Paul McCartney offers a clue to the identity of Eleanor Rigby

A fascinating story on MSNBC.com this morning tells the tale of a woman who wrote to former Beatle Paul McCartney seeking a charitable donation and instead received a tantalizing clue to the identity of one of pop music's most famous and speculated-upon figures: the title subject of The Beatles' classic hit "Eleanor Rigby."

When Annie Mawson of the Sunbeams Music Trust opened the envelope she received back from McCartney some nine months after mailing her original request for a half million pounds, she found not a check, but a 1911 salary register from Liverpool City Hospital that features the name E. Rigby, a scullery maid whose annual earnings were 14 pounds. It's unclear when McCartney acquired the document, but regardless, the Sunbeams Music Trust is anticipating a payday of 500,000 pounds ($775,000) or so when it puts the artifact up for auction this month.

R.I.P. Mitch Mitchell (Jimi Hendrix drummer)

Drummer and founding member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience Mitch Mitchell was found dead in a Portland Oregon hotel room yesterday morning. He apparently died of natural causes at age 61. Mitchell's manic, jazzy, Keith Moon-influenced approach was a key element in the Experience's sound. In addition to playing with Hendrix for several years, including the famous Woodstock Festival gig, Mitchell also played at various times with Eric Clapton, John Lennon, Jack Bruce, Jeff Beck and Muddy Waters, among others. Mitchell had just finished playing a run of dates with the Experience Hendrix Tour, a tribute act sponsored by the Hendrix family which teamed musicians who knew or played with Jimi during his lifetime with newer artists who were influenced by his music.

Guns N' Roses: The apocalypse

All signs suggest the apocalypse is just around the corner... or at the very least, this one does: the 14-years-in-the-making Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy will apparently actually be released on November 23. As supporting evidence, we offer the pre-order link now live on iTunes, including immediate access to a download of the title track when you pre-order the full album.

What's next, earthquakes? Locusts? The return of MC Hammer?

Metallica fan(atic)s unite

Interesting piece on MSNBC.com this morning about the subculture of devoted Metallica fans. As the article chronicles, said fans have been through a lot in the last decade with the band's various musical and personal twists and turns, not to mention Lars Ulrich's little anti-downloading crusade. Fortunately for Metallica, their fans are still devoted enough to do slightly wacky things like using “Nothing Else Matters” as a wedding march... no, seriously.

Monday roundup

The items are arriving in bunches these days, so...

• First of all, it was already widely known that the obnoxious person formerly known as Prince was in the habit of being a jerk to his own fans. Turns out he doesn't like to pay his bills either. What a class act.
  
  
• Raul Malo, lead singer of the superb but star-crossed alt-country group The Mavericks, is preparing to issue his third solo album since the band's most recent hiatus. Lucky One will feature all originals after two albums' worth of covers and Malo will be touring in support.
  
  
• Fans knew this days ago, but for the record and for the rest of you, looks like Bruce Springsteen will be celebrating the new U.S. president's inauguration with a new album coming out in January. No word if "Hail To The Chief" will be on the track list....
  

Thursday Roundup: Sly Stone, The Kinks, The Hold Steady

Items three to you from me:

• Sly Stone is a musical icon, one of the truly towering figures in the history of soul music. Sly Stone is also a man... a very troubled, erratic and possibly unbalanced man. For more on the Sly one's latest concert debacle, check this account.
  
  
• Joining the recent flurry of reunion rumors are The Kinks, the original British brothers-and-bandmates-who-frequently-can't-stand-one-another-but-make-amazing-music-together. Brother Ray Davies reports that brother Dave has recovered sufficiently from a 2004 stroke for recording and touring to become a real possibility again. Stay tuned...
  
  
• Finally, one of this writer's favorite bands of the moment, The Hold Steady, earned a nice writeup the other day on MSNBC.com.

Rock the vote

We interrupt the normal flow of music-related newsy tidbits and rumors for a serious message. Today is the opportunity for all of us Americans who love to hang around and complain about the way things are going to actually do something about it. Today is our chance to make our voice heard in the most meaningful way possible. So, if you want the right to complain for the next four years, you're going to have to earn it by doing one small thing:

VOTE.

That is all.

Wilco: Kicking Blu-ray

The film production company that issued the highly-regarded 2002 Wilco documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is now in a very public tussle with the band over release of a Blu-ray edition of the film. The issue is that the original film was shot in grainy super-16mm black and white, and the soundtrack of the Blu-ray edition is identical to the DVD version -- no remastering -- so what you get, according to the band, is the identical product with no improvement in picture or sound quality for ONLY twice the price of the DVD. Wilco has posted a message on its Web site referencing an e-mail blast to its fans in which it advised them not to buy the Blu-ray edition because it was not worth the extra money. Plexifilms responded with a blog post titled "I am trying to release a Blu-Ray" in which it defended its decision and the picture quality differential between the Blu-ray and DVD versions, and pledged to postpone the release until it can work things out with Wilco.

Meanwhile, we assume all Wilco fans caught the band's memorable visit last Thursday to The Colbert Report, including a very funny interview between Stephen Colbert and frontman Jeff Tweedy, and an exclusive performance of "Wilco The Song," a parody meant to, among other things, tweak Joe The Plumber.

