DAVID BOWIE’S ex-wife has blasted the rock legend’s musical comeback as she revealed the truth about their shocking sexual exploits.

In an astonishing interview, Angie Bowie told how the star almost missed his own WEDDING after getting caught up in a three-in-a-bed romp. (um where was I?)

Angie said: “David was big on threesomes with both men and women — the whole nine yards. And I was right in there.”
She also revealed what happened on the morning she claims she caught David and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in BED together.



Speaking from her home in a quiet suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, Angie told of the paranoid depths of his drug abuse, his battle with depression and his bisexuality and love of threesomes.

The couple met in the late Sixties and London was swinging.

Angie, 63 — an American citizen born in Cyprus — had moved to the UK to study at Kingston Polytechnic and Bowie was trying to get a record deal to kick off his pop career.

Angie claims that she encouraged him to play with gender and sexuality and create the bizarre stage personas such as Ziggy Stardust, which turned him into one of the world’s most fascinating stars.

But the couple almost missed their own wedding, in March 1970, after waking up in bed with another woman after a night of sex and partying.

Recalling the threesome, Angie said: “The night before our wedding it was a mutual friend of ours. We went out for dinner, back to her place and had plenty of lively sex.

“We had a very late night and didn’t go to bed until 3am or 4am.

“Then we woke up late in north London and had to be in Bromley by 10am to get married. We just about got there in time and staggered in.

“We saw David’s mother Peggy and I thought, ‘Oh boy, this is not good.’

“It was a bullsh*t romance. When he asked me to marry him, he said: ‘And I don’t love you, by the way.’



“I watched David f*** everything that moved.

“In the first six weeks I knew him I met 14 people he’d slept with. He had told me before we married he didn’t love me, so of course he was not going to be faithful.

“As it was the Sixties I suppose they called it free love.”

Angie also spoke about the morning she allegedly caught her husband and Rolling Stones frontman Mick together in the marital bed of their home in Chelsea in 1973.

She said: “They were not only in bed together, they were naked.

“My assistant was laughing in the kitchen when I got home. She said, ‘You won’t believe this. David and Mick Jagger.’
“I said, ‘Right then, put the kettle on.’

“I went upstairs and banged on the door and said, ‘Morning! Ready for breakfast boys?’

“I walked into the bedroom and David was there with all these pillows and duvets on top of him and on the other side of the bed was Mick’s leg sticking out.

“I said: ‘Did you guys have a good night?’. They were so hung over they could hardly speak. I took pity on them.”

Angie claimed Bowie’s fascination with Mick came from his desire to “seduce” all his major rock rivals.

She explained: “In our living room as we watched Top Of The Pops, David was constantly wanting The Rolling Stones to move over to the States.

He decided he would seduce him like he seduced any competition.

“But I don’t think it was a big love affair (with Mick). It was probably more drunken pawing.”



Despite their turbulent relationship, Angie hoped having a baby with Bowie would help lift his depression.

His family has a history of mental health problems — his half-brother Terry killed himself in 1985.

And, not helped by many years taking drugs including cocaine and heroin, Bowie also battled depression.
In May 1971, their son Duncan Haywood Zowie Jones was born.

His parents called him Zowie but he is now a successful, fiercely private film director known simply as Duncan Jones.
Bowie’s dad Haywood had died in August 1969 from pneumonia — just before his track Space Oddity went Top Ten and launched his pop career.

Angie revealed: “He was so unhappy about losing his dad and I thought having a child would cheer him up.
“But I haven’t seen Zowie since he was 14. He went to boarding school and decided he didn’t want to see me any more.



“He’s grown up now and if he wants to find me he can.”(how many times are you going to say this? To tabloids no less...jfc)

Angie — who herself became a pop culture pin-up and is now a singer and writer — said she was constantly saving her husband from his paranoid haze as he became gripped by drugs.

She recalled: “I was in London and I got a call from David in Los Angeles and he told me he had been kidnapped by a warlock and two witches.

“He said that on All Saints’ night he had to inseminate these two witches so they could have the spawn of Satan.
“I got on a flight the next day to clean up another mess. (lolololol)

“He did escape, but not before the warlock — who was, of course, a drug dealer — had given him a load more Peruvian flake (cocaine) so he could get higher.”

Angie was speaking four decades after a shoot with top snapper Terry O’Neill for The Sun helped turn her into an iconic Seventies rock ’n’ roll muse.

She said: “It’s 40 years since The Sun introduced me to the world.

“We did lots of great stuff with The Sun to promote David, including a series of iconic photos with Terry.”

After the couple divorced in 1980, Angie says she received £500,000 from Bowie — paid over ten years.
She believes it was far from enough, claiming she helped mould him into one of the world’s biggest stars.

Angie claimed: “I ended up getting $750,000 paid over the next ten years — not very much.
“And he refused to give me severance pay for managing him for the past decade.



“It was in tiny instalments — like a child with an allowance — I couldn’t even buy a house.

“When I broke up with David I didn’t recover for six years for him not paying me for managing him. Maybe I never got over it.
“I do not like people drunk or high. I did drugs but it was once we divorced.

“I thought, ‘If he thinks heroin and cocaine are so amazing maybe I can understand him if I try it.’ But I couldn’t understand a thing.”
Music critics are running out of superlatives to praise Bowie’s big chart comeback. His first album in a decade, The Next Day, is released on Monday.

After ten years in which he stepped away from the music business, living a quieter life in New York, it has been one of the most eagerly awaited releases in history.

But Angie blasted: “I listened to the first single (Where Are We Now?) and it was just awful, just diabolical. The second one was worse than that.

“This is supposed to be the greatest comeback of the century? It’s boring. I think every release since the first eight albums has been rubbish.” (lol stay mad)

The Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton plays the singer’s lover in the music video for second single The Stars (Are Out Tonight).
Many Bowie fans — and Angie — believe the character is based on her and the plot about the bizarre world of fame inspired by their wild relationship in the spotlight.

Angie added: “I watched 30 seconds and couldn’t cope with any more. The subject matter is too retrospective.
“I am pleased he got out of his house in New York and recorded an album. But why has he been sitting in his house for ten years anyway?”

Bowie has been married to stunning model wife Iman, 57, for 20 years.

