Bookmarks: Some other stuff to read

Billboard watches as Microsoft and AOL try to go all indie: Bill Wilson, senior vice president of programing for AOL, says the indie-rock community is a natural fit given its strong involvement with digital music.

Wired - Momus reports on how technology now puts back the noises it takes out: Some people took the crackle fetish much further than I did. Around the turn of the century, Carsten Nicolai, recording as Alva Noto, managed to turn tiny particles of audio dust into drum kits. And Stefan Betke released a series of records under the name Pole which consisted almost entirely of dubbed-up crackle generated with a broken Waldorf D-Pole filter.

Side-Line redesign, worry they might scare away their Gothcore readers: Because for those that have been in the dungeons for a while, the scene is getting more and more coloured: fluo hair extensions, fluo shoes, fluo T-shirts, fluo bags and so on and so on. Add to this that CD covers are getting more and more colorful and you can only decide that black only is over and out as far as the complete 'dark' scene is considered.

LA Weekly features L7's Jennifer Finch's 14 And Shooting photo exhibition of West Coast 1980s punks: Macias sang predominantly about Christianity and even briefly started his own ministry. Vallejo says the other band members were not into it. “That was really John’s whole thing,” he says. “He was into religion and incorporated it into the lyrics. People started wondering if we were Christians, but then thought we couldn’t be because they [the Family] were beating people up at gigs.”

The New York Times' David Pogue weighs up the Zune: What’s really nuts is that the restrictions even stomp on your own musical creations. Microsoft’s literature suggests that if you have a struggling rock band, you could “put your demo recordings on your Zune” and “when you’re out in public, you can send the songs to your friends.” What it doesn’t say: “And then three days later, just when buzz about your band is beginning to build, your songs disappear from everyone’s Zunes, making you look like an idiot.”

Guardian Weekend meets the men who wrote 'hit prediction software', and ponders if it means the end for A&R: Mostly, McCready tries hard not to claim that his software will mean death for A&R people, the record-label talent spotters who build their careers on their gut instincts. But then he uses a metaphor that revealed how radically he plans to change the industry. "If you design a race car that's only marginally better than the other race cars, and put it in the hands of a much inferior driver, he's not going to beat Michael Schumacher," he says. "But if you give an inferior driver a race car that can go at the speed of sound ... well, you probably are going to beat Michael Schumacher."