Garbage's Shirley Manson Flying Solo
With Garbage on a hiatus of undetermined length, frontwoman Shirley Manson has begun work on her first solo album. The artist tells Billboard.com she recently completed a track with U.K. film composer David Arnold, with whom she collaborated on the theme song for the 1999 James Bond film "The World Is Not Enough."
"I just went to London last week and we wrote a song together," she says. "It was really quick and fast and it was really good fun." Manson admits with a laugh that beginning to write with other people is "scary and really exciting and super-freaky. It feels really weird to talk about it!"
Manson says she has no timetable for completing the project and is more interested in enjoying herself. "I've got no timetable. I'm sort of sick of timetables, to be honest," she says. "I just want to live my life a little freely and not adhere to any schedule -- just make music and have fun."
The artist acknowledges Garbage fans were confused by the mixed messages surrounding the start of the band's hiatus last fall, but insists, "We're still together, absolutely. We all feel like we want to go off and do a variety of things. [Drummer] Butch [Vig] is going back into production and some other guys are working on film soundtracks."
"Being the chaotic bunch we are, we should have put a press release together but we didn't," she adds. "We were quite taken aback by how big a deal was made of it. But we love each other and we still want to work together. We're just taking a break. We've had a crazy decade."
Wallace to Stop Being '60 Minutes' Regular
NEW YORK - Mike Wallace, the hard-driving reporter who has been with "60 Minutes" since its start in 1968, said Tuesday he will retire as a regular correspondent on the show this spring.
A television news legend who was the last person an accused wrongdoer would want to see on his doorstep, Wallace said he'll still do occasional reports for the show. CBS News President Sean McManus referred to him as a "correspondent emeritus."
Wallace, 87, has often said he'll retire "when my toes turn up.
"Well, they're just beginning to curl a trifle, which means that, as I approach my 88th birthday, it's become apparent to me that my eyes and ears, among other appurtenances, aren't quite what they used to be," he said.
Wallace has said for years that he was cutting back, but he's still done six reports in the current season, including a profile of actor Morgan Freeman and a story on soldiers who lost their limbs in Iraq. It was a significant step last fall when Wallace relinquished his position as the first face viewers saw after the ticking stopwatch on each show. Ed Bradley now has that distinction.
Wallace said that "CBS is not pushing me" and that he'll keep an office at the CBS News headquarters.
"It's hard for all of us to get used to," said Jeff Fager, "60 Minutes" executive producer. "It's a sad day, but it's also a chance to celebrate an incredible legacy and an amazing guy."
Even as age slowed him down, Wallace was still able to prod interview subjects in a style all his own. Fager remembered an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin last year where Wallace said, "This isn't a real democracy, come on!"
With founding executive producer Don Hewitt, Wallace helped invent the television newsmagazine; the Sunday-night staple was frequently TV's top-rated show. Hewitt said Tuesday that Wallace will be remembered with Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite as the three legends of CBS News.
Hewitt said he appreciated Wallace's well-rounded ability to tell different stories, from Putin to Carol Burnett, from Tina Turner to Vladimir Horowitz. It was more than the caricature of a reporter chasing a reluctant subject down a dark street.
"It was showbiz baloney," Hewitt said. "We did it for a long time. Finally, I said, `Hey, kid, maybe it's time to retire that trenchcoat.'"
Wallace interviewed hundreds of newsmakers, including Deng Xiaoping, Ayatollah Khomeini, Yasir Arafat, King Hussein and Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Reagan. He interviewed John Nash, the academician who was the subject of the movie "A Beautiful Mind," and arranged for Louis Farrakhan and the eldest daughter of Malcolm X to be interviewed together.
In 1998, Wallace aired a report which on videotape showed Dr. Jack Kevorkian injecting lethal drugs into a terminally ill man.
Some of his news subjects fought back. Retired Gen. William C. Westmoreland sued CBS for a Wallace report on the Vietnam War. Although the case was dropped after a long trial, Wallace said the case brought on a depression that put him in the hospital for more than a week.
Wallace also aired a report with tobacco company whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand in 1995 that became the subject of the movie "The Insider," alleging CBS News caved to pressure from lawyers in delaying the report.
Wallace's television career dates back to the late 1940s. He acquired his reputation as a tough interrogator with "Night Beat," a local news show in New York that was a series of one-on-one interviews.
But he was also a game-show host and a commercial pitchman for cigarettes. He became a full-time newsman for CBS in 1963, saying the death of his 19-year-old son, Peter, in an accident made him decide to stick with serious journalism.
Late last year, Wallace, to promote his memoir, sat for an interview with his son, Chris Wallace, a Fox News Channel anchor. The son asked his father, "Do you hate getting old?"
"I had my hearing aid fixed today so that I could properly hear you," the elder Wallace responded. "I can't see as well. I now have — this has stopped me from smoking — a pacemaker, have for about the last 15 years. No, I don't like getting old."
"King Kong" named top movie at Empire awards
LONDON (Reuters) - Multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster "King Kong" was named best movie at Britain's Empire magazine film awards.
