Raging On: Bullshit capitalist music labels

Hello all and welcome to another rousing edition of Raging On, the hottest thing since my bout with Montezuma's Revenge. Today's post finds me in a rather foul mood. The tale I am about to tell you is real. No names have been changed to protect anybody. This is yet another example that corporate asshats who run record labels under the guise of actually caring about their consumers are evil and need to be wiped from Earth. I believe if Dante were alive today, he'd rewrite his epic book, "Inferno", to include another circle of hell that would be strictly for lawyers and record label executives. Enjoy.

Friends, about a year ago, I was trolling on a defunct Bittorrent tracker site known as SharingtheGroove. This site was dedicated to perfect digital copies of bootlegs and unreleased, NON-COPYWRITED albums. It was, without a doubt, the Napster of bootlegging. Anything and everything you could ever hope for was on this list. One day, I happened across a very interesting posting. It was for a band named Beatallica. I was curious, so I downloaded the album that was available, their first EP titled "A Garage Dayz Night". As you can tell by the name of the band and album, they are a parody band that fuses (quite successfully I might add) the music and lyrics of Metallica and The Beatles. Once I listened to it, I was hooked. I went to their website, www.beatallica.org (they have recently created a beatallica.com...but read on for some info on that), and found out that they had yet another album under their belt. Simply titled "Betallica", it was a nod to both the Black Album and White Album. The album "cover", as you can imagine, is gray. So anyway, this band hooked me hard and I became a huge fan. Now, lets fast forward to this past month. A certain music conglomerate that goes by the name Sony has served both the band AND the ISP that hosted the bands websites with cease and desist letters, talking about punitive damages, copywrite infringement, and other bullshit. The part that really chaps my ass is that they had the site shutdown via what they claim are violations of the DMCA....which is total horseshit because music that is freely distributed by a band that makes no profit off of anything from either bands it parodies AND is not represented as works created by the original bands is in no way, shape, or form a violation. Since the name is so big, naturally the little ISP quickly adhered to their demands and pulled the plug. Now, some of you might be saying, "So what, its just a website." But its more than that. This was the bands way of getting their music out to the world. Being non-profit and only doing it because they love it, they don't have the money to promote their swag and albums on a global scale. Hell, they can't even do it on a national scale. Their tours basically sweep a line from Cleveland to Milwaukee. Its hard to tour when you don't make any money, so they turned to the web as their portal for worldwide domination. Their music rocks. They are extremely talented and their lead singer pulls off a very eerily-realistic James Hetfield impersonation. The band do it all in fun, from their stage names (Jaymz, Krk, Kliff, and Ringo Larz) to the titles of the songs they've wedded together. Listed below is an example of some of the titles listed below:

Sgt. Hetfield's Motorbreath Pub Band
Got to Get You Trapped Under Ice
The Thing that Should Not Let it Be
Blackened in the U.S.S.R.
Hey Dude
...And Justice for All My Lovin' to You
I Wanna Choke Your Band
And I'm Evil (a kickass Glenn Danzig impersonation included in this gem)
Leper Madonna

There are several other songs I haven't listed, but you get the idea. If these songs titles sound interesting, you should hear the music...but that's the problem. With this unnecessary C&D order, they can no longer host their songs for all to download. Its bullshit, because they aren't doing anything wrong. And what's more fucked....Metallica actually supports this. Lars himself has contacted the band and offered their support. LARS!!!! Mr. Napster-bad himself. And its not even The Beatles who are suing...its the record label that owns the rights to the songs. Remember, child-molesting Michael Jackson bought the rights, and sold some controlling interest in them to Sony so he could pay some bills. This is where it all comes from. Sony, the multimedia juggernaut is the one behind all this. I am sure Paul and Ringo could "give a toss" (using their lingo) about some independant band that takes their music and fuses it with Metallica's. THIS BAND MAKES NO MONEY OFF OF THE LEGACY OF EITHER BAND IT PARODIES!!! Why is this an issue? I say fuck you, Sony. Fuck you. Hopefully Metallica will be a little forthcoming in the fight to keep the band alive and give them some access to their lawyers, because there's a huge fight here, and one that will definitely have some historical precidence in it. A win would close this loophole in the DMCA, and prevent others from trying to sue tribute bands and the such that DON'T get sponsorship from the band they pay tribute too (Don't believe this happens? KISS shutdown 10 tribute bands in the past 5 years because they didn't seek KISS' permission to use their music, look, or sound). This is all bullshit, and it needs to stop. You can do your part to support this band by signing this petition as well as visiting their forum and letting them know you support them. Until their site is restored to all its glory, I will be happy to help anyone out who would like to hear this band's music. Drop me an email at spreadingbeatallica@gmail.com and I will hook you up with both of their albums. Its a small effort, but one I think is well worth it.

This has been Raging On, have a wonderful, rage-filled day. Please visit Relevent Irreverence, a new internet destination for all things artistic, musical, and disturbing.