Quick ‘n’ Dirty Music News: 10.31.08

Posted by Mitch Michaels on 10.31.2008

The Halloween Edition! With Smashing Pumpkins Are A Pumpkin, a tip on the new singer for Velvet Revolver, Britney, Paris & Lindsay – The Series, Sammy Hagar and the ghosts of Van Halen, Led Zeppelin rumors, The Bea'les, Jermaine Jackson is crazy, 50 Cent’s reality show and more, plus chart news, a Top Halloween Songs and Albums and the Pieces of the Week are in costumes!

Good evening.

That was my Dracula impression. Did it not kick ass?

Welcome to the semi-special Halloween edition of the Quick ‘N' Dirty News. I'm Mitch "A Pumpkin Is A Pumpkin" Michaels, as always, and waiting in the (bat) wings is my co-conspirator "There Was An Old Woman All Skin And Bones" Brittany.

(Major points to ANYONE who remembers those songs from grade school. In fact, fuck it, first person that knows the rest of the words to both songs, I'll send you the Smashing Pumpkins DVD that's not even out yet.)

Tomorrow also marks my body's 29th year of constant functioning. I'll say the same thing I said last year:

1) Turning 29 isn't actually all that monumental, but it's a good reminder that, fuck, at least I'm not 30 yet and

2) I'm always up for gift cards.

But you don't fucking care about me, do you? You just want what I give you for free every week. So let's get to it.

It's quick, it's dirty, it's news.



STAND BY…FOR NEWS!

All news items are from 411 Music's newswire:

Brittany's Dirty News

It's Halloween weekend and I don't want to make corny jokes and say things that sound spooky because it is pretty lame of me if I did….but since I am a lame ass, I will probably let some slip. Mitch is another year closer to death so let's all wish him luck in surviving another one. I will personally be sending him a bottle of whiskey with some candy corns to keep him healthy. Happy birthday Mitch, don't have too much fun with that now.

Alright enough babbling, lets get on to the news shall we?

*scary music here*

Robert Plant is going to be a square for Halloween. A square you ask? Why yes, he doesn't want to play "loud music" anymore so he is blowing off the idea of a Led Zeppelin reunion. Led Zeppelin live would be a dream come true to so many young kids (including myself) because we missed the experience of the seventies entirely, and to see a band like Led Zeppelin would confirm that I can die a happy person. Those guys are pretty old though, so I'm not sure how great the quality of the performance will be, but it's fuckin Zeppelin. The band is also getting a radio station dedicated to them on Sirius where it is all Zeppelin all the time from November 1st at 6:00 pm until the end of the year. Sweet deal.

Live from New York, it's a train wreck!

Britney Spears is rumored to be hosting SNL on November 22 to prove to everyone she can "put her past behind her and laugh at herself." Not only is she laughing at herself, we are all laughing at her.

In fact since it is Halloween, why not be Britney?


Speaking of freak shows and reunions, the Jackson 5 should be on the road by next year. This makes me nervous. Why? Because I know I will have to take my friend to go see them and it is going to be a very interesting group of people (My friend being one of them..I bought her The Jacksons: An American Dream for her birthday this year because she had been asking for it for years. Don't ask ) and because I feel like the Jacksons could be potentially dangerous. I could be wrong and have a great time, but you can never be too sure.

The Hives are being sued for plagiarism by some LA songwriter because he thinks they ripped off a melody and a riff from one of his tunes. This guy even went to a musicologist before deciding to sue the band. What is with artists not being able to come up with their own shit these days? Seriously , Santogold rips off Siouxsie and the Banshees, M.I.A. rips off The Clash, Green Day rips off Oasis and the list goes on. These people are "artists" and they can't come up with their own music? They are using them as "samples" but come on man…Lets get creative, you're getting paid a lot of money to be an artist, so start making art.

Linkin Park is going to be making a "concept" album because they realized nobody listens to nu-metal crap anymore and its time to actually try making real music.

Said Chester Bennington, "If we're writing a song with a specific purpose you're allowed to step out of the realms of commercialism a little bit."

Thank you for clarifying none of your music had a purpose to begin with because we had no idea.

The Beatles are coming to Rock Band so we don't have to mutilate their music at a karaoke bar at 1:00 am with a whiskey grin. MTV and The Beatles' Apple Corp Ltd are holding a press teleconference tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. ET to announce "an exclusive agreement to develop a global music project.". Hmmmm verryyy iinntterreesstiing. (Didn't catch the Dracula accent? Well, read it again with the accent. Thanks)

Sammy Hagar is going to be on a Halloween special tonight called "Celebrity Ghost Stories" on the Bio channel at 11:00 EST. I'm sure any paranormal experience was caused by an overabundance of girlie drinks..


