My Chemical Romance To Split?

My Chemical Romance

My Chemical Romance have published a cryptic message on their website which has lead to rumours of a split.

On TheBlackParade.com, there is a repeating image of of a hospital monitor's flatline and the words "00 BPM" on the bottom right handside of the screen.

To add more mystery to the online message, the band played as fictional group The Black Parade at gigs earlier this year, a reference to MCR's album, Welcome To The Black Parade.

Now fans of the emo troup are speculating as to whether this means the complete end of the band or just the 'Black Parade' era?

Kylie Minogue And Paul McCartney To Duet

Words By MusicRooms

Paul McCartney and Kylie Minogue are set to perform a New Year's duet.

The singers have teamed up for a rendition of Dance Tonight, taken from McCartney's recent solo album.

Fans of the singing duo can catch the performance when it is broadcast as part of Jool's Holland's Hootenanny show on BBC2.

Petite pop star Kylie has also recorded a piano version of her early hit, I Should Be So Lucky for the annual festive showdown with Jools tinkling the ivories.

Hootenanny will be aired just before midnight on December 31, with Kate Nash and Kaiser Chiefs also lined up for the festive bill.

Coldplay Record Christmas Song - Listen Now

Words By MusicRooms

Coldplay

Coldplay have recorded a cover version of '2000 Miles', a hit by The Pretenders in 1983.

The christmas classic has been posted up on the Coldplay website, allowing fans to listen to it now.

Writing on the site, frontman Chris Martin writes: “We love Christmas songs, but every time we try and write one it’s awful. So we cover them. Well, once or twice actually.

Listen now www.coldplay.com

Singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg Dies

By Ken Barnes, USA TODAY

Dan Fogelberg, one of the most popular singer/songwriters of the '70s and '80s, died Sunday at home in Maine at age 56. He had battled advanced prostate cancer since being diagnosed in 2004.

Fogelberg was a key component of the golden age of the confessional singer/songwriter, joining the likes of James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne and more in turning pop music's focus inward after the '60s' explosion of social commentary. He had started as a rocker in bands around his hometown of Peoria, Ill., but began performing solo while attending the University of Illinois.

There he met a local booking agent, Irving Azoff. He and local band REO Speedwagon became Azoff's first managerial projects (prior to managing the Eagles). Azoff secured Fogelberg a contract with Columbia, but first album Home Free made little impact. 1974's Joe Walsh-produced Souvenirs, however, hit the top 20, thanks largely to hit single Part of the Plan, and Fogelberg embarked on a two-decade run that would include nine top-30 albums (including three that hit the top 10).

His best-remembered songs include his biggest hit, the affecting ballad Longer; The Power of Gold, a collaboration with flautist Tim Weisberg; Leader of the Band, a tribute to his bandleader father, Lawrence; and the evergreen seasonal standard Same Old Lang Syne, which originally hit the top 10 in 1980.

In later years, he ventured into new musical territory, recording a successful pure-bluegrass album, High Country Snows, in 1985, and tackling broader political, spiritual and environmental issues in his songs. His last album, Full Circle, was released in 2003.

The most apt summation of his life's work likely comes from Fogelberg himself, when he said, as quoted in his online biography, "You've got to just follow your heart and do your best work … There is no doubt in my mind or heart that everything I've done is exactly what I intended to do."

Groban's 'Noel' matches Elvis' mark

By Todd Martens, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 13, 2007

Crooner Josh Groban cruises to a third straight week atop the U.S. pop chart, his "Noel" having sold 581,000 copies. Groban is the first artist since Elvis Presley to lead the U.S. chart for three consecutive weeks with a Christmas album.

Billboard reports that Presley's "Elvis' Christmas Album" spent three weeks atop the chart in 1957. Overall sales for "Noel" are up 8% in its ninth week of release, as the set moved 539,000 copies last week. "Noel" has now sold more than 2 million copies.

The only newcomer in this week's Top 10 is "American Idol" graduate Blake Lewis. His "Audio Daydream" entered at No. 10 after selling 98,000 copies.

Young country star Taylor Swift muscled back into the Top 10 with her debut. Sales are up 39% after Swift received a Grammy nomination for best new artist last week. Her album is at No. 9 after selling 99,000 copies.

Other Grammy nominees who got significant sales bumps last week include another new artist candidate, Paramore (up 55%); Amy Winehouse, whose six nominations contributed to a 48% sales hike for her "Back to Black" album (at No. 82); Daughtry (up 31%); and Reba McEntire (up 29%).

Otherwise, the chart continues to be dominated by Alicia Keys' "As I Am," which is at No. 2 after selling 234,000 copies, and the Eagles' "Long Road Out of Eden," at No. 3.

In six weeks, the classic-rock band's first studio album in 28 years has topped the 2 million sales mark, as "Eden" added 204,000 more copies this week. "Eden" has become the fifth bestselling album of 2007 in the U.S., with the soundtrack to "High School Musical 2" still on track to be the bestselling album of the year.

todd.martens@latimes.com

R. Kelly Concert Protest Planned

Black activists cite sex charges against the R & B star in calling for action at the Forum on Friday.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 12, 2007

Jasmyne Cannick and other black activists plan to station themselves across the street from the Forum on Friday to protest a concert that night by R. Kelly, the R&B superstar and celebrity defendant, but Cannick is already resigned to the fact that her picket line will be outnumbered by scalpers.

"It's like pulling teeth to get people to talk about this," Cannick said. "It's a challenge to get the black community to even discuss it. . . . They're acting like he doesn't have 14 counts of child pornography against him. . . . We're all acting like we don't have daughters and nieces and little sisters."

The silence that seems deafening to Cannick is a relief to Derrell McDavid, Kelly's manager. "There's been no protests on this tour," he said Tuesday. "It's just been a warm embrace and sold-out shows." (The Thursday show at Honda Center in Anaheim, however, has been called off due to sluggish sales, and refunds are being offered.)

Kelly was caught up in a tempest in 2002 when a videotape that purportedly showed him engaging in sex acts with a girl in her early teens opened the door to criminal charges and lawsuits from females who claimed they were also his underage sex partners. Even before that, Kelly had a reputation for sexual contact with female minors -- not only did he write the 1994 hit "Age Ain't Nothing but a Number" for the late singer Aaliyah, it was revealed later that he married her when she was 15 and he was 27.

The criminal case is still winding through the courts after repeated delays, but Kelly's career has not only endured, it has thrived. In 2002-2003, he had one of his biggest hits ever, "Ignition (Remix)," which kicked off a run of successful years. This year, "Double Up" became the fifth R. Kelly album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, and he has just been nominated for two Grammys. As McDavid said: "He's at the top of his game."

On Tuesday, a group of protesters gathered at the Forum to call on the venue's owner, the Faithful Central Bible Church, to call off the show. In 2005, the church canceled a performance by a heavy-metal band that Chief Operating Officer Marc Little said was "antithetical to our beliefs." Little and other Forum executives did not return calls Tuesday. Cannick was not optimistic about her cause: "Everyone is making money, and everyone seems OK with him. People really need to wake up."

geoff.boucher@latimes.com

Led Zeppelin Rocks Again in London

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Kevin Westenberg / Getty Images

Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham of Led Zeppelin perform on stage Monday at the O2 Arena in London.

It had been a long time since they'd rock and rolled, but the band played one more time to a rapt crowd. The players aged, but the song remains the same.

By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 11, 2007

LONDON -- With a thunder of power chords and rock-and-roll swagger, Led Zeppelin broke a silence of two decades Monday in a laser-and-smoke reunion for which more than a million fans from around the world sought to book passage.

The band that boldly breached the barriers between rock, blues and airy mysticism and nurtured a generation on the cusp between the 1960s and 1970s emerged for a sell-out performance in front of about 20,000 concertgoers in east London -- one of the most eagerly awaited rock events of the decade.

"Out there are people from 50 countries, and there's a sign out there that says 'Hammer of the Gods,' " lead singer Robert Plant said, referring to one of the group's most famous lyrics, which has also come to be its most enduring motto. "I can't believe that people from 50 countries would come to see that -- so late in life!" he said wryly.

"This is the 51st country!" he roared then, as the band broke into "Kashmir," the exotic, melodic and deep-throated anthem that is one of its signatures, against a backdrop of wheeling batik suns and with a sweating, white-haired Jimmy Page on lead guitar.

