By the time his new album, It's a Beautiful Thing, hits stores in December, rapper Keith Murray will likely have a very different worldview -- one from behind bars. |

The artist turned himself in Monday to begin serving a three-year prison term for assaulting a teenage fan with a barstool in 1995. Murray had been on the lam since Sept. 24, when he failed to appear at New Britain, Conn.'s Superior Court to commence his sentence. That delay could end up costing Murray, as it amounts to a felony charge carrying a $5,000 fine and/or up to five years incarceration...

How do you get Isaac Hayes, Next, Montell Jordan, country star Steve Wariner and a pack of NFL stars huddled together in one room? Simple: throw a New York press conference celebrating their new theme song for the United Way, "We're All In This Together." The Wariner-penned track, which also features Faith Hill, Foxy Brown, Randy Travis and a host of others, appears on both NFL Jams and NFL Country, and will be used in a series of United Way public service announcements scheduled to air during the rest of the NFL season. The commercials will feature footage of the song's recording as well as NFL players performing various good Samaritan duties...

Ten months on the road would turn anyone into a couch potato, so it's little surprise that when road warriors Portishead got home from supporting their self-titled sophomore release they promptly logged onto their computers. Yesterday, keyboardist Geoff Barrow and guitarist Adrian Utley chatted with cyber-journalists about their upcoming live album, PNYC, which will be released Nov. 3 in the States. Among the revelations: No gigs planned, no studio album planned, no hint of new directions, no idea what they're going to do with their free time and no fave albums of '98. We did learn that Adrian's got Radiohead in his disc player and that Geoff's spinning Nirvana. At least we didn't pay for an overseas call...

If you're as tired as we are of cookie-cutter music videos (choreographed rows of scantily clad dancers, preening rockers and divas, lightning edits and the like), hold onto your remote for "Rabbit In Your Headlights," the Jonathan Glaser-directed clip for Thom Yorke's contribution to the UNKLE compilation. This pint-size slice of cinema makes Glaser's video for "Karma Police" seem as comforting as a Hallmark card...

The RSN staff (update October 27, 1998)