Muzak, the company that has punished elevator users for over 75 years with their hideous “music” renditions, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

According to Bloomberg.com, Muzak filed for bankruptcy this week with credit problems of $465.3 million, but listed assets of only $324.2 million.  The problem is that the company pushed a lot of their debt to mature in the early part of 2009 seeing as they were relying on a merger or sale of the company to help them control the debt.  Now that neither has happened, the company was left with only the option of filing for chapter 11 reorganization.

According to TheStreet.com, this is a list of how some of their debt breaks down.

• U.S. Bank NA – $371 million
• Universal Music Enterprises – $349,321
• EMI Capital Records – $320,323
• AT&T – $257,384
• Dish Network – $251,276
• The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers – $213,020
• Companies without amounts listed include Sony Music, BMG Film & Television Music, United Parcel Service and Virgin Records

How in the world do they owe U.S. Bank $371 million?  What were they taking out loans for that would amount to anything close to that?  The music companies aren’t surprising since they have to pay out royalties for all of the music they play, but in general this is a company that sends out music and nothing else.  I know in the old days they were sent out by tape, but I would imagine in this day and age they transmit their products by satellite to the elevators.  What is even more frightening is that their list of secured creditors has yet to be released, so this is possibly only the tip of the iceberg.

While there are so many saddening stories right now of companies cutting jobs or going out of business, this is one that just leaves my head spinning.  How could a company with such a simple concept be so badly mismanaged?  And how could a bank, one I happen to have accounts with, allow a company to have $371 million dollars in unsecured loans?  What was that money going to?

I feel sorry for the companies owed money… okay, not really, my feelings towards the music industry machine aren’t really a secret, but I do feel sorry for the artists.  Hopefully they will be able to get the debt problem settled, and get the money out to those they owe.  If not, think of how much more pleasant a ride in the elevator will be next time when there isn’t some overly jazzed up version of The Beatles “Hey Jude” playing in the background.

Lux Interior (Erick Purkhiser), lead singer of the punk/rockabilly band The Cramps, has passed away.

Born October 21, 1948, Lux went on to form The Cramps with his wife, Poison Ivy (Kristy Wallace), in 1979.  They were part of the whole CBGB scene of the late 1970′s/early 1980′s that also spawned bands such as The Ramones.  While none of those bands really went on to true stardom, they had loyal followings and influenced too many bands to even begin to mention.  The Cramps had an unusual sound as they always mixed in little tastes of 1950′s rockabilly with their punk sound, something I think was distinctly influenced by The Misfits that came around in 1977 and mixed 1950′s horror/sci-fi references into their music.  Some consider them the originators of a whole sub-genre of music known as psychobilly that mixes classic rockabilly sensibilities with darker subject matter for the lyrics, and more of a kitsch feel to their songs.

While their influence on music, and where they took inspiration from can be debated for ages, nothing changes the fact that Lux passed away on February 4th, 2009 at the age of 60 from a pre-existing heart condition.  I imagine 99.9% of the people who read my site will have never heard of the band, or Lux himself, but this is a sad event for those of us who have followed punk and psychobilly for years.  I’ve embedded the video for one of my favorite songs of theirs, “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns”, something that I literally hum or sing at least once every single day.  Usually it’s just the chorus, and I won’t even realize I am walking around saying “Bah-ki-ni girls with ma-chine guh-ns… Bah-ki-ni girls with ma-chine guh-ns…”.

Enjoy the song, and you will be missed, Lux.  Rest in peace.

There are a few less lights on Broadway this week.

In the fallout of the current economic crisis in the United States, nine Broadway musicals let their stages go dark with their performances yesterday.  To be fair, two of them were limited engagements (Irving Berlin’s White Christmas and a Liza Minnelli show), but that still means that seven full-time shows have shut down.  Young Frakenstein, Hairspray and Grease were just some of the ones that have made their way off the Great White Way.

