Rush will be making their first U.S. television appearance in more than thirty years on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report.”
The Canadian band Rush, which hasn’t performed on U.S. television in more than three decades, will play their classic “Tom Sawyer” on the Comedy Central show Wednesday (11:30 p.m. EST). The Geddy Lee-led trio, which is currently on tour, hasn’t played on U.S. television since 1975.
Rush is only the latest act to perform on “The Report,” which has steadily edged closer to “Ed Sullivan Show” territory. With increasingly frequent musical performances, “The Report” has grown a variety-show impulse, evident in other upcoming bookings. The rapper Nas will perform on July 23, Toby Keith will return for a second performance on July 28 and Crosby, Stills and Nash will play on July 30.
The Stephen Colbert-hosted comedy show was originally launched as a parody of conservative political punditry — and shows like “The O’Reilly Factor” do not make a habit of hosting music performances. But “The Report” circus has expanded into musical realms, often with its sonorous host joining in. John Legend, Neil Young, R.E.M., Tony Bennett, Peter Frampton, Willie Nelson, Barry Manilow, John Mellencamp, the Roots and Carole King have all performed on the show.
Cool. Here’s a video of Rush playing “Tom Sawyer,” albeit not on “The Colbert Report.”
I woke up this morning to two different Owen Wilson rumors - one says he’s been seeing Jessica Simpson, and the other says he’s getting back together with old flame Kate Hudson. For his sake, I pray that it’s not the first one.
As for the first story, Star Magazine is reporting that Owen and Jessica were seen having dinner at the Huntley Hotel in Santa Monica this past weekend, and then after dinner the two went back to Owen’s. A witness claims, “He couldn’t keep his hands off her.”
The two were also spotted together on October 16 in Austin, where they were shooting Willie Nelson’s video.
Please, please, say it ain’t so. I like Owen, and this just doesn’t sound good.
As for story number 2, Heat Magazine is reporting that Owen and Kate are reuniting. They have been in contact, emailing and calling each other, after Kate reached out to Owen during his recovery.
A source told Heat magazine,
“As soon as he could, Owen thanked her for her e-mails and phone calls. Now they plan to meet when he returns to LA from Texas. Owen is elated about the prospect. He’s in excellent spirits now, though they are determined to stay off the radar during the early stages.”
Yeah, the one involving Kate is just so much more believable.
Willie Nelson has been smoking pot forever, and now he’s the headliner at a weekend concert organized to promote the legalization of marijuana. Proceeds from the show will go to four marijuana policy reform groups. Nelson helped bring the groups together for the first time to strengthen their lobbying efforts to legalize marijuana.
“I’d like to see it taxed and regulated and looked upon as nothing more or less dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes,” Nelson said.
Concert promotors barely mentioned the marijuana aspect and focused on the music, but advertisers still stayed away.
“Because it’s illegal, and once you admit smoking it, you have committed to a crime,” Nelson said. “Somewhere there’s a stigma attached to it.”
Nelson is standing up against that stigma. He said he’s given up alcohol and cigarettes, but not the pot. But he wasn’t always this way.
“With age you get a little more nerve.”
“What’s a guy like me who smoked for 50 years. If I’m running into the walls or making a lot of bad decisions, but I do a two-hour show every night and remember 40 or 50 songs, so I challenge anyone out there. You might tie it, but I doubt you can beat it.”
“I don’t recommend anything for children, cause you need to let your lungs and mind develop, but once you get to be 74 years old, I don’t think anyone should tell you what to do,” Nelson said.
Source: “Willie Nelson To Play Benefit Concert For The Legalization Of Marijuana” [wlbz2.com]
The Dixie Chicks have been known more for their politics than their music the last four years, so it should have come as no surprise that they won five Grammy awards last night.
After death threats, boycotts and a cold shoulder from the country music establishment, the Dixie Chicks gained sweet vindication Sunday night at the 49th annual Grammy Awards, capturing honors in all five of the categories in which they were nominated.
[...]
The Dixie Chicks took home Grammys for the top three awards: record, song and album of the year. Their “Taking the Long Way” (Open Wide/Columbia) won best country album and “Not Ready to Make Nice” also captured best country performance by a duo or group with vocal. That song is an unapologetic response to the furor set off in 2003 when the band’s lead singer, Natalie Maines, made an off-the-cuff antiwar remark to London concertgoers: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”
But Sunday’s awards were the Recording Academy’s rejoinder to the country music radio establishment, which ignored the album. Accepting the award for song of the year, Ms. Maines joked, “For the first time in my life, I’m speechless.” But she found her voice on later trips to the stage. “I’m very humbled and I think people were using their voice the same way this loudmouth did,” she said, self-referentially, after “Taking the Long Way” was named album of the year. The Dixie Chicks’ sweep of the major Grammy categories served as a sharp counterpoint to their shut-out at the Country Music Association awards in November. The Recording Academy consists of members across the nation who work in all genres of music. The Country Music Association’s membership is concentrated among artists, engineers and executives tied to the Nashville establishment.
