Good morning Radicals, hope everyone’s keeping warm out there!
Corey Taylor and Lou Brutus
Stone Sour and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor has told U.K. magazine Kerrang! that his New Year’s Resolution is to “stop engaging trolls about politics on Twitter.” Taylor has criticized a wide range of politicians in interviews and in his recent book America 51, but has reserved the most disdain for Donald Trump. He explained, “Honestly, I would rather take a f**king saw to my own face than deal with that kind of bulls**t anymore. It’s so unnecessary and pathetic, and I can’t take any more of that s**t. It’s not even that I have a problem with their politics: it’s their self-righteous indignation that comes with it.”
Taylor added, “For all the harrumphing that the right does about the left being a bunch of snowflakes, they are the ones that are so butthurt about so much s**t, it’s not even funny. I look at them and think, ‘I’m not going to sit here and debate a crying child.’
Taylor compared Trump fans to spoiled brats, saying, “If something that you believe is right turns out to be wrong, you have to embrace that — you can’t just reject that out of spite.” He concluded, “I’m one of the most wrong people on the planet, and I also have one of the biggest f**king mouths, so it’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn. It’s going to make you a better person to be on the better side of facts than the worst side of fiction.”
I was right down the block from this! Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong spent New Year’s Eve (December 31st) at a club called Berlin in lower Manhattan, where he jammed with the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt, the Replacements’ Tommy Stinson, Blondie’s Clem Burke, the Hold Steady’s Tad Kubler, venue owner and singer/songwriter Jesse Malin, and Armstrong’s own sons. The impromptu punk-glam supergroup knocked out a bunch of covers during the evening, including the 1983 Replacements classic “Color Me Impressed.” You can watch an instagram video here.
A Perfect Circle, Greta Van Fleet and Highly Suspect are among the rock artists scheduled to perform at this year’s edition of the Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival, which unveiled its full lineup last night. The two-weekend event will be held on April 13th through the 15th and again with the exact same bill on April 20th through the 22nd at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California. General admission passes are $429, including fees and taxes, while the Festival Pass and Shuttle Combo is $504. VIP Festival Passes are $999 and VIP parking is $150. Passes go on sale at noon this Friday (January 5th) at Coachella.com.
Marilyn Manson has explained in an interview with Kerrang! magazine that there was more to the firing last October of bassist Jeordie White, a.k.a. Twiggy Ramirez, than the rape accusations leveled against White by ex-girlfriend Jessicka Addams. Manson explained, “I did not divorce Twiggy as a friend or brother, because I still care about him greatly. But I can’t say that my musical relationship with Twiggy has been good for several years. My relationship with (collaborator/producer) Tyler Bates on (2015 LP) The Pale Emperor made something open up in me and I didn’t want to let negative energy back in my life.”
Manson continued, “There were other people in my life that I thought were my friends that I had to cut out this year, a lot of betrayals that surprised me, and I had to clean house and adopt a new attitude. People mistook my kindness and generosity for weakness. So I kinda adapted this attitude, like, ‘If you f**k with me, there will be consequences.’” Yikes!
Streaming has undoubtedly changed the way we listen to music, but it’s not the best business model for the artists who actually make that music. Wixen Music Publishing, which administers song compositions by Zach De La Rocha and Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, The Black Keys‘ Dan Auerbach, Weezer‘s Rivers Cuomo, Tom Petty, Neil Young, the Doors and many more, has sued Swedish streaming giant Spotify for using thousands of songs allegedly without license and compensation, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The publishing company is reportedly seeking damages worth at least $1.6 billion, plus injunctive relief.
Several other lawsuits have already been filed previously that have centered around Spotify’s alleged failure to pay royalties on a song’s musical composition, one of two separate copyrights that can earn money for the artist, the writer and the owner of the recording. The two copyrights are the sound recording, which is typically owned by the record label, and the musical composition, which is owned by the songwriter and publisher. Spotify settled a similar case last May for some $43 million, pending a judge’s approval.
The Wixen suit stated, “Prior to launching in the United States, Spotify attempted to license sound recordings by working with record labels but, in a race to be first to market, made insufficient efforts to collect the required musical composition information and, in turn, failed in many cases to license the compositions embodied within each recording or comply with the requirements of Section 115 of the Copyright Act.”
Representatives for both Wixen and Spotify have not commented further on the lawsuit, although Spotify has tried to claim in court papers that Wixen does not necessarily have the right to litigate on its clients’ behalf in this matter.
Finally, we wish a Happy Birthday to John Paul Jones of Led Zepplin and Them Crooked Vultures! Have a lovely day!
