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Investigation Into Prince’s Death Is Now a Criminal Probe

Prince
Jason Tate

David Chanen, writing for the StarTribune, on how the investigation into Prince’s death is now part of a criminal probe:

The law says that “investigative data collected or created by a law enforcement agency in order to prepare a case against a person, whether known or unknown, for the commission of a crime or other offense for which the agency has primary investigative responsibility are confidential or protected nonpublic while the investigation is active.”

The exception citation doesn’t mean that criminal charges will be filed at the completion of the Sheriff’s Office inquiry, only that charges are a possibility.

Beach Slang Might Have Broke Up on Stage Last Night

Beach Slang
Jason Tate

Quite a few reports are coming in that say things did not go well at Beach Slang’s show in Salt Lake City last night:

Rumors are running rampant that Philly Replacements revivalists Beach Slang broke up onstage last night at their show at Salt Lake City’s Kilby Court. Fans who were at the show describe a scene where frontman James Alex announced onstage that this would be their last show and the crowd would be given refunds at the door.

Update: The band have updated their Facebook page and are not breaking up:

Salt Lake, for the car crash last night and Boise, for fumbling on you, I am gigantically sorry—even bigger than that. I am going to make good on making it up to you. Cross my heart. This, and all of you, mean too much to me. I love you with thunder. I love you all the way. So, yeah, Seattle, we are still coming to your good city, wild-eyed and ready, our hearts bashed back into shape. If you’re still in, we are.

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The Punisher is Coming to Netflix

Jason Tate

The Punisher is getting his own series on Netflix.

EW has learned that Marvel has ordered a spin-off starring vigilante character introduced in Daredevil season 2. Jon Bernthal will reprise his role as vengeful military veteran Frank Castle, who brings his own lethal form of justice to Hell’s Kitchen.

Writer and executive producer Steve Lightfoot (Hanniba, Casualty) will serve as showrunner.

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Chatbots Are Out for Rob Gordon’s Job

Jason Tate

Christopher Heine, writing for AD Week, on how a chatbot is helping sell vinyl records. And it’s working.

Here’s how it works. People sign up to receive text messages and then get an album recommendation every day on their phone. Upon seeing such an offer, they can text back either “yes,” “like” or “dislike” to inform the chatbot of their musical preferences—and the reply affects what 12-inch slabs of wax are pitched their way in the future. If they answer “yes,” a link appears to let them buy the album in a couple of clicks. The Edit has sold some 50,000 records that way to tens of thousands of subscribers. What’s more, if a subscriber asks a “human question”—such as, “What is currently playing in the office?”—a customer service rep quickly steps in and provides a contextual response to further engage the patron. If the consumer seems ready to buy something but hasn’t pulled the trigger online, the chatbot—not the rep—sends that person a message to call a rep to complete the order.

The Rise and Fall of America’s Awful Beer Glass

Jason Tate

Laura Bliss, writing for CityLab, on the history of what is widely known as draft beer’s most common drinking glass … and why it sucks:

Under Fitz’s watch, there’s not a shaker glass in sight. The glass he once hardly noticed in the race towards sloshdom he now detests. “Shaker pints were never meant for draft,” Fitz says. “They’re the worst thing that ever happened to beer.”

And it’s not just at Pizza Paradiso. In more and more bars across the country, the little-recognized shaker is slipping out the back door. And among beer’s devotees, the end of the glass that defined a century in beer can’t come soon enough.

Warner Music’s Deal for BMG’s Catalog Sets Up Showdown With RED

BMG
Jason Tate

Ed Christman, writing for Billboard, looks at how Blink-182’s new label, BMG, and their distribution deal with the Alternative Distribution Alliance will be challenging RED as the largest indie distributor in the U.S.:

According to sources, BMG’s record label operations is already generating about $100 million globally, and about one-third of that is in the U.S. While BMG began its revival in 2008 by first pursuing music publishing opportunities, after it completed the sale of its music assets to Sony Corp., it actually held back about 200 album master recordings from the Sony deal. But it wasn’t until 2013 when it acquired Sanctuary and Mute as part of the divestiture’s the Universal Music Group made in order to keep the EU Commission’s regulatory agency happy about its EMI Recorded Music acquisition, that it began aggressively pursuing a recorded music strategy too. Since then, it has also acquired Union Square, Infectious, S-Curve, Vagrant, and Rise.

All these labels and deals and acronyms sure gets messy fast.

