Fatboy Slim will release his forthcoming full length under his newly-created Brighton Port Authority guise.

The album, his first since 2004's Palookaville, features a guest on every one of its twelve tracks, and will probably be the only time you'll get to hear both Dizzee Rascal and Talking Heads frontman David Byrne on the same track. Entitled I Think We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat, the record also features vocal turns by Iggy Pop, Jamie T and Martha Wainwright, while Ashley Beedle and Justin Robertson offer their production expertise.

Tracklist
01. He's Frank (ft. Iggy Pop)
02. Dirty Sheets (ft. Pete York)
03. Jumps the Fence (ft. Conan)
04. Should I Stay or Should I Blow (ft. Ashley Beedle)
05. Island (ft. Justin Robertson)...

USC Thorton School of Music offers first US popular music degree

The USC Thornton School of Music will introduce a new Popular Music Performance major in Fall 2009, providing the next generation of professional musicians with an undergraduate degree program in which to develop their talents.

"Colleges and universities have been talking about the need for a quality program of this kind for decades," said USC Thornton Dean Robert Cutietta. "We have built the reputation of the Thornton School by focusing on artistic quality, not style of music. I am proud that we are on the cutting edge of offering a program at the highest artistic and academic levels that have made our school famous."

Several years in the making, the Bachelor of Music in Popular Music Performance required building an entirely new curriculum from the ground up, according to Chris Sampson, USC Thornton songwriting faculty and director of the new program. It is the first university program to eschew the euphemisms "contemporary music" or "American vernacular" to describe popular music.

"People are not listening to music in genre-specific ways," Sampson says, noting that the same iPod will frequently contain classical music, jazz, rock and Top 10 hits. "We need to train musicians differently."...

James Murphy quashes rumours that his band is on indefinate hold

LCD Soundsystem mainman James Murphy has revealed he has written the band's next album, quashing rumours that the band were unlikely to return following the release of 2007's 'Sound Of Silver'.

The producer/solo artist told NME.COM that he has penned eight songs for the album, which will be the third LCD effort, and is keeping the tracks under lock and key - in his head.

"I write all my music in my head, I never demo," Murphy told NME.COM. "I get to a point where there are too many songs and I have to get them recorded. I recently felt that. I've got eight in my head - that's critical mass."...

'Timesculpture' is a new ad created by Toshiba. The groundbreaking multi-million dollar ad campaign manipulates "moving snapshots of time" using more than 200 Toshiba Gigashot camcorders.

The track it's all set to is 'Air War' by Crystal Castles.

And if you think that's cool check out the video of the making of Timesculpture...

Is there no Justice?

Out comes this photo which shows the pair faking it during a live set?

The MIDI controller wasn't plugged in, Busted! Live electronic music is a hard thing to do but Justice quickly responded to the photo, ‘The USB cable fell out!’

“I couldn’t remember the city but I think it was in Manchester,” he said.

“I didn’t notice at first, because as you can see I was looking at the computer to launch the next vocal hook and right after I realised that the blue screen went black, so there was no way possible it could work. So I plugged it back in, big deal! And the next thing you know is this picture.”

The Doc is in the house

The Eclectech is happy to embrace one of our own Angelinos and a legendary master selector, Doc Martin! Along with The Eclectech's resident and curator, Eduardo Castillo.

In this age of specialized formats among DJ's and producers, what sets Doc Martin apart from his peers is his ability to spin everything from deep house, funk, tribal, disco, and classics in a set, while having it all make sense.

Neatly avoiding pigeonholing, while embracing a myriad of different styles, his set creates a warm unique vibe of empathy on the dance floor. Doc is one of the most sought after DJs in America. Constantly touring, he can be found playing records everywhere from England to New Zealand, and everywhere in between.

EVENT DETAILS

Price
$15+ tickets >>
When
Thurssday December 4 (9pm–4am)
Where
King King (map)

German electronic music pioneers ruled against in sampling case

Kraftwerk were dealt a blow by Germany's high court (November 20) in lawsuit determining whether artists should have the right to sample other bands' music without infringing on copyright.

In the ruling issued last month, the high court overturned an earlier ruling by Hamburg state court in Kraftwerk's favor stating that reusing even the shortest snippet of a song was considered copyright infringement.

The court had prohibited the sampling of a song melody unless it was part of a completely new work bearing no resemblance to the original.

Now the German high court has overturned that decision and sent the case back to the civil court, reports the Associated Press.

