Allman Brothers Band vocalist and keyboardist
Gregg
Allman's Richmond Hill, Georgia, house was broken into while he was out
of town. Detectives said the thieves took two safes filled
with gold coins, a collection of 19th century silver dollars, personal
papers, collectible knives and tapes containing unreleased
recordings. The only item not recovered was a handgun but two
suspects were charged on Dec. 29th (two days after the
theft.) A representative of the department said that Allman
knew the suspects but did not say how.
Prince has lost an early ruling in an Italian court over his 1994 hit,
"The Most Beautiful Girl In The World." Italian songwriters
Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino claimed that the song borrowed
heavily from their 1983 song, "Takin' Me To Paradise," which was
released on many international compilations. The case will
take some time to resolve as they await a definitive ruling on the case
but currently Prince must stop distributing the song in Italy and could
wind up paying the royalties that he accumulated so far from the song
to the plaintiffs and their publishers if the final hearing confirms it
was plagiarized. In Italian court, a "third degree" ruling is
necessary for a sentence to become definitive but may take several more
years.
Merle Haggard, 71, filed a lawsuit on Thursday against environmental
awareness group Green Train claiming they illegally used his name and
likeness to raise money. He is seeking unspecified
compensatory damages. Meanwhile, his recovery from lung
cancer seems to be going well enough for him to make 2009 the hardest
year he's worked in two decades.
According to E!, Marilyn Manson has added mentor Trent Reznor to his
witness list in his defense against the $20 million claim by former
keyboardist Stephen Bier (Madonna Wayne Gacy) that he siphoned off
millions of dollars in band revenue to pay for drugs and and an
assortment of strange items. Meanwhile, Nine Inch Nails has
released a massive 400 gigabytes of uncut, HD-quality concert footage
from their Lights In The Sky tour to fans via BitTorrent.
Giving it away can't be all that bad as their offer of a free download
of Ghosts I-IV was the best selling album of 2008 at the Amazon MP3
store.
Temptations vocalist Ali Ollie Woodson was reportedly hospitalized over
the holidays but is recovering very well and is expected to be "back in
action" very soon. Woodson sang lead on the group's 1984 #2
U.S. R&B chart hit, "Treat Her Like A Lady," and recorded in
1987 with Bruce Willis and Smokey Robinson (separately) on their
albums. Feel free to stop by his AliOllieWoodson.com Web site
for more information.
Patrick Swayze reportedly checked himself into the hospital this
morning (Friday) for observation after coming down with pneumonia which
is said to be a complication of his chemotherapy treatments.
Earlier this week during an interview with Barbara Walters, he said
about his battle with pancreatic cancer, "I'm going through hell."
The Damned have been forced to cancel their upcoming North American
dates from their world tour due to severe illness. The band
were on tour supporting their new album, So, Who's Paranoid?
Latin American country singer Johnny Rodriguez has reportedly been
released from the hospital after spending time in intensive care with
double pneumonia.
The 2009 People's Choice Awards have been announced. Will
Smith was honored as Favorite Male Movie Star and Favorite Male Action
Star. The Secret Life Of Bees (which stars Queen Latifah) was
named Favorite Movie Drama and Favorite Independent Movie.
The Twilight soundtrack climbed 2 places to #4 on the Billboard 200
albums chart on sales of 66,000 copies. The Mamma Mia!
soundtrack ascended 5 spots to #12. Guns N' Roses Chinese
Democracy fell 5 places to #30. Metallica's Death Magnetic
dropped 12 spots to #32. AC/DC's Black Ice plunged 26 places
to #37.
Michael Jackson's King Of Pop has re-entered the U.K. Singles chart at
#20. Celine Dion's My Love: The Essential Collection fell 8
places to #21. Bette Midler's The Best Bette dropped 2 spots
to #29. ABBA's Gold: Greatest Hits re-entered the chart at
#34. Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy fell 10 places to #38.
Aerosmith's rhythm section have been rehearsing as the band are gearing
up to get back into the recording studio to shortly. The band
took a break last year from recording as several members of the band
were recovering from medical issues. Possibly interrupting
their sessions will be a live date in Venezuela on Feb. 1st unless they
head into the studio after the show.
The rift between Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson over Jackson's 1985
acquisition of the rights to The Beatles' back catalog of songs will be
resolved. Jackson reportedly has put McCartney in his will as
the recipient of the catalog upon his death. Meanwhile,
Jackson has moved back to Los Angeles to reportedly be "where all the
action is."
Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith has another side project that
he is involved in called The Bombastic Meatbats. The band
have performances scheduled in the Studio City, California, area this
week.
T.S.O.L. have released their new 10-track studio album, Life, Liberty
& The Pursuit Of Free Downloads, is now available as a free
download at: http://www.hurley.com/tsol/
Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio will release his new album, Pat
DiNizio/Buddy Holly, due out Jan. 27th via Koch Records. The
album includes 11 covers of Holly's hits as well as a song he wrote
named after Holly's widow.
Rob Halford, Lemmy Kilmister and Ronnie James Dio will reportedly lend
their voices to a new game called Brutal Legend that will follow a
roadie (voiced by Jack Black) who is on an epic quest to build an army
of rockers with only a guitar in hand.
