The New Creation was born in 1970 when Chris Towers, an unknown guitarist from Vancouver, decided to form a Christian rock group with his mother Lorna as lead singer and their neighbor Janet Tiessen on drums. Scared by reports of the hippie excesses of the Manson/Altamont era, Lorna Towers wrote doom-laden, apocalyptic lyrics for the New Creation's aptly titled album, Troubled. The band was unpolished, yet somehow captured a unique lo-fi sound comparable to a hybrid of the Velvet Underground and the Shaggs. The group might be totally forgotten today, if an aging hippie record dealer named Ty Scammel hadn't rescued a copy from a $1 bargain bin, leading to the album's rediscovery by collectors of Christian rock and outsider music. [more inside]
posted by jonp72 on Jan 16, 2009 - 23 comments

The story goes like this: In the early 80's Madonna sat in with Was (Not Was) to record backing vocals (to Ozzy Osbourne's main vox) for their track Shake Your Head (Let's Go To Bed). Everything was peachy until Madonna's record label, Sire, refused to grant ZE Records permission to publish her recording. So other voices sang of things that cannot be done. Fast-forward ten years and the hits collection Hello Dad, I'm In Jail included the track and, again, the Madonna vocal was not released for use. (This time Kim Basinger's new backing track got the spot.) The new Basinger-backed single peaked at #4 on the UK charts and featured a b-side remix by producer Steve 'Silk' Hurley. However, a glorious blunder resulted in a recall of the single: ZE had sent Hurley Madonna's background vocals. The mistake wasn't caught until after pressing and lo! a very few copies of the record made it out into the world. And so, music fans, for a cool G you can lay hands on your own copy of Shake Your Head (Let's Go to Bed), featuring the b-side dub, the rarest of Madonna recordings. [Mouse over links for descriptions.]
posted by carsonb on May 12, 2008 - 49 comments

What you have purchased for less than the price of a cup of coffee is arguably one of the most important "lost" music recordings out there. Record collector Warren Hill paid 75 cents at a yard sale in Chelsea, New York for an acetate in a plain cardboard sleeve. After some research, Hill's friends confirmed that the acetate disc, recorded by sound engineer Norman Dolph (who also wrote Reunion's "Life Is A Rock But The Radio Rolled Me"), was the third recording ever made by the Velvet Underground and the first album they ever did. A demo rejected by Columbia Records, the acetate is now up for auction on EBay, where the high bid is $124,640.50 and climbing, already breaking records as the most expensive LP ever sold at auction. (Bonus: see a post from a teenage eyewitness to the VU's 1966 session that produced this acetate.)
posted by jonp72 on Dec 5, 2006 - 32 comments

Now that over 2,000,000 people have texted in for tickets to July's Live 8 concert, some of the lucky 150,000 people who've won tickets have already posted them on eBay... with massive success. Why? Are the bidders trying to scupper sellers attempts to profit from a charity gig? Or is because eBay have promised to make a donation "at least equivalent to the fees [they] collect from the sale of Live 8 tickets", which includes a percentage of every item sold? If so... wow.
posted by armoured-ant on Jun 13, 2005 - 29 comments

Crap on wheels... that's Robbie Williams. He has a bit of a history with (ahem) lavatory 'situations'...
posted by apocalypse miaow on Aug 2, 2003 - 12 comments

She's been (among other things) Maria Callas, Norma Desmond, and---(of course)---Eva Peron; she's done Sondheim, Mamet, and Porter; she's worked with DeNiro and Spike Lee; and she has a new cd out. Impressed? There's more: Patti Lupone sells stuff on e-bay!
posted by adrober on May 24, 2003 - 4 comments

eBay Prevents Musician from Selling Own CD-Rs
posted by entrustNoOne on Oct 31, 2002 - 17 comments

Kurt Cobain's childhood is home for sale on eBay. "The inspiration for lyrics of many of his songs were derived from life in Montesano during these early teen years." [thanks spotmeter]
posted by mathowie on Sep 13, 2002 - 17 comments

Let the market decide where Dan Bern will play next. Bern and his band are auctioning off a private concert at the auction winner's house. You can apparently make his appearance as large or intimate as you want. Would a dutch auction like this be enough to build a U.S. tour on?
posted by Dirjy on Sep 5, 2002 - 3 comments

The user who was selling Metallica's soul has been banned by EBay for bidding on another item he/she was selling. The strange part of all of this of course, is that I recognized their username when I read this story. Why can't we delete particular items in memory like we do with files on a computer?
posted by fooljay on May 12, 2000 - 2 comments