Tony Dimitriades sent me watermarked CDs, warning me they might not work in every player. That’s an understatement.  They froze my Mac.  Well, not the whole computer, just the disc drive, it was completely dead.  But helping a friend with this exact problem the week before, I knew there was a solution.  A bit of […]

1. Jay-Z "Blueprint 3" Sales this week: 475,670Debut That’s a fuck of a lot of records. But still not as many as the boy bands sold at their peak almost a decade ago. Sure, piracy is a factor, but it’s a fallacy to believe it’s the major factor.  When ‘N Sync was selling two million […]

Madonna was narcissistic, Kanye demonstrated he knows no limits, the Michael Jackson tribute was lacking oomph, a neutered Russell Brand was strangely unfunny, but none of that truly mattered.  What we saw last night was a television network that was once different, playing to a disenfranchised younger generation, employing the same damn playbook as the […]

I had a fascinating conversation with Don Was last night. Exiting February’s Grammy tribute to Neil Diamond, we got into a conversation about the new Delbert McClinton record Don was producing.  He was flying to Nashville imminently.  It was supposed to be remakes of Delbert’s classic songs.  I told Don he had to do "Sandy […]