Yesterday Facebook introduced a new music section, that allows bands to create profiles and post their songs, photos and music videos. Some 80 artists have already set up profiles, including Alicia Keys, Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Justin Timberlake and the Decemberists.

The section streams songs though a Facebook Music Player application, and provides links to purchase tracks at the iTunes Store. The company also tapped Musictoday to fulfill merchandise sales

http://www.facebook.com/Music

Digital Music News points out Facebook’s new service raises some internal issues.

“The service offers a direct challenge to longtime heavyweight MySpace, which hosts more than 8 million band pages. But Facebook users are already accustomed to viewing and interacting with their favorite artists, thanks to the quickly-growing iLike. The made-for-Facebook application currently houses half-a-million bands and nearly 22 million fans, according to figures shared this week.”

Add another battle to the growing list, Pepsi vs Coke, Microsoft vs. Apple, Hillary vs Obama and now AEG Live vs Live Nation. Unfortunately, even after this deal tickets won’t be any cheaper or easier to get.

Billboard.biz is reporting that a deal is imminent for a partnership of Ticketmaster and Madison Square Garden Entertainment owner Cablevision to acquire about 49% of AEG Live. If all the various components of this AEG Live/Cablevision/Ticketmaster deal come into play, AEG Live should be able to compete even more fiercely with Live Nation, who will leave Ticketmaster when its contract expires in 2009 and launch its own ticketing company.-Billboard.biz

Michael Rapino CEO of Live Nation reaction “If those rumors are true and there’s investments made into a competitor like AEG, for one it validates the frenzy around the live business,” Rapino said today (Feb. 2 during an investor’s conference call. “Everybody wants to figure out how to get control of that content and ticket to build upon their business model.”

Read Bob Lefsetz’s reaction and thoughts on this proposed mega deal. “Let’s see how this shakes out. Will this new consortium figure out a way to break acts? As the major labels decline, who will control this process? It’s harder than ever to BREAK on the road, since the economics suck. Will acts continue to break via recorded music and then fall into the hands of AEG? Can a new concert promotion company be founded to compete? Only with a fuck of a lot of money. And didn’t that Wall Street analyst say the business was a river of nickels?”

This week’s rock sneakers are designed by De La Soul and come in high and low versions. Each pair have a hologram on the heel which was from their album cover of “3 Feet High and Rising” with hits like, Me Myself and I. They were released in November of 2005. I like these lows they should let the bands design more often.

Wired has done a great job of pulling together the highlights from the various panels and speakers from the Digital Music Forum this week in New York. It’s really interesting to read each companies viewpoint on the industry today and the direction music is headed. I highly recommend these links.

The State of the Digital Music Union

Social Networks and Music Discovery: What It Means for Music Businesses

Keynote Interview with Thomas Hesse, Sony/BMG

How Will Recording Artists be Discovered in the Digital Age?

Label and Tech Execs On Marketing Music via Social Networks

Today Allen Klepfisz CEO of Qtrax was interviewd by Marty Lafferty, head of the DCIA(a P2P trade group of which Qtrax is a member). He basically points the finger at the media for the botched launch and promises it will be online soon. Here are my two favorite lines….

- Occasionally one can make a miscalculation.  But if a company spends five years on licensing, one can presume that the company has made progress.  I don’t want to get into specifics.  Soon enough the world will know which licenses we have.  If we can’t get the licenses, there will be time for a second crucifixion.

- It’s not an easy road to change fundamentals in the music industry. Thankfully, we have gone down most of that road… We are very very close to the end of this long journey as far as I’m concerned.

If Qtrax is able to pull off what they claim it will be huge but I like everyone else have doubts.  They don’t have the best track record going so that second crucifixion will be a total massacre.

Don’t forget NPR’s live Wilco broadcast from the 9:30 club in D.C tonight!!!!!!!!!

See Wilco Residency MP3’s.

This week’s gem from Wolfgang’s Vault is a hit filled set by Jimi Hendrix Experience from Winterland 10/10/1968.

Setlist:

Are you experienced?

Voodoo Child

Red House

Foxy Lady

Like a Rolling Stone

This America

Purple Haze

To listen to the show click here.

In related Hendrix news Buddy Miles, who co-founded and played drums in Band Of Gypsys with Jimi Hendrix, passed away yesterday (Feb. 26) in Austin, Texas, at the age of 60.

The hits continue rolling in. This weeks Rock Art Wednesday artist is a big name in the poster world, Chicago’s Jay Ryan. Jay’s been creating posters since 1995 and has an incredible portfolio of work. I love his use of warm colors and his designs create true art pieces the fact they promote a concert is a bonus. I’m looking forward to adding some of his pieces to my rapidly growing collection. He also plays bass and sings vocals in his band Dianogah. Check out a recent review of Dianogah@ The Empty Bottle in Chicago from our friends at Live Music Blog. Jay was kind enough to put his mark on Rock Art Wednesday.