R.I.P. Michael Baker of Shadow Gallery

Michael A. Baker, founding member and lead vocalist of well-regarded prog-metallers Shadow Gallery, died of a heart attack this week at age 45. Baker had been the band's frontman for its entire 16-year run, including last year's best-of collection Prime Cuts from Magna Carta Records. The band's five studio albums stand as some of the most dynamic and powerful prog-metal of their day. Our condolences to family, friends and the entire Shadow Gallery community.

The latest Led Zeppelin rumor: Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge to tour with Page, Jones & Bonham

The Led Zeppelin reunion tour rumors are flying so fast and furious these days it's hard to keep up. Robert Plant's going to do it. Oh wait, no he's not. Oh, but now they're looking at other singers. Could be, but who? Steven Tyler jammed with them but kept forgetting the lines to songs. Seriously? Who knows. It's all gotten very weird.

And so it is with a very large grain of salt in our other outstretched hand that the Daily Vault presents the latest rumor to cross our plate, which goes something like this:

The lead singer from Alter Bridge, Myles Kennedy, is rehearsing in Coventry, England with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham for a tour to start in February or March. Rehearsals will soon be moving to another country (France? Canada?) try to throw the press off the path. They have people working full time to throw chaff at the media (well, that part's certainly consistent with recent reports...) to keep people guessing.

After Zep's triumphant reunion show in London ten months ago, Plant was quoted as saying "you never know" about a full tour from the band, but he has since been absorbed in touring his collaboration with Alison Krauss. According to the rumor, Plant is said to have threatened legal action if the other three try to use the Led Zeppelin name, logos or other Swan Song trademarks without his participation. At the same time, other reports suggest Plant hasn't ruled out joining in a future Zeppelin tour, but just doesn't want to do it in 2009.

As stated above, take all of this with a grain of salt, as we do. We don't know if the above rumor is fact, fiction, or some creative mix of both designed to throw everyone off the trail of what's actually happening. All we can say for sure is that there are an awful lot of people interested in seeing Zeppelin or some variation of it play live again.

Latest reunion rumors: The Jacksons

Is the long-whispered Jacksons reunion finally coming together? The Australian Associated Press, quoted here on Pollstar, reports that Jermaine Jackson says it is, and that it will include "the entire family, including little sister Janet." And to think I put my old flared bell-bottoms in the garage sale just last spring...

Nick Hornby plugs Fuel/Friends; Big Brother bullies ECEU

Today we have good news and bad news on the MP3 blogging front.

The good news: this morning no less a music-world luminary than the revered Nick Hornby of Songbook fame plugged this writer's very favorite music blogger Heather Browne and her site I Am Fuel, You Are Friends (a Pearl Jam quote). And where did the wise and wonderful Mr. Hornby offer this well-deserved nod? In -- wait for it -- THE NEW YORK TIMES. Woo-hoo! Way to go Heather!

The bad news: another of my favorite music blogs -- Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands -- announced late last week that it is in danger of shutting down under legal pressure from the authorities. And not just any authorities -- Google itself. The virtual publisher, via Blogger, of this blog. And Heather's. And hundreds of other music-related blogs. Where exactly does protection of creators' intellectual property rights -- which I support wholeheartedly -- bleed into Orwellian censorship? I don't know, but this incident suggests the boundary between the two has become almost too blurry to make out.

Bryan Adams confronts fan sites (he has fan sites?)

A few years back when Prince sicced his unholy hordes of attorneys on a bunch of fan sites who were guilty mainly of promoting the man's career for free, Daily Vault Founder Christopher Thelen vented his spleen in the Purple One's general direction. For many years Prince reviews were simply not available on the site, replaced by this note.

So you might be forgiven for wondering how the DV might react to the recent news that Bryan Adams has pulled almost the same bonehead maneuver, sending the Web Sheriff (no, really, that's their company name) after a bunch of fan sites and even a tribute band?

First, obviously, we have to stop laughing. A Bryan Adams tribute band? Seriously?

Fortunately, we understand from this article in the UK Register that Adams has stopped short of lawyering up and is in fact in the process of working out mutually agreeable arrangements with said fan sites. A much better outcome for all concerned, though it may represent a lost opportunity for Adams. I mean, a ban from the Daily Vault certainly would have been the most attention he's gotten from us in years...

AC/DC gives the UK economy a boost -- or not

It's silly season again as the world economy self-destructs and the U.S. election barrels toward the finish line and journalists wonder if they should feel guilty for being secretly happy they have so much material to work with. Give The Guardian's Alexis Petridis credit, though, he came up with an original angle -- AC/DC album sales as a leading indicator of Great Britain's economic health. Except, as Petridis' research suggests, it seems the better Angus and company do, the worse the British economy does... and Black Ice just went number one in the UK despite the band's refusal to provide digital downloads. Criminey!

Ben Folds Five on MySpace

But the real highlight of my Friday was wandering by MySpace and finding high-def video of the entire Ben Folds Five reunion show -- orchestrated to kick off MySpace's new Front To Back series -- waiting for me there. A completely brilliant show done up just right by the producers with interview clips and excellent videography of the show. Bliss, I tell you, bliss.

