Johnny Marr‘s guitars are going on sale at Christie’s in London in September 2026. The event, called Marr’s Guitars: The Johnny Marr Collection, will feature 85 axes that are estimated to sell for tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Bandcamp has had another round of layoffs. As Bruce Houghton writes for Hypebot, the platform confirmed the news in July. Fans and bands (including me) were bummed when Bandcamp was sold and the first round of layoffs happened, and this latest isn’t being greeted with any more cheer.
Thomann is described as the world’s biggest music retailer. While I recently mailordered a bass guitar case from the company, I did not know that. Thomann and Fender are in the midst of a “Stratocaster copyright dispute,” Michael Astley-Brown writes for Guitar World. This stems from Fender sending a bunch of cease-and-desist letters to various companies that it accuses of producing Strat copies.
One of the legendary gigs that Killing Joke had under its belt was at the Astoria in London in 1991. The band was on tour for the classic Extremities album and, lucky for fans, video of the full gig is on YouTube (see below). Interestingly, frontman Jaz Coleman brought up Israel twice from the stage, while introducing “Complications” and “Empire Song”: “Israel. Palestine. Complications!” was one intro, and then, “Did you know that the state of Israel was created by the British? And Kuwait? Empire Song!” was the other.
Radio is being removed from new vehicles, Ashley King writes in Digital Music News. Car manufacturers previously received backlash when they started removing AM radio from new vehicles, and now Rivian and Tesla are doing the same with FM, meaning drivers would only be able to listen to radio digitally.
Saint Vitus Bar, the beloved venue in Brooklyn, New York that was shut down a couple years ago, is reopening in the former location of Brooklyn Made in the Fall. Brooklyn Vegan, appropriately, has more details.
Google is responding to a lawsuit over its AI music tool Lyra by stating in part that Lyra can be trained on any music that’s uploaded to YouTube. Chris Cooke has the details at Complete Music Update.
Rest In Peace
Rebecca Burchette died in June after a long illness. She was an old bandmate of mine and also played with a bunch of other bands, that were and are well-liked, on guitar, bass, and vocals. Nick Skrobisz shared the news on social media.
Shaun Glass passed away in July after a medical emergency. The guitarist played in several name metal bands over the years, Joe DiVita writes at Loudwire.
Roger “Bogge” Svensson, or B. War, was a former bassist for Marduk who passed on in July, the band announced on social media.
Abdullah Ibrahim was a South African jazz pianist and martial arts black belt with a long and illustrious music career. He passed away in June and his memorial concert was live streamed—see below.
Johnny Marr photo: Raph_PH
