with Talking Heads' songs. Even the Shaggs-adelic record Weymouth made with her sisters, "The Tom Tom Club," goes well with some of the cartoonish songs from "Little Creatures." What's missing is worth mentioning because for 30 years now "greatest hits" collections have had as much credibility as original albums. In the early 1970s, the kids too young to have bought Beatles records snatched up "Beatles, 1962-1966" and "Beatles 1967-1970." Later, listeners too cheap to buy all the Eagles' albums made their "Greatest Hits Vol. 1" one of the best-selling records of all times. Lou Reed has almost as many "greatest hits" albums as full-fledged releases. The first R.E.M. record our children buy is likely to be a greatest hits collection as well. Is David Byrne really a psycho killer, as Weymouth once alleged? Pg. 2 At least the Heads' box set negates their 1992 contractual "greatest hits" obligation, "Popular Favorites: Sand in the Vaseline." All the former's new "extra" cuts are included in the new box, including the jagged-sounding early CBGB numbers recorded before Harrison joined the band. The box set's new "alternate versions" archaeology isn't as exciting as, say, Bob Dylan's "official" bootleg series. There is no Talking Heads equivalent of "Series of Dreams." Saying this, I must reveal that in 1999, I sold all my Talking Heads vinyl and CDs to Bleecker Bob's in Greenwich Village. I now gladly welcome Talking Heads back into my CD shelf with this definitive collection. I tossed my Heads after having lunch with Tina Weymouth. At the time, I was writing a history of her old band, and her poisonous memories of the band's divorce finally made it impossible for me to listen to Talking Heads anymore. I mean, we all know about Paul McCartney and John Lennon's post-Beatles squabbles. John sang to Paul, "How do you sleep at night?" and 30 years later Paul reversed the Lennon-McCartney credits on songs that he wrote by himself. But neither one tried to reform the Beatles without the other, as Weymouth did in 1994 when she wanted to restart Talking Heads without Byrne. Neither John nor Paul ever accused the other of being autistic. In the late 1990s, Weymouth even reportedly called several old friends in the middle of the night to tell them that Byrne had a "baby penis." While we were at lunch, Weymouth announced that she had heard David Byrne was a murderer. And she wasn't talking about his song that goes "Psycho killer, q'est-ce que c'est?" No. She heard at a party that Byrne had killed a boy in Brazil using voodoo. She wanted us to play Hardy Boys and solve the case. "David is a vampire, in a way," she told me. "Watch out for the autism. It might be something much more complex. Psychics have seen him and they say he just has a firewall around him." Talking Heads fans generally don't take kindly to dumping on Weymouth, but she really is the Lady Macbeth of rock. I find her the kind of tragic anti-heroine who is rarely investigated in pop music histories. It's not that I see her as some kind of shrew. Rather, I like to picture her as a slim, naked, green angel. I never saw her this way, but more than a few former Rhode Island School of Design students remember Weymouth showing up at an art opening naked, her body covered with green paint. I think there is something sweetly innocent about that. She recalled her first real meeting with David Byrne by telling me, "I went to visit him in his apartment in Providence, which was a pigsty. There were all these clothes strewn about. There was also a corset and white vinyl boots. 'Whose are those?'" she asked. "David said, 'Mine.' I said, 'It can't be. Prove it to me.' David went behind a wall and dressed in drag." She made no judgments about Byrne's propensity for cross-dressing. "Back then," she told me, "David was kind of fun." Lee Blake, a friend of the band from its early days, told me, "People ask me over and over, 'What's the matter with the two of them?' I say, 'Tina's always been in love with David.' Maybe now she wants to destroy him rather than have him not be hers." Another witness, an old girlfriend of Byrne's named Mary Clark, believes, "Tina's obsession is just a control issue. She saw a loss of her own power, the more powerful David became." When Seymour Stein -- who would sign Talking Heads to Sire Records -- first saw the band playing at CBGB, he said, "I was mesmerized. I saw this girl [Weymouth] -- and she looked like a Keane painting come to life because her eyes were so blown up -- transfixed on David. She was watching his every move. I thought mistakenly that they were together." He then added, "Not that I gave it much thought, because it was the music and David standing there -- great guitar player, that quirky voice and those lyrics one after another, and everything." Again Byrne eclipsed Weymouth. She responded by telling anyone who would listen, "David takes the most obvious thing, and people all go, 'Genius! Genius!'" When you hear her say that in person, her voice rings with utter contempt. Post-breakup, Byrne has rarely bad-mouthed Weymouth in the press, although I suspect this was for legal reasons. While I was interviewing Byrne, I said something unprintable about Weymouth, and Byrne just stared at the tape recorder and raised his right eyebrow. The only time I saw Byrne get visibly angry concerning her was when he described a letter Weymouth wrote him in 1996. "I'd get these bizarre letters from Tina," he said, gritting his teeth. "They'd say what a fucking dumb jerk and asshole piece of shit I was. It would go into detail how badly I'd behaved. What a terrible person I was. How hard I was to work with. How unfair I was. It was this thing meant to make me feel real terrible and how much 'I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.' And then in the end she'd go, 'Why don't you want to work with us? Why in the world don't you want to work with us? What's the matter?'" Byrne paused and sighed. "You've answered the question. Look at the beginning of your letter, look at the end. You've answered it. There is some kind of weird denial going on." In the end, Talking Heads' box set is a testament to music that transcends even the most sordid history. It also includes a DVD that contains all the band's videos, including the trademark image of a deadpan Byrne slapping his own forehead and intoning, "Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was ..." John Cale, once fired from the Velvet Underground by Lou Reed, told me this about Talking Heads: "The incredible nature of the band at the time [was that] everybody looked at them and wondered what exactly held them together. That's kind of a really cool cinematic thing about them; the best thing about cinema is when the audience is just incredulous about the plot and the story line of the film. And you think, 'This can't possibly be true.' And you follow it and you believe it and you buy it. The charm of Talking Heads was the same way. 'This can't possibly be true.'" salon.com

