Business mogul Damon Dash, former head and co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, says he no longer has time for the music industry, and instead will focus on the fashion world and other enterprises.

“The music business isn’t so profitable, especially not hip-hop,â€? Dash recently told Contact Music. “I couldn’t buy what I wanted to buy. I’m talking cooks and drivers. I got into clothes to make money.â€? “The people in this business all think they’ve made it because they’re in charge of their little record labels. I’m like, this isn’t even my main source of income. I already did this business – and I made movies and I designed clothes and I got my own vodka and my own Swiss watch maker.

Damon Dash is known for his Roc-A-Fella/Rocawear venture with partners Jay-Z Kareem “Biggs� Burke. (Read full article)

You can thank the oil companies (price gouging) for killing the touring artists. Many artists are unable to tour due to the high gas prices. Brett Holman who manages the Allman Brothers has estimated that gas is costing the group at least $50,000 more this year than last year and at the end of the day it’s coming out of the band’s pocket. It cost’s Dashboard Confessional 90,000k to fuel up three tractor trailers and three buses. The cost will eventually be passed down to the consumer. (Rolling Stone)

We would like to retract our post that claimed Hawthorne Heights bragged about the #1 position on the top 200. It wasn’t them who created this “tacky” campaign around their release of “If You Were Only Lonely”. We forgot for one moment that Victory Records releases their records.

–EU court overturned the European Commission’s approval of the merger between the music units of Sony and Bertelsmann AG on Thursday, forcing the companies to request clearance for the deal again.