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News from the darkest corners of the
musical universe:
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Monday, June 19, 2006 ◦
Jean Jacques Perrey and Dana Countryman have just finished recording and mixing their upcoming MOOG CD. It will be out on August 15th, on Oglio Records. More info on Danacountryman.com.
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Tuesday, June 13, 2006 ◦
This just in from Lisa Wheeler, webmaster of Ktelclassics.com:
"It is with deep sadness to inform everyone that I have ceased operation of my website, ktelclassics.com, effective immediately.
On Friday, June 9, K-tel served me with a three page licensing contract stipulating, among several things, that THEY owned all of the content of my site, as well as the domain (even though I paid for it and maintained it for the past four years), and could, at any given time (within 30 days notice) terminate my use of the site, under the licensing agreement. After giving the matter serious thought, I decided that I couldn't agree to such demands, and came to the conclusion that I would purge the site.
I'm still in shock at this turn of events. Words can't possibly describe the anger I feel right now. At no time, in the entire four years that I have run this site as an homage to the label, had K-tel ever stipulated any demands. To the contrary, the company had told me, on numerous occasions, how honored and thrilled they were that one person would dedicate so much time and effort to a Internet tribute. Remember, they were the ones who, three years ago invited me to Winnipeg to database their library. Needless to say, it has caught me completely off guard.
For four years I have dedicated myself to the research of this label.
I have made no profit for my time and effort. I am nothing more than a fan, who wanted to preserve the history of a record label that meant so much to me as a record collector. I was absolutely no threat to K-tel.
I'm so sorry that it has come to this. I can't tell you how hard it was to delete everything I have worked on for the past four years. Not to sound dramatic, but it is heartbreaking to me."
We don't normally add personal notes to news items, but we'd like to say how sad we are that a fellow music fan can't share her love of music and musical history due to legal threats by a big company like K-tel. We hope Lisa can get her site back online in one form or another in the future!
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Monday, June 12, 2006 ◦
Composer Gyorgy Ligeti, who fled Hungary after the 1956 revolution and gained fame for his opera "Le Grand Macabre" and his work on the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey," died Monday. He was 83.
Ligeti, celebrated as one of the world's leading 20th century musical pioneers, died in Vienna after a long illness, said Christian Krauscheid, a spokesman for his publisher, Schott Music in Germany.
Ligeti was born in 1923 to Hungarian parents in the predominantly ethnic Hungarian part of Romania's Transylvania region. His father and brother later were murdered by the Nazis. He took Austrian citizenship after fleeing his ex-communist homeland and became known for "Macabre," which he wrote in 1978.
He began studying music under Ferenc Farkas at the conservatory in Cluj, Romania, in 1941, and continued his studies in Budapest. But in 1943, he was arrested as a Jew and sentenced to forced labor for the rest of World War II.
More info here.
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Thursday, June 01, 2006 ◦
The Cryptic Corporation today announced that the next full length Residents album has been completed and is scheduled for release by Mute on October 2, 2006.
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