I do feel the need to apologize for the ridiculously short column last week. Between the ALDS and Monday Night Football’s super comeback, I just couldn’t focus on the writing.

I’ll follow that up this week with at least twice the number of pages.

So I’m promising three pages of work.

I got to go to Game One of the ALCS last week. I have to say, there aren’t too many more lively places I’ve ever been to than the bleacher section of Yankee Stadium… and that’s the alcohol-free section. Mouthy New Yorkers… brave Red Sox fans… various rumbles. I have to say, I had a great time. Couple that with some of the nicest weather you can hope for in NY in October and it was just a great trip all around.

AND I got to see the Yankees lose. Hella cool.

Unfaith

Canadian band and Friends of 411 UnFaith, best known for fooling 90% of the idiots in this world (including me) into thinking that Metallica had filed a lawsuit against them to bar them from using the chords E and F have put a new track up on their website. The track is, as yet, untitled and they are asking fans to stop by the site and pick a name for the song.

From NoSoul via Blabbermouth:

”We’d love to get as many suggestions as we can, and by proxy help expose the song — so any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated, as we are still independent and are grateful for any exposure we can muster.

“We’ve nothing to sell anyone — this is strictly to get the word out, foster a buzz, and allow everyday people a chance to participate in the creative process!”

NoSoul asked me to check out their stuff quite a while ago and I keep forgetting to do it. However, I stopped by and did listen to the track and I listened to the one full track on the front page (as a general rule, I refuse to review clips of songs) and I have to say… I really dig True Faith. The band has the kind of metal-type music that I like a lot. It’s got a hair metal sound with a little bit of modern metal behind it.

Since it’s a friend of 411 though, I took a quick listen to the sound clips.

The first song, Alia, I have a feeling I would love, because I’m a sucker for piano (even fake piano) inside metal-type guitars. Great stuff here.

Second song Higher, I would fall in love with given the whole thing. Great sound, great words, great chorus. Big fan of this.

Your Jesus 2004. The trademark track 3 ballad. Acoustic guitars are at the front of this song and we get more a sense of the singers voice. Very likely a good ballad given the full song.

Home. This is the primary reason I hate reviewing song clips rather than full songs. I started out hating this and then it grew on me about a quarter of the way through the clip. This one I can’t give an honest opinion on… I’d need to hear the rest of it. Another (probably good) ballad over a piano. Again… Daniels is a sucker for piano in a rock song.

Let Me Become Me: This was the only song I was like “eh” on. No opinion, I wouldn’t turn the station if it came on, I wouldn’t stop if I landed on it.

Tell Her: I was totally into this song for the amount of it I heard. Another great background sound with good words over it… and they have the catchy chorus down.

Whispers: Piano in this one… you know what that means? Yep, I was all over it like Trot Nixon on Mike Mussina… this was actually probably my favorite song of the bunch of them.

Long story short. They describe themselves as an “alternative pop project.” I define them as eighties hair mixed with pop with a dash of NuMetal Sound (minus the rapping).

As for the Name this Song song, the music is great again, but I’m not a big fan of the words… probably because I’m burned out on the rap-metal sound. But, again, that’s not taking away from the background music, or the chorus… both of which are great.

Myself, I would pick Bleed This Way instead of Feel this Way because it fits more the sound and tone of the band… or just This Way.

Napster 2.0

You’ve all read the stories. You’ve all heard about it. Roxio is set to launch the next version of Napster on 10/29/03 (a Wednesday?). The service that changed the music industry as we know it, and continues to change the music industry, is back. The assets of the company that once boasted millions of users is ready to make a comeback.

As a pay service.

On the heels of Apple’s super successful pay-per-download iTunes service, Roxio is looking to take a bite into the digital market with the newly refurbished Napster.

It’s not going to be easy.

Not only does Napster have to face off against the already established iTunes, but it has to face the Windows P2P market. Unlike Macintosh, the Windows market is already chock full of services that are both free and defended by a recent court ruling that they can’t be held responsible for the actions of their users. As of this writing, there is 3,596,017 users on Kazaa sharing over 4000 terrabytes of files. And Kazaa is just one service.

Napster, on the other hand, is offering up a price structure that charges 0.99 cents per download or a 9.95 per month full on subscription which will offer unlimited tethered downloads and on-demand streams (radio stations). It will stress the community aspect of the service with message boards, email, and the ability to browse other people’s collections. It will also tie in to Windows Media Player 9 and will be accessible through the services tab.

Roxio will also be partnering with Samsung to release a co-branded digital jukebox which will offer a 20 gigabyte hard drive to compete with uber successful iPod.

I don’t see great things in Roxio’s or Napster’s future. Firstly, Napster is synonymous with FREE music… not paying. Not to mention they have to bust into the windows market, which is already packed with MuchMusic and MusicNet, among others. They are trying to break back into a market THEY created, while a good portion of users are not even close to being scared of getting a lawsuit in the mail from the RIAA.

That is before you include new services like Kazaa 2.1 and Earth Station 5 which offer completely anonymous file sharing.