Personally I don’t think it was fully tcorrect to blame the current financial atmosphere, these shows have simply priced themselves out of the realm of reason.  When I was recently considering one of my umpteen aborted attempts at taking a vacation, I was looking at going to New York City.  The friend I was going to visit had told me that the prices were through the roof, but I really wanted to see a show.  I got the idea I would surprise her with tickets, since it would be my treat, she wouldn’t be able to complain much.  Well, after I went online and saw that two tickets were going to run me over $400, I scratched that idea.

How can these shows possibly think that they are worth north of $200 a ticket?  How can anyone get introduced to the genre at that price?  How could a family possibly afford to go?  Yet, if I want to go see a show of a touring company in St. Louis, I will pay in the neighborhood of $50 or $60.  Sure that’s still a bit high for two hours of entertainment, but at least it is still in the realm of sanity.

It does make you wonder why in the world tickets to the New York version would run around 300% more.  It’s the same number of actors… the same sets… the same amount of crew, and heck, the road show has to pay gas, lodging, some food expenses.  It just doesn’t add up.

While I am sorry to see so many shows close, I also have to say that Broadway needs to be looking in the mirror a bit more as to who is to blame for this.

It’s episode 19… Scattercast is rushing fraternities in college!

- First things first, I apologize for the clicky noises, I was having technical issues while recording.

- Some thoughts on the new Guns N’ Roses album.

- Is there different types of life through out the universe on planets with different make ups than Earth?

- DVD sales down, and I’m not surprised.

Here’s

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for those who wish to download it.

My first concert in just over two years, and I wish I had better things to say about it.  This was one of those shows where you buy the ticket based solely on the headlining act, and actually no opening acts were announced when I ordered my tickets.  During that time, two bands I had never heard of were announced, they then had to pull out and two other bands I had never heard of replaced them.  I am always cautious with opening bands, but sometimes you do discover band you like because of it.

… this wasn’t one of those times.

Everybody Out!

What… was that? While the band is obviously punk, and founded by former Dropkick Murphys lead guitarist Rick Barton, it was like some sort of flashback to the late 1970′s. The lead singer, Sweeney Todd, has obviously watched a few too many videos of Johnny Rotten singing with the Sex Pistols, and possibly a few too many concert films of Iggy Pop from his Iggy and the Stooges days.  When he wasn’t trying to slither across the stage (poorly), he was too busy adjusting his mic stand for the thousandth time, or attempting to stumble around like he was drunk.

As for the music itself, it seemed like something that could best be described as barely controlled sonic chaos.  It was more a cacophony of musical notes than something resembling music in the idea that all members of the band play the same song at the same time.

In short, I was not impressed and I highly doubt you will ever find this band in my music collection.  You can see (poorly shot) images from this set on my Flickr account.

Angel City Outcasts

The mid to late 1980′s were a great era for bands to come out of the Los Angeles, CA music scene: Guns N’ Roses, LA Guns, Faster Pussycat and so on.  It would seem someone forgot to tell Angel City Outcasts that not only that this style of music is pretty much dead, but there is also no burning desire to see it return.

ACO seemed to suffer from another case of “We’ve seen bands act a certain way on stage, and it was cool, so we will just wholesale rip it off.”  The lead singer, Alex Brugge, is obviously just slightly in love with himself, and enjoys far too many live performance videos from the 80′s LA bands.  (Really, the foot on the floor monitor thing is still cool?  You sure seemed to think so)  Lead guitarist Tak Boroyan… oh, where do I even begin.  He is an adequate guitarist (no, that is not a compliment), but everything about his stage presence screams “I practiced these moves for hours in the mirror in my bedroom when I was in high school!”  Their drummer, Travis (no last name apparently), is a barely passable drummer who is obsessed with his snare, barely leaving it for any other drum in his kit for the vast majority of songs.  And, by the way guys, the suit vests as a “uniform”?  That only works if you do a complete outfit, some wearing a t-shirt under it while others wore a collared shirt… yeah, it just made you look like idiots.

If I sound like I am being a bit harsh on them, I am, but my opinion seemed to be shared by the audience.  There was an enormous amount of milling around, cell phones being whipped out to check messages, and next to no audience engagement.  More in fact there seemed to be a complete audience disconnect from the happenings on stage.

