Blimey!

How did I miss that Morrissey turned 50 years old last week?

From the Guardian piece on the former Smiths frontman and aging alternative icon's half-century of rock miserablism, this little tidbit on aging and death at one's elbow:

"I'm nearly 29," Morrissey said when his first solo album, Viva Hate, came out in 1988. "I'll be dead in a couple of years ... I have a dramatic, unswayable, unavoidable obsession with death. I can remember being obsessed with it from the age of eight or nine. I often wondered if it was quite a natural inbuilt emotion for people who are destined to ... take their own lives. I think if there was a magical, beautiful pill that one could take that would retire you from the world ... I would take it."

Luckily, he either missed the fact that a handful of any number of pills would have done the job or consciously decided he'd bulk up, grow older, buy some suits and continue rocking.

Damn good thing, too. His latest albums are his best in decades.

Here's an interesting BBC interview about his status as a British icon. Really annoying kid interviewing him, but fascinating none-the-less.

Stunning revelation: Morrissey's favorite Beatle is...Paul? Also, even though David Bowie's still alive and kicking Moz says of his heroes: "No one living..."

Ouch. Guess that's the downside of meeting your heroes...

The new Camera Obscura record, My Maudlin Career, is streaming now on NPR for free.

Sounds like good stuff so far, but I'm a sucker for the Scots.

Go check it out.

Best reason to watch Late Night with Jimmy Fallon so far?

The Roots.

In a way, I'm surprised it took this long for this to go viral.

But, in their own sweet time, out-of-context clips from the audio version of President Obama's book Dreams from My Father have become an Internet phenomenon.

For those who haven't yet heard the (not safe for work) string of clips, which is character dialogue from the book:

And, of course, there are already several dance mixes:

What's most amusing to me about it: our president is, indeed, unleashing a torrent of curses in a hood dialect. But unlike the previous administration, it's not because he's forgotten his mic is hot or because he's lost his temper on the floor of the senate. Does that make it more or less funny?

If Joe Biden intentionally shoots a guy in the face comedy writers are going to go on strike.

Check out this pretty groovy mashup of Barack Obama and Lee Dorsey's classic "Yes We Can."

After hearing what sounded like a much diminished Hank Williams Jr.'s spin on Johnny Cash, his dad's tunes and right wing versions of his own songs last week, I'm cleansing myself with two country albums streaming online today:

*All Aboard: A Tribute to Johnny Cash - Groups like The Hold Steady, Dresden Dolls, MxPx and The Bouncing Souls take on Cash songs like Cry, Cry, Cry, Man in Black and Folsom Prison Blues. The album will is available on four colors of vinyl , with access to digital copies included in the sleeve. All proceeds go to a breast cancer charity.

Cardinalology, the new record by (maybe overly) prolific alt-country guy (and North Carolina native) Ryan Adams and his band The Cardinals, is streaming for free online for 48 hours. It's available in stores Oct. 28.

NPR has posted one of the concerts in which Liz Phair performs her breakthrough album Exile in Guyville in its entirety.

You can listen here.

Contains strong language, of course -- cause, you know, it's Liz Phair.

I know I've posted about the new "I'm a PC" ads from Microsoft before -- but now that I've seen this one with a solo Pharrell Williams I'm just...puzzled.

Nowhere in this ad does Pharrell or anyone else make any arguments for a PC being better than a Mac -- not for music, not for art, not for anything that Pharrell could actually speak to with authority and passion. He just talks about loving music and says that he uses a PC.

All right...and?

They've seen the actual "I'm a Mac/I'm a PC" ads, right? It's true that the Mac guy looks cooler...but he also makes an actual argument for what's so great about Macs in each commercial. This is what makes the commercials so great.

These things...they just makes me feel sorry for Microsoft. It's like they're the kid who never learned how to debate intelligently, who just starts rambling and screaming. "Am not! You are! Oh yeah? Well, hip musicians and music producers use me too, you know..."

Randy Newman, one of my favorite songwriters, has a new album out -- Harps and Angels.

It's good stuff.

You can listen to Newman play songs from the album live here.

And here's him doing a solo rendition of "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country"...

All in one take. Impressive.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from amandalynferri on Vimeo.

A few musical questions this week:

- The AP reports that Bob Dylan's new bootleg series album, "Tell Tale Signs" will stream free on NPR's website for a week before its official release. Ain't Bobby so cool?

- Is there anything more anti-climatic than Clay Aiken coming out of the closet? Any fan who didn't realize he's gay either hasn't yet had the birds and bees talk or richly deserves to have her world shattered by this non-story.

- The Flaming Lips are finally releasing their weirdo outer-space/holiday movie Christmas on Mars. Follow the link for an exclusive trailer. It's getting a limited theatrical release -- closest theater to us is in Nashville -- and is coming to DVD Nov 11. How can you resist a film featuring modern psychedelic rock music in space AND Santa?

Here's a strange little story of old-school word of mouth and cross-media promotion working in concert with the Internet to the advantage of fans and artists, the way it should...

Rage Against the Machine was forced to go a cappella in Minneapolis this week when the PA was killed at their concert opposite the Republican convention.

They took to the streets in performance and protest with, as Rolling Stone reports, guitarist Tom Morello "making the “bow-wow-wow-wakka-chikkas” with his mouth.

Then it apparently devolved into violence during which 102 people were arrested.

No joke here. Just ... you know ...Jesus.

The Daily Show, taping before Obama's big speech last night, had to settle for this "biographical film."

For those who missed the actual speech:

I did think it was a little strange that after the speech, as the Obama and Biden families were gathering together on the stage, there was this over-the-top country song called "Only in America" playing.

Maybe it was one of those hedging-your-bets things. Like -- all right, we've just seen a black man nominated for president by one of the two major parties for the first time in history. Let's give them a little twang to take the sting out of it for those people who are a little freaked out. When Bruce Springsteen's not patriotic enough you've gotta find somebody in an actual cowboy hat.

Sorta.

Steve Foley was not an original member of The Replacements, but he stepped in to tour behind the band's final record, All Shook Down, when original drummer Chris Mars quit.

Ironically, All Shook Down was the first Replacements record I ever heard. It was essentially the first Paul Westerberg solo album put out under his old band's name. The notoriously drunken Westerberg was trying to dry out during this album and it's never enjoyed a great reputation among critics or fans. But I kinda liked it -- and it led me to their other stuff.

So here's a tip of the hat to the drummer who kept the group on the road there at the end.

It's another Web Junkie Wednesday and this week we're looking at getting more bang for your DVD buck.

If you're like me your inability to keep track of series television (especially large, complicated serial stories like those on Lost, Heroes and 24) has led you to give up, wait for the DVD and watch it at your own pace.

This can be leisurely -- an episode or two a night -- or you could stay in your pajamas, get a giant punchbowl full of breakfast cereal and create your own Saturday catch-up marathon. But however you do it, it can get expensive.

That's where Just The Disc comes in. By ditching the packaging and selling you just the disc of movies, shows and music CDs they cut the price dramatically -- CDs are just $2.99 and DVDs $3.99. You can buy one disc at a time and if you buy five, you get free shipping. All discs are pre-owned but in excellent condition and fully guaranteed.

