Britney A Bank Robber?

Contact Music has the report: A U.S. prison inmate is seeking a restraining order against pop star BRITNEY SPEARS - after alleging the star held him at gunpoint forcing to him to commit an array of crimes. 

Jonathan Lee Riches appeared in a 2006 TV documentary aired on CNN called How To Rob A Bank, and claims - in a handwritten lawsuit - Spears can be seen in the footage forcing him at gunpoint to commit identity theft. 

He also alleges Spears forced him to pay for abortions, breast implants, cocaine and alcohol - and insists other footage shows the singer threatening to detonate chemicals worn around Riches' neck, reports TMZ.com.- more on this story

TI Arrested

The 27-year-old was arrested in a city car park on suspicion of collecting machine guns and silencers bought for him by his bodyguard. 

Taken into custody, TI was unable to collect his awards at the BET Hip-Hop gala or perform at the show.- more on this story

Church Denies Gay Aiken Controversy, Green Beret Says He Never Recanted

All sarcasm aside, we have a follow-up to a report we quoted last week from Contact Music which claimed that "elders at a Wichita, Kansas church want to make sure the singer is heterosexual before green-lighting plans for him to perform for their congregation". Seems that wasn't exactly what happened, not by a long shot. According to the Wichita Eagle the Central Christian Church has no plans to cancel Aiken's appearance and what really appeared to have happened was that a memo was sent to leaders of the church explaining why Aiken was selected to perform at their "out reach" concert as well as quiet any fears over the gay rumors. The memo praised Aiken's Christian values as well as listed two of his reported public denials of allegations that he is a homosexual and explained exactly why they felt Aiken was a perfect performer for the event by saying, "keep in mind, this is an 'outreach event.' Many of Clay's fans are Christians, however some may never darken the halls of a church, but for this one event."

The tabloid report that Contact Music drew their story from made it sound like there was widespread outrage about the selection of Aiken to perform due to concern about his sexuality. A report that a church leader told the Wichita Eagle was "just absolutely false." Instead of widespread concern, it appears that only one "concerned citizen" contacted the church, which reportedly has Wichita's largest Protestant congregation. The church sent this citizen a copy of the memo which again listed why Aiken was selected as well as addressed the "gay issue". This somehow turned into the elders at the church demanding to be assured Aiken is a heterosexual before allowing him to perform. Which is by any standard is a wild stretch of the truth, even by "batboy" tabloid ones. 

So we now set the record straight to correct the erroneous report from last week and because of this we are probably targets as well in this worldwide conspiracy against Clay. Wait, we can hear the black stealth helicopters hovering nearby! oh my! And to the Claymates that deluged us with their conspiracy theories about the allegations made by Green Beret John Paulus and his reported recanting of those allegations, Paulus contacted us this weekend and told us in part, "I'm the 'Green Beret' who outed Clay Aiken. I have little doubt that the Claymates are inundating you [with] 'proof' that I've recant[ed]. It's unfortunate that in their desperation, Clay Aiken fans would take a sarcastic retort that I made in response to their ludicrous assertion and construe it as a statement of fact. Again, there was never a legitimate recant made by me nor will there be. I stand by the story as reported by the National Enquirer and as told by me on the Howard Stern Show back in February 2006." We had planned to run a fun letters to the editor story later this week that would include [completely unedited] reprintings of the absolutely wild conspiracy theories Claymates have sent us [One person claimed that Paulus was the concerned citizen mentioned above that contacted the church. Which he must have done between filming pornos with a Clay Aiken impersonator, practicing how to fool lie detector tests, and hacking into blogs belonging to members of Aiken's family. Why Halliburton isn't tied up in this we do not know as they are behind every sinister plot in the universe. That being said, we're pretty sure that Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa are involved. Maybe even the Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission.] We'll probably hold those for a later time and instead run Paulus' statement to us in full so you read it in it's full context. (we'll save the Claymate conspiracies for later. No more please you can "go sell crazy somewhere else, we're all stocked up") Now if you'd like to read the Wichita Eagle report which includes portions of the memo mentioned in this article you can find it- here

Bad Kittie Says Reality Show

According to a press release issued by American Youth Symphony (AYS), producers of the show, federal court documents in AYS's lawsuit against Oxygen Media LLC recently revealed that Oxygen claims to have received notice of a cease-and-desist letter on May 14, 2007 from a law firm on behalf of the Canadian all-girl metal band KITTIE threatening immediate legal action if the program aired on the network. This allegedly took place one week before AYS received a cease-and-desist letter from KITTIE on May 21, 2007, which was subsequently posted on the Internet by the show's producers.