The air date for the episode of ABC's Samantha Who? that Duran Duran's
John Taylor makes a guest appearance has been adjusted to Jan.
19th. Taylor will later be appearing as a panelist on BBC4's
Style On Trial: The 1980s on Jan. 22nd.
Kraftwerk have announced on their official fan site that founding
member Florian Schneider has left the group. Schneider didn't
appear on stage with the group during their 2008 tour and is reportedly
"working on other projects; technical things." This leaves
Ralf Hutter as the last original member of the band. It does
seem like they will be busy as they have been drafted by Radiohead for
the group's Latin American tour this spring.
UB40 will release a new 20-track ballad collection, Love Songs, on Feb.
2nd to be supported with tour dates.
Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 will release, Goodnight Oslo,
their follow-up to 2006's Ole! Tarantula on Feb. 17th. Fans
pre-ordering the album at the Yep Rock Web Shop will receive a
limited-edition 3-track bonus disc.
Bono's first Op-Ed column for The New York Times will appear on Sunday,
for which he will also do a podcast. The occasional column is
expected to cover a broad range of topics. Meanwhile, word is
that Bono and The Edge's work on the Spiderman musical could debut this
year.
Ted Nugent will see several of his albums (1982's Nugent, 1984's
Penetrator, 1986's Little Miss Dangerous, 1988's If You Can't Lick
'Em...Lick 'Em, 1995's Spirit Of The Wild and 2001's Full Bluntal
Nugity) reissued via Eagle Rock Entertainment in February.
We have previously mentioned some of the projects that Toad The Wet
Sprocket's Glen Phillips has been working on. It seems there
are a few others. The current acts that he's been working
with are RemoteTreeChildren, Plover and Works Progress
Administration. He plans to tour with the latter most of 2009.
Go West have scheduled the By Request Tour in the U.K. in February and
March. They plan to follow that with release their new
single, "Man On Fire," off of Futurenow on Apr. 6th.
Queensryche are progressing in the studio on their 12th album, American
Soldier, due this spring and have announced tour dates in support of
the release starting in April.
"Life Itself" has been announced as the third single from Bruce
Springsteen's new studio album, Working On A Dream, due out Jan.
27th. The song was made available as a free download for a
short time at Amazon.com before the album release and a video for the
song can still be seen there. The band are also gearing up
for their Feb. 1st performance during the Super Bowl XLIII halftime
show in Tampa, Florida.
Stryper have finished work on their new 12-track studio album, Murder
By Pride. A few song samples from the disc are available at
MichaelSweet.com.
Billy Ocean plans to release his new studio album, Because I Love You,
in time for his upcoming U.K. tour and is planning a live album culled
from his 2008 tour. A redesign of his Web site is in the
works.
According to a recent interview with MusicRadar, Jimmy Page's manager
has said that if you missed Led Zeppelin at their one-off performance
in 2007, you missed them. "They tried out a few singers, but
no one worked out." Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham
have reportedly abandoned plans to record and tour together.
First it was the delays in the release of their Snakes And Arrows live
DVD, now Rush's Retrospective 3 hits collection has been pushed back
from Feb. 24th to Mar. 3rd.
The Revolting Cocks will release their new studio album, Sex-O
Olympic-O, via 13th Planet Records on Mar. 3rd.
Axl Rose has mentioned that there is a lot of left over material from
the Chinese Democracy sessions that could be released in the near
future but currently he wants to focus on this album. The
band also said that Lars Ulrich really isn't holding up the release of
their video for "Better" and that they hope to have it out
shortly. Meanwhile, Chinese Democracy has been certified by
the RIAA as gold (selling over 500,000 copies.)
Bob Mould will release his new 10-track studio album on Apr.
7th. Currently untitled, the album will be his follow-up to
last year's District Line.
Rob Zombie has returned to the Halloween franchise and has been working
on the sequel to the 2007 reboot of the films. The movie is
expected out on Aug. 28th and is tentatively-titled H2.
Stan Ridgway and Pietra Wexstun have released a new 6-song EP, Silly
Songs For Kids Volume One, which can be purchased at CDBaby.com.
Former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley has announced that his new solo album
will be titled Anomaly when released this spring. There are
also some rumors of a documentary of the effort to get Frehley into
space to record but we'll give you more details if it seems remotely
likely.
A remastered version of Boston's Greatest Hits will head to stores on
Jan. 27th. A few songs have been replaced from the original
version.
Hue And Cry plan to release their new single, "Heading For A Fall, on
Jan. 12th prior to a scheduled U.K. tour. The song is their
second single from Open Soul which they released in September.
Voivod are reportedly wrapping up work in the studio on their next
album which will contain the last guitar tracks recorded by late
guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour. No release date or title has
been announced as of yet.
Punk guitarist Ron Asheton, 60, was found dead by police in his Ann
Arbor, Michigan, home on Jan. 6th. Police were summoned to
his home by Asheton's personal assistant, who had been unable to reach
him for several days. Early reports are that he died of a
heart attack several days before being discovered on his
couch. Asheton's career began and ended with The Stooges but
he also appeared on albums during the 1980s for The New Order, Destroy
All Monsters and New Race and was named #29 on Rolling Stone's list of
100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.