That’s just music

American rock band Modest Mouse is planning to release a video in which now legendary Heith Ledger took some important part! Heath was very talented guy whose name is everywhere today, actucally did participate in various artistic projects that everyone is just beginning to understand. This video was made by him for a Modest Mouse song “King Rat” from the 2007 album “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank”, said SPIN.com. Right now those who admire Ledger and love Modest Mouse are just waiting for it to come out and see what else this incredible actor had to offer. Heath began to work on this video due to a friendly relationship with the band. He met with  Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock and they’ve discussed all kinds of issues that my be important, so Ledger had agreed to do this thing. It is unknown on what stage of development was this work when he died.

Currently, the most interesting and curious part about it is Ledger himself. All sorts of question are being raised from how good he could be in making videos to what he actually did during such a great co-operation with Modest Mouse. “King Rat” video was made in the cartoon style.

Sony BMG record label is currently preparing to release the collection of rare Jeff Buckley’s videos, said Billboard. This is going to be the best rarity compilation ever made for this artists. It will include two DVDs and one CD under the name “Grace Around The World”. The release is designed for June 2 by Sony’s subordinate label Columbia/Legacy and is practically dedicated to the anniversary of Buckley’s debut album “Grace”, the only album which he did not release. This new video compilation is produced by his mother and incorporates previously unreleased Buckley’s live performances during 1994–1995 period. Particularly it includes live BBC/MTV London concerts, and parts of Chicago, Frankfurt, New Orelans and Belford performances as well. Audio recordings of these shows should be available on CD. All of these quite famous and maybe the best performances ever made by Buckley for some strange reason did not get out until right now, so all of his fans just impatiently wait for them to reach the world of music again.

The second DVD includes a documentary “Amazing Grace: Jeff Buckley” filmed with the help of Jeff Buckley fan club. This movie which received awards in Seattle and San Francisco, also contains a lot of rare material including an interview with a singer.

The White Stripes and The Raconteurs leader Jack White had created a supergroup, said Stereogum. Besides frontman of these two bands, this major music project, which was named The Dead Weather also includes The Kills vocalist Alison Mosshart, Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Dean Fertita and The Greenhornes – The Raconteurs bassist Jack Lawrence. Within The Dead Weather Jack White is responsible for drums and vocals. On Wednesday, March 10, the new White’s band had performed on a closed-up event, which incorporated 150 guests. Sometimes there is absolutely nothing better than these private rock n’ roll parties, there is nothing more funny, happy and glamorous, but the only problem with them is that not everyone can get in there. Among The Dead Weather’s guests were Sheryl Crow, Martina McBride, and of course The White Stripe’s drummer and Jack’s partner Meg White, notes Associated Press. During the concert Jack White said that in the nearest time The Dead Weather will begin working with their debut album. He told everyone that according to the original idea this supergroup had to release only one vinyl single, but later changed it’s artistic course. “The idea was to do a 7–inch single and be done with it, but we started writing songs and something happened,” White added.

“Hang You Up From The Heavens” vinyl version will be officially released soon, and right now anyone can find it in Google Videos. Also, The Dead Weather had recorded a cover version of Gary Numan’s “Are Friends Electric?”, which is currently available on their web site.

Garbage vocalist Shirley Manson made it known that she is about to leave the world of music and will concentrate on acting career, said AFP. “I’m 42. I have been in bands since I was 15. There gets to a point where you are stepping out in front of 100,000 people and your blood pressure doesn’t change,” she noted. Manson also added that it’s very doubtful that she will ever come back to music again. This is quite popular for music stars to turn away from what they’ve been doing for years and suddenly begin something new. Of course it would be very sad if she will never return to stage, but after all, artistic people cannot become hostages of their own art. Since 2008 Shirley Manson is acting in “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles”, which is shown on Fox channel. She is playing a role of Catherine Weaver – terminator T-1001 who is leading a Tech company and fights against rebels. So far there is no news on her bandmate’s reaction, but it’s very possible that they know her better than anyone else, and they will not get too upset.

Popularity came to Manson right after the release of Garbage’s debut album in 1995. Three songs “Only Happy When It Rains”, “Stupid Girl” and “Queer” were topping the British and American music charts. In 1999 Garbage wrote the main theme song for James Bond “The World Is Not Enough”, and their latest album “Bleed Like Me” came out in 2005.

Another interesting news from YouTube that may be a little bit unpleasant for those who admire British performers. YouTube’s administration had decided to block all videos made by British musicians and artists, said Reuters. First British videos were blocked on March 9 and in the following days they’re planning to delete thousands of such videos. The reason for this strange blockade is of course financial argument between Google and PRS which is representing interests of the British performers. The last one was insisting on bigger money shares from YouTube, but Google kept on denying all of it. The worst part about this issue is that regular users who have nothing to do with these legal and financial battles will not be able to see their favourite artists. However, there are so many services similar to YouTube that some unpopular move on their side will not be noticed. PRS representatives say that Google’s decision on blocking British videos on YouTube turned to be absolutely unexpected. Google is showing its pity on this situation and says that they were forced to do it.

At the end of 2008 Google failed to find a common language with Warner Music over the same thing, Warner had simply refused to give out music for free. Due to that refusal YouTube had to remove all of Warner’s content, eventually showing out the fact that their video hosting looks slightly unreliable.

