Roots, childhood fantasies spark cross-Canada White Stripes tour
Jack White admits there's little that makes practical sense about the White Stripes' upcoming tour through Canada — an ambitious journey that involves stops in every province and territory, from B.C. to Newfoundland to Nunavut.
He doesn't expect the expansive — and expensive — trek to make any money. And in large part, it's rooted in childhood fantasies of life in the North.
"Even when it doesn't break even, it's still not the point of it, you know," White said by phone from a recording studio in Nashville, Tenn.
"As a kid, I saw some cowboy TV shows where they talked about the Yukon a lot, and the Alaskan-Yukon border. Sometimes there'd be like a bank robber or some kind of a cowboy outlaw that kind of went across the border to the Yukon side of it, and these cowboys or Lone Ranger types couldn't get to them … That was always exotic to me. I always liked that word — Yukon."
Besides, it's the rock duo's 10th anniversary this year, and to mark it, the guitarist and his drummer Meg White are on a mission to visit every region in Canada and the United States.
They start their 18-city Canadian adventure in Burnaby, B.C., on June 24 and wrap it up in St. John's, N.L., on July 16. The U.S. leg that follows includes stops in the 16 states they have yet to visit.
Canadian roots
But the rocker with the wild dark mane is also on a quest to discover his Canadian roots. White notes that family from his father's Scottish side spent "a couple generations" in Nova Scotia before heading south to work in Detroit car factories.
"There's family all throughout there — all around Sydney Mines and Antigonish and all those places," said White, whose family background is also half Polish.
"Supposedly there's ties from me to [fiddlers] Ashley MacIsaac, Natalie MacMaster."
White admits he has no proof of this, so fans may want to take that claim with a grain of salt.
After all, the man's own relationship with bandmate Meg White has long been a bone of contention since they claimed early in their career to be brother and sister. Court documents subsequently revealed them to be divorced.
White steers clear of questions that get too personal, but nevertheless insists that a highlight of the tour is a stop in Glace Bay, N.S., on July 14 — the band's 10th anniversary. White said the confluence of that landmark date with the Maritime province was a happy coincidence.
"I'd always wanted to go to Nova Scotia, I'd never been there and it landed on our 10th anniversary — it was kind of perfect," White said.
"We found this beautiful theatre, it's all red and white and black inside, and it seemed to be a 'God-bless-the-moment.' Hopefully it'll be a good show."
Most of the Stripes' other Canadian stops involve provincial capitals, but there are also smaller communities often ignored by rock itineraries.
For a time, larger centres like Montreal and Toronto were left off the Whites' list altogether.
"I first started off saying I don't want to play the major cities in Canada," White said.
"That's where my head's at. Let's just play everywhere else in Canada that we can. But, you know, you got to make the tour work, you got to pay for the bus and the truck that's got your gear in it. There's got to be something that makes sense business-wise, I suppose."
Tour economics aside, White insists that smaller shows tend to equal bigger fun. They often draw diverse crowds that are more appreciative of the performance, he said.
"Playing in a smaller club is better than playing in a big arena, playing in a small town is better than playing in a big town, and playing in a town that is on the outskirts that people don't usually go to is, of course, way better than playing a huge, major city in any country," he said.
"You're always going to have better shows because people are just more involved. In the bigger towns, sometimes you'll find crowds that kind of go to rock 'n' roll shows and kind of treat it like they're going to watch a movie or sit in front of a television. They're not involved actively in any way, and it's disappointing. Because the show, it could be so much better if people would sort of put forth some energy. Sometimes you're dying up there. You need a helping hand."
'Heavy record" set for release
The White Stripes' sixth studio album, Icky Thump, comes out June 19.
White said the name is derived from the expression "ecky thump," a traditional phrase from northern England that his wife, model Karen Elson, would use.
"I was just saying it out loud when we were writing the song and it sort of summed up that song and it started to sum up the entire album, and that sort of started to sum up the whole 10 years we've been together … It just felt right every time the word got written or said."
White said fans can expect "a heavy record" that touches on a wide range of genres including Scottish music, mariachi music, speed metal and southern American country music.
Amid all the tour planning, White is also hard at work on his second Raconteurs disc. He said they've put down about 20 tracks so far.
