AFTER GETTING ART, THEY'RE NOW MOPPING UP ALL THE OLD ROCKERS: In what seems to be a kind of desperate sweep to pick up any aging rocker they come across, New York Cops have felt the collar of David Crosby, arresting him at a Times Square Hotel. he's been charged with possession of dope and guns. Bloody hell, if he'd gone for fucking in the street as well he'd have had the full set.

Turns out when he'd left the hotel, he'd forgotten one of his suitcases and when a bellhop went through the suitcase to find if there was anything worth pinching ("loooking for something that would identify the owner") he came across an ounce of cannabis, an illegal hunting knife and a gun. If he's convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison - almost as long as one of Neil Young's solos.

BABS SLOW AT PAYING UP: Back in December, a judge threw out Barbra Streisand's USD10 million claim for damages against Kenneth Adelman, who had posted pictures of her house on the Internet, and awarded costs against her. To date, Adelman says she's not paid a penny and so is going back to court to force Streisand to cough up. And an extra USD15,000 on top of the original two hundred thousand he was supposed to get in the first place. This could get costly for her...

ANOTHER SHADE OF BLACK: Of course, the RIAA has already jumped over broke-ass.com with the cease and desists, so we don't know how much longer it'll be around, but - following on from the Grey Album, it's The Double Black Album, mixing JayZ and Metallica's black albums together to create something new, something inventive, and something that will doubtless have the life crushed out of it by the buttockheads who sit in their plush offices issuing legal edicts.

OKAY, ENOUGH REUNIONS NOW: Clearly, every band that has ever existed has decided that it's time to get back together. Although the reuniting of the Blood on the Tracks team is strictly for old time's sake. A book project has brought the session musicians from Dylan's album back together from the places they'd wound up: Drummer Bill Berg had moved on to be a Disney animator; bassist Billy Peterson wound up touring with Steve Miller. Chris Weber had only gone along to the recording session to deliver a new guitar and has never been that grudging at his contriubtion not being credited. One day, we hope someone takes the time to reunite the artists who played on the first Oasis album in much the same way.

WHAT PART OF "BEING PAID OFF" DIDN'T YOU GET?: The Uncle of the boy Michael Jackson may or may not have fiddled with in the past - it never came to court, so we'll never know - has been talking about the experience of being targetted by Jackson supporters. Apparently someone drove a truck at Jordan Chandler, and the family received so many death threats even Gerard Houllier might have given it up as a bad job. Jordan's twenty three now, which makes us feel old. So old, actually, we doubt if we'd stand a chance of so much as an air kiss from Michael Jackson.

BACK TO THE GRAVEYARD SLOT: The new looks for Radio 2 and 6 have been announced, with Mark Radcliffe returning to the familiar sounding 10.30 to Midnight, Monday to Thursday slot for Radio 2, with Mariella Frostrup taking the same slot on Fridays to talk about arts, although to be frank she could talk about anything she chooses, it's fine by us. Over on 6Music, the new schedule moves Liz Kershaw to weekends, with the lunchtime dailies being taken over by Vic McGlynn. Steve Lamacq shuttles back to Sundays, and Mark "Lard" Lardyboy will be doing his new show on Saturday. The Music Week is being taken over by Julie Cullen and Mark "former editor of Melody Maker*" Sutherland.

* - a music paper from the olden days

EASYDOWNLOADS: As the number of companies jostling to offer UK legal downloads starts to grow almost like there'd never been a dotcom bubble burst, Wippit are suggesting they've found the key Unique Selling Point: price. They're proposing to charge less than 50p per download, which, with the current exchange rate and all, is less than the standard 99 cent fee taken by most of the big US services. Wippit's other big plus is that it doesn't require a credit card, and thus opens itself up to the under-18 markets. At present, it's signed up a bunch of indies and EMI, but is about to show off a new major label signing soon. The 'easyjet' style pay and go service will run alongside its established GBP6 a month unlimited service.

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND: (Assuming it's allowed to stay up that long) The Kleptones are offering a hip-hop mixy-mashy of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots which might make a break from the B3ta stuff you usually spend Friday afternoons avoiding work with. Yes you do.

