plus: John Hartford obit. Latin Grammys rescheduled. The Old 97's [ tickets ].

The New York Times reported that "Napster is close to an agreement for permission to use music from [AOL Time Warner's Warner Music, Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment and EMI Group] in a pay version of its service, according to people close to the situation."

Phish [ tickets ] has sued Sean "Waldo" Knight for marketing "merchandise based on Phish logos and the band's intellectual property," Billboard.com reported.

Knight is quoted in the story, not denying that what he is doing wrong, but saying that his effect on Phish merchandise sales has been negligible.

Songwriter-bluegrass musician John Hartford died of cancer on Monday (6/4) at age 63, according to the Associated Press.

The Latin Grammys will take place in Miami on Sept. 11, not Sept. 12 as originally planned.

Old '97's will join matchbox twenty's tour on July 31, according to the band's website. With this announcement, the band's journey from alt-country to pop is probably complete.

The fact that so many of alt-country's leading lights--the '97's, the Jayhawks, Jeff Tweedy (currently of Wilco, formerly of Uncle Tupelo), Robbie Fulks--jump to pop at the first opportunity leads us to wonder if they really wanted to play country music in the first place, if they didn't just happen, while young and in their respective music scenes, to drift into playing country stuff because no one else in the scene was, and learned that there was an audience that was starved for the Twang, and that that audience paid just enough money for them to keep going, though not nearly enough as a pop audience would, and so they just bided their time and waited for escape. ("Old '97's." That name sort of seems like it was born of kitsch, now that we look at it.)

This theory occurred to us after reading a John Doe interview where he said, if memory serves, that he would be more comfortable writing Elliot Smith-style pop instead of the rootsy stuff for which he's known--he sounded like he felt trapped. Which is understandable, as roots-music fans are a paranoid, possessive, insecure lot, having felt so toyed with and betrayed over the years.