Kanye West did it. Bloc Party did it. Heck, even the White Stripes finally caved.

Countless artists-- majors and indies alike-- have sold their songs and their images to advertising campaigns by Coke, Pepsi, Target, or whoever else throws the cold, hard cash their way. Few musicians, it seems, are immune to the pull of the corporate dollar. Except for Tom Waits.

Whether Waits truly loathes the Man or just has more than enough publicity and cash already, he s always been pretty stubborn about the fact that his music never be used for the purpose of advertising. Fair enough. Well, Waits has officially stuck it to el Hombre.

The singer/songwriter recently won a massive legal victory in the Spanish courts, where he established his moral rights to his own likeness in a case against Volkswagen-Audi and a Spanish Production company, Tandem CampMany Guasch. Who/what/when/where/why/how? Here s the back story: In 2000, an Audi commercial appeared on television in Spain soundtracked by a piece of music featuring the same melodic structure as Waits song Innocent When You Dream (from his 1987 album Franks Wild Years) and sung by a voice that sounded suspiciously like Waits.

Tandem had previously asked permission to use the original tune and received a big ol DE-NIED from Waits. Waits and his music publisher in Spain, Hans Kusters Music, took Volkswagen-Audi and Tandem to court, winning the initial judgment in March of 2004. From there, the case headed to an appeals court, which ruled in Waits favor back in November.

According to the New York Times, on January 13, Waits was awarded $43,000 in damages for copyright infringement, as well as $36,000 for violation of his moral rights as an artist. That last part is the kicker. The win marked the first time that such rights of protection for the personality and reputation of writers/authors had been recognized in a Spanish court.

In a way, you re building a road that other people will drive on, Waits told The New York Times. I have a moral right to my voice. It s like property-- there s a fence around it, in a way.

A press release on the website of Anti- Records, Waits label, includes this quote from the singer-songwriter: Now they understand the words to the song better. It wasn t Innocent When You Scheme it was Innocent When You Dream . As experts in the literary field, we must commend Waits on his high-class wordplay.

Frito Lay, Levi s, and, as previously reported, General Motors Opel AG and advertising agency McCann Erickson have all felt the wrath of Waits at one time or another, in cases similar to this one. Man Man, Rod Stewart, Skeleton Key, and A3 (the Sopranos theme song) are all awaiting subpoenas..

.just kidding. 02 Who Could Win a Rabbit?

(video directed by Danny Perez) 03 Fickle Cycle (recording session footage, directed by Scott Colburn) Now for that tour. It kicks off February 21 in Boston, then hops, skips, and jumps around the U.S.

and Canada before jetting to Japan for three dates. Then it's back to the ol' U.S.

of A for a home stretch, culminating in a hometown gig at the Bowery Ballroom. Fabulous: If you've been holding your breath for Chinese Democracy, the Guns N' Roses album that's purportedly been in the making for close to a decade, well..

.slowly start exhaling, but don't let that royal blue leave your cheeks just yet. You see, Axl Rose was hanging out at a Korn tour-announcement party at the famous Hollywood Forever Cemetery last weekend, and in between chatting up nu-metal mooks he found some time to speak to a Rollingstone.

com reporter about the record. The results, while not quite as revealing as we'd like them to be, do inspire some hope that the album might actually see the light of day by the year 2016. Giving Jared Leto's character from Panic Room a run for his money in the "white guy with corn rows" department and rocking a goatee and Toronto Maple Leafs jersey, Rose rubbed elbows with celebrities like Jessica Alba, members of Papa Roach, Linkin Park, and "The O.

C." cast (as well as the graves of Rudolph Valentino, Cecil B. DeMille, and Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone).

According to Rollingstone.com, Rose described Chinese Democracy as "a very complex record." "I'm trying to do something different.

Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns n' Roses.'" Let's also hope it doesn't sound like "Oh My God", the G'N'R song that appeared in the Schwarzenegger movie End of Days.

"We're working on 32 songs, and 26 are nearly done," said Rose. He also dropped some to-the-point song titles that will supposedly make the final record, including "Better", "There Was a Time", and "The Blues". But don't expect any touring with the original line-up of the band, assuming of course that the album actually is released before Rose bloats and/or changes his sexy and youthful hairstyle, as he claims to not have spoken to Slash in a decade.

