November 9, 2007

It’s been a long fucking week here at HT HQ — longer than the last note in A Day in the Life — so let’s head into the weekend on

It turns out Prince is not suing his fans: “…[Prince] is simply looking to provide Prince fans with exclusive music and images entirely free of charge, and bypassing unofficial and unauthorised phoney fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists.” Still, it was fun to see an artist fuck over his fans that royally, even if the whole wispy mustachioed episode now seems to be a big understanding.

Most people will be touching themselves to Arcade Fire’s performance on Austin City Limits this weekend, but really, will it get any better than Jay-Z sitting down with Chaz Rose?

The Sex Pistols kicked off their reunion tour in Brixton last night during a raucous gig that lasted a little over an hour. Lead singer Johnny Rotten relied on a crib sheet to remember some of the lyrics he screwed up during the band’s recent warm-up gig in LA. We can’t imagine seeing a bunch of rich 50-year-olds play angry punk music would be any good, and according to early reports, we’re right.

• Radiohead denies reports that 62 percent of people who downloaded In Rainbows didn’t pay a cent (hey, Radiohead webcast today?)
• Rolling Stone finally gets around to featuring The Budos Band
• Rose Hill Drive plans to cover Aerosmith’s Toys In The Attic in Boulder on December 30th and 31st
• Ethan Iverson of The Bad Plus describes the making of Prog
• Brent Rolen talks to Les Claypool about his Electric Apricot flick
• Mikey G presents another terrific edition of Video Elsewhere
  
• New tourdates from Peter Bjorn and John and Girl Talk
• Mars Volta channel the Grateful Dead
• Katrina reviews Keller Williams and the WMD’s gig at the 9:30 Club
• Buckethead chronicles his early years with the release of a 2 new DVDs
• The Fab Faux bring Sgt. Pepper’s to Boston on Sunday night

And, finally, Umphrey’s McGee just announced their annual holiday shows in Chicago. Guitarists Jake Cinninger and Brendan Bayliss break out the acoustics at the Vic Theatre on December 7th, while Joel Cummins leads the keyboard holiday show at Schuba’s on December 21st. The band will also play the last three nights of the year at The Aragon Ballroom, but you probably already knew that.

Thursday night laziness ensured our outsourcing of this week’s edition, so it’s Uncle Neddy time once more. The Ned claims to be a little liberal with his definitions here, but allow him to present a set loosely based on the slide guitar.

01 Mississippi Bollweevil — North Mississippi Allstars: Electric Blue Watermelon
02 Concrete And Barbed Wire — Lucinda Williams: Car Wheels On A Gravel Road
03 Wild Mountain Nation — Blitzen Trapper: Wild Mountain Nation
04 Helpless — Fareed Haque: Deja Vu
05 Native Stepson — Sonny Landreth: Grant Street
06 Like a Rolling Stone — Drive-By Truckers: Highway 61 Revisited Revisited

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