DCist is reporting that indie pop duo Georgie James–and one of D.C.’s more interesting groups–has called it quits. Here is the message posted on the band’s website:

After three years, Georgie James is calling it a day. We’re proud of the album we made and everything else that we were able to do during our time together. We are both working on our respective solo projects (John’s can be found at www.myspace.com/titletracksdc and Laura’s at www.myspace.com/lauraburhenn) and hope to have albums out early next year. Thanks to everyone that helped our band over these past few years. And thanks to those who’ve listened to the music and come out to the shows. It is greatly appreciated. See you around soon. - John and Laura/Georgie James

No matter how kinda lame the D.C. indie scene has gotten lately, you could always say “At least, there’s Georgie James.” Now, who’s gonna be our flagship band? Judging by their solo myspace pages, John has a leg up on his former music partner. He’s already got tons of demos. At least that’s something to cheer. [You can read our review of Georgie James' only LP here.]

Channel your best eulogy writing in the comments section!

Showing the grasp of the youth market that’s always been the musical-instrument industry’s forte, Fender announced yesterday that it will be issuing a Billy Corgan guitar. For our younger readers, Billy Corgan was the singer and songwriter of a band called the Smashing Pumpkins, who were popular until he went steampunk and made an album about a musician named Glass who talked to God and whose fans were called the Ghost Children. Then he was in a band called Zwan that definitely did not have God’s ear and began acting ever more strangely, to the point where even Homer Simpson might have taken back his praise for Corgan in the Simpsons‘ “Homerpalooza” episode: “You know, my kids think you’re the greatest. And thanks to your gloomy music, they’ve finally stopped dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide.”

But now those of us who are as old as me (and, ahem, saw the Pumpkins play at Twisters in Richmond, Va., in 1991 (cough! wheeze!) can give our kids Billy Corgan guitars and say, Hey, here’s the tool of my generation, Generation X! And here’s his guitar!

(press release after the jump)
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Harp magazine is back. Kinda. The Silver Spring-based music magazine, which ended its run in March, has relaunched as an online-only publication, Blurt, that includes a “digizine”—a digital magazine that includes all the contents of a typical music magazine. Accessing new content is easy! If you want to read EIC Scott Crawford’s editor’s note about the mag’s new direction, here’s all you have to do:

1. Go to www.blurt-online.com.

2. Click on the magazine cover at top right.

3. Click on the “next” button.

4. Again.

5. Again. Hurry, there’s an ad for an Amy Ray solo album!

6. Read pull quote: “The question on a lot of bloggers’ lips—laptop screens–right now is, is print really dead?”

7. Realize that you can’t copy and paste said pull quote. Or e-mail the article. Or provide a direct link to it.

8. Note that, while print may be having a death rattle, ungainly Web-print hybrids are dead from the start.

Baltimore gets “Best Scene” in the new Rolling Stone “Best of Rock” issue. Does this mean that the Baltimore scene is officially over?

Eric Alterman has an article in the New Yorker this week about the state of the newspaper industry. He makes some great points, but also makes a statement that is more a wail of liberal anguish than a prediction that can be supported by history: the newspaper is in its death throes. (If that were true why would anyone care about this man’s job?)

Seems to me that what he means to say is that the newspaper as we know it is dying.

But hasn’t that been happening for a long time? Morning and evening editions? Several dailies in every large town?

Could it be that the newspaper-in-a-diminished-form will coexist with the internet the same way that movies and television coexist? Or the way that MP3s and vinyl coexist?

Last night, in one of the most hysterically hyped musical events in recent memory, Led Zeppelin’s three surviving members were joined by Jason Bonham (son of Zep’s late drummer John) for a concert at the O2 in London. The show was a fundraiser for the Ahmet Ertegun Education Fund.

The concert has been treated by fans and media outlets as a “once-in-a-lifetime event,” making us here at Black Plastic Bag confused. Did we collectively dream the 1985, 1988, and 1995 reunions with the same personnel? Or the “once-in-a-lifetime” Page-and-Plant-reunite-to-perform-mostly-Zeppelin-classics project that turned out to be four years long?

