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Billy Martin has split duty as drummer-percussionist for the wildly popular and successful jazz groove trio Medeski Martin and Wood, and he runs his own label, Amulet, that specializes in “the art of percussion, avant-garde and beyond…” Billy also records for Amulet under the name “illy B,” and has a …

Winona Ryder was given probation for her shoplifting conviction today: Actress Winona Ryder was spared jail time on Friday for shoplifting thousands of dollars in designer goods, but was ordered by a Beverly Hills judge to serve three years probation and undergo counseling to come to grips with a guilt …

If you don’t read Jan Herman daily you should – he’s everything an arts and entertainment writer should be: sophisticated but not snotty, worldly but not jaded, experienced but not worn out, funny, and with a fierce integrity. Today he outdoes himself with a wistful but not cloying reminiscence about …

Liquid Audio to fold and distribute cash reserves to shareholders: Under the decision announced Friday, shareholders will receive $2.50 per share on Dec. 20. Payments will only be made to shareholders of record as of Dec. 10. The Redwood City, Calif.-based company will continue operations until the board considers all …

National Board of Review of Motion Pictures names The Hours as best film of the year: Industry watchers look to the New York-based society’s picks and other upcoming awards for hints on possible Academy Awards contenders. “The Hours,” based on Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, was followed by “Chicago,” “Gangs …

The entire 3500 hour British Pathe Film Archive, which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970, in now available online. Low-res previews of all the material is available for free, and high-res copies are available for license. What is British Pathe? British Pathe are one of …

I know teenagers are congenitally dopey – freaky hormones, loud music, peer pressure, self-exploration, gestures of independence, etc. – but I know for sure that my two teens and their friends are a hell of a lot less stupid than my friends and I were, especially in the areas of …

$1 billion was spent on TV advertising in the just past midterm elections. Who gained? TV stations. Did the candidates benefit, did the public? I don’t watch that much commercial TV, but I know I saw a boatload of poorly made, vague, repetitive, boring political commercials that just ran together …

Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), and others, including the estates of early Motown star Mary Wells, Jackie Wilson and Curtis Mayfield, won a $8.4 million class-action settlement after a protracted legal fight against the AFTRA Health and Retirement Funds and (who else?) the major record labels: Soul singer Sam …

DRM will be examined from a variety of angles February 27-March 1 at UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall: Music is being released on copy-protected CDs, movies on encrypted and region-encoded DVDs, and Congress is considering the mandate of technological protection for digital television. The next generation of information distribution will be …