Quick! Pay attention! You can attend listening parties for the new MGMT album (in stores April 13), Congratulations. But if you live in Toronto, you have to get on it quick. It's like a scavenger hunt! And the Toronto date is today. Vancouver and Montreal dates are Monday and Wednesday.
Fans are to visit www.whereismgmt.cato find clues leading to a mystery locations across Canada. The first 10 fans to arrive at the location will find a branded MGMT flag. Each fan will be required to provide a password, found on the website.
Chris Brown needs help, and he's begging his fans for it. Maybe.
If this is real, poor widdle chrissy noogums is sad again, this time because his album isn't selling. Chris's career hasn't been going so well since he pled guilty to beating the daylights out of his ex-girlfriend Rihanna last year. Graffiti was released in early December and has sold just over 250,000 copies. There have been three singles: I Can Transform Ya, Crawl and Sing Like Me, and only the first got any radio play. Radio stations apparently say they're not keeping Chris's music off the air because of the incident but, whatever the case, they're not playing it.
So Chris has released a plea to fans on SayNow.com, a website that enables people to leave and share recorded messages (found via MTV and idolator). Though we can't be 100 per cent sure it's him, Brown is apparently asking fans to help out.
Rob Pattinson wants to record an album. But he'd have to take a break from acting to do it because the poor lamb can't multi task. According to Contact Music he told somebody, "I kind of want to do an album at the end of the year. All my friends are recording albums and I'm very annoyed about it. But I can't do two things at once. I don't know how people like Jennifer Lopez can act and also sing [Ahem! Can do either of those things?]. I'm just like, 'I can't.' But, hopefully, I'll find some time to get it together."
He's also apparently worried that being branded as Edward the Sparkly Vampire will taint his music career. Apparently RPattz (seen here being sculpted for a wax figure because, hey! It's a guy sculpting Rob Pattinson's head, and I couldn't resist) told someone last year, "I write songs, that's true. I'll record a few tracks as soon as I finish the promotion for the movies, but before I won't to do anything. I don't want to release an album which has a sticker on it saying, 'By the vampire of 'Twilight',' on it.
Contact Music says R&B star Akon is contributing a track to a Bollywood movie titled RA. One -- adding that he will sing in the local Hindi language and has offered his services for free.
The superhero caper (says The Hollywood Reporter) features Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan. And Khan apparently says, Akon, -- who made headlines a couple of years ago for humping a female minor during a performance then again for chucking a male teenager off stage, headfirst onto the concrete below -- "is a gracious person. He will record a song in Hindi and will also feature in the video. He has flown with his family, friends and team of musicians (to Mumbai, India)."
Akon (of Senegalese descent) is also apparently keen to continue working in the country. He says, "India is my next focus area. I want to try different things, want to explore... want to enjoy my work. We have the same kind of entertainment, the only difference is of tradition and language."
So, last week the news broke that the Pussycat Dolls were splitting and Nicole Scherzinger will now seek out a new troupe of unidentifiable women with whom to flank herself.
In a statement posted on PerezHilton.com (in a 268 word Perez post that used no less than 14 exclamation marks!!!!!), Dolls founder Robin Antin said, "I created The Pussycat Dolls in 1995 with one thought in my mind: 'Inside every woman is a Pussycat Doll.'"
(OMG…and she's just telling us NOW? How long have they been in there? And how long are they going to STAY in there? Do they come bursting out like those things in Alien? Can't someone DO anything????)
It's a very sad day for indie rock. Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse has committed suicide. Blessings to his friends and family.
Three times is a charm. Lil Wayne is finally off to prison and will not, according to previous reports, be serving his time in protective custody. He was sentenced to a year and may be out in eight months.
Miley Cyrus is deeper than "normal people." Jack Handey not available for comment, expect to say, "To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other."
So much for that hiatus. Foo Fighters are heading back into the studio with none other than Butch Vig, producer of Nirvana's landmark Nevermind album.
Front Foo Fighter, former Nirvana member and current Them Crooked Vultures drummer, Dave Grohl has reportedly ditched plans to concentrate on other projects to reteam with Vig for a seventh Foo Fighters studio album. The collaboration will mark the 20th anniversary of Nevermind, released in 1991.
Dave talked with Rolling Stone at last Friday's Independent Spirit Awards, where he said "Me and [Foo drummer] Taylor [Hawkins] have already started demoing songs," adding, "I think this could be our heaviest album yet."
Ke$ha apparently wants more respect. The pop star recently told The UK Times that she doesn't think she gets enough of the stuff. Let's put this before the jury, shall we?
