ROCKOBIT

The death has been announced of Hideaki Sekiguchi, bassist with Guitar Wolf. Known to his fans as Billy, Sekiguchi's heart stopped on Wednesday night and he died later in a Tokyo hospital.

Signed to a Sony affiliate, Guitar Wolf had just got back to Japan after a massive US tour; they'd been due to play this week in Tokyo before heading off to Australia, but naturally the plans have been dropped.

Formed in 1987, the band became the three-piece Seiji, Toru and Billy in 1991; the line-up would remain unchanged until Billy's death. Their first US tour in 1993 lead the building of a solid American following; the next year they would appear on the cover of Maximum Rock & Roll. By 1997, they were adding Europe and SXSW to their world, and 1998 had them opening for The Cramps in Japan.

They got muddled up in a spot of international political bickering in 2001, when a planned appearance at a Korean-Japanese friendship festival was scrapped - along with the whole festival, and pretty much most friendship between the two nations. (Koreans had got the hump at Japanese school books written by right-wingers which justified their nation's behaviour while an occupying force in Korea.)

By 2003, after four albums for a major label and with their most recent work, UFO Romantics selling well worldwide, Guitar Wolf were the secret guests for The D4's Japanese tour. Away from home, they were working hard to establish a base in South America as well, managing a sell-out tour of Brazil and playing Argentina for the first time. Perhaps their oddest claim to fame, though, was they had their own brand of, um, bluejeans.

Hideaki Sekiguchi was 38.

music guitar wolf obit obituary

MIDWEEK MARIAH GLOOM

Of course, she might have picked up a few extra sales in the second half of the week, but Mariah's comeback single was flapping at the midweek stage. Although a number four position doesn't sound too bad, the actual sale of barely 10,000 isn't offering much hope for the expensive relaunch and enormous publicity circuit. Maybe the time is right for Mariah to consider retraining?

music mariah carey

WHEN BABELFISH TRANSLATES WITH A HANGOVER

We really like the sound of the Barcelona Primavera Sound festival - not only because it shares its name with a pasta dish (wouldn't V2005 be so much more fun if it was called the Raviolifest?) but it's got Steve Earle (or Early, as they'd have it), New Order and something called "The Human" (we suspect that might be the Human League. We just wish they'd been a little less stingy and had a proper translator work on their press release:

Who would tell the organizers of the first edition of the Primavera Sound just five years ago that this would be one of the most prestigious music festivals of Spain and even of Europe. Considering the fact that year after year the festival has matured in quantity and quality it could not be otherwise.

The most important groups of the next edition, which will take place from the 26 until the 28 of May, will give the visitors an amazing experience. The punk will have its appearance at the festival through the presence of the veterans Iggy Pop & Stooges, New Order and The Human steps in to the festival as a reference to the English tecno-pop of the 80s, Steve Early arrives with The Dukes, while the American Sonic Youth repeats the experience after being demanded in the 2003 edition.

Not less important second level artists and national groups appear. As r representatives of our music, The Planets, Astrud, Christina Rosevinge and Nacho Vegas deserve a special attention.

As news, The Primavera Sound of 2005 incorporates a contest dedicated to the French music to its program. Dominique TO, Briggite Fontaine, Bertrand Betsch, Daniel Darc, The Married Monk, among others, are some of the abundant number of musicians of the neighbouring country that will approach Barcelona during three really promising days.

As a new contribution to the festival, the more than 70 bands that will participate in the festival will parade through the seven settings that will be used in the precinct of the Forum, space that will permit to enlarge the capacity compared to past editions, besides housing a Record Fair and of Professionals and the Primavera Soundtrack Film Festival.

Buyable:

Go on... you wouldn't want to spend the whole time listening to The Human, would you?

music festivals barcelona

YOUNG SAYS SAD NO TO JUNOS

Neil Young had pledged that he'd break the habit of a lifetime and play an awards show if the Canadian Juno awards ever went to his hometown of Winnipeg. They arranged to go there for their 2005 bash, and Young was going to keep his word. But then he started having blurry vision at an awards ceremony (ironically enough) and discovered he had a brain aneurysm. He's had surgery, but has had to pull his appearance. That's a jjourney to Winnipeg wasted for everyone, then. The good news is that Young is expected to make a full recovery.