Jay Ryan’s work can be found (and purchased) at The Birdmachine.com make sure you check out his stuff. Check out Dianogah on myspace.

RD-How would you describe your style?

JR-Sloppy and haphazard.

RD-What are you working on for the first half of 2008?

JR-Lots of posters, though fewer for concerts than usual. doing a series of prints for the BBC right now for a new take on their ‘blue planet’ series, just finishing some shirts for Patagonia, doing posters for film festivals, film screenings, a bike race or two, a community bike shop, a puppet show, and a bunch of bands. most of my time for the last six months has been spent in gutting a building that the bird machine bought, and working on fixing it up so we can run the print shop there. I am about one day away from being ready to actually start moving the presses and flat files and drawing tables into place.

RD-Any upcoming events..poster shows, convention, festival etc….?

JR-Flatstock in Austin, then flatstock in Chicago in July (and again in Seattle and Hamburg in September). just had gallery shows in Chicago, Urbana, and Macomb Illinois. group show in Philadelphia. hrrrm, I know I’m missing some stuff. my band has a couple tour this year - east coast and then Europe.

RD-Are you doing posters for any of the big summer festivals?

JR-I believe that I’m working on the pitchfork music festival again for the third year.

RD-Do you approach bands you like to try and design for them?

JR-Pretty rarely, but on occasion I’ll hear about some line-up that kicks my ass, and call the promoter asking to do the print. I just had one of these types of jobs come up: a bunch of bands from the early ’90s in Champaign are reuniting for an event in May. These were the bands I went to see while in college. Called the promoter, and am making prints.

RD-Thoughts on eBay when a poster you know you sold goes for 2x the amount.??

JR-as far as I’m concerned, if I sell someone a poster from my website for, say, $30, and they have it for a while, and get tired of it, and decide to put it on eBay and get silly money for it, that’s hot. congrats. When someone comes to an event where I have a brand-new print that’s not even on my site, buys it, takes it home and immediately puts it on eBay as “rare! sold out!”, that pisses me off.

RD-Which are a few of your favorites that you’ve made?

JR-I like most of them. there are relatively few that make me cringe, thankfully. today I was looking at the decemberists print from about a year ago, of the small houses on the cliff sides, for the decemberists’ song ’sons & daughters’ - I really like that one a lot, but that’s just the first one that comes to mind.

The NPD Group issued a report Tuesday that said Apple had outpaced Best Buy and Target to become the No. 2 U.S. music retailer. Unless the downward trend in CD sales suddenly reverses, Apple will be No. 1, said Russ Crupnick, the NPD Group’s president of Music.

Check out Rolling Stones recap of the first night at the Garden.

Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood
MSG
2/26/08

*The Band:*
Eric Clapton - guitar, vocals
Steve Winwood - hammond organ, guitar, vocals
Chris Stainton - keyboards
Willie Weeks - bass
Ian Thomas - drums

*Setlist:*
01. Had To Cry Today
02. Low Down
03. Forever Man
04. Them Changes
05. Sleeping In The Ground
06. Presence Of The Lord
07. Glad/Well Alright
08. Double Trouble
09. Pearly Queen
10. Tell The Truth
11. No Face
12. After Midnight
13. Split Decision
14. Ramblin’ On My Mind (EC solo acoustic)
15. Georgia On My Mind (SW solo hammond)
16. Little Wing
17. Voodoo Child
18. Can’t Find My Way Home
19. Dear Mr Fantasy

Encore:
20. Crossroads

In other Clapton news…..North Korean officials have invited rock guitarist Eric Clapton to play a concert in the communist state.

Check out February Rock Book of The Month-Clapton

The internet’s guilty pleasure Perez Hilton (Mario Lavandeira) is in talks with Warner Brothers Records to join their A&R team.

“Though the agreement under discussion would represent a small sum for Warner Brothers, it would help support Mr. Lavandeira’s claims that he has an ear for more than the latest celebrity scoop. More than that, though, a label deal for Mr. Lavandeira, whose Web site draws an estimated 2.8 million visitors a month, according to ComScore Media Metrix, would be a recognition of the influence that blogs can wield in generating word of mouth about music.”

Here’s the list of Top Ten Websites as visited by college-aged females for the month of February 2008.

1.) Facebook
2.) YouTube
3.) Google
4.) PerezHilton.com
5.) CNN
6.) MySpace
7.) Yahoo
8.) School’s Site
9.) AOL
10.) Post Secret