A Hitch in the Dixie Chicks' Git-Along
Despite the fact that the Dixie Chicks' Taking the Long Way has been the number-one album in the country for two weeks, the trio may be staring at wide open spaces when they take their show on the road this summer.
Billboard reported Wednesday that a handful of dates on the North American leg of the Dixie Chicks' upcoming Accidents & Accusations tour, which kicks of July 21 in Detroit, might be postponed or canceled due to slow ticket sales.
Ticket outlets were averaging 5,000-6,000 tickets sold per date in major markets, although most of the arena-sized venues can accommodate more than 15,000 people. So far, a September date at Memphis' FedEx Forum has been X-ed off the schedule and the fate of shows in Indianapolis, Houston and Oklahoma City are in jeopardy, according to Billboard. Shows in the band's home state, including Austin and Dallas, are moving ahead as scheduled.
A publicist for the band did not immediately comment on the potential cancellations, and no direct connection has been made between the lackluster ticket sales and any ire fans might still harbor toward the Chicks because of the, um, unpleasantness. Lead singer Natalie Maines informed London fans in March 2003 that she was ashamed that President George W. Bush is from Texas. The overseas crowd lapped it up, but a lot of people on this side of the pond were none too pleased.
Maines issued a public apology afterward but took her mea culpa off the table last month just before Taking the Long Way's release. Still, the album took the easy way to the top of the Billboard 200, selling 526,000 copies its first week out and another 271,000 last week, per Nielsen SoundScan.
But this latest album's success just adds to the puzzle over why the Accidents & Accusations tour isn't meeting expectations. Back when the Dixie Chicks--Maines, Martie Seidel and Emily Robison--were taking Europe by storm and ticking off fans of the U.S. President, ticket sales were off the charts. The group's 2003 tour moved 876,000 tickets during the first week of sales and encore dates had to be added in multiple markets. The ladies went on to have the top-grossing country tour of the year, raking in $62 million.
This summer definitely doesn't qualify as a lost cause, though. Plenty of venues on the 40-plus date tour will be full of screaming fans, and hopefully they'll be shouting nice things.
"We're happy [with our on-sale] and comparatively seem to be ahead of most," John Page, general manager and chief operating officer of Global Spectrum at Philadelphia's Wachovia Center, where the Dixie Chicks are booked for July 25, told Billboard.
And you can't blame Canada for slow sales. Toronto's Air Canada Centre added a second date to accommodate demand.
"Canada loves the Chicks," the arena's booking director, Patti-Ann Tarlton, told Billboard.
According to a statement from Maines, fans who do show up in the next few months will be treated to "more of an old-style rock show, not so much about theatrics and props but just about the music. To rock out, we used to have to pull out a cover tune, so it's nice to have your own songs to fill that part of the set."
Before the Dixie Chicks hit the Motor City in July, they'll perform in London this month to promote Taking the Long Way's international release. Their June 15 show finds them back at Shepherd's Bush Empire, the scene of the 2003 controversy. Then the Chicks will join the Eagles onstage June 17 at Twickenham Stadium.
"Cars" to box office also-rans: Eat my dust
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Cars" is racing into theaters Friday and is expected to take the checkered flag at the weekend box office.
The seventh film from Walt Disney Co. and its newly acquired Pixar Animation Studios partner revolves around a talking race car named Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), who learns some valuable life lessons during an enforced pit stop in a sleepy town.
Also lending their voices to the colorful cast of computer-animated vehicles are Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin and racing great Richard Petty. The G-rated tale is directed by John Lasseter, who last took the helm for 1999's "Toy Story 2," which opened with $57 million and went on to gross $246 million.
The debut of "Cars" in 3,985 venues marks the first release from Disney and Pixar in more than a year and a half, so there is some pent-up demand for the film. Their last collaboration, "The Incredibles," opened in November 2004 with $70 million and finished with $261 million.
Since their first film together, 1995's "Toy Story," Disney and Pixar have generated quite a box office track record, racking up nearly $1.5 billion in gross domestic receipts alone. The company's biggest-grossing film is "Finding Nemo." The undersea adventure bowed with $70 million in 2003 and left North American theaters with $340 million.
The wheels are turning in "Cars' " favor as far as the critics go -- getting the thumbs up from the vast majority of reviewers nationwide, according to http://www.RottenTomatoes.com.
