Where is the music?

[sydeburnz]

Associated Press, Kansas City
Wednesday July 13, 2005
Unknown Source

A midwest based website dealing with the electronic music and dj culture scene has recently seen a decline in musical releated topics and news stories on their site. Sources have said that, while they are unsure of what is causing this epidemic, the have hopes that whatever current groups which are responsible for submissions will see the light and post a decent fucking ratio of music related topics!!!

[r0t8]

check audi.torium...

[Bucho]

^^^hehehehehe.

[Bucho]

Willie Nelson takes reggae turn with 'Countryman'

Monday, July 11, 2005; Posted: 1:35 p.m. EDT (17:35 GMT)


Willie Nelson performs his classic hits during a show in Nashville, Tennessee, in June.

Country-Western
Willie Nelson
Music
NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) -- Willie Nelson is so prolific that sometimes ven he forgets he has another record coming out.

At a recent show here with Bob Dylan, Nelson performed a long list of hits, but not a single song from his long-awaited reggae album, "Countryman," which comes out Tuesday.

"I keep forgetting," Nelson said a few days later by telephone from the road, which he's called home for most of the last 30 years. "The set is so short."

Nelson began work on the album in 1995 for Island Records, but the project was shelved after Island founder Chris Blackwell left the company. It languished until Nelson moved to Lost Highway Records.

Produced by Don Was, who's worked with the Rolling Stones and Bonnie Raitt among others, the album includes reggae versions of Nelson songs such as "Darkness On the Face of the Earth" and "One in a Row." There also are covers of Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come" and "Sitting in Limbo," and a song called "I'm a Worried Man" by Johnny and June Carter Cash that Nelson recorded as a duet with Toots Hibbert of Toots and the Maytals.

"When he (Cash) found out I was doing a reggae album, he said, 'Hey, I've got a reggae song that I wrote when I lived there,"' Nelson recalled. "Toots heard it and liked it."

That Nelson's country songs stand up so well to reggae's syncopation and upstroke guitar strums is a testament to their durability. Nelson said he recorded them about 10 years ago in Los Angeles with Jamaican musicians, including some from the late reggae star Peter Tosh's band.

While the music on "Countryman" might raise the eyebrows of country purists, so will the cover. With green marijuana leaves on a red and yellow background, the cover art makes the CD look like an oversized pack of rolling papers.

The marijuana imagery reflects Jamaican culture, where the herb is a leading cash crop and part of religious rites, but it also reflects Nelson's fondness for pot smoking.

Universal Music Group Nashville is substituting palm trees for the marijuana leaves on CDs sold at the retail chain Wal-Mart, a huge outlet for country music that's also sensitive about lyrics and packaging.

"They're covering all the bases," Nelson joked.

If any country star can get away with marijuana leaves on a CD, it's Nelson. Besides being an innovator and leading figure in American music, he's also been a rebel and outlaw.

After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, he moved his family from his native Texas to Nashville and tried to break through as a singer in the early 1960s. But his off-the-beat, conversational delivery was unconventional by Nashville standards.

He returned to Texas in 1970 and began building a fan base with his live shows. He grew his hair long, stripped down his sound and attracted a youthful rock audience. He made more than a dozen albums before he hit his stride with "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain," "Georgia on My Mind," "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Cowboys," "On the Road Again," "Always on My Mind" and "Whiskey River."

Along the way, Nelson launched a successful film career ("Electric Horseman," "Wag the Dog"), started the annual Farm Aid concerts with John Mellencamp and Neil Young -- and ran into tax trouble.

This summer, for the second time in as many years, he and Dylan are performing in minor league ball parks all over the country. On stage the two are a study in contrast. Nelson opens with smiles and waves and a predictable, hit-heavy set. Dylan sits off to the side behind a keyboard, plays very few hits and changes the set list every night.

The two almost never perform together.

"I go on so early I can be halfway to the next town before he shows up," said Nelson, who says he and Dylan have discussed doing a song or two together, as well as sitting down for a game of chess, but haven't gotten around to either yet.

At 72, Nelson continues to record and perform at a breakneck pace. He believes his best record is still ahead of him.

"I feel like we're doing one now that's going to be better than anything else we've ever done," he said.

[Bucho]

Crazy Frog Descending On North America



By Greg Prato, N.Y.



Having already conquered the U.K. singles chart with a remake of "Axel F," computer-animated creation Crazy Frog has his sights set on North America. Following its July 25 U.K. release, Crazy Frog's first album, "Crazy Hits," will arrive in North America in September via Universal. A new U.K. single, a remake of Gershon Kingsley's 1972 hit "Popcorn," is due Aug. 15.

Crazy Frog began life as a ring tone, which, according to BBC News, has earned nearly $18 million to date for the Jamster company. The character crossed over into the world of music after being inserted into a dance remix of "Axel F" by producer Wolfgang Boss; the cut spent four weeks at No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart and has sold 450,000 copies in the territory, as well as 500,000 units in France.

Speaking exclusively to Billboard.com, Boss explains how he became responsible for the first hit single that began life as a ring tone (and not the other way around). "We produced 'Axel F.' as a product trying to serve both industries in the best possible way -- the 'standard' record industry by trying to produce a song that would be successful as a record being played on the radio and in clubs," he says.

