RINGO: All He Is Saying Is Give Peace & Love a Chance...Ringo Starr celebrates another milestone birthday tomorrow (Tuesday) when he turns 75. And as he's done for the past 10 years, all he asks is that at noon, wherever you are, just say, "Peace and Love." He says doing so will make his "heart sing."
Ringo, along with his wife Barbara Bach and friends, will be making their proclamations in front of the landmark Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood.
ERIC CLAPTON: Soundtrack Work
Eric Clapton has composed his first film soundtrack since working on the Lethal Weapon franchise in the late '80s and early '90s.
This latest effort is for director Philippe Mora's documentary, Three Days in Auschwitz, which will debut at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland on July 24th. Mora, who's been friends with Clapton since 1967, says, "This was a unique and trusting collaboration between old friends. I was simply blown away by Eric's score for this film, which combined the tragedy of the events with a celebration of life. He created music with great dignity and emotional power. In my opinion, this is one for the ages."
Clapton produced Mora's first film, 1969's Trouble in Molopolis, and he composed music for Mora's 1989 alien encounter film, Communion.
JACK WHITE: Return of Dead Weather
One of Jack White's side bands, The Dead Weather, will return with a new album in September.
Dodge and Burn contains remixed versions of four tracks that appeared on seven-inch singles the past two years, as well as eight new songs recorded by White, Alison Mosshart, Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence (who's in The Raconteurs with White). A deluxe version of the album will be released only through Third Man Records' Vault subscription service. You can join the mail order service now through July 31st to get the deluxe Dodge and Burn.
The band says it won't tour behind the album, which is not surprising, since White announced earlier this year that he planned to take a break from the road for a while.
BLUR: Damon Gets Carried Away...Literally
Damon Albarn just didn't want the night to end Saturday at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark.
The Blur frontman was performing with one of his many side projects, Africa Express, and was having such a good time that he didn't want to leave after the collective's five-hour set hit the 4:00 a.m. curfew. After festival organizers asked Albarn to wrap things up, he refused and instead encouraged the audience to cheer for another song. Eventually, security carried him off stage.
Check out a clip of the bizarre sequence on YouTube.
AMY WINEHOUSE: Doc Sets Box Office Record
Amy, the Amy Winehouse documentary, set a new box office record in England over the weekend.
The film had the biggest U.K. opening of any British-made documentary, grossing $810,000. It's the second-best opening weekend for a documentary film ever in Britain -- only Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 earned more in U.K. theaters in its opening weekend.
Amy did pretty well in limited release in the U.S. -- it grossed $222,000 in just six theaters. It will expand into more on Friday.
FOO FIGHTERS: Throne of Grohl
Dave Grohl got to celebrate Foo Fighters' 20th anniversary at a huge July 4th concert in his onetime hometown of Washington, D.C.
It was a show many figured he and the band would have to miss after he broke a leg and dislocated an ankle falling off a stage in Sweden last month, but Grohl would not be deterred. He told the crowd, "I would never have canceled this show. This is the one!" Instead, his leg in a purple cast, he motored around the stage in a mobile throne with flashing lights, a display of guitar necks and the band's FF logo.
Grohl told the crowd how he conceived of the throne while introducing "Big Me," the sixth song in a two-and-a-half-hour show. Later he dedicated "For All the Cows," from Foo Fighters' debut album -- which was released on July 4th, 1995 -- to his mother, Virginia Grohl, and brought her out on stage.
The show ended with two covers during a fireworks display -- Jimi Hendrix's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long."
The festival-style show also featured performances from Joan Jett, D.C. band Trouble Funk and three artists spotlighted in the first season of Foo Fighters' Sonic Highways series: Gary Clark Junior, Buddy Guy and Trombone Shorty.
The show also served as the kickoff of Foo Fighters' summer tour. The band (and throne)'s next date is tomorrow (Tuesday) in Camden, New Jersey.
PAUL McCARTNEY: Still Competing With John Lennon
John Lennon's name can still ruffle Paul McCartney's feathers. Rehashing old hurts for a cover story in British Esquire, Sir Paul says, "The Beatles split up and we were sort of all equal. George did his record, John did his, I did mine, Ringo did his...We were equal. When John got shot, aside from the pure horror of it, the lingering thing was, OK, well now John’s a martyr. A JFK.
I started to get frustrated because people started to say, 'Well, he was The Beatles.' And me, George and Ringo would go, 'Er, hang on. It’s only a year ago we were all equal-ish.'
Yeah, John was the witty one, sure. John did a lot of great work, yeah. And post-Beatles he did more great work, but he also did a lot of not-great work. Now the fact that he’s now martyred has elevated him to a James Dean, and beyond."
He also complains about Yoko Ono. "[She] would appear in the press, and I’d read it, and it said, 'Paul did nothing! All he did was book the studio.' Well, OK, now people know that’s not true. But that was just part of it. There was a lot of revisionism: John did this, John did that."
He's also never gotten over Lennon's name being first in the composition credits for all the songs they wrote for The Beatles -- even "Yesterday," which did not involve John at all. Paul recalls that, around the time of The Beatles Anthology, Yoko agreed to have Paul's name listed first on songs that were clearly his -- but then reneged.
