U2 Back In The Studio With Rick Rubin, Green Day
U2 is working on material for its next studio album with producer Rick Rubin, according to the band's Web site. The group has been at work on the as-yet-untitled follow-up to 2004's "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" since last month. While in the studio, U2 will be joined by Green Day to record a cover of Scottish punk band the Skids' "The Saints Are Coming."
Proceeds from the track will benefit Music Rising, an instrument replacement fund co-founded by U2 guitarist the Edge last summer in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
"One year later, the devastation is still fresh in our minds, and we'd like to keep it in yours," Green Day said in a post on its Web site. "New Orleans has always been a special city to us, being a hotbed of music and creativity, and it's hard to believe parts of the Gulf region still remain devastated. We feel that it's important to continue to raise awareness."
Meanwhile, a DVD chronicling U2's Zoo TV tour will arrive Sept. 19 via Island/UME.
'Simpsons' creator Matt Groening says 'let's keep doing it' as show turns 18
LOS ANGELES (AP) - As Bart Simpson skips into his 18th season of TV mischief, fans will be glad to know that creator Matt Groening sees no end in sight for the wayward lad or "The Simpsons."
Groening's reasoning is sound: the show, which returns Sunday night, is fun to make, fun to watch, just earned its 23rd Emmy and is finally jumping to the big screen with a summer 2007 movie about Bart and the rest of Springfield's first family.
"My attitude at this point is, as long as the people who work on the show are having a good time, let's keep doing it," he said. "We've always tried to entertain ourselves and figured that the outside world would be entertained if we were making ourselves laugh."
The key is to keep surprising the audience, which he acknowledged has become tougher because the show has "covered a lot of territory" through the years. It has, in fact, brilliantly lampooned nearly every aspect of American life and culture.
"But there's a really good-natured spirit of competitiveness among the youngest writers on the staff who basically grew up watching the show and have a great memory for everything that's gone before," he said.
The series is seen in more than 70 countries, which along with scads of "Simpsons"-based merchandise has made it a reported billion-dollar cartoon cash cow for Fox parent News Corp.
"The people currently on staff are determined not to be the staff that caused the show to crash and burn. But also to try to top ourselves," Groening said.
"The Simpsons" has been renewed by Fox through its 19th year. The ensemble voice cast includes Nancy Cartwright as Bart, Dan Castellaneta as dad Homer, Julie Kavner as mom Marge, Yeardley Smith as sister Lisa, Harry Shearer as boss man Mr. Burns and Hank Azaria as police Chief Wiggum (Azaria and several others in the cast perform multiple voices).
Last month, it won its ninth Emmy for best animated series and has received best voiceover performance and other honours. Groening called the latest award "a shot in the arm. ... I thought people might be jaded but, no, they weren't."
The program is known for its stellar guest stars and promises not to disappoint this season. In an episode in which Lisa helps Moe the bartender become a poet, she encounters Gore Vidal and Tom Wolfe, voiced by the literary giants themselves.
"They don't usually do cartoons. You don't see them on 'SpongeBob,' " Groening noted, slyly.
Sunday's season opener (8 p.m. EDT) revolves around Homer's brush with mob life and includes Joe Mantegna as Springfield's big boss Fat Tony and Michael Imperioli and Joe Pantoliano of "The Sopranos."
In a Sept. 17 episode with the White Stripes rock band, Bart is injured by a tiger that Lisa rescued and organizes a benefit concert to help pay for an operation on his drumming arm.
The landmark 400th half-hour, due to air next May, is a spoof of Fox's "24" that's titled "24 Minutes" and features the drama's Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub as their characters.
"Fox is very happy about this for some reason," said Groening, who at times has clashed with his corporate bosses about stories that carry more potential for controversy than network promotion.
(The riskiest targets, he once said, are those closest to home. The network has whined loudly when it, its properties or its advertisers are needled.)
Groening's schedule is especially full these days. Besides his work on "The Simpsons," he and partner David Cohen are bringing one-time Fox series "Futurama" back to TV with new episodes on Comedy Central beginning in 2008.
"My day started at 7 a.m." Groening said Thursday. "It's crazy. We just run from one room to another. ... People ask, 'Why did you wait so long to do a movie?' and now I have a really good answer. Because there's only 24 hours in a day and you have to sleep sometime."