Friday roundup: James Taylor, Led Zeppelin, Change My World, ISC

It's Friday and our item-bag overfloweth:

• On November 4 Atlantic and Rhino team up to release a limited- edition CD boxed set containing Japanese imports of all 10 of Led Zeppelin's albums in mini-LP replicas with artwork from the original U.K. LP sleeves. The Led Zeppelin Definitive Collection of Mini-LP Replicas boxed set will be available for a suggested price of $199.98. Listening party samplers available in Real and QuickTime formats...
  
  
• Original sensitive-guy singer-songwriter James Taylor offers a glimpse into the thought behind his recent Covers album and his work for the Obama campaign in this interview.
  
  
• Agape Children's Choir and Little Engine Productions have created an amazing nonpartisan music video aimed at mobilizing voters in this important election season.
  
  
• The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) has extended its deadline for submissions for the 2008 contest to December 1. A small sampling of this year's crop of judges for this annual competition includes: Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20); Chaka Khan; Tom Waits; KT Tunstall; Robert Smith (The Cure); Ricky Martin; Loretta Lynn; Neil Finn (Crowded House); Buckcherry; T-Pain; James Cotton; Jerry Lee Lewis; Craig Morgan; Ray Davies (The Kinks); and McCoy Tyner. For more information and to enter, visit the ISC site.
  

Pete Yorn: "American Blues, Vol. 1"

At this point I'm convinced it's not just me; this election season really is bleeding into the music world in a way we haven't seen in decades. You just can't get through the day anymore without finding a story about a Jon Bon Jovi ripping on McCain/Palin for using his song, or a James Taylor doing five benefit concerts for Obama/Biden (not to mention Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel) or, today, a new election-themed music video. This one's special, though. The artist is Pete Yorn, the song is his brand new "American Blues, Vol. 1," and the video found below is homemade, nonpartisan and quite moving in using familiar images to convey the simplest message -- VOTE. Please do.

Pete Yorn - American Blues Vol. 1

Mark Oliver Everett (The Eels) gets personal

Every once in awhile as I hopscotch across the interwebs a story will stop me dead in my tracks and hold me there until I finish the last word. Today the honor goes to Mark Oliver Everett, a.k.a. E, as in the mastermind behind alt-rock iconoclasts the Eels.

It's been widely known that Everett had a troubled childhood and lost his sister and mother to suicide and cancer in the late 90s, as he was working on albums like Novocaine For The Soul and Electro-Shock Blues. What I personally wasn't aware of is that Everett's father was a famous physicist who came up with the parallel worlds theory, which suggests that every decision made creates an alternate reality. Everett's relationship with this odd, brilliant and distant man, who died of a heart attack when Everett was 19, forms the backbone of his new biography Things the Grandchildren Should Know. He also sat for interviews for a Nova special on his father called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives (check PBS for local airtimes in your area). Finally, don't miss the fascinating article that triggered this post, over on (surprise, surprise) USA Today.

Long live the album (or, Third Eye still Blind)

There have been a few times over the eleven years I've been writing for the Vault when my thoughts have gone back to one of the more scathing reviews I've ever written. The target was Third Eye Blind, which is in itself pretty laughable -- I mean, who cares? But see, a decade ago, right around the time "Semi-Charmed Life" was getting play on FM radio, TEB frontman Stephan Jenkins recorded bumpers for ABC's old family-friendly TGIF segment. This was also right around the time my seven-, nine- and eleven-year-old kids were following Full House, with the end result that my eleven-year-old came home one day having purchased an album riddled with references to sex, drugs and suicide. As you may have guessed, I was not happy about this.

Now, I've considered a few times over the years whether I was a little hard on Jenkins and TEB. It probably wasn't their idea to record those bumpers. And while I remain very comfortable with the parenting decision my wife and I made, at least one TEB fan wrote in to tell me I was in fact exactly what I stated right up front in my review -- a prude. Fine. Given what passes for standards of public behavior today, I'll take that as a compliment.

And then last night I read this piece, in which an older but apparently no wiser Stephan Jenkins wastes a substantial number of syllables ragging on the album as an art form and basically admitting he can't be bothered to put together ten decent songs at once, that three or so at a time is more his speed. Let me tell you two things: 1) The day albums cease to be a relevant art form will be the day I roll up the Daily Vault and take it off-line; and 2) The day I give a flying anything what Stephan Jenkins thinks will be... well, clearly, that just won't happen.

Digital downloading won't kill the album any more than the Kindle will kill books. These art forms have endured for good reasons. Trend-hopping stylistas like Jenkins always make the same mistake, assuming that smaller and faster and less substantial and less meaningful automatically equals better. Twitter is maybe the ultimate example of this simultaneously lazy and hyperactive cognitive A.D.D., which is why I'd guesstimate its half-life at about six months. If there's one thing this nation, this culture is crying out for right now, it's more substance, not less. Long live the album.

AC/DC hit Black Ice today

The media blitz is on as headbanger heroes AC/DC return eight years after their last studio album with Black Ice, and the Vault is joining the fun with a day-of-release review.

