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I didn't get to speak to him, no one did except my friend Barry
Esson who curated the fest and Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson who
played with him. He never once said he was Jandek, just a rep of
Corwood Industries. Said to Alex afterwards that the live show was the
first time he had ever felt truly alive. Smiled on stage once. Looked
very emaciated. Apparently in rehearsal he told the group he had three
types of songs and he would signal by the way he played guitar what
type each one was, either Blues, Ballad or Brutal(!). He had been in
Glasgow for a week, flew over on his own money so that he was under no
obligation to play if he didn't feel like it. The venue was emptied
while he practiced and no one was allowed to announce he was playing or
he would pull the show. I knew he was thinking about doing it for a
while and finally over the last few days realised it was happening but
was unable to tell anyone. Heather and I have about 70 pics of him in
all. The concert was filmed, with Jandek having the option of releasing
it as a DVD on Corwood. Everyone here is still in a daze, can't believe
it happened, the concert was everything you could've hoped from a
Jandek show, crazy heavy Velvets spiked blues guitar, Richard playing
Holger-Czukay style bass throbs, Alex playing heavy and free and that
fucking voice sounded like it was straight from the void, set of
blasted blues, Haino said afterwards "Jandek *is* the blues." Jandek
looked like he was realy enjoying it and pulled a few good shapes too,
never said one thing though, took his time packing his guitar but no
one approached him and he left the venue as abruptly as he had arrived.
All the songs were of heartbreak and abandon, few funny lines too, like
when he suddenly exploded "I made the decision to get real wild!" and
everyone began screaming. Apparently he loved the screams, looks likely
that he will play live again and the next time he will announce it.
Anyway, still trying to piece it all together. Who could've thunk it?
The site is an MP3 sales site, something like iTunes, only concentrating mainly in electronic music. They appear to have a catalogue of thousands of titles available from labels big & small. They claim that "all our music content is properly licensed".
However, according to posts that are flying around on many music mailing lists, none of the artists and labels who are listed on the site have ever heard of them before the site launch. And when you try to buy anything on the site, nothing seems to actually be available - every title I selected went into a "Not Yet Available" section in my shopping cart.
Several labels who have contacted Jetgroove.com have received back a form letter which is quoted below. The gist of it is that they launched this site with nothing actually available for download, and somehow intended to get permission to sell releases after the fact. It's a very strange way of doing business, and quite frankly, it reflects badly on all of the artists and labels who are listed on their site.
I strongly ancourage EVERYONE to spread the word about this far and wide. If you are an artist or run a label, check to see if any of your titles are listed, and if so, send them a complaint and request that your titles be removed. If you are just a listener, contact them to complain about their misleading and shady business practices. Hopefully, we can cause them enough grief that they will either change their business model to one that is more upfront and honest, or they will just disappear completely.
- Greg Clow
response letter from Jetgroove:
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Dear Sirs and Madams,
My name is Ulukman Mamytov and I am the attorney for jetgroove.com.
I bring you apologies from JetGroove for making you worry about your copyrights infringements and your music repertoire being presented on our website. I want to assure you that jetgroove.com having started a new Online Music Download Service pursues the objective of making your music more wellknown and accessible and ONLY BY LEGAL MEANS.
That means we DO NOT SELL any of your music without obtaining a proper permission (License) from you or other respective rightholders. You can easily check this by trying to purchase any of you music. Everything that you choose to put in your cart will have status: "Not Available For Purchase Yet". It could only be put "ON HOLD". And we do not change that status untill the contract is signed and your permission is granted. In this case all of your music will be given "Allowed for Selling" status and people who have it in their shopping carts will be able to buy it.
The experince of showing your music on our website without distributing aimed to draw your attention to us, with further goal to make contacts with you on friendly terms with a perspective of mutually beneficial partnership. We're glad to inform you that your music is getting popular indeed through our website and we can let you know at any time how many of your tracks were put on hold and which ones.
However, we deeply understand your concerns and would like to assure you, if you find our relationships impossible, we will IMMEDIATELY delete all of your music from our music collection.
Hope you'll find our offer to make your music more popular through us rather reasonable and we can start that mutually beneficial partnership.
Very Truly Yours,
Ulukman Mamytov
Jetgroove LLP
Legal Department
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"It is with regret that the Legendary Pink Dots and Edward Ka-Spel
feel that is now necessary to make it public that we have severed all
ties with World Serpent Distribution.
WSD last accounted to the band over a year ago , and made one partial payment under duress last August. While we appreciate that everybody involved in 'independent' music is experiencing difficulties in a financially unstable climate, WSD's failure to answer even the politest question is simply unforgivable.