TAKE ME OUT TO BIGGER VENUES: Activity from the they-look-like-pixies-but-rock-like-nazis band Franz Ferdinand, who are bringing out a new single, Matinee on April 19th and have rejigged much of their tour itinerary in order to accomodate all the trend-surfers who are leaping on the bandwaggon ("extra demand"). The tour now does this:

Glasgow QMU (April 12-13)
Liverpool Academy (15)
Sheffield Leadmill (17)
Nottingham Rock City (18)
Leeds Blank Canvas (20)
Birmingham Academy 2 (21)
Brighton Concorde (26)
Norwich Waterfront (27)
Edinburgh Liquid Rooms (29)
Manchester Academy (30)
Oxford Brookes University (May 1)
Bristol University (2)
Portsmouth Pyramids (4)
London Astoria (5-6)
London Coronet (7)

SPEARS HITS ARIZONA: Live Daily had a spot of trouble knowing how to describe Touch of My Hand, which you or I would say is Brit's Wanking Hymn. Live settled on "self-fulfilment song", which sounds more like the sort of thing Outward Bound would be encouraging than about flicking your bits. Clearly, Live Daily's Christina Fuoco was disgusted by the whole affair, which makes you wonder if she reads her own website's material, as anyone who'd seen any of the reviews of the opening night in San Diego would have struggled to be surprised by the set recurring in Glendale. Unless, maybe, they were thinking that backstage Britney had thrown a tantrum demanding the rubberwear be replaced by light, flowing cotton robes. Fuoco reported "stunned parents" leaving the auditorium.

In other Britney news, she looks like she might be losing her role as Daisy Duke to Jessica Simpson, which would make some sort of sense. It'd be hard to try and picture Britney pulling off that won't-but-might look which, really, we can see Jessica rising too. We're still hoping for Henry Rollins for Boss Hogg, though.

MORRISSEY, SO MUCH TO ANSWER FOR: We're a bit surprised that Sanctuary were so quick to agree to revive Attack Records purely to please and delight Morrissey - after all, the resurrection of the HMV imprint by EMI for exactly the same reason hardly lead to a glittering and happy time for all concerned. But, anyway, Mozzer has been talking about the process of making You Are The Quarry - and we know, deep in our hearts, that we're the only people who read the name as if it was being yelled out by kids in the 'We are the champions' style. He's worked with Jerry Finn, who is better known for hosing down the studio after work by ("producing") Blink-182 and Green Day, in pursuit of a "louder" sound.

Of the revival of Attack, Morrissey says that he has a Gregory Isaacs 7" on his fridge - ha, and you thought the ones that could send bluetooth messages were the last word; and, just as we were promised with HMV, the label won't be a single horse sort of affair, with claims that ElMoobo will be scouting other names to join him there. There's going to be something from Nancy Sinatra, which can only mean Sandie Shaw was busy, we guess.

BUT WILL ARNOLD BE THERE, TOO?: Tony Blackburn's Indian Summer continues, with the news that he's to rejoin BBC Radio London (or BC RD LDN or whatever they call it) to do a soul show on Saturday lunchtimes. We've always liked that Tony has a musical hinterland, and regardless of the shit he pumped out on Radio One actually had a passion for music nevertheless, and it's kind of funny that soul music seems to have got a small boost in the London market as a side-effect of the first series of I'm A Celeb. And if it helps him pay the rent without the need to do any more of those demeaning ads for the Daily Express, so much the better. We're just not sure that we'd agreethat he's "probably the best known DJ in Britain" - surely that's Wogan?

POLLY RETURNS: Like a gleam of pure joy in a dark winter sky, PJ Harvey is preparing to release a new album this summer, the first since Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. Was that really four years ago? It's also rumoured she's going to be playing Glastonbury this year, which would be great for her as it's probably the only festival where you can get in a spot of fox hunting on the side.

ILLUSTRATED PULP LYRICS: NUMBER ONE IN A SERIES OF PROBABLY ONE: The guy who won GBP9 million on the lottery turns up for court:



"what's the point of ebing rich/ if you can't think what to do with it/because you're so bleeding thick?"

PIXIES... QUIXIES: There's a small thud of extra Pixies tickets for June 3rd and June 2nd just hit the web. Twenty five quid each. But be quick.

AH, BUT IS IT BETTER THAN SEEING DOUBLE?: Rachel Stevens has got a small role in Suzie Gold, the movie which might as well have the words "We thought 'lets make a British My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only with Jews, because, you know, it's similar, and Lesley Joseph was available - well, she's always available - and cheap'" displayed on the screen throughout. She's been letting daylight in on magic about the whole process:

"It was totally fictional."

Rrright... thanks, for that, Rach; we'll now know if we ever come across it on Living TV one afternoon that we won't treat it as a documentrary. But we're just being cynical, because she means compared to her previous body of work:

"It was really cool, it was very different, because in all the S Club stuff I played myself so it was nice to play something that was a bit different."

But weren't the S Club things about a successful, ballsy band making it big in America? Surely that was a bit more fictional, wasn't it? Anyway, this new role must be a major change, then. So, what is it?

