Author: David Medsker (Page 87 of 96)

Eat Sleep Drink Album Cover Quiz #1

May 21, 2006 / David Medsker

Let’s have some fun, shall we? I’ve taken ten album covers from various periods in rock history and removed the name of the artist and the album title. The first person to write me with the name of the artist and album for all ten covers will receive a CD from my orphans pile, which boasts artists like Erasure, Gary Numan, Scott Sta(m)pp, Stereo Fuse, Jenny Watson and Bloc Party. Write me at davidm[at]bullz-eye.com (aw, damn, I just blew my secret identity) with your answers.

Eligibility rule: if I know you, you’re not eligible. Good luck to everyone else.

Album Cover Quiz, Rock

Now this is just silly: Record labels fighting radio

May 19, 2006 / David Medsker

Far be it from us to support any branch of ClearChannel, but a XM Radio subscribing friend of ours just sent this, and we would find it funny, if it weren’t so sad. Give ’em hell. XM.

Statement to XM Subscribers – The XM Nation

Everything we’ve done at XM since our first minute on the air is about giving you more choices. We provide more channels and music programming than any other network. We play all the music you want to hear including the artists you want to hear but can’t find on traditional FM radio. And we offer the best radios with the features you want for your cars, homes, and all places in between.

We’ve developed new radios — the Inno, Helix and NeXus — that take innovation to the next level in a totally legal way. Like TiVo, these devices give you the ability to enjoy the sports, talk and music programming whenever you want. And because they are portable, you can enjoy XM wherever you want.

The music industry wants to stop your ability to choose when and where you can listen. Their lawyers have filed a meritless lawsuit to try and stop you from enjoying these radios.

They don’t get it. These devices are clearly legal. Consumers have enjoyed the right to tape off the air for their personal use for decades, from reel-to-reel and the cassette to the VCR and TiVo.

Our new radios complement download services, they don’t replace them. If you want a copy of a song to transfer to other players or burn onto CDs, we make it easy for you to buy them through XM + Napster.

Satellite radio subscribers like you are law-abiding music consumers; a portion of your subscriber fee pays royalties directly to artists. Instead of going after pirates who don’t pay a cent, the record labels are attacking the radios used for the enjoyment of music by consumers like you. It’s misguided and wrong.

We will vigorously defend these radios and your right to enjoy them in court and before Congress, and we expect to win.

Thank you for your support.

Radio

“Chrs wuz robd”: American Idol fans smell conspiracy

May 13, 2006 / David Medsker

Rumors are swirling that callers who intended to vote for Chris Daughtry this week received a personal thank you…from Katharine McPhee. While I’m the first to admit to having a conspiratorial, paranoid mind, I also think that there’s something to this one.

Here’s the way I see it: the producers of “AI” were facing the possibility of three white males in the finals, as McPhee had begun to falter week after week. Knowing that having three males in the finals would bring claims from numerous groups that they’re chauvanist white devils, not to mention the possibility of low ratings as a result of the finals being a landslide, the producers took the show’s best candidate for Idol winner and threw him under the bus. According to my wife Happy Goth, they’re doing something similar in “The Amazing Race.” Whenever the hippies finished last — which has happened twice — it just so happened to be a non-elimination round. They are now one of the final three teams. The hippies are supposedly great television. Their survival cannot be a coincidence.

But here’s the part the “AI” people didn’t consider: if Taylor Hicks wins — and for God knows what reason, he is now the odds-on favorite — it will kill the show, because they will lose any and all credibility they may have had. The only way the show survives at this point is if Elliott goes the distance. Still, even if does win it all, he’ll be the Ruben to Chris’ Clay.

Really, Mr. Fuller. Would it have been so bad for three dudes to be in the finals?

American Idol, Pop

Listening to Fall Out Boy today, taking it up the ass tomorrow

May 5, 2006 / David Medsker

A mother in Charlotte was so horrified by the musings of Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz that she fired an angry missive to FOB’s label, Island, and said that she would do everything in their power to destroy them. What exactly did you say, you ask?

“The only thing we consider unacceptable is for you to engage in sexist, racist or homophobic behavior. If you do, we don’t want you as a fan. Return our merch and leave.’ ”

Who is this woman, Sheila Brovlovsky? The guy tries to speak peace and harmony and love thy neighbor, and you slam them because “…This was a concert, not some liberal homosexual rally”? Are you saying that you’re in FAVOR of sexism, racism and homophobia? This would be funny, if it weren’t so sad.

And besides, before you throw stones in any direction, perhaps, Miss Intolerant Mother, you can explain to me why you allow your kids to listen to Fall Out Boy? Talk about bad parenting. Either way, you heard it here first: Listening to Fall Out Boy will MAKE YOU GAY. Oh, the horror.

Concerts, Rock