They don't have everything -- but they do have a lot of popular shows, movies and CDs.

Example: On Amazon.com the cheapest price for the First Season of The West Wing is $37. Even used, the best you can do is $21. You can buy all four discs of the same series at Just The Disc for $16 -- or just buy the first disc to see if you get addicted (you will).

I don't know about you, but I rarely keep DVD and jewel cases nowadays anyway. I slip them into a disc wallet to save space. From now on, when possible, I'll be buying them this way, saving money and cutting out the middle man.

Here's a link, since the embed code doesn't seem to work. Daughtry covers "Feels Like the First Time" -- great version -- as part of CNN's League of First-Time Voters campaign. (Hyphen insertion is mine; CNN chose not to use one. :)

"GREENSBORO -- Staind will perform Oct. 7 in the Greensboro Coliseum Complex's Special Events Center with guests Seether and Papa Roach.

Tickets will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. at www.ticketmaster.com, by phone at (336) 852-1100 or at the Greensboro Coliseum box office. Ticket prices are $35; seating is general admission."

---

Am I the only one who had no idea that any of these bands still existed?

Who's paying $35 to see the whiny nu-metal band who did a power ballad with Fred Durst when I was in high school?

And can we have them sterilized?

Today only: Download Depeche Mode's singles collection The Singles 86-98 at Amazon.com for $3.99.

That's $16.80 less than buying the songs individually.

Of course, if you already own Violator you're set already, in my opinion.

Blender Magazine asked Obama and McCain to pick a compact, 10-song playlist.

Here's what they came up with.

A few surprises -- Obama is apparently that one black guy who actually digs U2 and Bruce Springsteen and McCain went with not one but two ABBA tunes.

But they both agreed on Sinatra.

Some funny commentary on the lists from Randy Newman and Girl Talk, too.

I've been listening to The Black Keys' latest album, Attack and Release, since it came out.

I've got this song stuck in my head and can't seem to shake it:

They're playing at the Ryman Auditorium in October and I'm thinking about taking a trip to Nashville to visit some friends and see them live.

Word is they're amazing live.

Canadian prog rock legends Rush tried their hands at the video game "Rock Band" backstage at The Colbert Report this week.

Playing "Tom Sawyer," one of their own songs, the band washed out -- getting only 31%.

The Hold Steady, as much as critics gush about them, are perhaps one of the few bands in rock that haven't punched through to get the acclaim many say they deserve.

And in the mail today, I received my copy of their new album "Stay Positive."

I'm a fan.

Only a few tracks in, and it's got that same Boss sound with the sad lyrics and paradoxically upbeat music. In the little bit I know about music these days, The Hold Steady are recording some of the most straight-ahead rock music that's being made and released in the country.

There's plenty of catchy riffs imported from the late 70s (that got filtered through the 90s grunge), a little twinkling piano here and there, and they're not too proud to include some "whoa-ho-ho" in a song. The way they deliver the tunes, you're apt to remember back to that one party you went to when you were 19 and it was a little too hot outside for 11 p.m. Even though you drank beer you stole from your parents' fridge, it felt really really good in the soft summer, and you didn't worry about tomorrow.

The Hold Steady are great at setting that scene just before everyone is too drunk, too sad, and too sorry. And then they'll show the consequences afterward, with plenty of implicit denial and regret flashed through colored stage lights.

A few lines so far catch my ear, too:

This whole town is lifeless.
Been that way our whole lives just
work at the mill until you die.
Work at the mill and then you die.

-from the first track, "Constructive Summer"

I've always appreciated bands that work hard. These guys definitely do.

Go check out the finalists in Radiohead's contest for best animated video from their album In Rainbows.

I kinda dig this one:

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

Great Q&A with The Raconteurs in the latest issue of Interview magazine.

From the piece:

INTERVIEW: It seems like not that long ago, people would be excited that a band they liked was releasing a record, but they would know almost nothing about it until it came out.

JACK WHITE:You’d know nothing about it, not even the name. Now, because everything is given to you in spades on your laptop immediately—YouTube, iTunes, blogs, bands’ websites, and MySpace—you become disinterested very quickly because you’ve already got it all.

...It’s very tough to compete with all that media. You’re almost constantly trying to tell people that there are these beautiful, romantic things that are involved with artistry and the reception of it, and that there are ways you can participate in and share that—ways that are tangible and emotional and don’t just involve a gadget in your hand or something invisible like digital music. These are real things that you can hold onto if you want to. But it’s hard to compete, you know? We’re trying. It’s like, “Hey, if you want our music on your cell phone or on iTunes or whatever, it’s there. But we’re still putting it out on vinyl and on CD so that it’s something tangible that you can hold onto.”

Why does this guy not have a record deal? I love, love, love his voice. And his pretty eyes don't hurt, either. Eli Kerr is much better than this show, but every so often, that happens.

Barack Obama's on the cover of Rolling Stone again -- this time without "FASHION TIPS FROM PANIC AT THE DISCO!" blaring from beneath or around him. Maybe the best cover shot I've seen of him yet.

In the interview he talks about (among other things) what's on his iPod -- Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan -- and how well he gets along with Jay-Z.

Taking a lesson from John McCain's "Bomb Iran" Beach Boys flap, Obama cannily avoids saying something like "I got 99 problems but Hillary Clinton is no longer one."

Interview here.

Think gas prices are making your commute to work sheer hell on the wallet?

Thank your lucky stars you're not a touring indie band.

Total Guitar Magazine has named Celine Dion's version of AC/DC's "You Shook Me" the worst cover in history.

It's pretty bad...but worst ever?

I have a particular loathing for Rod Stewart's version of Tom Waits' "Downtown Train."

What would you have picked?

The Hold Steady's new album, Stay Positive, is streaming now on MySpace.

They're going to be at the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro on August 12. I'll be there -- you should too.

Go check out Weezer's new video for "Pork and Beans," the first single off their sixth album (self titled, people are calling it "the red album.")

It's got a galaxy of YouTube stars -- the Chocolate Rain and History of Dance guys, Kevin Federline, Miss Teen South Carolina and even Chris Crocker.

The N&R's Guilford County reporter Gerald Witt submits the following amusingly named mix-tape for your approval:

Reader Brad K. takes up the challenge of making his own Mix-Tape at Mixwit.

He says of making his tape, Vanishing Point 2.0: A Soundtrack for the Road:

"I had to go with second and third choices on some artists and some songs. In a couple cases, I even had songs deleted after I posted them in the mix. However, I was also pleasantly surprised to find songs I didn't think would be included at the site. So I guess I broke even."

It's true, the service isn't perfect -- it's powered by free streaming online music. But I think his mix -- which includes Motorhead, Joan Jett, Superchunk, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Drive By Truckers and Metallica -- came out rather bad ass.

Take a listen for yourself:

Think you can top it? Go make your own mix and send it to me at Joe.Killian@news-record.com.

I'll post the best ones here.

Yesterday The Muppet Show: The Complete Third Season was released on DVD.

Check out Alice Cooper's appearance from that season in this clip. Alice performs "Welcome to My Nightmare" and tries to buy Kermit's soul for Satan.