"I play a stroppy pop star from a girlband called M5, and it's opposite Summer Phoenix. It's cool. I get to be all stroppy with her because she doesn't make my coffee right!"

So, yes, that's totally different from you in real life - because your band had boys in as well, didn't it? Stanilavsky will be proud.

"'HELL', SAID THE MAN, 'I WASN'T PLANNING ON SPENDING THAT KIND OF MONEY'": So, Lionel Richie seems to be heading for a second clean-out divorce, with the soon-to-be-ex-Mrs. Richie putting in a claim for USD300,000 expenses a month, including USD600 on vitamins - what, does she have a gold deficiency? - and USD20,000 for a monthly visit to her son's boarding school, which we can only conclude must be on Jupiter.

9/11 - AN UNANSWERED QUESTION: Since George W has already got himself in trouble for using September 11th as a campaign plus ("Right, Mr. President, we thought it would be a good idea to remind the people that you were President at the time of the biggest assault on American territory for fifty years, and we thought we'd run some pictures of you being heroic while the country was at its most scared. Only we couldn't find any, what with you rushing all over the country hiding, so we've found one from a few days later...") maybe someone should also ask why, when there was so much money sloshing about for wars, families of people killed on September 11th are having to rely on Barenaked Ladies playing benefit gigs to keep out the poorhouse?

CRISS CROSS: Despite having brought him back last year, Kiss have dropped original drummer Peter Criss for their forthcoming tour. Criss, understandably, is a bit pissed off about this, mainly because it looks like they simply didn't pick up his contract rather than actually tell him he was canned. Although we can't help thinking he may have been let go because of his amazingly rubbish stage make-up:

sorrry... image back soon

I mean, come on: you're in a rock band, not Face Painting Day at the Infants School Fete.

TOM WAITS FOR COURT VERDICT: Over in Spain, the Tom Waits versus Audi court case has begun; Waits claims the car company copied his music and impersonated his voice after he'd turned down their request to use his Innocent When You Dream for an advert. It's a pity the woman who played Phyllis Pearce is dead, otherwise Audi could have claimed it wasn't meant to be an impersonation of Tom, it was just her speaking in her everyday voice.

LET ME BE YOUR FANTASY: Apparently facing declining CD sales and reluctant to figure out a place in the digital future, Fantasy Records is up for sale. The label, based in Berkeley, mainly offers back catalogue from the likes of Miles Davis, Creedence Clearwater Revival, John Coltrane and Theolonious Monk, although it has a small roster of current acts - Sonny Rollins and Jimmy Scott amongst them. The price is USD100 million - a lot more than Grand Royale, then - although Billboard figures they'll be lucky to get three quarters of that.

SHE IS BEAUTIFUL, NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY: You know you've probably slipped away from sexy when you've gone so far, porn stars start to be dressed up like you:

Adult Video News Insider recently spoke with porn star Krystal Steal about her patriotic layout for the July cover and centerfold of Hustler magazine, where she wore little more than the American flag. "They made me look like Christina Aguilera, it's kind of cool. They got her layouts from a magazine. They gave me her hair, her makeup and clothes. It's gonna be kind of wild," Steal explained. "Christina is a beautiful girl, but her makeup on me, I mean her hair looked great on me, but I didn't like her makeup."

AND GERARD HOULLIER THINKS HE'S GOT PROBLEMS: Jennifer Ellison popped back to her native Liverpool for a fashion show (these days, she visits the place less frequently than she visits the charts) only for her and her fiance to be attacked by men with machetes. What we especially enjoy about the Echo's report is the desperate bid to try and salvage the occasion by the spokesperson from the club outside which the attack took place. "There were no incidents of any kind inside the bar itself" they say with a faint trace of a sulk.

Liverpool is City of Culture in 2008.

TOSSED OFF THE GROVE: You've got to love Beatles Fans. They raised the money for an elaborate plaque to commemorate George Harrison - and not one of your simple blue circles, an expensive thing; they carried out a massive worldwide poll to decide where it should go, picking Arnold Grove in Liverpool's declining Wavertree neighbourhood as an apt site - that being his birth place. They even organised a small ceremony to unveil the new landmark. The only thing they forgot to do, in fact, was ask the person who lives in the house now if they could stick their gaudy memorial on her wall. The outcome? The small bunch of fans got sent away with a flea in their collective ears, and are now thinking of another place to slap their plaque. Maybe they should ask before they go round with drills next time?

WHAT CDS ARE WORTH THESE DAYS: Not that much... Prince is giving away Musicology to anyone buying four tickets to see him live. Those of us with not-especially-long memories recall when live shows were the loss-leaders to promote albums.