Buyable:

Live at Redrocks DVD - even if you don't like Young, the scenery's great

music awards neil young junos

THE PAST CATCHES UP: Jackson trial update

The lawyer who worked with both the paid-off and the un-piad off accusers of Michael Jackson, Larry Feldman, has been giving evidence in the Jackson legal trial which is carrying on despite being eclipsed by 24/7 Old Dying Man Dying, Not Yet Dead coverage on the news channels.

Feldman declined to reveal how big the pay-off to Jordan was, saying merely the matter was "resolved in his favour", and also suggested that the Arvizo family hadn't been thinking of bringing a civil suit against Jackson at all.

Earlier, investigator Jeff Klapackis rejected claims that sending in 60 people to search Neverland was overdoing it; he pointed out that it's a big place and they only had a day to search it. Clearly, if you didn't have loads of people there there'd have been no time left over for a go on Jacko's big dipper. Klapackis admitted that there had been no traces of Gavin Arvizo's DNA found on Jackson's bedding - which means either Jackson has been unfairly accused, or he's a child molester who at least changes his sheets from time to time.

The defense have called for a mistrial for about the sixty-ninth time; this time they're suggesting that prosecution witnesses are discussing the case outside the courtroom. Perhaps, but some of the defense witnesses are doing monologues about the case on network telly.

music trial michael+jackson

SAYS HE'LL SPEND THE CASH ON CONFEDERATE FLAGS

Ted Nugent has won a huge-ish payout from concert organisers who kicked him off the 2003 Muskegon Summer Celebration after he used a "racist term". Nugent didn't deny using the phrase, but claimed he was merely repeating something a black musician had said about him as a compliment; the court found in his favour and awarded him USD100,000 for loss of earnings. Coyly, the BBC report doesn't say what the word was, but I guess we can be sure it wasn't 'redneck'.

music ted nugent

IS IT JUST US...

Or does Avril Lavigne's new look suggest she took a Buffy magazine into a store and said "could you make me look like her?"

music avril lavigne

You'd have thought that Sanctuary Records - normally seen as one of the more sane of the music industry corportations - would have been delighted that anyone cared enough about Kelly Osbourne as to spend their time making a website about her. You'd also have thought they'd be savvy enough not to be heavy-handed about a slight breach of copyright here and there.

You'd be wrong. They've grabbed kellyosbourne.org; unless this is all a rather lame April Fool:

To Web Administrators of KellyOsbourne.org:

We here by produce an injunction by our law offices to discontinue services to this Web. This Web, KellyOsbourne.org, has broken a contractual agreement with Sanctuary Records Group (SRG). This excerpt is taken from SRG's 'Terms of Obligation' from the legal offices:

"All audio or audio-visual recordings ("Recordings") that were on this Website are protected by copyright laws by Sanctuary Records. You may not under any circumstances reproduce, record, publish, publicly exhibit, distribute, diffuse broadcast transmit or exploit any Recordings made for our artists."

This Web, KellyOsbourne.org, will no longer be available do to the postings of media that is copyrighted to SRG. The music video for Kelly Osbourne's "One Word" is copyrighted to SRG and its affiliates; posting of this video from 25 March through 27 March was illegal and action has been taken.

Yours truly,

Joe Cokell, CEO.

Also, Joe, if you start a letter without the name of the person you're writing to, it's Yours Sincerely, not Yours truly.

Meanwhile, can it really be true that the new Kelly album includes the line "If you could imagine the fuckin' look on my face / When I finally realised I was the victim of date rape" - possibly the most clunking consideration of date rape since one of Musgraves was supposed to have drugged Jennifer Ellison's sister in Brookside that time.

music kelly osbourne internet copyright

THE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYONE. EXCEPT, WE SUSPECT, LOUIS WALSH

The Booker Prize judges for 2006 are going to have an easy time of it, for surely no book is going to outgun Louis Walsh's autobiography, which he's just been signed up to write for a "six figure sum". Walsh is threatening bean-spillage - but then he would for GBP100,000, wouldn't he?:

"Not one of them is safe. It is going to be warts and all. Sex, drugs, boyfriends, girlfriends, wives - everyone is in the firing line.

"I have been offered a lot of money to do it but I won't be writing it for at least another year because I'm tied up with the X Factor and Westlife's new album."

You know what, Louis? Why not prioritise the book over those other projects. There's a chance the book might be entertaining.

music tv books

louis walsh westlife

PEARL SHOULD BE LEFT IN THE SHELL

How better to desecrate your colleague's memory than to not only suggest they're totally replaceable, but replaceable through the three-ring circus that is a TV reality show? Bad enough Lisa Lopes and Michael Hutchence being demeaned in this way, but now Janis Joplin is being dug and thrown around. Ironically, the band of which she was once a member, and who are looking for a new singer via a telly-gawk-off, are called Big Brother.