Have a safe Halloween everyone, get super smashed, then smash some pumpkins, and eat all your kids candy. If you don't have kids, steal a bag of candy from those kids who are too old to trick or treat, then steal their weed. That should make for a good night.

Peace, Love and Aural Sex!

Mitch's Quick News

Slash announced to the world this week that he was nearly completed with the demo phase of his first solo album. I'm sure the world will continue to wait with bated breath for that one. Remember how you just couldn't keep those Slash's Snakepit albums in stores??

Of course, the real news in any Slash news article is how the search for a new Velvet Revolver singer is going. Slash remained pretty tightlipped about the whole thing, but did mention that the quality of singers auditioning was very high and that he was looking at some "name" guys. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? JOSH GROBAN!


Speaking of (possible) lead singer searches, Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones had this to say this week. Sorry, my copy of the quote was hard to read, so I had to leave out a few words. I'm sure you'll get the gyst.

"As you probably know, Jimmy, Jason and I are actually [blank]ing and we've had the odd singer come in and have a bash….we really hope that something is going to happen soon because we really want to do it and we're having a lot of fun, actually, just [blank]ing. Jason is actually tremendous. . . We really wanna [blank] something and Robert doesn't want to do this, at least for the moment. I don't really know what his plans are. He really doesn't want to make loud [blank] anymore. We do. . . . When it does come, it will come, and you'll know about it."

Who knew? If you're wondering, names being tossed around as co-jammers are Myles Kennedy (Alter Bridge), Jack White (The White Stripes) and Steven Tyler (Aerosmith). Looks like Led Zep may have a world tour AND a Hep-C test in their near future.

Amy Winehouse was rushed to the hospital this week due to a chest infection. To the surprise of most insiders, she's not dead. Instead, she's working on her third album, which she hopes to parlay into copious amounts of drugs and alcohol.

Some motherfucking waste of space cocksucker murdered Jennifer Hudson's mother, brother and 7-year old nephew and deserves to burn in hell. There's nothing funny about that.

BREAKING NEWS! Snoop Dogg is heading up a Johnny Cash remix album on which he'll also perform. Man, is it getting warm outside, because I could swear I reported on this in August. For those wanting a little more in depth info, that album (Johnny Cash Remixed, produced by Snoop Dogg and Cash's son), was scheduled for release soon, but got pushed back to January. Let's just say that it is not awesome. Let's also just say that the Snoop version of "Walk The Line" is least awesome.

Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump are attempting to break a world record today by doing 57 different radio interviews in a 24-hour period. That means at least 57 different people will talk to Pete Wentz today, and still none of them will ask him why he's such a queer.

The Kinks could be reuniting. Yawn.

Jay-Z bought Lil Wayne this week for $5 million. Somewhere Abraham Lincoln is commenting about how that wasn't exactly his vision.

50 Cent will be bringing his own version of "The Apprentice" to TV next week. 50 will be teaching contestants how to become a modern rap mogul by learning lessons while "hustling on the streets". Lesson #1 – hit the docks. Lesson #2 – make sure your dick is tucked comfortably out of site.

Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in a TV show together? So says HBO insiders. The pitch is that Paris will be an aspiring fashion designer, Britney will be an aspiring singer with bad songs and Lindsay will be all about boys and food. In an exclusive, the QnD has obtained a Top Secret 1st page of the pilot script:

"TWO FRIENDS AND AN UGLY BETTY"

"PILOT"
(3916)

Revised Draft: OCTOBER 28, 2008
Property of: NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN A MILLION FUCKING YEARS STUDIOS

CAST AND SET LIST

CAST:

BRITNEY
PARIS
LINDSAY
"SAM"
K-FED
GENERAL ADNAN
NIGHTCLUB OWNER
MALE STRIPPER #1
MALE STRIPPER #2
CANCER PATIENT

SETS

INTERIORS:

APARTMENT: LIVING ROOM
SEX ROOM
NURSERY
FOUR SEASONS HOTEL ROOM
CHINESE RESTAURANT
DOCTOR'S OFFICE

STOCK

EXT. NEW YORK STREET


TEASER

FADE IN:

INT. APARTMENT LIVING ROOM - DAY

1 PARIS stands in the middle of the room. She bends over at the waist to dip her nose into a glass of 1
water. She then stands back up straight. She repeats this action for the entire scene.

BRITNEY
(calling)
Lindsay! Paris! Have either of y'all seen my pink wig? I'm starting to feel like I can't deal with life.

LINDSAY appears in the doorway looking like she's just woken up. She is with SAM, an effeminate looking UPS man.

LINDSAY
Have you checked in the sex room?
Sometimes I confuse that thing with the fuzzy thing on a stick you use to dust.

BRITNEY
Gawd you're dumb Lindsay.
My wig doesn't have a stick on it!

LINDSAY
Yeah, sometimes I ignore the stick completely when I need to uh…dust.

PARIS
(Giving LINDSAY A Knowing Look)
I didn't know UPS delivered this early.

