You might want to be careful if you see John Lydon out and about. Maybe you should steer clear of talking about any kind of reunions. Just don’t ask. Apparently those words of advice were not heeded by Kele Okereke, the frontman of Bloc Party, who walked up to John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon and asked about the reunion.

Apparently that was enough to provoke him and start the fight. A lot of talk has been devoted to the rest of the fight. Were their racist accusations made? Okereke says that there were, and that Lydon started the fight.

What were the details, really? Accounts differ, but there was no question that the fight happened and seemed to get out of control very quickly, with Okereke ending up injured.

Okereke had a good question, really. Will there be a reunion? There certainly should be. PiL had a lot to offer. Eight albums and a fourteen-year run means that there’s a lot to rehash and a lot to play live. So many song choices and options for the band and for their fans. Unfortunately, no one else will probably be brave enough to ask Lydon about a reunion at this point. They don’t want to get beaten up.

Canadian singer Feist will be coming to Sesame Street. She’ll make her debut on the August 11th season premiere and change the lyrics to one of her most famous tracks – The Reminder – to a song about counting that four-year-olds can relate to.

She was born Leslie Feist in Calgary, Canada and moved to Toronto, Canada as an adult after spending time in Paris, Berlin, and other areas. For a time, she performed with a sock puppet and called herself Bitch Lap-Lap.

Now that she’s grown up her music has changed a lot and so has her fan base and the way that the world sees her. Sesame Street will be happy to welcome her to sing about the number four and count with chickens and friendly monsters.

While the artists who appear on it might be more contemporary nowadays, Sesame Street itself and its hopeful, joyful, happy message of learning has not changed much. With Feist’s recreation of herself, she’s just right for the children who watch the show and the parents who pay attention to what their children are watching.

Amy Winehouse has been in the news a lot lately with her drug problems and recent hospitalization. Her husband isn’t often as news-worthy, but Blake Fielder-Civil will spend some more time in prison, and that was enough to make the news.

Fielder-Civil was originally arrested in November of 2007 after he assaulted a bar owner in London. That would not have gotten him that much jail time, but then he turned around and tried to “pervert the course of justice” by offering the bar owner $400,000 to just shut up about the whole thing and let it go. He ended up in trouble for the assault and for the bribery, as well. Winehouse had only married him a few months before this assault took place and Fielder-Civil has been in jail since his November arrest nine months ago.

On July 21st he was sentenced to 27 months in prison, but part of that will be time that he’s already served. There is also the chance for time off for good behavior and other issues, which means in another nine months he might be eligible to get out.

Winehouse wasn’t in the court room when Fielder-Civil was sentenced. Supposedly Fielder-Civil had used drugs while incarcerated, and that likely led to a stiffer sentence than he otherwise would have received.

Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys was both psychologically tormented and musically gifted. He was a complicated person with complicated problems and a lot to say that he couldn’t seem to express. His brother, drummer Dennis Wilson, was largely overlooked. (more…)

Rapper Nas isn’t happy with the media giant Fox, and that hasn’t been a secret for a very long time. He objects to their conservative leanings and what he sees as racism in their news reports. Now he’s taking his opinion one step further.

He already penned a song that protests against the company, and he’s joining both MoveOn.org and ColorOfChange.org in the delivery of a petition to Fox’s Manhattan studios. The petition contains 600,000 signatures, and states that Fox must “end its pattern of racist attacks against Black Americans including presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle.”

Nas is protesting what he feels is a pattern of racist language against the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his family, and said that Fox “poisons the country with racist propaganda and tries to call it news,” which was a very diplomatic way to put his true feelings into words.

The concerns that Nas has range along most of the news programs that Fox has to offer but the point of the petition was to address the issues regarding Obama and his wife. The confusion of his name with Osama was thought to be deliberate and the fist-bump with his wife when he reached enough delegates to secure the nomination was labeled as a “terrorist” activity.

Here’s a clip.

Karen O, the front-woman for the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, is known for her wild and sometimes impolite antics onstage, but there’s another side to her that many people haven’t noticed, and it’s a softer and much more peaceful side than would have been expected.

For several years she’s also been recording lo-fi love songs that bring a smile to the face and tug at the heartstrings of people who hear them. She calls it Native Korean Rock, and she’s even joined some friends at Brooklyn’s Union Pool to sing some ballads with only a few guitar strums and plucks as background.

It’s a drastic departure for O, who’s usually more associated with ripped stockings, spewing beer, and generally acting like a whirlwind on stage. With her silent-film-star makeup, bright lipstick, and sailor suit Brooklyn had a hard time ignoring her through her 30-minute set, which most people seemed to think didn’t last nearly long enough.

Her band was in a ‘boat’ with a Korean flag flying against a backdrop of blue sky, and seagulls and waves played in the background, mixing with the few plucked strings and occasional strum of a guitar.

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Not everyone who started out in the music business stayed in it. Some left because there were a lot of layoffs and problems, but others left because they decided that it was time to do something different.

There are a lot of success stories like Millman and Baeyertz out there, including Darryl Franklin, who used to be the vice president of business affairs over at Interscope records. Now he manages a skate boarder and runs a company overseeing the ramp at the X-Games. Going back to the ‘biz’ isn’t an option for any of these men – they’ve found just what they wanted to do.

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Seriously. EBay has an auction for Vinnie Paul’s oven, with no reserve. If you win it he’ll personalize it and autograph it for you, but you have to pick it up. It’s in Arlington, Texas and there’s no shipping available. Vinnie – the Big Vin – loves to cook, and his dad got him a better oven for Christmas so this one has to go.

You can own an oven that has had the pleasure and privilege of serving up a lot of meals for rock stars, and over the next few days they’ll be more stuff to buy, as well. Vinnie is going through his storage space and getting rid of a lot of the things that he’s stuffed in there over the years – who knows what he’ll find?

In order to move the merchandise, Big Vin Records is setting up shop on eBay. Some of the items offered will be things that Vinnie owned personally, but that won’t be all of it.

There will also be a lot of HellYeah, Pantera, and DamagePlan merchandise, too, so fans should keep their eyes open and check the site often to see what else they might want to bid on. They could end up owning a rarity that not just anyone can have, and what would be better than that for a true fan?

Usually it’s three cheers, but in this case it’s all about four. Beck’s new album, “Modern Guilt” has made the US charts, debuting at number four and selling nearly 85,000 copies in its first week.

This is the eighth studio album that Beck has done, and it has gotten more critical acclaim than most of his earlier work, not all of which was well-received. Leading magazines that have reviewed it have said it was dazzling, and that it was among the strongest work that Beck has done. While he works for the fans and not for the critics, having an album touted as significant and high-quality can help earn new fans, as well.

Fans of Beck can see him on his US tour, but until then they’ll have to be content with the new album. If they’re patient they can buy the vinyl edition on July 22. It has download codes on it for MP3s. These MP3s are unique in that they are designed to sound like they are playing back on vinyl. Beck has essentially invented a “mobile turntable” with the MP3s providing vinyl sound.

Tour dates for Beck start on August 21 in Reno, Nevada and go through October 3 in Chicago, Illinois.