IAN BROWN: lady hitter? The former Stone Roses singer was recently arrested in his London home, after his wife reported that he'd assaulted her. This isn't Brown's first brush with the law; he was in prison for four months in the late '90s for menacing a stewardess, and he was a arrested for assault at a San Francisco gig a few years ago. A more disturbing undercurrent to this story emerges when we consider that he's yet another tally on the lady-hitting-Browns scorecard: Chris Brown, James Brown, Jackson Browne, Bobby Brown, and now Ian Brown.
BOYZ II MEN, H1N1, the East Coast Family. Just a month after the Backstreet Boys guy caught it, that dastardly swine flu has stricken the ranks of another boy band. Shawn Stockman (the tall skinny one) contracted the virus on tour and had to sit out the 2009 Soul Train Awards. Could this spell the premature end of the Alexvanderpooleera?
(Also, why doesn't Microsoft Word recognize "Alexvanderpooleera" as a legitimate spelling? Wasn't it alive in the '90s? Maybe Microsoft is confused about the two E's, but that's how it's written in the video. So screw you, Word.)
Here's a little slice of justice: a Los Angeles judge has barred the two non-dead dudes in SUBLIME from using the band's name to perform with a new vocalist. Former singer Bradley Nowell's "estate and merchandising entity" took umbrage at the prospect of a new Sublime line-up and filed a trademark-infringement suit, slapping down the group's resurrectionist ambitions and preventing them from besmirching the honor and dignity of the upcoming Cypress Hill Smokeout Festival.
CHESTER BENNINGTON — best known as the frontman of Linkin Park and second-best known for having just the worst goddamn name — has been lately dividing his time between his main rap-rock outfit and his side project, Dead by Sunrise. The artistic fecundity of double-banding it, however, has a drawback: sometimes he has trouble deciding which band will get which song. "It's getting really difficult," he told MTV News, "because Linkin Park is going in so many directions, it's kind of hard to figure out which songs are which." I'm all in favor of this sort of branching out — I'd love to see Chester go in as many simultaneous directions as possible, preferably aided by a team of horses.
In an interview with Spinner, former Smith JOHNNY MARR complained about all the incessant reunion questions. "I'm asked about it a lot, for obvious reasons — it's kind of boring, really." It may be a boring question, but Johnny should take a moment to reflect on the fact that, short of setting himself on fire and jumping off the Eiffel Tower, reuniting the Smiths is probably the only non-boring thing he has the potential ever to do again.
You know I love to end things with a little bit of corporate-asshole prattle, and I've got a great load of it this week. 30 SECONDS TO MARS — successful side project of Frozen Embryos singer Jordan Catalano — are set to debut a new song in an unlikely setting: the soundtrack of an epic mediæval fantasy role-playing video game, Dragon Age: Origins. And as if that weren't square enough on its own merits, we're treated to this exceptional quote in the press release from Some Asshole:
"EA has always had a forward-thinking relationship with 30 Seconds to Mars, and we are overwhelmed with excitement about the band's involvement and creative contribution to Dragon Age: Origins. This exciting song debut exemplifies our continued commitment to working with great bands that move the needle to where music is going."
That's right. The needle's moving, people, and it's moving toward video-game dragons!
David Thorpe |dthorpe@phx.com