Besides a few sojourns into attempts at punk and one song that was a bit rockabilly flavored, ACO stuck to their outdated fad music of the 80′s, and was quite forgettable and unremarkable.  The style of music was also an incredibely poor match for the styles of the other two bands.

Images from this set, again poorly shot, are on my Flickr account.

Dropkick Murphys

When the Dropkick Murphys took the stage, a lot could be forgiven, but then my hatred turned to the person behind the mixing board for the show.

The Murphys are well known for their inclusion of instruments such as banjos, bag pipes, tin whistles, mandolins and so on. It would have been nice to have heard them. While you could hear some of them at times, the bag pipes were horribly lost in the mixing, and that is a damned shame.

Beyond the sound problems, the Murphys put on a heck of a show, taking few breaks between songs so as to lose no momentum to the energy.  There was one thing I noticed in stark contrast to the other two bands… the Murphys, who have been around for twelve years, realize people are here to listen to the music, not to watch onstage antics.  While they did move around some, there was no wild over acting, no staggering to feign drunkenness, no putting a foot up on the monitor, there was music, and only music.  Perhaps this comes with age and experience?  Sure, they brought people up on stage for two sing-a-longs, but those made sense as they were… you know… sing-a-longs, but as for the rest of the show, it was just straight forward Murphy’s doing what they do best: playing music.

Overall, they put on an enjoyable set, and the pain of the first two bands was quickly forgiven.

Images of the Dropkick Murphys can be found on my Flickr account.

The Blue Note

As a parting note to the venue, The Blue Note, if you post rules about no moshing, no crowd surfing, etc, perhaps you should inform the bands of this?  Everybody Out actively encouraged excessively dangerous behavior, including pulling someone up on stage so he could leap into the crowd. If you’re going to lecture us about “the rules” while we are standing outside in the freezing cold, telling us to behave ourselves, well, what do you do when the bands tell people to do it? Yeah, you did nothing, just like I have seen you do so many times before.

There’s a reason I always get there early and race for the balcony, it’s because I know you have zero control on that floor.  After I got caught up in it back in 2000, I realized you guys had no clue what you were doing when it comes to security, and glad to see you continue to prove me right.

While I am known for being harsh in movie reviews, one movie I have heaped endless hate on over the years is Dirty Dancing.

Most bad movies are quickly forgotten.  You see them, you say, “Wow, what a trainwreck” and move along.  However, Dirty Dancing is one that has stuck in my mind for years because I can remember when it came out on video, and I couldn’t go to any female friend’s house without that movie being in their VCR on an endless loop.  Honestly, the movie is mostly forgettable except for what is possibly one of the most excruciating lines of dialog ever written… yeah, you know which one I mean…

Nobody puts Baby in the corner!

-shivers-

I hated this line from the moment I heard it (actually, I burst out laughing, much to the anger of the girl sitting on the couch with me at the time), and this was long before Conan O’Brien picked on it relentlessly on his talk show.  I truly consider it six of the most insipid words ever strung together in a sentence.  Perhaps it was Patrick Swayze’s delivery of the line, but I really think it is just a horribly written line.

I remember hearing a few years back about some sort of live stage version of this abomination on celluloid, but quickly pushed it out of my head.  Now comes word via Variety that the stage production may be making its way to Broadway in the near future.  “Dirty Dancing — The Classic Story Onstage” (‘classic’?  seriously?) may be taking up the theater with its tripe where Hairspray hasbeen playing for six years.  Nothing is firm yet, but that’s what has been reported.

This bring up a conversation I had with M (for newcomers, my best friend who shall only be known by an initial) not long ago about the “Disneyfication” of Broadway.  With things like “Little Mermaid” going on at the moment, and “Spider-Man” inching closer to being a reality, we wonder what has happened to classic storytelling on Broadway.  Where are the shows like “A Chorus Line”, “Evita”, “Damn Yankees” and so on?  Instead we get things like “Dirty Dancing” which, by the way, doesn’t even feature a singing cast, they just dance to the music from the movie.  Essentially it is the movie just done on a stage.