Reigning champ "The Break-Up," which surpassed expectations with a $39.1 million bow last weekend, and Tuesday release "The Omen" are tracking to converge on the No. 2 spot this weekend. "Omen" debuted with a record single-day gross for a Tuesday with $12.6 million, thanks largely to its 6/6/06 marketing campaign. The horror remake, about the rise of the Antichrist in the form of a young boy named Damien, has collected more than $20 million heading into the weekend.
In a moderate-release counter programming strategy, indie distributor Picturehouse's "A Prairie Home Companion" will debut in 760 locations. The PG-13 comedy-drama is a fictional story based on the nationally syndicated and long-running radio show from Garrison Keillor, who wrote the screenplay and also stars in the film.
Robert Altman directed "Companion," which boasts a familiar ensemble cast including Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.
"Companion" unfolds on the final night of the show. The film is targeting adult, upscale moviegoers.
Singer Mindy McCready sues former boyfriend for $3M over alleged beating
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Mindy McCready has sued her former boyfriend for $3 million, claiming he beat her last year and that the incident hurt her music career.
McCready, who had a No. 1 hit in 1996, Guys Do It All the Time, sued last month in Davidson County circuit court, the Tennessean newspaper reported Thursday. The lawsuit claims the alleged assault hindered the 30-year-old country singer's ability to book performances and other work.
William McKnight is facing charges of attempted murder and breaking into McCready's home and beating her severely in May 2005.
"One of the problems is that, literally, venues worried about whether ... McKnight would show up and someone would get hurt," McCready spokesman Paul Berg said. "It's been very interesting to see how difficult it's been to even put her someplace to do a free show to raise money."
McKnight is employed, his lawyer John Norris said Thursday, but doesn't have the amount of money that McCready is asking for. The lawsuit says McKnight is living in Brandon, Fla.
"The $3 million is out of proportion to any actual damages she actually sustained," Norris said.
Berg said McCready is "not expecting to get anything out of this. Many people have to file civil litigation to set the record straight, whether or not they collect."
Norris said McKnight was disappointed by the lawsuit. "Based on the circumstances of this relationship, it's hard to understand where she came up with that figure," he said.
Berg said the $3 million was derived from both lost potential income and the emotional trauma McCready endured.
McCready's legal problems began before the alleged attack.
In 2004, she pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining OxyContin at a Brentwood pharmacy. She was also arrested and charged with drunken driving and still faces that charge and another for violating probation.
Last July, McCready learned she was wanted in Arizona for her involvement with an alleged con man, but the charges were dropped in November.
McCready is raising her two-month-old son, Zander. She claims McKnight is the father.
If the singer wins her lawsuit, any money collected will go into a trust fund for her son, Berg said.
Cusack film grew from Iraq frustration
CHICAGO - John Cusack's motivation for his latest film grew out of something he did not see — flag-draped caskets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Pentagon policy bans media coverage of America's war dead as their remains are returned. The Bush administration has strongly enforced the ban, something Cusack describes as "one of the most shameful, disgraceful, cowardly political acts that I've seen in my lifetime."
So the actor started looking for a project that would illustrate "what happens when the coffins come home."
The result is "Grace Is Gone," a small, independent film in which Cusack plays a man whose wife Grace is killed in service in Iraq. Filming wrapped last month; the movie's producers — who include Cusack — will be looking for a distributor or film festival opportunities.
Cusack's character, Stanley, delays telling his two daughters about their mother's death, instead taking them on a road trip while the former military man sorts out his complicated feelings about the war.
While Cusack's motivation for taking the part are political, he insists the movie is not. "It's kind of a spiritual story about grief and hopefully a little bit of redemption," Cusack said recently.
The screenplay was written by James C. Strouse, who penned "Lonesome Jim," which was directed by Steve Buscemi and released earlier this year. "Grace Is Gone" marks his directorial debut.
While "Grace" is set in a vague Midwestern city, most of the six-week shoot took place in Chicago due to Cusack's influence. He grew up in suburban Evanston, and divides his time between homes in Chicago and Los Angeles.
Before shooting the scene of Grace's funeral in a Methodist church on the city's North Side, Cusack, 39, folded his 6-foot-2 frame onto a pew for an interview. Dressed casually in a gray T-shirt and blue cargo pants, with sunglasses pushing his rumpled black hair off his forehead, Cusack spoke of his feelings about the war, the film and what he has tried to accomplish with his career.
