Leave it to Van Morrison to pull back the curtain on the state of the music industry today: “We don’t know where the record business is going, and the record companies say, ‘We don’t know what’s happening, and it’s a really bad time.’ So if it’s really bad, why would you want to do business with a record company?”

Morrison, perhaps Rock’s greatest living iconoclast since the death of Frank Zappa, gave a wide ranging interview to TIME, in which the much-beloved, notoriously cranky Irish troubador downplayed the importance – to him and fans of his music – of download sites such as iTunes, admitted he’s neither inspired nor impressed by anything or anyone in music today, and said if he had one thing to do over he would never have become famous.

Follow after the jump for more on Van the Man’s thoughts on the music business and why he doesn’t need iTunes

An analyst has added his voice in support of two unconfirmed reports Monday that Apple will announce March 24 a Mac Pro, Mac mini and iMac update.

“This would be consistent with our view that new desktops (and generally new products in the future) are likely to be launched at Apple-held events rather than trade shows,” UBS analyst Maynard Um told clients.

Um went on to predict Apple by summer will introduce a 32GB iPhone 3G as well as a 4GB model.

Anyone like to start a pool on which big-city police force will be the first to gun down an innocent iPhone user as a result of the hapless victim flaunting his “Bang! Bang!” app in the wrong place, at the wrong time?

With authentic Hollywood sound effects and realistic depictions of firearms “carefully crafted,” all the way down to the “specific look, realistic options, and unique animations” of the real world gun they’re based on, according to the developer, this is not your father’s game of Cops and Robbers.

Things got a little heated in a London marketing firm when an Apple laptop (a PowerBook G4?*) started smoking, then burst  into flames.
“When I got there, much of the smoke has dissipated and nothing much was happening. I picked up the notebook to investigate, and turned it over. Soon after I put it down again, it basically exploded. Flames were flying six feet high in the air, and sparks,” an unnamed IT manager told the Inquirer.

The fire is thought to have started in the battery,  the IT manager said the computer was three-to-four years old.

“We are aware that there was a battery recall several years ago, it is entirely possible that the battery was one of those subject to that recall, but we can’t tell now as the battery is now just slag.”

The pics — melted keyboard, smoke, battery fused like a modern art sculpture  — are worth a gander.

(*The story first identified the flaming computer as a MacBook, then Powerbook).

Via bit-tech

Should recording artists receive larger royalties from songs sold in digital format, such as by Apple’s iTunes? That’s the question before a California court as rapper Eminem sues recording companies for a larger portion of the revenue pie.

The lawsuit has taken two years to make it to trial, but already lawyers for the rapper have elicited that recording labels are paying less to sell digital songs.

With digital sales, recording companies, such as Universal, no longer have distribution costs, according to a plaintiff’s witness, a former executive at the recording firm.

You have to wonder if users of Apple’s MobileMe online service have a ‘kick me’ sign. For the second time this year, phishers posing as Apple sent e-mails asking for credit card information of MobileMe subscribers.

The e-mail warns MobileMe users their subscription is about to expire, but their credit card information needs to be updated. The message, which appears to come from Apple, asks e-mail recipients to click on a link.

However, the e-mail from “noreply@me” comes not from Cupertino, Calif. but a computer in the UK, according to Apple Insider. What’s more, the e-mail was composed on Microsoft Outlook Express and sends people to http.apple-billing.me.uk, which the news site described as a “sketchy URL.”

If you take the Basic Lessons on GarageBand ’09, your improving finger work on the guitar and piano will be thanks to a guy who introduces himself at the beginning of each segment as just “Tim.”

That’s Tim Blane, a Boston singer-songwriter with a decade of live performances under his belt. Other credentials include ringtones for Pepsi, he also opened for Guster and KT Tunstall and writes his own soulful pop tunes.

When Blane received an e-mail from an Apple guy last summer saying that he’d seen Blane’s clips online and wondered if he would be interested in auditioning for a job, he jumped at the chance.

“I thought maybe they needed someone to show up at a trade show,” recalls Blane, who was sent a script and flown to LA for an on-camera audition. Nearly a thousand actors and musicians auditioned for the gig.  Four screen tests later Steve Jobs selected Blane, who has never taught a lesson in his life, to be GarageBand‘s music instructor.

“They didn’t want a preachy vibe, but more a vibe of sitting down with your little brother. I had a great time, although I had to wear super HD makeup on my face and hands and arms. I think I ate more makeup than lunch.”

Via MacDaily News,  Boston Globe

To my eternal shame, my job requires that I use Windows at work. Lately, that’s been extremely interesting, because I just got a new machine at the office, and it’s spec’d similarly to my beloved 2.4 Ghz Unibody MacBook. That means that I actually get a pretty clear sense of the relative performance of Windows XP v. Mac OS X (what, you expected Vista). Honestly, for most tasks it’s a wash. I don’t do a lot of heavy graphics work on either platform, and web browsing is kind of web browsing. I typically use Chrome (fastest Windows browser) at work and Camino (fastest Mac browser at home).

Today was really interesting, however, because I tried out Safari 4 for Windows before I got to it for Mac. And I was extremely disappointed. It ran no faster than Chrome (maybe a bit slower), and it misrendered at least 50 percent of the sites that I visited — it couldn’t find thumbnail pictures, and it was flat-out ignoring CSS sheets on several sites. Within about an hour of starting use, I uninstalled it and moved back to Chrome. The beta is just about as beta as anything bearing the name I have ever seen. Running the Acid 3 test crashed the browser.

Installing Safari 4 to Mac, however, was as far removed from it as I can imagine. Animations were smooth out of the thumbnail Top Sites page. The browser aced the Acid 3 test on the first try — and each successive one. Twitter loaded like it was an app on my hard drive. A heavily Javascript driven message board I visit popped up faster than anything I’ve seen it since I was on text-based USENET in the mid-90s. It lived up to the hype, and it actually provided a worthy contender to Camino as the best browser on the platform (although I ain’t switching anytime soon; ).

I’m left at a bit of a loss from all of this. On the one hand, I’m delighted to have a blazing-fast new web browser for my Mac. On the other hand, I can’t believe Apple would ship such terrible software for Windows. How are you going to convert anyone when your product is inferior to the status quo?

There are plenty of cutesy headphone alternatives — but if you’re looking to replace your Apple earbuds with something likely to start up a conversation or get a few stares, these giant green fly-shaped versions may be the answer.

The look a little less gross on than in the package, but for $12.95 they might not be a bad emergency spare.  Available at Patina.

Via gizmodiva

Came across this art work by Nick Rodrigues while trying to find help for my dying iPod.

His “diePod,” made back in 2007, is an an iPod gravestone that contains all note worthy songs and photos of your life debuted at Art Basil Switzerland.
Of it, Rodrigues says, “A child born today will most likely carry some type of media device with them for there entire life. If these devices live on with us we will carry a record of our entire life with us to the grave-that’s better then the tomb of king tut.”

Amen. My fourth gen 20 GB iPod is ready to shuffle off this mortal coil, and I just can’t let it go. Yeah, I know it’s old but it was great for audio books and came in handy now and then as an external hard drive.

The folder icon keeps cropping up, no amount of partitioning + erase + restore seems to fix it for longer than a week, when the battery runs out. It’ll soon be ready for my drawer/graveyard, since there’s no recycling program yet locally.

Ever kept your dead pods around, perhaps for use as doorstops or paperweights?

Image courtesy Massachusetts Cultural Council, copyright Nick Rodrigues