Liz Phair Turns to Pop With Latest Album
NEW YORK - Hailed a decade ago as the queen of indie rock, Liz Phair now says she just wants to be a pop star.
Her new album, "Liz Phair," due out June 24, is more mainstream than her critically acclaimed 1993 debut "Exile in Guyville." And it's a very calculated change.
"I didn't want to be some '90s act that was great in my 20s and never did anything else," the 36-year-old musician told Entertainment Weekly for its May 30 issue.
"People are like, 'Don't be commercial, then,'" she said. "And that's one way to live. But even when I made 'Guyville,' I was hating indie then. The whole album was about how much I hated indie."
So she turned to the Matrix — the trio of producers behind Avril Lavigne — for help with her new album, although she knows the poppier sound may alienate some longtime fans.
"Should I pretend to be cool so that you will approve of me? After I had my kid, the revelation I had was, life is incredibly short," Phair said. "I like who I am. And I'm just gonna like what I like and go for what I want go for. It's simple."
McCartney, Mills Expecting a Baby
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney, 60, and his second wife, Heather Mills, said on Wednesday that the couple are expecting a baby later this year.
"We are delighted with this happy news," the couple said in a statement.
McCartney and Mills married in June 2002. McCartney has three children from his 29-year marriage to Linda McCartney, who died of breast cancer in 1998. He also adopted Linda's child from an earlier marriage.
Mills, a former model who lost her left leg below the knee in an accident, met McCartney at a charity event three years ago.
McCartney helped revolutionize popular music in the 1960s as a member of the Beatles. After they split in 1970, he continued as a solo artist and with the band Wings, which he formed with Linda.
Led Zeppelin Flying High with New Concert Discs
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - In the words of one of their songs, Dancing Days are here again for fans of Led Zeppelin.
Defunct for almost 23 years, the pioneering English band behind such hard rock classics as "Stairway to Heaven" and "Kashmir" has cleaned out its vaults to issue eight hours of previously unreleased live material on DVD and CD.
The "Led Zeppelin DVD" contains footage from four tours spanning 1970 to 1979; the CD "How The West Was Won" combines two Los Angeles shows from 1972 to replicate a single concert.
Remarkably, the band's leader and guitarist, Jimmy Page, who compiled the releases, says he remembers all the concerts as if they were yesterday.
"To actually go through it bit by bit and hear sections of it, you go, 'Yeah, yeah, that's really good' or 'I played really well there' or 'My God, that's embarrassing, that bit I played then,"' Page, 58, said in an interview.
Both the DVD and CD were released this week with Page, singer Robert Plant, 53, and keyboardist/bassist John Paul Jones, 56, embarking on a publicity blitz. Ironically, Led Zeppelin shunned such chores during its 12-year reign, preferring to let the music speak for itself.
But rumors that the trio would play together came to naught. The band has reunited only twice since breaking up after the 1980 alcohol-related death of drummer John Bonham. Page and Plant toured and recorded together in the 1990s, to Jones' initial chagrin. These days, the threesome's relationship is more business than social, Page says.
"MAGICAL ELEMENT"
"There were four very different personalities anyway in Led Zeppelin, very different personalities," Page said. "But when they bonded musically, the four elements joined together, took on a fifth element -- a thing which is totally intangible and it can't be charted, which was that magical element."
Led Zeppelin's members fused folk and blues influences to create a genre known as heavy metal. The group's catalog, highlighted by their untitled 1971 album and 1975's "Physical Graffiti" has sold about 200 million copies worldwide.
But their strength was arguably live performances. They toured incessantly, setting new standards for ticket sales. Songs from the albums were radically reworked on stage.
The new CD boasts a 25-minute version of "Dazed and Confused," while Bonham drums relentlessly during the 19-minute "Moby Dick." Spontaneity was the key, which is why the band decided to call it a day rather than try to feign improvisation with a new drummer.
"You had to be totally, totally involved. It's like a sacrifice you were there for," Page said.