Kraftwerk sued rap producer Moses Pelham for sampling two seconds of their 1977 song 'Metal On Metal' in the track 'Nur Mir' by Sabrina Setlur.

50 Cent has no problem telling Taco Bell where to stick its chalupa.

50 Cent has been accused of embellishing his tough-guy image by fast-food chain Taco Bell after filing a federal lawsuit in Manhattan. The company responded in court documents to the suit filed by the star in June for trademark infringement.

Taco Bell say that the rapper is trying to embellish "his gangsta rapper persona by distorting beyond all recognition a bona fide, good faith offer".They called him a "self-described former drug dealer and hustler" in notes to Manhattan Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, reports the New York Daily News.

Taco Bell's president, Greg Creed, the guy who sent, publicity-seeking letters to Paris Hilton after she was jailed, has struck again. He’s apparently been trying to get 50 Cent to change his name to 79, 89, or 99 Cent for a day to promote the chain’s value meals—and then rap a lunch order, using the revised currency when referring to himself. In return for all this, Taco Bell promised $10,000 to a charity of Fiddy’s choice. “We know that you adopted the name 50 Cent years ago as a metaphor for change,” Creed reportedly wrote. “We at Taco Bell are also huge advocates for change. ... We encourage you to ‘Think outside the bun’ and hope you accept our offer.”...

Blink-182 to reform?

Ex-Blink 182 star Mark Hoppus has suggested that the pop-punk group could reform in the near future, after splitting up in 2005.

The singer also discussed the recovery of the band's drummer Travis Barker, who recently suffered injuries in a plane crash in which he was one of just two survivors.

Writing on Pickrset.com, Hoppus wrote: "In the midst of everything else that has happened lately, Tom [DeLonge, frontman] Travis, and I have all spoken together. First through a number of phone calls, and then a couple of weeks ago we all hung out for a few hours.

"They've all been great, very positive conversations. We're just reconnecting as friends after four years of not talking," he continued...

The Prodigy dishes it out.

‘Invaders Must Die’ is available to download from the band’s website and will be up till December 3rd along with a new high def video.

What are your thoughts on the title track?

In what seems like a strange move by the duo, Justice have admitted to using a bunch of uncleared samples on last year's † album.

During an interview with MTV, they confirmed that their debut full length is littered with samples of other people's work, including heavyweight artists such as Queen, 50 Cent and masked nu-metallers Slipknot. During a conversation regarding their production techniques, Justice's Xavier de Rosnay had the audacity to tell the interviewer, "Say we use the In Da Club hand clap — not even 50 Cent would notice." You might have thought that he would stop at this theoretical point, but then went on to explain that "if you listen to 'Genesis,' the first track (on †), there are samples of Slipknot, Queen and 50 Cent, but they are such short samples no one can recognize them. The ones from Slipknot, for example, are just tiny bits of the voice."

He then went on to say that they did actually license some of the samples that had a larger duration, but with the smaller ones just masked them so that they would be difficult to detect. "On the album, we used three big samples that we had to clear, and all the rest are just impossible to recognize," he continued. "We're using the very short samples to improve the sound, because we are just writing melodies on piano and then we are listing each note taken from other records, so we make a trade between those notes and the proper loops."...

Legendary video to become a stage musical.

Michael Jackson's legendary video ‘Thriller’ is reportedly to be made into a musical for Broadway.

The 14-minute video clip for the track, taken from the album of the same name, was directed by John Landis and made waves upon its release in 1983 due its length and cost, which at the time was $500,000.

The story centres on Jackson and his date, who are attacked by a mass of zombies after a night at the movies. According to the New York Post, James Nederlander will produce the Broadway production.

After shifting over a million copies a week for over a year, 'Thriller' became the worldwide best-selling album of all time, and was the first album to be Number One in the US and UK. It won seven Grammy Awards in 1984.

Apparently Micks looking for inspiration.

The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger is set to produce a film with director Martin Scorsese, according to reports.

The singer is looking into buying the rights to various biographies which the pair could turn into a film, claims The Sun, although the paper did not reveal further details about the project or the source of the information.

Jagger worked with Scorsese when the director made a documentary film about two of The Rolling Stones' 2006 'A Bigger Bang' tour shows.

The resulting movie, 'Shine A Light', was released earlier this year and featured guest turns from Jack White, Christina Aguilera and Buddy Guy.