CHEAP TRICK and the Allman Bros. have filed a class-action lawsuit claiming that Sony BMG has paid artists and producers “only a miniscule percentage of royalties owed for licensing of the recordings” to various online music stores.
CALEXICO drummer John Convertino talks about getting used to their new material of Garden Ruin and announces a beefy tour schedule. Frank at Chromewaves is killing music with the band's cover of “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Law-abiding types can stream it from the Hype Machine. And just 'cause I like it, here's the band's cover of “Alone Again Or,” which features the traditional Calexico sound.
THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS' new double-disc is streaming in its entirety at VH1.
THE KILLLERS' next album will be influenced by Bruce Springsteen, according to frontman Brandon Flowers: “Springsteen touches on the American dream, and that's everybody's dream. And it's such a great idea — whether or not it's still happening today. Most of the songs are about getting to that place, of making it to the promised land. I don't think it's about getting rich; it's the idea of working hard and having your castle in the sky.”
DEBBIE HARRY has a new track posted on her MySpace page. But she's rapping about L'il Kim, so proceed at your own risk.
GOGOL BORDELLO, whose new album, Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike, mixes punk, ska, jazz, and the traditional Roma music of Ukraine, have streamy goodness at NPR.
SEEN YOUR VIDEO: If you're a fan of the Upper-Class Twit of the Year compentition, you will enjoy the Housemartins classic “Happy Hour” from 1986. The band's a cappella cover of the Isleys' “Caravan of Love” is also top-notch.
EDITOR ROCK: “They are white, intellectual (or at least semi-intellectual), ineffectual, and generally namby-pamby, albeit with occasional forays into, you know, distorted guitars. No aggression. It's very polite and well-mannered–way too much so, in fact–for rock music. It's music for the head, and not the hips and gut.” Names are named… at BusinessWeek?
VOXTROT: Bacharach-esque horns, plaintive keys, distorted guitars and swelling strings make “Soft & Warm” NPR's Song of the Day. Brooklyn Vegan hooks you up with a hidden link full of rare/live MP3s on the band's website, plus a podcast and a video. It sounds like these dudes are making progress.
THE WIGGLES: As some portion of the Pate audience are aging hipsters with kids, I note the Guardian profiles Australia's leading entertainment export and perhaps the world's leading children's entertainers. I've heard from folks who have taken their Kids to see them that it's really strange to see toddlers trance-dancing in the aisles.
GOMEZ: Stereogum thinks the new album is a return to form and it's getting generally favorable reviews, so I note that the whole thing is streaming at AOL Music this week.
GARY GLITTER: The disgraced former glam rocker now denies ever abusing underage girls and blames the UK media for his downfall: “Your daughter will come into your bed in the night because she's scared or something like that. This happened in this case over here. She was scared of ghosts, so under pressure I said OK.” I thought he had some story about how he was teaching them English.
TOM-KAT UPDATE: Holmes' has hired Buff Brides to help her shed the post-pregnancy weight in preparation for her marriage to Cruise; the plan has been met with opposition from her father. Brook Shields thinks the irony is perfect that her daughter was born on the same day as Princess Tom-kitten, but wishes them all well. Which is more than you can say about Nicole Kidman.
NICOLE KIDMAN and KEITH URBAN, meanwhile, had been rumored to have set a wedding date, but the National Enquirer claims that Urban has called off those plans to focus on his sobriety.
DENISE & HEATHER & RICHIE & CHARLIE… & DAVID: Richards strikes back at David Spade, with a Richards ally telling Page Six that “(Spade) is notorious for preying on married women like Heather Locklear and Rebecca Romijn and Krista Allen, who goes back and forth between David and George Clooney… And Heather was seeing David last year.” Spade's rep denies it, natch. The Richards ally also takes a whack at Sheen's manager, Mark Burg, who defended Sheen, noting that Richards fired Burg after the two squabbled over a TV deal he was negotiating for her. And Richards herself gives a video interview to TMZ, denying she was involved with Sambora before his split with Locklear.
EBERT & ROEPER & TED & ALICE: Richard Roeper's 23-year-old model galpal Annabelle says she's brought women home so she and Roeper can enjoy threesomes. Three thumbs up, Rich!
