New 007 shaken up by fan backlash
NEW YORK (AP) - Daniel Craig, the new James Bond, wants critics to give him a chance.
"If I went onto the Internet and started looking at what some people were saying about me - which, sadly, I have done - it would drive me insane," the British actor says in an interview in Entertainment Weekly magazine, on newsstands Friday.
"They hate me. They don't think I'm right for the role. It's as simple as that. They're passionate about it, which I understand, but I do wish they'd reserve judgment."
A group of James Bond fans have launched a website, www.craignotbond.com, to protest Craig replacing Pierce Brosnan in the 007 film franchise, and to boycott Casino Royale, slated for release Nov. 17.
The fair-haired Craig, whose screen credits include roles in Munich and Layer Cake, was tapped last October to play the secret-agent icon.
While filming Casino Royale, the 38-year-old actor was uneasy about uttering those famous words, "The name is Bond, James Bond."
"People kept asking, 'Have you done the line yet?"' Craig tells the magazine.
"But honestly, I didn't rehearse it at all. I didn't practice it in the mirror every morning or anything like that. I didn't want to even think about saying it because I didn't want it to be this weight around my neck. I just wanted to get on with it and not blow it."
Craig decided to take Bond in a new direction.
"I watched every single Bond movie three or four times, taking in everything I could about how the character had been portrayed in the past, then threw all that away once I started doing the role," Craig says.
"There's no point in making this movie unless it's different. It'd be a waste of time unless we took Bond to a place he'd never been before."
VMAs Fade to Black
Jack Black turns 37 on Aug. 28. Three days later, he gets to throw a really big party.
The star of "Nacho Libre" and "King Kong" has been tapped as host of MTV's Video Music Awards, which will air live from New York's Radio City Music Hall on Thursday, Aug. 31. It's his first turn as host of the VMAs, though not his first hosting gig on MTV; he hosted the network's Movie Awards a few years back.
And why, MTV President Christina Norman, did you choose Mr. Black for the honor this time around?
"Jack Black is the perfect mix of comedy, rock, irreverence, and star power that will set the tone for an amazing show," Norman say. "His love of music and impeccable comic timing will rock the VMAs, NYC, and the entire world."
Jack, your thoughts? "My plan is to bring the thunder. I've got my top men working on it as we speak in my thunder laboratory. Radio City Music Hall will never be the same."
Black has several movie projects in the works, including "Tenacious D in 'The Pick of Destiny,'" which is due in theaters in November. He also co-stars in "The Holiday," a romantic comedy with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet that's due in December.
Shakira and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the leading nominees for the Video Music Awards. They'll each be up for seven honors, including video of the year.
Dixie Chicks make major detour -- nix Dixie
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country-pop trio the Dixie Chicks, still feeling a backlash for criticizing President George W. Bush, have been forced to mostly abandon the American heartland and Deep South on their latest tour.
Facing lackluster ticket sales in many U.S. cities where radio stations had banned their music to protest the band's anti-Bush remarks, the Chicks' promoters have revised their tour with new stops in Australia and Canada.
Only four Southern U.S. cities remain on the newly overhauled 49-date concert itinerary posted days ago for the Chicks' "Accidents & Accusations" trek, their first major tour in three years.
Those four -- Nashville, Atlanta, Dallas and Austin, Texas -- were pushed back about two months to the end of the tour, now set for late November and early December.
Dropped from the original tour schedule released in May were 14 stops in the Southern and Midwestern regions that traditionally form the core of fan support for country music acts.
Cities stripped from the original itinerary include Indianapolis, St. Louis, Houston, Memphis, Greensboro, North Carolina and Jacksonville, Florida.
The band and its promoter, Concerts West/AEG Live, say the overall number of North American dates remains the same.
But there is no question the Chicks are spending a lot less time in Dixie than they did during their 2003 tour, when Southern stops accounted for nearly a third of the 57 cities they visited.
"It is skewed more north," John Meglen, president and CEO of AEG Live, said of the band's current tour. "But remember, some of the markets we just haven't put on sale yet."
Meglen said the biggest handicap for the Chicks in the so-called red states, those carried by Bush in the 2004 presidential election, has been fallout from the band's political comments.
Lead singer Natalie Maines sparked an uproar in March 2003 when she declared during a London concert that the band was "ashamed" to come from the same state -- Texas -- as Bush.
She later said she was sorry for "disrespecting the office of the president" but fanned flames anew when she retracted her apology in a Time magazine interview this year, saying: "I don't feel he is owed any respect whatsoever."
Many country radio stations reacted by refusing to play the Chicks' music, "and some of those stations wouldn't even accept our money to run advertising" for their tour, Meglen said.
Meglen suggested that the lack of on-air promotion in various markets had more to do with sluggish ticket sales than with declining support from individual fans.
"I don't know if it's a question that the fans aren't buying the tickets. It might be that those fans don't even know the show is in town," he said.
Meglen pointed to Nielsen SoundScan figures showing that sales of the group's chart-topping latest album, "Taking the Long Way," were relatively even across the United States. The album has sold a total of 1.5 million copies domestically since its release in May.
And Gary Bongiovanni, editor of concert industry magazine Pollstar, said it is not uncommon for a band to adjust its tour schedule as it goes on.
"They're not necessarily going to every place they originally intended to go, but they've added other cities," he said. "They're going where they think their fans are."
Bryan Adams tops car song poll
MONTREAL (CP) - As the summer road trip season continues, Bryan Adams' classic Summer of '69 has topped the list of Canadians' favourite driving songs, everywhere but in Ontario, suggests a new poll.
