by SHANE SINNOTT

One of the most important steps in the music industry’s survival happened last week when Internet radio broadcasters finally came to terms with SoundExchange (the body that collects royalties for artists) over royalty rates. It’s a fight that has been going on for three years, and started when SoundExchange demanded what many, this writer included, thought were exorbitant royalties for sites like pandora.com and others that make up the streaming radio market. The rates were high enough to put almost all of these operations out of business, effectively killing the whole online radio experiment, and a grassroots lobbying campaign on behalf of online radio began. After almost three years of bickering and U.S. congress-enforced deadlines etc., an agreement has been reached, and it’s likely online radio has been “saved.” You can read the details at tinyurl.com/lm6zwu.

Beck is a big procrastinator. Besides the Record Club cover series that I mentioned a few weeks ago, he’s now launched an interview series called Irrelevant Topics on his Web site as well—he must really not want to be working on that new album. His first interview subject is Tom Waits, who, as you can imagine, knows a shitload about irrelevant stuff. You can read that first interview at tinyurl.com/mlsjat. Favourite image, courtesy Mr. Waits: “My bass player Larry Taylor toured with Jerry Lee Lewis in the ’50s. They toured all over the U.S. in a Cadillac and all their gear was in the trunk. The amps, the bass... the speakers in the hall they played at were no bigger than an encyclopedia.”

If you like new, good music that sounds like old, good music, you’re going to want to get very pumped about the Almighty Defenders, which is basically the Black Lips and King Khan & BBQ, and which came about during the former’s time spent with the latter in Berlin after the Lips’ India debacle. Out Sept. 22, Bow Down and Die is circulating heavily on the net, and for good reason. Enjoy: tinyurl.com/lgxdvg.