October 19, 2007

Friday Implies It’s Music News Day

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  • Rapper T.I. may be in serious trouble after he was arrested in a sting trying to purchase machine guns and silencers. Police also found a half a pound (!) of marijuana in his car. A phalanx of supporters attended a court date in Atlanta today, including up-and-coming hip-hop star Young Jeezy, where T.I. pleaded “not guilty.”

  • Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was named a Visiting Professor at the University of Salford in Manchester, where he will deliver “a series of workshops and masterclasses to students on the BA Popular Music and Recording degree.” Professor Marr, what do you do if your lead singer is lying about how much he’s paying the drummer and the bassist?

  • The recording industry goes after Usenet for illegal music file-sharing. Usenet. Wasn’t that what all the geeks in the computer lab at college were on back in like 1988? What next, oh record labels: going after on-hold music? Commodore 64 music composition programs? Home taping?

  • A dude in a gas mask freaked Annie Lennox out at a concert in Boulder, Colorado on Tuesday night. Lennox saw the man approaching and fled the stage, later apologizing to fans but defending her reaction, calling the guy “freakish and disturbing.” The man was also wearing, uh, platform boots and a cape. Is this the hot look this season in Boulder?

    • WE CAME UP SHORT.

    We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

    That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

    So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

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    WE CAME UP SHORT.

    We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

    That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

    So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

    Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

    And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

    payment methods

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