"In addition, we wanted to appeal to the mobile phone industry," Boss continues. "We deliberately tried to produce a product with every intention to make it a hit for ring tone companies, and, at the same time, the music could benefit from the additional promotion provided by the technology."

Beyond "Axel F" and videos for that cut and "Popcorn," "Crazy Hits" will include remakes of everything from Tag Team's "Whoomp! (There It Is)" to the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" and Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam."

Not everybody has jumped on the Crazy Frog bandwagon. In the U.K., the character goes by the unofficial name of "The Annoying Thing," since its commercials are constantly aired during the evening on Channel 4 TV. BBC radio personality Chris Moyles has also taken to playing the song repeatedly to rile up listeners during his morning show.

Here is the track list for "Crazy Hits":

"Intro"
"Axel F"
"Popcorn"
"Whoomp! (There It Is)"
"1001 Nights"
"Bailando"
"Don't You Want Me"
"Dirty Frog"
"Magic Melody"
"Pump Up the Jam"
"In The 80s"
"Pinocchio"
"Wonderland"
"Dallas (Theme)"
"The Pink Panther"
"Crazy Sounds" (a cappella)

[Bucho]

Jackson Sued Over Beatles Library Finances





A financial company specializing in asset acquisition sued Michael Jackson yesterday (July 11) in New York, saying it is owed $48 million in fees for rescuing the singer's stake in the publishing rights to songs by the Beatles.

Prescient Acquisition Group Inc. said in its lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the pop music celebrity enlisted it in November 2004 to provide financial advice and to secure refinancing of a $272 million debt to Bank of America.

On behalf of Jackson and his company MJ Publishing Trust, Prescient secured $537 million in financing from Fortress Investment Group LLC, enough for Jackson to pay off the debt and exercise an option to buy the remaining 50 percent of the Beatles library he didn't already own, the lawsuit said.

Prescient said it was entitled to an immediate payment of $24.8 million, which is 9 percent of the financing used to pay off the Bank of America debt and a $3.3 million advance to Jackson and his company.

Prescient accused Jackson of breach of contract, saying that it had done what was expected in a written agreement and that Jackson and his company were not entitled to "retain the benefits of those services in equity and good conscience without paying to Prescient an amount to be determined at trial."

A lawyer for Jackson did not immediately return a telephone message for comment.

[Bucho]

B.I.G. Family To Renew Wrongful Death Suit





Relatives of slain rap star Notorious B.I.G. vowed yesterday (July 7) to renew their wrongful death suit against the city of Los Angeles after a U.S. judge declared a mistrial and accused police of concealing evidence.

U.S. District Judge Florence-Marie Cooper said that previously undisclosed documents implicating two former Los Angeles police officers in the rapper's 1997 shooting death were found days ago in police possession as the result of an anonymous tip.

Much of the material turned up in the desk or cabinet of LAPD Detective Steven Katz, the lead murder investigator, who testified he forgot the papers were there. In a scathing rebuke, Cooper said she found Katz's explanation for the oversight "utterly unbelievable."

"The detective, acting alone or in concert with others, made a decision to conceal from the plaintiffs in this case information which would have supported their contention that [ex-officer] David Mack was responsible for the...murder," Cooper wrote.

She said the newly disclosed documents also established links in the slaying to former officer Rafael Perez, the central figure in a 1998 corruption scandal that rocked the LAPD. City attorneys said they were surprised by the revelation but that the material at issue was of questionable value.

Cooper ordered the city to reimburse the family of Notorious B.I.G., whose real name was Christopher Wallace, for legal costs.

Wallace's relatives have said they brought their suit to shed light on the rap star's unsolved murder, which has been widely attributed to a long-running feud between East and West Coast record labels.

The family's lawyer, Perry Sanders, said he would seek a deposition from Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton.

LAPD spokesman Paul Vernon said Bratton agreed the newly discovered documents should have been turned over sooner, but disagreed with the judge's "conclusions about any type of a deliberate cover-up."

Wallace was gunned down six months after fellow superstar rapper Tupac Shakur was shot to death in Las Vegas. The Wallace family has contended that Mack, who is in prison for robbery, was tied to Shakur's record label, Death Row Records, and arranged for a college friend to shoot Wallace -- who was signed to rival Bad Boy Entertainment -- in retaliation.

The newly found documents center on police interviews with a jailhouse informant who said Perez had told him about his and Mack's involvement with Death Row Records and their activities at the scene of Wallace's slaying, the judge said.

[r0t8]

i can't wait to get the new willie album

[Bucho]

^^^werd...."Spliff Willie Style" sounds like it's gonna be...*ahem*....the joint this year. *L*

[Offtrack]

http://www.nuyoshi.com/wbmx.htm

Any of you into Hot Mix 5 check this archive out.. ofcourse all you slsk users can always share with my personal mix archive "offtrack42"..just message me and lemme know who you are.

[arielwaldman]

Why isn't this site involved in podcasting? Syndication would be a significant step forward for this site.