"Man, it wasn't spooky like this when Julie Andrews did the show," Kermit says.

Man, this was a weird and wonderful show.

Remember how great those five little words used to feel?

My sister, who is now 19, has never made or received a mix-tape -- by the time she got into music, it was all CDs and MP3s. My generation was probably the last to have the experience of laboring over a pile of tapes for the perfect track listing, hitting Record and Stop at just the right time and scribbling their own fold-in-liner notes.

Some of the most important music of my life was introduced to me through mix-tapes. So I was glad to find Mixwit, a website that allows you to cobble together online mix-tapes (with cool moving cassette-tape graphics) using streaming music available online for free. You won't be able to find everything, of course -- but you'd be amazed what you can find.

To demonstrate I did, indeed, make you a mix-tape. Three, in fact. They're not definitive -- but these Country music, Old School Hip Hop and Glam Rock mixes are mighty fine, fresh and wham-bam respectively.

Enjoy -- and go make your own.

Send them to me and I'll post the best ones here at Culture Shock.

Remember that Scarlett Johansson album of Tom Waits covers?

The whole thing is streaming online for free.

And it's not bad.

Update: Rolling Stone gives the album just 2.5 stars.

Metalhead Dave Grohl has posted a special message to Metallica through Metal Hammer magazine (for which I came very close to freelancing some years ago -- weird but unrelated story).

The jist of it: the former Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters frontman loves them through thick and thin and can't wait for the new album.

However, he does say:

"Good luck. And don't release it until it's kick-ass."

Hear, hear!

Lest you doubt Grohl's trashy metal bona fides:

Am seriously thinking of going to Knoxville, TN to see him on this tour.

So many people I wish I'd seen when I had the chance aren't touring anymore, are dead or have decided they're better off touring Europe and Asia (this last may change after George W. Bush leaves office -- who knows?).

Who's coming with me?

Bootsy Collins is getting the band back together...sort of.

The former JB, Parliament-Funkadelic bassist and snazzy dresser is getting together some of Brown's old backing band for a tour in memory of the Hardest Working Man in Showbusiness.

The band will include Bootsy's brother and J.B.’s alumn Phelps "Catfish" Collins on guitar and J.B. drummers John "Jabo" Starks and Funky Drummer Clyde Stubblefield. Bart Byrd, the son of late J.B.'s keyboardist Bobby Byrd, Tony Wilson and Brown's daughter Venisha will also be on board.

Head over to our Decision 2008 blog to check out my post from Hillary Clinton's visit to High Point this morning.

You can listen to audio of the speech, see a little video, check out pictures of the crazy Hillarymobile and help me answer the question: Are Hill and The Boss really no longer BFFs?

Lou Reed is at the Carolina Theatre in Durham tonight.

A friend caught him last week at in Northhampton, Mass -- she reports that he's still in good form, plays plenty of the old stuff and the new stuff is great too.

Looks like tickets are still available.

I can't sleep and I'm up writing with the TV on in the background.

Madonna's video for "Open Your Heart" just came on VH1 Classic.

And it made me think:

1) Madonna was better before she thought she was "important."

2) Music videos were better when they thought they were.

Bruce Springsteen is choosing sides:

"Senator Obama, in my view, is head and shoulders above the rest. He has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next President. He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years, a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit. A place where "...nobody crowds you, and nobody goes it alone.""

Bruce does misidentify Obama's book "Dreams from My Father" as "Dreams of My Father" in the statement -- but Barack has still got to be psyched to know The Boss thinks he was born to run.

Hillary, who has been blaring The Boss' music at her rallies, less so.

You can't take these things personally and I'm not sure Bruce will ask her to stop, but you've got to feel a little foolish cuing up "Land of Hope and Dreams" when you know the guy singing the song wants your opponent conducting the train.

Let me start by saying this: I'm an unapologetic Rolling Stones fan.

Yes, I know: they are elderly, rich and I was in elementary school when they put out their last really solid album.

I don't care.

The fact that they didn't break up at the height of their fame and only one of them managed to die does not make them any less a great rock and roll band -- they simply didn't cease production in the period when they were most creative and vital. I was in college before I began to really appreciate their back catalog, and on the strength of that I think they should be allowed to tour until they actually fall apart in front of us if they like.

With that said, you can see why I'd be excited to see Shine a Light, a Stones performance film directed by Martin Scorsese (who on top of being an Oscar winning director of terrific dramas is also no slouch in the rock doc department, having helped edit Woodstock, directed The Last Waltz and No Direction Home).

One of my favorite directors putting together a concert film of one of my favorite bands? Yes, please.

Unfortunately...it was not all it was cracked up to be.

To reward myself for having survived moving last weekend (and this week, and the unpacking that continues), this is what I'm going to be seeing this weekend:

Good stuff with Mick, Keith, Jack White and Martin Scorsese in the latest Rolling Stone.

I am disappointed to hear, however, that they wanted to get a PG-13 rating for this and so cut the use of the F-word down to two instances. Not just by playing songs that don't require it or watching their mouths but by actually taking it out of songs -- most egregiously in "Some Girls."

I can't really follow the logic -- does anyone think kids too young to get into an R movie are going to be trying to get into this without their parents anyway? The idea that Scorsese (for whom the F-word seems to have been artistically essential to this point) and the Stones (for whom the F-word is, in many ways, part of a way of life) could make a PG-13 movie leaves me scratching my head.

The Rolling Stones are playing Blackpool, England for the first time in 44 years after the town lifted a ban imposed after a 1964 concert caused riots.

A lot of things that seemed dangerous in 1964 now seem almost quaint -- heck, Holiday Inn even lifted their ban on The Who now that the biggest problem the band causes them is Pete Townsend waking up to got the bathroom every twenty minutes.

Right now I'm listening to the soundtrack to Scorsese's new Stones documentary, Shine a Light, streaming free here.

There's a version of "Loving Cup" with Jack White. Nice.

The Queen of Soul turns 66 today...

...and Sir Elton Hercules John turns 61.

R.E.M.'s new album, Accelerate, isn't in stores until April 1 -- but you can listen to the whole thing now if you like, over at iLike.

You can also check out this NPR interview with the band, which links to a stream of their full show from South by Southwest this year.

When punk came to California, photographer Jenny Lens was ready for it -- and she caught all of its luminaries, losers and laugh-riots when punk exploded there in the late 70s.

Rolling Stone has a great preview of her first book, Punk Pioneers: When Punk Was Fun, which is out next month. Some of my favorite shots:

Debbie Harry of Blondie at the Whisky in LA, 1977.

Rick Nielson of Cheap Trick mugs for the camera while bassist Tom Petersson smooches a young (and adorable) Joan Jett backstage in Santa Monica in 1977.

Lorna Doom of The Germs at a photo shoot in 1977.

Joey Ramone wants the airwaves (and the robots) in Little Tokyo in 1977.

File under "Revivals...sorta"...

- Queen is releasing their first album of new material in more than a decade -- and this time they're doing it with ex-Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers, with whom they've been touring with a sort of "Tribute to Freddie Mercury" show.

