_ Bayside, NYC indie rockers, are starting their own internet radio show, Gumshoe Radio. Anthony Raneri and Nick Ghanbarian from the band will host. The show will air from 7 to 9 p.m. (Easter Time) on idobiradio.com. They will chat about current events, alternative culture and midget pornography (yes, yes, I made that last one up). The show begins November 18, 2011.

There will, of course, be music and Raneri and Ghanbarian will be totally in control of what gets played. There will also be special musical guests. The show is to be taped but it will be taped within a week of air time.

Bayside’s latest record, Killing Time, came out earlier this year. It was produced by Gil Norton (The Pixies, Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World etc). They are at the end of a tour with Saves the Day, I Am The Avalanche and Transit.

Music folks—promoters bands and eve PR PEOPLE…brrr (I tease them as I was once one of them) have the potential to do a lot of good. One recent example of all of the above (and more) stepping up to the plate is the Life is Good Festival which had 20,000 in attendance and raised a million dollars for Life is Good Playmakers (the “action arm” of the Life is Good Kids Foundation).

Life is Good is a Boston based company with a social mission to help kids overcome life-threatening challenges.

And this festival fundraiser partnered with Superfly Presents (wait? A PROMOTER WITH A SOUL…HOW CAN IT BE…but it IS) and put some super musical acts on three stages. There were kids performers but also included were Ray LaMontagne, The Avett Brothers, Michael Franti and Spearhead, The Levon Helm Band, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Martin Sexton, Raphael Saadiq, Ingrid Michaelson and The Hold Steady. Brandi Carlile and The Levon Helm Band  did sets with The Boston Pops.

 Life is Good donated 100 percent of theprofits from ticket sales, sponsors and onsite apparel and merch sales to the foundation. ALSO the festival aimed at getting people to do good. They arranged for numerous people to sign on as VGAs (Very Good People) and raise funds for the Life is Good Playmakers. These folks raised over $435,000.

If you were wondering (you cynical bastard), “The Life is good Kids Foundation is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit committed to helping children overcome life-threatening challenges such as violence, illness and extreme poverty.  Its Playmakers initiative provides innovative training and support to the frontline child care professionals dedicated to helping these children so that all involved lead healthier, more joyful lives. To date, the Life is good Playmakers have trained more than 2,500 Playmakers across the country who have provided joyful, healing play to over 130,000 children.”

This last part was a boiler plate description that is going to hurt me with Google I bet. But, I cannot say it better.  The fest had lots of extras and stuff for kids, games, art projects, food and mascots from pro sports teams for photos.

Good for everyone involved.

Alien Ant Farm are returning. NOW, this might usually be an ominous declaration but this is about the band rather than the actual alien ant farm (and I thought Monsanto was bad…). The original line up are back together and working on their first record since 2006.

The band have been out on a 60 date USA tour, the ANTicipation Tour, which was their first headlining tour since the tragic bus crash that killed their driver and seriously injured singer Dryden Mitchell. It is one of those things that happens when you are on the road a lot.

Details on the record and more tour dates are in the offing in the coming months.

Just a little FYI in case you haven’t heard--Garbage are finishing up their fifth studio record. It has been seven years since they last released an album. It is being recorded in LA (the first by the band not recorded in Wisconsin). The release date is sometime in the spring of 2012.

It is hard to believe it has been 16 years since Garbage first appeared and started tossing around platinum records. But it isn’t as shocking it has taken awhile for a record to appear. It was three years in between their first and second. Keep an eye out. The release says nothing of it but you have to believe there will be a tour—or at least festival appearances. Wouldn’t they be perfect for Lollapalooza? Hey! Let’s start a totally unsubstantiated internet rumor? We could also say they’d be perfect for Bonnaroo.

Gainesville, Florida’s Less Than Jake were picketed by the close, personal friends of Jesus who infest the Westboro Baptist Church last weekend while performing in Pensacola Florida. Ska, of course, is Satan’s favorite music. People think it is black metal. Not true. Satan does not own a single Deicide CD. He is all about Less Than Jake, Madness, The Selector etc.

The band says they do swear and are fairly liberal but they are still perplexed as to why they were targeted. I have a theory; these folks do not picket black metal concerts because the crowds are much more potentially DANGEROUS than people going to see a Ska show. In other words..."bwock bwock BWWWOCK."

From the press release on the subject the band do not particularly care and have a “they can say whatever they want” attitude toward the whole thing. I wonder if the guys from (and fans of) Acheron would take such a live and let live attitude? Next time they play I suggest the folks from Westboro bring the picket signs. They reformed at the end of last year and will, presumably, tour.

But lets get back to Less Than Jake. They recently released expanded versions of two of their very EVVVIL records from the 90s--Losing Streak and Hello Rockview on their own imprint, Sleep it off.

They will be out on the Vans Warped Tour this summer spreading the Gospel of Lucifer to your children.

They are not “brokers” they are loathsome, money grubbing scalpers. They snatched up the lion’s share of the tickets to LCD Soundsystem’s final show at Madison Square Garden, leaving the band’s fans out in the cold. Let’s face it, many people (me for instance) have to think twice about paying $60 for a concert ticket. But when scalpers step in and increase the cost by a factor of ten we no longer have the luxury of “thinking about it”; we are priced out.  I usually don’t even look at big stadium or sports arena shows. I know there is no chance of getting a good seat from Ticketmaster.

LCD’s James Murphy did the right thing, adding four shows March 28, 29, 30 and 31 (at Terminal Island). The shows will be limited to two per person when they go on sale on February 18th.

If these scalper weasels hadn’t been SO greedy, they would have gone unnoticed. But they had to get as many tickets as possible. I do not mean to piss on the show but NO ONE should buy a scalped ticket for this show or any other show from these vermin. We don’t need legislation (it is hard to write and enforce). Just stop patronizing these creatures who habitate one rung down from tow yard operators on the ladder of sentient life. Put them out of business, leave stadiums empty if you have to. I know people won’t because they just HAVE to see U2 or The Stones….

But it is a nice thought.

I wanted to add one thing.  One question—did the scalpers figure out how to JOB Ticketmaster? Or was there something else going on here?

Part of James Murphy’s statement.

"... We were more than taken aback and surprised about the speed of ticket sales for the April 2nd MSG gig, as well as the effectiveness of scalper pieces of fucking shit at getting their hands on said tickets before fans could, and it's knocked us on our asses... We never dreamed some shitbags would try to get THOUSANDS for our show.  It's insane... So to the point.  You can't make everyone happy... But we've come up with the best solution I can think of, as quickly as possible so as to deflate the market for those scalping scumfucks: We're going to play 4 shows at Terminal 5 in NYC leading up to the MSG show, and they will include most if not all of the songs we play at MSG. The farewell run-up to the last dance... OBVIOUSLY we're going to look seriously at the way we sell these tickets... (though it'll take a minute to get folks in the door)... We're announcing all the shows at once, and if they don't sell out, I don't care. I just want to give people who actually want to see us a chance to see us. For a reasonable ticket price.  And I want to drop the price of the MSG tickets being sold by piece of shit scalpers. Oh, and a small thing to scalpers: 'It's legal' is what people say when they don't have ethics.  The law is there to set the LIMIT of what is PUNISHABLE (aka where the state needs to intervene)  but we are supposed to have ethics, and that should be the primary guiding force in our actions... And to everyone else: Thank you.  You rule.  Don't let the shitbags win."

Full Statement by James Murphy --lcdsoundsystem.com