September 28, 2007

Friday? Don’t Cry For Me Music News Day

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Beyonce

  • Beyonce‘s November 1 concert in Kuala Lumpur has been cancelled after the singer refused to conform to the country’s dress code for performers. Muslim groups had protested the concert, which would have been Beyonce’s first Malaysian show. The nation’s Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage instituted performance rules in 2005 including the dress code, which mandates that female performers show no skin between the tops of their chests and their knees. Insert “Bootylicious” joke here.

  • Radiohead have announced that a website containing a cryptic countdown and purporting to be related to the band is a hoax. Radiohead’s actual site features coded messages that many have interpreted to be announcements about the band’s upcoming album, including a message that it could be released in March, 2008. Why make us work so hard, Radiohead?!

  • The latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominees include Madonna, Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen, Donna Summer, Chic, Afrika Bambaataa, The Dave Clark Five, and The Ventures. Five acts will receive the honor. What’s the point of this again?

  • The “Who Killed Biggie Smalls” mystery gets more mysterious: an inmate who had previously implicated the LAPD in the crime has now renounced his testimony, saying it was a “scam” to get money from the city. Waymond Anderson, serving time for murder, says he “did what he had to to survive,” and that a lawyer for Biggie’s family was in on the scheme. Confused? Me too.

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    WE CAME UP SHORT.

    We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

    That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

    So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

    Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

    And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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