October 15, 2007

Led Zeppelin to Be Available Digitally; Bulge Now Available in the Times

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One of the last digital holdouts are finally giving up and joining Soulja Boy, Feist and Britney Spears in the exciting new world of online music sales, reports the New York Times. Led Zeppelin resisted digital sales for years, but a new set of contractual agreements with their label, Warner/Chappell, now includes downloads. Their catalog will be available on iTunes starting November 13th, but Verizon Wireless gets first dibs, somehow, with what the Times calls “mobile features” available starting this week. One can only hope those mobile features will include phone screen savers featuring the crotch bulge of Jimmy Page, which the Times apparently wanted to get in its hallowed pages so desperately they used a shot that the photographer couldn’t even remember the date for.

The Times has a couple choice quotes about the band; first, David Dorn, the senior vice president of Rhino Entertainment, gushes a bit optimistically about them, saying:

“The great thing about this band, unlike almost any other band that you could think of, is that every single day there is a new 13-year-old kid who’s just starting to get into music” and will discover the group.

Call me crazy, but aren’t 13-year-olds listening to High School Musical these days? Later in the article, the music supervisor for School of Rock boasts of licensing the band’s music for the film, calling them “the holy sound of the temple of rock.” Jeez, he’s been spending a little too much time around Jack Black.

Anyway, as we’ve covered here before, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin will reunite November 26 for a show in London; Jimmy Page promises two extra socks will be stuffed down his pants for the occasion.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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