But Angie suspects behind closed doors, the star could still have dark sexual habits.

She claimed: “When David and Iman bought the property in New York he worked on it for three years so it looks like one big apartment but is in fact two completely separate condos inside.

“That’s so David has his privacy.

“What was he doing in there for ten years? I know — because a leopard never changes his spots.”


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TIME: David Bowie: Back to His Mysterious Best

It was the quietest of comebacks. on Jan. 8 at the stroke of midnight, with no warning and without having performed or spoken in public for many years, David Bowie released a song through iTunes. The song, “Where Are We Now?” is a mournful, tender ballad that name-checks many of the places in Berlin where Bowie hung out in the 1970s, when he was arguably at his most creative. Now 66, Bowie—who mostly disappeared from public view around 2006, two years after a heart attack and amid rumors that he was terminally ill—ends the song with a simple expression of gratitude for being alive and not being alone: “As long as there’s me,” he sings, “as long as there’s you.”

Besides also releasing a video for “Where Are We Now?” that hit the same notes of reminiscence and humility, Bowie said nothing. There was no press conference to announce a world tour. There were no interviews, no marketing campaign, not so much as a tweet. There was just the promise on his website of an album to come in March. On Feb. 26, again with no prior fanfare, he released the thrilling, unsettling video for the more up-tempo second single, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” which pairs Bowie with his female doppelgänger, the actor Tilda Swinton. A few days later, iTunes unexpectedly began streaming the album, The Next Day, for free before its official release on March 12. The reviews have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Still, Bowie has said nothing in public.




Smart move. With each year that went by with barely a sign of life from Bowie—no concerts, no red-carpet appearances with his wife (the Somali-born model Iman), few paparazzi shots, no movie cameos, no exhibitions of his paintings—a sense of mystery steadily grew around him. What was he up to? Was that heart attack he suffered backstage in 2004 the first sign of an irreversible decline? Would he ever produce any more music? Day by day, he became ever more unknowable. And by staying silent and invisible, he gradually hauled back the magical sense of distance that made him the strangest and most compelling rock star of the 1970s, someone who taught the likes of Prince and Madonna lessons in how to shift visual and musical styles and keep people surprised, guessing and wanting more.

They were lessons he himself seemed to have forgotten for a long stretch—for most of the 1980s, all of the 1990s and some of the following decade, in fact. There were too many records lacking good songs, too many middle-of-the-road concerts. (I went to one in London in 1990 that stopped for an intermission!) For Bowie, coming across as all-accessible was a near fatal career shift. This was a rock star who, perhaps more than any other, had hidden behind bizarre, intimidating invented personas. Kids in 1972 may have yearned to know who the bone-thin, made-up, sexually ambiguous Ziggy Stardust character really was—but they may not have wanted, deep down, to find out. The yearning to know was pleasure enough.

Bowie’s last recording until now was released in 2003: Reality, an inoffensive rock record free of riveting melodies or mysteries. His new one, The Next Day, is great. It feels unrushed, the work of many years of thought and honing. (Musicians who worked on it, including his longtime producer, Tony Visconti, have said it took two years to make; they reportedly signed nondisclosure agreements to help keep the recording sessions secret.) In his seventh decade, Bowie makes no attempt on The Next Day to seem young; the songs are full of moments of vulnerability and frailty, and they’re all the more powerful for that. “Here I am, not quite dying,” he almost shouts on the opening and title track.


In spite of the first single’s gentleness, The Next Day is—as Visconti has said—fundamentally a rock album. Many of the songs are insistent and occasionally menacing. Messy guitars rip in and out of the bass-led saxophone thump of “Dirty Boys.” There’s more threat and big bass in “Love Is Lost”: “It’s the darkest hour, you’re 22, the voice of youth, the hour of dread.” When he first attracted wide notice in 1969, scoring his first British hit with “Space Oddity,” Bowie instantly appealed to annoyed, alienated kids who felt he somehow understood them. “Love Is Lost” suggests he’s still speaking to the age group that made him a star—or at least he’s thinking of them.

On “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” he revisits a preoccupation from his own youth: fame. In the video, two androgynous models—chosen for their uncanny resemblance to Bowie—portray rock stars who move in next door to a staid married couple played by Bowie and Swinton, invading their home, their sleep, their desires and finally their identities. “We will never be rid of these stars, but I hope they live forever,” sings Bowie, a man who spent his entire youth chasing fame and who played no small part in influencing our fame-obsessed culture. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, the video captures the song’s urgent erotic longing; it’s as brilliantly strange as the landmark promo for Bowie’s 1980 single “Ashes to Ashes,” which made a case for music videos as an art form before MTV even went on air.

The man who by then had spent a decade experimenting with various identities grew up plain old David Jones, a middle-class boy from London’s suburbs who changed his stage name to Bowie in the mid-1960s because Davy Jones of the Monkees was beginning to find fame. The young Bowie chased stardom, trying whatever might work: R&B, hippie folk, a sped-up voice on a novelty track called “The Laughing Gnome.” It was Ziggy, the alien messiah rock star and protagonist of the 1972 concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, who finally proved to be Bowie’s vehicle to stardom. His first appearance as Ziggy on the BBC’s Top of the Pops weekly music show, singing “Starman” from Ziggy Stardust, startled millions of viewers in Britain—it helped that he lovingly put his arm around his (male) guitarist—and succeeded in what the lyrics of “Starman” threatened: “He’d like to come and meet us, but he thinks he’d blow our minds.”

Having deepened the sexual confusion of a generation, Bowie dropped the Ziggy persona—along with glam rock—and by 1975′s Young Americans he was crooning what he called plastic soul. By the mid-1970s he had all but morphed into a character heralded on 1976′s Station to Station: the Thin White Duke, addicted to cocaine, paranoid, skeletal and prone to wondering aloud about the upside to fascism. Living mostly in Los Angeles during this period, he was deeply unhappy, as he later said, and improbably hardworking, producing more than an album a year, on average, through the decade. Possibly heading for an early death from cocaine abuse, Bowie fled L.A. and his home in Switzerland, where he had moved in 1976, for the comparatively ascetic calm of Berlin. There he worked with producer Brian Eno on a trilogy of albums—the experimental, sometimes esoteric Low, “Heroes” and Lodger—that many critics consider his creative high point.

