Welcome back to Underground Hum, children. It's musical storytime! Thank you for the lovely emails. Keep them coming. Let's get started with this week's Reverb.

REVERB

International

The boys of prettier-than-your-girlfriend psych-pop duo MGMT are pissed off at France, specifically its President, Nicolas Sarkozy. The glittery pair is now in the middle of a contentious copyright battle with Sarkozy according to Agence France Presse. AFP reports that Sarkozy's Union for a Popular Movement party used MGMT's song "Kids" at its national congress in January and in a couple online videos.

Thing is, the party never asked MGMT for permission to use the song. And the band is crying foul. "We are dealing with acts of counterfeiting, an infringement of intellectual property," said the band's French lawyer, Isabelle Wekstein, in an interview with AFP. The UMP owned up to their mistake and "has offered the band one euro (US$1.25 dollars) in symbolic damages for copyright infringement," says AFP. But Wekstein called the symbolic gesture "insulting" and threatened to sue the party if the band's compensation demands aren't met.

There's an extra serving of delicious irony involved in this particular case of artist vs. politician. As AFP reports, Sarkozy's party is a week away from presenting a new anti-file-sharing bill to France's parliament. "It seems that those who led the charge against internet users are not the most respectful of copyright," said Wekstein to AFP, spotlighting said irony.

Legendary Irish writer/director Neil Jordan, of The Crying Game and Interview with the Vampire fame, has tapped Sigur R*s keyboardist, Kjartan Sveinsson, to write the score for his forthcoming film Ondine, Sigur R*s announced on their website last week. A few songs from Sigur R*s will also appear on the soundtrack. Internet Movie Database describes Ondine's plot thusly: "The story of an Irish fisherman who discovers a woman in his fishing net who he believes to be a mermaid." The films star Colin Farrell.

National

The following qualifies more as regional news, but since it includes a few Indonesian acts, I'll gladly put it here. The nominees for the very first Asian Independent Music Awards or AVIMA 2009 were recently announced, and not one, not two, not three, but SEVEN Indonesian acts were nominated (and one of them is Elemental Gaze, an Underground Hum Main Stage alum) including one Indonesian/Malaysian/Singaporean/Thai/Hong Kong collaborative hip-hop act The Diplomats International!

Malaysia leads the way with 36 nominations, with acts like Pop Shuvit, Estrella, Melissa Indot, Yuna and Altimet getting the major nods.

The judging process for AVIMA 2009 begins from March 1 onwards, where global audiences will be able to log-in to an online voting site to listen to the songs and cast their votes. 30 percent of the songs will be via online voting and 70 percent of the other scores will be decided by global judges who come from Europe, Australia and US. The awards will be held as a global web event that will take place on March 29 2009.

We here at Underground Hum and The Jakarta Post would like to extend big congratulatory hugs to Indonesia's very own Elemental Gaze, White Shoes & The Couples Company, Everybody Loves Irene, Overload Romance, Ritmic-Traumatic, Koil and The Diplomats International. Good luck to you all!

You can check out www.voize.my for more details on the awards including the full list of nominees.

UNDERGROUND HUM'S RANDOM TOP 5 LIST

The Oscars happened last week, and I still have an awful flavor in my mouth from the bitter fact that the Academy neglected to nominate Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" from Darren Aronofsky's eponymous film (which was also robbed of a Best Picture Nomination, but this is a music column not a film column, so I will refrain from ranting about this). In honor of The Boss and his many brilliant musical contributions to films, I've decided to dedicate this week's Top 5 to:

TOP 5 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN SONGS USED IN OR MADE FOR FILMS

The Wrestler from Darren Aronofsky"The Wrestler": The Boss works best when he's telling the song from the first person point of view of a down and out character, and Mickey Rourke's outstanding performance for Randy "The Ram " Robinson gave him all the anguish and pain needed to make this song the emotional powerhouse it is.

Streets of Philadelphia from Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia": To this day, hearing this song alone or while watching the opening credits of the film still causes a pain in my heart that I just can't shake. Beautiful songwriting.

Dead Man Walking from Tim Robbins' "Dead Man Walking": Another first person account told from the point of view of Sean Penn's character Matthew Poncelet, perfectly reflects the death row inmate's acceptance of his fate and his feeling towards the futility of guilt.

Secret Garden from Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire": Used beautifully in the film during the moment where Renee Zellweger's Dorothy tells Tom Cruise's Jerry that their relationship needs to be put on hold.

The River from Stephen Frears' "High Fidelity" and Peter Bogdanovich's "Mask": Probably the most frequently used Springsteen song next to Born in the USA. Another song of anguish desperation like only The Boss could write. Used perfectly in these two films

That about does it for this week's Underground Hum.

If you have any questions, suggestions, praises, and curses just send me a note at undergroundhum@yahoo.com.

For all of you bands or artists out there, let us know if you have a gig coming up so we can include it in future editions of reverb. Be sure to include the name of the event you're playing, what other acts are billed, time, place, date, and entry fee if any.

See you when I see you!

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