U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero on Tuesday in California ruled that recipients of promotional CDs are free to do with them as they please. The ruling came during the case of Universal Music Group vs. Troy Augusto, in which Universal filed suit against Augusto for selling advanced and “promotional use only” CDs on eBay. Universal Music Group argued that it retained licensing rights and could prohibit such resale, even though they and other labels send them out unsolicited and with no verification of receipt. You can read the full PDF of the judge’s ruling here.
Slipknot reveals a few new song titles in the new issue of Revolver magazine, which focuses on bands appearing on this summer's Rockstar Energy Mayhem tour. Among the tracks tentatively named are "Moth," "Chapter One," "The Eleventh March," "Dirge," "Dead Memories," "Vendetta" and "Psycho Social." Although the title of the album itself is not revealed, all hope is not gone: the band plans to unveil the name of the August 26th release any day now.
One person who might like to know more about the disc is Slipknot percussionist Shawn "Clown" Crahan, who admitted to us that he's not up on the latest details: "I have not really spent a moment with this record. I'm working on myself, and I have been for the last three years, after my father passed and my mom has Alzheimer's, and kids are growing up, and everything's just crazy. So I spent a lot of time on me. So I haven't really even sat down and listened to this whole record to begin with. I don't even know what most of the songs are called."
The Rockstar Energy trek, which Slipknot is co-headlining with Disturbed, kicks off on July 9th in Seattle.
Velvet Revolver lead guitarist Slash is spending the band's downtime working on his first full-fledged solo album, according to Spinner.com. He told the web site, "I'm working on it pretty aggressively right now while I have the time 'cause as soon as Velvet finds its singer, then it's going to be off the races with that. I'm using this little period to be able to do as much on my solo record as possible. I'm not sure exactly when it will come out, but hopefully it will come out before the Velvet record."
The guitarist called this project a "little bit more personal" than past efforts like his first post-Guns N' Roses band, Slash's Snakepit. Slash did not say who else might be playing on the record with him.
Velvet Revolver is still auditioning new singers since dismissing Scott Weiland two months ago.
Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler is heading back for a second season of Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, the VH1 reality series in which celebrity patients undergo a 21-day detox and treatment regimen at the Pasadena Recovery Center under the care of Dr. Drew Pinsky. Actor Jeff Conaway from Taxi will also make an encore appearance on the show. Joining Adler and Conaway are Whitesnake singer David Coverdale's ex-wife Tawny Kitaen, model Amber Smith, Rodney King, American Idol contestant Nikki McKibbon and others.
Ex-Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, a recovering addict himself, told us that he tried to help his old bandmate overcome his problems last year: "I went to Vegas to go get Steven out of the situation that he was in, which for 17, 18 years, ever since he was kicked out of the band, he's been a diehard junkie who's pretty much had one foot in the grave and one foot amongst us all this time. I went to go see him and he was in a really bad way, so I got him out of Vegas and sort of did like a mock intervention on him."
Adler was Guns N' Roses' original drummer and played on the band's classic 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction. But he was dismissed from the group two years later and replaced by Matt Sorum.
Celebrity Rehab's second season, consisting of eight one-hour episodes, will premiere in October of 2008.