First up we have The Unsettlers, who came to our attention during their recent performance at Osheaga 2010. Though Osheaga featured such luminaries as The Arcade Fire, Metric, Weezer and other favourites of the Pitchfork crowd, The Unsettlers couldn’t be further away from the slick hipster rock of those acts. Occupying the Trees Stage while The Arcade Fire set up on the main stage, The Unsetters’ act was unjustly ignored at Osheaga. Well, we can’t turn back time, but we can turn up the volume on this awesome band. They deserve it.

According to the Unsettlers’ blurb on their MySpace, the 11-piece ensemble “specialize in funeral dirges for the living, dark polkas, menacing waltzes and horse-drawn lullabies, all filtered through the creaking floorboards of a whiskey soaked saloon.” Sounds good, right?

In practice, the band crosses genres at a whim, and their sound can’t be easily pegged — a fascination for early 20th century music is in evidence, mixing everything from Appalachian mountain folk to Weimar cabaret to the Depression-era dust bowl countryside. While it might sound gimmicky on paper, The Unsettlers bring genuine pathos and atmosphere to their lurching, Vaudeville-broke-down sound. The gruff vocals of B.W. Brandes, channeling Tom Waits, barks and howls while pretty female voices warble in the background (in shades of Decemberists). Clattering ragtime pianos, clarinets, trumpets, glockenspeils… all festive yet melancholy, like a square-dance at a funeral.

The Unsettlers are becoming known for their live shows, which feature sword-swallowers and other carnival-esque antics. It’s only a matter of time before these guys blow up big — better enjoy their small, local club concerts while you can!

Check out the Unsettlers’ Myspace, enjoy their twisted tunes, and be sure to scout out their debut album, available in certain forward-thinking record shops.

Despite being confined to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, California, Lindsay Lohan continues her career of crime. Our music industry gossip mill sources tell us that on Sunday morning, Lohan assaulted a fellow inmate in a dispute. Eyewitnesses say that Lohan and the unnamed victim were seen arguing over the possession of a bottle of Evian in the prison’s exercise yard shortly before Lohan attacked the other with a sharpened toothbrush. The victim is currently in critical condition at Lynwood’s St. Francis Medical Center.

“We all scoffed when we heard Lindsay was coming in, but she’s more hardcore than we thought she’d be,” said an inmate witness who declined to be named. “I used to run drugs through Mexico and I’ve seen a few things, but nothing like her. She looks like something that fell off the back of a Harley doing a deuce down Route 66, and that voice… dear god, that voice. How old is she, anyway?”

Lohan's dealer, Vinnie 'The Squid' Carpenzo, smuggles a kilo of Tenochtitlan Gold heroin in his colon during his visit with Ms. Lohan on Saturday.

Luckily for Lohan, her team of lawyers, led by Frederick Weinberg, is working around the clock to have Lohan released early. “We’re aiming for at least a sanitarium transfer until we can appeal the charges formally,” Weinberg said in a statement today. “But Ms. Lohan has to be released soon… before anyone else gets hurt.”

Today’s conflict marks the third such altercation since Lohan’s prison stint began on July 20th, following a Friday incident in which she viciously attacked a warden during a cell transfer. Sources say that attack was in response to off-hand criticism of Lohan’s most recent album, 2005′s “A Little More Personal (Raw)”, which was lambasted both critically and commercially. “I don’t think that guy’s ever going to walk again,” a witness said. “She’s raw, all right. She’s a mean girl.”

10 BandMark  Music Industry predictions for 2010:

``I see... me and David Bowie having sushi! but more importantly...``

1. Venture capitalists and big named brands will further finance musicians

As record labels merge and swallow up partners, (Warner+EMI? Like when Polygram merged with Universal in the 80`s) marketing budgets will be slashed once again so the once 100k budget which got cut int0 50k last year, will likely be cut again to 25k. This wont be as tragic as it seems because big named brands and the film industry will gladly spot these artists with some nice budgets for appearances and brand vanity and  smaller artists will opt for their own investors. This will force bands to be doing a lot of hands on marketing to stand out in what has become a huge sea of new music and very tough competition.

2. Fan clubs and street teams will come together as direct-to-fan platforms evolve

As a music fan, you can sign up to newsletters, fan-clubs, VIP offers, the record label store, Street teams, mobile alerts and the list goes on. Well with more and more artists selling directly to their fans, it is inevitable that a solution emerges that handles everything. Fan logs into the ultimate Direct-to-Fan club and specifies purchasing habits, street team activities, news alert delivery options etc… and everything after than is one cleverly marketed click away where fans interacts with band offerings, demand new versions and get rewarded with prime goodies like shout outs on stage for sharing content. I see the monthly and yearly subscription fee model popularize itself in these clubs as well as in on-line music stores.

3. Artists will make more music on demand

With more and more bonds being built via web 2.0 technologies, the artist and fan relationship will continue to grow and I predict that fans will start to create their own mini EPs by directing the artist to get re-mixed by producers they like, release acoustic and live versions and even integrate raw studio cuts and include tracks from talented fans  as well. A sort of Choose-Your-Own-Audio venture with all the emerging remix and interactive technologies at the forefront.  I`d like to see these mini EPs come in a digital bundle, return of the 45 vinyl and have basically 3 songs: fan made re-mix, fan demanded acoustic version and raw studio cut.