The movie's timing was a well-kept secret that was sprung on the world when a trailer appeared in theatres last April. The plot remains under wraps although a rough-form snippet was shown last month at Comic-Con, the comic book convention, and web speculation has it that a nuclear accident isolates Springfield.
Groening knows firsthand that "Simpsons" buffs are beyond ready for the film.
"It's really annoying coming on the (studio) lot everyday and having the security guard say, '214 days!' He's such a fan he can't wait for the movie," Groening said. "I don't come in that gate."
But he admits to his own eagerness.
"We've shown episodes of 'The Simpsons' to audiences at colleges, various conventions, and it's so much fun, such a different experience to see it with an appreciative audience," he said. "Part of my motivation for doing the movie is I just want to hear a theatre full of people laughing at the cartoon rather than being at home in the dingy rumpus room."
Cat's Musical Comeback
Yusuf Islam is hoping fans will remember him with a smile. And an open wallet.
The singer-songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens has announced plans to release An Other Cup, his first pop album in nearly three decades, this November.
The "Wild World" singer has teamed with Atlantic Records and his own Ya label to distribute the album, the release of which will mark the 40th anniversary of the folk singer's first record, I Love My Dog.
"There were one hundred reasons for leaving the music industry back in 1979, not least because I had found what I was looking for spiritually," the 59-year-old said. "Today there are perhaps one hundred and one good reasons why I feel right making music and singing about life in this fragile world again.
"It is important for me to be able to help bridge the cultural gaps others are sometimes frightened to cross."
The singer changed his name in 1977 shortly after a near-death drowning inspired him to convert to Islam and took a new name. His last secular studio album, Back to Earth, was released in 1978. The following year, he announced his retirement from the music biz.
While he has released a handful of religious recordings over the years, it took until 2005 for Islam to issue another mainstream song, "Indian Ocean." Proceeds from the download-only track went to benefit victims of the tsunami that had devastated Southeast Asia. The same year, he played guitar on a Dolly Parton album and recorded a duet with Ronan Keating.
This time around, Islam is returning full-force to his pop roots. The 12-track album includes a cover of the raucous Animals hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"; the Islam-penned ditty "Heaven/Where True Love Goes" will be the debut single.
"We are all truly fortunate that Yusuf has chosen this moment to return to contemporary music," Atlantic Chairman Craig Kallman said, describing the first time he heard the music man's comeback album a "chilling" experience.
Atlantic has already announced plans for Islam to promote the album this fall, promising that every precaution will be taken to ensure the singer doesn't inadvertently set into motion any international incidents.
In 2004, his London-based flight to the U.S. was diverted, he was denied entry to the U.S. after his name popped up on a Homeland Security no-fly watch list "for activities potentially related to terrorism." Islam was held for questioning in Maine before his eventual deportation to the U.K.
Arsalan Iftikhar, the national legal director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Bloomberg News that the his group and the label "don't anticipate any problems in the future when [Islam] arrives."
After all, nobody wants to derail the Peace Train.
Brad Pitt: I'll marry when everyone can
NEW YORK - Brad Pitt, ever the social activist, says he won't be marrying Angelina Jolie until the restrictions on who can marry whom are dropped. "Angie and I will consider tying the knot when everyone else in the country who wants to be married is legally able," the 42-year-old actor reveals in Esquire magazine's October issue, on newsstands Sept. 19.
In the article he reflects on "fifteen things I think everyone should know."
Though Shiloh, the world-famous daughter of Pitt and girlfriend/earth mother Angelina Jolie, hogged much attention upon her birth in May, Pitt says he "cannot imagine life" without adopted children, Maddox, 5, and Zahara, 1.
"They're as much of my blood as any natural born, and I'm theirs," says Pitt. "That's all I can say about it. I can't live without them. So: Anyone considering (adoption), that's my vote."
Pitt, who plays a world traveler in the upcoming drama "Babel," subscribes to a laid-back parenting style.
"I try not to stifle them in any way," he says. "If it's not hurting anyone, I want them to be able to explore. Sometimes that means they're quite rambunctious."
Lucky kids.
"I feel it's really important to have that time to sit and talk to them," he continues. "I really like that last minute before they fade off. And always give them a heads-up before you jerk them out of something. You need to tell them, like, `You have three more minutes.'"