Concertgoers from as far away as New Zealand, Japan and California made the trek after winning a ticket lottery that allocated a maximum of two seats per person at a price of $250 each, with painstaking care to prevent entries being sold off to scalpers that left some fans waiting three hours in the rain Sunday to secure their seats.

The event was organized as a tribute to the late Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder of Atlantic Records, and also featured performances by Bill Wyman's Rhythm Kings, led by the former Rolling Stones bassist; Foreigner; Paul Rodgers; and Paolo Nutini.

Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham's alcohol-related death in 1980 spelled the end of the band, and Monday's performance featured Bonham's son, Jason, now a drummer with Foreigner.

In a city accustomed to cultural happenings, the Led Zeppelin reunion assumed massive proportions, with many here billing it the "concert of the millennium" by "the greatest rock and roll band ever."

A band that was already being dismissed by critics as self-indulgent by the late 1970s and passé by the time new wave and punk strode onto the stage in the 1980s has suddenly acquired new currency, simultaneously earning the covers this week of Rolling Stone in the U.S. and Q Magazine in the U.K.

"I don't think they were ever appreciated for the scale of band they were," Paul Rees, editor of Q, said in an interview. "Maybe it's a sort of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder,' but it's taken people time to realize the massive influence they had on an awful lot of music."

"They could be really heavy, but they could also be pastoral. They were ambitious, catchy, they had the whole thing," said Scott Rowley, editor of Classic Rock magazine. "Is it a nostalgia fest? Yeah, it probably is."

For many who flooded into London's O2 Arena, it was an unapologetic trip to a well-remembered past.

"I saw them in '73, '75 and '77. I'm what you could call hard core. It's part of your soul. It's part of everything you did in the '70s," said Tina Ricardo, co-owner of Rick's Sports Bar in San Francisco, who left her husband at home when she won the ticket lottery and came with her girlfriend.

"How many chances do you get to live something over? That's it," she said. "I'm starting to cry now, just thinking about it."

Likewise for fans from Tokyo. "I saw Led Zeppelin in 1971 and '72. That was 35 years ago. What can I say? So exciting," said Yoshihiro Hoshina, 53, who won tickets after entering the lottery with three different e-mail addresses.

"Led Zeppelin broke five hotel rooms in Japan -- that's a bit of Japan history," he said before the concert. "But they're getting old; can Robert Plant sing in that high voice? Can Jimmy Page still play so smooth?"

Answer: pretty much. The 59-year-old Plant had his shirt open modestly to the breastbone, a hint of the bare-abdomened rooster swagger of yesteryear, but managed the high screeches near the end of "Stairway to Heaven" -- still one of the most-played songs on U.S. radio, and which recently entered the charts again last week with the release of Led Zeppelin's catalog online.

"Hey Ahmet, we did it!" Plant yelled in triumph as the band concluded the song that sounded a bit mystical and silly in the old days but now has an aching touch of lost youth in its hint of possibilities: "Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there's still time to change the road you're on."

Or there was.

The Bic lighters once held high by audience members were replaced by the glow of digital cameras and cellphones, but there were still plenty of raised, clenched fists and waving hair -- plus plenty of beer and an occasional waft of marijuana.

A large number of the couples were father and son.

"I introduced my son to it. He wasn't into it at first, but he changed," said Owen Williams, 51, from Berkeshire. "He started playing guitar himself, and the Led Zeppelin kicked in; everything changed. He's stolen all my records and CDs."

The band opened with a clip from the newly remastered "The Song Remains the Same" DVD depicting the group's triumphal U.S. gig in 1973 that surpassed a Beatles attendance record, then kicked into "Good Times, Bad Times," the opening track from its 1969 debut album.

The concert marked the first live performance of "For Your Life," from the group's Presence album.

Instead of the old melodramatic hair-swinging and exaggerated erotic strutting, Plant; Page, 63; and bassist John Paul Jones, 61, played the first sets with easygoing confidence. Their good humor built into triumphant intensity as the night wore on; Page pulled out the cello bow on "Dazed and Confused" and worked like a shaman conjurer, glowing under a twirling pyramid of green lasers.

"It's quite peculiar to imagine. I don't know how many songs we've recorded together, choosing songs from 10 different albums for a dynamic event like this. There are certain songs that have to be there, and this is one of them," Plant said as the song began.

The finale of "Whole Lotta Love," played as the first of two encores, was as raw and mesmerizing as ever, and then the band fell into "Rock and Roll" -- It had been a long time, a long lonely, lonely time, and with nothing but rumors of a tour, no one knew for sure when, or if, it would happen again.

kim.murphy@latimes.com

Quiet Riot Singer Died of Overdose

The death last month of Kevin Dubrow has been ruled an accidental cocaine overdose.

By the Associated Press
December 10, 2007

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- The death last month of Kevin Dubrow, lead singer for the 1980s heavy metal band Quiet Riot, has been ruled an accidental cocaine overdose.

Clark County coroner spokeswoman Samantha Charles confirmed the cause Monday after toxicology results were received Monday.

Dubrow was found dead Nov. 25 at his Las Vegas home. He was 52.

Quiet Riot was perhaps best known for its 1983 cover of "Cum on Feel the Noize." The song, featuring Dubrow's powerful, gravelly voice, appeared on the band's album "Metal Health" -- which was the first by a metal band to reach No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

DuBrow recorded a solo album in 2004, "In for the Kill," and the band's last studio CD, "Rehab," came out in October 2006.

Will Zeppelin tour again, or is it just a trial balloon?

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Amy Sancetta / AP

Led Zeppelin bandmates Robert Plant, left, and Jimmy Page, as seen in 1985.

Word is spreading that the rock group might play Bonnaroo. Promoter says they're set to play a tribute concert in London, but that might open a door.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2007

Will Led Zeppelin play Bonnaroo, the huge rock festival staged each June in Manchester, Tenn.?

That's the big rumor in the music industry leading up to the classic-rock demi-gods' performance Monday at a tribute concert in London and lead singer Robert Plant's recent comments advocating a full-scale reunion tour (which Rolling Stone has already dubbed "the biggest tour ever" on its cover).

Bonnaroo, which hosted a high-profile stop on the Police reunion tour this year, would seem like an ideal spot (and Zep bassist John Paul Jones even played there already as part of this year's bill) but we hear that Zeppelin will not be flying high at the jam-inclined festival.

"It's just a rumor, none of that is real," says Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, the concert promotion company that runs O2, the London arena where Zep will be playing in a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, one of the most celebrated figures in the music industry as the co-founder of Atlantic Records. AEG is pushing hard for the Zeppelin tour; Phillips said today he was headed from Los Angeles to England to "meet with Bill Curbishly, the band's manager, and hand him a huge offer."

Plant has a tour on tap with Alison Krauss to promote their new duet album, "Raising Sand." The Zeppelin tour would have Plant, guitar hero Jimmy Page, Jones and drummer Jason Bonham (behind the kit in place of his late father, rock icon John Bonham), and, by all appearances, it seems to be girding up with the same positive inertia that recently carried the Police back on the road and the Eagles back into the studio.

"The reality is Zeppelin has not agreed to a tour," Phillips said. "They want to play this show and see how it goes, how it feels, and then go from there. There's nothing firm yet, but maybe afterward."

Zeppelin is the bestselling heavy-metal act ever, with nearly 110 million albums shipped, according to the Recording Industry Assn. of America. The group hasn't toured since 1980 (the year Bonham died), and their last full concert dates in the U.S. were in 1977. (The surviving members did perform a short set at the industry banquet for their 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.)

How much appetite is there for a Zeppelin reunion? Industry sources compare the likely box office to the recent record-setting road-runs by the Rolling Stones or U2, but it may be even more: Organizers of the online ticket lottery for the Ertegun tribute said 20 million requests came in for a show with 16,000 seats.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com

Grammy Subplots

AFP / Getty Images

Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." from 1984 and "The Rising" from 2002 were both nominated for overall best album.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 6, 2007

Is it finally time for Bruce Springsteen's magic Grammy moment? And how willing are Grammy voters to embrace the talented but troubled Amy Winehouse?

