HOT: Cameras Out = No Neko
Two years ago we reported on singer/songwriter Neko Case’s Cincinnati concert and some contentious moments with the audience during which Case intermittently stopped the show to chastise smartphone photo-takers. Case hasn’t given up her crusade against chronic smartphone abuse. According to reports it was one fan at a Portland show who wouldn’t stop filming that caused her to end the concert early. Some felt it was unfair to the rest of the audience, which refrained from taking on the amateur documentarian role. Like the venue owners who’ve banned “selfie sticks,” whoever invents something that can render smartphone cameras unusable in music venues will be a hero to a lot of performers fed up with the trend.
WARM: Cash Words Raise Concerns
At a New York City K-12 school recently, after a student posted on Facebook lyrics to Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around,” a song with pretty obvious biblical references, some students and parents apparently saw them as threatening. Administrators sent out a note saying they’d talked to the kid’s parents and determined no threat was intended. Posted with a photo of the school’s crest and a forthcoming date, it’s easy to understand the concern. Out of context, lines like, “There’s a man going around taking names/And he decides who to free and who to blame” do sound ominous (though so do some Bible verses). Meanwhile, authorities in Reno are on the lookout for a psycho who shoots men for the sick pleasure of watching them die.
COLD: Henley Can’t Take It Easy
A Henley shirt is like a polo shirt without a collar and perfectly legal to sell — as long as ads for them don’t make a pun relating to a notoriously litigious Classic Rock band. A Wisconsin-based retailer recently settled a trademark infringement lawsuit filed by The Eagles’ Don Henley after using the phrase “Don a Henley and take it easy” in advertisements for the shirts. (“Take It Easy” is an awful Eagles song, in case you’re lucky enough to never have heard it.) The settlement involved a public apology and a donation to a Henley-founded charity. So heads up all hotels in California on dark desert highways — put that description in your ads and you’ll find yourself Henleyed before you can say, “This could be heaven or this could be hell.”