Spotify Acquires CrowdAlbum

Jason Tate

Glenn Peoples, writing for TechCrunch, on Spotify’s aquistion of CrowdAlbum:

Spotify announced Wednesday it has acquired CrowdAlbum, a service that creates albums of events based on the location and time of photos and videos people share on social media sites. It can index content for any kind of event — sports, Earth Day festivals, political rallies — but mostly aggregates photos from music concerts and festivals.

Five Finger Death Punch Being Sued by Label

Legal
Jason Tate

TMZ is reporting that Five Finger Death Punch are being sued by their own record label.

Five Finger Death Punch is trying to crank out new songs before its lead singer ends up in rehab — or worse — but that haste is making for some really crappy music, according to their own record label. Prospect Park filed a lawsuit against the heavy metal rockers, saying the band is “shamelessly attempting to cash in before the anticipated downfall of their addicted bandmate.”

The band has responded:

Prospect Park has chosen to sue us, hold us for ransom and squeeze extra money out of its contract rights by attempting to sell an interest in future recordings. What’s worse is that Prospect Park very deliberately filed their meritless lawsuit the same week we are trying put our fall co-headlining arena tour on sale.

Tom DeLonge Talks With Rolling Stone, Says He’s Still in Blink-182

Tom DeLonge
Jason Tate

Tom DeLonge has given a new interview with Rolling Stone about aliens, UFOs, and stuff like that. You’d think that would be the strangest part of the interview. It’s not. When discussing Blink-182, Tom says (emphasis added):

“I love those guys,” he continues, “The only thing I think about is, I want them to be happy. [But] I don’t want the legacy of the band to get fucked with. I do care about that. I don’t want an incredible legacy to be ruined.” Still, he says, he’s not closing the door on playing with them again. “I’m not opposed to it. I still would be interested, if people would just pick up the phone and call.” (Confusingly, DeLonge gets in touch with Rolling Stone a few weeks later saying, “I am currently in the band.” He maintains that he has never officially quit or been fired.)

Netflix to Release ‘Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later”

Jason Tate

Lesley Goldberg, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, on the news that Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later is confirmed for a Netflix release:

The Wet Hot: Ten marks the second Netflix follow-up to the movie. The streaming giant last year released the eight-episode Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, a prequel series featuring the movie’s original stars. The new incarnation will again be written by Showalter and Wain, with the latter on board to direct. Showalter, Wain, Peter Principato, Jonathan Stern and Howard Bernstein are set to exec produce.

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Inside “Emojigeddon”

BuzzFeed
Jason Tate

Charlie Warzel, writing for BuzzFeed News, with an oddly fascinating tale of trouble and political infighting at the Unicode Consortium (the people that get to define what gets to be an emoji or not):

The series of frustrated messages show a deepening rift between those who adhere to the organization’s original mission to code old and obscure and minority languages and those who are investing time and resources toward Unicode’s newer and most popular character sets: emojis, a quirky periodic table of ideograms and smiley faces that cover everything from bemused laughter to swirling, smiling piles of poop. The correspondence offers a peek behind the scenes of the peculiar and little-known organization that’s unexpectedly been tasked with building what some see as the first digital universal language.

Bring on stuffed flatbread!

Dustin Kensrue Talks Lyric Themes of New Album

Thrice
Jason Tate

Dustin Kensrue of Thrice talked with BaebleMusic about the band’s upcoming album and some of the themes expressed throughout:

I would definitely say that we’ve drawn a lot of our influence from the current state of politics, but I also like to personalize things when I write, and I’ve always written that way. I’d say on the new album that half of the songs are like ‘Blood on the Sand,’ and bring out that much more hard-hitting political dialogue, especially given that it’s an election year, but I’d also say that we try to write beyond the politics of issues. Maybe it’s more that we’re writing about something broader, like society…culture even. I feel that my writing is about the way I take in what’s going on within society, and the importance I feel about certain issues leads me to doing my own personal research on them, which often translates into a song. One of the political issues we talk about in this album is the song ‘Whistleblower,’ which is about Edward Snowden, and then there’s the song ‘Black Honey,’ which delves into the political as well.

The Classic Crime Launch Kickstarter

Kickstarter
Jason Tate

The Classic Crime have launched a Kickstarter for their new album.

We are recording brand new music and we need your help to finish it (mixing, mastering, manufacturing, marketing, any other m-words that require the m-word, etc). By backing this project you will not only receive some phantasmagorical rewards, you will also ensure that our next album is the best sounding music we can possibly create, making you an integral part of the whole thing. We are thankful to have the most loyal supporters in the world, and we are hopeful we will reach and exceed our goal. There’s no more middle man. It’s just you and us.