South African reggae singer Lucky Dube was shot and killed on Thursday night in Johannesburg, apparently by carjackers.

Story here.

Dube, 43, grew up in Apartheid South Africa and started out singing in a more traditional style, but embraced reggae in part for its social and political leanings. Not everything he wrote was big-picture. Divorce Party might have doubled as an inside joke on politics, but it also works fine as a sardonic look at separation.

Two of my favorite Dube songs have familiar titles, but they're not covers.

In Taxman, he sang:

I pay my lawyer to fight for my rights
And I pay my bodyguard to guard my body
There' s only one man I pay
But I don' t know what I'm paying for
I'm talking about the taxman

And in Respect:

Give love to those who give you love
Love to those who give you war
Give love those who hate you
Bless even those who curse you

Respect is a great combination of idioms: a steady reggae groove and lacy guitar fills in the classic Afro-pop style.

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One could argue the Cleveland Indians knew exactly what they were doing last night when they booked Danielle Peck to perform the National Anthem and God Bless America at their ballpark, Jacobs Field. Country singer Peck, reportedly a Game 5 substitute for another singer, is an ex-girlfriend of the opposing team's starting pitcher, Boston Red Sox hurler (and ex-Marlin/Yankee Killah/October phenom) Josh Beckett.

Of course the gambit - if that's what it was - didn't work. As ESPN.com noted, Peck's presence "didn't seem to break Beckett's concentration." He pitched eight innings, giving up just one run. Boston won 7-1, made the series 3-2, and got the ALCS back to Fenway Park for at least another game.

Asked about Peck:

"I don't get paid to make those (expletive) decisions," Beckett barked. "She's a friend of mine, that doesn't bother me at all. Thanks for flying one of my friends to the game so she could watch it for free."

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Chris Walla's solo album took a detour into government custody last month, when a hard drive containing the master tracks was seized by U.S. customs agents at the Canadian border.

The good news is that Walla's hard drive passed its inspection. A customs spokesman told the Associated Press that he's free to pick it up any time.

Story here.

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So said the infamous Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and so said a very funny photo caption in our print edition's Sports front. The picture showed Florida Panthers goalie Tomas Vokoun thwarting a (Montreal) Canadien, on a night where he stopped a flurry of shots and carried the Cats to victory. (Ok, one goal passed through his pads, but still ... )

The caption led to a discussion of the origin of the phrase, "None shall pass." I thought it was Python but I couldn't recall which movie or TV show bit. An editor of mine thought it might have come from The Bible. So I Googled the words, and wouldn't you know it, Wikipedia had it all covered. Needless to say, Vokoun's confidence was more warranted than the briefly menacing, ultimately limbless Black Knight (played by John Cleese).

But can I say that Vokoun stumped Montreal?

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That's Carl "Kilmo" Pacillo, owner and pro-prietor of Alligatory Alley, FtL's Native Florida Taproom and live music hangout. Kilmo, a working musician with the scars to prove it, is marking the occasion with an all-star rock-funk-jazz- blues jam on Friday, and a fully equipped 'birthday recovery party' on Saturday that will reduce your Sunday to rubble.

Friday's lineup includes Billy Vasquez and Albert Castiglia on guitars, John Yarling on drums and Kilmo himself on bass.

Saturday's madness is a kind of survey of the Alley's wide-ranging musical tastes: The masked avengers of Chickenbox, who breathe metal and make fun of things; the space-rock improvisations of Tonto Goldberg; the straight-ahead roadhouse music of the Roots Shakers; the indie-pop confessionals of Fernando Perdomo; and more T.B.A., as they say.

So come on out and wish the man many happy returns. Details here.

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I don't think Miami rapper Mann is related to Miami Vice creator Michael Mann, but the neon blues and the silky fabrics are straight off the latter Mann's palette. I like this track, a love song called Ryder, for the Latin feel of the chorus, and I like the clip. It reminds me of how certain videos in the early days of MTV, such as INXS's The One Thing and Ratt's Round and Round, projected luxury and decadence, but did it on a shoestring budget. Enjoy.

