You knew it had to happen, this being Seattle where it's perfectly expected that if a band "breaks up," they'll get right back together as soon as the royalty checks stop coming or indulgent side projects finally fizzle out--whichever comes last, usually. So it should be no surprise that the Presidents of the United States of America have reformed under a much more economic name: the Presidents. Chris Ballew, Dave Dederer, and Jason Finn have recorded a new album, Freaked Out and Small, to be released in September on MUSICBLITZ. The trio claims they've changed their sound but remain true to the band's "original sensibility," which I'm guessing means we can all expect hard, guitar-driven, garage-y songs that still feature silly lyrics about household items.

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It seems Courtney Love is following through on her promise to make Hole's music available for download via the Internet: www.holemusic.com offers more than 50 collectable tracks, including a duet of Love and Kurt Cobain singing "Asking for It," a song originally featured on Live Through This. Last month, Love played guest speaker at the Digital Hollywood conference, and vowed to use the Internet to distribute Hole's music to their fans for free. Among the freebies are a shitload of covers, including Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now Baby Blue," Nirvana's "Penny Royal Tea," Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City," and the Lemonheads' "Into Your Arms." Also on the site is a forum for sharing bootlegs. Gee, I wonder if the tape of Nirvana doing "Old Age" years before it appeared on Hole's "Beautiful Son" single will show up in that forum?

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Old rivalries die hard in this city of epic touchiness: In an interview with sonicnet.com, Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock revealed what his mindset would be if a single from The Moon and Antarctica were to become a hit. "If we do get huge, it won't explode my ego, because I've already got a pretty good grasp on the fact that complete shit can become huge, too. I mean, if Harvey Danger and stuff can become big, it doesn't mean shit if your song does well. In fact, it might be a bad thing. It could end up hurting my feelings." Brock has no fond feelings for Harvey Danger's frontman Sean Nelson following Nelson's review of The Lonesome Crowded West in Alternative Press--which, although favorable, was interpreted by Brock as basically saying he was an idiot savant. That sparked a lot of prank phone calls and a challenge to a duel as Modest Mouse set up to play the second stage at Endfest while Harvey Danger blared away on the main stage. That, in turn, prompted End big guy Phil Manning to call MM drummer Jeremiah Green's mother and accuse her of not raising her son right (or something just as unacceptable). The weird thing about that is, besides the fact that the asshole bitched out a fine mother, Jeremiah's brother Adam was, and still is, a DJ at the End. Ooooh, it's so tangled! Anyway, that was years ago, but apparently it's still fresh in Isaac's mind. Hard dyin' rivalries: Number two on the list of things I love about this town.