Music Meridian

An interesting snippet of a press conference in which George Bush weighs in on statuatory royalty payments to musicians:

Q: Mr. President, music is one of our largest exports the country has. Currently, every country in the world -- except China, Iran, North Korea, Rwanda and the United States -- pay a statutory royalty to the performing artists for radio and television air play. Would your administration consider changing our laws to align it with the rest of the world?

THE PRESIDENT: Help. (Laughter.) Maybe you've never had a President say this -- I have, like, no earthly idea what you're talking about. (Laughter and applause.) Sounds like we're keeping interesting company, you know? (Laughter.)

Look, I'll give you the old classic: contact my office, will you? (Laughter.) I really don't -- I'm totally out of my lane. I like listening to country music, if that helps. (Laughter.)

---

Via WFMU via The Whitehouse

I've been listening to a lot of '80s King Crimson this week. Some of their live stuff is especially unbelievable. I was watching the "Neil and Jack and Me" DVD earlier today and was blown away at how this stuff was pulled off live. For example, check out this version of Waiting Man from 1984:

Bonus! Here's a live clip of the League Of Gentlemen from 1980 featuring Robert Fripp and Sara Lee on bass who went on to later fame in Gang Of Four:

this was written by ed rodriguez in regards to this scumbag alex tonella that ripped off XBXRX. feel free to fuck with this idiot. he messed with the wrong band.

=====================================

This is a warning to all (and maybe an odd request).
Back in January, a band I was in (xbxrx) was asked to
come play 4 shows in Mexico. The guy who brought us
down, Alex Tonella (of the band X=R7), said he would
pay all the expenses (travel, food, lodging) if we
agreed to come play the 4 shows for a total of $250.
We had gotten a ton of emails from people wanting us
to come and play, we didn't care about making a ton of
money so we drove down.

Alex was really nice before we left but then during
the tour we could tell he was lying to us a lot.
Eventually on the last day it became clearer he was
probably going to cheat us. The last day of the tour
we caught him lying to the promoters saying we wanted
$300 more than the guarantee was (we got the guarantee
already, no problem). He said he didn't have the money
he promised us so he was trying to lie to get it from
the promoters but we found out and wouldn't go along
with it (Alex was pissed!). He ended up leaving us
with his bandmate in Monterrey, Mexico that night and
gave us no money. We had no idea what was going on.
Thankfully we thought this might happen so we had
bought tickets home otherwise we would have been
stranded and screwed. To make that night worse, Alex
lied about arranging a ride to take us to the airport
so we missed our flight and had to pay even more to
get on another one.

After the tour he kept saying he was going to pay us.
He would send a new lie every week that he was about
to send money. The worst thing that he did was telling
us that he arranged a benefit show to pay us, so we
contacted the bands involved and none of them had any
idea it was a benefit. We ended up not getting any
money from the show, we have no idea what happened.

We started letting bands know about what he did. We
had some friends in California that were interested in
playing in Mexico and we wanted to make sure that they
didn't go through Alex. There are lots of good
promoters there; he's definitely not one of them.
Because of people hearing about this Alex lost a
label, a tour and lots of trust. But he still never
paid a dime.

Alex started talking shit about xbxrx, telling people
we were lying and that we weren't punk (!) because we
cared about money. He told people we should be happy
that we played shows at all because no one gives a
shit about us. Some of his friends stood up for us and
he broke off relations with them and even started
spreading rumors about some of those people to get
back at them. Each month that passed got worse, you
could really tell what type of person this guy is.

After a few months he stopped responding to our
emails. He said that people hearing about this cost
him more than the money he owed us. All in all we
spent over $500 in travel expenses and didn't even get
the $250 he promised. The short tour (4 shows) screwed
us out of almost $800!

But this isn't about money; we realized months ago
that he was never going to pay us. We just want to let
him know that you can't treat people like this.
Touring is hard enough without guys like this screwing
bands over. We want to make sure everyone knows about
Alex Tonella and avoids him and his band. He told us
we could never stop him but we want to at least try.
We want to send him a message that this won't be his
little secret.

Basically I'm warning you and your bands and your
friend's bands about this guy. Also if you can, please
pass this info on to any bands it might effect, or
repost it.

And if this of treachery pisses you off too, I would
be DELIGHTED if you would send him a message or left
his band a comment. Even one word "liar!" "cheat!" for
example! We really want him to know that word will get
around so that he never tries anything like this with
anyone again. I can't believe there are people in the
scene that do something like this, yet people still go
to them for shows and book their band. They should be
stopped dead.

www.myspace.com/xr7punk

What a rant! Can you tell I'm pissed? And I never get
mad!
Ed

There's more info on this at the xbxrx myspace blog....

THANKS!!!







Hello everyone,

The BrutalProg.com store is back open, now that our software updates are complete! Come on into the shop and buy some music! We have awesome stuff by SEAN, Basilica, Nondor Nevai, Zs, Orthrelm and more!

http://www.brutalprog.com/shop/

Thanks!






From the Behold! The Arctopus MySpace blog:

"SKULLGRID IS DONE!
cd and lp should be out some time in october on Black Market/Metal Blade.
Art by Terry Grow (once again).
Guest solos from Mick Barr (CromTech/Orthrelm/Octis/Ocrilim) and Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater).
7 new songs, 33:36, prepare to be slain. "

WOW! Can't wait for this to drop!!