Radiohead to Prince: "Unblock Creep"

After word spread that Prince covered Radiohead's "Creep" at the Coachella festival, the tens of thousands who couldn't be there ran to YouTube for a peek. Everyone was quickly denied -- even Radiohead.

All videos of Prince's unique rendition of Radiohead's early hit were quickly taken down, leaving only a message that his label, NPG Records, had removed the clips, claiming a copyright violation. But the posted videos were shot by fans and, obviously, the song isn't Prince's.

In a recent interview, Thom Yorke said he heard about Prince's performance from a text message and thought it was "hilarious." Yorke laughed when his bandmate, guitarist Ed O'Brien, said the blocking had prevented even him from seeing Prince's version of their song.

"Really? He's blocked it?" asked Yorke, who figured it was their song to block or not. "Surely we should block it. Hang on a moment." Yorke added, "Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our ... song."

YouTube prohibits the posting of copyrighted material. If the site receives a complaint from a copyright owner, it will in most cases remove the video(s). Whether the same could be done for a company not holding a copyright is less clear, but Yorke's argument would seem to bear some credence according to YouTube's policies. YouTube, which is owned by Google, declined to comment.

Prince also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The dispute was an interesting twist in debates over digital ownership, held between two major acts with differing views on music and the Internet. Radiohead famously released their most recent album, "In Rainbows," as a digital download with optional pricing. They also have a channel on YouTube.

When Prince performed at Coachella on April 26, he prohibited the standard arrangement of allowing photographers to shoot near the stage during the first three songs of his set. Instead, he had a camera crew filming his performance.

Prince has also shut down his official Web site and last September said he would sue YouTube and eBay for not filtering unauthorized content.

Prince fans have organized to urge him to relent in his legal fights to control images and photographs of himself. As of yesterday, the most popular YouTube clip about Prince playing "Creep" is an expletive-laden rant from Sam Conti Jr., who describes himself as a "former Prince fan."

Source: Billboard

I was able to find this clip below.



Maybe Prince has blocked videos of the rendition because it's so lame?

-MACK

Weezer Give YouTube Celebs a 16th Minute

For Weezer's newest video, they have seemingly recruited everyone who’s carved out 15 minutes of fame on YouTube and crammed them all in to 1 clip.

There's Miss South Carolina, Tay Zonday, Chris Crocker, and Even Kevin Federline!

Clearly, Weezer understands how to work YouTube.

Check out the video below, and then head over to Valley Wag where they have gathered up all 24 of the viral videos referenced in "Pork and Beans," and embedded them in one place.

Weezer’s newest self-titled album will be out June 3rd.



-Mack Arillo

9/11 Revisited

[first lines]

[Tyler points a gun into the Narrator's mouth]

Narrator: [voiceover] People are always asking me if I know Tyler Durden.

Tyler Durden: Three minutes. This is it - ground zero. Would you like to say a few words to mark the occasion?

Narrator: ...i... ann... iinn... ff... nnyin...

Narrator: [voiceover] With a gun barrel between your teeth, you speak only in vowels.

[Tyler removes the gun from the Narrator's mouth]

Narrator: I can't think of anything.

Narrator: [voiceover] For a second I totally forgot about Tyler's whole controlled demolition thing and I wonder how clean that gun is.



9/11 Revisited

The Eyes / Pale Divine Reunion

Richard Fortus will be reuniting with his old band, The Eyes, this Fall.

New CD, DVD, and reunion show in the works.

Guitarist Richard Fortus, lead vocalist Michael Schaerer, drummer Greg Miller, and bassist Dan Angenend, Jr. are working on the release of a live DVD from their heyday in thye late '80s / early '90s.

In addition to the live DVD, the band is packaging up the demos they recorded for the second, unreleased, Pale Divine record.

A reunion show is planned for Christmas 2008 in St. Louis.

You can watch The Eyes (aka Pale Divine) playing their song "Way Strange" below.



Live at Kennedy's on The Landing - St. Louis, Missouri circa 1989.

Pale Divine's MySpace

TAB (The Band)

"TAB the band formed in December 2006.

What resulted was a ragged, hard rock band the likes of which has not been seen since 1974, but sounds like it could still be good in 2074."

I'm not too fond of their name, but damn! the music speaks for itself.

Go to their MySpace and listen to the songs - you'll know what I mean.

They sound like side 5 of Exile on Main Street, with elements of old Priest, Sabbath and Motorhead.

If you live in the Northeast United States you can catch them live tonight in Boston and Friday night in Philly.

You can listen to and watch them play "Secretarys Day" below.



TAB the Band's MySpace
TAB the band

Sorum: "We're Coming out With Something in a Couple of Weeks"

Matt Sorum has revealed the following to Artisan News Service about the next chapter of his band - following the recent departure of vocalist Scott Weiland, who returned to his former outfit Stone Temple Pilots.

"We're coming out with something in a couple of weeks and I think it's going to surprise everybody. It's exciting. We're moving forward. We're going to keep going and play rock n roll and get a new guy singing so, we did it before we'll do it again."

Sorum went on to say, "We're really seriously thinking about doing something online. Yeah, we got offered a couple of different television ideas you know. Mark Burnett called us and asked us to do that Rockstar thing and we basically said 'No!' to that. We didn't feel it was right for us. No disrespect to him but it just didn't feel right for what we want to do. As many years as we've tried to keep our integrity intact we felt that wasn't the right forum for us to do it so, we got some ideas and we should have that news in a couple weeks."

Source: Bravewords

Ladies and Gentlemen: Meet the New Guns N' Roses

By Doug Miller / GunsNRoses.com

Axl Rose said he'd do it and has.

The charismatic, sometimes controversial frontman of the legendary rock band Guns N' Roses has brought GN'R back for a long-awaited album, the upcoming Chinese Democracy, and a tour through the United States and Canada.

He's got a stable full of all-star rock veterans to take the classic GN'R sound up a few notches. This full-sounding eight-piece band is capable of blasting out the classics, the new stuff and even a few surprising, creatively realized covers along the way.

New lead/rhythm guitarist Robin Finck, who gained industry prominence as part of the influential band Nine Inch Nails, "has grown toward something like equality with Rose," according to Los Angeles Times rock critic Ann Powers.

"His solos flashed and bubbled," Powers wrote after GN'R's recent performance at the "Inland Invasion" festival outside of Los Angeles.

GN'R's guitar sound has always been the product of a lot more than one player, however, and the latest lineup also includes axemen Richard Fortus, formerly of the Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love, and Ron Thal, who plied his trade as Bumblefoot.

Powers noted the "killer chops" of both men and made a point to mention their instrumental transformation of Christina Aguilera's Top 40 hit "Beautiful" into "a sky-is-crying-style blues."

Paul Gargano of the Hollywood Reporter was impressed, too.

"One of the night's most memorable performances was 'November Rain,' which featured Rose on piano at center stage and Finck and guitarist Richard Fortus trading leads," Gargano wrote.

Meanwhile, keyboardist Dizzy Reed returns to his familiar spot in the band, and his playing and his chemistry with Rose on stage was considered one of the highlights of the recent gig by most critics.

But Reed isn't the only one playing keyboards. Rose will tickle the ivories on the piano from time to time, and GN'R has retained the services of keyboardist, multi-instrumentalist and "sound designer" Chris Pitman, who used to play in Lusk.

On bass, GN'R is being classed up by the presence of Tommy Stinson, who broke into the music industry while in his teens and ended up playing a crucial role in the development of the Replacements, who are widely considered one of the most important rock acts of the 1980s.

Source: GunsNRoses.com