Sound Bites: Marilyn Manson, Dave Matthews, Linkin Park
January 8 -- Court: Wearing Manson T-shirt Not Offensive ConductA woman convicted and fined for wearing a Marilyn Manson T-shirt at a town fair in Benton, Ky., won a reversal Friday from the Kentucky Court of Appeals, according to The Associated Press. Venus Starlett Dust Morgan was arrested in April 1998 when she wore a T-shirt saying, "I Am the God of Fuck" — a lyric from Manson's "Cake and Sodomy" — to the town's "Tater Days" festival. After being convicted of harassment and fined $322, Morgan likened the affair to "a Salem witch trial. … It was me getting burned at the stake." She lost her first appeal to Marshall Circuit Court, where a judge said the shirt was not constitutionally protected free speech, but the three ruling judges Friday didn't address free speech and overturned the ruling because "Wearing a T-shirt is not a course of conduct" and therefore it is not harassment, according to the news service.
Dave Matthews Band Gives Away New SingleFans eager to hear the latest Dave Matthews Band music don't even have to wait for the local radio station to give it a spin — the jam-rockers are offering it for free on their official Web site, dmband.com. The song, "I Did It," is the first release from the band's upcoming album, Every Day. The LP — DMB's fourth — is a departure for the group, which had previously recorded all its material with producer Steve Lillywhite. They'd begun working again with Lillywhite this summer but scrapped the material and teamed up in the fall with producer Glen Ballard (No Doubt, Alanis Morissette).
Linkin Park Returns to RoadLinkin Park has sold a million copies of its debut album, Hybrid Theory, with the help of stints on the road with Papa Roach and (hed) p.e. Now the upstart rap-rock act is hitting the road again as a headliner. The shows kick off Jan. 26 in Seattle and include a Feb. 3 stop at the Cypress Hill-organized Dragon Festival in San Bernardino, Calif. The band will perform its single, "One Step Closer," which is No. 5 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, in a Jan. 16 appearance on NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien.
