- Smashing Pumpkins and Kanye West will headline Miami’s Bang! Music Festival on November 10-11th. The two-year-old festival is expanding to two days, and in addition to the Pumpkins’ only Florida set of the year, the preliminary performer list includes the Bravery and Riverboat Gamblers (the thirty-act lineup will be announced shortly). Tickets are $75 per day, and go on sale tomorrow morning at all Ticketmaster outlets.
- Matt Greenhalgh, the writer of the upcoming Joy Division biopic Control, confirmed to the U.K.’s Manchester Evening News he’s working on a new film about John Lennon’s adolescent years. “The producers of Lennon saw Control and then asked me if I’d consider doing their script for them,” said Greenhalgh. “It wasn’t a particularly hard decision for me to say yes.”
- A Rock the Vote concert in Ottawa, Canada, has been canceled after Nas was announced as the headliner. According to reports, student groups were told the event could not go on due to Nas’ “violent lyrics,” which also caused concern when Nas was added to the bill for next week’s Concert for Virginia Tech.
- The New York Post is reporting that Amazon.com will launch its anticipated music service in mid-September, though sources familiar with the situation say the date could change. At its launch, the service will offer approximately one million downloads from Universal Music Group, EMI and several indie labels in MP3 format, providing a direct threat to iTunes. All songs will be sold with DRM, and Amazon’s catalog will be missing material from Sony BMG and Warner Music Group.
- A Scottish man has been sentenced to twenty months in jail after Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page testified at his music-piracy trial last month. Robert Langley was arrested with illegal CDs and DVDs — including more than $20,000 worth of fake Led Zeppelin items — following a record fair in 2005.
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