Paul Van Dyk/Sasha
Los Angeles, CA, Coliseum Gardens
December 31, 2001

The last song I recognized of 2001 was Future Sound of London's "Papa New Guinea".

The first song in 2002 that I knew was a remix of Radiohead's "Everything In It's Right Place".

Yeah, you should read on...

The Washington Post has an article about the recent Future Of Music Conference. The Future of Music Coalition is a nonprofit group that fights for all the indie artists who don't get any airplay on the major radio stations or MTV. It's an interesting read on the problems with online music distribution and I enjoyed the part when Ian MacKay, of Fugazi, compared the major labels to the Mafia.

FEEDER drummer Jon Lee has been found dead of an apparant suicide in his Miami home. The band had recently wrapped up a European tour with Stereophonics. Lee leaves behind his wife, Brazilian model Tatiana Engelhart, and a son, Cameron. Feeder issued a brief statement via their website which reads simply: "Jon Boy. We will miss you more than melody - friends always. Love Grant and Taka. Proper."

It's been a long two and a half years since Gomez released Liquid Skin in 1999 and now they're back with a new single, Sure Shot, and an album, In Our Gun. Both releases will be out this March.

News doesn't seem flowing too freely on this one, but Zak Foley, bassist for EMF, has died. Absolutely no one has given any information regarding Zak's death, other than it happened yesterday morning. All we know is that Foley was absent from EMF's reunion gigs in the late fall, and James told the crowd at those shows that Zak was "in hospital." If we get further details, we'll pass them along...

There's a Sonicnet article on The Flaming Lips about their next album which is scheduled to be released in May. They also talk about their "X-mas on Mars" movie that is currently being produced by the band and is scheduled to be released for this Christmas.

Yes, as far as I know, it's true.

Simon Jones (bass) and Simon Tong (guitars, keyboards) from the Verve are in a new unnamed band. My site, The Verve Universe, has the news on how you can download their first track. It's an untitled demo that hasn't been mixed yet and clocks in just shy of seven and a half minutes!

I saw this story on Slashdot about Universal releasing copy-protected CDs. These are CDs designed to work in stereo's but not computers so that you aren't allowed to rip the tracks and make MP3's. The only problem is that sometimes you can't even play the CDs in older stereo's or portable CD players. Fat Chuck has a pretty good list of all the corrupt CDs that are currently "in the wild".

Kids, how many times have we told you, it's okay to hate boybands, but it's NOT okay to try and kill them, as appealing as it might occasionally seem. Former East 17 frontman BRIAN HARVEY was attacked while leaving a nightclub last night, and apparantly the injuries were so bad that, as we type this, he's in surgery undergoing skin grafting.

NUDE RECORDS, the UK indie label known mainly as the home of Suede, has gone belly-up. The company announced its immediate liquidation today, after 11th hour talks to reach a new distribution deal failed. The label's closure shouldn't affect Suede, as the band has been primarily handled by Nude's parent label Sony for some time, and will likely stay under Sony's wingspan. It's also fairly likely that Nude's other money-maker, Black Box Recorder, will quickly find another home for their pending album due next year.