The Knitmedia settlement is significant for two reasons: it puts money directly in the hands of musicians and returns their copyrights to them, and every time a label is held accountable for underpaying it makes others less likely to behave similarly. Knitmedia Inc., which runs the Knitting Factory clubs in …

Within the laughable range of one-hour assembly, I found this story quite amusing and unusually personal for a feature in a major daily: We asked Christopher Byrne, a contributing editor of Toy Wishes magazine, to pick five of the most popular Christmas toys that have to be assembled. OK, we …

(click to enter) In defiance of the trend toward the Anglicization of the Beatle catalog worldwide — when the Beatles catalog was released on CD in 1987, releases were standardized on a worldwide basis and eventually the U.S. albums, which had last appeared on vinyl and cassette, were deleted — …

I — a hard-boiled veteran of the media contest wars — am pretty jaded, but this is an impressive prize package from Interscope/A&M: *2 tickets to every Interscope/A&M show in the winners hometown *every Interscope/A&M album that comes out in 2005 *plus other special prizes (including autographed items) throughout the …

The Wharton School spoke to four of their professors about the economic outlook for ’05: Investors, consumers and businesses have had a fair share of concerns in 2004: high fuel prices, less-than-stellar job growth and volatile swings in the stock market, which remains well below the highs set four years …

I had the sense watching Saturday Night Live last weekend that their opening bit — a parody of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s now infamous “you go to war with the Army you have” response to complaints by a soldier in Iraq about shortages of armor — was an indication that a …

Vince Neil (who had some surgical facial rearranging, note the banner above) clearly has an anger management problem, as his periodic (and apparently effective) pummeling of those who displease him indicates. Marty Dodge reports on Neil’s latest incident with a Dallas nightclub soundman who was a bit too slow on …

Those festive folks at the U.S. Census Bureau have come up with an assortment of holiday season fun facts and statistics with a particular eye on America’s most revered seasonal tradition: buying things: Christmas Trees, Ornaments and Gifts $521 million The amount of money the nation’s Christmas tree farmers received …

Mary Clark, the mother of Nathan Gale, who shot and killed Dimebag Darrell Abbott and three others before he was killed by policeman James D. Niggemeyer, spoke with Columbus TV station WCMH yesterday about her son: Clark said Gale lives in her memory as a beloved son. “We were pretty …

Typically, people don’t just drop dead for no good reason at the age of 35. The New York City medical examiner’s office today declared Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s death to have been an accident caused by the combined effects of cocaine and a prescription painkiller. The rapper born Russell Jones died …