No Rock And Roll Fun

THIS IS NOW ABOUT FOURTH OR FIFTH HAND, BUT ANYWAY: We were recently passed this in an email:

Last week a rep from eMusicLive -- the company I wrote about here three weeks ago -- approached the Mekons during soundcheck at Maxwell's in Hoboken, proposing to record the show and sell CDs of it afterward. The band said no way: "It would've given us no quality control, and we can be particularly dreadful on occasion," says Jon Langford. "Then they were gonna sell these things and give us three bucks a copy, but they got to keep the rights and wanted us to sign a contract and all that." But it got them thinking, and when they took the stage a few hours later, they were armed with a Radio Shack tape recorder and a stack of blank cassettes.
Langford would push Record at the beginning of a song, then auction off the cassette at the end. Bidding went as high as $20 for some, and the band wound up making about $80. Business was good in Austin too, when the rest of the band backed Sally Timms for her SXSW set.
What they're now calling MeTunes will be in operation at their acoustic show at FitzGerald's this Saturday, March 27 (the technology's too crude, they admit, for the electric show at Double Door on Friday).

We gather the original source for this was Bob Mehr's Reader column, but we got it from Morag, who, those of you who got the Panini No Rock Sticker Book and completed the set, will remember as a semi-regular contributor. She's over in the States at the moment, and, as her blog Twangorama records, the devil-may-care attitude of Amtrak nearly did for her. She's on the mend after her train came off the rails, which we're obviously delighted about, and heading to New York to celebrate her birthday. We're sending her all the love.