Hardcore Mercury fans are losing their minds and saying they shouldn't call this new iteration of the band Queen. Which you had to sort of see coming. Their last album, 1995's Made in Heaven, was made with leftover Mercury vocals.

- Variety reports that director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, A Simple Plan) is looking to revive Tom Clancy's superspy Jack Ryan, who has been played on screen by Alec Baldwin (The Hunt for Red October), Harrison Ford (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger) and Ben Affleck (Sum of All Fears).

Jack Ryan movies have, to date, raked in nearly $800 million at the box office -- so I guess you can see why they'd want to bring him back yet again. My dad's a Tom Clancy fan and these guys (and they're almost all guys) are rabid. Freddie Mercury fans may scream and cry if Queen replaces him with someone they don't like -- but Tom Clancy fans might shoot the poor guy who becomes the next Jack Ryan if he lets them down. I nominate Vin Diesel for this very reason.

- Yes (the band) are hitting the road for a 40th anniversary tour.

No, no you're right -- they did just do a 35th anniversary tour. Think that's a little too much Yes? Keyboardist Rick Wakeman agrees with you -- so he's sitting this one out. This is the fourth time he's quit the band. His son Oliver's going to be handling his duties while dad takes a principled stand over giving Yes fans more of what they inexplicably continue to want.

- It looks like Bob Odinkirk and David Cross of the late, brilliant Mr. Show are coming back to HBO for a new series. It won't be a Mr. Show revival, but I'm still looking forward to it.

- And last but by no means least, Elvis Costello is releasing his new album, Momofuku in only two formats -- digital and vinyl.

If you buy the vinyl album (which I will) you get a voucher for a digital download. Hardcore audiophiles continue to (probably rightly) extoll the virtues of vinyl and (certainly rightly) condemn the comparatively terrible sound of the MP3 format. Like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, Costello has built an audience that's loyal enough to roll with him and remain curious as he experiments with how to continue to deliver music to us in the way he likes.

Talk about a strange week in rock news -- and it's only Tuesday.

- ABBA's drummer died in a freak garden/broken glass accident in Spain.

- The Raconteurs are rushing the release of their new album, Consolers of the Lonely, to next week.

Stores, fans and the press will all get the album at the same time and it will be available for download from their website.

- Trent Reznor is seeking Nine Inch Nails fans to make the group's next videos.

Radiohead is doing something similar.

- When and if Led Zeppelin hit the tour circuit again their opening act could be...VELVET REVOLVER?!?!

- Apparently the call girl in New York Gov. Elliot Spitzer's recent sex scandal has made upwards of $200,000 in downloads of her songs "What We Want" and "Move Your Body."

And you thought $4,000 a week for sex with the governor was good dough. If she gets a record deal she's going to have to thank the morbidly curious in her liner notes. Also, Larry Flynt's offered her $1 million to pose in Hustler. Who says it's only Julia Roberts who gets a hooker Cinderella story?

ABBA drummer Ola Brunkert was found dead in his home at Spain after an apparent accident with a glass partition.

According to ABBA's website: "Together with bass player Rutger Gunnarsson, Ola is probably the only musician to appear on all ABBA albums -- he was one of the most frequently used Swedish session musicians during the 1970s."

Wilco is playing at Washington D.C.'s 9:30 Club tonight.

Some friends of mine from high school and college live in D.C. and I'm sure they'll be there. I can't be -- but I can listen to the NPR webcast. it begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, with opener John Doe of X.

The band is touring in support of Sky Blue Sky, which Rolling Stone gave four stars.

It's good stuff -- and they're great live.

John Mellencamp was not, as they say, "down" with presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain using his songs "Our Country" and "Pink Houses" on the campaign trail as he tries to sell his party on his conservative credentials.

Mellencamp is a dyed-in-the-wool leftie who was pulling for John Edwards. His publicist asked of the McCain camp:

“If you’re such a true conservative, why are you playing songs that have a very populist pro-labor message written by a guy who would find no argument if you characterized him as left of center?”

Like Ronald Reagan before him, McCain seems to have wanted to co-opt the music (or its spirit) without actually listening to it. But he's done the gentlemanly thing and stopped using the songs.

Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing points out that one of the songs Hillary Clinton is using on the campaign trail is "When the Lady Smiles" by Dutch rock group Golden Earring.

In the video clip for the song (which, incidentally, has not aged well -- I can't imagine how they choose these songs. Ronald Reagan famously wanted to use "Born in the U.S.A." -- an anthem about how screwed up the country was -- because he thought it sounded patriotic) a nun is raped and a dog eats the attacker's brain. The video was banned from MTV in 1984.

The chances that Clinton knows this -- or is paying much attention at all to what's being played at her rallies and why -- are pretty slim. But it is none-the-less hilarious that Clinton, proud mommy of legislation such as the Family Entertainment Protection Act and constant cultural hall monitor of the "for our children" crusade, is blaring a song by a band whose video MTV thought was too much. In 1984. The same year they broadcast Madonna writhing on the floor in a wedding dress, moaning "Like A Virgin."

Got my Daughtry/Bon Jovi ticket! I'm excited -- I love Daughtry, and while I really only know Bon Jovi's early stuff, I'm looking forward to seeing him as well. Probably will download 'Lost Highway' today to listen to it before the show. Six of us News & Record ladies are going -- some for Chris, some for Bon Jovi, and at least one for Joey Barnes :-)

My girlfriend picked up the tickets yesterday at the presale, and I'm glad she did! I logged on five minutes before the regular sale started today to see if I could get better seats. (I was willing to take on the task of selling the other six once I googled "Bon Jovi sold out" if I could.) At 10:01, the best six seats together in the lower price range were behind the stage. At 10:10, I did a search for best 2 tickets in any price range for giggles -- row SS, floor level, way behind the first two sections of floor level. At 10:15, the best two available were behind the stage, in any price range. And they were the $80 tickets (really $95 once you add in fees) -- and who wants to pay that for behind the stage seats???

I read somewhere that the reason not many got floor level is that the first 15 rows or so were all $1,000 seats. You read that right -- I didn't add a zero by accident. I just did a search for two of those tickets -- good news, folks! You can still get fifth row tickets, front and center, if you have $2,000 (you can only buy them in blocks of two).

Daughtry, I love you, but you are not worth $2,000, no matter who the other act is. Unless it was Elvis. I might pay that to see the King rise from the dead. (If he's really dead, that is.)

Local son Chris Daughtry is taking a swipe at the show that made him famous.

About 'American Idol,' from Rolling Stone:

"I feel like it's definitely lacking some credibility at this point," says Daughtry, who came in fourth place on the 2006 season but went on to sell 3.6 million copies of his debut record and be named one of Nielsen's top ten selling artists of 2007. "It's in a state of decline and if they don't do something about it, it's probably not gonna last too much longer. I'm sure that'll be used against me, but that's the truth, you know?"

He's right, though. Last season pretty much sucked, if you want my honest opinion. I didn't care who won, and I'm having a hard time even remembering many of the contestants. I watched the first episode or two of the season, but then I tuned out until they whittled it down to the top 24 or so -- there's only so many times you can watch someone screech Celine or Whitney, know what I mean? The occasional awful person is fine, but they just went overboard with the people who were clueless at auditions and the ones who were clearly there just to get on TV. Guess what, auditioners? It's no longer edgy to flip off the camera when you get the boot -- everyone does it.