Those are two of the subplots Thursday (Dec. 6) at the announcement of nominations for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards. Winners will be announced Feb. 10 at Staples Center in a ceremony to be broadcast on CBS.

Springsteen's album "Magic" is considered by many industry insiders to be a strong contender for album of the year -- a trophy Springsteen has been twice nominated for but never won.

Springsteen is deeply respected in the industry, and "Magic," which entered the U.S. album sales chart at No. 1 in October, has him back with the E Street Band. Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." from 1984 and "The Rising" from 2002 were both nominated for overall best album but the awards went instead to Lionel Richie and Norah Jones, respectively.

Winehouse, the British singer with an earthy, throwback soul style and the hit "Rehab," would seem to be a sure bet for best new artist nomination and possibly nods in the album and record of the year fields. But the 24-year-old also appears to be spinning out of control; she has just canceled a tour, her husband has been jailed and her drug issues have become daily fodder for the British tabloids.

Others who may vie for the album trophy include rapper Kanye West ("Graduation"), country veteran Reba McEntire ("Reba Duets"), Canadian art-rock band Arcade Fire ("Neon Bible") and alt-metal band Linkin Park ("Minutes to Midnight").

geoff.boucher@latimes.com

Backstage at Grammys with a man in the know

Grammy producer tells all.

By Geoff Boucher
December 5, 2007

"Excuse me, could you turn down the music? I mean, I like Sinatra, but. . . ." The waiter at the Italian restaurant gave the customer, Ken Ehrlich, a puzzled look before shrugging and walking off in search of a volume knob. Even when he's sitting beneath dangling Chianti bottles and eating antipasto in Hollywood, the executive producer of the Grammy Awards still has strong opinions about the way music should reach the public.

Ehrlich is one of the most powerful gatekeepers in the music industry and, with nominations for the 50th Annual Grammy Awards due Thursday, his cellphone will soon be burning up with calls from label executives, managers and sometimes artists themselves, all lobbying, demanding or begging to get a moment in one of the brightest spotlights in the music industry. A sparkling performance on the Grammys not only can yield a commercial windfall, it can shape careers.

The 63-year-old Ehrlich knows the pressure of all that (he is only two years removed from a quadruple heart bypass that he partly assigns to the stress of 27 years of the the Grammy show), and he also feels the weight of the history. That's clear on every page of his just-published backstage memoir, "At the Grammys!: Behind the Scenes at Music's Biggest Night" (Hal Leonard, $29.95), which, despite the breathless title, is like Ehrlich himself -- understated, candid and impatient with those celebrities he deems arrogant or, worse, possessing only flimsy talent.

Take for example his reprinting of a handwritten note from Britney Spears that arrived on the eve of the 2006 show requesting a spot for her as a presenter ("I wanted to write you personally in hopes that you might find a place for me on the show . . ."). Ehrlich was unmoved; a few years earlier, he had been advised that he shouldn't speak directly to the star, only to her manager, and he was still seething. In his book, he reports his response to Spears' overture: "I think we ought to keep the relationship the way it was then."

All of the expected Grammy moments are accounted for in the memoir, among them the bizarre "soy bomb" incident, when a loopy fan with body paint jumped on stage with Bob Dylan at the 1998 show, and the sublime, last-minute performance of "Nessun Dorma" by Aretha Franklin, filling in for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti that same year.

The more interesting stories, though, are the smaller ones that never made it on camera but reveal just as much about the strange physics of the celebrity universe.

For a lesson in jockeying, there's the 1991 Grammys, when Ehrlich dearly wanted to book his old friend and idol Tony Bennett, but the Recording Academy leadership balked until Ehrlich had the idea of pairing Bennett with Harry Connick Jr., who was not far removed from his "When Harry Met Sally . . ." success.

Connick was thrilled with the idea that would have him sing and then introduce Bennett, but then, after everything was set, his manager said Connick would drop out of the show unless the performance order was switched -- the younger singer wanted Bennett to "open for him" and introduce him. Ehrlich fumed, but Bennett agreed.

The story doesn't end there -- Bennett was so sensational in rehearsals that he got a standing ovation from the crew at Radio City Music Hall. Five minutes after that, Connick's people had a change of heart: They didn't want to follow Bennett after all. Ehrlich, with some glee, announced that it was too late. "I had no great desire to please the manager," he writes.

These are not stories Ehrlich expected to be telling the world.

BIG PICTURE: Just what is entertainment worth?

Unease hovers over the strike like a black cloud: no one in Hollywood can agree on the value of entertainment.

By Patrick Goldstein, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 4, 2007

THE writers strike negotiations disintegrated again last week, with an allegedly "groundbreaking" proposal from the studios dismissed by writers as a massive rollback. With much of Hollywood grinding to a halt and widespread pessimism about how long a strike will last, everyone is asking why the two sides can't find common ground.

There's a simple answer, but it has nothing to do with what's going on -- or more accurately, not going on -- at the negotiating table. On the surface, the impasse revolves around how to divvy up future Internet media revenues. But the real problem is that nobody knows the value of anything anymore. Whether we're reading horror stories about the mortgage meltdown, watching the dollar plummet or gagging on the prices at our neighborhood gas station, we're all stumbling around with a nagging feeling that the value of things has become unmoored.

It's this sense of growing unease that has hovered like a black cloud over the strike negotiations. No one in Hollywood can agree on the value of entertainment.

"It's in the zeitgeist now -- we're at a moment in time where people don't how to value things," says Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "Art and media are a reflection of society. And if you no longer have an internal sense of what the dollar or a tank of gas is worth, it's no surprise that you don't know what content on the Internet is worth either. It goes to the heart of why we're at an impasse with the Writers Guild. If no one has a clear understanding of what entertainment is worth, then no one really knows what they're negotiating about."

Everywhere you look in today's culture, there's an uproar over the price structure for entertainment. That's particularly true when it comes to new media. For example, YouTube has driven media companies crazy by letting fans watch free clips from TV shows that studios hope to make huge profits from in various ancillary areas. Are those clips stopping us from watching the shows or are they making us fans of them? If you can't agree on that, you can't agree on their value.

There's a good reason why the WGA negotiations have foundered over Internet revenues. The Web is often described as a disruptive technology, but what it's really done is undermine a long-held consensus over the value of information and entertainment. "It started with downloading music, but now it involves all sorts of things," says TV writer-producer Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator of the Web series "Quarterlife." "People feel, 'If something is in my house, why should I pay for it? It's a private transaction between me and my computer.' People today have a real confusion over why some things are free on the Internet and others aren't."

The music business, which has become something of a canary in the coal mine for worried media conglomerates, has been buffeted by value-of-product clashes for years. The entire record company economic model has crumbled after young music consumers decided, almost overnight, that they preferred sharing downloads on the Internet to buying CDs full of songs they didn't want.

Radiohead released its latest album only on the Internet, allowing fans to decide how much they wanted to pay for it. In a sign of just how little consensus there is today about the value of entertainment, a big chunk of fans downloaded the songs for free while, in the U.S., 40% of the fans paid an average of $8 for it. Even the band's own fans had very different ideas of how much the music was worth.

The concert business is especially full of value-inspired tumult. The top ticket to see Miley Cyrus (star of Disney's "Hannah Montana") this fall had a face value of $63, but a donnybrook broke out when parents discovered that most of the tickets were in the hands of scalpers selling them for up to $3,000. Older fans have been swamping message boards with complaints about sky-high ticket prices for everyone from Neil Young to Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, whose upcoming tour tickets are going for $250.

No one can agree on a fair price for a concert ticket because market forces have upended the entire price structure. Thanks to the Internet, scalpers are making mass ticket buys through automated computer programs. This day-trader-style speculation has put pop artists, who worry about their images just as much as movie stars do, in a public-relations conundrum. If you keep fans happy with low ticket prices, you empower ticket scalpers, who make millions off your drawing power. If you raise prices to take the air out of the scalper's secondary market, your fans trash you as greedy.

The booming art market has been in a tizzy in recent weeks after a Hugh Grant-owned Andy Warhol portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, expected to sell for as much as $35 million, barely went for $23 million, inspiring commentators to fret about a market collapse. It turns out Grant bought the painting six years ago for $3.6 million, so while all those art insiders were wringing their hands, I was thinking about calling Hugh for tips. But in terms of value, everyone saw the sale in a different light.

