Music News & Notes

Blues Musician Dies

Its being reported that legendary Chicago blues harmonica veteran Lester "Mad Dog" Davenport passed away on March 17 at the age of 77.

Davenport's early career peaked in 1955 when he played on Bo Diddley's Pretty Thing and Bring It On Jerome. Over the years, he played with the likes of Kansas City Red, Illinois Slim and Jimmy Dawkins. Later in life, he produced two CDs, 1993's Earwig Music and 2002's I Smell a Rat.

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PETA Angry At Jackson

PETA is after Michael Jackson to do away with his plans to feature wild animals heavily in his London concerts.

A source told London's Daily Mirror, "He hopes to make it the most spectacular gig ever. For the jungle section, he wants to ride out on an African elephant with panthers led on gold chains. Parrots and other birds will fly behind him. If it goes to plan it will look incredible."

PETA has countered the report, saying "These exotic animals belong in Africa, not the O2 Arena among screaming fans, bright lights and stage explosions. These wild animals are deprived of everything that is natural and important to them when they are forced to perform under stressful conditions. Michael needs to learn to leave exotic animals alone."

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Whipping Up Some Jingles

Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo has told Blender magazine that he has a very lucrative side job creating commercial jingles for some big companies.

"I have written music for around 400 commercials, with clients that range from Coke, BMW, Mercedes, Pepsi, Target, McDonald's, Burger King to Taco Bell - probably a good majority of the evil empire. When I was younger, and occasionally today, I include subliminal messages, which is shockingly easy to do. Things like, 'Choose your mutations carefully', 'Are we not men?', 'Question authority' and many others."

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Spandau Ballet Reforming

Spandau Ballet made it official today with the announcement that they've reformed and will tour starting October 13 in Dublin.

The group split in 1989 and waged a ten year battle against each other over royalties. Any talk of the differences were glossed over today when singer Tony Hadley said, "As you can see we're back together again and we're very happy boys. I think it's the realization that time is a great healer."

Gary Kemp added, "This is my other family and I've missed them for the last 20 years."

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U2 Sells Out

Tickets for the U2's shows in the UK and Ireland went on sale at 9 AM last Friday and by 9:01 AM, 6,700 tickets had already been sold for the Wembley Stadium date. Live Nation claims that is the fastest tickets have ever sold for a U.K. event. Overall 215,000 tickets were sold in the first 24 hours.