Jacko and farrah fawcett die on my brother's birthday, billy mays dies on my birthday, which celebrity death will herald my son's birth?

There will be TEN nominees for best picture at next year's oscars

For those of you wondering about Virgin Festival 2009...

...Washington, DC's DC101 will have the full scoop tomorrow. It will be a one-day event, 20 August, at Meriwether Post Pavillion, so the lineup will certainly not be as awesome as previous years, but here's to hoping for quality triumphing over quantity.

In other news, the Rock and Roll Jesus is working with God Himself on his next album.

Where are they now: Evanescence

So I missed this entirely, but Evanescence had for all intents and purposes broken up--since we last heard from them in 2006, the rest of the band had been replaced EXCEPT for Amy Lee. Well the rest of the band reformed... with Carly Smithson, former American Idol contestant, on vocals. They're going to call themselves The Fallen; a press conference is scheduled for Monday, with their first single available for download at their website (which won't be active until then). One problem they might have is that there are entirely too many bands with that name--just do a quick Googlesearch and see it's a pretty popular name.

Interesting thing from the article--on releasing new music:

The Fallen plans to tour in September and initially will release its songs in small doses every few months, Moody says, "so there's always new music and new reasons to come to another show."

Weird Al has taken a similar approach, realizing that he can now release more relevant parodies through internet singles as opposed to waiting until he has a dozen or so and releasing an album, by which point the oldest one might be completely irrelevant. This is the neat thing about the digital music revolution--after taking a back seat to albums over the last couple decades, now singles are as relevant as they've ever been in the last 40 years.

Where are they now: Edge City Outlaws

Every once in a while we will play "(Weed) Women and Wine" by a band called the Edge City Outlaws. They signed with Universal, released that one single, got a bunch of press for it, then vanished off the face of the Earth. Seriously, they haven't updated their Myspace page in TWO YEARS.

A difficult task it would seem, then, to figure out exactly what the hell happened. One clue left: the only person with a full name on the page was the lead singer, Luke Metcalf; it also mentions the guitarist, Griffin. Google Luke Metcalf and the first entry is for a band called SOUND AND FURY, with that same Griffin on guitars, and a filled-out lineup. Turns out Edge City Outlaws and Sound and Fury are one and the same; they toured England last year with Airbourne and I can happily report that they checked their Myspace page today.

Assjack-hank williams III's hardcore band-releases its first album august 4

To the guy in the red wings shirt at the man room giveaway-kick ass dude, can't wait for game 7

Upcoming albums: MEGADETH!

Dave Mustaine and Megadeth have wrapped up their next album; untitled #12 will be out in September...

Movies full of guys and girls--separately

I somehow missed this, but production has started on a movie about the legendary all-girl rock group the Runaways--the band that launched the careers of Lita Ford and Joan Jett. Kristen Stewart from the Twilight movies is playing Joan Jett, Dakota Fanning is lead singer Cherie Currie, and a girl named Alessandra Torresani has been plucked out of relative obscurity to play Lita Ford (who also has a producing credit on this one). Expected out next year, I think this might kick quite a bit of ass.

Then there's this fun little film I had forgotten about--The Expendables. Also out next year--release date 23 April--written, directed, and starring Sylvester Stallone. Also starring:

• Jason Statham
• Jet Li
• Mickey Rourke
• Dolph Lundgren
• Danny Trejo
• Steve Austin (yes, THAT Steve Austin)
• Randy Couture
• cameo role for Arnold Schwarzenegger

This may very well be the greatest guy movie ever made. (no qualifiers are needed for a project of this magnitude)

Update: Kiss's fan-routed tour

They're gonna have Buckcherry opening for it. Voting ceases at the end of this month, and at this rate it looks like it'll be a barnstormer through the Canadian junior hockey leagues, with a few dates in America for good measure. I don't know what the cutoff point is (also, in the fine print it does mention that the cities have to have suitable venues, so I don't know if there's any kind of capacity issues that poor Oshawa might be up against).

Don't fret though Tri-State--there's still plenty of time to vote Huntington up there. Even if we don't make it up there, Louisville and Lexington are in the top 40--who's up for a Rupp roadie to see Kiss?

Hendix murdered?

Startling allegation from former Jimi Hendrix roadie Tappy Wright, who writes in a new book that Hendrix was murdered by his manager over a life insurance policy. Karma's a bitch though--Michael Jeffery would die himself a few years later in a plane crash. Seriously, if this is true I want to vomit.

To cheer you guys up, amazed I've never been here before, but Wolfgang's Vault is the free-to-access archives of legendary San Francisco promoter Bill Graham, with gobs of old concerts as well as newer shows by up-and-coming bands.