What an odd coincidence that I would just grab an old surf record out of the air yesterday to write about, and now Jan Berry has died: Pioneering California rock musician Jan Berry, who rode the wave of the surf music trend in the 1960s as one half of the …

The best instrumental surf music conveys more and delivers it deeper than vocal surf music. Vocal surf music is often obvious and trite. Great surf instrumentals have one monolithic ally, the sea. The sea is so wide and deep and long that it determines our weather. Words are trivialized by …

It appears to be impossible to pry the lips of selected Congressional assplows from the entertainment industry sphincter: A draft bill recently circulated among members of the House judiciary committee would make it much easier for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against file sharers by lowering the burden …

The war on terror continues right here in Northeast Ohio. We have been following the exploits of the imam of Cleveland for the last year: Cleveland Imam in the Center of Terror Probes The saga of the duplicitous Cleveland imam continues. After imam Fawaz Damra of the Islamic Center of …

I find the Sammy Hagar era with Van Halen to be flaccid and dull – it is back: Sammy Hagar has returned to the Van Halen fold after an eight-year break, and the veteran rock band will launch a U.S. tour in June, it said Friday. The group’s Web site …

The Euro conceptual artists – like the inexplicably popular Christo – crack me up. I like this iceberg guy’s concept that since he painted it, the iceberg is his: An artist with 780 gallons of red paint, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew at his disposal went to Greenland …

No ambiguity here: German police raid neo-Nazi file sharers (quite an image, isn’t it?). German police raided the homes of more than 300 people on Wednesday who they suspect of posting neo-Nazi music files on the Internet for others to download, the Federal Crime Office said in a statement. Police …

In the wake of Grey Tuesday, BannedMusic.org: Downhill Battle, the group behind the landmark “Grey Tuesday” online protest has created BannedMusic.org, a virtual record label for sample-based music that the major record labels try to suppress. BannedMusic.org, which launches today, features a new, one-click system for p2p downloads and “The …

“Tape” likely has nothing to do with it, but almost everyone is creating and recording some kind of music these days: TapeOpCon 2004 comes to New Orleans May 28-30 Tape Op magazine is pleased to announce the third annual TapeOpCon in swinging New Orleans, LA. TapeOpCon is a conference/get-together aimed …

The Passion opens door for the return of Monty Python’s The Life of Brian: The Biblical satire will be re-released in Los Angeles, New York and other US cities to mark its 25th anniversary. Adverts will challenge Mel Gibson’s blockbuster with the lines “Mel or Monty?”, “The Passion or the …