Out of the hordes of surrounding mainstream media coverage, I would also point you to this entertaining UK Telegraph review with Angus Young, particularly his explanation for the group's decision to sell their album only in hardcopy form via Wal-mart or acdc.com, no iTunes or downloads at all:

“We don’t make singles, we make albums. We work on getting the songs on our albums to work together... So that’s how we feel about our albums being a complete piece of work. And we won’t go on iTunes unless they offer the option to us to 'lock’ our album... In the US, though, we’re looking at iTunes being the biggest music retailer in the country. We looked at who was number two and found that it was Wal-Mart. So we decided to make this album exclusively available in Wal-Mart stores... I remember when we first started touring in the US back in the Seventies, we’d arrive in these towns, and I’m talking about all these places in between New York and Los Angeles, and we’d always go straight to the local record shop. These are the places where people hung out – you could talk music, pick up a few albums and all of that. Now you go back to these places and they’re all closed down. However, there is a Wal-Mart in all these towns, so we believed this to the best alternative to iTunes."

The record shop is dead; long live the record shop. Hope it's a great run, Angus.

Let's get serious: A Night For Vets

Every once in awhile we are reminded that in addition to entertaining us, music can be a powerful force for good in the world. Every once in a while we are similarly reminded that the "M" in MTV used to stand for music. These two trains of thought will come together a week from today as MTV teams up with CNN to present "A Night for Vets: An MTV Concert for the BRAVE."

I can't put it any better than Pollstar did: "The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have both been lightning rods for controversy over the past few years, but there's one thing we can all agree on: the sacrifices made by the brave men and women who've served there." The concert and associated broadcast content produced by CNN will highlight veterans' issues including mental health support and disability benefits, preventing homelessness, and properly compensating those who serve.

Live performers will include 50 Cent, Ludacris and Saving Abel, with taped performances from Kanye West, Kid Rock, Angels and Airwaves, Fall Out Boy, Juanes, Nelly and Taylor Swift, among others. News content will feature Anderson Cooper and CNN will air a separate special hosted by Cooper focusing on the many challenges faced by returning veterans.

Bon Jovi joins the chorus against McCain/Palin

Didn't we just run this story? In any case, Jon Bon Jovi is the latest big name to join the ranks of musical acts complaining that the McCain/Palin campaign is using one of their songs without their permission. Bon Jovi, who hosted a big-dollar fundraising dinner for the Obama/Biden campaign at his New Jersey home just last month, was distinctly unhappy to learn that his song "Who Says You Can't Go Home" has been used recently at rallies staged by Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin. Bon Jovi joins Heart, Foo Fighters, Jackson Browne and a host of other acts who have objected to their music being used by a Republican ticket they don't support.

Tim McGraw did not approve this post

Whatever else you might have to say about Tim McGraw's brand of very mainstream, very commercial country music, the man has a huge following and also, it appears, considerable integrity. Not only did McGraw not approve of his label -- Curb Records -- issuing his third greatest hits CD overall and second in the last two years, he's speaking out against it. Best line of the article: "In the spirit of the election year, I would simply say to my fans 'I'm Tim McGraw and I don't approve their message.'"

AC/DC still says no to iTunes

The new AC/DC disc Black Ice -- out next week -- might be one of the year's most anticipated new releases, but that doesn't mean you'll be able to buy and download it online. The band, along with the Beatles one of the most notorious holdouts against the digital download age, is distributing Black Ice only in full CD form and only through Wal-Mart stores and its own Web site. Lead singer Brian Johnson can barely hold back his disdain for iTunes and digital music in general in today's interview with Reuters, saying iTunes is "going to kill music if they're not careful."

Wampus Multimedia takes on MySpace Music

Ripped from the virtual pages of Wampus Multimedia's very own blog (see also our musical blogroll in the column at right), here's a link to bales of interesting reading about the new MySpace Music and the many devilish details that lie within.

Not that I'm going to soapbox on that particular subject today; it's really just an excuse to remind you all that Wampus head honcho Mark Doyon has been one of the wisest voices in the wilderness commenting on music industry developments for some time now -- and as a singer-songwriter, independent label owner, publicist and music blogger all rolled into one, why wouldn't he be? He sees these issues from all angles, not just one particular self-interested one. Plus, he wrote "Cuckold Of Titan," so that entitles him to your eternal attention regardless.

Foo Fighters the latest to cease-and-desist the McCain campaign

One of the most overused aphorisms of our political culture is the old George Santayana quote "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Still, someone might want to whisper it in the McCain campaign's collective ear, since it has yet again been smacked down by an artist whose music it tried to co-opt. First it was John Mellencamp, then Heart and ABBA and Jackson Browne and now this time around, the offended party is the Foo Fighters and the song is "My Hero." I believe the phrase you folks on the campaign trail are puzzling over is "intellectual property rights" -- or was it "finding some gimmick to manufacture an artifical connection with all those young voters who don't believe a word coming out of our mouths"?