And then, possibly the most damning part. Tethered Downloads. What a lot of people in the market for these services won’t advertise is that the music is tethered to the service. So, if you join Napster for $10/month, everything you download on your “unlimited license” is being rented from the RIAA for $10/month. As soon as you stop paying your cash, your songs disappear. No CD, no copying, gone. So, the recording industry makes you rent the songs which, as any landlord can tell you, is much better than getting all the cash in one shot.

As Tony Soprano said: “It’s much better to bleed them all year than bleed them all at once.” Or something to that effect.

And if you’re thinking that you’ll be able to easily copy the songs onto your hard-drive… you probably won’t. My guess is, since Napster always hosted all the songs on centralized servers (which is why they could be shut down) they will still be hosting an enormous digital catalog. HOWEVER, when you download a song, it won’t be on your computer, it will be on Napster’s, and without a decent digital recorder, you’ll be SOL when you try to copy it. In fact, I find it very likely that the songs will probably be in some stupid format that even your standard mp3 player won’t recognize.

So, what you’re telling me is: I can rent songs from you for 10/month… which will be lost if I ever stop paying you. Songs that I can’t put on CDs AND I can’t put on anything removable. OR, I can pay nothing, get free versions of songs, and do whatever I want with them.

My advice: Sell your Roxio stock right now.

Speaking of Legal Services

Apple is set to unveil their new version of iTunes this week. This version is for Windows and Apple hopes to duplicate the success it had with the Macintosh version. It joins an already crowded market…

Wait, I just did this part of the column.

See above.

One difference, iTunes has already proven it’s worth on Macintosh, pulling in over 10 million downloads in it’s first quarter. For those slow at math, that’s about 100 million dollars in revenue, to which they get about 30 percent of. It’s a proven commodity already on Macintosh… on Windows… they’re just another fish in a crowded lake.

World Music Awards

Never even heard of these awards before. I guess I know why. 50 Cent managed to sweep all categories for which he was nominated… that being best artist, best male artist, best R&B artist, best rap/hip-hop artist, and best new artist.

I could goof on this, but that’s played out. Instead I will mention that already has-been and former official Band of the Bubblegum Complex tATu managed to extend their fifteen minutes by picking up three awards for best pop group, best duo, and best dance group. Best theme music on Raw, yes

At this moment, Daniels had to pause in the writing of the News Release and see who the f*ck they were up against. I visited the homepage… the nominees aren’t even listed.

I call bullshit.

Out this week

The music industry is ready to be set on it’s ear again as another American Idol loser, Clay “Elf” Aiken prepares to unleash his own brand of fury on the world. In fairness, Clay is by far the better singer of the two. He does have skills and he’s got a voice that is absolutely amazing coming out of his 122 pounds of fury looking body. Will I pick it up? Fuck no. Along with American Idol: Great Holiday Classics, neither of which will see my valuable dollars or my valuable RAM. Classics… oy.

The Ultimate Rat Pack Collection. In a pinch? Need to get laid? Let Sammy, Dean, and Frank do the hard work for you.

Edie Brickell: One hit wonder, volume 2?

Mariah Carey with a CD of Remixes. Yeah, check the Bootleg from Friday.

Absolute Must Have: Life of Agony, River Runs Again 2003.

Silverchair News

For the legions of Silverchair fans out there… just so you both know, rumors of the band’s break-up are completely false and, in fact, they are planning a 2-disc live show release Live from Far Away Stables

I would report more on this, but I couldn’t care less.

The Lawsuits Continue

Fresh off the heels of the People vs Creed getting a swift dismissal, a group of fans who attended a concert in Cicero, IL has filed suit after Limp Bizkit put on a 17 minute peformance. 172 plaintiffs are filing on behalf of the 40,000 fans who attended the concert. Limp, who was contracted for 90 minutes. At the 20 minute mark, Durst stormed off the stage hurling curses at the crowd who were incessantly booing and hailing the band with water bottles and other garbage.

Daniels Legal, LLP offers the following prediction. Case dismissed. The bands management can easily say they feared for their safety amidst the boos and garbage tossing and felt it was for their own immediate safety to exit the stage when they did. I’m almost positive that a rider with a clause reading just like that was in their contract.

Sorry guys, roll the lawsuit dice again.

In Other Reading

Eric Katz gets you all your Indy Info.

Kenny Hammond Drops the Grade on some Videos. I read this column for the first time this week. Good shit. You should read it, too.

Brian Blottie with All Your Metal News.

In Conclusion

Out of here for the week… and I’m actually much happier with the column this week. Hopefully you are, too.

Up next week will be a review of Korn’s new song, assuming I can find a decent radio rip of it before then.

Last 5 posts by Thomas Daniels

• The Australian Pink Floyd Concert Review - Albany, NY - October 28th, 2004
• Breaking Benjamin - We Are Not Alone Review 6.29.04 - June 28th, 2004
• The News Release: 11.18.03 - November 18th, 2003
• Barenaked Ladies - The Palace Theater, Albany, NY - 11.11.03 - November 11th, 2003
• The News Release 11.11.03 - November 11th, 2003