Janis Joplin's corpse was unavailable for comment due to excessive rotation.

music tv janis joplin

REMEMEBR: CTRL - F5 IS YOUR BUDDY

The tickets for Glastonbury go on sale this Sunday at 9am, which probably means the system will be melting down before the end of the Broadcasting House news summary, we guess. No, of course not: Michael Eavis says everything will be fine this time round. Good luck. If you do get tickets, you'll be able to enjoy The White Stripes who have confirmed they're Friday's headliners. Except, when we say "enjoy", you'll actually be lying on your back under a mushroomed-up Goth in a tent the wrong side of the Green Field when they're on, but someone'll Sky Plus the TV coverage for you. Not coverage of the goth sex. Of the White Stripes.

music festivals glastonbury white stripes

PREPARE TO RUB YOUR CHINS

Mmmm. The man who single-handedly turned the Smashing Pumpkins from a bunch of good-natured kids into a misery seminar you hadn't prepared for is about to release his first solo album. There's not really any sense that Billy Corgan will be looking to lose his reputation as one of the most po-faced men in pop when he releases Thefutureembrace (all one word) on June 21st. Even his happy albums sound like work:

“I tried to sum up all my feelings about my life and the world around me in the most beautiful ways I could dream up. It is easy to be negative, and much harder to find that silver lining behind the clouds of modern society."

Here's a positive point, then: there's still nearly three months for someone to discover a copyright problem and pulp the whole lot.

music billy corgan smashing pumpkins

FALLING OFF HER HEELS

Garbage have made their live comeback at London Scala, being beefed up with added bassist, Janes Addiction guy Eric Avery (not, we understand, heir to the sticky label fortune). Manson was wearing a black, backless evening dress and kitten heels. Off which she fell.

That setlist in full:

Queer
Bad Boyfriend
Supervixen
Stupid Girl
Special
Hammering In My Head
Shut Your Mouth
Vow
Bleed Like Me
I Think Im Paranoid
Push It
Only Happy When It Rains
When I Grow Up
Why Do You Love Me?

-and, for the encore

Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!)’
Sex Is Not The Enemy
Right Between The Eyes

Meanwhile, Shirley's gone a little Louise Wener on us and done the "I only get called outspoken because society is sexist" bit:

"I don't know why I have this reputation. It's probably because I'm opinionated and not shy about saying what I feel.

"Women, of course, are supposed to be a certain way and the record industry would still have us act in a way that appeals to frustrated schoolboys.

"Look at someone as incredibly talented as COURTNEY LOVE. Men have behaved in exactly the same way as she has and they've been idolised for it, or at worst have gained some kind of sympathy."

While totally agreeing that women do get a raw deal in the music industry - they do in most other industries, too - is the bit about Courtney right? Hasn't she got away with a hell of a lot more because she's a woman (or, at least, a widow)? It's hard to think of any bloke with such a small number of records sold who'd still be given the run of a recording studio after so much misbehaviour.

And Shirley's not happy with Bush, either:

"It makes me so sad to think about all the seriously committed gay couples who are struggling and fighting for the right to enter into the institution of marriage.

"Meanwhile silly little girls like Nicky Hilton are able to make an absolute mockery of it and, besides the odd raised eyebrow or two, totally get away with it just because they're heterosexual. It's so unjust.

"I find it abhorrent that anybody should be able to tell somebody how they can live their life.

"Nobody, in the America I know, is represented by the Bush administration."

You might want to ask around the next time you're in the record label, Shirl...

music garbage shirley manson

ARE THEY STILL GOINZZZ

The Admiral Insurance Rafe Against The Machine, Papa Roach have announced a "tour" of the UK:

June
12 Donington Park Download Festival
21 Glasgow Barrowlands
22 Wolverhampton Wulfrun
23 London Astoria

Free entry to anyone who turns up wearing a Mr Wimpy outfit.

music papa roach

DROPPING IN

If you've more than half a thinking bone in your body, you'll love the Pipettes. And you'll be happy they're touring:

April
10th London The Garage (supporting Quasi)
15th Cork Cyprus Ave (supporting The Go! Team!)
16th Dublin Whelans (supporting The Go! Team!)
17th Belfast Limelight (supporting The Go! Team!)
25th London ICA (supporting Sleater-Kinney)