Beastie Boys Go Instrumental On 'The Mix-Up'
Returning to a style dabbled in with 1996's "The In Sound From Way Out!," the Beastie Boys will release an instrumental album, "The Mix-Up," June 26 via Capitol. The 12-track set is the follow-up to 2004's "To the 5 Boroughs," which debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200.
"The Mix-Up" features guest turns from longtime collaborator Money Mark and percussionist Alfredo Ortiz. Sources say down the road, an alternate version of the project may be released with vocals from outside contributors.
As previously reported, the Beasties will play some instrumental shows this summer in tandem with a slate of regular gigs. Dates get underway May 26 at the Sasquatch! festival in George, Wash.
Here is the track list for "The Mix-Up":
"Be for My Name"
"14th St. Break"
"Suco De Tangerina"
"The Gala Event"
"Electric Worm"
"Freaky Hijiki"
"Off the Grid"
"The Rat Cage"
"The Melee"
"Dramastically Different"
"The Cousin of Death"
"The Kangaroo Rat"
Ashlee Simpson 'confident' about looks
NEW YORK (AP) — Ashlee Simpson, who made headlines last year when she turned up with a new image and profile, says she's still the same on the inside.
"I feel very confident with the way I look," the 22-year-old singer says in Cosmopolitan magazine's June issue, on newsstands Tuesday. "But I felt just as confident the way I looked before. I've always been confident with who I am."
Simpson — the sister of 26-year-old Jessica Simpson, another tabloid fixture — raised eyebrows when she debuted a more feminine look and softer profile, fueling speculation that she'd removed the bump that made her nose distinctive. When asked last spring if she'd had surgery, she told The Associated Press: "Maybe — who knows!"
Though she's been seen recently with Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz, Simpson has a soft spot for surfer dudes.
"It's really hard for me to like Hollywood-type guys," she says. "I like guys who are relaxed and chill and who think I'm sexy no matter what I do. And I like guys who are into surfing. They're cute and seem more laid-back, and I'm a pretty laid-back person."
Simpson, who is working on her third album, says she has matured both as a person and an artist.
"I'm in a stronger place now," she says. "I'm coming into my womanhood, and it's changing my music."
Record summer in store for Hollywood?
LOS ANGELES - Everyone in Hollywood expects a big summer. The industry will get an idea of just how big come Friday, when "Spider-Man 3" opens a season laden with more potential blockbusters than the movie business has ever seen.
Will the third adventure of Tobey Maguire's web-slinger surpass the then-record $114.8 million opening weekend for "Spider-Man" in 2002?
Will it rival last year's record-breaking $135.6 million weekend of "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest"?
"There is no better way to start a summer than with a `Spider-Man' film," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "If you had to create a template for the perfect summer movie season, this is pretty much it."
Hollywood could have its first $4 billion summer, topping the record $3.95 billion haul from the first weekend in May through Labor Day in 2004. Factoring in higher admission prices, modern Hollywood's best summer for attendance came in 2002 with 653 million tickets sold, another record that could fall.
How well "Spider-Man 3" does will be a sign of how much Hollywood can expect from the onslaught of films to follow.
Two weeks after "Spider-Man 3" comes "Shrek the Third," with Mike Myers back as the voice of the crusty ogre in the franchise whose second installment is the highest-grossing animated film ever with $436.7 million domestically.
The next week brings the debut of Johnny Depp's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," following "Dead Man's Chest," last year's biggest hit with $423.3 million.
Previous installments in those three franchises account for three of the four biggest opening weekends ever ("Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith" was the other). And four earlier chapters — "Shrek 2," "Dead Man's Chest" and the first two "Spider-Man" flicks — are among the top-10 highest-grossing pictures ever.
Hollywood always schedules big leadoff batters in May, but the month has never packed three heavy-hitters like this. They could combine to lift Hollywood to its busiest Memorial Day ever, topping 2004's record of $246.2 million over the four-day weekend.
"You've seen three pictures in May do just tremendous business in the past, but I think with these three pictures, you're going to see numbers like you've never seen before," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution for Sony, which is releasing "Spider-Man 3." "Theaters are just going to be a happening place. They're going to be absolutely the place to be over Memorial Day weekend."
The question is how well the three movies can do against one another. "Spider-Man 3" has two full weeks without a major competitor, but "Shrek the Third" has just one week before the "Pirates" sequel sails in.