The Grammys have a long tradition of giving their country category awards to artists with relatively little appeal to country fans, like k.d. lang, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Lucinda Williams. They also have a history of making political statements with their awards, most notably the bizarre award to Hillary Clinton for her narration of “It Takes a Village.”
Then again, the Grammys have a habit of finding a favorite and sticking with it, especially in the country category. Vince Gill has won the Best Male Country Vocal Performance award nine times and Johnny Cash, Ronnie Milsap, and Willie Nelson–all favorites with the critics and fans alike–have won repeatedly. Similarly, the Chicks won for “Fly” in 2000, before their political activism, and “Home” on February 23, 2003 and didn’t make their big statement in London until March 10. So, while there’s little doubt that politics played a role here, Grammy voters always liked the Chicks.
Still, as Lorie Byrd points out, their nomination and award in the “best country album” category is rather much, “since the Chicks said this was NOT a country album and it got practically no play on country stations.”
Duncan Black uploaded the video of their performance of “I’m Not Ready to Make Nice” at the show to YouTube:
The Chicks still sound great but this song is hardly their “A” material, let alone “Song of the Year.”
The politics of this is all rather odd, generating wild overreaction from both sides. Dissing the president at a concert in the capital of our biggest ally is hardly tantamount to Jane Fonda’s activity in Hanoi. On the other had, we get nonsense like Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead’s remark: “I think people are paranoid. I think that if they speak out, they think they’re gonna get whacked by the government. It’s pretty oppressive now. Look at the Dixie Chicks. They got whacked.” As Betsy Newmark points out, “The government didn’t ‘whack’ the Dixie Chicks. Their fans did. Is the position of the cognoscenti now that fans can’t express their opinions of musical artists by deciding not to buy their music?”
Sean Hackbarth and Dan Riehl both think the Hollywood establishment’s open antagonism to Red State America constitutes a large reason that the music industry is in so much trouble. While I don’t doubt that there’s some minor backlash, it seems far more likely that the wide availability of digital music and the record industry’s clinging to a decades-old album packaging system is the main issue. Red Staters have been making fun of “Hollyweird” for as long as I can remember, yet they continue to go to the movies. And it’s unlikely that people will quit buying Toby Keith and Gretchen Wilson albums to teach the Grammy people a lesson.
Country icon Willie Nelson will reunite with Jessica Simpson in “Blonde Ambition,” a loose remake of the 1988 film “Working Girl.” It sounds so exciting… I simply can’t wait to see this movie [gag]
The story follows a young woman (Simpson) who becomes the unwitting pawn of two ruthless business executives in their bid to usurp and replace the head of an international conglomerate. Nelson is playing Simpson’s grandfather. They previously worked together on her feature debut, “The Dukes of Hazzard.”
Also cast is comedian Larry Miller, who will play the conglomerate’s CEO. He previously starred for the film’s director, Scott Marshall, in “Keeping Up with the Steins.”
Previously cast in the film were Luke Wilson , Rachael Leigh Cook, Andy Dick and Penelope Ann Miller.
The movie is shooting in New York and Shreveport, La. Sony Entertainment will release the film theatrically.
Willie Nelson and several members of his band were issued misdemeanor citations for drug possession early today during a traffic stop in Saint Martin Parish. The traffic stop was conducted on Interstate 10 near Breaux Bridge. Trooper Willie Williams says troopers smelled a strong odor of marijuana when the driver opened the bus door. During a search of the bus, Williams say approximately 1 1/2 pounds of marijuana and approximately 2/10 of a pound of mushrooms were located on the bus.
The 73-year-old Nelson of Spicewood, Texas; 59-year-old Tony Sizemore of Saint Cloud, Fla.; 75-year-old Bobbie Nelson of Briarcliff, Texas; 54-year-old Gates Moore of Austin, Texas; and 50-year-old David Anderson of Dallas, Texas were issued citations for possession of mushrooms and possession of marijuana and released.
C’mon, who needs to sniff Willie’s bus to know there’s marijuana smoking going on? Hell, the man guest stars as himself on “Monk” smoking marijuana on his bus. When he appears in a movie, he makes sure his character is shown taking a toke.
CourtTV’s Daniel Green reports that “American Idol” finalist Bucky Covington was once involved in a bizarre plot to dupe the cops that involved his twin brother, Garth Brooks, and a chimpanzee. Or something like that–it’s kind of confusing.
