"This is the rehearsal, right?" Thom Yorke teased the audience last night inside Club Fais Do Do, renamed for the evening "Club Amok" for a surprise/secret Atoms For Peace performance. "You were the lucky ones who got tickets."

Amok is the title of the new Atoms For Peace album, released in February, and many inside the club got their tickets free from local record shops after buying the record.

I was one of the lucky ones who got in. And man, if this was only a rehearsal, those of you who catch them on their forthcoming world tour which kicks off in Paris on July 6 are fortunate souls indeed.

The performance swayed between trance-y, ethereal, hypnotic grooves and taut, muscular jams; afrobeat-inspired droning rhythm meets electroglitch meets merciless funk. An epiphany I had halfway through the set: "Flea" is an anagram for "Fela."

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If you're too old, broke, tied to your job, or crowd-phobic to have made it to Bonnaroo in person but still want to hear all the bands, no sweat bro! Just tune in on Ustream. Here's the dual-channel video feed, and here's the artist schedule.

Highlights today: Wilco (at right, and performing "Shot in the Arm" above) at 630pm Central Standard Time today, Paul McCartney from 9:00pm-10:00pm, Wu-Tang Clan is scheduled for 7:30pm-9:00pm, and from midnight to 2:00am, a Superjam with RZA, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Schoolboy Q, Earl Sweatshirt, Solange, and Chad Hugo featuring Lettuce plus special guests.

Neil Young talks model trains with David Letterman. Young isn't just a model train enthusiast, he's also an inventor. From Dangerous Minds:

Young first created a research and development company, Liontech, to help the storied Lionel, LLC train manufacturing company, founded in 1900, create model trains with sound systems and control units. Young then became part owner of Lionel, along with an investment company. It was Young’s designs and inventions for Lionel that helped to bring the company out of bankruptcy in 2008. Young’s first train-related invention was a control unit, the Big Red Button, that enabled his son, who has cerebral palsy, to control the trains.

"Neil Young, Model Train Geek"

I am overjoyed about the new video series, "The Art of Punk," from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. The project comes from Bryan Ray Turcotte, author of the fantastic art book Fucked Up + Photocopied and Bo Bushnell (Teenage Teardrop, Kill Your Idols). The first episode is about the icongraphy of Black Flag. Future episodes dig into BB pal Winston Smith's Dead Kennedys artwork and Dave King's Crass logo, which he wrote about earlier this year for Boing Boing. (LA Weekly)

Copyright scholars have long been pretty certain that "Happy Birthday to You" is in the public domain, despite the fact that Warner/Chappell claims copyright on it and charges impressive licensing fees to use it in public performances. Those fees, however, are much lower than a copyright lawsuit would be, so everyone shrugs and pays them. Until now.

A documentary film company working on a movie about "Happy Birthday" has assembled a huge body of evidence showing that the song has been in the public domain since the 1920s, and is suing Warner to get them to return the hundreds of millions they've improperly charged in licensing since. This is gonna be great.

The full lawsuit, embedded below, goes through a detailed history of the song and any possible copyright claims around it. It covers the basic history of "Good Morning to You," but also notes that the "happy birthday" lyrics appeared by 1901 at the latest, citing a January 1901 edition of Inland Educator and Indiana School Journal which describes children singing a song called "happy birthday to you." They also point to a 1907 book that uses a similar structure for a song called "good-bye to you" which also notes that you can sing "happy birthday to you" using the same music. In 1911, the full "lyrics" to Happy Birthday to You were published, with a notation that it's "sung to the same tune as 'Good Morning.'" There's much more in the history basically showing that the eventual copyright that Warner/Chappell holds is almost entirely unrelated to the song Happy Birthday to You.

The detail in the filing is impressive, and I can't wait to see how Warner/Chappell replies. As the filing notes, there are a variety of copyright claims around the song, but all are invalid or expired, and the very, very narrow copyright that Warner/Chappell might hold is not on the song itself. In other words, Warner/Chappell is almost certainly guilty of massive copyfraud -- perhaps the most massive in history -- in claiming a copyright it clearly has no right to.

Lawsuit Filed To Prove Happy Birthday Is In The Public Domain; Demands Warner Pay Back Millions Of License Fees [Mike Masnick/Techdirt]

(Image: 53/365 - 02/22/11 - Happy Birthday, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from shardayyy's photostream)

We just released Boing Boing's first short ebook, Mark Dery's "All The Young Dudes: Why Glam Matters," and the feedback has been terrific. Mr. Dery was just a guest on New Hampshire Public Radio's "Word of Mouth" show talking about this subculture that served as a glitter bomb of fashion and attitude and briefly relieved the malaise of the '70s. You can hear the interview here, read a free excerpt to whet your whistle, or take the plunge and buy the ebook for just $2.99 from Amazon.

Mathew sez,

19th Century technology meets 21st Century music over a bottle of beer in the latest extension to the Beck's Record Label project. This time, the art label has evolved, and been replaced by the grooves of Auckland band Ghost Wave. Their new single was inscribed into the surface of a beer bottle which could then be played on a specially-built device based on Thomas Edison's original phonograph.

The idea originated with creative agency Shine in Auckland NZ, but making the world's first playable beer bottle was a formidable technical challenge. The clever people at Gyro Constructivists first had to design and build a record-cutting lathe, driven by a hard drive recording head. Then they reinvented Edison's original cylinder player, using modern materials and electronics and built to very fine tolerances. The Edison Bottle made its public debut at SemiPermanent in Auckland in May to a standing ovation from the assembled media and design community.

The Beck's Edison Bottle

Last weekend, I let you know that a new Beastles album was forthcoming from djBC, who was reprising his mid-2000s project to mash up the Beatles and the Beastie Boys, which disappeared thanks to legal threats from EMI. Now, djBC writes,

The third and final Beastles album, Ill Submarine, is now out. 20 songs mashing the Fab Four with the B-Boys.

Some folks seem to be discovering this stuff for the first time, which is cool. I guess that makes sense- its been about 9 years since the first album came out- 2004! and 6 or 7 years since "Let It Beast." It seems like ages ago.

For those who are catching up, Silence Seven from Beastiemixes.com is kindly hosting the first two albums of Beastle mixes as well.

Dedicated to the memory of Adam Yauch.

I've been listening to this all week now. I suggest starting with No Sleep Til the Sun Comes Up, Brrthday and Twist That Train.

The Beastles : Ill Submarine (Thanks, djBC!)

The delightful film Frances Ha has a wonderfully-eclectic soundtrack including tracks by David Bowie, Paul McCartney, T. Rex, Dean & Britta, and Harry Nilsson. I especially enjoyed the use of Hot Chocolate's 1978 hit, "Every1's A Winner." Harvey Hinsley's gritty, weird guitar sound comes from a Marshall Time Modulator, a curious analog effects processor loved by Joy Division producer Martin Hannett and Stevie Wonder alike! Frances Ha: Music from the Motion Picture (Amazon)

Here's a spectacular Monotribe synthesizer cake, apparently last year's birthday cake for Moonbuz.

Happy Birthday with Monotribe Cake (via Crazy Abalone)