The Day in Rock  8/8: RIAA’s Pitch To College Students, Fab 4 On the Tele, Plant, Crows Plan Greatest Hits, Free Phish, Tribute To The Boss, Stones Out of This Earth, DK Goes To The Movies, Lisa Marie Peeved at Michael Jackson, Zwan Bassist Flies The Coop. 

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Lots of classic rock artists making news lately and today was no exception. 

RIAA’s Pitch To College Students
The College Music Journal reports that the RIAA is trying to win back the goodwill of college students.  

Here is their report: The recording industry and digital music retailers are in discussions with various colleges and universities to offer legitimate sources of music to students, either for free or at a substantial discount, in exchange for the schools agreeing to take steps to deter piracy on campus networks. The goal of the agreement would be to provide students with an extensive online jukebox that would allow them to play songs on- demand. The typical $10-per-month charge would either be waived or buried in the students’ activities fees, and songs could be burned onto CDs or transferred to MP3 players for one dollar or less per track. Insiders hope the new concept can be launched as early as the beginning of 2004. “This is a great opportunity to tap into this university base, show them the promise of digital music, [and] show them the compelling digital offerings,” Musicmatch Inc. President/COO Peter Csathy told the Los Angeles Times. The biggest hurdle for the RIAA will be convincing school administrators that students should be deterred from online piracy. “Part of it was that they weren’t yet feeling the real heat,” said Peter Fader, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “So unfortunately, it will come down to when the threats are large enough, either legal or financial. Then it will happen.” For a fully sanctioned service to succeed on campus, colleges would have to block access to unauthorized ones, such as Kazaa or Morpheus. Many colleges have been unwilling to block such peer-to-peer networks, but they may have no choice if they want to persuade record companies to offer the lower royalty rates to their campus services. - Click Here for the Full Story

Fab 4 On the Tele
It will be 40 years next February since the Beatles landed on American soil and kicked off Beatlemania. Expect a lot of events and specials to surround the anniversary, like the one in the following report from Billboard: 

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' first appearance on U.S. TV, the Museum of Television & Radio (MTR) in New York and Los Angeles will present an exclusive exhibit on the group, running Feb. 6 through April 30, 2004.

"Revolution: The Beatles on Television," will include Beatles music videos and TV appearances before and after the breakup of the band. There will also be screenings of Albert and David Maysles' documentary "What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.," also known as "The Beatles: The First U.S. Visit."

The Beatles made their maiden U.S. TV appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show" on Feb. 9, 1964. The broadcast drew an estimated 73 million viewers and remains one of the highest-rated programs in U.S. TV history.  Click Here for the Full Story

Plant, Crows Plan Greatest Hits
Concert Live Wire Reports: Following the recent interest in Led Zeppelin - due to the  mega-sales of their newly released DVD and 3-CD live set How The West Was Won - lead singer Robert Plant is currently putting together a 2-CD compilation album entitled Sixty Six to Timbuktu. According to inside sources, this set is scheduled to  include not only his own solo hits, but pre-Zeppelin solo tracks from 1966/67 along with various collaborations he's done before and after Zeppelin as well. Plant is currently on tour in Scandinavia and set to embark on Lithuania and Ukraine in the middle of August.
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Counting Crows guitarist Dan Vickrey says the group is planning a greatest-hits release to coincide with the decade that has passed since Crows' breakout track "Mr. Jones." Drawn from the band's 1993 Geffen disc "August and Everything After," the song reached No. 2 on Billboard's Mainstream and Modern Rock Tracks airplay charts.

"[We'd like to] put a period on those 10 years and move on to the next," says Vickrey. Aside from singles, the as-yet-untitled compilation will include new studio material. "We have a couple of songs that we are rehearsing at soundcheck," he says. "I'm sure we'll record them." . - Click Here for more info

Free Phish
AP Reports: Phish, the jam band whose open taping policy made  it one of the nation's biggest live acts, is again sidestepping the record industry to cash in on the online music revolution. 

