Here's a nice 24 minute video with Pete Seeger and Majora Carter, an activist. You too can learn to sing:

In this Wired blog entry David Kravets reports on the music industry's attempt to make AM and FM radio pay not only songwriters and composers, but also record labels and recording artists, to broadcast songs.

The radio broadcasters say they are in the business of promotion, and shouldn't have to pay. They help artists.

The labels say broadcasting without paying is akin to piracy. And because they have succeeded in making on-line music providers and broadcasters pay, there is now added weight to their argument.

But I wonder where the public, who theoretically owns the airwaves, and the independent artist, who can't get played on radio to save his life, figures in the equation.

Who are the real pirates and what has been stolen?

Here's a short video of a news profile of Si Lewen, the father of a longtime friend of my parents, who donated all his artwork a couple years ago to the nonprofit organization my parents run. Click through to see the video.

Here's a nice remembrance of Bo Diddley by Dave Alvin, who played with him in LA one night in 1983. Bo Diddly died on Monday, June 2.