4. Music will be seen less on a CD rack and more in the clouds…

CD sales will continue their steady decline and the music population will turn into digital and vinyl heads for the most part.  Watch as vinyl reach out to the hardcore fans who want the immediacy of digital AND the physical fix. Subscription based streaming music stores like Grooveshark and Spotify will become a serious business model for labels to consider. Grooveshark`s traffic has a really healthy up-and-to-the-right metric line and really if you think about it – it`s the perfect compromise for the majority of the digital music community.  Faster than utorrent, cheaper than Itunes and trendier than Twilight, these subscription based stream stores are clearly making their mark in the music market place.

5. An artist`s database will turn into a fairly measurable currency with social metrics

The more time we spend on-line, the more valuable a musician`s database will become (users are expected to be spending EVEN more time in 2010).  All artists will experience an increase of virtual fans simply by putting themselves out there but also the clever musician, management and label will be harvesting and analyzing fan data with the new social metrics coming out.  The simple: enter email, tweet, share this for a track models will only amplify this virtual currency.

6. Interactive touch screens will start showing up at concerts

I don’t mean the kind you see at music festivals with SMS streams and the next band info with sponsors and ads. I mean a truly interactive experience where one can sign up to fan clubs,  shop,  join a contest request shout outs (I know I’m obsessed with shout outs and honestly think it’s the best way to reward and keep a fan loyal). In my perfect vision of the future, one that my inner geek truly adores, the interactive touch screens are so paper thin and huge and now after having seen AVATAR they are probably 3D as well!

7. MySpace will offer musicians a lot more options and will not go away

I was honestly laughing when respectable journalists were writing about “The Death of MySpace”  ”Facebook will take over MySpace”. Look, no matter how much you have a hate on for Tom and no matter how fk* irritating that damn CSS is to code around – MySpace is still the #1 place online that music fans go to check out an artist’s music. If you don’t care about all that and you are just looking at the numbers, well their actual traffic has been pretty stable for the past 3 months (Oct-o9 to Dec-09). So although things look promising, we`ll have to check the numbers again in the next 3 months…

“Indie musicians now have a new way to make money online by adding their songs directly to MySpace Music in exchange for sharing in the ad revenue with the service.” Original post by Elliot Van Buskirk @ Wired.com click MORE for further information.

8. Facebook will release a highly customizable new version

I have to say that I am not impressed with the rate in which Face book releases new versions or fixes bugs… the only reason why I use Facebook (and I likely speak for most)  is that everyone is on it and I really have little choice.  At least MySpace has an excuse for it’s bugginess - it was built in the dinosaur era with some lame programming language.  I am hoping that with a huge fan page community, Facebook steps up to the plate and actually pimps up the code a bit so that one can customize way more and turn their fan page into highly interactive music fan playgrounds of stuff to do, purchase and without error messages with apps not working. Recently, either the ilike app had a bug in it or the steps to add it to your fan page were totally convoluted cause almost every music client of mine was calling me about it!  So Crackbook, I’m unliking you a bit until you impress me with a new version…

9. More street stars like G-Funk RED will be discovered

I think after over a decade of really wimpy commercial rap, hip hop and urban beats it’s time to get back to the simple stories and sounds of the untrained street songs BEFORE the musician has someone else writing their rhymes and picking their outfits. Who says teenagers need cheesy synthesized effects and big studio sound to make them happy? O.K well they sort of do BUT unlike our grandparents, kids are growing up on decades of classical, blues, rock, electronic and are totally into experiencing new stuff – although there will always be at the perfect age for pop. I was lucky, I had an older brother making sure between Madonna and Wham I had Led Belly, Chet Baker, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bob Marley, Iggy Pop…  well tell u what, these kids have a realllly big brother called the internet allowing them to discover more music than ever before subjecting people like G-funk RED and others to get international exposure from sites like YouTube.

10. America will have a full year of discovering more oddities like Susan Boyle

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after Susan Boyle, America’s Got Talent is going to experience both an increase in unusual auditions from older and oddball performers but will also be prioritizing them especially after seeing Susan`s popularity skyrocket and set new standards for discovery.

We could have made a typical angry rant about the heartless Kanye West VMA incident, the Jay Leno appearance or much of the aftermath – but we decided to express our feelings in a little song dedicated to Mr.West.

Kanye West Kanye west
you`re so grade 3
and  you know there ain`t no apology
for stealing the lime from Sweet Taylor Swift
You`re disgrace for celebrities catch my drift?

I don`t care if it was pure jea-lou-sy
or your mother f*cking ass was too sur-ly
You knew what you were doing, cause u ain`t crazy
Ask Mika Lady Gaga N-Sync and Jay-Z

Thank god your momma didn`t have to see
Obama`s jackass live on TV
No one died and left you king
to judge who can or cannot sing!