I watched last night's 'Idol' this afternoon. (I never watch them live -- I have to be able to fast-forward through the recrap and pointless pauses for effect.) Maybe it's just me, but it was perceptibly better -- there were still some attention whores, but the guy who sang "No Sex Allowed" made up for that. As did the blond horse trainer at the end (I can't recall her name) who had a great voice.

But I agree with Daughtry -- I think it's on the way out. As soon as it veers back to people in Big Bird costumes and mocking people who are clearly handicapped (despite the pleas that they've changed), I'll tune out until the finals.

I'm listening to In the Future this morning -- the new album from bluesy psychedelic metal band Black Mountain.

Spin gave the album 3.5 stars, saying it "sounds like the man who fell to Earth -- only to land in the woods."

That's not far off.

Dig the opening "Stormy High" and "Lay Your Halo Down."

Rolling Stone gave the album 3.5 stars and featured the band in piece where they summed them up as "Black Sabbath + Flaming Lips + the munchies."

That's not a bad description either, but I think the band is less heavy and more boogie on this album than either review gives them credit for.

I knew there was a reason I love Tori Amos. At her concert the other night in San Diego, a couple of girls in the front row kept getting up and walking in and out. So Tori does what anyone should do -- she tells them to "get the f--- out."

While playing "Code Red", Tori stopped and told them, "Get the f--- out of my show! It's a privilege to sit in the front row and I reserve those seats for people who appreciate music, get the f--- out!"

Fast forward to about 2:26.

Also, this is definitely one of the concert fouls I was talking about in my last post.

Last night, my husband and I and my cousin and her husband went to see Daughtry at War Memorial Auditorium. It was a blast -- while I loved the concert outdoors near Natty Greene's in March, this was a smaller venue, so it was a nice, more intimate concert.

The two opening bands weren't my favorites -- the first one (You Are I Am) was kind of meh and the second one (Midway State), while entertaining in spastic, overly earnest sort of way, I could have done without as well. The audience kind of sat there as well, unless they were getting up to go smoke, get beer or buy T-shirts.

As soon as Daughtry went on, everyone stood and remained standing the whole time, singing along and swaying or jumping, depending on the song. I'm pretty sure they did everything from the album, which made me happy, although I'm surprised they didn't end with "Home," given the location.

They also did a new one that Chris said he wrote while in Amsterdam, called "Back to Me." I really liked it, especially as he sang it while alone, in front of a scrim, with just a few lights shining on him.

They also did a long bit from "Paradise City," which I loved and everyone sang along to. They threw in some Johnny Cash and Motley Crue, too -- I suppose once they release a second album they won't need to throw in covers. I still really liked them, and I was a bit disappointed they didn't do some of the covers they did at the March concert -- I think that's why I liked Chris on Idol so much, that he threw his own spin on some classics.

There were some fun moments with the crowd, like when he jokingly told people to stop coming by his house and to stay off his lawn. At one point, he was throwing water bottles into the audience and he sidearmed one right into the auditorium wall accidentally, splashing water everywhere. A bunch of people left with towels and guitar picks as well.

There were some really cute young girls around us, maybe 10 or 11 years old, who were hardcore rocking out and singing the words to every song. (I remember being that passionate at my first concert when I was 11. New Kids on the Block. Don't laugh.)

Not so cute were the people two rows behind me who got into a loud argument I could hear over the song about who was shoving who, or the couple in my row who kept leaving during the concert. I didn't mind so much during the opening acts, but they left and came back during Daughtry, promising on their way in that it was the last time. So, what happens a couple songs later? They leave again. I must have shown my consternation pretty blatantly, as they waited for the song to end when they came back before crossing in front of us again. I don't go to a lot of concerts -- but if there isn't a concert etiquette, there should be, and leaving and returning to your seats in the middle of the row a bunch should be a concert foul.

Other concert fouls:
-- The person sitting next to my cousin who smelled strongly of beer and stale cigarettes and was loudly drunk.
-- The people we saw removed from the second or third row after it was clear they belonged much further back and had taken another couple's seats.
-- The $7 parking fee we had to pay to park in the Coliseum parking lot. It irritates me to no end that I have to pay a handling fee and convenience fee and whatever else, then a parking fee on top of all that. Our two tickets, billed as $30 each ($60 a pair), ended up costing us $94 and change, plus the $7 at the concert. (And trust me -- I know that $30 is a bargain compared to a lot of entertainers!)

Except for those incidents, overall it was a great night -- I love Daughtry, and I love Daughtry even more in concert. And if I were about 10 years younger, less tired and not as cold, I probably would have stuck around outside near his tour bus with the others -- I hope it was worth the wait and they got to see him!

P.S. Joey Barnes, why did you look like a Chippendale dancer, wearing nothing but a bow tie and a hat behind your drums?

Soft rock star Dan Fogelberg died yesterday at the age of 56.

Fogelberg has become something of a cultural punchline since his heyday in the 70s and early 80s -- shorthand for immasculine soft rock. But even if you have no idea who he was, chances are you danced to his song "Longer" at a wedding somewhere along the way.

Led Zeppelin reunited.

Footage from last night's one-off show here.

Are they touring? No definitive word yet. But apparently they've still got the rock in them.

While writing tonight I was suddenly struck by what a terrific little pop song is "When My Love Open The Door," from Pete Townsend's 1980 solo album, Empty Glass.

I'm told there's a version of the song in Dan In Real Life, which I've been meaning to see. That may be why it's on my mind.

Humming it to myself, screwing up the words, just totally in love with this silly little song tonight.

Here's the original version:

And an excellent cover by Rilo Kiley:

Slight spoilers if you know absolutely nothing about Sweeney Todd. I don't think there's anything here that isn't in the trailer.

Quick note: For those who don't know, Sweeney Todd, coming to theatres Dec. 21, is a movie version of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning Broadway musical. Sweeney is the Demon Barber of Fleet Street -- a man wronged who wants revenge on those who wronged him.

So I was playing around on the Sweeney Todd Web site. I've been waiting for the movie for a long time now, really looking forward to it. But it's also been tinged with nervous anticipation -- will they be able to pull it off? I love Johnny Depp, and I didn't want him to screw this up.

Well, thank goodness, he hasn't. At least not from what I've heard. If you go to this link and click "Enter site", another window will open. In the top right corner is something called Audio -- click on it, and you can listen to parts of some of the different songs. I'm pleasantly surprised with Depp -- he's not bad. It's a hard role to sing, and what little I've heard impresses me.

However. Helena Bonham-Carter.

It's unfortunate that her and Burton are a thing because she's going to be hearing a lot of director's couch comments. She's awful -- she can't sing -- it's more of a fast talking, and there's no power at all behind it. Not to mention she sounds like she is trying to hurry through the lyrics as fast as she can so she can stop singing -- she doesn't seem to believe she should be singing, either.