The remake of the classic movie about the giant ape with a heart beat "Crash," which won a host of Oscars, "Sin City," "War of the Worlds" and "Star Wars Episode III."
"This was absolutely, really needed because we were doing really badly this year," said British actor Andy Serkis, who played Kong.
"This film was made with a lot of passion and a lot of love, the script was crafted, it was a very political film -- and it only cost $270 million," he quipped as he accepted the award.
Johnny Depp was named best actor for "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory" while Thandie Newton took the best actress award for Crash.
The unlikely winners of the best director award were Steve Box and Nick Park for the animated comedy "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit."
"That's just ridiculous," Park said after beating the likes of Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson for the gong.
"Pride And Prejudice" was voted best British movie while "Team America: World Police" was named best comedy.
The awards, voted for by readers of Empire magazine, were a better reflection of what filmgoers really liked than the Oscars, said editor-in-chief Colin Kennedy.
Black Sabbath, Blondie Enter Rock Hall
NEW YORK - Between an ugly feud among Blondie members spilling over onstage and a rancorous letter from the absent Sex Pistols, the latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class did not enter quietly on Monday.
The animosity even made Ozzy Osbourne, inducted with Black Sabbath, seem sedate.
As midnight arrived under the chandeliers of the Waldorf-Astoria's grand ballroom, Lynyrd Skynyrd was performing the song that launched countless cigarette lighters, "Free Bird," to celebrate their own induction. Famed jazz trumpeter Miles Davis completed the honorees.
When Blondie, the most commercially successful band to emerge from a fertile New York rock scene that also produced Talking Heads and the Ramones, reformed after 15 years, they didn't include former members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison. They sued unsuccessfully to join.
Infante, Harrison and Gary Valentine, another former member left behind in a business dispute, were barely acknowledged by former chums Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke as they received their awards.
Infante begged to perform with the band.
"Debbie, are we allowed?" he pleaded before Blondie performed their hits "Heart of Glass," "Rapture" and "Call Me."
"Can't you see my band is up there?" Harry replied. The three rejected members walked offstage, but not before Infante groaned into the microphone.
Punk rockers the Sex Pistols had turned down the honor in a profane letter that compared the hall to "urine in wine." Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner read the letter, and invited the band to pick up their trophies at the rock hall in Cleveland.
"If they want to smash them into bits, they can do that, too," Wenner said.
Behind the unnerving stare of singer Johnny Rotten and the lacerating lyrics of "God Save the Queen" and "Pretty Vacant," the Sex Pistols appeared the most shocking of the first punk-rock generation in the mid-1970s. The Pistols imploded after one album, with Rotten saying, "ever get the feeling you've been cheated?" before walking offstage after their last show for decades.
Osbourne may be better known now as an addled reality TV star, but his musical legacy with Black Sabbath got its due with the band's induction.
Osbourne has badmouthed the hall of fame for waiting a decade to induct Sabbath, a cause taken up by Metallica member Lars Ulrich in his induction. Metallica guitarist James Hetfield and Ulrich both said their band would not exist without the example of Black Sabbath.
"If there was no Black Sabbath, I could still possibly be a morning newspaper delivery boy," Ulrich said. "No fun."
Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward did not perform, but Metallica rattled the walls with versions of "Iron Man" and "Hole in the Sky."
"Thank you to all Sabbath fans everywhere," Ward said. "Hopefully our induction tonight will add to the validation ... (and) hard rock and heavy metal will have an enduring and everlasting place in rock history."
Osbourne thanked his wife, Sharon, who sat in the ballroom with their daughters Kelly and Aimee.
Davis was inducted by fellow jazz musician Herbie Hancock, who said the trumpeter often played with his back to the audience simply because he was conducting the band.
"He was a man of mystery, magic and mystique," Hancock said. "It was often said he was an enigma. I would venture to say that many who said that just didn't get it."
Southern rockers Skynyrd, whose name was a deliberately misspelled "tribute" to a hated high-school teacher, made much of its memorable music before a 1977 plane crash killed singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Steve Gaines.
"No one deserved to be here more than Ronnie Van Zant," said his widow Judy, "and he would truly be honored."
Johnny Van Zant, who replaced his brother as the lead singer, joined Kid Rock in a duet of the band's hit "Sweet Home Alabama," such a well-known prideful statement of Southern heritage that the title was later swiped for a Reese Witherspoon movie.
Each of the acts is still active. Blondie and the Sex Pistols reformed after long dormant periods, and so did Sabbath, who frequently headlined the popular Ozzfest summer concert tours.
The hall also is giving a lifetime achievement award to Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, founders of the influential A&M Records label that bore their initials and signed artists like the Police, Supertramp, John Hiatt, Cat Stevens and Alpert's band, the Tijuana Brass.
"I haven't seen this many people since I played bar mitzvahs years ago," said trumpeter Alpert.
Inductees are honored at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum in Cleveland. Highlights of the 21st annual ceremony will be shown on VH1 on March 21.