Here are the Seeds, with Sky Saxon, on American Bandstand:

Michael Jackson performs in Tokyo in 1987 (Dave Hogan/Getty)

I learned the news the way so many of us do these days: from a text message from a friend with whom I have a long-standing habit of texting, calling, and e-mailing, whenever a public figure passes away.  It’s been a busy week, of course, but the news of Michael Jackson’s death—after all the rumors of poor health, of comeback shows arranged and possibly cancelled—brings the level of surreal disbelief to a new threshold.

I’m just absorbing the news like everyone else.  One of those tragic ends that somehow seemed inevitable.  And even saying that much feels like too much.

Oddly enough, news searches for “Michael Jackson” don’t even bring up his death yet.  But  TMZ.com, along with Canadian television, are reporting the news.

Pale Fountains, “Jean’s Not Happening.”  This is almost like a Brit version of the Paisley Underground:

You still there? Good. For track two, let’s keep it in a 1984 mood with “Take,” by the Colourfield. These guys are coiffed. But not too, too much:

Nice jeans, right? From 1985, James, with “If Things Were Perfect”:

You might have guessed that these tracks were from an actual mix tape, back when mix tapes were actual things that people mixed for each other. As these songs never reflected my own taste and did little to turn me into a lifelong fan of James, the Colourfield, or the Pale Fountains (the tape was mixed for me, not by me), they’ve somehow remained all the more indelible in my mind—as if their very evanescence has made the memory of them all the more compelling. These tracks were on one of those perfect mix tapes: The kind given to you by a friend in the first rush of intimacy, when all sorts of fantastical projections can be made upon the Other, including “I bet he would just LOVE the Colourfield!”

Oddly enough, this tape, as I recall, was also scattered with b-sides from REM and maybe some Robyn Hitchcock, stuff I actually liked at the time. But it was these oddball tracks—destined not to even become cult classics despite the relative semi-success of James and the Colourfield (oddly, one of the members of the short-lived Pale Fountains would go on to join James)—that managed to stand out and which leapt, unbidden, into my brain the other night. I’m not even sure what to call this genre, if indeed it is one. Thatcher Twee Pop? Short Back and Sides?

I’ll leave you with one more for the weekend. A couple of years earlier and a bit more commercially viable. I don’t think I’d ever seen a video for this one and I don’t recall Roddy Frame wearing a Confederate kepi. Odd how the memory—Memorex?—tends to mix everything up.

Here’s Aztec Camera with… “Oblivious.”

Wow and Flutter does not support piracy. We’re much too modest and bland and a little fearful of the Pirate Bay crowd. The issues are confusing. Music conglomerates are detestable entities (and surely not about to make any more friends after this trial), but musicians deserve to be compensated for their efforts. If they’re not, bye bye music.

Perhaps Jammie can ask for a $1.92-million advance from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians, for whom she apparently works  in their Department of Natural Resources and Environment. More likely, they’ll settle up for a more manageable several thousand dollars. In other words, the weekly expense account of an executive at Warner’s, Sony, Universal, or EMI. Enjoy.

A group, including a number of DJs, have been accused of making hundreds of thousands of pounds by buying their own music online with stolen credit cards.

It’s alleged the gang put their own music on Apple iTunes and Amazon and spent about £459,000 buying it back – claiming nearly £200,000 in royalties.

Nine people were arrested in London and the Midlands after a joint operation with a new E-crime unit and the FBI….

The gang are alleged to have used 1,500 stolen credit cards.

via BBC – Newsbeat – Music.

While some commentators have professed to not hear any similarity at all (including the now online-only Blender), anyone who can’t hear that the whistling melody of this GM commercial is lifted straight from Dando’s composition has wax in his ears.

For comparison’s sake, here’s a vid circa 1992 of the Dando performing “It’s a Shame About Ray” on, no joke, Live with Regis and Kathie Lee:

It might be a longshot for Dando to win this case.  After all, the entire premise of jingles is that they’re often rewrites of familiar or semi-familiar songs. (It can cost a lot of money to get rights, you know.) But the timing couldn’t be better:  The Lemonheads’ comeback record, Varshons, is due out June 23.

Rachelle comes across as fairly likeable and no-nonsense.  (Sample quote: “I can weed whack. Rip out walls. Lay tile.”)  She makes a point of letting reporter Harriet Ryan know that she’s wearing a 10-year-old pantsuit (“her approach to shopping is more T.J. Maxx than Fred Segal”), although, obviously, this could be a well-rehearsed show of hardship. After all, Spector is expected to sink still more of his fortune into an appeal and Clarkson’s mother is gearing up for a damages-seeking civil suit.

As for the gold-digging charges, it must be acknowledged that, even for a self-described weed whacker, marriage to Phil Spector is not exactly a convenient route to personal wealth.  Even so, some of Rachelle’s observations are a bit chilling, to say the least.  Take, for instance, this defiantly macabre passage:

She fully embraces the theory put forth by the defense and rejected by a jury that Clarkson took her own life as she sat in a chair in the entranceway of Spector’s home.

Rachelle Spector and the producer chose to marry in that foyer 3 1/2 years after Clarkson’s death.

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said, adding, “I sit in that chair all the time.”

An off-topic moment to share this important breaking story from the The Boston Globe. 

A topless coffee shop that opened in Maine four months ago amid national notoriety was destroyed by arson early yesterday, the state fire marshal’s office ruled.

Evidence found among the rubble at the Grand View Coffee Shop, a former motel just north of Augusta, indicated that the 1 a.m. blaze had been set shortly after its owner appeared before the Vassalboro Planning Board to discuss extending the shop’s hours and allowing topless waitresses to dance around the restaurant.

The shop—which operated under possibly the weirdest business model ever—opened in February in an effort to lift spirits—and profits—amid the sagging economy. Today, what was arguably Maine’s hottest coffee is no more. Maybe they should have just stuck with bottomless cups.

From the Telegraph’s report (which also has video of the performance):

For her spectacular comeback show, Spears abandons even the pretence of playing live.

Lipsynced, autotuned and double tracked, her vocals are as unashamedly pre-recorded as her backing tracks. Although there appear to be various balding middle-aged men bashing away in the orchestra pit, there are no actual musicians onstage, if you discount a dwarf and a bodybuilder miming guitar. This is as unabashedly fake as a diamanté crown.

But fake is the new authentic, so it’s OK. Milli Vanilli’s biggest crime? Picking the wrong decade to lip synch. Well, and not being able to dance.

Her death came less than four weeks after her last performance, at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis, where she collected her record 29th Blues Music Award. She had surgery May 19 and appeared to be recovering until taking a turn Wednesday morning, and was with friends and family when she died.

Taylor was a living link to a golden time for the commercial fortunes of the blues, which were buoyed up by a surge of interest from fans reared on rock and roll.  Her gutsy, barreling style was also a bracing reminder of the power of the original blues queens—Bessie Smith, Sara Martin, Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey—figures all too often overlooked in what’s perceived as a mostly male genre.  I love this clip of her in her heyday, doing “Wang Dang Doodle” with Little Walter honking away on his harmonica.