October's Daily Vault Retrospective: Kansas

This month our Daily Vault retrospective spotlights one of the most underappreciated bands of their era, the boys from Topeka, the group called Kansas. Known mostly for late '70s AOR staples like the driving "Carry On Wayward Son" and the haunting #1 hit "Dust In The Wind," Kansas was (and is) much more than those two famous songs. They were in fact the first homegrown American prog band, as their first three albums attest. And while, like many of their musical peers, they tasted commercial schlock-dom in the early '80s, they recovered nicely later in the decade and continue touring and making new new music to this day. Read more about it here and here.

We're voting Depeche Mode in '09

Those '80s synth pop icons Depeche Mode are back for more as the group just announced a world tour to begin next May 10 in Israel. Actually, they're calling it their "Tour Of The Universe 2009," with many more gigs across the globe promised following the opening salvo of European dates in May and June. Unconfirmed reports of Gahan, Gore, Fletcher & associates playing Alpha Centauri do appear to be premature, though...

Lucinda Williams gets happy

Newsflash: alt-country singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams, long known for the intensity of her bittersweet ruminations on missed connections and failed relationships, is happy. At least so claims the New York Daily News in this recap of Williams' forthcoming album Little Honey (out Oct. 14), full of celebrations of her new relationship with co-producer Tom Overby. A happy Lucinda Williams. What's next, AC/DC singing lullabies?

Friday roundup: Pretenders, Kid Rock, Kingston Trio

Plenty of tidbits to consider this Friday...

• We're not quite sure how an article ostensibly about the new country-flavored album from The Pretenders came to be titled "Chrissie Hynde has never heard of Sarah Palin," but this piece from MSNBC is still worth checking out.
  
  
• Word from the New York Times is Kid Rock has finally joined the 21st century and made his music available online via Rhapsody (lucky them). Now if AC/DC would just end their holdout...
  
  
• Nick Reynolds, a founding member of folk-rock pioneers The Kingston Trio, has died. The group's focus on guitars and harmonies inspired Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Beatles, among others. R.I.P.
  

Judas Priest: Halford interview

Reunited road warriors / metal demi-gods Judas Priest continue to tour behind their June double-album Nostradamus, but frontman Rob Halford managed to take time out to do this in-depth interview with Pollstar. Interesting to hear the king screamer himself make some spot-on observations about the state of the industry and the wonder that 35 years or so later, Judas Priest can still fill amphitheatres around the globe with headbanging teenagers.

Something Phish-y going on

It seems the boys from Phish -- the most celebrated jam-band in the land since Jerry Garcia passed on -- are ready to saddle up again. Four years after the group announced they were done with a series of farewell concerts, they have announced three dates for next March in Hampton, Virginia, with the promise of more to come.

Led Zeppelin reunion - not

Remember those "wouldn't it be great if" rumors we dutifully reported last week after The Sun claimed Robert Plant had agreed to do a Led Zeppelin reunion tour? Yeah, well, in the immortal words of Emily Litella, "Never mind."

Bob Dylan's Tell Tale Signs streams on NPR

As of midnight last night, NPR Music is exclusively streaming the new and much-anticipated Bob Dylan collection Tell Tale Signs, one week ahead of the album’s release on October 7. The entire two-2-CD, 27-song set is available to hear on-demand at NPR Music for the week leading up to its official release.

Tell Tale Signs is the 8th installment in Dylan’s “Bootleg Series,” and features previously unreleased recordings, live performances and alternate versions of songs recorded during sessions for some of his most acclaimed albums, Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind among them. Also included on the album are Dylan’s recordings for the soundtracks of the films Lucky You, Gods & Generals and North Country, and “32-20 Blues,” his first ever release of a Robert Johnson song.

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band tagged for Superbowl XLIII

For true football fans, the Superbowl halftime show means turning the channel or making a beer run. Sports fans don't care about the overblown glitz and phony enthusiasm of these contrived, plastic spectacles. Can anyone forget the heinous debacle of a Superbowl half-time show that put Britney Spears on the same stage as Aerosmith? Or the ludicrous antics of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake? The history of the half-time entertainment for what is historically the most-watched annual TV event in the world is a pathetic legacy of bad choices. With the exception of Tom Petty a few years back, they rarely hit a home run (or score a touchdown if you will). Even some of the decent acts are routinely subjected to the shabby accoutrements of bad choreography and and cheesy pandering by the on-air personalities.

Hope arrives by way of New Jersey. Your friends at the DV (me and Jason at least) will be glued to the set this year after the announcement that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band will play this year's half-time show from Tampa. If anyone can save this annual display of bad taste and poor judgement by the network execs, its The Boss. Kudos to the network idiots for getting this one right.

"Fan-funded" recording: The next wave?

We've had the file sharing wars, the Radiohead experiment, and just lately the Mudvayne twist, where buying an album gets you the full fan-club-exclusives package as well. Another growing trend in the ever-evolving music industry business model is so-called "fan-funded" recording -- projects whose recording budget is funded not by a label, but by donations from a group's fans.

The model has proven viable enough that there are actually several Web sites devoted to it now -- think Sellaband and SliceThePie and ArtistShare and CASH Music -- but equally as intriguing are acts who choose to go directly to their fans. The Brian Travis Band of LA is $5,500 into a $7,000 fundraising effort to finish off the mastering and duplication of their latest record. And D.C.-based rock band Shane Hines and the Trance have raised $30,000 of a projected $40,000 recording budget for their new album via their TeamTrance site, including raising $13,000 in the first week of their fundraising drive.