The DVD features songs from London's Royal Albert Hall (1970) and Earl's Court (1975), New York's Madison Square Garden (1973) and England's Knebworth Festival (1979). And that's it as far as live footage is concerned, Page says.
"We didn't have a documentary crew going round with us all the time. What would we do it for? We weren't a television band," Page said.
"A BIT OF A LAUGH"
Similarly, the only other audio footage in the vaults was from a university gig, which was done "for a bit of a laugh." Page vows it will never see the light of day because the band made so many mistakes. (Page did use some computer tricks to fix a few wrong chords on the newly released material.)
These days, Page divides his time between a historic London townhouse and a mansion in nearby Windsor. His post-Zeppelin career has been patchy, with highlights including a tour with the Black Crowes and recording a rap version of "Kashmir" with rapper Sean Combs. He says he's working on something "quite surprising" but declined to go into detail.
D'Oh Canada: Homer Simpson Named Honorary Citizen
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - The debate over just where the cartoon Simpson family lives has raged for years. A forthcoming act by the Canadian city of Winnipeg won't settle it, but it will give Homer another place to hang his hat.
The city will issue a proclamation naming Homer an honorary citizen of the capital of Manitoba on Friday (May 31), the Winnipeg Sun reports. It's not because of the "Simpsons" episode where the family travels to Canada or the recent show in which the characters join together to sing "O Canada."
Instead, it's because creator Matt Groening's father, on whom Homer is loosely based, is a native of Winnipeg.
"We're giving him a giant certificate, and there's going to be an eight-foot-tall Homer Simpson there to receive it," Winnipeg Councilwoman Jenny Gerbasi says.
"I think we'll find there are lots of people in Winnipeg whose father has characteristics like Homer."
BACK TO SCHOOL
Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn are expected to reunite for a sequel to their laffer Old School, which grossed $75 million in domestic box-office receipts, reports Variety. The project is still in early development.
Jewel Pleasing Fans Online, on Tour
NEW YORK (Billboard) - Atlantic Records is offering something extra to Jewel fans who buy her forthcoming album "0304," due June 3, during its first week of release. Each copy in the first run of "0304" will include a download card with a unique PIN number allowing access to a secure site from which users can download solo live MP3 versions of "The New Wild West" and "Life Uncommon."
The promotion runs through June 9.
The bonus site will also allow access to streaming in-studio footage of the artist, tour clips, and live performance videos culled from her last tour, all of which will be available past June 9.
Jewel has scheduled a handful of tour dates in support of the new record, with a full tour expected later in the year. She performed a free show May 27 at New York's GM Plaza for CBS, which plans to broadcast portions of the show Wednesday morning on "The Early Show."
The artist will participate in a few radio-station festivals over the coming weeks: WIOQ Philadelphia's Q Concert in Camden, N.J. Friday (May 30); WXKS Boston's KISS Concert Saturday (May 31) in Mansfield, Mass.; WHTZ New York's Zootopia festival at East Rutherford, N.J. Sunday (June 1); and WITH Washington, D.C.'s Hot 99.5 Anniversary Show in Columbia, Md. June 7.
Jewel is holding a contest to determine two up-and-coming bands to open for her fall tour, and will perform June 19 at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., with a host of regional finalists.
Jewel dips into dance music and jazz on the new album, evidenced by first single "Intuition," which is No. 43 this week on Billboard's Hot 100. "0304" is the follow-up to 2001's "This Way," which debuted at No. 9 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 1.49 million copies in the U.S., according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Here are Jewel's tour dates:
May 30: Camden, N.J. (Tweeter Center)
May 31: Mansfield, Mass. (Tweeter Center)
June 1: East Rutherford, N.J. (Giants Stadium)
June 7: Columbia, Md. (Merriweather Post)
June 19: San Juan Capistrano, Calif. (the Coach House)
Sept. 20: Atlanta (Chastain Amphitheater)
Sept. 30: Providence, R.I. (Providence Performing Arts Center).