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President Barack Obama’s promises of change are falling short for one core Democratic constituency: gays and lesbians, whose leaders say Obama’s administration is not keeping up with the times. Gay rights campaigners, most of them Democrats who supported Obama in November, have begun to voice their public frustration with Obama’s inaction, small jokes at their community’s expense and deafening silence on what they see as the signal civil rights issue of this era. His campaign promises to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and the military ban on openly gay and lesbian servicemembers have not been fulfilled. And the news,… Read more »

All Time Low has just confirmed a string of dates on the main stage of this summer’s Vans Warped Tour, along with earlier support dates for We the Kings. The band will be touring in support of its forthcoming release, Nothing Personal, in stores July 7.   Having just recently finished a tour with Fall Out Boy, the Maryland foursome will jump on Warped Tour in Oceanport, N.J., and remain on until the the tour concludes in Los Angeles. Prior to these dates, the band will do a short headlining tour with We The Kings and Cartel, hitting several cities… Read more »

At 4:20 p.m. yesterday, while moe. doodled on a series of winding tunes, those close to the stage at the Earth Day on the Mall concert in Washington, DC, got a glimpse of some unusual items being frantically unloaded: a giant pair of hands, a massive orange ring. There was no mistaking it – the Flaming Lips‘ gear had finally arrived, just 25 minutes before they were due to hit the stage in front of the gleaming Capitol. While techs scrambled, Coyne vamped by chatting with fans and amping up Administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson’s speech, waving… Read more »

The Flaming Lips will go from spending “Christmas on Mars“ to Earth Day in Washington, D.C. when they perform a free concert at the National Mall Apr. 19th. Additional bands will take the stage in 10 cities nationwide as part of this year’s Earth Day Network & Green Apple Festival Day. Joining the “Soft Bulletin”  band in the Nation’s Capitol will be moe., Los Lobos, DJ Spooky and emcee Chevy Chase. The 10-city festival, which “emphasizes environmental volunteerism in solidarity with the new administration’s ‘call to service,’” is jam band-packed this year, with artists like Galactic playing in Atlanta, Soulive… Read more »

A group that collects royalties for music artists and recording companies has agreed to reduce rates for thousands of commercial radio stations that also play songs over the Internet.   Internet radio station operators had complained that rates originally set by the federal Copyright Royalty Board in 2007 could essentially force them to shut down. The new deal lowers those rates by about 16 percent in 2009 and 2010. The stations will now pay $1.50 for every song heard by 1,000 listeners in 2009, rising to $2.50 per 1,000 listeners in 2015. The agreement between the National Assn. of Broadcasters… Read more »

In 1993, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, the Smashing Pumpkins and Pavement brought AIDS activism into the bedrooms of grunge-obsessed teens on the benefit album ” No Alternative” marrying music to message in a way that registered strongly with Generation X. The project, organized by the Red Hot Organization — an international production company dedicated to fighting AIDs through pop culture — and released by Arista Records sold 292,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan and generated several modern rock radio hits. But the success was a mixed blessing; other major labels went out of their way to… Read more »

Overwhelming youth support for President-elect Barack Obama in battleground states kept this election out of reach for Sen. McCain, according to Eric Greenberg, author of “Generation We: How Millennial Youth Are Taking Over America and Changing Our World Forever.” “This race would have been extremely close had the youth vote not been so active. Nationally there was an a large increase in the youth vote turnout, but it was their massive turnout in college towns in the battleground states that kept this election out of reach for McCain,” Greenberg said. Exit polls show that the youth vote supported Obama/Biden over… Read more »

LOS ANGELES — In an election otherwise full of liberal triumphs, the gay rights movement suffered a stunning defeat as California voters approved a ban on same-sex marriages that overrides a recent court decision legalizing them. The constitutional amendment – widely seen as the most momentous of the nation’s 153 ballot measures – will limit marriage to heterosexual couples, the first time such a vote has taken place in a state where gay unions are legal. Gay-rights activists had a rough election elsewhere as well. Ban-gay-marriage amendments were approved in Arizona and Florida, and Arkansas voters approved a measure banning… Read more »

One of the first responders to a fiery South Carolina plane crash said Wednesday that a pair of musicians escaped the flaming wreckage by sliding down the wing. “They said the plane went down. They didn’t say how or if they knew,” said Lt. Jason Shumpert of the South Congaree Police Department. “Once it went down, they were able to slide down the wing of the plane, and they jumped on each other to put fires on each other out and rolled around on the ground.” Shumpert said he didn’t know until later that the two badly burned men were… Read more »