Fish Nation Information Station

New GIMP

GIMP 2.8 was released today and boasts enough new features to make it the go-to image editing program. The prominent new features include improvements for brushes, text, and layers, along with a streamlined user interface. Behind the scenes, major improvements have been made in the graphics processing. Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X executables are expected to follow shortly.

Notes

Filming for The Hobbit in New Zealand is nearing completion. The film is the first major motion picture to be shot at 48 frames per second (fps), which provides more believable motion and solidity than the traditional 24 fps. However, most movie theaters lack the equipment to project at 48 fps, so most showings may be at 24 fps. The first of two movies is scheduled for release December 14.

Bob Dylan has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States’ top award outside of the military.

A holographic illusion of Tupac Shakur was projected on a live music stage this month at the Coachella Music Festival, creating the illusion of the dead rapper performing two songs. Tupac, who recorded as 2Pac, was assassinated in 1996 after surviving previous assassination attempts. His works are controlled by his family, and there are rumors of a tour of the Tupac “hologram,” though that wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

The two surviving members of TLC are preparing a 20th anniversary album, a tour, and a VH1 movie.

The Jacksons are planning their first tour and album since the 1980s. “I can’t move like I used to,” 60-year-old Jackie Jackson admits, but said the brothers had finally solved the scheduling problems around touring together. Tour rehearsals begin today. The tour will be followed by a new studio album.

An all-new Beach Boys album is mixed and ready for a June 5 release. On the album, core members Mike Love and Bruce Johnston are joined by the band’s 1960s studio genius, Brian Wilson, along with Al Jardine and David Marks. The full group is also touring together through August. The band cautions, though, that no one should expect Brian Wilson, who never quite enjoyed touring, to appear regularly with the Beach Boys after this summer.

When Guns N’ Roses lead singer Axl Rose skipped the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony to avoid a possibly awkward scene, he went out of his way to be gracious about it. He issued a statement beforehand wishing the hall of fame and former band members well. Later he issued an statement apologizing to the city of Cleveland for not making an appearance and thanking fans for their support and understanding.

Ted Nugent, who has a history of joking about killing public figures, was interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service after a political speech in which he spoke of beheading White House officials, perhaps including the president. In the interview, Nugent explained that he was speaking metaphorically. Styx, which is touring with Nugent this summer, assures fans that the tour will not focus on politics at all.

Sinead O’Connor may be retiring from touring because of illness, including her struggles with bipolar disorder. A major tour, which was scheduled to run from April to the end of the year, was canceled on the advice of her doctor.

Rush has completed its new regular studio album, Clockwork Angels, and it is set for a June 12 release. Two of the songs on the new album will be familiar to fans. “Caravan” and “BU2B” were recorded first, in 2010, and performed on the Time Machine tour between June 2010 and June 2011. The remaining tracks the album were recorded over the fall and winter. The band has scheduled most of the dates for a North American tour from September to December and will go on from there to see the rest of the world.

Death: Greg Ham, who played saxophone, flute, and keyboards in Men At Work. He is best remembered for the flute solo in the song “Down Under.” Homicide detectives investigated the death, but concluded that there was no foul play involved.

Death: Dick Clark, television music presenter. He was the host of American Bandstand from 1957 to 1987 and was known as “America’s oldest teenager.”

Death: Levon Helm, singer and drummer with The Band.

Notes

The new biggest opening weekend in U.S. movie history will, when this weekend is over, belong to Hunger Games. The movie’s soundtrack is also a phenomenon, with exclusive tracks recorded by big-name artists.

Weird Al Yankovic is suing Sony for improper accounting of download sales, along with a list of other lapses.

Yes launches a month-long tour of Australia and Pacific countries today without its regular lead singer. Benoit David is sidelined with an illness, so the band is touring with Glass Hammer singer Jon Davison as its singer for this tour.