Livephish.com offers a rare service: soundboard-quality downloads of performances within two days of the concert. Fans pay $9.95 for MP3s or $12.95 for a computer file format where no sound quality is lost during compression. 

In the first four months after the site's launch on New Year's Eve 2002, the service generated $1 million, said Brad Serling, whose company runs the site as a joint venture with the band. 

Like the Grateful Dead, Phish has always encouraged fans to record their performances. Likewise, their performances vary widely from night to night, and the band has spawned a subculture of hard-core fans who began trading recordings long before Napster (news - web sites). 

Phish has an unusual contract with Elektra Records that gives the band the right to let fans record its live shows. Elektra, owned by AOL Time Warner Inc., gets a share of profits from Livephish.com, according to Serling. 
- Click Here for the Full Story

Tribute To The Boss
The Boss is getting a tribute. No, not your employer--the millionaire working class hero; Bruce Springsteen. 

Launch Reports: A September 2 release date has been set for Light Of Day: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen, a two-CD set of all-star Springsteen covers. The 37-song project features performances by Elvis Costello, Pete Yorn, Patty Griffin, Billy Bragg, Dion, Joe Ely, and E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren, among others. It was organized by Sal Trepat, the publisher of the Spanish Springsteen fan magazine Point Blank, and Bob Benjamin, who manages Springsteen's friend Joe Grushecky. They were assisted by singer-songwriter Elliott Murphy, who also performs the song "Better Days" on the set.

Stones Out of This Earth
Much Music Reports: It wasn't enough that people all over the globe watched the Stones rock Toronto last Wednesday, now organizers are planning to broadcast the show into space. With the help of the U.S. armed forces, radio and television services plan to show the concert to astronauts on the international space station. There are also plans to sell simulcasts of the concert to television networks around the world, hopefully generating even more money for Toronto's health-care workers. Click Here for the Full Story

DK Goes To The Movies
Blabbermouth Reports: DEAD KENNEDYS drummer D.H. Peligro (ex-RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, NAILBOMB, SSI) has been tapped to play the  lead in the action movie "The Four Horsemen". The film is described as having the intrigue of "Clear and Present Danger" (Harrison Ford), the gritty of "Traffic" (Michael Douglas), and the fast-paced action of "Lethal Weapon" (Mel Gibson/Danny Glover).

"I'm performing my own stunts in this movie which means I have to stick to a strict workout regimen," says the rocker, who besides acting  is the frontman of a menacing rock trio simply called PELIGRO. "It's tough, but unlike some of today's top action stars who depends mostlyon stunt doubles to make them look good, I'm doing my own stunts and [plan to] give people their money's worth."

DEAD KENNEDYS will celebrate their 25th Anniversary with a Jello Free show at the Key Club in Los Angeles on Tuesday, August 19, 2003. . Click Here for the Full Story

Lisa Marie Peeved at Michael Jackson
The daughter of the King of Rock N Roll is upset with the self-proclaimed King of Pop, (also her ex-husband) over his licensing of the King of Rock N Roll’s music for use in ads on the King of all Media (not Howard Stern, the television).  Confused? Tune in next time to Freaks and Geeks to see the incredibly changing pop star morph into….  

Launch Reports: Lisa Marie Presley isn't happy that her ex-husband, Michael Jackson, owns the rights to some of Elvis Presley's hit songs. She told Jane magazine in its September issue, "I saw a Velveeta commercial, and it was playing, I think, 'Burning Love.' He had approved it--that's something we can't control. He can do whatever he wants with the songs he owns to make money, and that got under my skin." Click Here for the Full Story

Zwan Bassist Flies The Coop
Rolling Stone Reports: Bassist/vocalist PAZ LENCHANTIN has left BILLY CORGAN's ZWAN. Lenchantin is planning on dedicating more time to PAPA M, a project started by Zwan guitarist DAVID PAJO,  which will begin a nineteen-date tour on October 4th in Chicago.  Click Here for the Full Story

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