She just annoyed me in "Bit of Priest" and "Worst Pies in London". And I'm even trying to cut her a break -- Angela Lansbury defined that role, and she's who I hear in my head when I listen, but I was willing to give someone else a chance. When I first heard Carter's name, I thought it could be a bit of inspired casting -- provided she could sing. Yeah, well, I will now be going to the movie dreading her moments.

All I can hope is that she can bring something to the role besides her singing. Except that I really feel like Mrs. Lovett is almost a sweet woman who's a bit demented -- she clearly loves the boy and has a thing for Sweeney, and thinks they can all be a happy family of sorts, with a few murders thrown in here and there -- not a demented woman who's scary, which is how I think Carter will play it -- Bellatrix does Mrs. Lovett.

On the other hand, listening to Alan Rickman in "Pretty Woman" didn't upset me. Does he sound like an actor singing? Yes. But it doesn't annoy me. He sounds like Snape singing, which turns me into a giddy fan girl inside.

Of course, you can listen to "Green Finch" if you wish to torture yourself. I hated it in the production I saw, and I hate it here, too. And I have no idea who the girl is who sings it, only that she is slightly better than the soprano who sang it on my soundtrack.

So now I'll still see it opening weekend, but some of the air has been let out of the balloon for me. What do you guys think? Am I being too hard on her? Anyone agree with me?

Bruce may be down one keyboardist for now, but he's on the cover of the current issue of Spin with Win Butler, lead singer of Arcade Fire.

Here's some YouTube footage of The Boss doing Arcade Fire's "Keep The Car Running" with Win and his wife, Regine, and a duet on his own "State Trooper" as well.

Confession: I was a pretty big Morrissey fan in high school. Not nearly as big as my friend Brian LaRue, who introduced me to Moz. But pretty big. Still, I never saw this video for "November Spawned a Monster" -- in which Morrissey, decked out in a mesh shirt and dancing like a gay club kid who's had maybe one more interpretive dance class than he has cosmos, rolls around and gyrates and generally looks sad out in the middle of a desert. As we're coming into November's homestretch, I thought I might present this to you guys before taking a few days off:

Man, that's monstrously strange.

But I do still love the line: "Jesus made me/so Jesus save me/from pity, sympathy/and people discussing me.'

Truth be told I still love most of Moz's Smiths and solo stuff in a completely unironic way -- even the bits I know are ridiculous. But his videos have always been pretty awful. Check out this one for the terrific "Last of the Famous International Playboys":

His new stuff's pretty great -- I somehow feel he's grown into himself and makes a great cranky old guy. He's gotten rid of the mesh shirts and bought some great suits, for one thing. He's still not making great videos, though. Check out this pretty average clip for the pretty great song "Irish Blood/English Heart":

Still terrific live, though. Check out this concert montage built around one of my favorites,"There Is a Light That Never Goes Out":

I've been making an effort to listen to more new music lately. I'm afraid of becoming one of those people who listen to the same dozen albums over and over again for the rest of their lives without taking in anything new. Not preemptively -- I began recognizing the symptoms and rushed to treat them.

So here's some of the new stuff I'm listening to. How about you?

Well, it's Web Junkie Wednesday again -- and in this week's edition I want to talk about online juke boxes. You know, those free online tune repositories that keep you singing through your workday (and distract you from any actual work as you search their catalogs).

My personal favorite right now is Soundpedia, an online collection of music, videos and community features that allows you to listen to an astonishing number of songs and full length albums in their entirety -- and even shows you the lyrics as the songs are playing.

Two things occurred to me today when, in my car, I heard Billy Joel's "Say Goodbye to Hollywood":

1) Like a lot of Billy Joel's songs, I have no idea what the hell this one is about, really. Someone's leaving Hollywood. They should, therefore, say goodbye. My baby.

2) Is there any recording artist who recorded more depressing songs over the course of his career without really leaving the impression that his music is depressing?

I mean, really -- take a look at Billy Joel's catalog. Some of the up numbers jump out at you -- even the up numbers ("Uptown Girl," for instance) are, upon closer inspection, pretty depressing.
Even his Greatest Hits album (which is, by definition, the songs that would have the greatest commercial appeal) is, for anyone who's paying attention, sort of a list of reasons to try to off yourself or check into a clinic (both of which Joel had some experience with early in life).

All right -- this is why I love YouTube.

This is from the pilot of "Graffiti Rock" -- a show that was supposed to become the Hip Hop American Bandstand or Soul Train.

It wasn't picked up -- but this clip has Run DMC from 1984.

Special extra: A young Vincent Gallo (of Brown Bunny infamy) makes a cameo at the beginning, introducing himself as "Prince Vince" and Kool Moe Dee and Special K from th Treacherous Three show up to battle at the end of the clip.

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, which hit my mailbox this weekend:

- Great interview with Bruce Springsteen, who's on the cover, but no big surprise there. I think it would take some real skill to write a bad Bruce interview. Some great early pictures of Bruce with the story, including one of him rail thin and shaggy in a pair of jeans, size-small tank top and beat-up black Chuck Taylor All-Stars. He looks like every pseudo-hippie kid I went to high school with.

- More of their kind of crap election coverage by Matt Taibbi, whose continuing assignment to write nasty, sort of obvious things about all of the Republican presidential hopefuls brings him to Mitt Romney this issue. Taibbi shocks and appalls us by revealing that Romney is...a politician! He says things people want to hear (No!)! He uses (gasp!) stock public speaking techniques. He speaks in (for shame!) glittering generalities! Somebody stick a wooden stake in this guy's heart, quick!

- A pretty good piece on Internet gossip-monger Perez Hilton (AKA Mario Lavendeira), who makes his living by posting other peoples' celebrity photography for free and making catty comments about its subjects (as I'll do now, following his shining example).

His ability to post other peoples' work and be snarky about the rich and famous is apparently making him $250,000 a year and he's just landed a television show.

This piece would make me hate this guy even more than I already do...but somehow I can't bring myself to bother. What I do like: the piece reveals Hilton's Bond-villainesque origin as a cranky, chubby, misanthropic little kid whose parents let him lay in bed watching TV 12 hours a day and would bring him meals on trays so he didn't have to get up and go to the kitchen. People were mean to him in high school, so his being mean to famous people who commit the mortal sin of occasionally going outside without makeup really makes perfect sense.

"I think what I do is noble," Hilton says.

Get this guy a Pulitzer! And a swift kick in the nobility!

- A weird "Wheels 07" feature wherein musicians pose with cars, test drive them and offer their opinions. This makes me love The Dropkick Murphys more than I already do, as they test drive an Infiniti G37S. The Boston punks break all sorts of traffic laws in it, squeal into a Dunkin Donuts parking lot excitedly screaming "Dunkies!" and ultimately break the windshield while posing with the car with "props" like a sledgehammer and chainsaw.

"This is the car of a Yankee fan!" bassist/songwriter Ken Casey says after the "accident."

The writer theorizes that he should never have told them the car was fully insured.

