Original Rush drummer dies
TORONTO - Fans around the world are expressing their sorrow over the death of drummer John Rutsey, a co-founding member of the seminal rock band Rush.
Rutsey, who left the group after recording their first album in 1974, died last week in Toronto from complications stemming from a lifelong battle with diabetes.
His family announced the death in newspaper notices. He was 55.
Rutsey co-founded Rush with lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson in 1968, but left the group for health reasons.
He was replaced by drummer and lyricist Neil Peart just before the group's first U.S. tour.
On the Rush website, Lee and Lifeson say they fondly recall their early days with Rutsey and say that he will be deeply missed.
"Those years spent in our teens dreaming of one day doing what we continue to do decades later are special," they state.
"Although our paths diverged many years ago, we smile today, thinking back on those exciting times and remembering John's wonderful sense of humour and impeccable timing."
The family has requested donations be made in Rutsey's memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Meanwhile, online condolences poured in from Rush fans around the world, with responses to one newspaper notice including messages from Australia, Germany, the United States, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
"You were the ORIGINAL drummer in the greatest band in the world," writes Douglas Walsh of Metairie, La.
"If not for YOU, who knows what would have happened! Although you may not have known it, you were loved and respected by all Rush fans and the band themselves. God bless ya man! Drum on!"
Cook triumphs over Archuleta on 'American Idol'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The grown-up rocker triumphed over the smooth-voiced kid as David Cook claimed the "American Idol" title Wednedsay, and it wasn't as much of a surprise as it seemed.
While 17-year-old Archuleta was heaped with praise by the judges the night before, the voters decided otherwise — and did they ever. Host Ryan Seacrest said during Wednesday's show that 12 million votes was the difference, and they broke in the favor of the 25-year-old from Blue Springs, Mo.
Cook was overcome by emotion, bending toward the stage after his name was announced.
"This is amazing," he said. "This is all your fault," he added, addressing the brother who Cook had accompanied to the "Idol" audition that started it all.
Cook immediately took the microphone and began to sing "Time of my Life," which won the annual "Idol songwriting competition, to close out season seven.
Cook refused to bow to the conventional during his three-song set Tuesday, with Collective Soul's "The World I Know" as his pick for a closing performance. He also sang U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" and the power ballad "Dream Big," his choice from the songwriting competition's finalists.
"If I had to choose between playing a song that not a whole lot of people know that I could get behind, or the opposite, I'll choose the lesser-known every time," Cook told The Associated Press backstage Tuesday.
Judge Simon Cowell said at the time that the song choices sunk him, and told Archuleta that he'd scored a "knockout" performance in the boxing-themed performance finale.
Cook was unshaken, and now his choices are vindicated.
With a record 97.5 million audience votes cast by phone and text, the split between the two contestants was 56 percent for one David and 44 percent for the other, Seacrest announced at the start of the show.
Hedley leads MMVA nominations
TORONTO - Pop-rock pranksters Hedley lead the nominees for this year's MuchMusic Video Awards, ensuring a wild carnival ride for the annual celebrity street party.
Jacob Hoggard and the boys snagged six nods while rapper Belly and pop band IllScarlett each got five nominations. The annual music show, traditionally an off-the-wall spectacle that overtakes Toronto's trendy Queen Street with a red carpet and live performances, airs live June 15.
Last year, members of Hedley showed up with a nude male blow-up doll and the previous year they dropped their pants on the red carpet.
Other multiple nominees this year include three for Simple Plan and two each for City and Colour, Feist and Sam Roberts.
International nominees include Fall Out Boy, Flo Rida, Kanye West, Rihanna, and Timbaland Presents OneRepublic.
Performers are expected to be announced next week.
Grammy Awards set 2009 date
The Recording Academy has set Feb. 8, 2009, as the date the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, to be held once again from the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The Grammys have been telecast live from the Staples Center since 2000, with one exception coming in 2003, when the awards were held in New York.
The 2009 awards will once again fall on a Sunday, where, overall, the show has enjoyed solid TV ratings. In 2006, the Grammys aired on a Wednesday and lost its night to "American Idol," but bounced back in 2007. This year's telecast, which featured performances from Alicia Keys, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse, scored 17.5 million total viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research, about a 12% dip from the 2007 broadcast.
With today's announcement from the Recording Academy, the eligibility period for the 2009 Grammy Awards has also been confirmed. Once again, the Grammys will recognize albums released between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008. While allowing more time for votes to be tabulated, the eligibility period forces the Grammys to recognize some of the year's blockbuster releases a year late, as October and November tend to be two of the music industry's busiest months.
Set to open prior to next year's Grammy telecast will be the 30,000-square-foot Grammy Museum, located next to the Staples Center at the L.A. Live entertainment complex (home to the Nokia Theatre). The four-floor museum, with a small theater and a rooftop terrace for private events, is slated to open in late 2008, according to a Grammy spokeswoman.
Nominations for the 51st Annual Grammy Awards will be announced on Dec. 4 from Los Angeles. The Feb. 9, 2009, awards will once again be broadcast live on CBS, airing on a tape delay for West Coast viewers.
Lee: Eastwood omitted black troops in WWII films
CANNES, France - Spike Lee is slamming Clint Eastwood over his two recent Iwo Jima movies, saying the filmmaker overlooked the role of black soldiers during World War II.
Lee — whose next film is this fall's "Miracle at St. Anna," the story of an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during the war — said Eastwood's 2006 movies "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima" were whites-only affairs.
"He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back and there was not one black soldier in both of those films," Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was a judge in an online short-film competition.
"Many veterans, African-Americans, who survived that war are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version," Lee said.
Eastwood was in Cannes for his missing-child drama "Changeling," starring Angelina Jolie. At a news conference for the film, a reporter tried to ask for his reaction to Lee's criticism, but the moderator cut her off and told journalists to limit questions to Eastwood's own movie.
Due in U.S. theaters in October, "Miracle at St. Anna" centers on four Americans — played by Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller — in the Buffalo Soldiers division in Tuscany.