Badfinger asking for rock music funding

Singer-guitarist Joey Molland of Badfinger is working to get rock music officially recognized at the government level. Molland is in talks with his local elected officials in Minnesota to have rock-and-roll thought of in the same light as the other arts, and to have the rock scene get some of the funding that normally gets distributed to painters, ballet dancers, and acting troupes, among others.

Molland told us he's never understood why rock music hasn't gotten its due from those in power: "(I'm) trying to get the government to get behind the music scene the way they get behind the art scene, and the way they get behind the classical scene, and the way they get behind all these other scenes, but the rock music doesn't get anything. They spend $40 million on a museum, but they... what do they spend on rock music, which is probably the cultural icon or influence of this age we live in -- to me anyway. Maybe because I'm a rock musician, I feel like that, but it astounds me."

Badfinger will once again be part of this summer's HippieFest package tour.