Beatle news briefs - The Beatles-'American Idol' connection
- Just a reminder: Paul McCartney will make two media appearances Wednesday. He'll be on "The Howard Stern Show" and ABC's "The View." What choices! "The View" will makes the housewives happy and the Stern appearance will make Stern happy. But how much of Stern's mostly male audience really care about McCartney that much?
- Trivia question: What's the connection between "American Idol" and the Beatles? Answer at the end.
- Yoko Ono's idea for a Secretary for Peace Is one of the Ideas of Change For America being voted on at change.org for presentation to President-elect Barack Obama.
- Signs of the times: Virgin Records announced today its Times Square Megastore, the highest volume record store in the country according to Billboard.biz, is closing. It was not so long ago that record stores were great places for browsing. Now you're lucky if you can find one.
- Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio will release "Pat DiNizio/Buddy Holly," a tribute to the rocker who so heavily influenced the Beatles, on January 27th. Here's the tracklist: "Words Of Love," "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," "Heartbeat," "Well Alright," "True Love Ways," "Listen to Me," "Raining In My Heart," "Learning the Game," "Everyday," "Peggy Sue," "That'll Be the Day." (Thanks to my buddy Dave Persails, who's also a big Smithereens fan.)
- Spin Magazine has exclusive video of a new cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends" featuring members of Spinfoot, Underoath, Thrice and Bayside.
- If you're in the San Francisco area, you might want to catch the Asian art retrospective at the deYoung Museum now through Sunday. Yoko Ono is one of the artists represented.
- Trivia answer: The new judge on "American Idol," Kara DioGuardi, is one half of Platinum Weird (the other being Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics), that fictitious group that did the updated alternate version of George Harrison's "This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)" that featured Harrison on vocals. (Thanks to Patti Murawski for the question.)
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