Plans are already underway for the reissue of Chemical Playschool Volumes 8/9 ,with the other two titles on the World Serpent roster to follow later this year.
In the meantime we do request distributors, shops and individuals not to buy our titles directly from WSD."
This could possibly be a much more powerful blow to the business than previous collapses of other once large independent label distributors like Cargo, Rough Trade, Bayside, and Dutch East. EFA has a small amount of in-house labels, including Clearspot, but the bulk of their business is through a large amount of European labels they manufacture and export worldwide as well as North American and British labels they import and distribute throughout Europe. Some of the past and present labels include Accession, Anticon, Chicks On Speed, Cold Meat Industry, Constellation, Crammed, Crippled Dick Hot Wax, Dischord, Force Inc./Force Tracks, Gramavision, Impact, Ipecac, italic, ITN, Kitty-Yo, Klangbad, Metropolis, Mille Plateaux, Ongaku, On-U Sound, Payola, Plug Research, Quatermass, Rephlex, ReR, Ritornell, Saddle Creek, Sähkö, Scape, Shifty Disco, Shitkatapult, Southern, Southern Lord, SubRosa, Thirsty Ear, Thrill Jockey,Touch, Touch & Go, Transient, and Tresor. Pick up a German pressed CD in your collection, see if it has EFA printed on it. If it does, chances are that release's entire income is controlled by EFA.
Repercussions have not begun to surface yet but don't be surprised to see the closing of some of these labels while others scramble to get their stock back before auction time and find other distirbutors. More information about EFA including their history, roster, business statement, and ethos can be found online at their website, www.efa-medien.de.
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Crouton is ridiculously excited to announce this CD release from irr.
app. (ext.).? Dust Pincher Appliances was originally released in 1998 in
a shorter, alternate form, via a now impossible to find 10" vinyl on
Something Weird Records, Iceland.? This CD edition on Crouton reveals
different versions of the original recordings, as well as three tracks
not present on the 10" edition.? Some might say that anything graphic
artist, sound artist, and writer Matt Waldron produces is peculiar, and
his work as irr. app. (ext.) is no exception.? Each minute of these
startlingly Dadaist compositions reveals unexpected surprises.? The
instrumentation, who knows?? A bit of everything really, except the
standard ones.? However, the style is not a mess, but rather an
obsessively scrutinized audio story, aural painting, or sound experience,
which is quite devastating to take in.??
Why do we care? Maybe we're working on a web site for him.
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"I got a chance to meet them this past
May when they came to Boston. They were really nice guys and seemed to be
really enjoying playing and hanging out with everybody. I really dug their
record, and it will definitely be in my top ten this year."
Our deepest sympathies to friends and family of Matthew Fitzgerald, Adam Cox, and Jeremy Gage.
This Monday (June 2nd), FCC Chair Michael Powell will hold his vote on media consolidation. There's nothing special about that date—it's totally arbitrary. The vote will conclude a process which has shown deliberate disregard for the views and opinions of the American people. Powell has refused to even release the actual language of the rule change—it won't be known until after the vote. And he's only held a single meeting to hear the views of the public. Even when a bipartisan group of Senators requested that he give Congress some time to discuss the impact of this change, Powell brushed them off.
Chairman Powell still has the power to delay the rule change and allow time to have a democratic debate about its consequences. Please call him today and ask him to allow a real public debate on an issue of such massive importance.
You can reach Powell's office at:
(202) 418-1000
Once you've made your call, please let us know at:
http://moveon.org/fcccall.html
Our momentum is clearly building: our advertising campaign with Common Cause and Free Press has received a great deal of media attention. Powell was personally quizzed about our Murdoch TV ad on CNBC on Wednesday. A front page article in the Washington Post highlighted our petition and advertisements as important pieces of the groundswell of concern on this issue. Articles in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and even the Guardian in the UK discussed the ads. (Links to some of the articles are below.) Hundreds of thousands of comments have been delivered to the FCC, and we've been told that Powell's aides are "stunned" by the amount of anti-consolidation mail they've received. Together, we have put the FCC Chair on the defensive.
Even if Powell doesn't reschedule the rule change vote, getting thousands of calls into his office will send a strong message that the public is watching him. Powell doesn't appreciate this kind of pressure: in a recent interview, he said that "I think we're one of the most heavily lobbied federal institutions in the government, probably second only to the United States Congress. I don't, by the way, think that's a particularly good thing." We need to remind him that public involvement in decision making is what democracy is all about.
Call FCC Chair Michael Powell now at:
(202) 418-100
It's not too late to do this process right.
For information on Home Alive, as well as the two benefit CDs they've released, go here: