Print

Mail

wiki links

PLANET POP

Eddie Van Halen made the best of a bad start on his band’s recent tour. PHOTO: AP

eunited British rock band James, which enjoyed cult success in America during the early 1990s, played its first US concert in Los Angeles on Friday since ending a lengthy hiatus last year. The hour-long gig at Spaceland, a 260-capacity club near Hollywood, showcased a handful of tunes from James’ new album Hey Ma, including the anti-war title track.

Despite a wobbly start and fears of imminent implosion, Van Halen said on Thursday its first tour with singer David Lee Roth in two decades grossed more than US$93 million, a record for the rock band. Van Halen played to nearly one million people during 74 arena shows throughout the US and Canada, beginning Sept. 27 in Charlotte, North Carolina and wrapping up Tuesday in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne won “substantial” damages on Thursday from the publishers of the Daily Star newspaper over a report that the singer’s poor health had thrown a music awards show into chaos. Osbourne sued the tabloid for a story titled Ozzy’s Freak Show, which said the 59-year-old rocker and reality TV star had toppled over twice just before the annual Brit Awards, which he and his family presented on live television. The article also alleged that Osbourne had to be ferried around the February awards show on an electric buggy.

The star of Wonder Woman chanced upon a corpse while boating on the Potomac River in Washington. PHOTO: AP

Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten was charged in a civil lawsuit filed Wednesday in Los Angeles with beating a woman during the taping of a reality show last year, court sources said.

Roxane Davis, an assistant producer in a reality TV show that featured Rotten, 52, said the former punk rocker hit her because he didn’t like the hotel room he was given.

The alleged aggression in January, 2007, did not lead to criminal charges, but Davis is suing Rotten — whose real name is John Lydon — for sexual harassment and assault.

A spokesman for the singer said that Rotten was not available for comment.

The Sex Pistols spearheaded the 1970s punk movement with singles like Anarchy in the UK and Pretty Vacant and were formed in 1975. The band split in 1978. Sid Vicious, who replaced Glen Matlock as bassist in 1977, died after a drug overdose in 1979.

The group got together again in 1996 and performed until 2003. Last year they again re-grouped and are scheduled to tour Europe by mid year.

The actress who played Wonder Woman on TV in the 1970s says she didn’t do anything extraordinary when she discovered a body this week on the Potomac River in Washington, DC.

Lynda Carter told the Washington Post she was alone in a boat when she saw the body Wednesday. She says she didn’t have a cell phone with her, so she yelled to some fishermen and asked them to call police. Carter waited until rescuers arrived and directed them to the body.

Police say the body of 47-year-old Helen Johnstone was found floating on the river Wednesday. The medical examiner’s office has not declared an official cause of death.

Carter says she “did what anybody would have done.’’

A book publisher has sued the daughter of the late Mafia don John Gotti for the return of a US$70,000 advance she was paid to write a memoir she never delivered.

HarperCollins Publishers LLC says in court papers filed Thursday in Manhattan that the book was due Nov. 1, 2005.

Last September, Victoria Gotti notified HarperCollins she was terminating the contract.

The publisher’s lawsuit filed in Manhattan says did not return the US$70,000 advance.

Gotti’s literary agent Frank Weiman says he’ll get another deal for his client, and then she’ll give back the money to the publisher.

Jim McKay, a veteran sports television broadcaster who brought the drama of the Olympic games to millions of Americans, has died, US media reported on Saturday.

McKay died of natural causes at his home in Maryland, his family said in a statement. He was 86.

McKay was the amiable face of ABC’s Wide World of Sports, the most successful sports program in US television history, and hosted coverage of 12 Olympic games.

His poised minute-by-minute reporting from the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which members of the Israeli team were taken hostage and murdered, won him accolades and awards, including two Emmys and the George Polk Award.

He was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1988.


This story has been viewed 910 times.