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Check out this photo: now Val Kilmer really does look like Jim Morrison – the fat, bearded one. Meanwhile, a special edition of the great Willow just came out on DVD, and Kilmer is making friends with his neighbors in New Mexico: Kilmer, who has a ranch in the mountains …

I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but this headline conjures all kinds of strange visions: “Pope, Looking Slightly Stronger, Makes More Saints.” I picture Pope John Paul, weak and doddering, dragging himself out of bed, muttering under his breath in Polish, and shuffling over to his chemistry set where he, …

Irish alt-folk troubador Damien Rice wins the Shortlist Music Prize: Capping off an evening of powerful musical performances, Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice took home the third annual Shortlist Music Prize for Artistic Achievement at a sold-out concert at the Wiltern last night in Los Angeles. The Shortlist Concert, presented by …

Arnold wins! Love him, hate him, indifferent, or disgusted because the whole recall seems like a bad movie, people are fascinated with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a literally larger-than-life figure with a mythic if checkered past. We have a number of stories on Arnold and the recall: TOTAL RECALL: The Terminator Rules …

Great, prolific New Yorker cartoonist and author of Shrek dies at 95: Steig combined a child’s innocent eye with idiosyncratic line to create a wonderful world of animal characters for his books and Edwardian-era dandies in his drawings. His 1990 book about a green monster, “Shrek!,” was made into the …

As owner and chief producer at Beserkley Records from the mid-’70s through the mid-’80s, Matthew King Kaufman created one of the coolest indie labels, and helped create some of the finest power pop of all time. On a shoestring he produced or co-produced enduring albums by Earth Quake (Rocking the …

The major labels aren’t the only ones accused of ripping off artists. This why publicity and media coverage of these kinds of things are so important: when victims of pedophile priests, women sexually harassed by Arnold Schwarzenegger, or artists ripped off by record labels hear about others in the same …

Can the RIAA sue individuals for copyright infringement? Yes, obviously they are. The RIAA was apparently of the opinion that lawsuits against children and grandparents potentially costing targets MILLIONS (at the rate of up to $150,000 per infringement) would cow and shame the nation into changing both their behavior and …

I’ll bet the recording industry wishes it could go back to the good old days when no one paid much attention to how they ran their business, and they could get away with just about anything. Funny how disputes that have been hanging around for as long as 40 and …

Last night’s episode of Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues, called “Godfathers and Sons,” was a fascinating failure: fascinating because it gave insight into what made Chicago special in the development of the blues, especially the electric blues, and had some great recent and archival performances by Koko Taylor, Howlin’ Wolf, …