Why?

You know, here’s part of my problem with this whole “Oh it’s a classic!” and “It’s so romantic!” schtick with this property: Does no one realize that Johnny, the dance instructor, is significantly older than Baby?  Were there no statutory rape laws in 1963, the year the story takes place?  No no, everyone is just horrified that the hired help of the resort slept with a guest, not that she is an underage girl having sex with a man in his mid to late 20′s.  True, their ages are never stated, but it is fairly obvious.  I guess it’s okay though because it’s “romantic” and “sweet”.

Never mind the whole sub-plot about the female employee of the resort who has an illegal, back alley abortion and nearly bleeds to death.  Really, this movie was sweet and perfect for teen girls in 1987!

So come on folks, pack up your kids, specifically your young daughters, and take them to see the “sweet” and “romantic” story of illegal love between an adult male and a teenage girl on Broadway!

Remember back when I said Dr. Pepper had issued a challenge to Guns N’ Roses?  For those who don’t, the deal was that the soft drink company was offering a free Dr. Pepper to every person in the United States of America if Guns N’ Roses would release their long awaited album, “Chinese Democracy“, by the end of 2008.

Well, since it looks like the album is actually going to come out on November 23rd, Dr. Pepper has announced that they are going to make good on their end of the deal!  Kudos to them, though I do wonder now if this was all planned, but whatever the case is, people everywhere will be getting a free soda out of the deal.  (I no longer drink soda, but more power to everyone else!)

Here is the press release with all of the details on how you can get your free drink:

Don’t cry, Guns N’ Roses fans.
The agonizing wait for the 17 years-in-the-making masterpiece Chinese
Democracy will finally be over (fingers crossed) on Nov. 23, 2008. Sure,
there have been more rumored release dates than the 23 flavors of Dr
Pepper, but if Chinese Democracy hits stores as announced today, it’s going
to be so easy, easy for every American to get a free Dr Pepper as promised.

“We never thought this day would come,” said Tony Jacobs, vice
president of marketing for Dr Pepper. “But now that it’s here all we can
say is: The Dr Pepper’s on us.”

Dr Pepper is ready to give out free soda coupons to every American when
the album releases on Nov. 23, 2008. If you’re out to get a free Dr Pepper
just follow these simple steps:

HOW TO GET YOUR FREE DR PEPPER

1. On the Nov. 23, 2008 release date, go to http://www.drpepper.com
2. Register your information to receive a coupon for one free 20-oz. Dr
Pepper.
3. When your coupon arrives, redeem it wherever Dr Pepper is sold.
4. Drink your Dr Pepper slowly to experience all 23 flavors. Dr’s
orders.
Coupons will be available for 24 hours, starting at 12:01 a.m. Eastern
Time on Nov. 23, 2008. Allow 4-6 weeks for coupon to arrive. Coupons will
expire on Feb. 28, 2009. Limit one coupon per person. Full terms and
conditions available at http://www.drpepper.com .

It looks like you won’t have much time to use them once you receive them, but go for it and enjoy the fact Dr. Pepper held up their end!

Mark your calendar boys and girls, but it appears Guns N’ Roses may finally be releasing the eleven-years-in-the-making album, “Chinese Democracy”… only at Best Buy.

Er… okay… that’s… well, odd.

Wouldn’t you think if you had been working on an album for 11 years, you would want it available everywhere possible?  Take me for instance, I’m not sure I even want the stupid album at this point, but the closest Best Buy to me is 90 miles away.  True, I can always order it from their online store, but that isn’t even the point, you are limiting your potential customer base and sales to one outlet.  The winner in this instance is Best Buy, certainly not Guns N’ Roses in the long run.

Now, here comes an even more interesting aspect to this entire thing in that Dr. Pepper, the soda company, may be giing away a whole lot of free soda.  Back in March they issued a challange to Axl Rose, the only remaining member of the original band, to issue the album by the end of the year, and if they did, they would give every person in the United States a free can of Dr. Pepper. Tony Jacobs, VP of marketing Dr. Pepper, told Billboard, “We’re waiting to hear about ‘Chinese Democracy’ just like all the other GNR fans, but if the rumors are true, we’re putting the Dr Pepper on ice.”