Cusack got his start more than 20 years ago in teen comedies like "Sixteen Candles," "Better Off Dead" and "The Sure Thing."
Unlike many of his Brat Pack contemporaries, Cusack easily made the transition to adult parts, often as an underdog or unconventional hero. He stood out as an underachieving kickboxer in Cameron Crowe's "Say Anything." He was a con man in "The Grifters," an out-of-work puppeteer in Spike Jonze's "Being John Malkovich," and a cheating playwright in Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway."
In the past decade, he has branched out into writing — co-writing "Grosse Pointe Blank," about a hit man who returns home for his high school reunion, and also "High Fidelity," in which he also starred as a record-store owner who compiles lists of most everything in his life, including his top-five breakups.
While "High Fidelity" was an adaptation of British author Nick Hornby's London-based novel of the same name, Cusack moved the setting to Chicago.
"I always love to bring films here if I can," he said. "If you finish work in time, you can go to a Cubs or Sox game."
Over the years, Cusack has balanced big-studio projects, like "America's Sweethearts," "Con Air" and "Must Love Dogs," with smaller, more personal films.
"One allows me to do the other. If I do the more commercial ones, then I can leverage those into the smaller ones, which are harder to get made," Cusack said.
One movie he often mentions is 2002's controversial "Max," in which Cusack played a Jewish art dealer who befriends a young Adolf Hitler and encourages his artistic ambitions. He also produced the film.
"I got that made, which took me three years and a was a real labor of love, because I've done some romantic comedies. So that's just how it works, or that's how I've figured out how to work it," he said. "But these are the ones that kind of get me up in the morning."
Still, Cusack isn't a film snob. He said he enjoys some of the "great big movie experiences" that Hollywood likes to release during the summer and holidays, specifically mentioning the "Lord of the Rings" series and the most recent " Harry Potter" installment.
Regarding his participation in "Grace Is Gone," director Strouse said when he was writing the script, he and his wife — producer Galt Niederhoffer — compiled a "dream list" of actors to play Stanley. Cusack was at the top, and Strouse said that once he signed on filming started a month later.
"John's kind of a gutsy actor. He likes to try different roles and I think this was one that he hadn't really had a chance to play — a repressed Midwesterner. I don't want to say loser, but a lot of times John plays these very hyperarticulate, energetic, urban characters," Strouse said, "and this guy is sort of 180 degrees from what you think of when you think of a typical John Cusack character."
The actor said he wonders if people reading about his political opinions will keep some from seeing the movie. Others, he believes, will appreciate the timeliness.
"I feel that people will be interested in seeing the story of the human cost of this" war, Cusack said. "I think people are probably tired of being manipulated endlessly on the reasons and realities of this misadventure — political misadventure. I don't mean the soldiers fighting, I mean the civilian leadership."
Whatever the case, Cusack said he does not dwell on how his movies are initially received by the critics or public.
"I'm not worried about how it turns out in the first two months after it's released. A piece of art takes a while to be appreciated or not — if it is a piece of art. You try to make something that has some value and then in three, four or five years, it will still be interesting or it will have a pulse.
"Some things that you make, people say are terrific right away and they don't really hold up," Cusack said. "You just sort of make it, and it's all about the process of making it. Trying to do the best you can. And then you have to wait for a long time to see if it has resonance anyway."
Dixie Chicks Stay Saddled at No. 1
For all the fans who ditched the Chicks after they criticized the Prez, the rest of the music-buying public is sending a message: look away, look away, look away, it's still Dixie Land.
For a second straight week, the Dixie Chicks' first post-Incident album--Taking the Long Way--ruled the roost at number one. For the week ended June 4, Long Way held the top spot, selling another 271,000 copies, according to the latest Nielsen SoundScan numbers.
This puts the group's two-week tally at 799,000 copies, just a 1,000 copies shy of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' four-week tally for Stadium Arcadium, which currently sits at three and which held the top spot for the two weeks prior to the Chicks' debut. Long Way also marks the Dixie Chicks third number one debut, which extends the trio's benchmark as the only female group with multiple chart-topping bows.