Stone aged!

Me neither. However, I respect Manson's right to express himself... Sounds like the Swiss prosecutor is trying to make a name for himself--what an idiot.

where are the tracks on the home page? under what section?

ACLU Defends Student Against the RIAA December 2, 2003 Thomas Mennecke The RIAA has been particularly aggressive against universities in their war against file-sharing. This has caused many schools across the nation to either completely ban or severely restrict file-sharing activity. Despite this, many feel that college life and file-sharing go hand in hand. When a group of friends get together and do whatever, music is always a welcomed complement. What’s easier than hopping onto one's favorite P2P network and downloading a few tunes to set the mood? While this is seemingly innocent enough, most have come to learn by now that the RIAA doesn't agree with this philosophy. In the RIAA's quest to banish file-sharing to the bowels of the Internet, this trade organization has been applying an enormous amount of pressure on universities to fall in line. For the most part, they have complied. Although colleges and universities are not the begging and end all of file-sharing, thwarting its activity there has the potential to make mp3 trading more inconvenient. While this activity may be more difficult in some schools, it never the less still occurs - and the RIAA continues to watch. A University of North Carolina student has learned this fact all too well, as the RIAA is now scouring every avenue possible looking for his or her identity. The RIAA issued a subpoena in October, insisting that nine (9) songs were made available (obviously had his/her shared directory exposed.) Hearing that only nine songs were made available certainly raises an eyebrow. Typically, we have been hearing a substantial amount of files are required for a subpoena, i.e., 1,000 files. This is a clear deviation of this standard, as college and university network administrators have told us that students are being accused for having far fewer files. The RIAA typically cites a number of copyrighted songs as a representative list, so it is possible this individual did have many other files available. In defense of the student, the ACLU the ACLU filed a motion in "federal district court in Greensboro quash the RIAA’s subpoena.” The ACLU contends that it has chosen to defend the student not because it approves of copyright infringement. Rather, it feels the student’s privacy rights are at stake. "Our motion is about due process rights. The Constitution and the First Amendment protects the right to engage in anonymous speech and that includes anonymous speech on the Internet." In any case, this showdown between the two should prove to be quite interesting. Slyck.com

"I know... you know?"