Bucky Covington, one of the eight remaining finalists on “American Idol,” was once arrested for his involvement in a bizarre incident in which he pretended to be his twin-brother to help the sibling avoid criminal prosecution. The case ended in a trial that was so strange the prosecuting attorney said he “hadn’t seen anything like it in 10 years of practicing law.”
With his weekly exposure on “American Idol,” Covington, 28, has become the pride of Richmond County, North Carolina. He is a good old boy in a cowboy hat who idolizes Kid Rock and proudly performs the songs of Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Bucky has an identical twin named Rocky. When Rocky attended a taping of the Fox hit last month, host Ryan Seacrest invited him onstage with his brother (in the photo at left, Bucky is wearing the dark shirt). The brothers are both skinny, sport shoulder length blonde hair and each has a moustache. Unless you were a family member it was impossible to tell the Covington boys apart.
Damn, but that’s a lot of scrawny, unkempt hillbilly in one tiny picture. But I digress.
On the afternoon of February 25, 1998, Gene Covington, the boys’ father, was on his motorcycle, waiting to make a left turn and pull into his family driveway, situated near the crest of a hill in Rockingham, North Carolina. Behind him and also waiting to pull in was Rocky (his real name is Robert), then 20 years old, driving alone in his twin’s 1997 Chevrolet pickup. As the Covingtons waited for the oncoming traffic to pass, high-school student Ryan Roller, 16, was driving up the hill behind them in his father’s Toyota pickup, unable to see the vehicles over the crest.When he did finally notice the truck stopped in front of him, Roller hit his brakes to avoid an accident but skidded into the back of the pickup. No one was hurt, although the crash caused about $2,000 in damage to each vehicle. Gene Covington was able to move his bike before he was hit.
What should have been an inconsequential matter became complicated, because Rocky’s license had been under suspension for the previous 16 months, for speeding, drinking while driving and driving with a revoked license, according to state motor vehicle records. Since North Carolina law enforcement is required to investigate accidents that cause more than $500 in damage, authorities would soon arrive on the scene. Fearful that his son could face a jail sentence for being caught a second time driving with a suspended license, Gene Covington concocted a ruse on the spot that he hoped would spare Rocky further trouble.
His plan was to find Bucky (William is his real name), bring him back to the accident scene, and tell the authorities that Bucky (whose license was in good standing, despite prior convictions for speeding and reckless driving) had been the person driving the truck, replacing one twin with the other. “Gene told me to tell the police that Bucky was driving and had been the one who was rear-ended,” Roller explained in a recent interview. “I was 16 at the time and scared to death.” He was also concerned about who would pay for damage to the two trucks.
Contacted at the family-owned auto body shop where both he and his brother work, Rocky explained to Court TV that he told Roller “‘No matter if a gorilla was driving it, you’re still going to have to pay to have this truck fixed. But if you tell the state trooper that I was driving, the only thing that would happen is that I’d get in trouble.’” Roller acquiesced.
This would have been a good episode of the “Dukes of Hazzard” had Bo and Luke been twins. Even identical twin cousins.
Everyone agreed to adhere to the lie, so when State Trooper Randy London turned up at the scene to investigate, his report noted that Bucky (left) had been behind the wheel. The hoax seemed to have worked.
Until, that is, Ryan Roller got home and, feeling nervous and guilty, confessed the whole plot to his father, Kenneth. “I said ‘He’s asking you to lie. What’s he doing for you?’” the elder Roller recalls.”‘Is he going to pay for the repairs to your vehicle?’”
That’s pretty much what Uncle Jesse would have said, too. Well, not the original Uncle Jesse. But the Willie Nelson movie version might have had that reaction.
They confronted Gene Covington, who not only refused to compensate them for their repairs but also indicated that he planned to file a claim to have the Roller’s insurance pay for the damages to his son’s pickup.
Stupid, a liar, and greedy. That’s some combination right there.
The Rollers got home, phoned Trooper London and Ryan explained to him the true story. London contacted a Richmond County District Court magistrate to obtain an arrest warrant for Bucky, charging him with resisting a public officer and giving fictitious information to a public officer. “Yeah, it was a cover-up,” London remembers. “Bucky and his brother concocted a story.”
Rocky Covington doesn’t dispute that he was driving and that he lied to the trooper, although he is still angry at London. “Why did he believe the Rollers?” he asks. “They switched their story. Our story stayed the same.”
Those damned cops, believing the people telling the truth rather than the ones who told the same lie consistently! Come to think of it, ol’ Roscoe P. Coltrane would probably have done the same thing.
Rocky, who was later charged with hit and run, driving with a suspended license and leaving the scene of an accident (all the charges against the brothers were misdemeanors), says “What I should have done was just grabbed Bucky’s drivers license and showed him that. He never would have been able to tell the difference.”
Just two modern-day Robin Hoods, is what they were. Except dumber.
“With age you get a little more nerve.”
