Help Find Joe Strummer's Dodge!

One day while Joe was in Madrid, Joe Strummer parked his car.  When it was time to leave wherever he was, he couldn't find it.  It wasn't stolen; Joe had just forgotten where he parked it.  If this isn't a theme for a rock'n'roll movie, nothing is.

Read more at The Guardian.  (Thanks, John!)

Documentary on Napster Set to Open in June

We've been teased with Downloaded, what purports to be a definite history of Napster and the downloading mania that followed.  There was a teaser shown at SXSW but without offering up a definite release day.  

The Holllwood Reporter now reports that the film will be out next month.

VH1 has set theatrical opening dates for Alex Winter’ Downloaded, which will open at Manhattan’s Village East Cinema on June 21 and at the Sundance Sunset Cinemas in Los Angeles on June 28. Additional theatrical bookings are scheduled for Albuquerque, Austin, Chicago, Columbus, Grand Rapids, Martha’s Vineyard, San Francisco and Seattle, as well as other cities to be announced, in partnership with specialty distributor Abramorama.

On July 1, the film will debut on On Demand platforms including iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner Cable and XBOX, in partnership with digital entertainment curator FilmBuff. 

Read more here.

Doors Man Ray Manzarek Dead. Or Is He?

[NOTE:  Read this through to the end for a big surprise.  Trust me. - AC]

Doors founder, keyboardist and main spokesman for the band John Manzarek has died.  This death was announced via this press release:

Ray Manzarek, keyboardist and founding member of The Doors, passed away today at 12:31PM PT at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany after a lengthy battle with bile duct cancer. He was 74. At the time of his passing, he was surrounded by his wife Dorothy Manzarek, and his brothers Rick and James Manczarek.

Manzarek is best known for his work with The Doors who formed in 1965 when Manzarek had a chance encounter on Venice Beach with poet Jim Morrison. The Doors went on to become one of the most controversial rock acts of the 1960s, selling more than 100-million albums worldwide, and receiving 19 Gold, 14 Platinum and five multi-Platinum albums in the U.S. alone. "L.A.Woman," "Break On Through to the Other Side," "The End," "Hello, I Love You," and "Light My Fire" were just some of the band's iconic and ground-breaking songs. After Morrison's death in 1971, Manzarek went on to become a best-selling author, and a Grammy-nominated recording artist in his own right. In 2002, he revitalized his touring career with Doors' guitarist and long-time collaborator, Robby Krieger.

"I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of my friend and bandmate Ray Manzarek today," said Krieger. "I'm just glad to have been able to have played Doors songs with him for the last decade. Ray was a huge part of my life and I will always miss him."

Manzarek is survived by his wife Dorothy, brothers Rick and James Manczarek, son Pablo Manzarek, Pablo's wife Sharmin and their three children Noah, Apollo and Camille. Funeral arrangements are pending. The family asks that their privacy be respected at this difficult time. In lieu of flowers, please make a memoriam donation in Ray Manzarek's name at www.standup2cancer.org.

BUT WAIT!  THERE"S MORE!

Despite the story in Billboard quoted above, RAY IS APPARENTLY STILL ALIVE!  From MediaMass:

News of musician Ray Manzarek’s death spread quickly earlier this week causing concern among fans across the world. However the May 2013 report has now been confirmed as a complete hoax and just the latest in a string of fake celebrity death reports. Thankfully, the Doors keyboardist is alive and well.

Other sites are reporting the same thing.  Meanwhile other sites are saying that the hoax is a hoax and that Ray is, in fact, gone.  CBS is another news organization that say Ray has died.

Ray? Wanna clear this up?

Well, he did.  Ray is definitely pounding back brews with Jim in Rock'n'Roll Heaven.

Another Musician Assaulted on Stage

This never fails to amaze me:  someome spends good money to go to a show only to ruin it for the others.  I vividly remember escorting a very wounded Brian Van Der Ark of the Verve Pipe back to his trailer have some moron beaned him square in the face with a full waterbottle at an Edgefest years ago.  The result was a very bloody broken nose.

Then I was down front when that moron tackled Noel Gallager onstage at VirginFest in Toronto.  The show was cut short and Noel ended up with a lot of badly bruised ribs.  Idiot.

The latest onstage assault saw Frederock "Toots" Hibbert got hit by a bottle pitched by a 19 year-old yob.  What's wrong with people?

This list of onstage assaults is quite long, too.  The Huffington Post as complied this.

Bing Crosby + Nazis = Silicon Valley and Today's Music

That seems like a ridiculous headline, but stay with me on this.

The New Yorker pulls together what seems to be completely unrelated developments into a very cogent argument that states without Bing Crosby and the Nazis, our technology--and the way we consume music--would be very, very different today.

The nineteen-forties Bing Crosby hit “White Christmas” is a key part of the national emotional regression that occurs every Christmas.

Between Christmases, Crosby is most often remembered as a sometimes-brutal father, thanks to a memoir by his son Gary. Less remarked upon is Crosby’s role as a popularizer of jazz, first with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, and later as a collaborator with, disciple to, and champion of Louis Armstrong.

Hardly remarked upon at all is that Crosby, by accident, is a grandfather to the computer hard drive and an angel investor in one of the firms that created Silicon Valley.

If today’s youth make up the first digital generation, Crosby’s was the first recorded-music generation. Born in 1903, Crosby grew up in Spokane, Washington, where he spent his latter adolescence haunting record stores and learning the drums, and his twenties on the road as a drummer and singer.

He landed in Paul Whiteman’s legendary dance band, touring the country. Vaudeville was fading, as was the belting projection of singers like Al Jolson; jazz, talkies, and the radio were ascendant, with Crosby in the wave.

Oh, you want to keep reading.  Trust me.