LINDSAY
Oh, "Sam" does. Especially when "he" has the special box…er, package that I need.
(kisses an embarrassed SAM)
I love boys you know!

BRITNEY & PARIS
(unison)
Oh Lindsay!

BRITNEY, PARIS and LINDSAY dance around the stripper poll in the middle of the living room. MALE STRIPPER #1 and MALE STRIPPER #2 appear from Paris' bedroom with night vision cameras and join in.

FADE OUT

LL Cool J has dropped off of Janet Jackson's tour, citing scheduling conflicts. Apparently, he hadn't scheduled this lukewarm final phase of his career. He had also not scheduled Janet Jackson to be such a bitch.

Elvis Presley topped this year's list of Top Dead Celebrity Earners, published by Forbes. Elvis pulled in over $50 million in the 2008 earning period, more than live stars like Justin Timberlake and Madonna. Is anyone else looking forward to Madonna dying just so these two can do proper battle?

Sammy Hagar appeared last night on "Celebrity Ghost Stories". Hagar claims to have several times been frightened in the late hours of the night by the confused spirit of an elderly woman.


Finally, Jermaine Jackson claims that a Jackson 5 reunion tour and album, featuring the whole group plus Janet (opening!), is all but a lock for 2009. Go back to sleep Jermaine. At this point, I would think a Jackson 5 reunion tour with Janet Jackson opening is about as likely as Michael Jackson NOT molesting little boys.

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MITCH'S TOP 10
HALLOWEEN

I figured I would take a break on the "through the years" theme this week and bring you some of my favorite Halloween-themed songs and albums.

Mitch's Top 10 Halloween Songs
1	Blue Öyster Cult	"(Don't Fear) The Reaper"
2	Misfits	"Halloween"
3	Michael Jackson	"Thriller"
4	Rob Zombie	"Living Dead Girl"
5	Warren Zevon	"Werewolves Of London"
6	DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince	"A Nightmare On My Street"
7	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	"Red Right Hand"
8	Marilyn Manson	"Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)"
9	White Zombie	"I'm Your Boogie Man"
10	Classics IV	"Spooky"

Mitch's Top 5 Halloween Albums
1	Misfits	Famous Monsters
2	V/A	The X-Files: Songs In The Key Of X
3	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	Murder Ballads
4	Wednesday 13	Transylvania 90210: Songs Of Death, Dying & The Dead
5	Rob Zombie	Hellbilly Deluxe

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NEW RELEASES FOR NOVEMBER 4, 2008

WHAT EVERYONE WILL BUY:

Hinder - Take It To The Limit - Think what you will about Hinder ("Lips Of An Angel" = uncontrollable vomiting), but you can't deny that those boys sold steady with their last album. Extreme Behavior was a kind of slow burn, but it looks like the new one may be too. The band has released a pair of singles and neither have hit the Top 40. Still, "Use Me" was a Top 5 Rock hit, and that should be enough to take out the only other big competition – an instrumental album by Brad Paisley.

WHAT WILL BE NUMBER ONE:

Well fuck a duck, if I didn't forget to include AC/DC in my guesses last week. And boy were they hard to overlook! Black Ice now has the second biggest selling week of the whole year (behind Jay-Z's Lil Wayne) at nearly 800,000 units. And why not? With AC/DC's first album in over 8 years going for just over a ten dollar bill and sitting at the check-out of every fucking Walmart in America, it was bound to score. High School Musical 3 was a big seller, racking up nearly 300,000 sales and coming in at #2. I called that, but was really off on the others. Lee Ann Womack came in at #23, while Labelle was nearly off the first page with #45. Of course, another R&B group, Mary Mary, took me by surprise and landed at #7.

This week is going to be harder to predict. AC/DC should see a significant drop-off, but by how much? Even if they drop down to 300,000, it will still be a close race between the Aussie legends and Pink, whose Funhouse hit stores this week, riding a big wave thanks to the #1 single "So What". That will be a huge fight, but I look for AC/DC to win it. If nothing else, the Eagles took out a pop diva last year at this exact same time with the exact same store behind them. So AC/DC has history on its side. Lots of other albums should go Top 10 this week, too, including Toby Keith and Rascal Flatts and maybe even that Queen disc.

WHAT YOU SHOULD BUY:

There's always something worth buying in the New Release section. Here are Mitch's picks:

Twilight OST - OK, I love horror-related flicks, but this teenage vampires in love shit will not work for me. Still, the soundtrack looks promising, with bloodsucker themed tracks by Collective Soul, MuteMath, Paramore and Linkin Park.

Brad Paisley - Play - For an instrumental album (with that one non-instrumental that will hopefully appeal to the fans who wouldn't bother otherwise), Play is packed with guest stars – the late great Buck Owens, Keith Urban, B.B. King and even Andy Griffith. Paisley is the man when it comes to guitar in country music these days, so this telecaster tour de force should be worth hearing to aficionados.

