November 2, 2007

Friday? Aye, It’s Music News Day

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  • Wait, you’re telling me that after the whole build-up and lottery rigamarole, the Led Zeppelin reunion show scheduled for November 26th in London is being postponed because Jimmy Page hurt his widdle finger? Oh, but you’re also telling me it was actaully a fracture, and the show’s already been rescheduled for December 10th? Okay then.

  • Meat Loaf halted a gig in Newcastle, UK last night after only a few songs, announcing not only the end of the show but of his musical career. “I can no longer continue,” he said, “this is the last show I may ever do in my life.” Audience members reported the singer had seemed “drunk” and was slurring his words during the concert; Meat Loaf apparently tours with an oxygen tank by the side of the stage due to health concerns.

  • Rapper Da Brat was arrested in Atlanta last night after allegedly hitting a waitress in the face with a rum bottle. Ouch. She posted $50,000 bail and was released. Da Brat was the first female rapper to go platinum. More importantly, what’s that horrible yellow polka-dot jacket she’s wearing? Is that a promotional shawl for Bee Movie?

  • Do you like music, except for all those musical parts? Well get your rhythmic butt to the 19th Annual Drum-Off Grand Finals in Hollywood January 5th, where drummers from Bad Religion, The Roots, No Doubt and Pennywise will, you know, drum. The event brings percussionists from around the country together to compete for a $10,000 prize and the ignorance of fans everywhere.
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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.

    The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

    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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    Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

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    Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

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