The mid-1980s tune topped the list of seven suggested songs among men and women, according to a Decima Research survey of 1,000 Canadians. The song was more popular in Quebec at 36 per cent, compared with a national average of 27 per cent.
The other songs in order of preference were:
2). Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen;
3). Born to be Wild - Steppenwolf;
4). It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It) - The Rolling Stones;
5). Drive My Car - The Beatles;
6). Free Fallin' - Tom Petty;
7). Radar Love - Golden Earring.
Ontario was the only province not to pick the Adams tune as its favourite. Residents there preferred Bohemian Rhapsody.
British Columbians were divided between the song by Adams, a former Vancouver resident, and the Stones classic.
The order of preference of the seven songs was slightly different in each of the three provinces.
Adams said he appreciated topping the poll, especially in Quebec.
"I've always thought Quebecers had extremely good taste," he said in an e-mail.
Montreal radio DJ Claudine Prevost pinned the Adams song's popularity on its chorus and the memories it sparks among listeners.
"It's a good song because it's one that everyone knows," the CKOI-FM personality said Tuesday as the poll results were made public.
"Each summer, it's a song that people request."
The 29-year-old said she loves the song even though she is too young to have any memories of her own about that summer 37 years ago.
The seven songs were selected by music journalists. No French selections were included because they wouldn't be known across the country.
Danielle Martineau of Montreal said she prefers Bohemian Rhapsody but has great memories, nevertheless, of the summer when she was a freedom-loving teenager.
"In '69, I was 19," said Martineau, a Revenu-Quebec employee who attended the release of the results. "It was a great time in those years."
The poll was conducted July 12-19 as part of a national telephone survey paid for by various corporations. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The survey also found that two-thirds of Canadian drivers admitted to singing in the car.
Female singers outnumbered males 73 per cent to 58 per cent.
Ontario residents were the most likely to sing in the car, while Quebecers were the least likely. Almost half of Quebecers said they never sing in the car.
More than half of respondents across Canada said they preferred to sing along with songs on the radio, while 34 per cent selected songs on their CD, MP3 or cassette players.
B.C. drivers claimed they were most likely to get caught singing by other motorists. Some 64 per cent said they were spotted, compared with the national average of 50 per cent.
But Alberta drivers were the most confident, with 82 per cent saying they would continue to sing when spotted by other drivers.
Sarah McLachlan to release her first holiday album
Singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan will celebrate Christmas with the release of her first holiday album, "Wintersong," due in stores Oct. 17.
The 12-song collection features the Canadian folk-pop singer's unique spin on holiday classics, with a few unusual choices thrown in, including a cover of John Lennon's "Merry Xmas (War is Over)" and Joni Mitchell's "River," which includes the line "It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees..."
The album features several standards, including "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas," as well as a cover of Gordon Lightfoot's 1975 "Song For a Winter's Night."
Several guests make appearances on the disc, including Diana Krall on piano for "Christmas Time is Here," from the 1965 Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon, and fellow Canadian Jim Creeggan of Barenaked Ladies, who plays bass throughout the album.
On the Lennon cover, McLachlan is backed by a Vancouver children's choir from a school the singer personally funds and oversees through her Sarah McLachlan Music Outreach Program.
"As a kid," McLachlan said in a press release, "music saved my life; having that one thing that I knew I was good at made all the difference. It feels so good to be able to see their lives impacted. There's hardly any joy comparable."
"Wintersong" is McLachlan's first studio album since 2003's double-platinum "Afterglow," which received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album.
Springsteen readies expanded 'Seeger Sessions'
A revamped version of Bruce Springsteen's recent tribute to folk artist Pete Seeger will hit stores on Oct. 3, according to Columbia Records.
Dubbed "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions - American Land Edition," the updated collection--which contains a CD, DVD and 28-page booklet--will feature five additional songs, exclusive live footage, music videos and previously unseen photos.
The CD's five new cuts include Springsteen's take on the Great Depression-era song "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live."
"This song was written by Blind Alfred Reed and recorded a month after the crash of '29 that heralded the Great Depression," Springsteen said in a statement. "I first heard it on Ry Cooder's self-titled debut album (1970). To his arrangement we owe a debt. I kept the 'doctor' first verse by Reed then wrote three others with a mind to the great trials the people of New Orleans have faced this year."
Rounding out the five additional tracks on the forthcoming set are "Bring 'Em Home," which Seeger penned during the Vietnam War, and to which Springsteen added several new verses; "American Land," a song Seeger wrote after reading "He Lies in the American Land," a poem by a Slovakian immigrant steelworker; and "Buffalo Gals" and "How Can I Keep from Singing," both of which first turned up on the DVD side of the previously released DualDisc version of "We Shall Overcome."
Fans who already own a copy of "The Seeger Sessions" won't have to buy the "American Land Edition" to obtain the new songs, as each cut will also be sold individually via Apple's iTunes Music Store.
The "American Land Edition" DVD will include behind-the-scenes footage of Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band recording "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions"; music videos of "American Land" and "Pay Me My Money Down" by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny; concert footage of Springsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band performing "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" (from Los Angeles, CA, June 5, 2006) and "Bring 'Em Home" (from Concord, CA, June 6, 2006); rare photos of Springsteen taken by Danny Clinch; and additional lyrics and liner notes written by music scholar Dave Marsh.
Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band, who in late June wrapped up a US tour behind "The Seeger Sessions," will launch a European tour in early October.
In April, The Las Vegas Sun reported that guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt of Springsteen's E Street Band, during a phone interview with Las Vegas radio station KKLZ-FM, said Springsteen and The E Street Band plan to tour next year.