Meantime, the UK tab Daily Star has announced this morning that the band will now do a world tour. Considering the source (with no others confirming so far), it’s hard to know how true that is, but one supposes that the band that decided in 1980 that John Bonham was too integral a part of the group for them to continue after his death could, after enough reunion/substitutions, move to an “Any Bonham in a Storm” policy.

But we should also consider that the concert had been postponed by Jimmy Page’s fractured pinky, apparently the result of a fall in his garden. The 63-year-old guitarist could be suffering from osteoporosis…and not even know it. We prescribe a steady supply of Actonel combined with a diet heavy in dairy products and other calcium-rich foods before any tour commences.

Everybody get out your copy of Let It Bleed and get your ya-yas out in comemmoration: Tomorrow marks 38 years since the Rolling Stones-based disaster of the Altamont Speedway Free Music Festival. Those of you who remember it should officially begin feeling old…now.

If there’s anyone who by now doesn’t know the sordid tale of what happens when you cross a free Rolling Stones concert, 300,000 rowdy young fans, and a security force composed of Hell’s Angels (who were paid for the event in beer), here’s a sample from the Gimme Shelter documentary.

I love The Hold Steady, and I particularly loved their last album, Boys and Girls in America - which is still the focus of their current tour. I also love the 9:30 Club, which is a mere five blocks from my home.

It is therefore unfathomable to me that I should cut out before the encore at the fantastic sold-out show last night. The band rocked the holy hell out of 1,200 joyful fans, with Craig Finn even pausing his Randy Newman-on-amphetamines act to give just props to the venue. “I’ve known about the 9:30 Club for about as long as I’ve known about rock & roll,” he grinned, “but this is the first time we’ve walked through the door and said, ‘what a great club.’” Between that, the bar-band guitar, and the anthemic set list, they did everything right. For good measure, bassist Galen Polivka even peeled $1 bills out of his wallet and threw them into the crowd, then switched to distributing cigarettes.

Yet by the time they closed the hour-long main set with “Southtown Girls,” I was exhausted. The sweaty, sardine-packed crowd, high-energy though it was, was beginning to stifle me. I was getting sleepy and starting to check my watch regularly. My feet hurt. I wanted to beat the crowd out the door. And I just thought “Southtown Girls” was the best possible way to end the night.

I’m 28. How did I get so old?

I’ve got some bad news for you Led Zeppelin superfans eagerly anticipating the band’s upcoming reunion show: Old Man Page still knows how to rock—but he rocks so hard that his own brittle bones break as a result.

The Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert, originally scheduled for Monday, November 26th and featuring Led Zeppelin, Bill Wyman and the Rhythm Kings, Paul Rogers, Paolo Nutini, and Foreigner has been postponed until December 10th due to Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page fracturing his finger.

The injury to Page’s finger, which was sustained this past weekend, will not allow him to play guitar for 3 weeks. The specialist treating Mr. Page said, “I have examined the fracture to Mr. Page’s finger, and it is my opinion that with proper rest and treatment, he will be ready to resume rehearsing in three weeks time, and thus able to perform on December 10.”

Jimmy Page added, “I am disappointed that we are forced to postpone the concert by two weeks. However, Led Zeppelin have always set very high standards for ourselves, and we feel that this postponement will enable my injury to properly heal, and permit us to perform at the level that both the band and our fans have always been accustomed to.”

Say it ain’t so, Jimmy. The doctor apparently had no comment on whether or not Page is actually a robot, which he kind of sounds like with that last quote. RoboPage rocks!

Springsteen is becoming the Patrick Ewing of rock. The Knicks legend had some great years, but I remember him just as much for all those years, way past his prime, when he played shitty basketball on rickety, worn-out legs. And so it is with the Boss. He released Lucky Town in March 1992, so he’s past his 15th anniversary as a washed-up icon. I just listened to his latest, Magic–a huge misnomer. Just more of that bland, crowded-stage sound, with Springsteen trying to yell something inspirational above all the racket. Sure, he’s still good in the big venue, blasting out the old anthems to baby boomers in bandanas. But when it comes to his post-glory-days stuff, best to combine it all in a medley, combining a trip to Youngstown, cable TV, 9/11, and something from this latest release.