Bowie’s prolific output in the 1970s forms the burning heart of his career, both musically and visually. No other rock performer had embraced fashion and theater with such enthusiasm. In a dress-down era of jeans, beards and denim jackets, Bowie as Ziggy went onstage in heels, makeup, boas and avant-garde costumes made for him by young designers like Japan’s Kansai Yamamoto. Bowie was wearing tight woolen bodysuits missing the left arm and the right leg and exposing much of the right butt cheek long before some of his most obvious students (we’re looking at you, Lady Gaga) were born.

Those still surprising ensembles are a key part of the exhibit “David Bowie Is,” which opens March 23 at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. (The show has broken the museum’s record for advance ticket sales.) Bowie has given the museum full access to his archive, which includes 75,000 items; along with the outfits and previously unseen photographs, the curators have dug up notebooks with the scribbled lyrics of some of his best songs, including perhaps his finest six minutes on record, the 1977 tale of young lovers meeting next to the Berlin Wall, “Heroes.”


But you hit 1983 in the show’s catalog and something happens: the suits. Starting with the videos for that year’s album, Let’s Dance, and his Serious Moonlight tour, these outfits—a kind of neocolonialist take on a zoot suit—mark a public turning away from what we previously knew as the Bowie-esque style (although he had worn some natty suits during his soul stage). Shoulder pads bulge Dynasty-style from the red suit he wore on his hugely profitable, hugely overblown Glass Spider tour in 1987. It’s hard not to flinch at the sight.

And in those years, it was hard not to flinch at the music. For all of Bowie’s repeated insistence from an early age that he wasn’t a good musician or even a musician at all—that he was really an actor—he’s always risen and fallen on the strength of his songwriting and recordings. Music has been the problem that’s burdened him since 1980′s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), which is widely considered his last great record. Let’s Dance blended the dance-friendly sensibility of producer Nile Rodgers, some of Bowie’s most soaring vocals and searing, bluesy guitar riffs from Stevie Ray Vaughan. It’s a superfun mainstream rock album and still Bowie’s most commercially successful record. His next two, Tonight (1984) and Never Let Me Down (1987), were the worst of his career: bombastic and confused attempts to satisfy his creative soul but also to take advantage of new opportunities to make a lot of money from stadium rock.

His career never fully recovered, even though moments of brilliance flashed in some of the records that followed. (His soundtrack for the British television series The Buddha of Suburbia, from 1993, is a modest high point.) A nadir was 1997′s Earthling, which found Bowie, then 50, trying clumsily to appropriate a then au courant form of British dance music called drum ‘n’ bass—and, in a larger sense, to claw back his hold on youth culture. The same year, Bowie sold the rights to the following 10 years’ worth of royalties from most of his songs. The issue of “Bowie bonds” netted him $55 million up front and did his reputation as a countercultural figure no good.

Meanwhile, a contemporary and hero of his was showing that he still knew how it was done. Months after the release of Earthling, Bob Dylan released Time Out of Mind. It was packed full of controlled but anguished songs about the challenges that come with no longer being a young man—something Bowie seemed to be struggling with too. In a 1998 interview with the New York Times, Bowie said, “Now his music has such resonance that when I first put his new album on, I thought I should just give up.” It seemed clear what he was thinking, though he left the thought unspoken: Why can’t I do that any longer?

Now we know: he can. If there’s a key to The Next Day‘s triumph—and to every move Bowie has made in public since Jan. 8—it’s his willingness to look back without lapsing into maudlin nostalgia or a rote rehashing of past glories. Many of the songs on the album make direct reference to some of his strongest work from the 1970s—there’s the drumbeat that opens the Ziggy Stardust album! There’s a guitar riff from Lodger!—but the gazing back feels like a frank reckoning instead of a sign of defeat. Rather miraculously, Bowie has picked up where he left off when he was last genuinely great. This is a record that could have been made in 1981. It’s so much better to have it late than never.


-------

THE NEXT DAY DELUXE IN AT #1 IN 21 COUNTRIES

"And the next day, And the next"

Further congratulations are due to David Bowie for the continued success of his new album. http://smarturl.it/DBsplash

The Deluxe version of The Next Day has entered the iTunes album chart at #1 in 21 countries around the globe, as you can see from the accompanying graphic.

Thanks again to everybody who has bought the album thus far, both in the digital and physical formats, couldn’t do it without your support.



(it didn't come out in N.A. yet so those charts are obviously not available yet)

--------

I'm in love with this whole album. After many listens, I think Love is Lost is my favourite now (followed by Dirty Boys). Love is Lost is unbelievably good and hits me right in the feels. Ow~~

Love Is Lost (David Bowie)

It’s the darkest hour, you’re twenty two
The voice of youth, the hour of dread
The darkest hour and your voice is new
Love is lost, lost is love

Your country's new
Your friends are new
Your house and even your eyes are new
Your maid is new and your accent too
But your fear is as old as the world

Say goodbye to the thrills of life
Where love was good, no love was bad
Wave goodbye to the life without pain
Say hello
You’re a beautiful girl

Say hello to the lunatic men
Tell them your secrets
They’re like the grave
Oh, what have you done?
Oh, what have you done?
Love is lost, lost is love

You know so much, it’s making you cry
You refuse to talk but you think like mad
You’ve cut out your soul and the face of thought
Oh, what have you done?
Oh, what have you done?



SOURCE 1
SOURCE 2
SOURCE 3

Angie needs to shut the fuck up. At the same time, I can't help but feel horribly amused at her bitterness. I had to post this for that reason alone --- Now that most of you Bowie stans got to listen to the album a few times (I hope?), what do you think? What're your favs? Also, N.A. people, don't forget to buy the album in a couple of days!!!! I'll have to wait a bit longer for the vinyl but I did preorder the digital copy too. UGH can't wait to hold the record in my hands though hurrrryyyyyy up Amazon!!!

Rihanna doesn't let many people get under her skin, but according to the "Diamonds" singer, Mommy Dearest knows just how to humble her.

In a recent interview for the April issue of Elle UK, the 25-year-old singer admits that even she has to face some pretty intense lectures from her mom, Monica Fenty -- especially when it comes to posting inappropriate photos.

