UYRL

If you were old enough to be cool in the eighties, then you’re probably already aware that the Pet Shop Boys have a new album out (it’s getting average reviews), and it was just announced today that the synth-pop duo will be taking their high tech tour out on the road.

It’s hard to imagine the old guys doing anything too cool though, and even if they worked with London production house Xenomania to update their sound, it only seemed to cost them some of their old edge.

The Pet Shop Boys will play European festivals this summer as part of the promotional tour for the album – their tenth – Yes. The festival route is to include an appearance as headliner at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Other headliners at the event are to be Slipknot, Oasis, and Coldplay.

Also confirmed today is the fact that the Pet Shop Boys will head up the U.K. Latitude Festival in Suffolk. That performance is slated for July 17, and the band will co-headline with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and Grace Jones, The Doves, Editors.

The Pet Shop Boys hope to be more high-tech and multimedia than they were on their previous tour, perhaps hoping that they won’t be aged out of the scene.

I think these guys should have just called it a day ten years ago. Either that or they should just stay in Germany. Germans love all that …. crap.

According to E! News, Billy Corgan is the last Pumpkin standing, and although this was printed today, it seems like incredibly old news. Hasn’t he tried to make about thirty comebacks already?

In any case, Billy Corgan is now a one man band; the artists formerly known as the Smashing Pumpkins have all deserted the singer. Drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, the second-to-last member, has left the band, according to a clip Corgan posted on the band’s official website this past Sunday.

So that makes Billy Corgan the next Axl Rose, so perhaps we should expect the frontman (or the only man) to get started on a ten year project that is sure to disappoint. (The message on the website hastened to add: “Corgan will continue to write and record as Smashing Pumpkins with plans to head into the studio this spring.”)

Chamberlain had been a part of the band since 1988 and had been featured on all Smashing Pumpkin albums except for Adore. He’d been kicked out of the band in 1996, when he overdosed on heroin, but rejoined after doing some time in rehab.

Corgan has long been famous for being a control-freak, and when the frontman wanted to get the band back together in 2005 the only original member he could persuade was Chamberlain.

A prosecutor in the Phil Spector trial informed the jury in his closing statement that the producer was “a demonic maniac” and that his long history of violence against women was like a game of Russian roulette that ended in the murder of actress Lana Clarkson. Seems about right to me – he almost didn’t even have to say it.

The Deputy District Attorney gave his closing arguments yesterday, and urged the jurors to find Spector guilty of second-degree murder rather than the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter. Hopefully this time around Spector’s trial will end in a nice long sentence rather than a deadlock (10-2 in favor of conviction).

The prosecutor, Truc Do, said in her closing statement that Spector had demonic maniac tendencies during times when he is under the influence of alcohol, and that he is “a very dangerous man” around women.

It seems impossible that not only did this trial take its sweet time even getting into a courtroom, but that anyone could think that Spector was anything other than guilty – but stranger things have happened.

The defense will present their closing arguments today; attorney Doron Weinberg is expected to repeat the claim that Clarkson actually committed suicide.

This isn’t exactly an edge-of-your-seat nail biter of a case (see: OJ Simpson), but it’s been around so long that it’d be nice if it just went away…and if Spector did as well.

When the news media and blogosphere reported that M.I.A. had named her newborn son “Ickitt,” the singer merely sneered. However…TMZ, ever the experts at obtaining documents, have sourced a copy of her son’s birth certificate and have reported that her baby’s name is actually Ikhyd, which we assume is somehow better (in M.I.A.’s mind, anyway) than Ickitt.

The singer, herself known on official documents as Mathangi Maya Arulpragasam (and also known to call herself Maya), has given birth to a son called Ikhyd Edgar Arular Bronfman, which – however much of a mouthful - is much more tolerable than being named “Apple.”

Apparently M.I.A. thought so too, as the new mommy expounded on her celeblog,

“I DIDNT RELEASE THE BABY NAME BECAUSE I DIDNT THINK IT WAS NEWS!!!! BUT I WILL BE BACK WITH SOMETHING NEWS WORTHY SOON , TILL THEN GO PICK ON APPLE, SATCHEL AND MOON UNIT.”

I couldn’t find any sources to confirm whether this “Ikhyd” is an actual name or one that was designed in celeb fantasy land, but it’s not exactly a promising label (however much of an improvement it is over “Satchel”). Why can’t celebs just name their kids Ralph or Chase?

One afternoon in January, Sean Penn answers the door of his Bay Area home, shoeless, in jeans and a gray thermal undershirt, his hair sort of crazily mussed, looking as if he's just woken up. It's a couple of minutes past noon.

To say that Penn has "aged well" is to employ a nonstandard usage of the term. He does not look younger than his 48 years. His forehead is baroquely creased, his long face haggard, his hair soaring and gray-streaked and parted down the middle.

The Obama administration has sided with the Recorded Industry Association of America (RIAA) in a lawsuit against an alleged file-sharer for copyright infringement, in the same way the Bush administration intervened in a similar lawsuit last year.

The RIAA’s argument is that a file-sharer limits the copyright owner’s ability to “distribute legal copies of copyrighted works,” which results in “lost jobs and wages, lost tax revenue, and higher prices for honest purchasers of copyrighted works.” Defendant Joel Tenenbaum’s lawyer states that the criminalization of file-sharing is unconstitutional.

The U.S. Justice Department responds to the defense in a brief by stating that “if the court finds it necessary to reach the constitutional questions at this time, then it should reject each of defendant’s constitutional claims.”

The development comes as no surprise, since Obama filled the Justice Department with RIAA lawyers in February. The Massachusetts case is essential for the future of peer-to-peer file-sharing users, as much as the pending Pirate Bay trial in Sweden for file-sharing sites. The current law entitles a copyright holder with up to $150,000 in damages per violation. Is fire-sharing a criminal act? What will be the outcome of Tenenbaum’s trial?

Brad Pitt is having technical difficulties.

"I normally need my kids to do this," he mutters, as he attempts to connect my iPod into his stereo. "They're so beyond me in technology, it's hard to keep up. Our seven-year-old was searching the word 'weapons' on Google the other day and ended up on some white-supremacist site. I'm sure now we're on all kinds of watch lists."

Eventually, Pitt gives up and summons an assistant, and soon enough we're listening to Townes Van Zandt.

Fans who registered to buy Michael Jackson tickets have received a follow-up email inviting them to vote for their ideal setlist at his 50 O2 gigs by constructing a playlist on the official AEG site.

However, it’s a bit limited - while you can pick songs and move them around, there are no streams or even 30-second clips to listen to. Perhaps they’re assuming that fans can remember all the songs without a clip to help - or more realistically, perhaps they don’t want to pay the streaming licensing fees.

Also, bafflingly, there’s no quickfire option to say `All the old stuff, nothing after Bad, especially not Earth Song’. And no Jackson 5 tracks are included either, so you can’t request ABC or I Want You Back. Come on AEG, this needs a bit more lateral thinking…

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