May
5th London LSE
9th London Barfly

music the pipettes

HARD TIMES IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

It seems we've been wrong: all the time we believed that the RIAA and BPI were crying wolf when they said the music industry was in danger of collapse, and they were telling the truth: The Sunday Times' music rich list has been published and things are so bad in the music industry, this is the top five:

1. Robbie Williams - £126
2. Elton John - £74
3. Noel Gallagher - £5.78 and some Euros left over from a trip to Wales that it turned out he didn't need
4. That bloke with the guitar outside the co-op - 39p
5. Elaine Graham, from the CD counter at Basingstoke Asda - 10p

Oh, actually, we're wrong: Clive Calder is worth £1.3bn, money mainly made from selling Zomba to Sony-BMG. Then there's Macca, £800m; Andrew Lloyd-Webber, £700m; Cmaeron Mackintosh, £400m.

Going down is Simon Fuller, whose 19 company turned out to have been overvalued - the poor sod now has to try and put together his life with just £75m.

Interestingly, very few of the richest people in music actually make music. Indeed, in order to try and interest the general public, the Times has produced a "Young Music Millionaire" list which features names people have heard of - Joss Stone is worth five million; oddly, Daniel Bedingfield is on there (he's rich?) while so is Victoria Beckham (she's involved in music?).

music money paul mccartney

THAT'S TELLING THEM

Striding up to battle, wearing either a skimpy bikini or one of those metal breast plate things, comes Britney Spears, with a letter to, um, the False Tabloids: (We suspect this might be a reference to those papers which have gone tabloid but pretend they're actually 'compacts'):

"Dear False Tabloids,

As you read this letter, I bet you are asking yourself: Who? Who, me? Am I a false tabloid? Well, I don't know. But after this posting, I hope you are asking yourself a lot of questions. Your employees are a reflection of your magazine. Do you, Us Weekly, In Touch, Star and other desperate magazines want employees who are honest, or those who are liars? It seems to me that you'd prefer the latter. I'm really concerned about the people you hire to work at your companies. I'd like them to ask themselves the question, 'What am I lying to myself about?' Is it that you are 50 pounds overweight? Is it that your children aren't making wise decisions? Or is it maybe that your husband or boyfriend is cheating on you? Until you face what is going on in your life, I guess you'll remain a false tabloid."

There's something interesting here - Brittney seems to suggest the motivation the tabs have for making stuff up is that, erm, they're fat, with straying husbands and kids who have quit college for a life of daytime soaps and smack. We're not sure how a newspaper is corporately overweight (although trying to poke a Sunday Times through a cottage letterbox gives us a hint), but we suspect this might be more revealing about what's important in Britney's life than the make-up of the magazines she's complaining about.

music magazines britney spears

YOU'RE TAKING CAREER ADVICE FROM BRIAN MCFADDEN?

Apparently, Delta Goodrem was prepared to leap into some knickers and bras to flog her new "lingerie" line; but Brian McFadden put his tiny foot down. Brian claimed he was afraid it would ruin Delta's "girl next door" image if she posed in scanties.

That would be a girl next door with her own underwear line, of course.

Obviously, there's something else going on here: perhaps Brian's just upset about the idea of his "girlfriend" dancing round semi-naked in front of the camera (although that's hard to believe in a man who was married to one of Atomic Kitten); so we can only conclude that this is tit for tat. She's obviously banned him from dressing up in her underwear, so he's making the same demand.

music delta goodrem mcfadden

VAST MISTAKE

John Crosby of Vast has issued a statement that adds him to those disilluisioned with the RIAA-industry:


Hello everyone.

First I want to thank all of you for the support you have shown me through the last few years. I can't tell you how much it means.

We have been contemplating whether or not to fill you in on what has been happening over the last few months and have decided that you probably would like to know. We hope this email will answer all your questions?

We thought that after Elektra folded that we should go out on our own and start our own label, but we thought that somehow there were barriers to us being able to achieve all that we wanted to do on our own. We were wrong. We were approached by 456 Entertainment and licensed Nude to be released through them. Unfortunately, the promise of that situation proved false. I'm just tired of watching all the money you guys spend on Vast going to someone else.

From now on I am going to make records I believe in and promote them the way that I see fit. It's time for a change.

We signed a distribution deal and now 2blossoms (our label) has the ability to release records in stores everywhere.