R&OBIT: Gene Allison, one of Nashville's key R&B artists, has died from liver and kidney failure in a Tennesse hospital. He was 69. His first breakthrough came in 1957 with a gospel reading of Ted Jarrett's You Can Make It If You Try, a track which crossed over onto the Billboard Pop 40 and which would later be covered by the Rolling Stones. So impressive was Allison's phrasing and ability to wring emotion from a single note even Sam Cooke was impressed, once saying "I wish I could sing like Gene Allison." Although You Can Make It If You Try was his biggest hit, he went on to have two more R&B success before his star started to fade in the early sixties. He had been considering a comeback in recent years, and had contributed to the Country Hall of Fame's Nashville R&B exhibition, due to open on March 27th.

CLEAR CHANNEL TAKES THREE QUARTER MILLION SPONGE SOAKING: Following the Bubba the Love Sponge "outrages", Clear Channel has accepted a USD755,000 fine, apparently treating it almost like a self-flagellation. The company seems so keen to position itself as part of the new, covered up not-nuddy media, it's a miracle it didn't beg the FCC to round it up to the million mark.

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE...: Renee and Jack are getting married... although she didn't mention him at the Oscars, so they've broken up; But Elton John and David Furnish are definitely getting married, except they're not.

UM...DERCOVER: We're a little bit puzzled at Undercover's coverage of the Darkness going Gold in the US. The Australian music site dismisses the certification on the basis that the band have only had half a million copies of Permission To Land shipped to stores, but has so far only sold just over 300,000. And your point, Undercover, would be - what, exactly? Since the Gold, Platinum and other certifications are given as a recognition not of sales (that would be the chart) but of orders placed by retail outlets, in what way would the announcement of Gold be "premature"? Even more oddly, the report mutters that "units unsold are always returned back to the label but the certification is never adjusted" before conceeding that, erm, The Darkness are on route to sell half a million copies in the next month or so. Now, we're not about to suggest that cynicism is bad, but this is on a par with moaning that a venue claims a gig to be a sell out before we see if all the ticket holders actually turn up on the night.

ONE MORE TIME: Threesomes, PVC catsuits, masturbation, bondage, bisexuality... all staples of the big tour, but not usually onstage. Of course there's been something of 'who's the most in touch with their sexuality' battle between Britney and Christina raging for a little while now. Christina has always looked to us about as comfortable as Laura Ingils-Wilder at a wife-swapping evening, but Britney? She comes across like she could well live it, given half the chance, judging by her Onyx Hotel set. Of course, doing all the sweaty on stage leaves you with just a glass of warm milk and a quick flick through the latest Vogue before bedtime for when it's over. She even had had a good line written for her: "There's a lot of cute guys here. Who knows, maybe if you're really lucky I might marry you."



The tour's first date hasn't been welcomed much, though. USA Today reports the San Diego Tribune as suggesting the opener featured "contrived attempts at tawdry sensationalism that suggested what might happen if Penthouse magazine was edited by Beavis & Butt-head." MTV pointed out the problems of performing in skintight catsuits - although not everyone is going to consider the large monitors showing Spears sweating like Niagara a minus point. We're not sure if the choice of verb to describe the crowd's reaction when she revealed a flesh coloured body suit was ill-judged or spot on, but they decided to go with "the crowd erupted." Of course, though, the generally approving tone of MTV's review may or may not be connected to the MTV sponsorship of the tour.

The Arizona Republic was less than delighted with the jazzy version of I Did It Again and One More Time: "Things got worse when she subjected two of her biggest hits, "Oops! … I Did It Again" and "… Baby One More Time" to lounge-lizard treatment as part of the "Onyx Hotel" shtick." You can hear the paper tutting and being slightly thrilled at the same time: "By parading around in lingerie at length in the show, Spears crossed a line that existed in years gone by when she teased concertgoers but left more to the imagination" - and it might be this desire to not seem like it's being all hormonal while feeling the need to fan itself with its concert programme that leads it suggest that Britney isn't sure which side of the innocent/kinda slutty side she wants to come down on. (Which seems odd to us, because we can't really see any evidence of her trying to palm herself off as Milly Molly Mandy at all).

The Glasgow Daily Record suggested that she'd shocked America by singing in front of giant monitors in a rubber outfit - which seems to have slightly overstated America's reaction.

Missing the point somewhat, the New York Times compares support act Kelis' slightly out-of-breath delivery with Spear's unerring ability to hit the right note every time, even when she knocked her microphone off, before ending on a sniffy-but-accurate observation that "at least she's already prepared for her future in the casinos."