Hate to say it, but I’m betting on Dr. Pepper not having to give any soda away.  And as for the actual album… eh, I need to hear some tracks before I plunk down any money with Best Buy for the album.  Good luck Axl, I think you and your ego are going to need it.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) in Washington, D.C. is set to rule on Thursday over a request from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) to raise the royalty rate paid on digital downloads.

It seems the NMPA has decided it is time for royalties to go up, and seeing as CD sales are on the decline, the record companies have pawned off the request to the digital download market.  The current royalty rate is $.09 a song and they are requesting an increase to $.15, a hike of more than 60%.

Seeing as Apple’s iTunes store currently controls 80% of the digital music market, it is fairly obvious this move is squarely directed at them.

Under the current system, on a $.99 song sale, it is believed Apple already gives away $.70 in royalties and rights.  Of the remaining $.29, very little is actually profit as the majority goes to maintaining the store, paperwork and so on.  This new rate would lower Apple’s share to $.23, and they are saying at that price they would actually be losing money.

As Apple is like any other business, and wishes to make money, iTunes vice president Eddy Cue has made a rather ominous threat via an article on CNN Money.

If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss – which is no alternative at all,” Cue wrote. “Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably.

I personally find it highly unlikely that Apple would actually go that far, but it does seem when one company controls 80% of a market, and is projected to go as high as 85%, that this does seem a rather unfair targeting of them. It does also put them in a position where their threat should be taken very seriously.  Apple does have a counter-proposal on the table of a percentage of wholesale that would work out to an actual reduction of royalties, but somehow I don’t see that flying either.

David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers Association, is saying that everyone should embrace the royalty increase because ultimately everyone involved will prosper. Um… yeah… sure, I see that. -scratches head- There was a more telling quote in the CNN Money story from Mr. Israelite that I think sums up the core of this whole issue.

“Apple may want to sell songs cheaply to sell iPods. We don’t make a penny on the sale of an iPod.”

Ah, yeah, there we go again.  Remember back in 2005 when Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, thought record companies should earn a percentage from the sale of each iPod sold as Apple wouldn’t be able to sell their products without music to put on it.  Luckily that idea was quickly squashed, but here it is rearing it’s ugly head again, just in a different form.

So Apple is once again being targeted for basically being profitable.  Well, let me ask the music industry a very simple set of questions: Did you collect payments for sales of record players?  8 Track players?  Tape decks?  CD Players?  On and on and on, why is it now okay to target one hardware manufacturer because they have the most popular version of it?

Once again, here we are with the music industry again trying to get more blood out of a turnip, never mind their greed may end up harming things.  Say this passes and Apple finally gives in to raising their prices, this will inevitably leads to lower sales, and in turn, lower royalties.  Say Apple would shut down iTunes, then there would be no royalties at all.  Gee, are either of these desirable for any party involved.  How would everyone “prosper” again?

Stupid, stupid music companies.

Over three days last October (posts here, here and here), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) finally won their first legal victory against a peer-to-peer user.  However, nearly one year later, the victory has been overturned, and all the parties involved are heading back to court.

For those of you who don’t remember Jammie Thomas, she is a single mother that the RIAA targeted for copyright infringement after she shared 24 songs on the KaZaA network.  After the two day trial, the case went to the jury and she was found guilty and fined $9,250 per song for a total of $222,000.  It now seems the judge in the case, Judge Michael J. Davis, has overturned the ruling of the federal jury due to an improper instruction he gave.

The situation boils down to the definition of what is and is not distribution.  Does the mere act of making a file available to a peer-to-peer network constitute distribution?  The original instruction said it did not, but a hearing was held later outside the presence of the jury where the judge finally agreed with the RIAA that it does.  This creates a mistrial situation, and the previous award is now tossed.

