October 5, 2007

Friday? Sigh, Music News Day

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The Wu

  • The Wu-Tang Clan announce they’ve cleared the first-ever legal Beatles sample, and then get shot down by, well, everyone, since it turns out the track actually “reinterprets” the sample, which makes this what we call a “cover.” But the song’s still great.

  • Arcade Fire pull a Radiohead, as it were: the band have launched a cryptic website, beonlineb.com, that announces something interesting will happen on October 6th. Hey, that’s tomorrow! Rumors are swirling that it’s a Neon Bible remix album of some sort (“beonlineb” is an anagram of “neon bible”), possibly involving tour mate James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem.

  • The Sex Pistols may record new material in the wake of their live reunion tour. The band will play seven dates in the UK as well as a special radio show in Los Angeles, and are reissuing “God Save the Queen” on Monday.

  • A federal jury has found a Minnesota woman guilty of copyright infringement for using online music sharing services and fined her $222,000. Wired’s “Threat Level” blog has the list of the 24 tracks that each cost Jammie Thomas over $9,000; it includes Vanessa Williams, Goo Goo Dolls and Richard Marx.

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    WE CAME UP SHORT.

    We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

    That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

    So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

    Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

    And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

    payment methods

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