2007

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

• CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S FRIDAY MIX TAPE

The festival’s website says “Tough shit, honkey,” mas o menos. Originally called for today, the initial artist announcement for the expanded Big Cypress shindig will be unveiled some time…well, whenever

Coming up with the perfect title for a new album is something artists have struggled with since Leo da Vinci named his masterpiece “Mona Lisa” instead of the more catchy “Hot Chick I Fucked Last Night.”

Giving an album a good title can make all the difference in the world. Squeeze’s Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti may be a decent record, but I’m not putting anything with that title on my iPod. Meanwhile, Me First and the Gimme Gimme’s Ruin Jonny’s Bar Mitzvah probably sold an extra thousand copies due to its awesome title.

Most of the time record companies don’t really care too much what a band names an album, but once in a while they put their proverbial foot down (perhaps their literal feet as well). A few weeks ago we looked at 10 albums released with controversial cover art, so this week we look at eight albums whose titles were rejected either by members of the band or the big bad record company…

1. Grateful Dead — Skullfuck:

The Grateful Dead submitted a live album to Warner Brothers in 1971 with the title Skullfuck. As you can imagine, the record company rejected the title, and instead decided to release the album with no title. Fans call this album Skull and Roses to avoid confusing it with the band’s eponymous debut.

2. XTC — Black Music:

XTC released their debut album, White Music, on Virgin Records in 1978. The band wanted to call the album Black Music but Virgin nixed the idea because they thought the title may suggest a blues or soul album. Racists!

Read on for six more rejected album titles we would liked to have seen…

But some of our friends attended last night’s tribute concert to Bob Dylan, celebrating Todd Haynes upcoming biopic. Apparently Cat Power no-showed the Beacon bill, but My Morning Jacket, Calexico,

It means no worries, brahhh: “Lion King audiences at the Minskoff have been sniffing the sweet scent of marijuana. It turns out the pot-head fans of former Grateful Dead bassist