In the 21st century, consumers are acquiring more music online than on CD. Every month, tens of millions of people in the U.S. alone turn to the Net for new music. These are the week's ten most popular songs... .: Top10 (all) .: January 12, 2004 to January 19, 2004 #01 OutKast The Way You Move #02 Kelis Milkshake #03 OutKast Hey Ya #04 Linkin Park Numb #05 No Doubt It's My Life #06 Limp Bizkit Behind Blue Eyes #07 3 Doors Down Here Without You #08 Lil Jon Get Low #09 Twista Slow Jam #10 Alicia Keys You Don't Know My Name Top Swaps on the Web - 11-24 to 12/1/03 #01 #01 OutKast Hey Ya #06 #02 Kelis Milkshake #07 #03 Ludacris Stand Up #13 #04 Chingy Holidae In #02 #05 OutKast The Way You Move #10 #06 3 Doors Down Here Without You #08 #07 Linkin Park Numb #04 #08 Beyonce Knowles Baby Boy #03 #09 50 Cent P.I.M.P. #11 #10 G-Unit Stunt 101 .: Top10 (all) .: November 17, 2003 to November 24, 2003 #01 #01 OutKast Hey Ya #05 #02 OutKast The Way You Move #06 #03 50 Cent P.I.M.P. #02 #04 Beyonce Knowles Baby Boy #04 #05 Fountains of Wayne Stacy's Mom #23 #06 Kelis Milkshake #03 #07 Ludacris Stand Up #08 #08 Linkin Park Numb #42 #09 The Ataris Boys Of Summer #07 #10 3 Doors Down Here Without You

Whose the babe .. 'everybody should like her' ? :) Count me in!

I had lunch with two visitors today from out of town--they both are on the system!

Mon., Dec. 1, 2003, 2:08pm PT Sundance goes up close and personal 13 of 16 pics in dramatic competish are debuts By TODD MCCARTHY "This is the first year when I feel we have films from a real post-9/11 world," fest director Geoffrey Gilmore noted of the lineup of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. "Just as we did after the 1950s, we've lost a degree of insularity and comfort that we had in the 1990s. The films are not broad or about the big picture, but about the disruption of everyday life, with a search for knowledge and meaning about what's going on in a specific world, often in an alternate reality." Variety.com

Good one, Moodring! :)

lol

morning,people. i noticed that we have two similar threads: "what are you listening to" and "now playing" Can they be merged? Also, Beatfactory dropped by and left us a nice note on the Welcome Pebbles thread. He also started a thread for new member fMikeh..

FYI, a recent article from CNET.com: FCC to form working group on VoIP regulation Last modified: December 1, 2003, 4:30 PM PST By Declan McCullagh Staff Writer, CNET News.com The Federal Communications Commission on Monday took the first step toward deciding whether to regulate Internet telephony, a move that could increase the amount of money customers pay each month for such services and radically transform the fast-growing industry. FCC Chairman Michael Powell said he would create a working group to investigate what, if any, regulations on VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) technology would be necessary. Powell and other commissioners said they had reached no final conclusions yet and intended a public briefing on Monday with speakers from companies including Cisco Systems, Time Warner Cable and Level3 to educate them about VoIP technology and business models. "Moving more communications to IP networks is in the public interest," Powell said. "Internet-based services create more choices for consumers, more competitors, lower prices and lots more flexibility to personalize your service." Federal regulators should borrow the credo of the medical profession, Powell suggested, and "first, do no harm." As more conversations begin to flow through unregulated VoIP links instead of the heavily taxed public switched telephone network, federal and state governments stand to lose billions of dollars. Because VoIP currently is not regulated, companies offering the service aren't subject to the vast thicket of taxes and regulations governing e911 and guaranteeing wiretapping access for police. Also at issue is the future of a special $2.25 billion-a-year tax--typically reflected in higher monthly phone bills--that provides schools and libraries with discounts on everything from Internet access to phone lines for fax machines and domain name registrations. If their public comments Monday are any indication, the five FCC commissioners appear split on how to approach VoIP, with the two Democrats favoring a more aggressive approach than their Republican colleagues. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, a former Democratic Senate aide, said that the federal government should not ignore its "important statutory obligations" to provide "universal service, homeland security, 911 service, accessibility (for) people with disabilities." Imposing such obligations on VoIP providers may be necessary to "bring equity and effectiveness to rules and regulations that protect the public interest," Copps said. VoIP providers all expect to be regulated. They have been battling for a federal set of rules rather than a patchwork of differing state edicts. Time Warner Cable, for example, has already begun voluntarily paying federal universal service fees, just as traditional phone companies are required to do. While nearly every other VoIP provider has fought against state regulatory efforts, Time Warner Cable recently hinted it intends to follow any state generated telephone rules or regulations. Monday's hearing was a way for the FCC "to start asking questions," said Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy. She said that because many of the labyrinthine rules governing phone service were based on the absence of competition, "legacy rules that apply to common carrier services should not apply in their existing form to VoIP." There are different types of VoIP businesses, but all have one thing in common: At least part of the voice conversations they carry travel over the Internet. Because of VoIP's low costs, former Bell companies like Verizon Communications are shifting to it even for traditional voice calls that have an analog headset at each end. A second type of VoIP technology is employed by companies like Vonage, which lets consumers bypass the traditional phone network by making voice calls over a broadband connection. Calls can either go to another Vonage customer and traverse just the Internet, or connect to a traditional phone number through Vonage's interconnection agreements with phone companies. Finally, Internet-to-Internet methods like Skype, Free World Dialup, and instant messaging clients ignore the phone network altogether. An overview of U.S. law prepared by FCC aides and released Monday suggested that VoIP services that link to the public telephone network can be regulated, but regulating computer-to-computer connections may require additional action by Congress. Charles Davidson, from Florida's Public Service Commission, told the FCC that current taxes and regulations should apply "to that portion of a VoIP call that relies upon the switched network." In October, a federal judge in Minnesota ruled that VoIP provider Vonage is an "information service" rather than a "telecommunications service" and therefore exempt from state regulation. The opinion was issued a week after the judge ordered an injunction permanently barring Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission from forcing Vonage to get a telephone operator's license to do business in the state. VoIP regulations could have some unintended effects, some panelists warned the FCC. VoIP relies on the same standard, known as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), that instant messaging software does. Microsoft also uses SIP in its Xbox game consoles, allowing players to taunt each other using VoIP. Warning that terrorists could frustrate legitimate wiretaps by placing phone calls through VoIP, the FBI has lobbied the FCC to require broadband companies to provide more efficient, standardized surveillance facilities for eavesdropping. The FCC has not begun a formal process to draft regulations, though Powell told CNET News.com earlier this year that he expected to initiate one soon. "I really want to be cautious to say that it's not because we're sure (VoIP) should be regulated--only that we're sure that it needs to start to be understood," Powell said at the time. In addition, a number of petitions regarding the issue are pending before the FCC, which has not ruled on them. CNET News.com's Ben Charny contributed to this report.