Perhaps both sides in the writers strike should start studying the new economic model operating in today's pop music world. If your product has lost its value in one arena -- meaning if no one's buying your CDs anymore -- you can create value in a new arena. That's why Prince gave away millions of copies of his latest CD, because the real money for him was in concert tickets. It's why Beyoncé and Gwen Stefani have launched clothing lines and the fragrance industry is chock-full of perfumes from Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez.

"Successful pop artists represent something to people, so their value is in loaning their persona, their music or their likeness to other marketers," says Ken Hertz, a veteran music industry attorney who represents Beyoncé and the Black Eyed Peas and does strategic marketing with such companies as Hasbro and McDonald's. "That's where the new equity lies. Music is the best way for a marketer to build trust with people. And if you trust them, you're going to buy their product, but the real engine for creating trust is the music."

That's not to say that screenwriters will strike it rich endorsing Dell computers (although "Daily Show" contributor John Hodgman will surely make more money for his appearances in those Mac vs. PC ads than writing books like "The Areas of My Expertise," a hilarious almanac of utterly unreliable information). My point being: No one knows where the real value of writing will come from five years from now. It may still be in residuals from TV and films, but it may be from some new YouTube-style Internet buzz site fueled by outside money from Wall Street or Silicon Valley.

While the WGA and the studios flail away at the negotiating table, snarling at each other like the warrior ice bears in "The Golden Compass," new entrepreneurs from Wall Street and Silicon Valley are entering the fray every day. The studios have been buying up or trying to co-opt many of the new entertainment streams, but the writers have a lot to say about the future, since the Internet is a medium where the word has retained tremendous power.

"We're entering an era where, just as there are 300 cable and satellite TV stations, there will be 300 different economic models for different kinds of entertainment," says veteran film producer Michael Shamberg. "There will always be a primal need for people to tell stories, but no one knows what the price structure for those narratives will be. It's a time of extraordinary experimentation of how to sell things, therefore it's an extraordinary time in terms of what you can sell."

So the writers can count on one key advantage. Even when it's difficult to agree on the value of almost anything, it's not hard to understand that in a business of storytelling, everything starts with the storyteller.

Can You Crank It? Soulja Boy Calls On The UK

Soulja Boy

Fans are invited to upload videos of themselves 'Cranking da Soulja Boy'.

The best, chosen by Soulja Boy himself, will get to meet (and maybe dance with) the US hip hop sensation at his UK shows in early 2008.

The Official UK Crank That Competition was this week launched at: http://uk.youtube.com/crankthatuk

The release of Soulja Boy's "Crank That", has been moved forward a week to 10 December 2007, due to public demand.

The single entered the top 20 this week on downloads alone and is rated 5-1 by Ladbrokes for the Xmas no.1.

Led Zeppelin's glorious excess

Atlantic

Led Zeppelin publicity shot for Atlantic Records.

With a one-off tribute show in London on Dec. 10 now rumored to be morphing into a U.S. tour, a former nonfan reveals how she was won over.

By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 2, 2007

WHEN I was in high school, I hated Led Zeppelin. I was a punk (or really, a New Waver -- the few punks around in semi-suburban Seattle circa 1980 scared this nerdy drama-club kid). I was in love with the fashion-damaged, oddball artsiness of the late-1970s underground. To me, those long-haired beasts in Zeppelin, with their 20-minute guitar solos and songs about fairy-goddess devil women, were really very old hat. Stoner music, yuk.

Then in college, I took up women's studies -- and hated Led Zeppelin even more. The heavy sound that Zep originated had by then mutated into hair metal, which I enjoyed for its shiny, plastic similarities to New Wave but which also turned the grandiosity of Zep's romanticism into a Twisted Sister cartoon. And of course, Zep was a particular bugaboo for feminists, put off by not only the strutting machismo of songs like "Whole Lotta Love" but also by the infamous offstage "antics" that could be labeled groupie abuse.

In the 1980s, the wheel of pop was, as always, turning. The arena-goers who'd never stopped loving the band soon found new company in the indie musicians of the Pacific Northwest. Those bands -- Soundgarden in particular -- created a new hard rock that somehow reconciled punk's no-frills virtuousness with metal's florid virtuosity. In the meantime, metal itself was going underground; with Metallica leading the transformation, it would eventually become art rock again.

Around the same time, I found myself going through a surprising Led Zeppelin phase. At 24, I was already feeling jaded (ah, youth!) and in need of something to rejigger my musical libido. My roommate Anne and I became hooked on a local band called the Ophelias, which played psychedelic rock with a shriek and a wink. Highly unsophisticated record collectors, we followed the Ophelias' trail not toward groovy obscurities like the Soft Machine or even early Pink Floyd but right to the Zep albums that were so easy to find in the used-record bins.

We'd put aside our raised consciousness long enough to rock out to "Kashmir," loving the illogic of filling our proto-girlpower household with the sound of Robert Plant's priapic wails and Jimmy Page's conquering guitar solos. We were going back -- to a time we'd never actually wanted to be a part of and that actually existed only in fantasy worlds like the one Zep's music created.

There, the myth of free love hadn't yet been deflated by women pointing out that, while their menfolk screwed around and sought greatness, they were mostly still stuck raising the kids and doing the cooking. No discourse existed about "appropriation," so musicians could take songs from lesser known (and often nonwhite) writers and "elevate" them into their own hits. Ten-minute drum solos were considered revelatory, not a form of self-satire. And a band could invoke the myths of Arthur and Aragorn and not even crack a smile.

The world that we heard come to life in albums recorded when were in preschool was the same one we were fighting to eradicate in our indie rock-filled, progressively oriented daily lives. Nostalgia is often strongest when it invokes the things you know better than to love now.

We hardly wanted a return to the sexism embodied by lyrics like "Soul of a woman was created below."But it still felt great to bellow it out, to take it on, to see what it felt like just for a minute to act like these objectionable expressions were OK. Because, frankly, that feeling was a luxury that, as young women fighting for our own voices, we were never allowed.

I still love Led Zeppelin, though I've lost interest in glamorizing the groupie-slaying, party-til-death lifestyle they seemed to advocate in their heyday. The music is what sends me, creating a space where giant daydreams can arise, acted out by a huger me than life's limitations allows.

Many writers share my Zep fetish. Steve Waksman, an academic authority on the cult of electric guitar, illuminated the origins of the band's "heavy music" in his 1999 book "Instruments of Desire." Musicologist and feminist Susan Fast has published a passionate book-length exploration of the band. My own favorite Zep tome is Erik Davis' slim volume on the famous "runes" album, which lays out the band's mythography in loving, though wry, detail.

Zep again?

FAST forward to the present day. The three surviving members of Zep are reuniting for the first time in many years. At first they said they'd play just one show, as part of a tribute to the late Atlantic Records executive Ahmet Ertegun, in London on Dec. 10. But they've recorded a new song, and rumors are circulating about a possible U.S. tour. Once again, Zep has come in all its excessive glory to save us from appropriateness.

All the things that are most attractive about Led Zeppelin are, paradoxically, the same things many people hold most suspicious about rock music now. It's not so much the machismo or colonialist attitudes about claiming sounds from other cultures.

What's inappropriate about Zep now, and what we long to hear, is the band's sound. Its greatest outings, from "Stairway to Heaven" to the group's epic live jams, oppose the professionalism, studio-altered perfectionism and clean digestibility of today's mainstream rock. Kelly Clarkson may play "Whole Lotta Love" between hits on her tour, but she'd never let one of her own songs stretch past five minutes. Neither would Daughtry, this year's biggest rock act.

Sure, there are jam bands, but their musical indulgences feel neighborly, like group hugs, not heroic quests. The model for that music is the Grateful Dead, a band whose attitude toward jamming privileged slow evolution, not empire.

Led Zeppelin could fit in with the freak-folk crowd, maybe. Devendra Banhart and his fellow errant knights and ladies are also dramatic, if in a quieter way. But that's when Zep's other side -- its pop-wise love of the big hook, stoked by the experiences Page and bassist-arranger John Paul Jones had playing in countless studio bands -- again prevents the band from fitting in.