All music awards should ban you
Your label should maybe can you
Id stay home and make more hair designs
Cuz your fame and fortune gonna take a decline

I think I`ll download  Taylor`s music- yet I don`t even like country
I hope people pirate your tracks -like till the end of the century

God willing the  Internet will spread this message over land and sea:

Buy all of Taylor Swift`s music but download Kanye`s for FREE!

SuBo at home in Scotland

Debbie Rowe + MJ

Rowe met Jackson when she was a receptionist at an Los Angeles skin clinic, where he was undergoing treatment. When she met him, she felt that Jackson was very lonely and was desperate to have children. She then told him that she would agree to carry his children, because she wanted to make him happy.

Since Jackson’s death, Rowe is no longer legally obligated to keep quiet, and has started to reveal facts about her children. She went to the clinic where they impregnated her with an anonymous donor’s sperm. She revealed that the couple never had sex or shared a bed during their three year marriage, describing their relationship as a friendship. She also said Jackson was not involved with their childrens’ birth.

Unfortunately for Rowe, the second child’s birth left her reproductive system so severly damaged that she became barren. Jackson then reportedly told her he did not want anything to do with her, since she was no longer of any use to him.

She then reportedly gave away her rights to the children in exchange for $8.4million. Debbie Rowe admitted that she never felt like she had a meternal instinct, and did not want these children in her life.

What’s to become of MJ’s kids, who are now effectively orphans? A lawyer for the Jackson family has intimated that the guardianship would most likely go to Jackson’s mother Katherine.

Daddy MJ?

Michael Jackson is Dead!

It wasn’t just Michael Jackson’s death that made headlines on June 26th 2009. Because of a massive traffic surge from people wanting to find out about the King of Pop’s demise, the internet nearly crashed and died as well. Usually there are about 2 million/minute net users around the world, and the day of MJ’s death this shot up to nearly 4.2 million/minute.

As millions of people everywhere logged on to find out more about Jacko’s death, internet giant Google News almost crashed, incorrectly interpreting the mass of requests as a “denial of service” attack. It even temporarily blocked “Michael Jackson” search requests.

Michel Jackson’s own home page could barely keep up with the traffic, after his death was announced. After a while the site’s links were taken out, with only a photo of Jackson against a red background with the caption: “King of Pop” remaining.

Another website rendered useless during the internet frenzy was London’s O2 concert hall site, where Michael Jackson was going to start his comeback tour next month.

On the Twitter side of things, Tweets shot up to 5000/minute barely an hour after the first report of MJ’s death. It generated the most tweets/second since Obama’s electoral victory in November. Twitter was only briefly affected by the madness, as its engineers worked double quick to stop the site from failing.

MJ’s death unfortunately opened up a golden opportunity for cyber-thieves. One spam campaign tried to lure visitors to a malicious site (Beatz radio) where a fake Michael.Jackson.videos.scr screensaver was hosted while another originated from legitimate email messages by trying to capture other emails.

So turns out Michael Jackson was almost bigger than the internet! He was probably the only person on earth who could come close to this claim.

Farewell Farrah

I will never forget Farrah’s gorgeous lioness mane and all her beachy fashion photo shoots that literally reeked of tanning lotion and salty sea air. She was the California sweetheart and Charlie’s Angel who made trendy the “feathered look” at salons all over the world.  Too fierce to be a hippie to casual to be a princess. We will miss you Farrah Fawcett…

The King of pop is gone

Michael’s incredible dance mechanics. I say mechanics because regular people just can’t move like that. A popper and a Disco kid, an incredible singer and one of 5 talented Jacksons. Michael was a little too unique at times with his mysterious veiled children and disturbing rummors of endless plastic surgery and a penchant for young boys. We lost track of the man behind the mask.  A troubled but brilliantly creative soul who grew up too fast.  Micheal’s death was so schocking it was perceived as his final “Thriller”, a media stunt while he prepared for his tour in silence.  May he moonwalk in heaven.

But No! The fiesty Scott is not down for the count. Rumour has it that she has found a new manager, and is going to start recording her first album in time for Christmas. We here at BandMark sincerely hope she learns how to manage the stress of her new life without  the popular help of Zantinis (Zannax+Vodka), gurus and or lipo. You go Sue B!

David Usher in the Moist days

How excited was I when I moved last summer and found out that one of my new neighbours was none other than David Usher! As a teen I was a big fan of Moist (loved that “Push” video!), but after their first album I must confess I lost track of them.

Then one sunny day, as I sat on my new balcony, I saw a familiar shape gently ambling down the street, pushing a baby stroller. At first I wasn’t sure- did I see what I thought I saw? Was that really David Usher? I asked my sources and found out he was indeed living in the hood. I thought seeing him might be a one off, but then I kept spotting the man, taking his kids for a walk, going to the corner pharmacy, having a drink at the local bar, etc.

I became obsessed with getting my Daily Dose of David. From a distance that is- I wouldn’t want you to think I am some sort of madly obsessed stalker! I guess I just get a kick out of having David Usher for a neighbour… So stay tuned to get your Daily Dose of David… New sightings will be posted every week!

Usher my neighbour