We know that Bruce Springsteen is renowned for "just dropping in" to jam with just about every band that passes through his hometown of Asbury Park, New Jersey, but we'd advise the Boss to steer clear of the boardwalk around the Ides of March -- unless he's eager to have the oceanfront festooned with his entrails. You see, right around that time in mid-March, Asbury Park will be invaded by roving gangs of visigoths and ne'er-do-wells who'll be distinguishable from the local variety by the wide diversity of death-metal T-shirts they'll be sporting. They'll be descending on the town for the first March Metal Meltdown -- an offshoot of the wildly successful Milwaukee Metalfest, which has been tormenting cheeseheads for thirteen years now. The two-day fest will bring together nearly three dozen of metal's manliest and moshin'-est, including rare performances by grizzled oldsters Blitzkrieg, Holocaust and Sweet Savage -- all of whom were covered by Metallica on their recent Garage, Inc. collection. For those who aren't into the oldies-but-goodies, MMM will offer plenty of Hades' latest exports, headed by Iced Earth, Gorguts, Cryptopsy, Immolation, In Ruins, Dark Funeral, Meshuggah, Hate Breed, Candiria, Hypocrisy, Bloodfeast, Whiplash, Vicious Rumors, and Slaughter House. Sounds promising, although we're a bit disappointed that there won't be a special appearance by former New Kid on the Block Joey McIntyre, who's now rollin' solo. Tickets for the festival, which runs March 12-13 are $30 per day, or $50 for both. Cash and credit cards will be accepted: No decision has yet been made about eye of newt . . .

Those of you trying to end your frustration in not knowing the words to R.E.M.'s indecipherable "Catapult" (or, for that matter, anything prior to Up) by plucking them off the Web are out of luck. The International Lyrics Server (www.lyrics.ch), a lyrics database run by a Swiss company, was forced offline last week when police officers seized the company's computers and hauled a technical consultant in for questioning. According to the New York Times, a criminal complaint was filed by lawyers from the Harry Fox Agency, representing Polygram Music Publishing and seven other music-publishing companies, for infringement of international copyright laws. Pascal de Vries, who founded the site in 1997, is claiming his innocence, citing that it was the site's users who posted the lyrics to over 100,000 songs, and that he merely put them into a searchable database. Lawyers from Harry Fox assert that the postings are costing artists royalties. For now, anyway, you're just going to have to figure out what the hell Michael Stipe is saying all on your own . . .

U2 have worked in the past with such unlikely collaborators as Luciano Pavarotti and Boyzone, but this time they've outdone their previous picks. According to The Guardian, controversial author and sitting-duck-in-hiding Salman Rushdie recently gave Bono the lyrics to a romantic song for the band's next album. U2 also hope to release the song, titled "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" after the author's forthcoming book of the same name, as a single in conjunction with the novel's release on April 23 . . .

Benefit and tribute concerts are a dime a dozen these days, but every now and then one gets thrown together that still tips the wow-o-meter. Expect that to happen April 6 when U2, Bruce Springsteen, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Kris Kristofferson, Trisha Yearwood and Rosanne Cash toast Rosanne's dad, Johnny Cash, at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. The "All-Star Tribute to Johnny Cash" is part of TNT's Master Series, which debuted last year with "Burt Bacharach: One Amazing Night." Additional artists will be added to the lineup in the near future, though it's uncertain whether the Man in Black will climb out of the audience and play himself. Cash, who suffers from a degenerative nervous system disease and is currently recuperating from a bout with pneumonia, does hope to go back into the studio in March to begin work on his third album with producer Rick Rubin . . .

Jewel, who is now identified on press releases as poet, best-selling author, actress and, oh yeah, multi-platinum recording artist, expanded her weighty resume last night at a New York press fete with the announcement of her new charity, Higher Ground For Humanity. The brainchild of Jewel's mother/manager/look-alike Nedra Carroll, HGH aims to promote "global community and individual action to inspire positive change," with funds to be dished out to various humanitarian organizations. Jewel will spread the HGH gospel at a series of benefit concerts sponsored by Vogue magazine, which hosted the festivities. The first show will be in Aspen, Colo., this Friday (Jan. 22), and will be taped for a VH1 special airing March 6 . . .

Some might call it karma, others a post-modern version of "the dog ate my homework," but either way, we have to admit that we had to stifle a chuckle at news that Rob Garza, frontman of ambient-electro combo the Thievery Corporation claims to have been robbed at gunpoint over the weekend -- with the baddies absconding with sizable portions of the band's forthcoming second album. Garza allegedly was leaving his girlfriend's apartment in Washington, D.C.'s Adams-Morgan neighborhood on Saturday (Jan. 16) morning when he was approached by an armed man who demanded he surrender all his valuables. Since the producer/multi-instrumentalist falls into the dreaded "critically-acclaimed" category, he wasn't able to cough up much in the way of actual cash. Nevertheless, Garza is feeling a hole in his pocketbook, since he'll have to re-enter the studio in order to re-record masters for the as-yet-untitled disc, which was slated to be released in March. Diehard fans -- or those who're feeling charitable enough to toss a few extra bucks to the Thievery boys -- can assuage themselves with the soon-to-be-issued Abductions and Reconstructions, an album featuring Garza remixes of tracks by David Byrne, Rockers Hi Fi and a host of others. Our irony desk suggests that the weekend's events might prompt Garza to try a re-christening in order to change his luck. Might we suggest "The Guy Who Found A Big Bag of Unmarked Bills on the Sidewalk"? . . .

