AND ONE MORE THING: In the wake...

AND ONE MORE THING: In the wake of Depeche Mode’s computer network “press conference” last week--which was so popular with fans that the group itself was shut out from the dialogue for 40 minutes--the English band Suede is giving a technological twist to its upcoming interviews. With the band on the road in the U.S., Columbia Records is going to have it do some of its newspaper interviews via videophone, which transmits pictures from each end in a series of still shots that can approximate a moving image. The band will have one videophone with it on the road, while Columbia will send two others around the country as needed. So far, journalists at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Philadelphia Daily News and the Boston Herald are set to participate in the experiment.

Why go to the expense and trouble to do this? Says a Columbia representative: “Because it’s a great press hook.”