"You've Got My Number (Why Don't You Use It)"*

or Straight Outta MIDEM: Ten Years On, The Music Industry Goes All Napster?

It used to make me cry but now this shit just makes me laugh. Every year music company big wigs from around the world get together to literally save their world. With worldwide music sales plummeting and iTunes sales flat, The NY Times reports from Cannes that "The Industry" pins its hopes on unlimited "free" access to millions of songs to save their sinking ship.

OK, so nothing's "free" here. The cost is added on to yer cell phone or broadband bill. Sounds simple enough. I'm left with any number of unanswered questions:

1. How much is this "free" service?
2. Will consumers embrace any cell/broadband bill increase, for what is in essence a luxury, during the greatest worldwide economic catastrosphe ever?
3. Which record companies are participants?
4. How are the proceeds split amongst participants i.e. a flat rate split for each or split according to percentage of total tunes downloaded or something else?
   
5. What is the projected average cost per song to the consumer?
6. What is the projected revenue per song for the record company?
7. What is the projected total yearly net profit from this service?
8. How much revenue does each record company project receiving?
9. Does this make it easier for us to get more, and more rare, songs for less?
10. Will this kill iTunes for which we still pay a buck a cut?
    

Feargal Sharkey's beaucoup punk rock bona fides aside, I cannot grasp how this gambit will save the day. The music industry has proven time and time again that its stupidity is surpassed only by its greed.

Blah! After a major Blogger crash, it's taken me most of this week to get this far so...
Next up: How we came to be hear here.

-AF
*1979 single by genius No. Irish pop-punkers The Undertones featuring a young Feargal Shockey on vox. Highly recommended. Much loved.

I feel an Uncle Anacher's Punk Rock Tales coming on.

London Flies US Flag For Obama Inauguration

I've been at a loss to add anything to the hyper-extensive coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration. The news that the City of London raised the Stars & Stripes over City Hall gave this admitted Anglophile a double shot of pride. My ancestor was the Town Clerk of London in the reign of Henry V & Henry VI and Founder of The City of London School.

-AF
(HT: Scott Horton)

It's The End Of The World As We Know It

Three more horsemen of the economic apocalypse?

In the "if it plays out properly, and that is a big if, this should be eventually good in the tear-down-a-structurally-compromised-M. C. Escher-of-a-high-rise-to-erect-practical-home" department: The End of Banking as We Know It

In the meantime, we foot the banks' bill. So if you were seething with bailout rage before, your head will now explode: Bailout Is a No-Strings Windfall to Banks, if Not to Borrowers

I don't pretend understand the financially rarified air of the hedge fund manager. But I'd love it if stories like this would do away with the practice of short selling: Hedge Funds, Unhinged

By my count this brings the horsemen of the economic apocalypse running total up to about 27.

-AF

Hate Rears Its Ugly Head: Anti-Semite Edition

I've mentioned previously that I cannot stand nor understand bigotry in any form. It's so goddamn irrational. While I was searching for Andrew Wyeth obits for the post below, I stumbled across the most deeply disturbing, naked anti-Semitism.

-AF

Andrew Wyeth's The White Dory

Here's the print I mentioned earlier.

Thanks to Mrs. Forester for the assist.

-AF

*Update: Boston Globe obit, NY Times obit, WaPo obit, AP obit, LA Times obit, AP sez: Wyeth's death reignites debate over his legacy.

Reagraham Lincool

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Reagraham Lincool

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Reagan-Appointed Judge Validated Warrentless Wiretaps

Of course he did. Bruce M. Selya, the judge who wrote the opinion, is a Reagan appointee. He probably shoots cuddly lil' animals on weekends with fellow Reaganites Dick Cheney & Justice Scalia just for fun.

Selya was part of the secret three-member FISA Review Court that made this ruling last summer. Why release it now? Bush's "legacy project." Natch.

We're witness to the legal equivalent to football's sudden-death overtime. Right down to the very last minute the Bush DOJ works to provide defense of the indefensible.

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out fellas.

-AF
Cross-posted at TPM Cafe.

Apology Rejected

Ex DOJ voting rights chief John Tanner has a lot to learn about making apologies.

-AF

**Update: "Supposed Apology" Is "Even Funnier."

RIP: Andrew Wyeth

Detail from Sea Shells, 1953.

My mother grew up in northern coastal Maine. Her mother was a talented, mostly self-taught artist. I cherish Grammy's paintings, pen and ink drawings, Christmas ornaments including Santa, Mrs. Claus and a slew of elves to this day.

In Grammy's world Andrew Wyeth's paintings were appreciated not only for their artistic merit but also with a keen sense of pride for their celebration of Maine. I vividly remember my whole family traipsing to a Wyeth exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts. My cousins (who were/are older than my mom) gave us a deluxe print from the Farnsworth Museum of The White Dory as a wedding gift.

Andrew Wyeth died today in his suburban Phildelphia home. He was 91.

-AF

The Great Lost Gem of "Brit Pop"

Cast's "Alright"*

"Brit Pop." How I hated that word. But then again I've always been against labeling or pigeonholing. Unless I was tired or lazy and grasping for shorthand to explain a band's sound or milieu. When the "Brit Pop" flash in the pan that gave rise to Oasis and validated Blur is now examined some dozen years on, Cast invariably gets short shrift.

What a mistake! I'll gladly put All Change track for track up against any other "Brit Pop" release out in 1995. Pulp. Suede. Oasis. Supergrass. Blur. (OK, maybe not Elastica because I still hold a major unrequited crush on Justine Frischmann -- pay no mind). Cast's John Leckie-produced debut sounds great today.

I spent a lotta time with Cast on their first US tours. Being Liverpudlians, it was like hanging out with the Beatles' kids. I spent so much one-on-one time with the band over that stretch that by the time they headed home I had picked up their dialect's trademark lilt. It wore off, not in a fortnight, but in about in ten days time.

I don't have to try very hard to I hear John Power, in the Back of My Mind, saying, "Anacher, la..."

-AF
*Those brilliant fuckers at Universal still won't allow video embeds.