Helping to keep sales strong, the Dixie Chicks appeared on Larry King Live last week while tickets went on sale for the first dates of the trio's upcoming Accidents & Accusations Tour, which kicks off July 21 in Detroit and ends Nov. 11 in Tacoma. Their career ticket sales already surpass the $100 million mark, making them one of the world's most popular live acts.
The Dixie Chicks also benefited from a dearth of new debuts. In fact, after several weeks with multiple Top 10 bows, not one new album even cracked the Top 100. Accordingly, three albums climbed back into the Top 10: Now That's What I Call Music! 21 climbed five spots to six, James Blunt's Back to Bedlam up 16 to nine and Shakira's reissued Oral Fixation, Vol. 2 up three to the ten spot. (Blunt's giant jump was spurred by a Today Show performance and a repeat broadcast of his Ellen appearance.)
The Top 10 regulars, meanwhile, included the High School Musical soundtrack at two, Rascal Flatts' Me and My Gang at four, American Idol Season 5 Encores at five, Tool's 10,000 Days at seven and Carrie Underwood's Some Hearts at eight.
Deep down the charts at 103, Peeping Tom's eponymous debut led the newcomers with nearly 10,000 copies sold. The album, featuring an immense guest list with such artists as Norah Jones and Massive Attack, is the new project from Faith No More and rap-rock pioneer Mike Patton.
Les Claypool's Of Whales and Woe followed at 115, as did a pair of double-disc remix collections, Vic Latino's ThriveMix02 and DJ Lil' Cee & Trevor Simpson's Ultra.Weekend2, respectively, at 125 and 129. Other notable debuts included Silverstein's 18 Candles: Early Years at 148 and Sound of Animals Fighting's Lover, the Lord Has Left Us at 183.
Impressively, three albums celebrated one-year anniversaries on this week's Billboard 200. Though Coldplay's X&Y smashed the Black Eyed Peas' Monkey Business in first-week sales in June '05, the pop-rap quartet finished ahead of the British alt-rockers one year later. Monkey Business is currently up six spots to 70 on 3.8 million total copies sold, while X&Y is down four to 138 on a 2.9 million-copy tally.
Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil is the third album celebrating its first chart birthday, currently at 182 with total sales just under 620,000 copies.
Next week, look for a slew of new debuts from artists who seemingly thought it devilish to release albums on June 6, 2006, aka 6/6/06. Among them, AFI and Ice Cube seem to be frontrunners for the top spot.
The Top 10 albums for the week ended Sunday were as follows:
1. Taking the Long Way, Dixie Chicks
2. High School Musical soundtrack, various
3. Stadium Arcadium, Red Hot Chili Peppers
4. Me and My Gang, Rascal Flatts
5. American Idol Season Five Encores, various
6. Now That's What I Call Music! 21, various
7. 10,000 Days, Tool
8. Some Hearts, Carrie Underwood
9. Back to Bedlam, James Blunt
10. Oral Fixation, Vol. 2, Shakira
Loretta Lynn breaks shoulder
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Country singer Loretta Lynn broke her shoulder in a fall at her home and was scheduled to have shoulder replacement surgery, a spokesman said Wednesday.
Lynn, 71, injured her left shoulder Sunday. She was expected to have the surgery Thursday at a Nashville hospital and go home to recuperate, spokesman William Smithson said in a news release. The injury forced the cancellation of nine concerts scheduled in June and July. In February last year, Lynn was forced to cancel a pair of shows in Oklahoma and Texas because of pain from a back injury.
Lynn is a three-time Grammy winner best known for her autobiographical hit Coal Miner's Daughter and songs like Rated X, The Pill and Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind).
Alanis Morissette, fiancee split
TORONTO (CP) - Alanis Morissette has more heartache to draw on for her music.
People and Us magazines are reporting Morissette and actor Ryan Reynolds have broken off their engagement. The Canadian couple had been engaged two years. There is no word on why they're splitting but Us reports the two haven't been photographed together since February and have already started dating other people.
Reynolds, 29, and Morissette, 32, met at actor Drew Barrymore's birthday party in 2002 and dated two years before Reynolds proposed.
The Ottawa-born Morissette skyrocketed to fame in 1995 with her multiplatinum rock album Jagged Little Pill.
Reynolds, from Vancouver, last starred in the romantic comedy Just Friends in November.