We are putting the finishing touches on Nude 2, which will have different mixes and vocal takes on ten of the songs people who bought Turquoise and Crimson heard. There are two brand new songs as well. Everyone who buys Turquoise and Crimson will get a free good quality download of Nude 2. I hope you can understand that there are a few reasons we are putting out Nude 2 other than I think it sounds good and I?m proud of it. One; those songs were never released to people in stores, which still accounts for the majority of people and two; we want to re-release Nude through our own label. Nude 1 and 2 (full version) will hit stores in June. We will have a final release date by the middle of April.

Mike and I have been working on 20 brand new songs, which we are recording right now. We plan to release this record in the fall. It is my main focus.

For people who did not receive their Turquoise and Crimson double CD; there was a box of broken CDs, so we sold about 200 more than we had. We did a second printing and have since sent them to you. We didn?t write everyone about it because we thought the error would only push things back a week. Because I do not trust working with an outside fulfillment system I have started my own company. The learning curve has been steep but I think this will work out better than how things have been over the last few months. We will do anything to remedy the problems. We understand that if you are dissatisfied you will not order from us again so we hope you understand we have nothing to gain by these problems.

Without you we are nothing. With you we are something. If we only believed in ourselves more a year and a half ago all of this could have been avoided.

Fortunately we are free now and we get to move on. Ironically we are in the best possible situation we could ever be in. I guess sometimes we all need to go through bad times to get to the good times. Take care and thank you.

Buyable:

music vast

ON THE OTHER HAND...

While Brandon might think Franz Ferdinand are real, Kaiser Chiefs chief Richard Wilson isn't impressed with them:

"It's pop. Franz Ferdinand are pop. Some people think they've got some hidden, cool art thing. They haven't. It's just pop music."

Richard, sweetheart: What's the problem with pop music? How can stand there in front of us and use a phrase like "just pop music"? Begone from our sight now; you clearly don't realise that pop music - done well - is amongst the highest calling.

music kaiser chiefs franz ferdinand

THAT WAS MY IDEA

Surely the most puzzling thing about Brandon Flowers' attack on the Bravery is his belief that The Killers are themselves so distinctive anyone who sounds a little like them must have copied them:

"Look at a band like the Bravery. They're signed because we're a band. I've heard rumors about [members of] that band being in a different kind of band, and how do you defend that? If you say, 'My heart really belongs to what I'm doing now,' but you used to be in a ska band. I can see the Strokes play or Franz Ferdinand play and it's real, and I haven't gotten that from the Bravery. I think people will see through them."

These are words that will come back to haunt him when he releases that gospel album...

music the killers the bravery

THAT BLOWS

Ana Matronic is taking a sabbatical - yes, already - from the Scissor Sisters to concentrate on sideproject I Love You. ILY is a band she does with her husband, like Peters and Lee:



"I'm in a band with my husband Seth called I Love You and I'm focusing on that for most of this year. It's mainly electronic-based and quite different from Scissor Sisters."

music ana matronic i love you sxissor sisters

LAWYEROBIT

Although it's always going to be getting OJ set free that he'll be remembered for (any news yet on how OJ's hunt for the "real" killer of his wife is going, by the way?) but it's also worth recalling Johnnie Cochran's music cases. The 67 year old, who died of a brain tumour on Tuesday, successfully represented Snoop Dogg in his murder trial and helped Tupac get off on a weapons charge (a lot of good that did him); more recently, he's been taking on music by representing Rosa Parks in her case against Outkast.

music legal outkast obit obituary johnnie cochran snoop dogg tupac

FAULTY PLUGS ON ASDA TOASTERS?

Jesus, that Ozzy is an unlucky sod - quadbike accidents, jewel thieves, recording duest with Kelly, and now: a fire in their home in Buckinghamshire. It probably shouldn't be that surprising - Ozzy has the look of the guy from the flat downstairs who you're convinced that one day will kill you trying to grill Pot Noodles when he comes home drunk at three am. Fire experts believe that the blaze was caused - like hundreds of others this month - by someone putting a foot through the TV screen when Sharon's Asda ad comes on.

Nobody hurt.

music ozzy sharon osbourne

SONGS ABOUT WRONG TOUCHING

We can understand that Tweet thinks that starting you career with a wank-song might be a stumbling block rather than a launchpad:

AP: Do you think "Ooops!" gave people the wrong impression of you?