What is slightly curious is that in the 43 page ruling (PDF link via Ars Technica) you almost wonder if Judge Davis didn’t want to find an excuse to overturn the ruling because he felt the award was excessive.

The statutory damages awarded against Thomas are not a deterrent against those who pirate music in order to profit… Thomas’s conduct was motivated by her desire to obtain the copyrighted music for her own use. The Court does not condone Thomas’s actions, but it would be a farce to say that a single mother’s acts of using Kazaa are the equivalent, for example, to the acts of global financial firms illegally infringing on copyrights in order to profit in the securities market.

While the Court does not discount Plaintiffs’ claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far “reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by Plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs, the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000, more than five hundred [emphasis his] times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than four thousand times the cost of three CDs…

Unfortunately, by using Kazaa, Thomas acted like countless other Internet users. Her alleged acts were illegal, but common. Her status as a consumer who was not seeking to harm her competitors or make a profit does not excuse her behavior. But it does make the award of hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages unprecedented and oppressive.

It would seem to this untrained legal eye that the Judge may be trying to tell the RIAA to get over itself.  I agree with the Judge that what Ms. Thomas did is illegal, but you would be hard pressed to ever say that her sharing the equivalent of three CDs could ever cost the music industry $222,000.

This is a rather large gamble, though.  There is every chance that the next jury could very well award the RIAA the original $150,000 per song they were looking for, making Ms. Thomas’ new fine a staggering $3.6 million.  My feeling is the judge may try to guide the jury to the same amount, or even less, but it still seems like a bit of a gamble to me.

I’m glad to see the RIAA can no long crow about their one and only victory they have had against file sharers thus far, and I am even happier to see a judge telling them that the judgment they are looking for is totally disproportionate to the crime.  It does concern me that Sony may get to go on the stand again and once again decree that anyone copying music from a CD they own to an MP3 file constitutes piracy, but that is a whole other kettle of fish.

It would be easy to assume with how much I talk about music, I must go to a ton of concerts, but sadly the opposite is true.

Living in a town of 17,000, and being the biggest town for a 90 mile radius, doesn’t lead to many bands coming to my little corner of the world.  My best shot is going to The Blue Note, a small venue 90 miles to the south in Columbia, MO, but at that point that makes me rely on just one venue for shows.

The last time they had anything worthwhile was KMFDM in October of 2006, and a mere three weeks later was Flogging Molly and then… nothing.  Sure, there were bands in between, but nothing even remotely interesting to me.  Luckily they’ve finally announced a show I want to see on November 18th of the Dropkick Murphys.

Then comes the other problem when there actually is a show I want to see… coordinating schedules!  With my team out on the road 26 weekends a year for AnimeUSA appearances at conventions, I have to make sure someone will be in the office for me to take off early for the drive down.  This is the first show I will go to since I joined up with Mashable, but it shouldn’t be a problem to get off there as I usually do an entire weeks worth of lists on the weekends.  Then I have to make sure there aren’t any family commitments… as you can see, going out for one evening turns into a major operation, so for me to go to a show, it has to be something I really want to see.  As I don’t think the Murphys has ever come through my area before, it’s worth my time to make sure I can get down to Columbia to see them.

There is also one final deciding factor in the shows I go to… the size of the veneue.  I long, long ago gave up on the big arena shows.  They are a huge pain in the behind, not that enjoyable, and so I try to keep my concert going to shows of only 3 – 4000 people, even less if I can swing it.  I’m not sure how many The Blue Note holds, but I wouldn’t guess more than 1500, so it makes me quite happy to see shows there.

In short… yay, I’m going to a concert again!

For those who aren’t familiar with the Dropkick Murphys, here’s one of my favorite songs, “The Dirty Glass”

And seeing as that is the only time they had Stephanie sing a song with them, here is a more recent example of their sound, “State Of Massachusetts”

It would seem that washed up bands with little to no relevancy in today’s music market have totally lost their minds.