And nothing could be less like Led Zeppelin than what the Top 40 now calls rock. Even top-notch commercial rock bands such as Foo Fighters favor snappy, tight rhythms and melodies and that compressed production style that makes songs shoot out of a car radio like silver bullets. At the spectrum's other end, neo-prog acts like Tool certainly ramble on, but while their music fascinates, it doesn't make a grab for the general listener the way, say, "Stairway to Heaven" did. A Led Zeppelin song could captivate and bore within the space of a few minutes. A big part of their genius was that they thought it was OK to do both.

Jack White is out there, possibly waiting for a phone call from Page when the elder guitarist finally realizes his recently broken finger might make playing the old double-neck a bit of a problem. Yet even the White Stripes, the most musically expansive rock duo ever, tie up their sound in a neat, theatrical concept. In her book, Fast notes that Led Zeppelin's mythic style was grounded in a sense of realism -- Zep fans believe that the journey the music describes is neither a joke nor a metaphor. Ever since Spinal Tap and "Wayne's World," it's been difficult to experience new bands that way.

So welcome back, Led Zeppelin. Enjoy the thunder, the lushness, the boring parts. They don't make 'em like this band anymore. And we, with our 21st century ears, probably wouldn't want them to.

John Fogerty's Revival Meeting

The former Creedence Clearwater singer delivers hits new and old with bite and bravado at a roof-raising Nokia Theatre show.

By Sarah Tomlinson, Special to The Times
November 26, 2007

John Fogerty has made peace with his past and his present, and his live show is all the better for it. He finally settled his notoriously acrimonious dispute with Fantasy Records, which kept him from playing Creedence Clearwater Revival songs in concert for decades. His bitterness gone, he's written some of his most powerful material in years on his new album, "Revival," which came out in October. He hit highlights from both eras of his career during a fierce two-hour set Friday at the Nokia Theatre.

The venue is still working out some kinks, as slow-moving security checkpoints kept attendees waiting in long lines to enter. But after starting 40 minutes late, Fogerty soon banished thoughts about anything but the music. He opened with a taut version of Little Richard's hit "Good Golly Miss Molly." Covered by CCR on 1969's "Bayou Country," it set the night's mood by pointing to how deeply rooted Fogerty's sound is in American rock traditions, with his many Chuck Berry-style guitar solos.

The bouquet of dried wheat on his microphone stand gave the show a homespun feel. But it was an otherwise no-muss, no-fuss stage show. Fogerty even joked, "Now that's what I call a production," as stools were brought out for his band before the new song "Gunslinger." The twangy, heartfelt rocker had as many standout guitar riffs as any Creedence song while showing off Fogerty's pointed political commentary. "It's about, 'Could we get some leadership in this country, please?' " he said as introduction.

The night's most arresting moment was "Deja Vu (All Over Again)," from his 2004 album of the same name. As he played the melancholy anti-war song, with images from the Vietnam and Iraq wars projected behind him, his protest had simple power and grace.

But the night was really about the hits, and they were awesome and abundant. Many were introduced with winning anecdotes, like those about the childhood memories that prompted "Green River," and his experience playing Woodstock, which led to "Who'll Stop the Rain." All it took was the first unmistakable riffs to get the crowd cheering for "Lookin' Out My Back Door" and "Born on the Bayou."

Backed by a tight five-piece band plus a three-piece vocal group, Fogerty attacked his guitar with a beatific grin and remained good-natured even as his voice weakened toward the night's end. And he beamed with pride when his two sons joined him on guitar during "Up Around the Bend."

It hardly seemed as if he'd have anything left for the encore. But he ended with an ecstatic version of "Proud Mary" that was a reminder that he wrote some of the rock pantheon's definitive songs, which he continues to deliver with bite. Equally impressive, he's still got plenty to say and just the right riffs with which to say it.

A classic Van Halen eruption

Singer David Lee Roth, guitarist Eddie Van Halen and drummer Alex Van Halen perform at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on November 20.

After decades apart, the Van Halens and David Lee Roth bring their doo-wop metal home.

By Greg Burk, Special to The Times
November 22, 2007

Instead of sweating to Van Halen, the ravers who packed Staples Center on Tuesday often looked as if they were gaping at a movie. They were; they all had to stand at seats, and the dynamic angles on the behind-stage mega-screen pumped the scene with a cinematic dimension.

They had another reason to lurk like peepers behind their cellphone cameras, though: They couldn't quite believe they were seeing Van Halen reunited with singer-ringmaster David Lee Roth after more than two decades.

With his tile-work expanse of Smilin' Bob teeth and his vaudevillian shtick, Roth has always been exactly the showbiz rocker Los Angeles deserves. After an early '70s launch in Pasadena, Van Halen survived the T-shirt tribulations of late-'70s punk, the scythe of addiction and several hiatuses to continue delivering a bigness and whirling glamour that never seem to go out of style. And while ego dust-ups between Roth and guitar god Eddie Van Halen may have led to singer transplants via Sammy Hagar, Mitch Malloy and Gary Cherone, Roth's picture is the one that has stayed in most fans' love lockets.

So the Roth reconciliation, which has teetered on the brink for more than a decade, was huge. Adding to the intrigue, Eddie Van Halen has said he agreed to try it mainly to offer his son with actress and ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli, 16-year-old Wolfgang Van Halen, a shot at filling the shoes of original bassist Michael Anthony. A dubious way to bend the Van Halen family twig, maybe, but that's Hollywood.

A gusher of pent-up guitar energy roared from the stage shadows, the curtain ascended, and Van Halen bombed into the first hit from the group's 1978 debut album, a headbanging cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," to which Roth still hasn't learned Ray Davies' lyrics.

Both sporting trim short hair in contrast to their lank 'dos of the '70s, Roth (in a series of embroidered jackets and top hats) and Eddie Van Halen (in fatigue pants, shirtless) split most of the spotlight time equally, appearing to hate each other very little.

Roth snapped hepcat fingers to Eddie's solo during the jaunty "I'm the One," blew powerhouse harmonica on the blues-shouting "Somebody Get Me a Doctor," traversed the expanded stage arcs front and back with ceaseless muggery, flicked his hat Gene Kelly-style and mounted it on his crotch (no hands).

His best and most personal moments stretched through an extended rendition of the country-blues-flavored "Ice Cream Man," where he picked some creditable acoustic guitar and spieled out a sunny, charming account of a youth spent smoking pot and driving his Opel around the suburbs, "where they tear out the trees and name the streets after 'em."

Roth's mighty lungs were in prime condition.

His attack simultaneously weighty and buoyant, Eddie had fun zinging through the songs. He skipped and twisted during the hat dance of "Señorita," and often leaned back into his trademark kneeling position to squeal, bend and flagellate the strings. He showed his structural flair too, with an intelligently balanced improvisation on the mid-tempo rocker "I'll Wait," and outright blazed on the introduction to the smoking boogie of "Hot for Teacher."

One reason to be glad it's 2007: The camera could zoom in, blowing up Eddie's vein-popped hands on-screen to the size of willows, allowing guitar geeks to scrutinize every hammer-on and admire each knob inflection.

Eddie and Roth, both sporting swim-team physiques, had even rehearsed some nice turns together. Especially striking was the moment when they posed as if in a whaling skiff, with Eddie the steersman and Roth the harpoonist.

A helmet-haired Wolfgang plucked capable if not commanding bass while bulked up in a black hoodie, strolling the perimeter and interacting easily with his dad, with whom he hollered out excellent backing vocals; he even got to play a nimble, well-organized solo. He's not comfortable yet, but getting there.

Alex Van Halen is surely accustomed to the bathroom stampede that accompanies his drum spots, but the restroom rioters missed some real chest-pounding stimulation. His big rumble powered the hard-driving band train all night.

Van Halen's is a sexy sound, rhythmically flexible enough to accommodate the reggae tinges of "Dance the Night Away," blurry enough around the edges to avoid testosterone overload. And the half-male, half-female crowd was way into it, minding not at all that there was no new material.

The rock didn't go over the top, though, till near the end, with the doom-soaked riff of "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love." When Roth lent his dramatic vibrato to the words about going to the edge and losing friends, the song took on meanings it didn't own 30 years ago, for audience as well as band.

No surprise, the encore was Van Halen's biggest smash, "Jump," with its ridiculously catchy keyboard riff. (Where was that sound coming from, anyway? No visible keys onstage.) It fell apart a little, as it often does, but so what? Roth twirled his baton and waved a huge red flag; a monsoon of confetti poured down. It was over.