SEATTLE (AP) — The guitarist for indie pop rockers Death Cab for Cutie still expects to release his solo album in January even though federal border agents seized a computer hard drive containing the master tracks.
A courier was headed to Seattle-based Barsuk Records from a studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, when U.S. Border Patrol agents seized the hard drive Sept. 19, Chris Walla said Wednesday.
Guards at the Peace Arch border crossing in Blaine let the courier keep the tapes but seized the hard drive for examination by computer forensics experts, according to Walla and Hipposonic President Rob Darch.

---

According to officials, the hard drive has now been cleared to be released -- but there's been no explanation as to why it was seized in the first place.

The universe has apparently decided to answer the question of whether I could possibly love Target any more by having the store offer a line of David Bowie inspired clothing.

My first thought was, of course, that trying to sell some of David Bowie's looks could be difficult...

But the stuff they've gone with is largely from his Berlin period, "The Man Who Fell to Earth" and his later period, "I dress this way because I'm married to an International Supermodel" look.

Pitchfork media jokes that this is "a far better idea than a Low/Heroes/Lodger inspired line of coke-straws."

On the whole, the clothes really look good. This trench coat may have to come home with me...

Bowie won't be the first artist of his generation to sell clothes at a department store -- some years ago Brian Ferry of Roxy Music was the spokesperson for Marks & Spencer's "Autograph" line of clothing (a job that seems to have been disappointingly taken up by Take That). But he was savvy enough to get his music marketed alongside the clothes in Target stores.

You freaky old bastard, you...

Runnin' Down a Dream, the David Bogdanovich documentary about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, is being screened at select theaters next week.

The trailer -- featuring Eddie Vedder, Rick Rubin, Stevie Nicks, The Travelling Wilburys, Dave Grohl, Bob Dylan and Johnny Depp -- looks good.

If you live in Greensboro the closest showings are in DC and TN -- but the movie will be released Oct. 16 as part of a box set that includes three DVDs and one CD. Rare concert footage, interviews, all that good stuff. It's a Best Buy exclusive and, at $25.00 seems like a deal to me.

But here's the thing -- the film is apparently a butt-numbing FOUR HOURS LONG.

I love Tom Petty but come on, man -- don't do me like that.

I may have to watch it in installments, like a mini-series. But I can enjoy the coffee table book now.

VH1 is airing the first two songs from Bruce Springsteen's concert tonight in East Rutherford, N.J.

This (and a string of Today Show performances last week) are to promote his new album, Magic, which Rolling Stone just gave five stars.

Bruce is one of those polarizing pop culture figures about whom few are lukewarm.

He inspires rabid devotion in his fans -- a number of whom I call friends, a few of whom occasionally scare me.

Others sort of go: "Born in the U.S.A., right? Blue jeans? Flag? Right."

Here's what I mean about Britney Spears, whose disgraceful VMA performance this year has been the subject of much discussion since she sleep-walked her way through it on Sunday:

This clip, from her infamous VMA performance (and kiss) with Madonna and Christina Aguilera, demonstrates that she can perform without lip-synching:

(Dig how excited the guys from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" are -- it's like their heads are about to explode. I'm telling you -- Germans love David Hasselhoff and gay dudes love Madonna.)

Come to that, this performance of "Satisfaction/Oops, I Did It Again" from 2000 demonstrates that -- at least for the first bit.

And this clip, the much talked about VMA performance with the snake, shows that even when she feels she has to lip sync (and it seems clear she's doing it here) she can do it better than she did it this time.

All three clips show that she can (or could -- I suppose it's been a while) dance better than she did this time around.

You don't have to enjoy this type of music to understand from these clips that she was once a commanding, dynamic performer who help audiences in the palm of her hand.

"Was" being the operative word, I suppose.

I don't know why -- but this makes me sad.

Sort of like watching an old Michael Jackson performance and then seeing what's become of him.

Just seems a waste.

In this week's posts you can:

* Read my musings on Britney Spears looking like a drag queen (and the possibility that she'll spend the rest of her life performing for them).

* Find out whether Disney Channel's High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (and new star of inadvertent teen amateur Internet pornography) is into the Brazilian wax!

* Check out pictures of Maggie Gyllenhaal in the new Agent Provocateur lingerie ad campaign!

* Consider "The N Word" with comedians Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle -- all of whom used it to greater effect than Eddie Griffin, who was bounced from a Black Enterprise event for dropping it this weekend.

* Tell me whether you got screwed when Apple dropped the price of the iPhone just two months after its release (and whether the $100 store credit they're giving customers makes up for it).

* Check out clips from shows coming out on DVD -- including 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and, of course, Flight of the Conchords.

If you missed any of it, it's all archived. Enjoy.

Also -- talk back, you lurking bastards!

I'm strangely ambivalent about Britney Spears, her new single and her upcoming performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

The new single, "Gimme More" begins with Britney announcing "It's Britney, b**ch!" -- and then giggling girlishly.

She then moans/sings lines like "You've got me in a strange position/if you're on a mission/you've got my permission."

Which might have been intriguing five years ago. But we've now seen her pregnant, bald, swinging at photographers, marrying backup dancers and walking barefoot through gas station bathrooms. Any mystique that once existed is gone forever and the new single seems almost like a parody of a Britney Spears song.

As I've written about before, part of Britney's incredible success was the way in which she so successfully straddled that ever-thinner line between innocent bubble gum pop princess and wanton, hardcore pop whore. The whole wet hot virgin thing was not new -- but she did it so transcendently well that even the most savvy of us had to wonder, as Chuck Klosterman did in a classic piece for Esquire -- was she the least self-aware person on the planet, or the most self-aware?

The Video Music Awards could be a triumphant return for Britney -- someone I know has a theory that she's been so successful because so many people are, deep down within themselves, pulling for her to succeed despite her own ridiculousness. The further she falls -- marrying K-Fed, having two of his children and then leaving them at home to go panty-less clubbing with Paris Hilton -- the more we want her to, like Hulk Hogan, come back from the depths and be our hero once again.

But as a fellow reporter said to me today -- this could also be just an awful embarrassment. She's been through a lot since her last album and tour -- a marriage, two children, rehab -- and those who care on more than a voyeuristic, will-she-make-a-fool-of-herself level, may be expecting the young, hot dancing machine sexpot of a half-decade ago. We may instead get the modern version of Elvis' Live from Hawaii special -- a pop icon past whose pop moment has past, well beyond the peak of their powers, begging for people to care again but clearly consigned to a sort of post-stardom that can only ever bottom out in a sort of cut-rate cult fame that will never really compare to the heady thrill of new, young fame.

Her new publicity shots do have her looking a bit like a drag queen...

Which brings me to an interesting point.

I've noticed that gay men have become the latter-day bread and butter of many a faded female pop star (Cher, Madonna, Cindy Lauper, Debbie Harry). Some of the young women who grew up with the music will always have a soft spot for these pop divas -- but for whatever reason (pop stars' flamboyance, the fact that some drag queens like to dress like them, take your pick) gay guys seem to be the retirement plan. None of these women are gay themselves -- but they've all become "gay icons."

Not a bad deal, really.

So maybe the question is -- will Britney use this upcoming performance and upcoming album to keep herself in the mainstream pop spotlight a while longer (as her idol Madonna has managed to do) -- or is she headlining the next Gay Games?