Drummer/author Jake Slichter of Semisonic famously characterized the band as "rock and roll sharecroppers," making music as debt-burdened indentured servants to their label. In the future will we call them rock and roll panhandlers? Or is the better comparison to the PBS "viewer supported" model? Finally, is this progress, or just another odd twist along the road to a destination that isn't yet in sight?

Led Zeppelin tour rumors resurface

The Rumor That Would Not Die has resurfaced, again, with an unidentified source, again, claiming a Led Zeppelin reunion tour is definitively on. And while the fact that the media outlet of record in this case is notorious sensationalist rag The Sun -- think British National Enquirer -- suggests it may be just more wishful-thinking fiction, the story itself is a page-turner. Were guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones and second-gen drummer Jason Bonham really auditioning replacement singers -- and was that really what convinced Robert Plant to end his holdout and say yes? Whether or not any of this ultimately holds any water, it does make for a fairly gripping storyline...

The "news" about Clay Aiken

We're shocked, we tell you, shocked at the news about Clay Aiken. At least, that is, shocked that anyone calling themselves a fan of the American Idol winner would express the slightest bit of surprise at this not-terribly-revealing revelation. Sorry, but if this guy didn't set your gay-dar to pinging like a fire alarm, you really need to get that thing checked.

P.S. Good for you, Clay.

Yes, we do have a communication problem

As strange as it was to see the news that Yes is going to tour this fall with a fill-in for ailing lead singer and co-founder Jon Anderson -- sidelined for the next few months by a severe asthma episode that required hospitalization -- the fallout has been perhaps even stranger. It seems neither co-founder and bassist Chris Squire nor longtime members Steve Howe (guitar) and Alan White (drums) bothered to tell Anderson about their decision to go ahead and tour this winter without him, leaving him feeling "disappointed, and very disrespected." Well, yeah...

Golden Smog's Marc Perlman: the Daily Vault interview

One of the pleasures of the music reviewer's gig is the opportunity to talk with the many smart, interesting, funny folks in the business, and Golden Smog (and Jayhawks) bassist Marc Perlman qualifies on all counts. For an insider's peek at the latest from the Americana supergroup, version #17 of how the Smog was formed, hints of a Jayhawks reunion and more, check out our interview of the loquacious Mr. Perlman here. (And while you're at it, don't miss our day-of-release review of the new Golden Smog collection from Rhino here.)

Plane crash rattles the rock world -- and beyond

Every music fan within reach of a computer in the last 72 hours no doubt has heard about the horrific plane crash that seriously injured Travis Barker (Blink-182, +44) and Adam Goldstein (DJAM). What feels like it's been missing from too much of the coverage, though, is the reality that four other people -- none of them famous, all of them with families and friends and loved ones of their own -- were killed in the same crash. One of them, it turns out, was from my neck of the woods. And so, while sending best wishes to Barker and Goldstein for a speedy recovery, let's also make sure to honor the memory of pilots Sarah Lemmon, 31, and James Bland, 52, as well as bodyguard Charles Still, 25 and Roseville, California native and personal assistant Chris Baker, 29. Losing first Richard Wright and then Norman Whitfield and now these good folks has made for a very rough week in the music world.

R.I.P. Norman Whitfield

"I Heard It Through The Grapevine"... "Papa Was A Rolling Stone"... "Just My Imagination"... "War"... and, yes, "Car Wash" -- they all came from the pen of the same man, one of the key architects of the Motown sound, Norman Whitfield, who died yesterday at 67. Whitfield, both within and outside of his longtime songwriting partnership with Barrett Strong, produced some of the most memorable and meaningful hits of the 60s and 70s, blending a superb ear for melody with a commitment to make music that mattered. Yes, you could sing along to all those hits, but the songs had a depth and soulfulness to them that made them much more than pop music. In his prime he worked with artists from James Brown to Gladys Knight & the Pips and was the producer and a featured songwriter on many of The Temptations' most successful albums. Norman Whitfield was a giant in his field and will be sorely missed.

Mudvayne tries a new game

In the continuing quest to figure out how bands can make a living in an economic model where music is free, metal quartet Mudvayne has offered a clever new approach. Fans who pre-order the band's new album The New Game through Best Buy get a one-year membership to the group's fan club, an exclusive free track for download and access to presale concert tickets at a one album equals one ticket ratio. The name of the program? The Album Is The Ticket, of course.

This new strategy -- buying an album equals buying into an entire fan experience including insider fan club content and presale ticket access -- feels like it has the potential to be a breakthrough for those mid-level artists who don't sell out arenas but do have an established fan base. Another day, another twist on the ever-evolving post-file sharing music industry business model...