"I'm not afraid of any person in this world but my mother, I'm terrified of her!" she told the magazine. "She called me two days ago and reeled me in about two naked pictures [my friend] Melissa put up on Instagram, a sneak peek from a photo book she's making about me."

"She went crazy on me, I was like, embarrassed," she continued. "I felt like I got my a-- whipped in front of my class at school! She humbled the f--k out of me."

The singer is known for sharing her oft-racy photos on social media, often of herself wearing skimpy bikinis or risque tops.

Not that her mother's words have put too much of a damper on Rihanna's tendency to over share.

On Wednesday, March 6, the River Island designer shared a racy shot of herself topless and nearly bottomless with her 5.6 million followers on Instagram.

"Gotcha bitch tip toeing on my marble flo'!!!" she captioned the shot, in which she has her back turned to the camera wearing nothing but a thong and thigh-high boots. "Sick a-- custom Prada boots! Miuccia you RULE!!! Thank you."





source

Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio hit the beach for a Victoria’s Secret photo shoot on Thursday and Friday (March 7 and 8) in Santa Monica, Calif.The ladies wore several different outfits throughout the shoot and Alessandra even showed off her bikini body!































































Shooting VS lingerie days before shooting in Santa Monica
"So happy to be reunited with @adrianalima and #diamondbeautyinc @victoriassecret @milkstudios #perfection"
twitter.com/daniellepriano


Prada Fall/Winter 2013/14 Runway

Appears 1:48

Appears 1:10

http://www.justjared.com/2013/03/10/alessandra-ambrosio-adriana-lima-bright-vs-photo-shoot/#comment-27688891
http://www.justjared.com/2013/03/08/adriana-lima-alessandra-ambrosio-vs-beach-shoot/
http://www.bellazon.com/main/topic/4322-candids/page__st__15120
http://www.bellazon.com/main/topic/1390-motion/page__st__7300

Preparations are already underway for Michelle Obama's big 50th birthday next January, and two of music's biggest acts have reportedly been booked for the occasion.

An unnamed (and potentially questionable) source told the UK's Daily Mail that the first lady has asked Beyonce and Adele to perform at her party.

"America’s first lady will be holding a huge celebrity-packed party for her birthday at the White House next year and, as she adores Adele and Beyonce, she has asked them both to sing," an unnamed source told The Daily Mail. "Adele has graciously accepted and waived her usual fee for the high-profile private performance. She will sing a selection of her most-loved hits for the first lady and her friends."

Beyonce has a long-standing relationship with the Obamas. The singer famously performed at President Obama's inauguration earlier this year, and, along with her husband Jay-Z, was a major supporter of Obama during his run for presidency and reelection. Beyonce also wrote the first lady a birthday card earlier this year for her 49th. "Michelle, thank you so much for every single thing that [you] do for us," Beyonce wrote. "I am proud to have my daughter grow up in a world where she has people like you to look up to."

Michelle Obama will turn 50 on January 17, 2014.



source | 1& 2& 3

Justin Timberlake returned to Studio 8H on Saturday for his fifth time hosting Saturday Night Live. His appearance, and the slew of cameos that accompanied it, gave the show a sizable boost in ratings.

Preliminary Nielsen figures give the episode 5.9 rating among metered-market households and a 15 share. That's the largest haul for the NBC series in 14 months, since Charles Barkley hosted in January, 2012.

In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, SNL averaged a 3.7 rating among adults 18-49 -- another high not achieved since Barkley.

Though he has made several cameos on SNL in the past two years, Saturday marked Timberlake's first time hosting since May 2011. That episode brought 9.8 million viewers and 3.5 rating with adults 18-49 when final numbers came in.

The current season high was set by host Adam Levine in January. With final returns in, the broadcast pulled a 2.7 rating with adults 18-49 and 7.3 million viewers -- and Timberlake is on track to eclipse both measures.

Final ratings for Timberlake's SNL will be available later in the week.

the hollywood reporter

I guess you could say things could be going better for former NBA player Renaldo Balkman, who once enjoyed stints with the Nuggets and Knicks before departing overseas to play in the Philippines.

That should be enough of a backstory for you to appreciate this video of Balkman going from irate basketball player to all-out madman.

The video is of Friday's game between Balkman's Petron Blaze Boosters and the Alaska Aces in Philippine Basketball Association action.

Unfortunately, that action turned violent in the final moments.



Balkman goes up for a shot and misses, then pleads his case that he was fouled. So far, nothing newsworthy, because every NBA game features much of the same.

Things get a tad dicey, though, as the 28-year-old bumps the ref and then hits his arm as he tries to show him how he was fouled. That's pretty much the moment one coach thought, Yeah, I should probably go get him now.

That particular coach wasn't counting on being shoved, which quickly becomes the least egregious moment of the video.

The announcer adorably asks for someone to restrain Balkman—something that becomes clear is not going to happen. At least not without somebody getting their neck wrung.

As his fellow players try to calm him down, Balkman continues pushing against good sense, ending with him choking his teammate, Arwind Santos.

Well, no good athletic meltdown ever goes down without a subsequent and awkward apology.

Yahoo! Sports reports Balkman has since apologized to his team and will also have to meet with the commissioner’s office on Monday.

Balkman was also on the Spin.PH's Snow Badua podcast and offered the following:

It was in the heat of the moment, I was frustrated, I hate myself for what I did. Everybody sees me as a bad person. But, that’s not me, that’s not me. [...]

I am a professional, I am not supposed to do that. I already apologized to Arwind (Santos), his family and my teammates, including our bosses.

Everybody does something once in a life, they’re not supposed to do. At the time I blanked out and went at it. It’s my first time ever in my entire life to do that.

I have had some awful and thoroughly frustrating days before, but so far I've yet to choke anybody. That's not really a means to boast, but in light of this recent video, I will now pat myself on the back for never choking anyone.

We forgive, but that doesn't mean we have to forget. Thank you for your apology, Balkman. We can now move on.

But you let a simple basketball game destroy every last bit of your good sense. You went and choked a friend and teammate, and that will never change.

Not that you should worry, because most people seem to have forgotten all about Latrell Sprewell, so you should be fine.


Source

The "fakest reality show ever" will return for a 12-episode second season, the cable network announced Friday.

