[HOT]
Fluting for the Stars
In 1969, if you’d told Ian Anderson — bug-eyed frontman for Jethro Tull — that one day he would be performing a duet with someone floating 220 miles above the earth … well, he probably would have said, “But, of course” (drugs were pretty popular that year). NASA recently honored the 50th anniversary of the first human launched into space by setting up an interstellar jam session between an earth-bound Anderson and flute-playing astronaut Cady Coleman, who is on the international space station. The historic “first space-Earth flute duet” was broadcast live online and went off without a hitch. That is until the other space station astronauts began drunkenly screaming at Anderson, “Play ‘Aqualung’!”
[WARM]
Catty Catholic Cultural Critics
Lately, Lady Gaga’s love for Madonna has been worn unapologetically on her meat-flavored sleeve. She shamelessly appropriated Maddie’s “Respect Yourself” on her “Born This Way” single and now she’s twisting religious imagery to ride the inevitable wave of controversy to even more publicity and sales. Gaga returned to the Madonna “How To” guide to make a music video for her song “Judas” that has Gaga falling in love with a black Jesus (not at all like the “Like a Prayer” video). The Catholic groups quoted in a rollingstone.com report all threw out insults fit for a gossip blogger — one called her “Lady Rerun” for her Madonna rip-offs, one referred to her as “Lady Caca” and challenged her to take on Islam next time and Catholic League President Bill Donohue denounced the song/video calling Gaga “mundane and boring.” Meanwhile, Gaga announced her impending marriage to Sean Penn, copulation with Dennis Rodman, development of an illogical, pretentious British accent and plans for several astonishingly horrible movie roles.
[COLD]
Pain in the Beck
Poor Glenn Beck. After turning his TV show into a meandering surrealistic theater piece even cable public access programmers would hesitate putting on the airwaves, Fox cancelled the program. Now, he’s pissing off Canadian Indie bands. The group Metric has gone public with their anger over Beck’s radio show’s use of one of their songs as “bumper” music (previously, Brit rockers Muse also complained about their songs being used by Beck). The band was “mortified” when they learned from a fan that one of their songs was being used on Beck’s program and contacted the show’s producers asking them to stop because they didn’t want fans to think they endorsed the whack-job pundit. Perhaps due to all of the Beck ill will lately, the show’s lawyer sent a letter noting that they had full rights to play the song (under a “blanket” licensing agreement with publishers), but would pull it from the show regardless. They didn’t want to lose their key Indie Rock hipster demographic. And Beck’s more of an AIDS Wolf fan anyway.