Am I the only one who thought this study might have been a waste of money?

LONDON (Reuters) - Rock stars -- notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles -- really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age.

A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population.

Between 1956 and 2005 there were 100 deaths among the 1,064 musicians examined by researchers at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University.

Also in the realm of "duh" from the study: More than a quarter of all the deaths were related to drugs or alcohol abuse.

Lately I've been listening to Spoon's new record, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, a lot.

Like, obsessively.

When I'm not listening to it, I'm singing songs from it to myself and dancing around as though I was in an iPod commerical.

It's become embarassing.

The single "I Turn My Camera On" is pretty addictive.

Not completely unrelated -- Bruce Springsteen's video for the single "Radio Nowhere" from his forthcoming album with the E-Street Band is now online. It sounds like...something. But I don't know what. I like it, though.

Twenty-five years ago, on Aug. 17, 1982, ABBA's "The Visitors" became the very first CD to be released commercially. Which means that CDs have been around nearly as long as I have, even though I can remember having cassettes until middle school. The first CD I ever saw was my friend's copy of Green Day's "Dookie," and the first CD I ever owned was Nirvana's "Nevermind," followed quickly by the soundtrack to "The Bodyguard" and Credence Clearwater Revival's greatest hits.

They've had a good run, but how long before they become obsolete? I wonder if my children will wrinkle their noses at my CDs, the way I used to laugh at my parents' 8-tracks and records. Instead of the click-clack sound of flipping through CDs at the music store, will they only hear the clicking of a mouse as they download songs?

Some other interesting facts about CDs:

-- The original disc was meant to hold an hour of audio. It was extended to the odd measure of 74 minutes, however, to make room for Beethoven's 9th Symphony.
-- The first CD players cost as much as $2,000, when adjusted for inflation.
-- More than 200 billion CDs have been sold since 1982.

Side note: I found this part of the BBC article interesting:

"Piet Kramer, who was a member of the optical group at Philips during the disc's development, said: "When Philips teamed up with Sony to develop the CD, our first target was to win over the world for the CD.

"We did this by collaborating openly to agree on a new standard. For Philips, this open innovation was a new approach and it paid off."

Seems as if philosophies have changed a bit since then. I wish the DVD companies would collaborate on a new standard, instead of making me choose between BluRay and HD-DVDs.

VH1's new Rock Docs series kicks off this weekend with part one of the two-part NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell

The series looks at New York City in 1977 -- the year of the great blackout, the Son of Sam killings, the beginnings of hip-hop culture and punk rock at CBGB. The story is told by those who were there -- among them KRS-One, Afrika Bambaattaa, Richard Hell, Tommy Ramone, Annie Sprinkle and Geraldo Rivera (yes, Geraldo Rivera).

Check out these clips from the documentary...

The Ramones bring together punks and criminals:

NY77: Punks and Criminals

In this bonus story from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) the Ramones artistic director Arturo Vega explains how the Lower East Side's punk culture helped some potential criminals realize that it was cooler to hang out with the Ramones than to rob them.

Al Goldstein and Geraldo Rivera remember NYC's first open swingers' club, Plato's Retreat:

NY77: Plato's Retreat

Television - This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) recalls the first public swingers club, Plato's Retreat.

How the NYC blackout (and ensuing looting) helped give birth to street DJs and hip hop crews in need of equipment:

NY77: Blackout!

This excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007) shows how New Yorkers coped with the great blackout in July 1977. Musicians, celebrities and politicians remember the fear, the looting and the unexpected benefit to hip hop.

An animated recounting of an early rap battle:

NY77: The Rap Battle

In this excerpt from the VH1 Rock Doc: NY 77: The Coolest Year in Hell (premiering August 11, 2007), a memorable rap battle between Grandmaster Caz-DJ Disco Wiz and Afrika Bambaataa is recounted in classic comic book style by the artist Jim Rugg.

George Harrison proposed to her the first day he met her.

After they were married, he wrote "Something" for her.

Though she was married to his best friend, Eric Clapton fell in love with her -- a love-triangle drama that inspired "Layla" and led him to become a junkie.

Later, after the two were married, she was the woman in Clapton's "Wonderful, Tonight."

Who is this modern musical Mata Hari?

She's Pattie Boyd and she's releasing a tell-all autobiography, Wonderful Today, on August 23.

As part of the promotion England's Daily Mail has run a two-part excerpt from the book.

Among the book's many strange revelations:

1) Apparently Harrison returned from the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram in India in 1968 he was obsessed with becoming a Krishna figure, "a spiritual beings with lots of concubines." After telling his wife this he began bedding just about anything that would wriggle, including one of Clapton's ex-girlfriends and Ringo's wife.

2) Clapton was living with Boyd's younger sister when he first professed his love for her in an anonymous letter.

3) Clatpon was apparently quite the ladies man, but couldn't get Boyd out of her knickers until he played a pre-release version of "Layla" for her. Even then, she slept with him but wouldn't leave her husband. He threatened to become a junkie if she wouldn't be his -- when she said no, that's just what he did.

4) Clapton was fond of writing her love letters on the pages of books, including John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" and a book of Scottish ballads.

5) Harrison was often busy shagging his friends' ex-girlfriends and wives, but he didn't take his best friend's advances toward his wife lying down. This is how Boyd describes a bizarre confrontation between the two which eerily presaged the alleged "dance off" between an estranged Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears years later:

"One evening the actor John Hurt was with us. Eric was due to come over too and George decided to have it out with him. John wanted to make himself scarce but George insisted he stay.

That whole period was insane."

Clearly.

Boyd doesn't leave anyone looking like an angel -- including herself. She confesses to drug and alcohol abuse, adultery and (maybe, it's hard to tell) a brief affair with Ron Wood of the Faces and later the Rolling Stones.

The descriptions of people with way too much money, way too many drugs and way too few inhibitions are a little jarring, even to those of us sort of dulled to that sort of thing by modern celebrity gossip. There's a different sort of edge to it because we're not talking about people who we aren't sure whether we'll care about in five years -- we're talking about rock legends, here.

According to NME Brandon Flowers, lead singer of The Killers, is now a proud papa.

Flowers, a Mormon rock star who rose to prominence playing sexually ambiguous retro-glam/new wave songs that sounded like The Smiths getting it on with Duran Duran can look forward to his son becoming a Republican accountant and president of his local Rotary Club.

Because that's how it works.

The N&R published a David Brooks column today under the headline "Pop music's angry young women." (behind the NYT pay wall here.)

In it Brooks looks at the pop landscape -- as represented by Carrie Underwoord, Pink and Avril Lavigne -- and is a little spooked by what he sees.

I've been thinking about Avril Lavigne lately myself.

I don't suppose that makes me unique among American men - but she's apparently 21 and married now (when did that happen?) -- so that statement isn't as creepy as it might have been a few years ago, when the Canadian singer first burst onto the pop scene in faux skater-girl clothes with pop punk ditties and sad-girl ballads.

But anyway, she's been on my mind for reasons that aren't even a little prurient. Sexual fantasies about young blonde pop stars are disposable. My obsession over her newest single, "Girlfriend," is a lingering, festering thing.