Pink Floyd’s artistic vision is secure…or it will be again soon.  The band won their lawsuit against label EMI to halt single song downloads.  Seems Floyd’s 1999 contract states songs can’t be offered outside their original album format.  EMI tried arguing that meant physical not digital releases. 

     EMI had to immediately cough up $60K for legal fees while the courts are still determining how much the band should receive in fines and damages.  Plus, Floyd needs to be paid for the digital royalties EMI has already collected on Pink Floyd downloads.  Remember, lots of money is at stake–Pink Floyd’s catalog is second only to the Beatles!  Grab what single Floyd you want/can now…they won’t be available this way for long.

     Dave Grohl says Foo Fighters are headed back into the studio garage.  Seems the talked about Foo-hiatus was just that–talk.  Dave and Taylor Hawkins have already demoed some songs and predict this could be the heaviest Foo album yet.  Enter Butch Vig.  Of course, he produced Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind.  Clearly magic happens when these guys work together.  It’ll be recorded (in analog no less!) in Grohl’s garage.  No timeline yet but we’ll certainly be waiting, won’t we?

     Rollingstone.com has an exclusive stream of the new Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings “When I Come Home”–sounds great!  And with each preorder of the new album I Learned The Hard Way made at Daptones Official Store, 15 % of the sale will go to Doctors Without Borders efforts in Haiti.  Great funk soul music…love me some Dap Kings!

Didn’t think I could love this song more but now that I’ve seen the animation the band told us about in their Studio M session…well, the video takes the song to a new level of cool. 

     That’s the title of the new Peter Gabriel, his first solo studio release in eight years.  Love the concept of this one–just Gabriel singing with an orchestra, specifically no guitars and no drums.  He’s determined to strip the songs down to bare melody and lyric.   What?  Well, if anyone can do it Mr. Gabriel can.  And all the songs are covers–rock songwriters like Neil Young, David Bowie and Lou Reed.  He choose the material as kind of a social networking experiment.  See, when Gabriel choose a song he asked the artist to choose one of his to cover as well.  And those recordings will be released in pairs on itunes every full moon.  What a howling good time.

     It’s official…a pickle is more popular than Nickelback.  Maybe you’ve heard of this facebook face-off.  Maybe you’ve even become one of the 1,487,000 fans of the pickle.  I doubt if you’re on this website, reading this blog, that you’re a facebook fan of Nickelback (although stranger things have happened).  I’ve got nothing against Nickelback myself and neither does the user who created the fanpage.  She states upfront it’s strictly for humor.  And funny it is.  Nickelback is laughing all the way to the bank, btw.  Their latest release has sold over 2.6 million copies.

     Finally!  Someone in the world who doesn’t know who Tiger Woods is!  Not that he doesn’t care, mind you.  He IS the Dalai Lama.  But apparently Woods’ sex scandal had to be explained to him Saturday.  The Dalai Lama then emphasized the importance of self discipline.  In his televised apology Friday, Woods had mentioned drifting away from the Buddhist values of his upbringing.  And that he’ll (Woods) be rededicating himself to Buddhism.  I’m sure the Dalai Lama is cool with that, ’cause that’s how he rolls.  He encourages us all to become better people all the while wearing that beatific smile on his face.

     Filmmaker Kevin Smith’s tweets Valentine’s Day weren’t to or about his lovely wife.  Nope, his tweets weren’t sweet that day at all…or any day since.  Seems Southwest Airlines asked him to leave an airplane on which he had already been seated (buckled in correctly with the armrests down).  The pilot thought him to be a flight risk because of his size/weight.  Wow. 

     There seems to be alot of ambiguity about how big is too big to fly in one seat and who makes the distinction.  Industry observers would like to see formal guidelines adopted to avoid these type incidents.  I would encourage a less humiliating approach than a scale and a measuring tape at the boarding gate, for sure.

     I know, sounds weird.  U2’s Larry Mullen Jr. is certainly not the first nor second most talkative member of the group.  In fact, I would say he and Adam Clayton battle it out every interview to be the one to say the least.  But word is out that Larry sought out a talking gig on the animated “The Cleveland Show”, a “Family Guy” spin-off.  And he acts as characters, not himself.  He’ll be an Elvis impersonator and a mobster.   No word yet on when the episodes will air.

     Did you see (and hear) the Air Force Reserve ad on Sunday? Jack White did and thought the music in the commercial sounded familiar.  Way too familiar.  In fact, Jack White thought it sounded remarkably like the White Stripes “Fell In Love With A Girl”.  He’s pissed.  Check out his strongly worded statement here on the White Stripes website. 

     The Air Force Reserve has already pulled the ad off TV and its own website.  And both the Air Force Reserve and the company who produced the commercial have denied knowingly copying the tune.  In fact, a musician who worked on the ad is taking the blame.  Since the musician is readily offering to give the White Stripes the $2000  he made working on the project, I’m inclined to believe it was unintentional.  Move on, Jack, move on.