But he did have this to say about Mr. Snakepit: "I love the guy, I always wanted everyone to know how great he was, but..

.. I was just talking to Izzy the other day though.

" Way to dodge the issue, dude. Still, don't get your hopes up. As recent history has shown us, Rose has more of a knack for firing producers, not showing up at concerts that subsequently cause violent riots, milking millions from major labels to perfect his art, retooling the line-up of the new G'N'R, and canceling tours than he does for releasing Chinese Democracy.

The remaining members of UK experimental music pioneers This Heat will celebrate the 30th anniversary of their first concert by reissuing all of their albums and compiling a limited-edition box set containing pretty much everything they ever committed to tape. Avant garde music nerds rejoice! Creatively titled The Box, and issued by the band's This Is!

imprint through Chris Cutler's ReR Megacorp label, the box will contain newly remastered versions of their five records (This Heat, Deceit, the compilation Made Available, Repeat, Health and Efficiency), plus a CD of unreleased material and a scrapbook of interviews, photos, memorabilia, dental records, and second grade report cards. Much of the material has not been available since the death of keyboardist and guitarist Gareth Williams in 2001, and even before that it probably wasn't sitting on the shelf at the HMV down the street. For the more casual This Heat fan, the band will be releasing all of their albums individually throughout 2006, though no official release dates for these have been announced.

The box set, originally slated for a February release, has been pushed back to an unspecified date in March. Founded in 1975, This Heat was a band ahead of their time. Charles Hayward recruited Gareth Williams and Charles Bullen in hopes of creating music that would take the popular prog rock of the day to its outer limits.

Their first self-titled EP was released two years later and drew comparisons to everyone from Sun Ra to Jackson Pollack, but not surprisingly, the band remained obscure. Their next four records found them becoming stranger and noisier, and they discovered a deep love of vocal effects and distortion. They dissolved in 1982, with Hayward going on to found the Camberwell Now.

Long a favorite of people who like effects pedals and those who know what "skronk" means, the band hopes to gain a wider audience with the re-releases. Good luck. While the contents of the bonus stuff on the box set is not yet available, here are the original tracklists for This Heat's albums: Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Plans Album, Tour Way back in October, we reported that one-man love machine Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (his friends call him Owen Ashworth) would be releasing a single, "Young Shields", on Tomlab in preparation for his fourth album.

As we said, the single's B-side is a cover of Prince's "When You Were Mine" featuring guest vocals from Xiu Xiu's Caralee McElroy. Oh, the heartache! What we didn't report was that the single now has a release date.

And that release date is...

today. So get thee to yr local record emporium, because the 7" version of "Young Shields" is limited to only 1000 copies. We also relayed the info that CFTPA would be revamping his sound and production style for his fourth album, Etiquette, which is due out this March on Tomlab.

"I was very inspired by bands with instantly recognizable aesthetics-- bands like Suicide, Big Black, or Young Marble Giants," Ashworth told a press release. "The thing is, bands like that break up, and I wasn't done writing songs, but I also didn't want to start over with a new band or become a proper singer/songwriter who sits down when he plays shows and puts his face on his record covers..

.I was ready to try more interesting arrangements and grander flourishes and use other musicians and singers and that's what Etiquette is. I think it's the best thing I've done, too.

" To spread his new vibe on a more personal level, CFTPA will spend this March on the road with the Donkeys. (That would be the opening band, not his pet keyboards or something.) Before launching the tour, however, he will perform a one-off show in his new hometown, Chicago.

02-10 Chicago, IL - Ida Noyes Third Floor Theater (University of As obvious heirs to the Velvet Underground's cultural legacy, two dudes from Weezer have been selected to portray members of the VU in the forthcoming Edie Sedgwick biopic Factory Girl. Weezer guitarist Brian Bell will put on his best Lou Reed swagger, while =w= drummer Patrick Wilson will attempt to invoke a John Cale cool in the George Hickenlooper-directed film, currently in production. What's more, Bell and Wilson have recorded a new version of the classic VU track "Heroin", to be used in Factory Girl.