THE FRENCH HOTEL has split from Greek shipping heir Stavros Niarchos. Although they seemed cozy just last week at his 21st birthday bash, Life & Style magazine reports that Stavros was caught canoodling with Lindsay Lohan hours after Hilton left town and Hilton (wearing a wig) has been spotted with quarterback Matt Leinart, the USC star drafted last weekend by the Arizona Cardinals.
LINDSAY LOHAN fractured her foot when she slipped while exiting the shower, not in a catfight with the Romanian Victoria's Secret model dating her 37-year-old-producer “friend,” Brett Ratner.
JESSICA SIMPSON and Nick Lachey have been sneaking off to the San Fernando Valley to meet in what is described as “discreet hotels?” So maybe we should believe Dane Cook's denials of stories that the pneumatic blonde is “smitten” with the comedian?
ANOTHER SOPRANO ARRESTED: John Ventimiglia, who plays Vesuvio chef Artie Bucco, was busted on cocaine possession and drunk driving charges.
COURTNEY LOVE made a surprise live appearance, backed by Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and former 4 Non Blondes songwriting guru Linda Perry, for a Gay and Lesbian Community Center benefit in L.A. According to Love, “you could have heard a pin drop, although apparently there was speculation about whether I was wearing underwear.”
TERI HATCHER: The Desperate Housewife tells Oprah she wants “wild, crazy sex.” So why on Earth was she trying to date Ryan Seacrest?
JAKE GYLLENHAAL shocked American Gulf War veterans by joking they did nothing but masturbate during their time in the desert in 1991. I don't know why they would be shocked — his politics are well-known and his knowledge of the Gulf War is likely limited to his reading of the script for Jarhead.
VAUGHNISTON: Aniston and Vaughn are rumored to have bought Mr. T's former home in Vaughn's hometown of Lake Forest, IL. Pics at the link. If that's true, it could explain why Aniston doesn't want Vaughn to go on location to London for three months.
BRADGELINA: Jolie then and now — Just Jared has the video of her recent Dateline NBC interview, which gets good near the end when she can't control her hysterical giggling. Screenhead has two early, quirky shorts she made with future Secretary director Steven Shainberg; it's easy to believe she's not acting much in them.
PRESIDENT BUSH needs to get his mojo back, according to new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten, who has ordered the defrosting of Austin Powers for the mission.
IRAQ: At ITM, Mohammed analyzes the politicking behind key cabinet nominations and the parliament's process for suggesting amendments to the constitution. Bill Roggio looks at al-Qaeda's assassination program in Anbar and Monday night's Coalition raid on a terror cell near Balad. A new study shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map. I suspect the numbers aren't much different for Americans over age 24, as I tend to get blank stares when I say that people who want to understand the invasion of Iraq need to look at a map. In waging a war on terrorism, especially state-supported terrorism, Iraq sits in the middle of the Mideast chessboard — whether you're talking about water, oil, movement of general trade or terrorists in the region, increased isolation of hostile regimes in Iran and Syria, increased leverage over Saudi Arabia, and so on.
IRAN: Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani threatened to attack Israel if the US makes any “mischief” for the mullahs. Prof. Juan Cole has suggested that Pres. Ahmadinejad did not threaten to “wipe Israel off the map,” requiring Christopher Hitchens to give him a lesson in Persian and honest English. European nations, backed by the US, have outlined a planned UN Security Council resolution to give “mandatory force” to the IAEA demands that Iran halt uranium enrichment, but Russia and China continue to oppose any meaningful UN action, just as they do with respect to Darfur, just as they did with Iraq.
TERRORISM: An independent panel tasked with investigating biased coverage at the BBC provides a definition of terrorism for the broadcaster to use. The BBC, like Reuters and other major media, generally refuse to use the term, even when describing someone beheading an innocent civilian, and even when referring to Osama bin Laden.
KOMODO DRAGON: The as-yet unexplained birth of four rare Komodo dragons by a female called Sungai, when the last time she is known to have had intercourse was two years ago, reminds me to check out the special guest dragon at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. The dragon has a mouth full of sharp teeth, like a shark's, which are covered in deadly bacteria. So what's not to like?
BEES use an open forum for opinions and a decentralized, competitive “debate” that filters out extreme or inaccurate opinions to select the location of a new hive.
SELF-CLONING SNAILS from New Zealand are invading Minnesota.
DOGS may be welcome at the Hotel Cortisen in the Alpine village of St Wolfgang, but leave the kids at home.