A new ZZ Top album is on the way, probably by summer. The biggest challenge, the band says, is cutting back their recorded work to 10 tracks in order to not overwhelm fans.

Death: Earl Scruggs, the banjo player who defined the banjo style of the second half of the 20th-century. He recorded with Flatt & Scruggs, who are best known to pop music fans for the theme song to the television series The Beverly Hillbillies.

Fender Plans Stock Offering

To fans of guitars, Fender might have hit its peak in the 1960s, but measure the company strictly in financial terms, and it is bigger now than it ever was. That might help to explain why Fender is just now planning its initial public stock offering. If all goes well, Fender will soon be trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol FNDR.

The company and a few of its stockholders plan to raise $200 million by selling shares, with half of that going to pay down debt.

Notes

Roxette has worked out the details of a U.S. tour in September. It will be the Swedish band’s first U.S. visit since a short promotional tour in September 2000.

The new Bruce Springsteen album Wrecking Ball is set for release March 6, with a trans-Atlantic tour to follow. The album is an “experiment” in musical directness. Its subject? “Wall Street greed” and its ugly consequences.

The new John Mayer album Born and Raised is set for a May release.

Adele’s album 21 broke out to a new level of public attention after its big success at the Grammys, which saw the singer take home 6 separate awards including Album of the Year.

Death: Davy Jones, the English singer of American made-for-TV band The Monkees.

Notes

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange plays himself on the upcoming 500th episode of The Simpsons. The story steers clear of the current legal disputes surrounding Wikileaks.

A new Madonna single, “Give Me All Your Luvin’,” is set for release through select channels on Friday, in advance of the singer’s Super Bowl halftime appearance on Sunday.

The Internet blackout on January 18 protesting Internet censorship legislation startled Washington with its size, scope, and effectiveness. Some web servers at Congress were down briefly at points during the day because of the volume of messages related to Internet censorship. In the aftermath, censorship supporters were forced to reassess their positions. Talking Points Memo wrote, “Behind the scenes, Hill staffers from both sides of the aisle confirmed to TPM that the entire piracy debate had become so ‘toxic’ that virtually no lawmakers were likely to be ready to re-engage it anytime soon.” “Toxic” meant that legislators were afraid that being seen as supporters of the censorship bills could cost them their chances of re-election.

With the SOPA and PIPA bills postponed and effectively withdrawn, it seems likely that replacement legislation to address online piracy will not be considered until after the November election, and that it will not include the controversial provisions of SOPA and PIPA that would effectively have make it illegal for a web site to allow users to post comments or other content, or to have links to other sites. Also, unlike SOPA and PIPA, any replacement legislation will surely be looked over carefully by legal analysts before it is introduced.

Songwriting blogger Paul Nordquist is in the middle of a series of posts for would-be songwriters who might be having a hard time getting started. The advice could be useful for participants in February Album Writing Month (FAWM.org). Most of the people who sign up and commit to writing an album’s worth of songs during the month of February fail to write even one song during the month.

Ratt, hot off the success of Infestation, is in preproduction for a new album, scheduled for a summer release.

Book commentary site Goodreads today stopped using data from the Amazon.com books database. Amazon’s bibliographic data had become harder to work with, Goodreads said, so it is now taking charge of its own book data.

NewBay Acquires Guitar World

NewBay Media, publisher of Guitar Player magazine, today acquired Guitar World magazine, along with two other guitar magazines previously operated by Future US. So far there is no word on whether the acquisition means Guitar Player will stop publishing, or if so, how soon.

Notes

It is a new year, and new albums are on the way from:

1. Van Halen (with David Lee Roth)
2. Aerosmith
3. Richie Sambora
4. The Fixx
5. Paul McCartney
6. Roxette
7. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
8. Ultravox
9. Focus
10. The Beach Boys (with Brian Wilson)

Television is not just broadcast, cable, and satellite anymore, and so for the first time this year, the National Football League will be live-streaming the Pro Bowl and Super Bowl on the Internet.