A couple years ago, he got his ass into a sling by releasing a mashup called the Gray album, which took The Beatles’ White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album and stuck them in a blender.  EMI wasn’t very impressed and sued the shit out of him.  Since then, he’s popped up in the news ticker for continuing to piss off entities protected under the RIAA’s umbrella.

Well, he’s released a new album, this time in cahoots with Mark Linkous, of Sparklehorse.  Putting both DM and Mr. Linkous together on an album puts you at risk of overdosing on brooding alt hipness. I own a few of Sparklehorse’s albums and must say that this one follows closely stylistically behind the others, which may explain why the mp3 shows Sparklehorse as the artist, not mentioning DM anywhere, at least on the copy I have.

Remember when I said that he’s a favorite target of the RIAA?  Well, in an effort to save himself a lawsuit, he’s releasing the album sans music. He’s going to release a case with artwork and a blank cd-r.  You can of course do anything you’d like with the cd-r.

Regardless of whether it’s solely an attempt to keep from losing everything he owns in future lawsuits, an attempt to get some free publicity or a mix of both, it’s welcome to see.  The more music that gets passed around via alternate methods to the tired and broken system that the labels use, the more comfortable people will be with it.  Hopefully there will come a day when people don’t find a release like this to be newsworthy, but commonplace.

Since their congressional and public declaration, they have sued hundreds more.  62 cases have been filed in April alone.

Keep it up, guys.  It makes me smile inside.

This is a miracle. He asked for proof of God’s existence and he got it. Matt has singlehandedly nullified all arguments against the existence of a higher power. What’s he going to do now? Write a book? Begin a speaking circuit? Start his own church? A television show perhaps?

None of these things, actually. Matt is suing the Lakewind church for $2.5 million, citing lost work, medical bills and pain & suffering. He states that someone should have caught him, since during previous possessions by the Holy Spirit, the congregation had always been there for him.

If God made man in his own image, we had all better get good attorneys in preparation of the second coming.

What’s he referencing? One of those dastardly, crooked cap wearing, pants-drooping music thieves with thousands of downloads under their belt, I bet.

Almost.

He is referencing a case the RIAA had to drop against one Tanya Andersen, a 45 year old single mother, subsisting on disability. They sent the dogs after her for sharing thousands of files. They continued their pursuit when their own expert found her computer to be free of any proof of pirating media. They continued after the RIAA itself found out the nick they attributed to her actually belonged to another person that was bragging online about stealing music. Only after Anderson’s attorney found this information did they offer to drop the suit… providing she agreed not to file a counter claim.

Reading the information in released documents, you come to realize how despicable the RIAA actually is and to what depths it will stoop. The RIAA however, sees it a little differently. Mr. Gabriel states that they didn’t drop the suit because they couldn’t prove their case. The nick they falsely attributed to Ms. Anderson? He states that the user name might have been inspired by Kylee, since she admitted she liked Dragon Ball Z, a Japanese anime TV series that has a character with a similar name.

And how did he intend to prove that she actually downloaded the music that they accused her of stealing? He stated that Andersen admitted that she knew or listened to some of the artists whose songs were offered for download.

“We could have pursued the case until the end of time.”

This man would like you to buy some of his client’s music.