Election Section

55 bands at the
Indy Jazz Fest 

INDIANAPOLIS — Classic rockers — and musicians who have just started their careers — will perform at the first Indy Summer Stages. 

Organizers have billed the music festival, which begins Friday, as “Three days, three stages, 55 bands and you.” And like last month’s Indy Jazz Fest, the festival’s lineup isn’t limited by genre or style. 

Ted Nugent, Foreigner and Blondie will play alongside bands such as Widespread Panic, G. Love and Special Sauce, and Johnny Socko. 

Even Rockfour from Israel will take the stage for an afternoon. 

“That’s the spice of life right there,” said John Bell, guitar player and singer for Widespread Panic, which will perform two sets on Saturday night. 

“If we’re all approaching things the same way, I think that would be pretty redundant. Fifty-five times redundant,” Bell said. 

Organizers plan to make Indy Summer Stages an annual event, but Tasker Day, executive director of Indy Jazz Fest Inc., doesn’t anticipate competition for talent and sponsorship. Different music will bring a different crowd, he said. 

“Their target market, and the demographics that they’re going after are so different that, as it turns out, I don’t think it’s going to affect either one of us,” Day said. “They’re after a very different dollar.” 

Stone Cold confused in NH  

CONCORD, N.H. — A worldwide producer of wrestling programs and specialty products is throwing its weight behind a trademark complaint against a New Hampshire businessman. 

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. of Stamford, Conn., said it has first dibs on use of the name “Stone Cold,” and a small music label producer in Portsmouth called Stone Cold Records is confusing its customers. 

The group said a “cloud will be placed” over its products if the music producer is allowed to keep the name. In a complaint filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in Washington, it seeks to have Stone Cold Records’ trademark canceled. 

At issue is whether concurrent use of the names is confusing to customers, whether the name is being used to sell similar products, and who had rights to the name first. No hearings have been scheduled. 

Stone Cold also has been used as a nickname for WWE wrestler Steve Austin, who has been suspended because he did not show up for two performances. Austin has often promoted Stone Cold products. 

“I have put so much time and effort and money into the label itself that I’m not going to give up,” Dexter Durant, owner of Stone Cold Records, said recently. “I believe in freedom. Being in New Hampshire, it just makes me want to stand up and say, ‘Who the heck do they think they are?”’ 

WWE spokesman Gary Davis said the group may be willing to compromise, though he didn’t give specifics. 

“We are moving forward and are having discussions with Stone Cold Records to see if we can work this out amicably,” Davis said. 

Czech-owned collection
may be claimed  

PRAGUE, Czech Republic — The Czech government decided against sending a state-owned collection of paintings to an exhibit in France, because of possible restitution claims by the children of the collection’s former owner. 

The Vincenc Kramar collection, which is worth more than $500 million, had been set to travel to Paris, where it was to have been displayed as part of a festival of Czech culture that opened last month and runs until December. 

Culture Minister Pavel Dostal said Wednesday authorities decided against sending the paintings because they fear that the children of the collection’s original owner, Vincenc Kramar, could file restitution claims abroad. 

The collection includes several early paintings by Pablo Picasso, a Picasso self-portrait and paintings by Georges Braque, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Paul Gauguin. 

Kramar’s heirs claim their father was under pressure by the communist regime when he donated the collection to the Czech National Gallery in 1960. Czech courts have rejected their claim. 

“The government decision is very wise,” said Milan Knizak, the director of the National Gallery.