Tweet: Definitely. "Ooops!," it happened so quickly. That wasn't even supposed to be the first single. I think we should have dived into the other songs on the album that made sense, and I think that's what messed up the whole thing on the last album. But this time, with this album, we're not going to do that. ... "Turn Da Lights Off" (her new song with Missy Elliott) is a great intro to what the album is about. It's a great album about soul music, and I don't want to steer anybody wrong with what kind of artist I am. I think the world really thought I was a hip-hop artist from the first single. We're not going to make that mistake the second time.

We do wonder, though, that having a cartoon character name might not have helped much, either.

Anyway, there's a new album:

music tweet

VIRAL LYLA MARKETING

We're sure this isn't part of the marketing push to try and make Oasis seem cutting-edge and relevant, and it is just a terrible accident that Lyla, the comeback single, has "leaked" onto the internet. Don't download it - not because it's illegal, just because it's wrong.

music oasis internet downloads

SNOOP IS A WHORE

We're deeply impressed with Adnan, who tipped us off to the McDonalds story earlier - we asked if he knew who the artists who had taken Seagrams cash were, and within an hour he brough us this:

50 cent 40 ounce

As part of its strategy to shackle the inner-city market, Seagrams produced this masterful ad for "Malcom X Malt liquor", featuring the NY rapper 50 cent. The campaign was timed to coincide with the release of 50 cent's collaborative effort with DJ WhooKid , You Want Beef With Me?, and featured the following remarkable lines:

I got a 40 in my hand and fin' ta start drinkin' shit
I'm the nation's new Malcom X but I ain't militant.

The conspiratorial denunciations from the Black Nationalist intellegentsia that the song was a crude attempt to dumb-down the legacy of Malcom X -- met with ridicule in the mainstream media -- were not entirely without foundation. Inmates present during 50 cents frequent trips to the pen have since claimed that the questionable hard-school rapper had been involved with the 5-Alivers, a front black muslim group used by the CIA as a recruiting base for ghetto-side operations.

... and this:

Snoop’s hit “Gin and Juice” extols Tanqueray and Seagrams gin. Sales of both allegedly go up after the song scores high on the charts.

and this:

"Freak-A-Leek" by Petey Pablo/Jermain Dupri/ Twista
(" Now I got to give a shout out to Seagrams gin/'Cause I'm drinkin' it and they payin' me for it.")

At least that last one is honest.

music seagrams rap

KILLERS SUED BY THEIR OWN DRUMMER - OH, THE INDIGNITY

The most astonishing thing about The Killers being sued by their former drummer is buried in this explanation by Brandon Flowers:
"This guy who was in my band a long time ago is trying to sue us. We wrote Mr Brightside a long, long time ago, when we had a different drummer.
"He had nothing to do with it, but his wife is a lawyer, so she just sent a letter to our lawyer. You always hear about people coming out of the woodwork once you get big, but this is wow."
A drummer who ended up married to a lawyer? How does that happen? It's like a fairy story of some kind.
Flowers' story does square with the popular history of the band:
David Keuning (Guitars), placed an add in a local Vegas Weekly looking for a singer who was into Oasis and Bowie. “He [Brandon] was the only person to reply to my ad who wasn’t a complete freak,” remembers Dave, “He came over with his keyboard and we started going through song ideas straight away. I had the verse to “Mr Brightside” and he went away and wrote the chorus. That was the first song we wrote together and remains the only song that we’ve played at every single Killers show”

musicthe killers

THE NERD IS NOT OVER

Pharrell Williams seemed pretty certain that NERD had ceased to exist as a musical unit. His manager, however, doesn't seem to have got the news, and has made Pharrell issue a statement, uh, denying the band was in pieces:

"N*E*R*D is still very much a band. We are playing a show together in Japan in two weeks. And we continue to appreciate the support from all our fans."
After that, the grainy footage became too unclear to be certain, but there did appear to be the sound of someone being hit by a rifle butt.

music nerd pharrell williams

WE'D LOVE TO HAVE HOUSEDOCTORED THIS ONE

Ann Maurice writes: Trent, you've got a great property here, it's a wonderful place but your best chance of finding a buyer is to go for the family market; and families don't want pigs heads on spikes in their bedroom... no, Trent, no... to you this is a pain-room of punishment, but for the family market you're trying to sell into, this is a rumpus room. You need to lose the rubber wallpaper and replace the chains with some lighting...
Trent Reznor has finally off-loaded his New Orleans house for USD1.8million. "It really was worth spending the money on scatter cushions for the mausoleum room," he admitted "although I still think Ann was wrong about the slaughter of the innocents mural in the kitchen."

music trent reznor nine inch nails