Led by Kevin Hart, Nick Cannon, Boris Kodjoe, Duane Martin, J.B. Smoove and Robin Thicke, Real Husbands of Hollywood follows the group as they navigate their way through stardom alongside -- or in spite of -- their famous wives.

Familiar faces will drop by, including the return of Nelly, in the new season.

“When we launched this series in January, we knew our audience would have as much fun watching it as we had making it, and since it has been on the air, fans have voiced on social media that they want more. So this was a pretty simple decision: ‘Hey! Let’s make more!’” says Stephen Hill, BET’s president of music programming and specials. “We are beyond thrilled that Kevin Hart and the stellar Husbands will be back bickering and back-biting, for another season on BET.”

Real Husbands of Hollywood launched to 4.1 million viewers in January. It wraps up its first season later this month.

Executive producers are Hart, Stan Lathan, Ralph Farquahar, Jesse Collins, Tim Gibbons, Chris Spencer and Dave Becky. Hart and Spencer are co-creators.

source

According to Sky News, there are several media reports coming out Iran that the country is considering suing the makers of Argo for it believes to be an “unrealistic portrayal” of the country.

Argo was intended by its director Ben Affleck to be relatively neutral, as it focused on a tale of six real-life American hostages who escaped from the country back in 1979, however it has come under fierce attack from the country it was portraying, with the film receiving a huge backlash, talks of Iranian film studios making and filming a riposte to the feature – which won best picture at this year’s Oscars – and, now, possible legal action.

French lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre is apparently in Iran for talks with officials over how they might go about filing a lawsuit and who they might aim it at. The lawyer has a history of politically-charged cases; he is also the lawyer for the Venezuelan-born terrorist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal - currently serving a life sentence for killing two French agents and a government informant, as well as 11 others. A meeting called The Hoax Of Hollywood was apparently called in which officials discussed ways in which they could sue the film makers. It’s unclear what route they could take, though they did reportedly dismiss it as a "violation of international cultural norms".

Source.

The Great Gatsby will open the 66th Festival de Cannes, organizers said early Tuesday local time.

The movie will screen May 15 at the Grand TheatreLumiereof the Palais des Festivals, out of competition, as part of the Official Selection.

Rapper Jay-Z, who scored the movie, and Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan also will attend the premiere, organizers said.

"It is a great honor for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes Film Festival," Luhrmann said in a statement. "We are thrilled to return to a country, place and festival that has always been so close to our hearts, not only because my first film,Strictly Ballroom, was screened there 21 years ago, but also because F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside St. Raphael."

This will mark the second time in festival history that the opening film will be screened in 3D, following Up in 2009.

Gatsby opens domestically May 10 and in France on the same day it screens at the festival. The film will be distributed in 2D and 3D by Warner Bros. Pictures and in certain regions by Village Roadshow Pictures.

Luhrmann has twice been honored by the Festival de Cannes: for Strictly Ballroom (Un Certain Regard in 1992) and for Moulin Rouge! at the opening of the festival in 2001.

DiCaprio returns to the Croisette for the first time since the 2007 presentation of The 11th Hour, an ecological documentary he produced.

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By Brandon Griggs, CNN


Austin, Texas (CNN) -- Shaquille O'Neal may be 7 feet tall and one of the most dominant players in NBA history, but here at the South by Southwest Interactive festival, he's just a big nerd.

Shaq has spent the past few days in Austin meeting entrepreneurs, checking out new gadgets and sharing his thoughts on tech, social media, basketball and, well, almost everything else. He spent part of Sunday touring the SXSW trade show, where startups hawk their latest products.

"I thought I was at Toys R Us. I bought stuff I didn't even need," he told a capacity crowd at an onstage talk Monday afternoon. "I'm on my iPad, my computer, every day. I'm the world's tallest geek."

During Shaq's appearance, his first at SXSW, he offered a mix of earnest life lessons and good-natured humor. The 19-year NBA veteran praised the "dummy-proof" nature of today's simple-to-use tablets and phones. "If you don't know how to work technology now, something is really, really wrong with you."

O'Neal has long been a force on Twitter, where he has 6.8 million followers. He said he uses the service "60% to make you laugh, 30% to inspire you, and 10% to sell stuff. I do a lot of 'your mama' jokes on it."

But Shaq's playful personality masks a potent ambition and a shrewd knack for business. He earned an MBA while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers and later bought a lucrative stake in Google before its IPO in 2004. Currently, he sits on the advisory board for Tout, a social-media startup that lets users make and share 15-second videos.

"I've always tried to partner with people who are way, way smarter than me," said the Big Aristotle (one of his many nicknames), who retired from the NBA in 2011.

"I've always been a person ... (who thinks) I don't want you to give me anything. I want to earn it."

Asked by interviewer Brian Solis what he looks for when investing in a tech product, he said, "Simplicity. I'm looking for something that's very simple ... and that's going to change the world. I look for individuals who are sort of like myself -- big dreamers."

He may have found a few.

Before he arrived in Austin, O'Neal and Tout joined up for a "Pitch Shaq" contest in which they invited registered SXSW attendees to submit 15-second elevator pitches about their startups. The winner was promised a personal audience with Shaq and possibly an infusion of his cash.

At the close of his remarks Monday, Shaq said he had viewed more than 150 pitches and had chosen two winners: Beam, which makes a mobile videoconferencing device that rolls around on wheels like a Segway; and Speakerfy, a social-sound app that lets you wirelessly sync music between different Apple mobile devices.

Both startups, when contacted by CNN at their booths inside the Austin Convention Center, were pleasantly stunned by the news.

But they don't need Shaq's money.

"We're very flattered. I'd love to figure out how Shaq could use (our device) in his business," said Scott Hassan, CEO of Beam. "We're not really looking for funding right now. We're well funded. But if he really wants to, we could probably work something out."

"We're very excited, don't get me wrong. We would love to do anything with Shaq. We want his advice," said Austin Wright, vice president of operations for Speakerfy.

"But we're good, funding-wise,"he said. "That's awkward. Do we tell Shaq no?"

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Lady Gaga was photographed by Terry Richardson out and about in NYC after her recent hip surgery.

In a 24-karat gold wheelchair.