AYS Artistic Director Gregory Charles Royal said in a statement, "If we find out that what is alleged of KITTIE is indeed true, that they tortiously interfered with our business, notwithstanding the fact that they had no claim whatsoever to any infringement of copyrighted material within our program, they will be singing for their supper for a long time." Royal contends that KITTIE crossed the line when it extended the threat of unfounded legal action to third parties. - more on this story

Radiohead Make Almost $10 Million on CD So Far?

If the actual numbers come anywhere close to these estimates we are indeed witnessing a major revolution in popular music that may forever change how established artists release music. Here is part of the Gigwise report: A poll of in excess of 3,000 people on a Record of the Day website has found that the average price a Radiohead fan paid for a copy of 'In Rainbows' was £4. 

Corroborated with our exclusive that the Oxford band shifted 1.2million copies of the album – thanks to inside knowledge of a source close to the band – it means that Radiohead could have potentially earned a massive £4.8million from the album already!- more on this story

Eagles Take Ticket Prices To The Limit

The Eagles have announced a private gig in London where tickets will cost £950 each. The one-off show at the Indigo2 venue – which is inside the O2 Arena – will take place on October 31st and will be limited to 2,300 people. 

The tickets for what a spokeswoman described as a "once in a lifetime gig" will only be available to invited members of the music industry. [So they will only bilk those they personally invite and not the general public? How nice of them. You do get merch and a meal with it!] - more on this story

The Hellacopters Break Up

"Playing in a rock and roll band isn't always a walk in the park, but thanks to all of you who rocked out with us at sweaty clubs, rainy festivals or at home by the stereo throughout the years, it's been a fantastic trip. We'll never forget your support. 

"We recently finished mixing our seventh and last studio album and it'll be released early next year, according to initial plans. We feel like we wanna say one last goodbye to you and throw in the towel with a bang, so we're aiming to do a farewell tour through Europe and Scandinavia sometime in the spring. So you're not getting rid of us just yet."- See what we are going to miss, read Travis' most excellent review

Nine Inch Renailed

The remix album is due November 20 via Interscope and will be available by digital download, a triple vinyl set and a CD/DVD combination. The CD will also include multi-track functions that fans can use to create their own remixes through the programs Garageband or Ableton Live. 

Ladytron, New Order's Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, Bill Laswell, Fennesz and Saul Williams are some of the albums many contributors.- All the track details are here

AC/DC To Break DVD Record?

Fans can preview some of the rare footage exclusively online with The Daily Telegraph, starting today with a blistering 'Rock N Roll Damnation' featuring original frontman Bon Scott at the Apollo Theatre in Glasgow in April 1978.

The two-disc compilation features five hours of performances and archived interviews sourced from the collections of fans and band members. Scott's years with the band until his death in 1980 feature on the first disc and the second covers the subsequent years with his replacement Brian Johnson.- more on this story

Ziggy Starduds

David Bowie's personal style has always been as much a part of his persona as his music, which is why it comes as no surprise that a line of clothing inspired by The Thin White Duke will soon debut at the bastion of American style, Target. 

British musician/designer Keanan Duffy created the limited-edition men's collection based around the Bowie's ever-changing aesthetic sensibilities, and includes trench coats, puffer vests, black jeans and ties-both skinny, of course-and music-related T-shirts.- more on this story

Former New Order Bassist Gets a little Help From His Friends

Hook told Gigwise this week that The Charlatans' Tim Burgess has just turned in the first vocal for the outfit and that the momentum behind the band is building quickly. 

"We've got other people working on it," Hook revealed. "Ian Brown is doing one for us, Howard Marks is doing one for us, Pete Wiley, Ian McCulloch, Liam Gallagher."- more on this story

Counting Crows Taking Axl Rose Approach to New CD

The double album, entitled Saturday Nights + Sunday Mornings, was originally scheduled for release later this year (06Nov07), but the band has pulled the plug so they can spend more time on it. 

Adam Duritz says, "There are videos and singles and so many things to decide on and finish and it's just not the time in our career to be rushing important decisions.- more on this story

Shaw Blades 2nd Leg

After the first round of tour dates ended May 31 in Chicago, Tommy and Jack promised their fans that they would be back for another trek after taking time to tour with their respective bands. 

In addition to songs from INFLUENCE-which was released March 6 on VH1 Classic Records--fans will get a dose of some of their favorite Styx, Night Ranger and Damn Yankees songs, all performed acoustically. It's an intimate evening of music courtesy of Tommy, Jack and guitarist Will Evankovich (of American Drag).- more on this story

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