LCD Soundsystem are playing in my transit system

James Murphy wants to bring a bit of music to city life. Specifically, New York City, and more specifically, he wants to upgrade the beep of subway gates into something more edifying:

What i propose to do is to create a series of 3 to 5 note sequences, all unique, one for each station in the subway system. These sequences will be part of an intersecting larger piece of music, which would run from station to station, and cross one another as, say, the 4, 5, 6 line (one musical piece) intersects with the L, N, R, Q and W (another musical piece) at Union Square. At each turnstile in Union Square, as you tap your new tap and ride card, a pleasant bell tone will sound, in one of a set of possible notes, all related to that station's note sequence. The effect would be that at the busiest times, like rush hour, what was once cacophony would now be music.

It won't stop the subway being a place of eye-darting fear and urine stenches, but it might just help.

On the other hand, you might arrive at your destination unable to get the subway music out of your head. That could be worse.

LCD Soundsystem: Scratching the scalp

James Murphy has got the hump with scalpers who bought up the entire allocation of tickets for the LCD Soundsystem at Madison Square Gardens in seconds. (Although, as Bob Lefsetz points out, the "allocation" was probably around 1,000 tickets per show.)

Murphy has announced five extra New York shows to try and compensate, while railing at those who swooped down to mop up the tickets:

we tried calling our lawyer about the ticket scalping. “it’s legal”. no joke. it’s fucking legal. i tramped around with friends and band getting insane. i wanted to buy some expensive tickets and then track the seller down to BEAT him. i acted stupid. i did some classic, shakespearean vain “fist shaking”, etc. i made angry tweets. (i’m wondering now what on earth could be less effective and more of a first-world spoiled idiotic move than “angry tweets”? jesus.)

Impressively, Murphy wants the fans to be able to buy the tickets, at face prices, and not be ripped off.

And he seems genuine.

There is one small question, though: if Murphy was interested in fans being able to get hold of the tickets, why was priority given not to, say, Facebook followers or people on an LCD Soundsystem mailing list, but, erm, people who happened to have an American Express card? Shouldn't at least some of our rage be directed at this new habit of hiving off tickets to be part of some brand's market USP?

Al Doyle is happy to make this clear

Hot Chip's Al Doyle seems to have started his own corrections and clarifications column:

"A news article has appeared, quoting me as saying that LCD Soundsystem is over, or that they have split up.

"I would like to clarify that LCD have not disbanded, nor could the entity be disbanded in the sense that it has always had a revolving cast of players – it would be like saying that The Fall had disbanded, or Prince has split up.

"LCD Soundsystem is James Murphy, and he's allowed to take time off, do other things, and come back, or not come back. And he doesn't have to tell you or anyone else about it.

"I didn't know if anything was going on with LCD next year, which is the truth, and that's all I should have said, but I gabbled on a bit because that's the way I am...

"Anyway, I should probably stop doing interviews after this, which is already my second chance. But the main point to take away is that more LCD music is in the pipeline, which is surely good news for everybody."

Also, Doyle is very, very sorry about what he said about Murphy's mother and only meant he could do that sideways with that thing in a metaphorical way and with the way the credit crunch is going, you know, he really could do with the extra work, Mr. Murphy...