Tenacious D - The Complete Masterworks 2 DVD - I love the first DVD, and this one promises to be just as fun. 2 benefits from the (few) good songs off of the band's Pick Of Destiny soundtrack.

WHAT'S HOT ON THE DIAL?

Billboard has about a million charts, so each week I'm gonna round up the #1s from each format. That way, no matter WHAT station you flip to when not using your presets, you'll be aware of what you might hear. Newly crowned #1s are in bold:

CHART	SINGLE	WEEKS
POP
HOT 100	T.I. - "Whatever You Like"	12
HOT 100 AIRPLAY	T.I. – "Whatever You Like"	13
POP 100	Pink – "So What"	12
POP 100 AIRPLAY	Pink – "So What"	12
MAINSTREAM TOP 40	Pink – "So What"	10
HOT SINGLES SALES	Artists Stand Up To Cancer - "Just Stand Up!"	4
BUBBLING UNDER HOT 100 SINGLES	Chairlift – "Bruises"	2
DIGITAL
HOT DIGITAL SONGS	Beyonce – "If I Were A Boy"	1
HOT DIGITAL TRACKS	Beyonce – "If I Were A Boy (Album Version)"	1
HOT RINGTONES	Grupo Montez De Durango – "Adios Amor Te Vas"	93
R&B/HIP HOP
HOT R&B/HIP HOP AIRPLAY	Ne-Yo – "Miss Independent"	14
HOT R&B/HIP HOP SONGS	Ne-Yo – "Miss Independent"	14
HOT RAP TRACKS	T.I. – "Whatever You Like"	14
MAINSTREAM R&B/HIP-HOP	Ne-Yo – "Miss Independent"	11
HOT ADULT R&B AIRPLAY	Jennifer Hudson - "Spotlight"	20
RHYTHMIC TOP 40	T.I. – "Whatever You Like"	N/A
HOT R&B/HIP HOP SINGLES SALES	Artists Stand Up To Cancer - "Just Stand Up!"	4
COUNTRY
HOT COUNTRY SONGS	Carrie Underwood – "Just A Dream"	16
ROCK
HOT MAINSTREAM ROCK TRACKS	Metallica - "The Day That Never Comes"	10
TRIPLE A	O.A.R. – "Shattered (Turn The Car Around)"	18
HOT MODERN ROCK TRACKS	The Offspring – "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid"	14
ADULT CONTEMPORARY
HOT ADULT TOP 40 TRACKS	Jason Mraz – "I'm Yours"	31
HOT ADULT CONTEMPORARY TRACKS	David Cook - "The Time Of My Life"	23
CHRISTIAN
HOT CHRISTIAN SONGS	Brandon Heath – "Give Me Your Eyes"	20
HOT CHRISTIAN ADULT CONTEMPORARY	Brandon Heath – "Give Me Your Eyes"	20
DANCE
HOT DANCE CLUB PLAY	Danny Tenaglia – "The Space Dance"	9
HOT DANCE AIRPLAY	Ercola & Daniella – "Every Word"	20
HOT DANCE SINGLES SALES	M.I.A. – "Paper Planes"	33
INTERNATIONAL
HOT LATIN SONGS	Enrique Iglesias – "Lloro Por Ti"	18
EUROPEAN HOT 100 SINGLES	Pink – "So What"	7
EURO DIGITAL SONGS	Girls Aloud – "The Promise"	1
CANADIAN HOT 100	Britney Spears – "Womanizer"	5
JAPAN HOT 100	Hey!Say!JUMP – "Mayonaka No Shadow Boy"	0
RECURRENTS
HOT 100 RECURRENT AIRPLAY	Natasha Bedingfield – "Pocketful Of Sunshine"	2
HOT SINGLES RECURRENTS	Natasha Bedingfield – "Pocketful Of Sunshine"	2
HOT R&B/HIP HOP RECURRENT AIRPLAY	Noel Gourdin – "The River"	3
HOT R&B/HIP HOP RECURRENTS	Noel Gourdin – "The River"	3
HOT COUNTRY RECURRENTS	Kid Rock – "All Summer Long"	2
HOT ADULT CONTEMPORARY RECURRENTS	Colbie Caillat - "Bubbly"	13

MUSICAL PIECE OF THE WEEK

You may be thinking to yourself about right now that this HALLOWEEN edition of the Quick ‘n' Dirty News hasn't been all that spooky. Well, let me remedy that right now with our very special Piece of the Week. Our very favorite ghouls – hot music chicks in Halloween costumes!!! Now go forth and trick or treat, but don't eat the apples. They have razors in them.



















THE END

Hope you all had fun. Be sure to drop us a line on what you liked, didn't, etc.

Keep your ears to the ground.