Stranger Than Fiction Week #3
I had a chat with Fake the other day on the super secret TMT IM service (just kidding, it was MSN) and he unwillingly gave me fodder for this article!
Fake says:
i don’t want to breach my hosting plan either
BlackMage says:
oh shit
BlackMage says:
good thing you told me about that
Fake says:
did you know that [old staff member] aka [old staff member] aka [old staff member] posted a flash movie of [something our host wouldn't care for]?
Fake says:
it was funny because it talked about [something our host wouldn't care for], but it got TMT booted off our host
BlackMage says:
wow
So, that being said, let me explain something about the column. Now, you’ve noticed the corny tag line at the end of the article; sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. That came about because I needed a name of this column and was listening to Bad Religion’s “Stranger Than Fiction”. Thus, this column was named. What am I getting at, you ask? If you read this column, mayhaps you’ll remember last week when I posted the news of Ike Turner’s autopsy under the heading “Feel Good Hit of the Summer”. Now, this isn’t to say that Ike’s passing is a feel good event. “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” is a Queens of the Stone Age song which deals with drug use. So, I hope that clears it up and doesn’t offend anyone.
On that note…
FEEL GOOD HIT OF THE SUMMER
The Sun was busy this week.
First the confirmed stuff. They put up pictures and video of Amy Winehouse using crack, cocaine, ecstacy and valium. Secondly, the interview Britney Spears “Uncle William” in which he says Britney is into marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth and ecstacy. Fun stuff, no?
HANG IT UP ALREADY
Whitesnake is putting a new album in celebration of their 30th anniversary. Be still my beating heart.
The Stone Temple Pilots are rumoured to return after Scott Weiland was a no show at a Velvet Revolver concert earlier this month. Slash is mildy upset.
Guns ‘N’ Roses long delayed and apparently very expensive album “Chinese Democracy” is finally finished and will see a release this year. Until Axl pushes it back again, blames someone for it not being released and gets more money.
BRIT ROCKER TOM FOOLERY
Both these bits of news come from Music-News.com, which I found to be great.
“Robert Plant demanded a London bar stopped playing Radiohead, branding it “rhyming crap”. The Led Zeppelin frontman dislikes the five-piece so much he asked the staff at Camden’s Fifty Five Bar to change the record because it was ruining his night.
A source told Britain’s The Sun newspaper: “Robert was drinking with a woman and didn’t like the choice of tunes playing. “Radiohead was on and he started complaining. He said, ‘What’s this rhyming crap?’” However, when staff put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers instead, the 59-year-old was still unimpressed as explained by the staff: “The staff were obviously keen to please so they changed their music. They put on the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who they thought might be more up his street. But he didn’t like their stuff either and said it was like a ‘nursery rhyme’… He then said he wanted to listen to Captain Beefheart, an American musician who was famous at a similar time to Zeppelin from the 60s to the early 80s.”
Rhyming crap? That made me laugh. Note to self, check out Captain Beefheart.
Ringo Starr was supposed to appear on “Live with Regis and Kelly” this morning — but moments before he was scheduled to go live, the former Beatle walked off the set.
In what’s being chalked-up to a miscommunication, Ringo was given only 3 minutes to perform a 4-minute, 15-second song, and chose to hightail it out of there after the show wouldn’t give him more time. According to his rep, “Ringo left saying, `God bless and goodbye. We still love Regis.”‘
Why deny Ringo a minute and fifteen seconds?
FREE MUSIC
Alright, I’ll confess: every section of this article except this one was written on Saturday. I usually write it all on Sunday night, but it didn’t look like anything column worthy would up until this bit from Reuters:
Qtrax, a new legal online file-sharing service that allows fans to download songs for free, said on Sunday it will launch with 25 million to 30 million copyrighted tracks with backing from major labels. The free service will be funded through advertising revenue that Qtrax will share with the music companies. Executives said the company’s digital rights management technology will count the number of times each song has been played in order to fairly compensate artists and rights’ holders, without restricting consumer use.
The company has focused on ensuring that its network is free of spyware or adware such as pop-ups common on many peer-to-peer networks to improve the customer experience. “If you want people to come to a legal environment it has to be demonstrably better,” said Chief Executive Allan Klepfisz.
Oopah! I’m interested and mildly excited with the annoucement of this. I want to know how that DRM works though. It counts the number of times each song was played so they can pay the artists and right holders? Oopah!
I’ll follow up on this for the next STF and let you know how it works.
LOOSE ENDS
I reported last week that the Grammys might not happen because of big names possibly boycotting the show. Turns out Beyonce and the Foo Fighters will still be playing, so on with the show! Give Slayer and Queens of the Stone Age what they deserve!
To anyone that’s reading: Fake has a forum setup for folks to comment on news we post, features such as this and general ramblings. You can talk Montreal Canadiens with Fake, talk hip-hop with Half-Baked and tell me how much of an idiot I am. I’d prefer to talk about MMA though. Anyway, get yourself registered and lets us know what you think!
What? No best of the worst this week? Well, it was a slow week for news and truly the worst news ended up in Feel Good Hit of the Summer, but I’m sure something will come up.
Thanks for reading and remember, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.