" 'So many people,' she sighs, 'say, "So, what, are you a party girl?" And I say, "I'm a walking good time." Do I sometimes go out and drink? Hell, yes. But could I have a No 1 song if I wasn't also working hard? Maybe that needs a little more respect.' "
" 'So many people,' she sighs, 'say, "So, what, are you a party girl?" And I say, "I'm a walking good time." Do I sometimes go out and drink? Hell, yes. But could I have a No 1 song if I wasn't also working hard? Maybe that needs a little more respect.' "
Hmm. Then,
"Also, the phrase "party girl" implies someone who is out at a club, maybe doing some guy in the back who you've just met. Then you get in your car and you flash your vagina at the paparazzi. And I'm none of the above. None of the above."
Lil Wayne just can't get a prison sentence going. First it was his unbelievably rotten teeth (8 freakin root canals! Or something like that). Now it's a fire. It's now scheduled for March 8. Maybe we should all stay home that day.
Word is that bassist Eric Avery has left Jane's Addiction again and that Duff McKagan will replace him. Rolling Stone picked up the story which, of course, started with a Tweet.
As Jane's recent tour of Australia concluded, Avery wrote, "That's it. With equal parts regret and relief, the Jane's Addiction experiment is at an end."
And Dave Navarro added, "Yes, Eric Avery has left the band. More to come but we wish him all the best!"
Avery played bass on Jane's first two albums, the most excellent Nothing's Shocking and the equally excellent Ritual de lo Habitual. Then the group split in 1991, and Chris Chaney played on their only other record, 2003's Strays.
Strays was good but just not the same, you know? I don't think you can blame this on the bass player so much as the fact that it just wasn't 1989 anymore. Jane's was one of the most important bands of their era but that sound is really of that era. Also, they'd lost some of the grit that made them so compelling (Dave Navarro has, of course, lost any grit he might have had, if he ever had any. That guy looks about as precious as a diamond encrusted Chihuahua collar. I can't wrap my head around the fact that that guy played guitar on Mountain Songand Been Caught Stealing…and speaking of DAVE NAVARRO!).
Dave Navarro, who is always (seemingly unecessarily) shirtless anyway, got naked for PETA's 'Ink, Not Mink' campaign. He follows in the footsteps of Tommy Lee, Carey Hart, Chester Bennington and Jackass' Steve O, who have also participated.
The Jane's Addiction guitarist says he used to wear fur. According to Gigwise, he told PETA, "There was a time in my life where I would wear over-the-top outfits, and some of those outfits contained fur"
“Then several years ago, I saw video footage of animals being skinned alive and screaming, and it honestly is the most horrific, inhumane thing I've ever seen – a dying, twitching, skinless animal in such terrified shock crying, screaming blood-curdling screams that are so hard to watch and listen to."
The CBC says Parliament is to be asked to review the "original gender-neutral wording of the national anthem." This is the message relayed in Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean's throne speech on Wednesday.
O Canada, with music composed by Calixa Lavallée in 1880, replaced God Save the Queen as our national anthem in 1980. And it includes the lyrics "true patriot love in all thy sons command," but the original poem upon which the song is based features different words. The poem, written in 1908 by Stanley Weir, actually goes, "O Canada Our home and native land! True patriot love thou dost in us command. We see thee rising fair, dear land, The True North strong and free."
A quadriplegic man injured at an AC/DC concert is now also blind in one eye, according to the Courier Mail.
Terry Watson, 31, was watching the rock band perform in Brisbane, Australia, on Saturday night, when his friend accidentally hit the joystick of his motorised wheelchair, sending him flying off the wheelchair accessible platform and into the mosh pit below.
Ke$ha thinks she was JFK in a past life. Starpulse quotes the flavour of the moment as saying, "I went to past-life regression therapy and I'm pretty sure I was JFK (John F. Kennedy). He said I was a really successful American man who was assassinated. So who else could it be?"
Meh. I dunno. It seems sacrilege to suggest Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. or Malcom X….Harvey Milk?
Or maybe, just maybe Ke$ha, someone lied to you. Has anyone ever noticed that psychics always tell us we were great successful people, like warriors or celebrities? Nobody was ever a fishmonger, a shopkeeper or a plumber. I guess normal people don't get to come back.
Well, she got to meet him (or rather, she got to meet Justin Bieber, not Beaver, but that's almost as good). Thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, who invited Cody and her family to his show last Friday and surprised the little girl and her sisters Sierra, 8, and Cheyenne, 13, with a visit from the pop star.
There's apparently some controversy over Bret Michaels' latest recording of Nothin' to Lose, featuring Miley Cyrus.
It's a country/rock ballad of which there are several recorded versions, and in this one, which went online Thursday, 17-year-old Miley sings along with 46-year-old Bret.
The lyrics include, "We both know better than this/Still we can't resist/Slowly get undressed." And "Won't you fall down on me/So close I can feel you breathe."
