Every once in a while, I get around to updating the "Music" tab on my blog to include new music that I’ve discovered.

Today is the day.  For those of you looking for some good tunes, don’t forget to check out the music tab.

Also, for those of you interested, I’ve posted some of my personal tracks up there as well.

For those of you who want to know about our portfolio company, Topspin, they’ll be at CES this week.  Foundry folks will be there as well.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Coldplay has been sued by Joe Satriani over Cold Play’s hit song Viva La Vida.  Joe is claiming that his song was ripped off.  I think the following video best explains the lawsuit. 

It’s really uncanny how similar the songs are.  They are even the same key.  But is it copyright infringement?  I love lawsuits like these because there are such interesting issues at play.  My former law school professor Susan Kornfield is to thank for creating all of my interest in this subject.

The key here is that Joe must prove Coldplay ACTUALLY copied his work.  George Harrison was found guilty of plagiarizing "He’s so Fine" when he released "My Sweet Lord" when the court found that he subconsciously copied the song.  He’s so Fine was a big enough hit that it was hard for George to argue that he had never heard the song and although he contended there was no intent, the court said that subconscious infringement was still infringement. 

Let’s assume for a moment that Coldplay did not intentionally steal Joe’s song.  (And if they did, they were idiots – couldn’t you guys at least change the key?).

The question is did they have access to hear Joe’s original work?  Joe’s song certainly never got any airplay.  Even my rock and roll guitar partner Ryan had never heard of it.  This will be very interesting to see how it plays out.  The chord structure is nothing novel, it’s really all about the melody.

If you like interesting cases like this, make sure to check out John Fogerty being sued for allegedly copying himself and Ray Parker Jr. having to pay Huey Lewis for Ghostbusters.

Found this on Yahoo! Music today – a survey of the greatest ‘staches in Rock and Roll.  I’m disappointed that I did not make the list.

Some people just "get it."  Ian Rogers, the CEO of Topspin is one of those people.  Of course, we already knew that as we invested in his company, but today just reaffirms what a visionary Ian is. 

He recently gave the keynote at the Grammy MusicTech Summit 08 and his entire speech is here.  If you are interested in where he thinks the music industry is going, or have an opinion yourself, I’d highly encourage you to take a read.  I’d love to start a discussion on this blog.

To whet your appetite, I present to you Ian’s feelings about the actual value music (per unit) plummeting over the years.

I spent some good quality time with Rock Band 2 this past weekend in between naps.  (Something about cold weather and traveling a lot has turned me into a 50 year old man, apparently). 

This was my first time actually taking Rock Band "seriously."  Previously, I’d get together with folks and usually play bass or guitar and not my native instrument of drums, as I really never found the drumming compelling in Rock Band. 

For whatever reason, this changed this past weekend.  I decided to really try to play and what I found was interesting. 

Being a drummer is a detriment to playing Rock Band drums in many instances.  The easier the setting, the harder it became for me, as I couldn’t divorce my limbs from playing the "real" part of the song. 

As I moved onto the hard / expert settings, I found playing easier, although reading the notes in real time became exponentially more difficult.  Clearly, sight reading on expert is challenging.  (Especially Boston’s Foreplay / Long Time).

In the end, I can say that on expert settings, you really do have to play all the notes, although I’d say I’d still find it easier if I had a "real" drum kit than trying to hit the drum controller.  Thankfully, Brad bought me a gift. 

One other interesting factoid.  You can find plenty of YouTube videos with folks playing perfectly the drum parts on expert, but they aren’t drummers.  You can tell when they go to fill and they aren’t any good.  But it’s incredibly impressive that they can train their limbs to cover the parts. 

All in all, I’m a larger fan than ever.  I’m going to have to buy a setup.

Today, we published an article on our Foundry Group blog about the strange dance of politics and music.  Specifically, we’ve been following the royalty negotiations and legislative actions surrounding Pandora.

I’ve been an active participant in the debate regarding royalty streams for track plays for a long time.  I’ve never understood why the labels have been so resistant to let their customers actually discover their artists’ products, but then again, I don’t understand much of what the labels do.  In there lies the opportunity for the creation of good companies and investment in them like Topspin. 

I’d encourage you to check out our piece on the Foundry blog and join the discussion.

Amid the craziness of Wall Street, the U.S. auto industry, and Matt Millen finally being fired by the Lions, I received the most bizarre gift today.  EVER.  Clearly this is a sign that the world is ending.

In case you can’t tell, it’s a Barry F’in Manilow Pillow Case.  I mean, who really needs this?  Being the curious sort that I am, I found the official Barry Manilow merchandise site.  Some of my favorites were the "Infant Wear" and the Bobbleheads.  I’m totally excited for gift giving season now.  If you are on my list, watch out. 

Today, David Byrne and Brian Eno have released their new album "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today."  I’ve just started to listen to it and so far, it’s really excellent.

The melodies are eclectic, yet familiar and David’s voice sounds the same as it ever was.  And you may ask yourself why this album is so significant and there are at least three reasons.

First, this is David and Brian’s first collaboration in about 30 years.

Secondly, our Foundry Group portfolio company, Topspin Media is the platform behind their web site.

Lastly, if you are a Byrne / Eno fan, you can get exclusive content that includes bonus songs, film and a hardcover book. 

Below, you can check the album out.

My friend, Carl Rosendahl, has created a very cool video while hanging out in his Los Angeles hotel bathroom the other day. 

For those of you who don’t know Carl, he is quite the photographer as well.  He recently completed a goal of taking a picture a day for an entire year.  He took some beautiful shots. 

I guess the next step is to get Carl to do a music video in Brad’s bathroom.