First up is news that is seems Lars Ulrich, founder of the heavy metal band Metallica, has completely lost his mind. As I discussed in June of this year in a post entitled “Metallica Backpeddles Their Way To Relevancy“,it seems Lars has completely changed his stance on music piracy.  While people are entitled to change their opinions on a subject, it just comes off a bit oddly when you were the driving force behind bringing down Napster, the original peer-to-peer music sharing service.

The first sign he had possibly changed his mind was the face the band would be selling their newest album, Death Magnetic, as MP3s with no copy protection, making piracy an almost certainty.  Now Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins of Mashable points out a summary from Blabbermouth.net of an interview Lars gave to KITS 105.3 FM in regards to the album leaking on BitTorrent sites 10 days early:

“Listen, we’re ten days from release. I mean, from here, we’re golden. If this thing leaks all over the world today or tomorrow, happy days. Happy days. Trust me. Ten days out and it hasn’t quote-unquote fallen off the truck yet? Everybody’s happy. It’s 2008 and it’s part of how it is these days, so it’s fine. We’re happy.”

Say what?  He’s “fine” with it?  He’s “happy”?  It appears the copy that “leaked” was sold early by a record store in France, and it just seems uncharacteristic that one of the harshest critics of online piracy would do such an abrupt about face.  Does he finally “get it”?  Does he finally know how to work with the Internet?  Could this have anything to do with the poor reception of their last album, 2003′s St. Anger?  Could it have anything to do with the fact they have alienated many fans with their total lack of interest in legally selling their catalog digitally until recently?  This all seems like a well staged PR stunt to me to regain some of their old fans.

Now, on the flip side of the coin, you have news that Guns N’ Roses, which is really just frontman Axl Rose at this point, called in the Federal Beauru of Investigation (FBI) to arrest a blogger who posted some tracks from their long delayed album, Chinese Democracy, according to Techdirt.

Somehow the blogger got a copy of the mythological album and posted it on his site.  While this was a clear violation of copyright, you have to wonder why the FBI would go after such a small infraction with all the other rampant piracy that happens on a much larger scale, drugs, terrorism and so on, but no, let’s go after the guy who posted just one album.  One would certainly think they might have had better things to do with their time.

While what this blogger did was a criminal act, was it worth building ill will in the fan community when your band is already skating on such thin ice?  Bob Lefsetz at Lefsetz.com summed up this thought process really well:

Fans.  They’re the hardest thing to acquire.  You can buy publicity, you can pay off distributors.  There’s mutual self-interest.  You want to sell and they want to profit.  Newspapers don’t do stories on acts no one cares about, and television is only interested in stars.  But fans are not doing business.  There’s no financial payoff for being a fan.  It’s an end-user application.  You don’t build up your fandom and sell it.  You own it.  At least until it fades away when the act does something heinous, like stand up to Napster.

That’s haunting Metallica nearly a decade out.  Metallica was right, but their fans thought they were wrong.  And you always want to come out on the side of your fans.  Metallica has learned its lesson.  But the record labels have not.

Nice how he interlaced both the bands I’m talking about, and I think adds fuel to my fire that Metallica is pulling a marketing stunt more than anything.  You would think maybe Axl would have learned from Lars obvious mistake with the fans, but apparently not.  Lars is not full on trying to bring his fans back in the fold, and Axl is sending federal officers after a guy for posting an album early.  That makes sense, good PR call there Axl.  Perhaps if you would just release the blasted album, no one would have cared.

I find it interesting that both bands involved in both of these stories had their biggest moments in the 1980s, and now here we are in 2008 with them having no clue how to handle the Internet, while other bands are not only embracing it, but turning it into a whole new distribution ssytem.  Do these bands not read newspapers?  Do they not have anyone in their management system who may be a bit more Internet savy and can warn them how fans can turn on a dime against you when you mess with their perceived Internet freedoms?

File sharing, by the letter of the law, is illegal, but as Mr. Lefsetz said, it is sometimes better to turn a bling eye to it for the potential backlash for messing with it, and there is the added bonus of it helping to build hype in advance of an album release.

Seriously, someone get these two bands an Internet consultant would ya?