For Springsteen, 'Seeger Sessions' sends a message
Explaining why he resurrected traditional folk tunes popularized by Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen cracks: "I'm an old guy. I can do whatever I want whenever I want, and I like doing it all."
The defiance that fueled 1975 breakthrough Born to Run also gave rise to We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, perhaps Springsteen's most surprising album yet. Few expected this plodding perfectionist, who labors over his handiwork for years in solitude, to serve up a ramshackle batch of covers recorded in three one-day sessions at a farmhouse with 13 players.
And those presuming the project was The Boss' spring break from his real job are discovering the depth of his commitment in the Seeger ensemble's enthralling live performances. After an emotional launch in New Orleans, the rambunctious Americana hoedown drew raves across Europe. In the UK, The Independent dubbed the concert "an astonishingly rich evening," while The Observer called it "an inspiring triumph." The newly launched U.S. leg is similarly wowing critics; a Washington Post reviewer declared Springsteen's ragtime orchestra "the best live show I've seen in at least five years."
The brief 18-date U.S. swing won't meet demand, so Springsteen is cherry-picking one song from each show for AOL Music (aolmusic.com), along with photos, set lists and recaps. Among on-demand videos so far are Erie Canal, Old Dan Tucker, O Mary Don't You Weep and John Henry. A full 18-tune set will be available when the tour ends June 25 in New Jersey.
Springsteen, 56, never set out to make an album of freewheeling folk music and socially conscious messages that dovetail with the current political climate.
"It happened so spontaneously," he says. "As I've gotten older, I tend to be more comfortable, and there's less second guessing. I'm always looking for another road to go down. I knew a good deal about Pete's work, but I hadn't steeped myself in it. In my late 20s, I went back to Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie and some early blues. I've continued to look into different types of music that gave birth to rock. In Pete's records, I found compelling music and characters, and I thought I could find these voices inside of me. Also, it was a release from my own writing. When you're released from your own style and sense of structure or what you're trying to convey, it allows a real free musical expression, which I hadn't had in a while."
The album, which entered Billboard at No. 3 and has sold 365,000 copies, scouts beyond the familiar protest tunes and refutes the notion that folk is feeble.
"I wanted it to be really raucous," Springsteen says. "Folk, in its essential element, is some of the rawest music ever made. I was interested in capturing some of that. Pete's thing could be so directly political, but I tried to get a balance of songs that had overt social implications, like Eyes on the Prize, a big freedom song from the civil rights era, and character studies, like Jesse James. It wasn't a conceptual project. It just happened and conceived itself over time."
The trick, he says, was finding a modern context for revived traditions, antique compositions and retro flavors of banjos, accordions, fiddles and washboards.
"I want to remember and yet forge ahead and find out what's over the next hill," he says. "A lot of this music was written so long ago, but I felt I could make it feel essential right now. I've always got an eye toward the future and an eye to the past. That's how you know where you've come from and where you want to go. If you look at our recent history, it seems there's been so much disregard of past experience in the way the country has conducted itself."
Though the album's politics are restrained, Springsteen has been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Bush administration since joining 2004's Vote for Change tour. His solution to domestic ills?
"Obviously, get rid of the president," he says. "When you see the devastation (in New Orleans) and realize the kind of support the city will need to get back on its feet, there's no way to make sense of someone pushing for more tax cuts for the 1% of the 1% of the population. It's insanity and a subversion of everything America is supposed to be about. You can't travel around the city and not wonder what in the world is going on."
With midterm elections looming, that's probably not his last word on the subject. Nor will the Seeger tunes be his last whirl with history. He hopes to explore other areas of American and international folk music. He also has a roots-based solo project on the back burner.
And fret not, rock fans.
"I have a pretty good book of songs for the E Street Band," he says.
His longtime bandmates may discover their new Boss isn't the same as the old Boss. The fast and loose Seeger process taught Springsteen valuable lessons.
"It's fascinating to record a song when musicians don't know it," he says. "It's a powerful tool, especially with experienced musicians, in getting a certain spontaneity that you lose with too much rehearsal. If people learn their parts too well, they consciously perform rather than flat-out play. When you just launch into it, it breaks down another barrier between you and the audience. It's one less layer of formality. I like that a lot. I've done it with the E Street Band at times over the years, but never an entire record. We may try it."