Great story, Robin and yay for J.

(And Chris? You may have sung it, but Bruce wrote it and also recorded it, so we know. So there.)

Sounds like a dick then and a dick now.

Don Ho R.I.P.: [link]

Because it's all about MEMEME, did you know that Valerie from Mistle Thrush played in the Lothars for one gig?

Oooh. Cool. I know she (with the help of her dad) built her own Theremin. She didn't play it nearly enough, though. That one show before Spiritualized, they did a little more of a free-form show and that time it got a pretty good workout, but usually it just got used on the closing song (almost ALWAYS "I Scare Myself"). I miss MT.

"You know, it should be revved up like a deuce, not wrapped up. The 'deuce' is a deuce coupe, which is a car."

There was a whole sketch about that song's lyrics on a long-ago Comedy Central show The Vacant Lot.

Metafilter thread asking what bands put on the best live shows.

On the way home from dropping Emmett off I heard Dave Edmund's cover of "Girls Talk" and was wishing for a comprehensive Rockpile compilation with all their backing work on the Lowe and Edmund's solo albums plus Billy Bremner's singles plus that great live bootleg of them playing in DC with Keith Richards.

They understood the verities.

So, um... how bad is this?

Internet radio dealt severe blow as Copyright Board rejects appeal

A panel of judges at the Copyright Royalty Board has denied a request from the NPR and a number of other webcasters to reconsider a March ruling that would force Internet radio services to pay crippling royalties. The panel's ruling reaffirmed the original CRB decision in every respect, with the exception of how the royalties will be calculated. Instead of charging a royalty for each time a song is heard by a listener online, Internet broadcasters will be able pay royalties based on average listening hours through the end of 2008.

The ruling is a huge blow to online broadcasters, and the new royalty structure could knock a large number of them off the 'Net entirely.

eta: The nitty-gritty... From the Save Internet Radio site:

[link]

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decision increases the royalties that Internet webcasters pay to play music by nearly 300% for the biggest webcasters and up to 1200% for small webcasters.

The CRB rates are retroactive to January 1, 2006 and payable on May 15, 2007. This decision could bankrupt many Internet radio services immediately on that date, even if it is effective for only one day.

Past due royalties alone will be enough to bankrupt virtually all small and mid-sized webcasters, many of whom are the hallmarks of programming diversity.

Hopefully, Congress will get involved?

I think it's pretty bad. Pandora has been sending me e-mails about it.

This Marnie Stern album (In Advance of the Broken Arm) is so weird. She's the anti-Joanna Newsom. I mean, I assume a few of y'all are familiar with it, but for those who aren't, she's an indie-rock chick who plays virtuoso wheedla-wheedla guitar (with Steve Vai-style precision and speed), but puts all those notes into service for skronky noise-pop, Deerhoof-like songs, while she declaims like a female Mark E. Smith over the top. She's so far out of leftfield that I get disoriented.