So, Us Magazine says Bret is taking some flack. He told them last Friday he's gotten "75 texts" (which isn't actually that many) about the "scandal"
Billboard has posted its list of last year's Top 40 Money Makers in the music industry (which I found via Idolator). And it's interesting. Think you know who made the most money in the music biz in 2009? I'll bet you ten bucks you can't guess the top ten (and I'll never pay if you win. I always flake out on bets).
The criteria for Billboard's Money Makers ranking is complex and is based on the artist's share of revenue as opposed to total dollars generated by each artist in the ranking. You can read more about it here.
Hall and Oates bassist and musical director Tom "T-Bone" Wolk died of a heart attack over the weekend. He was 58.
His official website says began playing bass guitar with Daryl Hall and John Oates in 1981 and that he earned the chance to audition after playing bass on the first gold rap record, Kuris Blow's These Are The Breaks, earlier that year. "Bone" was also the on-camera bassist with the Saturday Night Live house band from 1986-1992, as well as a multi-instrumentalist and producer.
He has worked with an eclectic list of artists over the years, including Carly Simon, Elvis Costello, Roseanne Cash, Cyndi Lauper and Billy Joel. The Huffington Post's David Wild describes Wolk as "a guy who was impossible not to love - especially if you cared about music even half as much as he did."
It's been one of the great musical mysteries for almost four decades. And now Carly Simon has finally revealed the subject of You're So Vain and it is…drumrolls, trumpets and fanfare please…a guy named David.
The song was released in 1972 and was a huge hit for Carly. It's about a guy who's so vain he probably thinks the song is about him. In the lyrics, he walked into the party like he was walking onto a yacht, hat strategically dipped below one eye, wearing a scarf that was, of all colours, "apricot."
Carly never said who the subject of the song was, leading to 38 years of speculation. It appeared to be about a former lover. Was it Warren Beatty? Mick Jagger? Cat Stevens? Kris Kristofferson? James Taylor?
Well, now she's whispered the name backwards over a rerecording of the track on her new album, Never Been Gone, out next week. And the name is not Kris, Cat, Mick, Ned or James. It's David. (It's also creepy. The whisper, I mean, not the name David.)
And your slightly strange sex tape news of the day is brought to you from…. (throws random dart into pop culture landscape)…50 Cent!
Starpulse says the hip hop star is facing legal action from fellow rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend, who alleges he unlawfully released a homemade sex clip of her and Ross onto the internet -- after editing himself into the video.
Lastonia Leviston, of Florida, filed a lawsuit in New York on Wednesday, accusing Fitty of unlawfully posting the movie on his website last year.
So, the Facebook campaigns just keep on coming. Remember a few weeks ago when Jon and Tracy Morter started a page to keep X Factor winner Joe McElderry off the top of the U.K. charts by putting Rage Against the Machine up there? Then there were campaigns encouraging John Mellencamp to quit smoking and run for Senate.
Now there's a page called "Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?" and, guess what, it can. I've known about the page for a while because many people I know have been joining for weeks. Then I read on Rolling Stone today that "At press time, the 'Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback' page, with 'Nickleback' spelled incorrectly to avoid copyright issues, has 1,487,000 fans since February 3rd, while Nickelback have 1,423,000 fans dating back to June 2008."
The personal assistant of Ramones manager Linda S. Stein was convicted on Tuesday of second-degree murder for the 2007 bludgeoning death of Stein.
The New York Times says jurors reached their verdict against Natavia S. Lowery after about five hours of deliberations in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Lowery, 28, was also reportedly convicted of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from Stein.
This season's resident rocker on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew is ex-Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr. Remember last season how we had to watch former Guns N Roses drummer Steven Adler acting like a totally self-obsessed, endlessly irritating tool, and how we all wanted to punch him in the head until we remembered what an AWESOME drumming job he did on Appetite for Destruction, and then we were conflicted? Those were good times. Adler is apparently still clean, after a lot of work and trying many people's patience, so maybe the reality TV system works. One person who is not convinced, however, is Alice In Chains' Jerry Cantrell.
Mary J. Blige is playing Nina Simone in a Biopic, and the project may even be getting off the ground. This thing has been in some sort of development for a few years, first made news back in 2005, as a matter of fact. But now she's talking about it with Rolling Stone….so…
Mary J said, "Playing a character like Nina Simone is playing myself, because Nina Simone was a manic depressive, drug addict, alcoholic, cursing wild maniac that I was, but very talented, so people would get that."
Hmm. I'm a bit wary of this casting. Mary J's filmography isn't exactly loaded with gems, or even films, for that matter -- though she did appear in Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself (which I have not seen so can't comment on, but it did get a lot of attention)...and well...
...OK. Full discloure: I TOTALLY don't think she can do it. I'm SORRY. Being a drug addicted alcholic doesn't make you Nina Simone. Now I feel like I'm going to Hell for saying that. Because Mary J. is such a "strong role model" and she's "been through so much." (But I just don't think she's that great. I KNOW. I'm a terrible person.)
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