To date, 1999 has not been a banner year for Chicago. First, the Windy City gets buried beneath two feet of snow; then Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman bolt from the Bulls; and now -- as the least of three evils -- Frank Orrall, leader of hometown Poi Dog Pondering, has divided the group as wide as Moses did the Red Sea. Orrall sent a note via the band's Internet listserv explaining that Poi Dog needs to go through some changes. "There is a feeling when an entire group is on the same musical page and everything is flowing forward -- and we enjoyed that for years -- unfortunately that feeling has been lost," he wrote. Poi Dog, the eleven-piece "rock orchestra" that's hosted U2-sized crowds in the Chicago area, was whittled down to a mere five members earlier this week, leaving space for, among other positions, a guitarist, bassist and drummer. Fans needn't worry: A source close to the group promises that, in addition to their forthcoming album, Natural Thing, hitting stores on April 20, Poi Dog will play a series of shows at Chicago's Vic Theater to bid farewell to this current lineup of musicians . . .

Apparently, he was dreamin' when he wrote this. The Artist has posted an "open letter 2 Madonna" on his Love 4 One Another website (www.love4oneanother.com) asking the all-mighty diva for her assistance. His Purpleness said that during a dream he approached Madonna at the Grammys and asked if she remembered him. He wrote: "Eye asked u 2 help me with my fight 2 retain ownership of my legacy and u said, 'eye don't own ur masters, Time Warner does ... if it was my company, u could have them.'" The former crown Prince of Warner Bros. explained in the missive that "it IS ur company as long as u remain in their graces ... 4 all Artists, Madonna, make a stand 4 what is RIGHT ... surely they will listen 2 u!" At the end of the dream, he followed Madonna up to the podium and said she should be glad they were on a commercial break, then went off to find Wyclef Jean. Forgive him if he went astray ...

After a series of skin flicks in which rock boys like Tommy Lee and Bret Michaels did their best to act like porn stars, we knew it was only a matter of time before our favorite adult entertainers put two and two together, waited a few months to come up with the answer, and realized that turnabout could be fair play. The result of that brainstorm session -- an album titled Porn to Rock -- will reach finer stores everywhere next week. The thirteen-song CD showcases the aural talents of such performers as Hyapatia Lee, Karen Dior and Candye Kane, a mammoth-mammaried piano player who has actually released several albums of punk-infused blues over the past decade. It's not the first time porn actresses have taken a crack at music, of course: Andrea True had been writhing around moaning for years before deciding to do so in a recording studio to create the disco hit "More, More, More." Still, it's been a while since we've heard anything as, er, refreshing as Nina Whett's charming "Drink Beer and F---." Celine, if you're listening, I think we've found your next single ...

Is Ol' Dirty Bastard trying to pad his rap sheet, or is he getting played by da Man? On Friday night (Jan. 19), the fuzz in Brooklyn, N.Y., stopped ODB (ne Russell Tyrone Jones), for alleged traffic violations. Four plainclothes police officers claim the rapper then began shooting at them from his 1999 Chevy Tahoe. ODB was charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the first and second degrees, attempted aggravated assault on an officer in the second degree, and criminal possession of a weapon in both the second and third degrees. In a court hearing on Saturday, ODB, who also goes by the nom de guerre Big Baby Jesus, maintained his innocence, saying he was holding a cell phone and not a gun. Peter Frankel, ODB's lawyer, says the other passenger in the car, Frederick Cuffie, corroborated the report, and that they are now awaiting results of a paraffin test which should reveal whether ODB actually fired a weapon at the police (various reports claim that a gun was never found). "[ODB] is sticking by what he's said all along: that he didn't have a gun and he didn't fire a gun," says Frankel. "The only way [the police will] get a positive result is if [ODB] fired a weapon. Based on what he said, it's not going to happen." As of this morning, ODB was still being held at Riker's Island Correctional Facility in New York waiting for friends and family to come up with $150,000 bail. Frankel was confident his client would be out of jail today. ODB is expected to return to court on Thursday. If found guilty on the first-degree murder charge, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison . . .

During Monday night's episode of Ally McBeal, the waifish lawyer represented a woman whose husband claimed that their nine-year marriage was bogus. Funny how life imitates art. Now Mick Jagger is claiming his eight-year wedlock with Jerry Hall was also a sham. Tuesday morning (Jan. 19) reports revealed that the Rolling Stone says the Buddhist ceremony in which he and Hall were married on the Indonesian island of Bali in 1990 didn't constitute legal nuptials. A statement released by Jagger's spokespeople said the marriage wasn't legal because Hall hadn't converted to Hinduism and the couple lacked the appropriate legal forms to make the marriage binding by the Indonesian government. The BBC reports, however, that "local laws are very flexible for couples wanting to marry. You don't need to be a Hindu to marry under Hindu law ... Couples do not need documentary proof to prove they have been married" . . .

Prolific British avant-rock composer Bryn Jones, who recorded under the moniker Muslimgauze, died this weekend in a Manchester hospital after contracting what doctors described as "a rare blood fungus that ravaged his immune system." He was thirty-five years old. As Muslimgauze, Jones -- who kept a very low public profile -- recorded more than ninety full-length albums over the course of the past fifteen years. His compositions were often minimal, usually percussion-based and peppered with elements of Middle Eastern culture. Jones said that he was inspired to undertake the Muslimgauze project after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1983: Subsequent albums like Hebron Massacre, Abu Nidal and Vote Hezbollah also painstakingly explored troubles in that region. Despite the contentious tone of his rhetoric -- in interviews and album packaging, Jones openly advocated the terrorist tactics of what he viewed as "oppressed peoples" trying to "throw off the shackles of their enslavers" -- Muslimgauze's music was usually pacific and ethereal. The last full-length album that he completed, Hussein Mahmood Jeeb Tehar Gass, will be released in America early next month by Soleilmoon Records . . .

The RSN Staff
(January 22, 1999)