By John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com A San Francisco federal judge last week moved the venue for SBC Communications' lawsuit against the recording industry's file-swapping legal strategy, a potentially significant victory for record labels. The decision, which was released late last Wednesday, transfers a closely watched legal battle over the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) dragnet for online music traders to courts in the nation's capital, where the industry group has already had success. "We are pleased with the California court's decision to transfer the suit filed by SBC to the District of Columbia," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "Since the DC court has already addressed most of the challenges raised by SBC and resolved them in RIAA's favor, we believe that the decision to transfer the case throws a significant monkey wrench into SBC's case." SBC sued the RIAA in California courts at the end of July. It contended that the record industry's subpoenas for information on subscribers to Internet service providers were unconstitutional. The RIAA has used the subpoenas it issued to most major Net service providers to identify file traders who allegedly shared copyrighted songs online and has sued more then 300 people for copyright infringement. The telecommunications company's suit echoes a previous legal tussle between Verizon Communications and the RIAA. Like SBC, Verizon had claimed that the RIAA subpoenas were invalid, since they were not issued in the course of an ongoing lawsuit. In that suit, the Washington, D.C., federal court decided that the RIAA's subpoenas were legal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. SBC says it is considering an appeal of Judge Susan Illston's ruling but noted that her decision did not affect the merits of their challenge. "This ruling is procedural in nature and does not address the substantive issues we are raising about the recording industry’s continued misapplication of DMCA subpoena power," the company said in a statement. "SBC companies will continue to stand firm and continue our legal action in order to protect the privacy rights of our customers." Illston also dismissed SBC's related claims against MediaSentry, a company that scans file-trading networks such as Kazaa for copyright violations and contacts ISPs on behalf of copyright owners, and Titan Media, an adult content provider that also sought identities of SBC Internet subscribers. Illston said neither company actually had a subpoena-based legal conflict with SBC; its lawsuit against the companies was not warranted. MediaSentry had never issued a subpoena for the ISP's information, and Titan withdrew the only one it had sought, after SBC opposed it. CNET.com ©2003

The 2004 nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were recently announced this past Saturday. Who would you vote vote? Pick 7... George Harrison Prince John Mellencamp Jackson Browne Sex Pistols Lynyrd Skynyrd ZZ Top Gram Parsons Bob Seger The Stooges Traffic Patti Smith The Dells "5" Royales Black Sabbath Courtesy Mystdream @ msn60sn70srock&rollcommunity