MTV reports that Mordekai's Ken Borochov was commissioned to design the chair:

"I certainly wasn't expecting that phone call and have never done a wheelchair but am always up for a challenge and was thrilled to create what I affectionately dubbed the Chariot, a chair fit only for a queen," Ken said in an official statement.

Logically, Ken looked first to a throne for his inspiration. He then fashioned the Chariot from tufted calf leather, inspired by classic motorcycle jackets, adding a removable leather canopy that we REALLY want to get a look at. The wheels and hardware are 24-Karat gold plated. Maybe the craziest detail of all of this, the whole business had to be completed in a single week! Well done, Ken Borochov, well done.

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Michael Mew, a close friend of porn star Wilfried Knight, has confirmed in a statement that Knight died on March 5 in an apparent suicide.

Mew wrote:

It is with heavy heart that I announce the passing of Wilfried Knight on Tuesday, March 5th, 2013.

The last thing he would want is everyone to think he was a porn-star cliché. He was not: He was not a drug or steroid abuser, and he did not drink like crazy.

He was a funny man with a kitschy sense of humour, who was more at home in the outdoors; on a mountaintop or volcano with his trusty pitbull he affectionately called Pig Daughter.
If you did see him at a bar or club, he was usually off on the side somewhere drinking a dry glass of white wine with his husband, Jerry.

As many of you do not know, Wilfried’s husband of seven years, Jerry Enriquez, took his own life less then two weeks before Wilfried did. Wilfried decided to follow him; taking his own life in the same hotel where they were legally married in up in Vancouver, Canada.
Jerry was an American citizen and Wilfried was a French national. Despite the challenges of being in a multi-national relationship, they tried very hard to make it work and stay together. Wilfried even enrolled into acupuncture school in Portland so that they can stay together. With his schooling and attached visa coming to a close end, Jerry desperately looked for work in Vancouver, Canada. They would have preferred to stay Portland but due to American immigration laws their Canadian marriage was not recognized and Wilfried would have to leave the U.S.

Jerry was so happy when he landed a job at Lululemon as the manager their IVIVA clothing line. Since Wilfried and Jerry were legally married in Canada, Wilfried was given a spouse visa and they both happily moved up to Vancouver.

They both were very private people in a lot of ways. After about a year, Jerry was let go by Lululemon. Wilfried told me about the questionable treatment Jerry received from Lululemon of which he wrote on his blog. Without a job or work visa in Canada, Jerry and Wilfried would not be able to stay in Canada and they could not return to the U.S. together.
After about five months not being able to find a new job, Jerry took his own life on February 21, 2013.

Death can come suddenly and people forget to take care of final matters. There was no will. Anything that Wilfried and Jerry had build together, including their home in Portland, now went to Jerry’s family. Their relationship was never formally recognized by the U.S. government, even though they were legally married in Canada and had over eight years of memories and photos together.

Up to the end, he expressed how he wished that no couple would have to endure what he and Jerry had to in trying to stay together. They would both be alive today if America had gay marriage.

They will be missed.

We reached out to Lucas Entertainment, where Knight filmed more than 20 movies. “I was hoping it was a hoax,” Lucas director Marc MacNamara told us. “I loved Wilfried dearly. There are some people who you just completely connect with and we had a beautiful bond. We kept in contact over the years as he had such a grounded perspective of life. He was so incredibly caring and genuine and we, as an industry and as a community are all at a great loss without Wilfried’s presence.”

MacNamara told us that many performers have taken Knight’s passing particularly hard, and he hopes they remember to stay strong.

Our condolences to Knight’s friends and loved ones.

FROM TOWLEROAD

Gay adult film actor Wilfried Knight has died, his friends in the business Matthew Rush and Chris Yosef confirmed this evening. Knight began his career as part of Lucas Entertainment and appeared in dozens of films.

Knight's death, the details of which have not emerged, comes just weeks after his partner Jerry Enriquez committed suicide.

Knight wrote about Enriquez's death in a lengthy, emotional blog post dated March 3:

And i was in love, and so was my partner. He let me be who i wanted to be. He did not agree with everything i was but he let me be. He gave me the best 8, almost 9 years of my life. And this amazing guy committed suicide by hanging last week, after fighting for so long for us to stay together.

RIP.

UPDATE: Falcon and Raging Stallion studios released a statement:

"Born in 1977 and growing up in Champagne, France, the 35-year-old actor appeared in over 10 Raging Stallion productions in the last four years. Originally an exclusive for Lucas Entertainment, Wilfried became the first-ever joint Lucas/ Raging Stallion exclusive. He was a consummate performer and a joy to have on set, which was why he was chosen to appear in the studio's major releases. He contributed to the success of the biggest industry hits from Raging Stallion, including Cowboys, Giants, Tales of the Arabian Nights and Focus/Refocus.

"His skills and talent didn't go unrecognized; he won the 2010 GayVN Award for Performer of the Year, and he took home the 2011 Grabby for Best Versatile Performer. A man of stature, standing 6'2" and weighing in at nearly 200 pounds, Knight had a huge presence, a gracious air, and a caring disposition. His charm and humor did not go unnoticed. All of these traits are what made him a superstar of the industry.

"While the details of his death are not yet know, Knight recently lost his partner of nine years to suicide.

"Chris Ward, Falcon/Raging Stallion Studios President offered these sentiments about his friend: 'Wilfried's death is a blow to our studio and to our industry. There was no nicer man. We have all lost someone very special. I can only say that personally I am devastated. Wilfried was a friend and I shall miss him. All of us at Falcon and Raging Stallion Studios hope he is at peace, and our thoughts are with his family and friends. I know that his good friend and director, Tony Dimarco, is also greatly saddened by this tragic loss.'"

The studio also issued this collective expression of loss:

"We grieve deeply at the passing of Wilfried Knight. We offer our most genuine thoughts of sympathy and warm wishes to Wilfried's family, friends and loved ones. He was an extraordinary talent and a special man who brought joy to our hearts. Wilfried, we celebrate your life and your accomplishments, and hope that you rest in peace. You will be missed greatly."


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Allison Williams comes of age on 'Girls'

The actress, who earned her stripes on the Web, now finds herself part of a larger cultural conversation over her HBO series and her Type-A character, Marnie.

Allison Williams, one-quarter of the coming-of-age female confederation in HBO's "Girls," finds herself at the center of a heated discussion, at least among the show's modest but fervent audience: Is Marnie a bad friend? Or is Hannah a bad friend?