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The Four 'M's are Murray, Manny, Moe and Mac. They're from somewhere in Florida, and that's all I know ...

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That was the headline on a recent Wall Street Journal story about people moving away from our fair state. In honor of this development (sort of), here's Modest Mouse and a pixelated monkey digi-dancing to Florida, the song.

Even as I left Florida Far enough, far enough Wasn't far enough

(Four-letter word alert: In the first verse.)

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Is it just me and my TV? I could swear that during the Cubs-Diamondbacks playoff games on TBS (including the one on right now), there's this ... noise. A whistling tone of two notes (C and D flat - I checked) that runs continuously in the background, like late-night brain hum or tinnitus. I change channels, and it's gone. I mute the TV and it stops. It's also not there during TBS's commercial breaks.

Tell me I'm not going crazy. I'd rather it was a distant, collective grief sound emanating from all Cubs fans, but I don't think so.

p.s. Frank Thomas, a TBS postseason hire, is a great in-studio game analyst. He's smart, measured, and a delight to listen to and watch. (And that cursed noise doesn't follow them into the studio!) He's found a good pitch, presence- and delivery-wise, between voluble studio anchor Ernie Johnson and the ol' gamer Cal Ripken. I can easily see Thomas doing this after he's retired from crushing baseballs into the stands, unless of course he wants to coach.

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UPDATE 10/22: Don Cohen died of lung cancer, not brain cancer as I wrote here and in an Oct. 6 obituary. (The error was repeated when this blog post was published Oct. 11 as an appreciation, in the print editions.) Although cancer of the brain was present, Cohen's death certificate lists lung cancer as the official cause, said Jamie Schwartz, Cohen's girlfriend and caregiver in his last weeks. My apologies for the error. Our print edition will also be publishing a correction to set the record straight.

A dean of the blues, music promoter Don Cohen died yesterday of inoperable brain cancer, barely a month after his diagnosis.

I never met Cohen in person. We spoke by telephone several times over the 11-plus years I've been at the Sun-Sentinel. The person on the other end of the line impressed me as a quiet, thoughtful man -- nothing like the stereotype of the fast-talking, showboating "promoter." I'd catch him at work sometimes as late as 1:30 in the morning (I thought I'd be leaving a voicemail), when he was deep into the orchestration and air-traffic control that went into putting on his annual music festival.

"Watching Don do what he did always amazed me," said his friend and fellow talent booker, Judy Blem.

Cohen, who died on his 55th birthday, bettered the lives and livelihoods of the musicians he championed. He made people who love jazz, blues, roots, funk and r&b very happy: They got to see all the great performers they could have hoped for because Cohen brought them here, either to his highly movable club, the Musicians Exchange, or his almost-as-mobile Riverwalk Blues & Music Festival.

He had a huge impact on me, as a writer learning on the job and just as a thrillseeking concertgoer. Riverwalk festivals are where I saw more great performers and standout live sets than I can count. Shemekia Copeland, Solomon Burke, Corey Harris with Henry Butler, Otis Taylor, "Blu" Stu Herman, Charlie Musselwhite.

The Iguanas, from New Orleans (and Austin, TX, post-Katrina), played last year's Riverwalk party on a stage under the Andrews Avenue bridge, next to the Downtowner saloon. It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen -- a garland of laid-back southwestern grooves, colored in with Basin Street brass. If ever there was a moment I should have found Cohen and shook his hand, that was it.

There will be a lot of testimonials to Cohen's work, to his passion, and the way he always kept South Florida humming to great music, and they'll all be true. It's difficult to overstate how important Cohen was to the development of a live music scene in South Florida over the last 30 years.

Here's a telling note I found posted in the comments section below his Sun-Sentinel obituary.

Don was a great guy. We first met him at the Musicians Exchange when he rented out studios for practice at $9 an hour. After practice he would invite us up to see who he booked for the night in the cafe'. It was all pretty cool, very local with name acts. I got to hang out with Mat "Guitar" Murphy and drink and talk about guitars.

Don was a real friend of the musician as well as one himself

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The promoter of the upcoming Led Zeppelin reunion concert says if you bought your ticket with someone else's credit card, and not yours, you may not get in.

Harvey Goldsmith is taking a tough line against scalpers, or "touts," as they're called in the U.K. He's trying to avoid collateral damage, allowing for exemption by "reasonable explanation," such as kids who used their parents' credit cards. (Access to tickets was determined by an online lottery.)

But I like Mr. Goldsmith's ire:

I have no interest in supporting parasite businesses who prevent fans from supporting their artists by the increased price of the tickets and who ultimately put nothing whatsoever back into our business to support it.

I imagine every person who didn't score a Hannah Montana ticket and doesn't like the markups would agree.

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Jurors have ordered a Minnesota woman to pay $220,000 for downloading songs without permission. It's a pretty stunning development, considering the precedents: Suing kids, grandmothers and other unlikely suspects for file-sharing earned the music industry scorn and ridicule, and these cases went over like exploding cigars. Yet the defendant here was, on paper, every bit as sympathetic as others before her: a single mother of two. And still a jury of her peers agreed with the plaintiff's case that she violated music copyrights and has to pay.

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The Langerado festival is going to Native American country (and Phish country, too): Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, March 6-9. A lineup will be announced Nov. 8, and tickets go on sale Nov. 15 (at 800-594-8499 and langerado.com), say festival reps.

Big Cypress, you'll recall, is where the protean jam band Phish set up camp for the last days of the 20th Century and rang in the new millenium with tens of thousands of revelers. Estimates of attendance ran as high as 90,000.

Langerado has favored jam bands of the Phish genus, but also presented indie rock, reggae, world music and electronic pop. The festival has never played a space as big as Big Cypress. But it's definitely grown, from the lawn outside Fort Lauderdale Baseball Stadium in 2003 to last year's two-day affair, which drew 15,000 people each day to Markham Park, on the edge of the Everglades in Sunrise.

Langerado #6 heads deeper into the 'Glades and expands to four days.

Read on for the text of the press release

ANNUAL LANGERADO MUSIC FESTIVAL
ANNOUNCES DATES AND NEW LOCATION:
MARCH 6-9, 2008 AT BIG CYPRESS SEMINOLE INDIAN RESERVATION.

ARTIST LINEUP TO BE ANNOUNCED NOVEMBER 8.
TICKETS GO ON SALE NOVEMBER 15.

Now in its sixth year, the Langerado Music Festival has established its place as the unofficial kickoff to music festival season. For the sixth annual Langerado Music Festival, organizers are taking it to the next level and moving the event to the expansive Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation. Since the inaugural event in 2003, Langerado has grown enormously from 3,500 in attendance at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, to 2007's hugely successful event at Markham Park, where turnout reached 15,000 people per day.

Big Cypress will offer Langerado 2008 attendees a much larger, yet still intimate, festival site. Attendees can also anticipate all-inclusive on-site camping, plenty of late night music, and an expanded VIP ticketholder experience. The transition from day festival to a camping event is a welcome change and marks Langerado's exceptional growth over the past five years. Airport shuttles and area hotels/shuttle packages will also be available to festivalgoers - check out www.langerado.com for details.

Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation, which previously played host to the rock band Phish in one of the world's largest ticketed millennium celebrations, is located approximately 30 minutes west of Ft. Lauderdale in the heart of the Florida Everglades. Langerado will take place on 600 acres of pristine Seminole Tribal land, surrounded by native wetlands in one of the last natural environments left in South Florida.

"Since the very first Langerado, it has been our dream to bring the event to Big Cypress. Langerado has grown into an amazing event that encompasses so many different genres of music. The move to Big Cypress allows the audience the opportunity to spend 4 days with their friends really soaking up as much of the music as possible," says festival co-producer Ethan Schwartz.

"The Seminole tribe has been incredibly gracious in allowing us to host Langerado on their land," continues co-producer Mark Brown. "This is one of the last spots in South Florida that hasn't been paved over, and we feel very lucky and blessed to be able to bring the Langerado fans into this naturally beautiful environment."

In a continuing effort to make Langerado a Green Festival, organizers plan to implement a wide variety of earth-friendly initiatives. In order to leave as little impact as possible on the natural environment, Langerado will use bio-diesel fuels to power the stages, compostable vending materials, a festival-wide recycling and carbon-offsetting program.

Past Langerado headliners include the Black Crowes, Wilco, My Morning Jacket, Widespread Panic, The Flaming Lips, Trey Anastasio, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, The String Cheese Incident and many more.

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Radiohead, which doesn't have a record label anymore, and may never need one again, will let fans pay what they want to download the band's new album, In Rainbows, starting Oct. 10.

The BBC reported on Tuesday that traffic at Radiohead's Web site has been heavy, complicating some visitors' efforts to preorder. I logged on today without difficulty, and to help me pick a fair price, there was a link to a currency converter.

The alternative - likewise available only through the Web site - is an In Rainbows disc box containing extras, all at a fixed price of 40 pounds UK, or about $81.50 US. The box ships in December, according to the band's Web site.

The BBC says Radiohead is talking to labels about releasing an old-fashioned CD version of In Rainbows early next year. What's interesting is that Radiohead, as a free agent, can do what it likes, and doesn't have to do anything it doesn't like. In letting each buyer set his or her own price, the band is sharing its freedom of choice.

So are the out-there rockers of Radiohead also revolutionary capitalists?

At first blush this looked to me like a purer form of commerce, with a greater degree of trust in the marketplace, than the standard practice of labels and retailers deciding what the consumer will pay. But then, I am a poor student of economics.

Bob Lefsetz, music-industry veteran and excitable author of the Lefsetz Letter, sorted through his reactions to the news of the "Radiohead Tip Jar," as he put it, in a series of think-out-loud posts. (Warning: Lefsetz likes to cuss.)

The most recent post says:

This is not a model for the future. This is a stunt by the most credible major band on the planet. As much marketing as revenue generator. Radiohead’s image has been burnished for decades to come, people won’t forget this giveback to their fans, this middle finger to the man. But this pay what you want model isn’t going to save the recorded music business.

His first post is a little more breathless:

It’s not like Radiohead’s living in a different world. But they’re playing by a different rule book. One that says the money flows from the music, that people have to believe in you, that you’ve got to treat them right. ... This is big news. This says the major labels are ... Untrustworthy with a worthless business model. Radiohead doesn’t seem to care if the music is free. Not that they believe it will be. Because believers will give you ALL THEIR MONEY! ... This is the industry’s worst nightmare. Superstar band, THE superstar band, forging ahead by its own wits. Proving that others can too. And they will. ... This is what happens when you sell twenty dollar CDs with one good track and sue your customers for trading P2P. This is what happens when you believe you’re ENTITLED to your business.

Lefsetz is correct on both counts: It's probably not the future - or at least not the whole future - but it is an exciting development, and record executives won't be nearly as thrilled as Radiohead's fans.

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From New Orleans, and the Times-Picayune, comes this worrisome tale of musicians getting busted while playing music.

The article notes that a permit is required for the musical street processions that form around funerals. The thing is, police there haven't typically enforced the permit rule, and brassy street serenades for the recently departed are a cherished ritual in New Orleans.

But some newer residents apparently dislike spontaneous outbreaks of music, and have called on police to hold musicians to the letter of the law. The result, as told in the story, is mourners who happen to play instruments being marched away in handcuffs during the funeral of a jazz musician.

Why anyone would move to New Orleans in order to be annoyed by music is beyond me. Why N.O. police would side with the complainers is even more baffling.

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Dashboard Confessional (aka Chris Carrabba) and John Ralston both call South Florida home, so it shouldn't be hard to find their new albums in local stores. Dashboard's The Shade of Poison Trees and Ralston's Sorry Vampire are both out today on Vagrant Records, the California indie label that's also home to Eels, the Futureheads, The Hold Steady, Paul Westerberg and Saves the Day.

I talked to both performers recently - Ralston two Saturdays ago at City Limits in Delray Beach, and Carrabba by telephone last Tuesday. The story in today's paper (posted here) focuses on a hometown gig, and the mix of anticipation and anxiety that goes with playing in one's own backyard.

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