As the crowd filed out after the two-hour set, a guy grinned and said he wanted his money back. He obviously didn't.

One of Bob Marley's sons, the husky-voiced Ky-Mani Marley, opened, leading his slick, spare and heavy band through a listenable reggae set studded with the hits of his father. If you tell him he shouldn't trade so heavily on his father's legend, you'll have to say the same thing to Hank Williams Jr. And Wolfie.

Reunited Soda Stereo finds that the fizz is still there

By Agustin Gurza, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 21, 2007

It was 3 p.m. in Mexico City and singer Gustavo Cerati had just gotten up at his hotel to start another day on the road. Time gets turned around for musicians on tour and the veteran Argentine rocker still sounded a little groggy when he came to the phone to talk about the reunion of his old band, Soda Stereo, one of the most popular and influential groups in the history of rock en español.

The original members of the 1980s alt-Latino trio -- bassist Zeta Bosio, drummer Charly Alberti and Cerati, the main songwriter -- had been storming through Latin American capitals since Oct. 19, when the reunion tour blasted off in Buenos Aires, selling out five shows at the 70,000-capacity River Plate Stadium, then adding a sixth to break the venue's previous attendance record set by the Rolling Stones.

And that was just for openers. The band went on to sell out shows in Peru, Chile, Panama and three cities in Mexico. In Ecuador, so many Soda-heads converged on the port city of Guayaquil that flights and hotel rooms were completely booked, forcing fans to create their own accommodations outside Modelo Alberto Spencer Stadium. In its only West Coast stop, the band performs tonight at Home Depot Center, home of the Galaxy soccer team in Carson.

Cerati, the one with the most successful solo career, was the last to embrace the idea of a reunion. It was Andy Summers of the Police, he recalls, who once told him that as soon as bands get back together, the problems start all over again. So Cerati was reluctant to risk dredging up the acrimony and resentments that caused the band to break up 10 years ago.

"I realized that if we did a reunion we would have to enjoy it," says the singer, soon sounding wide awake. "Of course, the money was there and the fans wanted it. But the truth is, if we could not relish it musically and personally, travel together and share life together like we did back in the day, then sincerely, you couldn't pay me enough money to do it."

It turns out the time was right. The three musicians have rekindled old friendships and recaptured the old energy of performing together. Cerati says he's "48 and ready to rock."

The phenomenal response to the reunion comes at a time when the aesthetic and commercial promise of rock en tu idioma (rock in your own language) has faded. Few new bands on the scene today can even aspire to the status of Soda Stereo, one of the first acts in the genre to break down national barriers and find mass acceptance across the Latin American continent.

The stunning box-office success of the reunion tour, Cerati says, shows that fans still yearn for a time when music was less a function of marketing. Older fans are trying to recapture a moment when they truly felt part of a musical movement. And younger ones, those who weren't even born in Soda's heyday, are trying to connect with that mystique before it's gone forever.

By the time the tour closes next month back in Buenos Aires, more than 1 million fans will have seen the show that packs 15 years of Soda history into 150 minutes. For Cerati, who once said that he doesn't like to dwell on the past, the experience has compelled a reassessment. This tour has given him a new perspective on the band's body of work as a continuum.

"Life passes one by quickly and there's no time to be looking backward," he says, speaking with the distinctive accent of Argentine Spanish. "I'm not one of those people who has a lot of nostalgia, truthfully. But this process has made me discover a lot of the things we accomplished together which I had forgotten. It has allowed me to see what was left behind, and given me the chance to retrieve it. I like that because it does justice to those things that have remained more in the shadows."

Soda Stereo emerged in the early 1980s, part of a wave of homegrown rock that arose in Argentina after the fall of the brutal military regime responsible for the so-called dirty war. The band was born as the country was waking from its collective nightmare, but as its name suggests, its members were more interested in pop culture than politics, more Andy Warhol than Che Guevara.

"There was a whole movement that was more about, 'Enough with politics! Let's go out and dance a little and enjoy ourselves while we're still young,' " he says. "In the final stages of the dictatorship, rock had become, naturally and with good reason, a declaration about everything that had happened. But that was at the detriment of entertainment, of being able to have a good time, of freeing oneself a bit. So that's what we did and, of course, we were roundly criticized for being too plastic and shallow, et cetera. But that never bothered us."

The group went on to record seven studio albums, selling more than 7 million records and gaining increased critical respect as its music evolved from a lightweight Latin version of British New Wave bands such as XTC to a complex and artful style steeped in the ethereal moods and sonic textures of electronica. Through it all ran Cerati's lyrics, at times sly and satirical, at times poetic and evocative.

The band was also known for putting on a good show. But Cerati says this tour tops them all. With a set design by Britain's Martin Philips (U2, Nine Inch Nails), the Soda road show requires 50 support staff and almost 30 tons of gear, says Roberto Costa of Pop Art, co-producers with Triple Producciones, both based in Buenos Aires.

The trio is playing better than ever too, if Cerati does say so himself.

"This has been a fantastic step for us," he says, though there are no plans for the band to continue beyond the tour.

"We feel very close to each other, and it's wonderful to feel the vibe of what happens between us. It's much better than during the final years of Soda. . . . In fact, if it had been this good before, we would never have broken up."

On solid ground again

Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

"Nowadays, everything I do is very calculated," said Ryan Tedder, far right, leader of OneRepublic.

OneRepublic's debut album is a step forward after the band lost its initial footing.

By August Brown, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 20, 2007

RYAN TEDDER, the frontman and founding member of the alt-rock band OneRepublic, is first and foremost a writer. He's penned tunes for such pop starlets as Natasha Bedingfield and Hilary Duff, co-wrote with Jesse McCartney a U.K. chart-topping hit ("Bleeding Love") for Leona Lewis, and collaborated with rappers Lil Jon and Bubba Sparxxx. OneRepublic's high-profile cameo on Timbaland's album "Shock Value," a remix of the band's string-soaked lament "Apologize," which has been holding strong on the charts, is a testament to the versatility of Tedder's compositional skills.

In OneRepublic, Tedder uses this talent to fine-tune the traditional ingredients for pop stardom (giant choruses, suave fauxhawks) and snip off anything or anyone that gets in the way. As modern rock becomes harder to sell in huge numbers, and professionalism is quickly overtaking spontaneity, the most popular new bands know that hits don't come accidentally. The potential of OneRepublic's debut album of meticulously earnest ballads, "Dreaming Out Loud" (released Nov. 20), will depend on the 28-year-old Tedder's ability to single-handedly script his band's rise to fame.

As his story goes, OneRepublic was formed by high school buddies in a bucolic Colorado town and teased with early success upon moving to Los Angeles, only to be shattered by major-label politics. Then the band climbed the My- Space Unsigned charts and scored a life-raft record deal and remix from Tedder's longtime mentor Timbaland.

That story leaves out a few of the realities of how a talented, sharp-dressing and fiercely ambitious songwriter reinvents himself and his band -- a route involving a fundamentalist Christian education, the affirmation of 'N Sync's Lance Bass and booting a longtime friend from the band for crimes of fashion.

"Nowadays, everything I do is very calculated," Tedder said. "Back then, I'd see any opportunity and jump at it. But I swore to myself I wouldn't do anything but music, that until OneRepublic paid my bills, if a director showed me a scene for a movie and asked me to write a song for it, I'd say 'Cut me a check and I'll do it.' "

Tedder seems to have covered all his bases: "Dreaming Out Loud" consistently hits the high points of '90s and '00s dorm-pop groups like Oasis and Coldplay with hints of modern soul and electronica gleaned from Tedder's years writing and producing with Timbaland. But are a photogenic quintet of bandmates, a crafty songwriting and production mind and a thick Rolodex of industry contacts enough to will a rock band into popularity in 2007?