The culturally polarizing comedy spent much of its debut season redefining sexual parameters and narcissism for the millennial generation. But friendships are at the core of the Lena Dunham-created series, and they're experiencing growing pains. The on-the-surface unusual bond between Williams' Marnie (the uptight friend) and Dunham's Hannah (the carefree friend) no longer has the tape of college keeping their friendship together as they transition into the scarier world of adulthood.

And the troubled relationship, which produced a simmer-to-boil screamfest at the end of Season 1 over who was a bad friend, has been the driving undercurrent of the show's sophomore term and the talk of the blogosphere.

"This morning, I sneezed and someone that was in the apartment next to me said 'Bless you' through the wall," Williams said. "So it's weird to think I'm part of a larger cultural conversation. It's all about Team Marnie or Team Hannah."

The show, which wraps its second season March 17, has become a cultural touchstone whose every move has invoked passionate study from those who love it and even more from those who loathe it. And its characters have secured their place in the "Which character are you?" query that was once a hallmark of the "Sex and the City" era — this despite an audience that hovers around 700,000 viewers.

Looking very Marnie-esque in a prim, just-below-the-knee mint-colored dress and sling-back pumps in the casual setting of the Brentwood Country Mart, the 24-year-old actress (and daughter of NBC News anchor Brian Williams) confesses that she hasn't let go of the Craigslist-found Santa Monica apartment she moved into when she first left the East Coast three years ago to pursue acting more earnestly. She's been preoccupied.

Williams, whose only prior TV credit was a blip on NBC's "American Dreams," landed an audition for the HBO comedy shortly after moving into the thin-walled apartment. Though the famous parents of the cast (Jemima Kirke's dad drummed for Bad Company; Zosia Mamet's dad is playwright-director David Mamet) has spurred criticism of spoon-fed success, Williams can't thank her dad for the gig. Instead, comic juggernaut Judd Apatow and his obsession with all things "Mad Men" merits the gratitude.

Williams had performed and recorded (in one take) a twist to the AMC drama's instrumental theme song, set to the lyrics from "Nature Boy" and posted it online — complete with elbow-length gloves and a demure smile. Apatow was responsible for one of the more than 906,000 views it has amassed since its October 2010 posting.

"I thought she would be the perfect counterpoint to Lena," said Apatow, an executive producer on "Girls." "A girl who seems to have it all figured out who is classically beautiful and wound a little tight."

Dunham needed more persuading to cast Williams as the gallery girl with resolve. "I thought 'gorgeous voice, great hair, what else is new in Hollywood,'" Dunham said via email. "I had to meet Allison to understand just how cheeky and intelligent that video really was, and just why Judd felt so strongly about her."

Now viewers are feeling strongly about Marnie. The first season painted a portrait of a Type A know-it-all who gave the appearance that she had it all together; the one who schedules her friend's abortion appointments. The one who has sex with her bra on. That person completely unravels in the second season: She's jobless, boyfriend-less and bra-less during sex. And not always a likable person, which Williams acknowledges.

"I don't always think, 'God, I wish I could be friends with her,'" she said. "I think it would be a little frustrating. But I also sort of know how I would handle her. I would be like, 'Don't manage any of my life. Don't try to control me.' I think I'm half-Marnie. But I'm a lot more like Hannah — she's steadfast with her passion."

Despite her parents' news background — her mother is a television news producer — Williams never considered that as a career path. A 1939 film had been too alluring as a young girl.

"I was about 5 when I saw 'The Wizard of Oz,'" she said. "I just thought it was so amazing that they all played two characters and I was like, 'What kind of job is that?' Once I realized it was acting, I knew I wanted to do it. I wanted to play a farmhand and a cowardly lion in the same movie. I wanted to play the wicked witch and a mean neighbor on a bike."

But while her parents now gather 'round to watch her sex scenes (and the other ones too) on the HBO series, they had a strict no-acting-until-you-graduate-college policy in place (with the exception of "American Dreams"). Cruel and unusual punishment for Williams, particularly in 2004.

"When 'Mean Girls' came out, I just thought Lindsay Lohan was genius. I didn't understand how I could ever come close to that if they didn't let me start young," she said. "I've come to realize it's not a zero-sum game. When I see performances like Jennifer Lawrence's in 'Silver Linings Playbook,' I think, 'God, what a great role.' But maybe, just maybe, she watches 'Girls' and maybe, just maybe, she wishes she was on 'Girls.'"

Instead, Williams would attend Yale and sample the acting world in other ways during the time lag. She worked as Tina Fey's assistant the summer the "30 Rock" star was shooting "Baby Mama" (she doesn't deny that her father's connections helped her there), she served as a utilities stand-in for the "Boardwalk Empire" pilot, and she was a production assistant on Robert Altman's last movie, "A Prairie Home Companion."

"I wanted to learn the technical side of lighting and sound because, again, I wasn't allowed to start acting until I graduated college," she said. "I wanted to know the drill. I wanted the first time I went on-set to act to be totally stressless, except for the acting."

Williams, who was part of Yale's improv group Just Add Water, would get most of her time in front of the camera appearing in Web shorts. She got some folks clicking with her muted cover of Kesha's lyrically absurd "Tik Tok" song. And she wrote a series of Funny or Dies sketches, in which she played Kate Middleton.

"It's the new way of getting seen," she said. "And I didn't want to not be ready when I could finally try out for the bigger stuff."

It's clear the actress is just as prepared and well organized as the character she plays. And it's something her boss seems to admire.

"I call Allison '20 Questions' because she's an academic, a research fiend, when it comes to her role," Dunham said." A lot of people would rest on their laurels because they're playing someone their own age, in their own time period and general socioeconomic bracket, but she refuses to be lazy."

But Williams tries not to overthink Marnie too much.

"The way I play her is with a very thin veneer of 'Everything's fine. Every. Thing. Is. Fine. I'm fine. Everyone around me is struggling, but I am fine,'" she said. "It is crucial to playing her, and so I can't overthink her. But sometimes I do wonder: What is going to be the thing that just really gets her jazzed? What is it going to be?'

