Demo Music (For an Auction)
Before the advent of Electronic Press Kits and MP3s, aspiring bands would usually solicit interest from labels, managers and other biz players with handmade cassette demos. Often, band members would end up with boxes of the demos in their basement but, obviously, some of those tape-makers went on to be huge. Radiohead is one of those bands and its 1986 demo cassette from when the group was called On a Friday (and Thom Yorke was Tom Yorke) recently sold at a U.K. auction for more than $3,100. Apparently Thom/Tom and his bandmates weren’t sitting on boxes of the tapes — the cassette was sold as a one-of-a-kind offering, with the auction calling it the only copy known to exist (likely meaning a lot of industry people in England recorded the Miami Vice soundtrack over their copies).
Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before
Former Smiths frontman Morrissey has been doing a lot of cancelling this year. The noted curmudgeon cancelled much of his North American tour due to a bleeding ulcer, bagged his entire South American tour (first because of food poisoning, then due to “lack of funding,” which sounds like a nice way of saying, “low ticket sales”) and bailed on a Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance at because the staunch vegan/animal rights advocate couldn’t stomach appearing on a show with the duck-hunting entrepreneurs of Duck Dynasty. Moz recently pulled out of his agreement with Penguin to publish an autobiography (three days before it was to hit stores) due to a “content disagreement.” The book was supposed to be about his coming of age in Manchester, England, and relationship with Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Maybe he turned in a 500-page dissertation on the evils of Duck Dynasty instead. (Penguin and a Morrissey fan site now say the book is still slated to come out through Penguin in the U.K. and Europe "within the next few week.")
Sons of (Strip Club) Anarchy
British Folk Pop troupe Mumford & Sons made the kind of headlines recently that are usually reserved for Kid Rock or Lil Wayne. Previously, the only place one might imagine the polite, cuddly lads getting kicked out of was a vest sale at Men’s Wearhouse. But the group caught the attention of gossip sites after a post-concert visit to an Atlanta strip club ended with flared tempers and the band being ejected for violating one of every strip club’s golden rules — no cameras.
