I can't wait to hear the new album. I think T was playing Machine Gun the other night and I liked it. We saw Portishead play at the Paramount (I think) many years back.

Quoted: As Portishead finished its meticulously sparse evening performance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the typically reticent Beth Gibbons suddenly leapt off the stage and ran a 100-yard dash along the fenced-in crowd, exuberantly shaking their hands. ...

After a ten-year hiatus, Portishead is back. This is not a reunion bow, though, but rather an energized reboot of a band that ten years ago found itself burnt out from a rock 'n' roll life and creatively kaput after the success of their enormously popular 1994 trip-hop debut "Dummy" and their 1997 self-titled follow-up.

Some good music at Marymoor Park in July from the Sub Pop label.

Quoted: Sub Pop Records, the indie label that gave the world Nirvana, will celebrate its 20th birthday with a weekend of concerts in a Seattle park in July.

Among the groups reuniting or breaking long hiatuses for the July 12-13 event at Marymoor Park are Green River, Red Red Meat, the Fluid, Beachwood Sparks and Seaweed.

Current label acts confirmed to appear include Mudhoney, comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, Fleet Foxes, Foals, Grand Archives, the Helio Sequence, Iron & Wine, Kinski, Low, No Age, Wolf Parade, Pissed Jeans and the Ruby Suns.

Good thing we saw Duran Duran in their glory days. ;)

Quoted: Duran Duran's world tour got off to an awkward start in New Zealand on Wednesday as singer Simon Le Bon forgot the lyrics and bassist John Taylor stormed off stage, according to a published report.

"Duran Duran, f---ing up in style," Le Bon, 49, told the crowd at the Vector Arena in the northern city of Auckland, according to the New Zealand Herald's review the next day.

Taylor, 47, abandoned his instrument and walked off stage, apparently in reaction to a segment in which the group's members donned matching satin suits and headsets to play a medley on keyboards and an electric drum set.

"I could not dance to that. These people came here to dance," Taylor said, after he returned to the stage, according to the Herald.

Le Bon forgot the words to "Hungry Like the Wolf," one of the band's biggest hits, the Herald reported.

This is ridiculous. Next they are going to tell us that when you buy a cd, you have to listen to it by yourself or you could be prosecuted for sharing.

Quoted: Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

Can I just say ... YIPPEE!!!!

Quoted: Forget mediation, forget rehab. Apparently, bands whose members haven't spoken to each other in years just need to play at the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif., to get their careers back on track.

That's pretty much what happened for the Jesus and Mary Chain. The influential Scottish rock combo rose to fame in the mid-1980s on the strength of such albums as "Psychocandy" but splintered in 1999 with its sibling members, Jim and William Reid, barely able to be in the same room together.

Cool! The only problem I see is that the road will become "dated" once the pop song goes off the charts. I wonder how much it would cost to update the road ...

Quoted: A team from the Hokkaido Industrial Research Institute has built a number of "melody roads", which use cars as tuning forks to play music as they travel.

The concept works by using grooves, which are cut at very specific intervals in the road surface. Just as travelling over small speed bumps or road markings can emit a rumbling tone throughout a vehicle, the melody road uses the spaces between to create different notes.

Depending on how far apart the grooves are, a car moving over them will produce a series of high or low notes, enabling cunning designers to create a distinct tune.
Patent documents for the design describe it as notches "formed in a road surface so as to play a desired melody without producing simple sound or rhythm and reproduce melody-like tones".

DJ Lance, dance, dance.

Quoted: In bright orange jumpsuit and fuzzy, tangerine-color hat, Lance Robertson roamed the floor of the giant Comic-Con fan convention in San Diego last month and was surprised, to say the least, by the reaction.

People wanted to hug him, and take a picture with him, and get him to sign something — all because of a TV show for preschoolers that isn't even on the air yet.

The Cure! I might have to actually work on a babysitter for this night.

Quoted: Mon-Oct-08 Seattle - Key Arena