October 23, 2003

New 4 CD Punk Collection Box Set 10/28

Rhino Records is releasing a four-CD, 100-song punk retrospective on October 28, titled “No Thanks!: The ’70s Punk Rebellion.”
But that wasn’t its original name.
The company wanted to call the box, “Ever Get the Feeling You’ve Been Cheated?” For music trivia buffs, those were the words spoken into the microphone by Johnny Rotten as the Sex Pistols left the stage after their final concert before breaking up in 1978.
Then Rotten, born John Lydon, found out about Rhino’s plans when he was interviewed this summer by a reporter from The Washington Post.
“It’s a (expletive) insult to be using my quote to back up product that I have nothing to do with,” he told the Post. “To my mind, that’s fraudulent marketing, plain and simple. I don’t care how much homage they pay to me in the liner notes. They want to use me from a distance and I find that just unacceptable.”
Lydon conveyed the same message to Rhino, said Marc Salata, product manager of the box set.
Rhino was already disappointed because the Sex Pistols wouldn’t license any of their songs for the project. The box includes the Clash, Ramones, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, the Jam and Patti Smith — with the Pistols a major hole.
The title, “No Thanks!,” has dual meanings, Salata explained. At the time, the punk bands were saying, “no thanks” to the popular music of the day. And although many of the musicians are revered today, they received relatively little public support at the time.
Left unspoken is a “no thanks” to the Sex Pistols.
Rhino has launched an ad campaign that lists all the bands appearing on their box, and “bands that just said, `no thanks:’ the Sex Pistols.
“Here are 100 tracks to tell 99 percent of the story,” Rhino says. “For the rest, dust off your copy of `Never Mind the Bollocks,”‘ the first Sex Pistols album.
Even Salata admits that Lydon showed a certain punk rock spirit in telling Rhino to get lost.
“We didn’t want to pick a fight with John Lydon,” he said. “But it doesn’t seem too difficult to pick a fight with John Lydon.”
Source cnn.com.

Read More

5 CD Johnny Cash Box Set Due 11/25

Next month Johnny Cash not only becomes the focus of an all-star concert, but also a just-announced five-CD box set featuring Cash’s music and memories.
Cash Unearthed is due out November 25 from American Recordings/Lost Highway, and contains 79 tracks recorded over the past 10 years, including 64 never-before-heard recordings from the singer who died last month at age 71 of diabetes complications.
Produced by Rick Rubin, who launched Cash’s comeback effort in 1994, the music was culled from recording sessions for 1994’s American Recordings, 1996’s Unchained, 2000’s American III: Solitary Man and last year’s American IV: The Man Comes Around.
The first three discs, respectively subtitled Who’s Gonna Cry, Trouble in Mind and Redemption Songs, include Cash’s rendition of Steve Earle’s “Devil’s Right Hand,” Roy Orbison’s “Down the Line” and Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” and “Pocahontas.”
Disc four, titled My Mother’s Hymn Book, has a more spiritual bent. The 15 solo acoustic songs performed stem from Cash’s mother Carrie’s book of hymns she taught him as a child.
The fifth CD features a variety of hits from Cash’s Grammy-winning collaborations with Rubin, including “Solitary Man,” and his recent remake of Nine Inch Nail’s “Hurt,” a winner at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards.
Other material unearthed includes some of Cash’s unreleased duets, including Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” with Joe Strummer, Cat Steven’s “Father and Son” with Fiona Apple, Chuck Berry’s “Brown-Eyed Handsome Man” with Carl Perkins, “Cindy” with Nick Cave, and “Like a Soldier” with Willie Nelson.
Unearthed also contains a hefty clothbound book featuring one of the singer’s final interviews, in which he and Rubin discuss creating such a monumental body of work with a track-by-track discussion of each song. (Rubin and Cash had been working on his next release, tentatively titled American V, just before Cash’s death.) The interview also includes comments from daughter Roseanne Cash, son John Carter Cash, Tom Petty and more.
Source eonline.com.

Read More

$246M Suit Against “Grand Theft Auto 3”

A fatal sniping spree by two teenage Tennessee boys who said they were mimicking the video game “Grand Theft Auto III” has triggered a $246 million damage lawsuit against the game’s creator and others.
One person was killed and another wounded in the incident last June.
The case, filed Monday in Cocke County Circuit at Newport, Tennessee, named Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., a unit of Sony Corp. (SNE: Research, Estimates), Rockstar Games, a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (TTWO: Research, Estimates), and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT: Research, Estimates), which sold the game, the parents of the two boys involved, and the boys themselves.
The lawsuit alleges that the parties being challenged should have known the game would lead to “copycat violence.”
The boys in a court appearance in August admitted they traded off firing a rifle from a wooded hilltop overlooking a highway, killing Canadian Aaron Hamel, 45, and wounding a woman motorist. A passenger riding with Hamel was also injured when his car ran off the road.
Prosecutor Al Schmutzer said the boys told authorities they were mimicking the video game by trying to hit the sides of passing trucks.
Joshua and William Buckner, 14 and 16 years old, respectively, have been ordered held until they reach age 19 after pleading guilty to reckless homicide, aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.
The suit was filed on behalf of Hamel’s parents, the wounded motorist and two people who were passengers in each of their vehicles. It seeks $200 million in punitive damages and $46 million in actual damages.
Take-Two said it would seek a dismissal of the suit.
“The Company believes that the claims against it are without merit and are similar to lawsuits brought and uniformly dismissed by courts in other jurisdictions where the plaintiffs’ sought to hold entertainment companies responsible for the violent behavior of individuals who used those company’s products,” Take-Two said in a statement.
A spokeswoman for SCEA, declined to comment, and Wal-Mart had no immediate comment.
Source cnn.com.

Read More

View posts by year

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter