Darla Records is a bit cranky that Morr Music entered into a distribution agreement with Caroline Distribution, and allegedly started selling one title in particular a tad too early. Check this factually incorrect rant from Darla's weekly update: "LALI PUNA-Tridecoder CD (Darla: drl096) $9.00. EXCLUSIVE. Restock. Punk ass German bitch Thomas Morr breached his license agreement with Darla and began selling this title early to his new distributor Caroline. Do not support ungrateful, disrespectful, self-centered twits like Morr or their manipulative major label (editor: it's an indie distributor) hack distributors. They only hurt themselves, artists and partners. We have 230 Tridecoder remaining in stock. Please order this title from Darla. Thank you."

A few weeks ago I saw a T-shirt that read, "Ithica is Gangsta." Maybe somebody should make one that says, "Hartford is Gangsta." Who knew Hartford was such a hotbed of music piracy? The Daily News reports that the RIAA is stepping up lawsuits against Connecticut residnets--seven in the last two months. To no surprise, an unsupervised child did the damage. Said one girl's father, "I wanted to bring my 12-year-old to federal court and have her explain to a jury how she did it. I don't know how she did it." Ignorance is bliss...unless you're settling out of court for $3,500.

EMusic is supposed to re-launch its bad self today. A press release talks of 500,000 songs, proclaims that it is "unquestionably the digital destination for indie music," exclusive music by Frank Black and Ted Leo, and Red Eye Distribution's 90-plus labels within its vast catalog. Cheap downloads, too. $40 for 90. Memo to EMusic: that "exclusive" Ted Leo song, "Me and Mia," has for a while been availabe--for free--on both Ted's site and the site of his label, Lookout! Records. Ted's site has a demo, Lookout! has the real deal. But if you can get people to pay for it, more power to ya. This morning Coolfer went over to EMusic to check out the new site...and it's as slow as a brand new beta. Looks much improved, though. At the "alternative/punk" page the age of the staff is showing--highlighted are such artists as The Silos, The Residents, Marc Eitzel and Pelt. And god bless 'em, they've broken down the music into sub-genres. Just the fact that EMusic has a krautrock section (under electronic?) and the Purple Pyramid catalog is somewhat mindboggling. I'm going to download The Best of Guru Guru, Part 2 right now.

Since when did people go back to calling it Burma? Billboard on a benefit for the U.S. Campaign for Burma, which will benefit from an upcoming CD with songs by the usual folks who do benefit CDs: R.E.M., Ben Harper, Indigo Girls, Bonnie Raitt, Coldplay, Natalie Merchant and the others. Last I heard it was renamed Myanmar in 1989.