The American band Earth objected to a Palestinian flag displayed at the TPO club in Bologna where the group was set to play. The club didn’t remove the flag and ended up cancelling the gig, as Stereogum shares on social media.
Carcass posted on the band’s social media that the group got its hands on two Ibanez guitars (pictured above) that Bill Steer used to play. Death metal guitar nerds might be interested that, in the comments, the band shed a bit of light on the two axes, saying that the band used them when recording the album Necroticism – Descanting the Insalubrious and possibly Swansong. The band added that the guitars have stock pickups.
Photo: Carcass
Spotify and some major labels have sued Anna’s Archive, which “says it has scraped Spotify’s entire music catalog and plans to distribute the dataset via torrents,” as Lambgoat shares on social media.
In contrast to Spotify, Bandcamp made a splash when the company banned music created wholly or in substantial part by AI on its platform, announcing the policy in a post named “Keeping Bandcamp Human.”
Los Campesinos! posted a detailed breakdown of all of the streaming payments the band received for its latest album, Tom Breihan writes for Stereogum. “There are many reasons, unrelated to artist reimbursement, why Spotify is the dirt worst of the streaming platforms,” the band says.
Napster abruptly shut down its music streaming and pivoted to an AI chatbot service, Ashley King writes for Digital Music News. This follows the company’s purchase by AI company Infinite Reality in 2025.
“Weird Al” Yankovic was one of the guests on stage with the band Portugal. The Man, when the group covered Rage Against The Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” if you can believe that. Jon Blistein has the story at Rolling Stone.
Local fixture Rebecca Burchette is dealing with another round of health issues, to put it mildly, and her bandmate set up another GoFundMe to help her out. He posted the details on social media. As I said the last time I blogged about this, Rebecca has been playing in Baltimore-area bands for a very long time and she and I were in a band together also.
I recently watched a year-end, all-live episode of 120 Minutes on YouTube and it was great. I previously posted about how all of the show’s videos are in a YouTube playlist, but I didn’t know that there’s also an archive website.
Local record store Crooked Beat was the victim of “catastrophic” flooding in January and has closed its location. The store is still selling records online and is planning some pop-up events as it sorts out a new location.
Slaughter To Prevail are being accused of spreading Russian propaganda. Swedish politicians who have raised concerns that the band is doing so are talking to the concert promoter, Greg Kennelty writes for Metal Injection.
Suicide prevention is an important issue in the armed forces. Craig Morgan is in an Army band in Alabama and contributes to an anti-suicide program, The Prevention Music Initiative. “We’re recording all of the music with soldiers, with military or Army engineers, Army band members,” he says, writes Alexander Banerjee for Stars and Stripes.
Michael Fanone, one of the cops that defended the Capitol on January 6, 2021 came out to the Jack Smith hearing on The Hill and told a 2020 election conspiracy theorist to go fuck himself, Andrew Solender writes for Axios. That’s one thing, and the other is that Fanone did it wearing a Dropkick Murphys t-shirt with the slogan “Fighting Nazis Since 1996.”
Minneapolis is the latest American city reeling with the invasion of ICE thugs, and some aren’t taking it lying down. A few artists have picked up their guitars as well. Below is Bruce Springsteen’s video for “Streets of Minneapolis.”
Billy Bragg also stepped up with “City of Heroes.” Listen below and read the lyrics.
Rest In Peace
Andrew Gerrity was a tour manager and musician who passed on in January. Neill Jameson has a remembrance on Substack. “There was truly no one else like him,” writes Jameson.
Sly Dunbar died in January after an illness at 73, The Gleaner reports, writing that Dunbar was one of the people who revolutionized reggae and dancehall music. The drummer co-formed Taxi Records and worked with many musicians, including Peter Tosh.
Francis Buchholz, longtime bassist for Scorpions, passed away in January after contracting cancer. The band posted a tribute on social media. Buchholz played on some of the band’s biggest hits.
Kenny Morris, who played drums on early Siouxsie And The Banshees records, died at 68 in January, Jack Irvin writes for People. After playing with the band, Morris directed and made art.
Bob Weir, founding member, co-vocalist, and co-guitarist of the Grateful Dead, passed away in January after being diagnosed with cancer, Niha Masih writes for The Washington Post. After The Dead, Weir performed in Dead & Company and Wolf Bros.
Dooz Kawa was a French rapper who passed away in December, John Connor Coulston writes for Suggest, and that the artist was just one of three rappers who have died recently, Coulston notes.