Pandora under pressure

Many of us on the DV writing staff have used and enjoyed Pandora -- a pioneer in what is just lately being described by the technological congniscenti (and pretentious feature writers everywhere) as "music discovery" services. Pandora was in fact the functional precursor to Apple's new "Genius" system, which I'm already having fun with at home. That said, the latest news on the Pandora front is not good. It seems the music industry is continuing to lurch from extreme to extreme trying to uncover a formula that encourages the dissemination of new music without forfeiting all economic benefits of the artists' end product. Not there yet, folks. Not there yet.

Pink Floyd co-founder Richard Wright dies

Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright died today after a short battle with cancer, according to the BBC News. Wright was a founding member of the seminal progressive rock group and his work was featured on classic albums including Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall, as well as latter-day albums such as A Momentary Lapse Of Reason and The Division Bell. Wright participated along with David Gilmour, Roger Waters and Nick Mason in the 2005 Pink Floyd reunion gig at the Live 8 concert in London. He was 65. R.I.P. Richard.

Fall music preview: AC/DC, Metallica, Guns N' Roses, Taylor Swift, Jessica Simpson, T-Pain, Keane

This morning USA Today offers a fall music preview that's both informative and amusing. The informative part begins with items on Metallica, Taylor Swift, Ne-Yo, Jessica Simpson, Ciara, David Cook, T-Pain, Keane and T.I, and is highlighted by another fairly glowing preview of the new AC/DC disc Black Ice, including a fun little video snippet from the making of the "Rock'N'Roll Train" video. Yes, the boys are getting on in years, but they can still snarl with the best of 'em...

The amusing part would be this item on the list of forthcoming albums: "Guns N' Roses / Chinese Democracy (Nov. 25, tentatively)." Anybody want to put money on that release date? Didn't think so.

Yes we have no Yes tour (except maybe sorta...)

That heavy sigh heard across the land in early June -- mistaken by many for a sigh of resignation from Hillary Clinton supporters -- in fact came from crestfallen prog-rock fans learning that Yes had canceled their planned summer tour. Perfectly understandable, what with lead singer Jon Anderson having had a major asthma episode that put him in the hospital for days and resulted in strict doctor's orders for the 63-year-old to dial it back a notch for the rest of the year.

Given the history of this band -- whose family tree has more branches than your average giant Sequoia -- it perhaps shouldn't come as a complete surprise to learn that the remaining core trio of Steve Howe (guitar), Chris Squire (bass/vocals) and Alan White (drums) have decided to tour this fall as Yes despite the absence of both lead voice Anderson and off-and-on keyboardist Rick Wakeman, whose son Oliver had earlier been tapped for the summer tour when Pops opted out.

Howe, Squire and White, who had by most accounts grown restless with the band's inactivity in recent years, will now launch the appropriately named "In The Present" tour with the younger Wakeman behind the keyboard stacks and Benoit David out front. Benoit who, you ask? Well, it seems the boys paid attention to the strategy employed by classic rock trend-setters from Judas Priest to Journey and plucked David from Canadian Yes tribute band Close To The Edge after watching him sing on YouTube.

Neither David nor Oliver Wakeman has been asked to commit to the band beyond the planned fall tour, leaving the door wide open for the future return of Anderson and/or Wakeman the elder. Meanwhile, it's get your Yes music where you can...

Metallica's Death Magentic: reviews galore

Metallica's first album of new studio material since 2003's controversial St. Anger was released today, and the virtual halls of the Daily Vault were buzzing with anticipation all week. As result, we've got not one or even two, but three day-of-release reviews of the newest from the godfathers of thrash. Prepare to be bludgeoned!

Grateful Dead's Egypt box set now available for pre-order

Good things come to those who wait! Thirty years after the Grateful Dead's near-legendary expedition into Egypt to play in the shadow of the pyramids, and weeks after the release was announced, Dead.net is finally ready to accept pre-orders for this ultra-cool CD/DVD set from the Dead’s legendary September 1978 run at the Sound & Light Theater outside Cairo.

Rocking the Cradle: Egypt 1978 includes two exceptional music CDs plus a DVD with over 95 minutes of concert footage from the Egypt shows, plus an impressionistic “Vacation Tapes” mini-documentary that shows the band and Dead family at play. What’s more, all preorders placed through dead.net by the official release date, September 30, will receive an exclusive bonus CD of still more great material from the Egypt gigs. Rocking the Cradle will be available everywhere on September 30, but the bonus disc will be exclusively available with preorders. Place your order here.

Those so inclined might also want to check out online listening parties for the album, available in three formats: QT, Real, or WMA. Stream on!

Wednesday roundup: no Pink Floyd reunion, The Who honors, Oasis gets bashed

A fresh batch of tasty items coming at you this a.m.:

• No, no, a hundred times no -- there will be no Pink Floyd reunion, says David Gilmour, who would clearly much rather talk about his flourishing solo career.
  
  
• The Kennedy Center Honors will include some big names from the music world this year: Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who, George Jones, and Barbra Streisand.
  
  
• I'm not sure which makes a better teaser for this ironic Oasis item: "hooligan is as hooligan does" or "bashing the basher." You decide.
  

Manic Monday: Tom Petty, Keith Moon, U2

Items galore this Monday a.m.:

• First of all, just wanted to make sure everyone reading this is tracking on the Daily Vault's September retrospective featuring Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. There are some big TP fans around these parts, so the forecast is for heavy coverage all month long...
  
