By Ruth Milne

This news is all over the MySpace bulletins this morning, and here’s what Pitchfork Media had to say:

Lance Hahn, longstanding member of the punk community and leader of Austin, Texas-based punks J Church, died Sunday (October 21) due to complications from his lengthy battle with kidney disease.

In addition to his work in J Church, Hahn (a native Hawaiian) played with Hawaii-based punks Cringer for most of the 1980s, and even moonlighted on guitar with Beck in 1994. …

In a sign of our techno-times, friends and fans are leaving comments on the J Church MySpace page. Sad reading. How did people mourn before MySpace?

Those of you who’ve been in the music scene here longer might know — did he ever play Rapid City?

By Ruth Milne

This just in: Led Zeppelin is going digital. The classic rock band’s entire back catalog will be available from online music stores and as ringtones beginning Nov. 13.

The Beatles, meanwhile, are still holding out.

If I owned a cell phone, I would dig “Communication Breakdown” as my ringtone. My boss here at the Journal, Deanna Darr, has Queen’s “Under Pressure” as her ringtone; take that how you will.

What’s your ringtone, and what do you think it says about you?

In other Zep news, the band has announced that it is reuniting for a Nov. 26 concert in London, with the late John Bonham’s son, Jason, on drums. I’ve never heard the guy play; anybody else have thoughts on the “reunion”?

It seems to be along the same lines as the thought that, if George Harrison weren’t dead, the Beatles could totally reunite with Julian Lennon on vocals.

It’s just not the real deal.

In other Beatles news — just going with the flow here — I scored a fine copy of “Magical Mystery Tour” on vinyl last weekend for 25 cents at a local thrift store.

Led Zeppelin, ringtones, the Beatles, thrift stores… comment as you wish.

By Eric Lochridge

I’ve been trying not to let this get around, but the secret’s out: I saw Genesis last weekend in Denver. And I enjoyed it. I know, I know – they’re not a cool band, so I’ve been changing the subject whenever it threatens to come up.

But since I bumped into an acquaintance who pried it out of me in a chance meeting at a fast-food restaurant earlier today, I’ve decided to come clean: I’ve been a Genesis junkie since I was 13.

I discovered the band in 1986, as “Invisible Touch” was released. But it didn’t take me long to dig through the Genesis back catalog to the band’s art-rock roots. Those early, progressive albums boasted complex songs ranging from eight to 28 minutes, quite a contrast with “Invisible Touch’s” radio-friendly pop.

I spent much of Saturday afternoon at an Octoberfest celebration in Denver making excuses and apologies for my evening concert selection. It’s very difficult to convince people that Phil Collins is cooler than he seems.

So it wasn’t exactly a young crowd filling the Pepsi Center Saturday night. The usual youthful ambience that permeates the pre-show audience was peculiarly absent. I was seated next to a denim-clad woman who apparently had survived a Bedazzler attack. She was with a bald man who looked curiously like Karl Rove, and she said she had been a Genesis fan for “a really long time — ever since ‘Miami Vice’.” Uh, OK, so she had caught the tail end of the band’s career. Then she pulled a hot roast beef sandwich out from I don’t know where and began to eat.

Anyway, it turns out that Genesis still sounds great, and they played a set that was skillfully balanced between the radio hits (”I Can’t Dance,” “Throwing It All Away,” “Land of Confusion”) and the old progressive songs (”In the Cage,” “Firth of Fifth,” “Afterglow,” “The Carpet Crawlers”).

And I’ll admit, that was pretty cool.

by Ruth Milne

Attitude Problem featuring Jason Wade performed earlier this week at the Imperial. But let’s start at the beginning: The first band to play that night was Old, made up of four musicians who have been playing in local bands for some years.

Despite four bands slated to play, there was not a single mike stand to be found. At first the solution seemed to be to hang it from the ceiling, but it wouldn’t pick up any sound when just dangling downward. An audience member held the mike for a couple songs, but that couldn’t last.

Jason S. to the rescue: using a drumstick, some tape and a whole lot of ingenuity, he fixed the problem.

The mike still spun around when it was sung into, causing some complications, but on the whole, it worked fairly well. I like Old’s sound a lot; you can check them out on MySpace.

All four band members.

They all wore the same shoes.

This is Jack, the drummer. I don’t know if this was taken while Old was playing or while the next band was up — he’s in both.

(more…)

by Ryan Woodard 

As Michaela astutely pointed out in the Kenny Rogers thread (a fact that was unbeknownst to me) Shiny Toy Guns will be appearing in Rapid City later this month. The indie rock/electronica group is playing at the Imperial Inn Oct. 15 at 8 p.m., according to their Myspace site. 

Anyone pumped about this besides Michaela? It seems like a pretty big score for a relatively small venue like the Imperial, since Shiny Toy Guns has some name recognition and reaches a pretty wide audience through the radio and other avenues. Plus, their song “Le Disko” is available as a downloadable ring tone on my phone. If you have a ring tone, you’ve made it, haven’t you?