By Fact Magazine

Poland’s acclaimed experimental music festival Unsound will present its first ever New York edition in 2010. 

Founded in 2003, Unsound’s base is in Krakow; following outpost events in further cities like Minsk, the festival is journeying west on a mission to “forge new links between music genres, between generations and even between artistic practices”.

The festival takes place over ten days, kicking off on Thursday 4 February. The strand of the festival likely to prove most popular is the Andy Warhol program, for which various artists have been invited to provide live soundtracks for Warhol films. On February 5 at the Lincoln Center, nsi. – Berlin-based experimental duo Tobias Freund and Max Loderbauer – will soundtrack Warhol’s Kiss, while none other than Carl Craig plays along to Blow Job. According to Unsound, both these soundtracks will be “analogue synthesizer-driven”. On the following night Groupshow – the band helmed by minimal techno innovator Jan Jelinek – will perform a (gulp) eight-hour long live improvisation to Warhol’s Empire (an unwaveringly static shot of the Empire State Building).  [Read More]

By  Djhistory.com

He’s there each night from ten to closing time, With sights and sounds to help the crowds unwind,

And from the booth each night he blows your mind With his mix and tricks

Forget – for the moment at least – Donna Summer, Silver Convention, Brass Construction, Gloria Gaynor, Bohannon, Love Unlimited – that endless ever-changing, slippery starstream of names shooting through disco heaven. The real stars of the seventies disco boom aren’t on records, they’re spinning them. [Read More]

By BBC News

Abba are to enter the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with four other acts including UK prog-rockers Genesis.

The Stooges, Jimmy Cliff and The Hollies will also be inducted in a ceremony in New York on 15 March.

The performers were chosen from a longlist announced earlier this year, which had included the Red Hot Chili Peppers and rock band Kiss.

It is unlikely that Swedish band Abba, who disbanded in 1983, will stage a reunion performance for the event. [Read More]

By Corey Kilgannon – NY Times

The man in the hooded sweatshirt and cargo pants was not recognizable, but the three letters he was rendering as a 15-foot mural on the wall of a Hell’s Kitchen building certainly were: B.N.E.

This mischievous monogram, posted by marker, spray can, roller and especially stickers, has become part of the landscape of New York and cities worldwide, thrilling graffiti admirers and roiling public officials. Its saturation has provoked one of the more enduring Internet mysteries: What and who is B.N.E.? [Read More]

By Jim Farber – Daily News

In an era ruled by pop and R&B acts, a scrappy rock band just racked up the most downloaded CD of the year.

“Only By The Night” from Kings of Leon has earned the title of top selling digital album of the year so far, according to iTunes, enjoying sales of just under 400,000 units. (Apple doesn’t release exact figures for its downloads, but SoundScan Nielsen does, and the overwhelming majority of those come from iTunes).

Another edgy rock album took the No. 2 spot – the “Twilight” soundtrack – followed by the debut from shock dance queen Lady GaGa at No. 3. Each enjoyed sales in the 330,000 to 350,000 range. (The two works switched positions on SoundScan’s list, which demonstrates the narrow margin between general downloading figures and iTunes’ own). [Read More]

By Patrick Mcgeehan – NewYork Times

At a glance, the far corner of the main floor of J&R Music looks familiar to anybody old enough to have scratched a record by accident. There are cardboard boxes filled with albums by the likes ofMiles Davis and the Beach Boys that could be stacked in any musty attic in America.

But this is no music morgue; it is more like a life-support unit for an entertainment medium that has managed to avoid extinction, despite numerous predictions to the contrary. The bins above the boxes hold new records — freshly pressed albums of classic rock as well as vinyl versions of the latest releases from hip-hop icons like 50 Cent and Diddy and new pop stars like Norah Jones and Lady Gaga. [Read More]