"Do we wish `Pirates' were on a different date? Absolutely," said Jim Tharp, head of distribution for Paramount, which is distributing DreamWorks Animation's "Shrek the Third." "But the market should be able to expand to take care of both movies."
Summer generally slacks off once the summer behemoths run their course. This season, the schedule barely lets up, with such sequels as " Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," "Ocean's Thirteen," "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Rush Hour 3" and "Evan Almighty," plus the animated comedies "The Simpsons Movie" and "Surf's Up."
While big new films arrive nearly every weekend, they often will be angling for different audiences. The family-friendly cartoon "Ratatouille" opens against Bruce Willis' action sequel "Live Free or Die Hard" one weekend, the sci-fi saga "Transformers" against Robin Williams' comedy "License to Wed" the next.
The teen girls' mystery "Nancy Drew" debuts opposite the superhero sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," while Adam Sandler's comedy "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" premieres the same weekend as John Travolta's musical "Hairspray."
"The greatest part of this summer is the consistency of options we're offering," said Chuck Viane, head of distribution at Disney, whose films include the "Pirates" sequel and "Ratatouille." "Whatever you want to see on a given weekend will be in the marketplace."
Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., said he counts 18 to 20 movies this summer with potential to gross more than $100 million. Most summers might have 10 films with such prospects, he said.
The picture has changed wildly from two years ago, when Hollywood had its worst summer since the late 1990s, with attendance dropping 11.5 percent.
Studio executives said it was just an off year full of weak movies. Critics speculated that video games, home-theater systems and other entertainment options were luring away movie crowds, but a solid rebound at theaters in 2006 and this year indicate otherwise.
"A few years ago, when the box office was in a little dip, many of us were talking about content, or the lack of it," said Fellman, whose Warner Bros. titles include the "Harry Potter" sequel and "Ocean's Thirteen." "It boils down to content. The way things lined up, it just all hit this year."
Still, the movie business is fickle. Revenues were surging a month ago, but Hollywood has stumbled through a few dreary weekends since then, the year's early gains now trimmed to a marginal 1.2 percent rise in attendance compared to 2006.
A few hits can turn a bad year into a good one, while a few misses can send a solid year into the dumps.
"The only cautionary note that should be in this whole thing is, there's always something that doesn't work," said David Tuckerman, head of distribution at New Line Cinema, which is releasing "Rush Hour 3" and "Hairspray." "So the question is, what isn't going to work?"
'Spider-Man 3' hauls in $29M in opening
LOS ANGELES - "Spider-Man 3" cast a worldwide web with a blockbuster first day, hauling in $29.15 million in 16 overseas markets and beating the debuts of the previous two "Spider-Man" flicks in each locale.
The film had the best opening day ever Tuesday in some countries, including France, Italy, South Korea and Hong Kong, distributor Sony Pictures said.
"Spider-Man 3" opens over the next couple of days in dozens of other countries, including the United States on Friday.
"`Spider-Man' is a worldwide franchise, and the thing we're most excited about is that in two pretty completely separate parts of the world we've gotten off to a great start," Jeff Blake, Sony vice chairman, said Wednesday. "We certainly hope for the same in North America."
Domestically, 2002's "Spider-Man" opened with $114.8 million in its first weekend, a record debut that stood until "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" shattered it last year with a $135.6 million weekend.
"Spider-Man 2" opened on a Wednesday before the Fourth of July weekend in 2004, pulling in a record $180.1 million in its first six days.
The two previous films combined for a total of $1.6 billion worldwide, about half of that coming in the United States.
In France, "Spider-Man 3" took in $6.8 million on opening day, more than the first-day grosses there for "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2" combined.
It grossed $4.6 million in Germany, $4 million in Italy, $3.7 million in Japan, $3.4 million in South Korea, $1.1 million in the Philippines and $1 million each in Hong Kong and Thailand.
The third installment in director Sam Raimi's superhero series, "Spider-Man 3" reunites Tobey Maguire as the web-slinger, Kirsten Dunst as the love of his life and James Franco as his old pal turned enemy.
Adapted from the Marvel comic books, the film also introduces two new villains, Thomas Haden Church as the Sandman and Topher Grace as Venom.
Along with bad guys, Spidey ends up battling his own dark side as he fights the temptation to use his powers for evil after an alien entity infects his superhero outfit.