  
• On the 30th anniversary of Keith Moon's death, the Arizona Republic kindly offered a summary of "13 Essential Keith Moon Moments" from the life and career of The Who's explosive drummer. Essential reading indeed...
  
  
• You won't hear the rest of that rumored (and partially leaked) new U2 album until 2009, reports the LA Times -- at least, if Bono can remember to keep the stereo turned down.
  

MySpace reunites Ben Folds Five (up next: reversing climate change)

Those of you cutting edge musical Webophiles who've long since dismissed MySpace as so five minutes ago might want to pay attention to their latest gimmick. MySpace earlier today announced the launch of a new music program called Front to Back, with the mission of "celebrating iconic albums that have helped shape the MySpace Generation." (Yeah whatever.)

Ah, but once you get past the marketing propaganda-speak, look what wonders await: "MySpace kicks off this program by reuniting beloved alt-pop band Ben Folds Five with an exclusive one-time live performance of their final studio album together, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, in its entirety." GAAAHHH! "The concert will be the band's first performance together in nearly ten years and will take place in the band’s former hometown of Chapel Hill, North Carolina on September 18, 2008 at the UNC Memorial Hall." Double GAAAHHH!! "The show will be rebroadcast on the Front to Back official MySpace profile in October http://myspace.com/fronttoback."

Can I get an amen? (And a ticket to Chapel Hill?)

Stevie Wonder awarded the Gershwin Prize by the Library of Congress

Quoting from the news release:

"The Gershwin Prize was created to honor an artist whose creative output transcends distinctions between musical styles and idioms, bringing diverse listeners together, and fostering mutual understanding and appreciation," said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington. "Stevie Wonder's music epitomizes this ideal."

The prize commemorates George and Ira Gershwin, the legendary American songwriting team whose extensive manuscript collections reside in the Library of Congress. The prize is given annually to a musician whose lifetime contribution in the field of popular song exemplifies the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins.

The first Gershwin Prize was awarded in May 2007 to Paul Simon."

Now that's some "Higher Ground"... and well deserved. Congrats, Stevie.

Music blogger arrested, charged with leaking songs from unreleased Guns N' Roses album

In a case likely to send shivers down the spines of music bloggers everywhere, blogger Kevin Cogill of antiquiet.com was arrested by FBI agents yesterday and charged in court with streaming songs from the infamously still-hasn't-been-released Guns N' Roses album Chinese Democracy. The charges accused Cogill of posting streams of nine tracks from the album, whose ten-year gestation period and repeated missed release dates have bestowed it with an almost mythic status.

What this means for the ongoing debate over creator's rights, the RIAA's heavy handed enforcement tactics, and/or the continually evolving music industry business model will no doubt be the subject of continuing speculation.

Of more immediate concern to GNR fans -- who, amazingly enough, still exist -- is the loss of access to the only new music the band has produced in the past 15 years. As one fan pointed out ruefully online, "For all we know, that could be the closest we ever get to an actual release."

Tuesday item-fest: Little Feat and friends, Obama-Springsteen, Radiohead live

Items galore this Tuesday:

• Little Feat's new album features a slew of guest stars taking over the frontman slot once held by Lowell George and reinterpreting classics from the band's rich catalogue. Any album with Vince Gill -- who tackles the immortal "Dixie Chicken" -- Dave Matthews, Bob Seger, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley, Jimmy Buffett and Emmylou Harris all singing on it has got to be worth a listen...
  
  
• Speaking of presidential candidates' relations with the music world, the Rocky Mountain News reports that Barack Obama's acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver will be bracketed by performances from Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Now that's some Jersey love right there...
  
  
• There have been hundreds of reviews of Radiohead concerts published in the past decade. We've even published one or two ourselves. This one from the LA Times was good enough to make me -- who doesn't even like the band -- curious about seeing them live. Nice job.
  

Oh Madonna...

...will you ever tire of being an attention whore?

I mean, first you call your latest album Hard Candy, then you call the accompanying tour "Sticky & Sweet"... And you just turned 50? A extremely fit 50, and after all it is the new 40 and everything, but really... you have kids. They have friends. And you're still prancing around like a pole dancer and making shock-value-only videos?

I mean, it's almost as cringe-worthy as a bunch of sixty-somethings prancing around under a giant lips-and-tongue-logo...

Oh, wait.

Never mind.

"The Day That Never Comes" just arrived for Metallica

Metallica fans all around the world finally got a taste of the band's latest studio album Death Magnetic with the release of the single "The Day That Never Comes." While the group had debuted another new song entitled "Cyanide" at Ozzfest, this is the first official release of material from their upcoming LP.

The song is a complete reversal of the sound Metallica was reaching for on the much maligned St. Anger, channeling their classic period with a hint of the 90s era. Don't be surprised if the opening few minutes of the song remind you of "Fade To Black," or "The Unforgiven," because the vibe is very much similar to those stellar tracks. The dueling guitar harmonies are back, as are the mind numbingly fast solos, delivered by one Kirk Hammett. Sure the lyrics are a bit cheesy in areas, but Metallica really never delivered incredibly profound wordplay.