Japanese harp player Masami Toyoda was arrested for playing Beatles songs in a bar. Soon they will start fining people who whistle, and God help you if you get a song stuck in your head. Just thinking about “Can’t Buy Me Love” might get you arrested in Japan, it seems.

The Story:

A 73-year-old bar manager who illegally performed copyrighted tunes by the Beatles and other artists on the harmonica was arrested Thursday on suspicion of violating the Copyright Law, police said.

Arrested was Masami Toyoda, of Tokyo’s Nerima-ku. He has reportedly admitted to the allegations against him.

Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles’ songs “Here, There and Everywhere” and “Yesterday,” whose copyrights are managed by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. He allegedly performed the songs on the harmonica with a female pianist at the bar he operated between August and September this year.

Officials said the society sought a provisional injunction against Toyoda in 2001 because he had repeatedly performed copyrighted songs in the past without permission, and the Tokyo District Court granted the injunction.

The society filed a criminal complaint against him in September this year because he later kept playing copyrighted songs. (Mainichi)

I have just learned that Omnitronics shut down the Conneaut, Ohio facilities. This ends, as far as I know, the production of American home grown Astatic mics. I called and I can’t get Hohner Blues Blaster parts from them anymore.

Astatic was an important part of the development of communications for about 50 years and then just went down hill. There seemed to be a reluctance to compete. I counted the company dead when they stopped making the JT-30, but the company’s slide into obscurity started long ago.

There is still a web page and they list some products, but the discontinued product list is far longer than their active list.

Astatic is now just a devalued brand name someone uses to market cheap foreign made microphones.

The guys at Black Dog are doing free masters in order to get their name out. This might be a nice way to hear how a garage song comes out with aid of a little professional help. You can’t beat the price. It’s limited to one song, normally $50 a track. I would guess that you’d need to have a decent multi-track recording to start with – it doesn’t make sense to send them a cassette recorded with one badly placed mic. If you try this out, send me the before and after MP3 and I’ll post it here so everyone can see if there’s a real difference.
Free Demo Master