Category: Why?!?!?

The Who to release EP in June
While the Who might not have its full-length album ready this summer, the group is releasing “The Glass Household” EP this June, a “Mini-Opera” inspired in part from guitarist Pete Townshend’s online novella “The Boy Who Heard Music.”
“I decided I would like to release a record prior to the European shows, even if only on the Internet,” Townshend wrote on his Web site Mar. 18. “However, Polydor has agreed in principle to release something plastic prior to the main album.”
The approximately 11-minute release will contain six songs and is being delivered to Polydor at the end of March. No song titles have been revealed.
Singer Roger Daltrey began recording vocals on Mar. 20 on the project, engineered by Bob Pridden and Myles Clarke. The songs originated from an idea Townshend had in early January and were to be “the backbone for some kind of large theatrical music event.”
Daltrey, however, declined to be a part of that particular project. “So the principle focus of my creative output seemed closed to me when it came to writing music for the Who album,” Townshend writes. “I managed a few songs that stood alone, but even those seemed to have sprung from whatever was going on in my heart as I worked on TBWHM.”
A meeting with Eel Pie manager Nick Goderson changed the idea from a “Magnum-Opus” into a “Mini-Opera” with Townshend creating roughly seven or eight lyrical poems. “I did a couple of quick demos and by January 17th I knew I had about 30 minutes of music that would create a vigorous backbone for the Who album, but allow me to continue to draw on the bloodline of ‘The Boy Who Heard Music,'” Towshend says.
After completing ten songs, including two full-length numbers and the remainder being “shorter, punchier or simple and ballad-like,” Townshend began working with musicians at his Oceanic studio in late February. The musicians include bassist Pino Palladino, John “Rabbit” Bundrick on keyboards and Simon Townshend and Billy Nicholls on backing vocals. Drummer Peter Huntington, from Townshend’s girlfriend Rachel Fuller’s band, stood in for Zak Starkey who was wrapping up dates with Oasis.
The release will be the first of entirely new material since the band’s last studio album “It’s Hard” in 1982. The group will mount a series of European festival shows June 25 at the Wireless Festival in Leeds, England.

Sequel Planned For “The Pink Panther”
Sony may have bought them last year, but MGM is apparently still in the movie business with plans to put their Pink Panther in front of cameras again.
According to IESB.net, the studio’s famous roaring lion is hot on the Panther’s tail for a follow-up family/comedy film. We can be sure to expect Steve Martin to return to the role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, first made famous during the ’60s by the legendary British comedic actor Peter Sellers.
With negotiations failing to bring back the large cast of Martin’s on-screen family for more Cheaper by the Dozen films, the 59-year-old funny-man is free to sink his teeth into another movie remake franchise.

NO GRAY WIG REQUIRED THIS TIME AROUND
Mrs. Doubtfire isn’t finished yet. Eleven years after the Robin Williams drag comedy appeared on the big screen, a sequel to the hit film is in the works at Fox 2000. Williams is in early talks to reprise his role as Mrs. Doubtfire and resume producing duties with Marsha Williams. Bonnie Hunt also is in talks to pen the project. In the original, directed by Chris Columbus, Williams played an estranged father who poses as a Scottish nanny, Euphegenia Doubtfire, in order to get access to his children and successfully bypass his ex-wife (Sally Field).
The film grossed $219 million domestically. The film garnered two Golden Globes in 1994, one for best picture (comedy/musical) and one for Williams as best actor in a comedy/musical. The film also won an Oscar for best makeup for Williams’ elaborate transformation into a frumpy, bespectacled older woman. Williams’ recent credits include David Duchovny’s “House of D” and Christopher Nolan’s “Insomnia.” The Oscar-winning actor has just been announced to receive the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. at the 62nd annual Golden Globes on Jan. 16.

IT’S MARY-KATE AND ASHLEY, THANK YOU!
Reps for former Full House stars-turned-“tween” entrepreneurs Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen asking the media to no longer refer to them as “The Olsen Twins.” Rather, the sisters would like to be called simply by their own names.

Toga! Toga! Toga!
Harold Ramis was on a Chicago radio station talking sports, like he sometimes call’s in and does, and mentioned he’s….working on a remake of “ANIMAL HOUSE”!
He’s writing it. it’s his way of introducing it and comedies back to the audience of today. Yes, Flounder will be in it – he jokes, but not the same actor. He does hope the original guys come back to do cameos though.

Stones to Release Toronto SARS Gig on DVD
TORONTO (Billboard) – The Rolling Stones’ performance at the “SARSfest” extravaganza in Toronto last July will be released on DVD next spring.
The Stones’ tour manager, Michael Cohl, told the Toronto Sun that all 13 performers at the July 30 Downsview Park concert were recorded and should be included in the DVD, but it’s not known if the entire concert will be released.
“We’re hoping by April or May to have it out,” Cohl said.
The daylong concert, which was designed to boost Toronto’s sagging economy in the wake of the deaths caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), attracted some 450,000 people and also featured AC/DC, Rush, Justin Timberlake and the Flaming Lips. It was formally billed as Molson Canadian Rocks for Toronto.
Highlights included an appearance by AC/DC siblings Angus and Malcolm Young as the Stones covered “Rock Me Baby.” But Timberlake’s duet with Mick Jagger on “Miss You” was rewarded with a volley of empty bottles from outraged fans, who in turn received stern glares from Keith Richards.
Cohl added he’s not sure if the upcoming DVD will be made available to all retailers; the Stones’ recent “Four Flicks” DVD was sold exclusively by Best Buy and Future Shop, resulting in some stores removing Stones-related merchandise from their racks.