Inside the Internet.--Same Old Song The Net hasn't changed music—except maybe for the worse. By Paul Boutin Posted Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2003, at 1:17 PM PT Woo-hoo, Napster's back! Well, not really. The Napster 2.0 that went live last week isn't a peer-to-peer file sharing application like its predecessor. It's yet another 99-cents-per-song store in the vein of Apple's iTunes Music Store and its Windows-only competitor, BuyMusic.com. Although RealNetworks's Rhapsody still charges a $9.95 monthly subscription fee (with an additional 79-cent charge for every song you burn to disc), it seems that the rest of the online music world is turning into the digital equivalent of a dollar store. But wait a minute. Doesn't it seem odd that these fully automated online e-commerce systems, with software that ought to be able to track and respond to customer behavior instantly, unimaginatively mandate the same fixed price across the board? One of the Internet's supposed strengths is its ability to let supply and demand drive prices up and down in real time. Couldn't the music companies use the Internet as a way to introduce popularity-based pricing, meaning that the songs with the highest demand would cost the most? Compared to eBay, charging 99 cents for every song is price fixing. And while 99 cents for my favorite song seems fair, what about my not-so-favorite songs? Why do I have to pay a buck to hear Milli Vanilli again just for laughs? My brilliant idea: $10 each for the upcoming Let It Be remasters, a nickel apiece for the works of William Shatner. But it turns out that Best Buy knows a lot more about selling music than I do. The pricing models of traditional music retailers are the latest in a long ling of things the Internet hasn't changed. The predictability of consistent pricing appeals to consumers, says University of California-Berkeley economist Hal Varian. When every song is a buck, there are no unpleasant surprises (if you've ever splurged $34.99 for an import album that kind of sucked, you know the feeling). And in an online store that serves unlimited copies of every track on demand, there's no overstocked inventory to discount, nor do rare titles need to sell at a premium. As for popularity-based pricing, I've got it exactly backward: Varian thinks the most popular songs should be discounted as loss-leaders, just as in brick-and-mortar stores. It's hip to claim traditional economics don't apply in cyberspace—Switching costs are zero! It's the click of a mouse to get to a competitor!—but the online song sites may actually exact more loyalty from their customers than conventional music retailers do. Each site is, intentionally or not, a hassle to get started with. You need to download and install software, set up an account, give them your credit card number, then figure out how to use the interface to find, download, and play your music. The stores use different file formats—AAC for iTunes, Windows Media for Napster—and they store their songs in separate locations from one another on your disk drive. (Even Musicland doesn't require you to store its CDs in a separate room from where you organize the ones you bought at Tower Records.) Once you've begun building an expensive music collection from one Web site, it's unlikely you'll want to start all over again with another. Although he didn't buy my harebrained pricing schemes, Varian still had the same nagging doubt about online music that I did: Is 99 cents a song too much? His informal student polls, plus an equally unscientific Billboard.com poll of 9,000 people, suggest that many people think so. Earlier this year, Rhapsody's sales tripled when the store slashed its burn-to-disc price to 49 cents as a test run. There's only one problem: The major labels still charge 70 to 80 cents per song wholesale to supply Rhapsody and the other stores, according to the New York Times. Accepting less would require record companies to accept a lower profit margin from the Net than they make on store-bought CDs. That may be inevitable. The Internet has shriveled a lot of companies' profit margins, and it may be the music industry's turn to live with less. But there's another reason online pricing needs to come down. Compared to the same tune on a compact disc, a download offers a lot less for your money. Everyone complains about the absence of cover art and liner notes, but a store-bought CD is more flexible, too. You can rip it and burn it to your heart's content without worrying about what machine it's registered for. The compact disc is also a more reliable storage medium than your hard drive. While I was testing the new e-stores, an electric power spike in the building zapped my computer. Every single song I'd bought disappeared in an instant. While kicking myself for not making a backup, I dragged a dusty box of CDs out of the closet and slid Dzihan and Kamien's Gran Riserva into my aging disc player. Sitting on the floor between the speakers, I had to admit yet another reason people will still pay 17 bucks for a 20-year-old format: In order to make the files small enough to download quickly, some of the audio detail is stripped from a CD's songs (as I wrote last year, the CD itself is already a bit-stripped version of the artists' original digital studio recordings). And compared to the compressed song files on my laptop, CDs still sound just a little bit better. Slate.com Paul Boutin is a Silicon Valley writer who spent 15 years as a software engineer and manager.

bedtime