Like most every event in the life of OneRepublic, the friendship between Tedder (whose heavy eyes and sharp jaw evoke a less-creepy version of Spencer Pratt of "The Hills") and co-founding guitarist Zach Filkins at Colorado Springs Christian School in 1996 began auspiciously. "Our senior year, Zach joined the soccer team," Tedder said. "In his first game he gets on the field and scores three goals, and we said 'Yeah, we're going to keep him.' "

Tedder and Filkins parted ways after graduation, but kept in touch while Tedder pursued a solo career and publishing deal in Nashville. In 2000, he auditioned for an MTV-sponsored talent showcase sponsored by 'N Sync's Lance Bass. He played an original song, which won him the competition, a production deal from Bass' Freelance Entertainment and a look from Interscope Records. Bass even extended an invitation for him to open up an 'N Sync stadium tour. But soon everything took a nose dive -- the production deal with Freelance collapsed, Interscope never followed through and the tour didn't happen.

Reversal of fortune

"Two weeks after that deal, I was waiting tables," Tedder said. "Timbaland happened to see the video though, and he signed me to a production deal. I learned a hell of a lot about writing, but I had nothing to show for it."

Tedder credits the Timbaland affiliation for fast-tracking his career, with the MTV showcase and solo contract being two of a few pockmarks. Numerous demos of Tedder singing tracks planned for other artists are floating around the Internet, but after OneRepublic's success, he's reluctant to point them out.

"It's like how David Duchovny popped up in a porno," Tedder said. "It's all stuff I didn't write for any one person, and then it ends up in the hands of the biggest cheeseball. When you're a writer, you live and die by every cut you get. But I just passed on Clay Aiken."

Similarly, Tedder's college education at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma (he graduated as a PR/advertising major in 2001) isn't usually included in the OneRepublic biography.

"I cocooned myself with kids there who had the same pseudo-cynical outlook," Tedder said. "Both of my parents went there, and I grew up super Pentecostal. In Hollywood though, it's actually edgy, like 'You went to NYU? Well, I went to ORU.' "

Tedder and Filkins regrouped in Colorado to write songs, including the band's first single, "Apologize," a swooning, R&B-inflected slow burn that amorous college kids and Timbaland could get behind. The pair moved to Los Angeles in 2003, where they rounded out the OneRepublic lineup and quickly signed with Columbia Records. There were still kinks to hammer out, like refining the live show and getting the band's look -- a disheveled mix of GQ and Abercrombie indie rocker -- exactly right.

"The label said that if you want this deal, you have to get rid of your drummer," Tedder said. "He looked like Travis Barker, he was rocking JNCO shorts and his playing style was very punk. He was the coolest guy ever but he didn't fit."

The band soon settled on its current lineup, with drummer Eddie Fisher, guitarist Drew Brown and bassist-cellist Brent Kutzel. But its self-titled album's planned release date (June 6, 2006, or 6-6-06) didn't bode well. Sure enough, after a Coachella gig, Columbia got cold feet and dropped the band. The members of OneRepublic imagined that their residency at the Key Club in the spring of 2006 would be their last shows together.

MySpace's saving grace

But the band got an unexpected boost from MySpace, where daily listens of OneRepublic increased nearly fivefold during the Key Club shows (the current tally: more than 21 million MySpace plays). Yet again, labels came sniffing.

"We were thinking these are our last five shows, then four labels called us, including one guy from Columbia," Tedder said, grinning at the irony of being courted by his former label. "I said 'If you're interested, go to the 5th floor and talk to Business Admin because you own it.' I didn't know if I had the strength to go through this again."

But Timbaland saw an opportunity to add a rock band to the rap-heavy fold of his Universal imprint, Mosely Music Group, and debuted the band with his beat-heavy remix of "Apologize." Though the pairing of one of pop's great sonic innovators with such a straight-laced band as OneRepublic is unexpected, Timbaland saw them as kindred songwriters. "The band's chemistry is amazing, but what is so exceptional about them is how musical they are," Timbaland said. "I was just naturally drawn to 'Apologize' and wanted to add my touch."

As the band prepares to release "Dreaming Out Loud," the quintet is confident that sticking to its original guns -- indelible hooks, vague but enormous emotional crescendos and Tedder's flexibly soulful voice -- was the right decision. Songs such as "Stop and Stare" and "All We Are" fully realize this vision of neatly scripted pop.

"We're trying to connect to the largest demographic as humanly possible, and whatever format that is, we'll take it," Fisher said. Tedder agreed that "if I had to care about one thing, it'd be accessibility. What good is all the coverage in Filter Magazine if we have to break up because I can't stand another meal at Taco Bell?"

That candidness about OneRepublic's songwriting philosophy is the best and most trying thing about "Dreaming Out Loud." Pop tunes such as Britney Spears' "Toxic" or Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" stick because they pair inventive arrangements with indelible choruses, while rock bands such as Hinder and Daughtry feed a seemingly bottomless appetite for dour neo-grunge.

OneRepublic expertly plucks ideas from nearly every successful alt-rock band of the last 15 years, and the songs are airtight guitar-pop compositions. But will this snag attention in a Top-40 climate where the best songs are often the strangest, and mainstream rock has surrendered to Nickelback?

"Musically, we had enough versatility to swing the band any number of directions, as experimental or as pop as possible," Tedder said. "Lots of bands say they want credibility, but we actually want to make a living too."

Rock music is at its best when the struggle between pop craftsmanship and scrappy volatility yields something unexpected yet immediate. It's too soon to tell if fans will find that Tedder's master plan balanced the two sides or missed at both of them. But his band has learned that if the Sunset Strip isn't paved with the gold the band imagined, it's scattered with a few second chances.

"When you sharpen your teeth on the streets of Hollywood, it makes for a cool chapter to open and close," Fisher said. "We're happy the Cat Club chapter is closed now."

august.brown@latimes.com

Paul: Web Beatles 'ready to go'

Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Paul McCartney tells Billboard.com that he's "pretty sure" the Beatles catalog will finally be available online in 2008. "The whole thing is primed, ready to go," he's quoted as saying on the magazine's website. "There's just maybe one little sticking point left, and I think it's being cleared up as we speak, so it shouldn't be too long. It's down to fine-tuning, but I'm pretty sure it'll be happening next year."

The long-awaited move has been expected after the arrival of each of the Fab Four's solo catalog's went online this year.

Earlier this year, however, McCartney and Ringo Starr told The Times that it was unlikely the Beatles' master recordings would be given a full sonic upgrade when they ultimately become available for download. That suggests fans who have been clamoring for remastering or remixing of the 20-year-old masters used for the Beatles albums issued on CD in 1987 will have to keep waiting.

Louis Walsh Disses Robbie Williams

Louis Walsh has been dissing Robbie Williams claiming he was the "most talentless" member of Take That.

He told reporters this week: "I much prefer Gary Barlow. It is not necessarily the most talented people who make it to the top in the real world. Robbie is a great showman but I just don't like his voice".

Ah well, being a great showman pays nevertheless. There were reports yesterday that Williams earned £32 million in 2006 by simply playing 44 concerts. Or at least that's the spin being put on the news that his own company, The In Good Company Co Limited, paid him £32 million in that period. Financial reports from the company also reveal Williams has earned £67 million from his music since the company was set up in 2002. So I guess Louis Walsh not liking your voice really doesn't matter.

Boy George Charged With False Imprisonment

By Associated Press

9:51 AM EST, November 13, 2007

LONDON - Musician Boy George was charged Tuesday with falsely imprisoning a 28-year-old man, British police said.

The 47-year old singer and DJ, whose real name is George O'Dowd, has been ordered to appear before a court on Nov. 22.

The Sun newspaper reported in April that a Norwegian man, Auden Karlsen, 28, claimed he was chained and threatened at O'Dowd's London flat, where he had gone as a photo model.

B.B. King returning to Genesee Theatre

November 12, 2007

NEWS-SUN STAFF REPORT

WAUKEGAN -- Three years after he and Lucille first hit the Genesee Theatre, blues legend B.B. King has scheduled a return trip for Feb. 9, with tickets to go on sale Nov. 30.

According to www.geneseetheatre.com, King has been slated for a single performance at 8 p.m. Tickets, which will be available at the theater box office and through Ticketmaster, are priced at $49.50 and $39.50, with a limited number of orchestra pit seats at $75.

King, who turned 82 in September, is a 14-time Grammy winner and a 1987 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. He first appeared at the Genesee in March 2005, drawing a near-capacity crowd.

Also added this week to the Genesee's upcoming schedule was "RAIN: The Beatles Experience," a live, multi-media tribute to the Fab Four that is touted as performing "the full range of the Beatles discography live onstage."

