According to Variety: Battered file-swapping pioneer Napster has signed a nonbinding letter of intent to sell substantially all of its assets to an as-yet-unnamed party in a move that should help the online company skirt a bankruptcy liquidation. Creditors’ attorney Rick Antonoff said the letter resulted from one of several …

This case is fascinating: from the original FTC investigation, the workings of MAP (minimum advertised price), the 42-state law suit on behalf of millions of consumers, to the settlement in the form of cash and a whole bunch of CDs – the distribution system of which will be a byzantine …

Grass-roots my ass.

Fall is hunting season. I’m not a hunter, never have been – unless you include a traumatic childhood episode that still stains my dreams on restless nights. When I was a boy in Southern California our Little League baseball field was located on semi-wild terrain adjacent to a cliff that …

The NY Times reviews Brazilian singer/songwriter Caetano Veloso’s new biography: Imagine a singer-songwriter having emerged in the 60’s who combined the poetical and political allusiveness of Bob Dylan, the melodic seductiveness of Burt Bacharach, the good looks of a French New Wave actor, the hip thinkiness of Susan Sontag in …

Cool Tunes is a radio show in a magazine format Saturday nights at 10pm on WAPS, “The Summit,” in Akron, Ohio. I play new music, reissues, and preview shows coming to town each week. Musically it is among the widest-ranging 2 hours in the country: modern rock, punk, electronica, jazz, …

My oldest baby is going away today.

Vince Neil allegedly punches producer he has never met before: Motley Crue’s lead singer Vince Neil has pleaded innocent to a misdemeanor battery charge for allegedly attacking a record producer outside the famed Rainbow Room nightclub in West Hollywood. Neil, whose full name is Vincent Neil Wharton, was not required …

Joan Jett, who is old enough to be their mother, rocked coalition troops in Afghanistan: Wearing black boots, camouflage pants and a fishnet top, American rocker Joan Jett performed for several hundred soldiers at the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan. About 500 coalition troops, mostly Americans, attended a concert Friday …

Phil Collins forced off the road by ear damage: Collins told LAUNCH he was warned against extended time on the road by a specialist, who said: “‘If I were you, I would think seriously about touring, because you could completely finish this one off if you had another accident or …