Thurston Moore's Protest Records Providing Free Music

Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore has
started music label that intends to give songs away for free. Along with Chris
Habib, Sonic Youth's Webmaster, he has started Protest
Records. The site currently has anti-war MP3s from Cat Power, the Beastie Boys,
Stephan Smith, Eugene Chadbourne and Sharon Cheslow. Thurston has also been
contacted by R.E.M., Mudhoney, Zach de la Rocha, the Fugs, Christian Marclay and Ian
MacKaye about submitting songs. Check out the site for updates soon. Moore told
the NY Times "I thought it would be great to be in a band that made millions of dollars that could do something like that, but it never panned
out... I liked the idea because it would drive retail stores crazy. Originally the ideas were more far-fetched, like hiding the records around the city so that people had to find them."