Prince Takes Steps to Protect Copyrights

The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Prince is taking legal action to stop Web sites from using copyrighted images, a concert promotion company announced Friday.

Contrary to reports, the Purple One is not suing his fans or looking to inhibit free speech in any way, AEG, which promoted Prince's concert series in London, said in a statement.

"The action taken earlier this week was not to shut down fan sites, or control comment in any way," the statement read. "The issue was simply to do with in regards to copyright and trademark of images and only images and no lawsuits have been filed."

Three Web sites published copyrighted images and live photos from Prince's London concerts, according to AEG. "Mediation between the parties is currently resolving the matter," the group's statement said.

Prince intends to offer some material for free online, bypassing "phony fan sites that exploit both consumers and artists," AEG said.

The promotions company said one of the alleged violators, Pirate Bay, is "exploiting copyrighted material for their commercial gain."

Representatives from Pirate Bay did not immediately return a request for comment.
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Alison Krauss & Robert Plant: In a Dark Mood

Dabbling in the downbeat vibe of their album 'Raising Sand' was an upbeat experience for the singers, so much so that they want to prolong the experience next year with a tour.

By Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 11, 2007

NEW YORK -- ALISON KRAUSS must feel as if she's dreaming. Across the crowded green room at the NBC-TV studios early on a recent morning, a walking hot dog and a 6-foot-tall ketchup bottle are talking to Popeye and Olive Oyl. Then Hugh Hefner and a Playboy bunny come through a door.

Blinking, Krauss heads to the coffee urn. She's been up since 3:30 a.m., she says, to make sure there's plenty of time to do hair and makeup for her appearance on the "Today" show with her celebrated singing partner of the moment, Robert Plant.

"If they can't do her in three hours, they might as well give up," she says, putting herself in the third person and laughing at her joke.

Ungodly hours, by musicians' standards anyway, are part of the bargain for the folk-country star and the British rocker as they do their bit to promote their collaboration, "Raising Sand," which to their surprise is turning out to be one of the most anticipated albums of the year.

After doing interviews and taping a performance for the CMT cable channel's "Crossroads" show in Krauss' hometown of Nashville, they arrived here and went straight to a reception in their honor at an elegant tavern at Grand Central Terminal, then spent the next day visiting radio stations.

From New York they're off to England for another round, and after Plant's old band Led Zeppelin does its reunion show in December, the duo will start making plans for a U.S. concert tour.

Not many people were expecting this kind of attention for a project that began as an experiment with no clear aims -- least of all Massachusetts-based Rounder Records, the venerable roots-folk label that's fostered Krauss' career and now finds itself with a rock icon on its hands, and all that goes with it.

"It's the most expensive record we've ever put out," says Rounder President John Virant, standing at the bar during the reception, which figures to add a bit to the tab. "A lot of it was the travel for all the musicians -- Robert came over from England a couple of times. I remember getting an AmEx statement with $45,000 for airfare. . . . But when you're working with people like this, you can't run around crying that you're a poor little indie."

Virant is smiling as he says this. He figures it's money well spent, and sure enough, when the numbers come in a week later, "Raising Sand" has entered the national sales chart at No. 2, selling 112,000 copies during its first week -- the highest in Rounder's history. With the singers' combined pedigrees and the critical acclaim it's gathered and the spring tour to keep it fresh, the album could enjoy a long shelf life and be a factor in the 2009 Grammys.

T Bone Burnett, who produced the album, knows all about that. He assembled the soundtrack for "O Brother, Where Art Thou?," the surprise album-of-the-year winner in 2002, which is when he first worked with Krauss.

"She is a profound artist and it's sort of easy to overlook that somehow, because she's so good at what she does," Burnett says. "But the reality is she has very deep notions about music and art. She doesn't wear them on her sleeve, but she may be the most uncompromising person I've ever met in my life.

"And Robert. . . . In a way Robert's sort of the fulfillment of this threat that Elvis Presley made."

Bluegrass meets rock

THE hot dog, the ketchup bottle and company have finished their "Today" segment (it's about Halloween costumes), and now Krauss and Plant are in a corner of the small studio in Rockefeller Center singing "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)," a bouncy, driving Everly Brothers song from "Raising Sand."

The 36-year-old bluegrass princess and the erstwhile rock god, 59, blend their contrasting voices with the assurance and rapport they've developed over the course of their collaboration. That began when Plant invited Krauss to sing with him at a tribute to folk/blues giant Leadbelly at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and flowered in the "Raising Sand" sessions last year in Nashville and Los Angeles.

After the final chorus and a "Well well!" yelp from Plant, the singers stand back and watch as their band builds the intensity. Jay Bellerose's drums dance lightly around the contours, while Burnett, Buddy Miller and Mark Ribot -- a summit meeting of premier roots-conscious, cutting-edge guitarists -- put on a show of their own.

Plant, who heard his share of guitar virtuosity in 1960s England and with Led Zeppelin, is still marveling at the display a few minutes later.

"When you see that there, Buddy Miller and Marc Ribot and T Bone playing," he says, shaking his head. "It's such a minimalistic piece of music, and yet with all that prowess and skill and musicality it becomes even more minimal.

"And then of course Ribot plays a solo that we haven't heard before and didn't know was going to happen, which makes it really good."

A natural chemistry

The Tab Two: Paul McCartney and Shevell

By FRANK ELTMAN |Associated Press Writer

8:18 PM EST, November 7, 2007

AMAGANSETT, N.Y. - They're here, there and everywhere: Paul McCartney and his latest rumored love interest. The 65-year-old ex-Beatle and a New Jersey trucking heiress (no, she's not a Soprano) were spotted last weekend in the tony Hamptons at a sushi restaurant, a movie theater and a lingerie shop. On Wednesday, pictures of the pair smooching and strolling along the beach turned up in the tabloids, alongside headlines like "TRYST AND SHOUT."

The shot of McCartney kissing Nancy Shevell in the front seat of his truck was published first by The Sun of London, but quickly made its way across the pond to the Daily News, the New York Post and Newsday.

Paparazzi outside Shevell's Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan snapped her picture as she left home Wednesday morning, her anonymity swept away by a burst of 21st-century Beatlemania.

Shevell, 47, and a member of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board, is McCartney's latest apparent flame since his marriage to Heather Mills disintegrated last year. The rock 'n' roll Hall of Famer was previously spotted with high-profile dates Renee Zellweger, Christie Brinkley and Rosanna Arquette.

McCartney, whose songs as a Beatle and a solo act sold millions of records worldwide, opted to keep his mouth closed Wednesday about the tab two.

"We don't comment, as a policy, on private or business affairs," said McCartney spokesman Paul Freundlich.

Out in the Hamptons, where the couple did their bonding, local merchants were equally tightlipped. The owner of a British pub where McCartney occasionally stops for a drink declined to comment, as did workers at an assortment of local businesses: a pharmacy, a jewelry store and a gourmet deli.

Although the streets were fairly empty on a brisk November morning, nobody acknowledged seeing McCartney and Shevell in tandem -- or even separately. They instead observed the unwritten local rule that loose lips sink businesses in this summer haven for bold-faced names such as Steven Spielberg, Jerry Seinfeld, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Gwyneth Paltrow.

"The Hamptons are filled with celebrities," said Hamptons scene chronicler Steven Gaines, who is also the co-author of "The Love You Make: An Insider's Story of The Beatles." "This is a community that's very protective of those who live here."

McCartney is a veteran of the Hamptons scene, coming out for years with his wife Linda before her 1998 death from breast cancer. Gaines said McCartney prefers to stay after Labor Day, when things are more quiet and private.

"October is Paul's favorite month," he said. Or it was, it seems, until this November.

Shevell is estranged from her husband of 23 years, Long Island lawyer and politician Bruce Blakeman. She serves as a vice president for New England Motor Freight Inc., a New Jersey family business that was linked to the mob back in 1988.

Federal authorities alleged that her father, Mike Shevell, "cultivated a corrupt relationship" with Genovese family soldier Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano and other reputed mobsters.

Provenzano, a former Teamsters leader, has been identified as a prime suspect in the 1975 disappearance of ex-Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. The case against Mike Shevell was settled with no admission of wrongdoing by Shevell, according to a report in the Village Voice.

(This version CORRECTS spelling to Mike Shevell from Mike Levell.)