Members of the New York band Interpol have begun working with the new album, notes their official website. Rolling Stone magazine assumes that Interpol’s fourth studio record will be released by the end of 2009, and like usually there is no clear information on what is going to be it’s name. The official web site says that musicians have finally organised their personal issues and now feel free to start rehearsing the new songs. “We find ourselves marveling at the tremendous focus that has defined our early rehearsals for this, our fourth effort”, musicians said in their joint letter. Every artistic group goes through all sorts of troubles, but if they’re able to overcome all of them then it’s very possible that everything what they can create afterwards may be absolutely awesome. “Once again, we have no concept to this batch of song-writing. There is rarely any intention to this process. We just make the music”, speaks the same message.

The last Interpol album “Our Love to Admire” came out in July 2007 with the help of Capitol Records. After it’s release they were vigorously supporting it with extensive touring activity. Practically that album was welcomed by music critics and went to number two on the British charts. On the other hand American charts put “Our Love to Admire” to the fourth place. Also, just a few days ago it became known that a short-length move “My Friends Told Me About You” which is going to be released in April was produced by Interpol bassist Carlos Dengler.

Video host YouTube and Universal Music Group are talking about creating the joint Internet portal for music video publications called Vevo, said The Wall Street Journal. A lot of You Tube fans hope that eventually their quality will improve because it’s current state wishes to be better. Right now there are millions of similar web sites and many of them are way more enhanced than YouTube, even though they were the first to start all this online video agenda. There is an assumption that YouTube will present some kind of a new technology with the platform to provide all sorts of commercials. Also such platform should enable Universal Music to advertise YouTube’s content on other web sites (primarily media sites). Business talks on Vevo keep on going since last year and so far there is no certain information about financial details of this pretty cool deal. If it’s going to be opened then it will certainly maintain better quality content and therefore more expensive advetisement, so let’s hope it remains free.

Until recent times there was no information about YouTube’s plans to sign similar deals with other record labels. New scheme of making money came out after both sides could not get as much financial profit as they did before by representing their videos on YouTube itself. Due to these losses Warner Muisic had removed it’s videos from YouTube without any hope to come back in the nearest future.

Another cool news about Metallica’s drummer Lars Ulrich just sounds funny. This guy is famous for his anti mp3 sharing things, but not so long ago he decided to download his band’s latest album “Death Magnetic” in order to see how such ‘things’ work, noted Blabbermouth. Ulrich is probably the biggest fighter against all kinds of illegal music sharing, but maybe this time he may learn something. As he told VH1 Classic, only few days after “Death Magnetic” came out (September 12, 2008) he could not resist the temptation of downloading his own music from the Internet. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works.’ I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download ‘Death Magnetic’ for free, it’s me. I sat there one night at my house with about six of my friends and a bottle of wine. An what was it called?!”, recalls Lars. Definitely he did not remember how that service was called because since his greatest enemy Napster came out there are millions of them. 

“We found it – this was like two or three days after ‘Death Magnetic’ leaked.” Of course it did because these days it cannot be in any other way. “So we sat there, and thirty minutes later, I had ‘Death Magnetic’ in my computer. It was kind of bizarre.” Surely Lars is the most funny guy in the band.

No Doubt is about to restart it’s creative career once again after many years of total silence by giving their albums for free. However, only those who are going to visit their concerts will be granted with this honourable gift. Anyone who comes to their live performance will get a coupon with a special number which is going to enable free mp3 downloads of No Doubt music, said The Rolling Stone. Also,  No Doubt concert tickets will be given out together with the band’s debut album “No Doubt” (1992), “The Beacon Street Collection” (1993), and “Tragic Kingdom” – the album which brought them the world fame in 1995. Downloading ability will permit their fans to get “Return of Saturn” (2000), “Rock Steady” (2001), collection of singles and the most recent song “Stand And Deliver”. Another good example of how bands and their record companies are trying to get around in the changing world of technology. Instead of stopping mp3’s, avi’s and ogg’s they’re searching for new ways to transform methods of selling their products. This gift from No Doubt will practically go only for the price of concert ticket ($42,5) proving many critic’s and expert’s view that a lot of bands out there will rely more on live performances instead of album sales.

Members of No Doubt have commented this move by saying that it will simply popularise the band and just remind the rest of the world that they still exist. They believe that it shall prepare their old and new fans for another comeback.

South Carolina resident Shahanda Moelle Moursy brought a legal action against the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), two companies that worked for her Safenet, MediaSentry and a few major record labels, said p2pnet. A little earlier RIAA had refused to co-work with MediaSentry because of many customer complaints. Right now Shahanda wants to get financial compensation that is going to be ordered by the court. Her lawyers believe that defendants are making out a lawless business, particularly by organising illegal investigations. In other words, mentioned above companies cannot completely prove the IP-addresses of those who are later convicted of illegal music downloading process. Moreover, Shahandas claim says that often these companies are using such cruel methods to get more information about users (by pressuring local Internet providers). In their opinion the result of such investigations ends up in the closing of cases against ‘illegal downloaders’ in order to settle things peacefully by paying ‘fines’ without taking it to court. They also think that usually RIAA’s “victims” belong to those who don’t really know how to use a computer, cannot fully understand what is the downloading process and how it works.

Definitely all kinds and sorts of record companies are trying to stop the “downloading process”, hence its their major enemy out there. It started with Napster back in 2000 and keeps on continuing with millions of other computer programs and firms that enable people to download.