"I don't know the answer to that question yet. I'm still hung up on the Team Marnie and Team Hannah conundrum."
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With Delta Machine, Depeche Mode have once again decided to use experimental electronics as a vehicle to transport themselves deep into redemptive blues-pop territory. Or is pop structure the vehicle and the territory experimental? With a band whose influence has touched so many disparate genres over its thirty-year history, it’s hard to say. What’s clear, however, is Depeche Mode’s thirteenth LP is a veritable orgy of modular synthesis, unconventionally manipulated to shade the classic songwriting of Martin Gore and Dave Gahan even blacker than usual. Indeed, in the shadows is where the band, and especially frontman Dave Gahan, dwell most comfortably these days. Though Gahan has been clean since 1997, Delta Machine finds the unmistakable baritone articulating his thoughts on pain, addiction, and salvation as if they were a reoccurring dream. “In the darkness is where I find all my ideas of redemption, knowing and understanding,” Gahan recently told A.J. Samuels in New York City. Musically and visually, this translates into nothing less than a proclamation of the band’s ur-goth identity, as the recent video for “Heaven” proudly parades.



Dave, I know you’re currently in the process of prepping for Depeche Mode’s upcoming tour. What does that involve?

Well, it starts out with putting together a list of songs that we want to play, particularly from other albums like Black Celebration, Music for the Masses, and Ultra—all of which ultimately should fit with Delta Machine. Which is to say it all has this strong combination of blues and electronics. Also, we’re thinking about reviving songs that we never really played that much, like “Barrel of a Gun”. Naturally you have to throw things in the fans want to hear. With us it’s a constant debate: “Should we do ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’?”—“I don’t know, should we?” You’ve got to look at it as a song that means a lot to a lot of hardcore fans, but when you do something from thirty years ago, it can be like putting on a pair of pants from thirty years ago: they don’t quite fit anymore, you know? You might really, really like them, but they might not, uh, work.

I know you’re opening up this tour again in Israel. Have you caught shit for playing there and has it affected you at all?

We probably have, but why should it? Music is universal. It’s the one thing that actually brings people together and crosses political boundaries. And politics doesn’t really come into music for us. We’ve always gone to places where we’ve been told not to or whatever. For us it’s an opportunity to play somewhere with a lot of people who’ve been listening to our music for a long time. And when we played there for the first time in front of forty or fifty thousand people, we could feel that they’ve been waiting for this to happen. It was the day after my birthday and I hadn’t even given it a thought until the entire stadium sang “Happy Birthday”, which Martin started. I have an MP3 of it.

Depeche Mode has straddled the line between pop and something more experimental from the very beginning, particularly in the use of sampling and sound design. It’s allowed you to have one foot firmly planted in the world of mass appeal while maintaining a more progressive musical vision. How do you understand the band’s relationship to the musical avant-garde, or at least less pop?

I would say our influences have dictated that relationship since before the band started. We were always drawn in both directions. Growing up, at about the age of fifteen and sixteen, I started getting serious about music. A few years before that in England at the particular time, glam rock and glam pop were also straddling that very line, with Bowie, Roxy Music, T. Rex and Slade. That’s what was being played on the radio. Well, not so much Bowie, but the others. Either way: there is a long history of that flirtation with things that were avant-garde by bands we loved. On the other hand, with twelve or thirteen we were always buying forty-fives and what not, because we didn’t have the money to afford entire albums. And that influenced the way we heard music too; the way it captured our imagination in regards to pop structure. As we got older and punk came out, we were still hearing short, sharp pop songs, but with an edge. I think the real change in terms of deepening our listening habits came with music from Germany, when we formed Depeche Mode at around age seventeen. Things like Kraftwerk and Neu! were available for those who really, really searched. It wasn’t everywhere, you know. So when somebody had a copy of Man-Machine, they shared it. Or they traded amongst friends for something else. Music was a world unto itself. And especially with music that was really out of this world, I always found myself singing along. Like with the world—or worlds—of David Bowie: that’s where I wanted to go. Growing up in this little town east of London, which was really shitty, I always dreamed about being out in space, like Bowie. I wanted to find out where that was.

So more than anything else, music was your form of escape?

Yes. Music has allowed me to escape from a lot of things. I didn’t really fit in. I was just one of those kids… I mean, I tried to fit in with lots of different groups of friends but I was just different; an odd kid. In a way, you could say I was a bit nerdy even though I was hanging out with street kids who were getting in trouble and all that. But that wasn’t really my bag. It wasn’t the person I was. I was more into things I wouldn’t talk to some of my friends about. Like with David Bowie, who was just so androgynous and flamboyant and transported me somewhere else every time I saw him on TV. I can’t overemphasize the importance of that because we didn’t have a lot of money. My mother raised four kids on her own pretty much, worked two jobs and raised us in a really little house. I remember I had a small radio that I would go to bed with. My two little brothers and me shared a small bedroom. I was on a mattress on the floor in a sleeping bag, while they were in the bunk bed. I had this little earpiece thing which I would use to listen late at night to John Peel or whatever weird music that wasn’t on daytime radio or TV, which was another important part of my musical upbringing.

Depeche Mode did a Peel session early on, didn’t you?

Hmmm… I think so. Actually, I don’t know if we did Peel. We certainly did other BBC sessions, and if we did do Peel it’s probably surfaced by now. With technology today, there’s nothing too secret anymore. I find that’s actually one of the challenges of making music today: creating something that has a real mystique to it. It is for me, anyway. And as a listener, I love still discovering things. But recommendations are still the best.

What was the last good recommendation you got?

The last one that really affected me was Sigur Rós’ first record, which I heard somewhere in between Exciter and Paper Monsters. I knew then that I wanted Paper Monsters to be a real rock record with cinematic quality, with atmosphere and depth. Mark Lanegan was also a big discovery for me, which is how I came to Soulsavers, with whom I made their last record. We also ended up touring with them after I discussed it with Martin. You have to be open to ideas, which is why I’ve stepped out of Depeche Mode a lot over the last ten years. I’ve discovered that it makes it much more exciting for me to come back to the band with different ideas and a different outlook on recording and songwriting.

Songwriting is at the core of Depeche Mode, but some of the most important musicians who’ve claimed you as an influence make music that has little to do with classic pop song structure. In an article from The Face that documented the band’s trip to Detroit in 1989 with Derrick May, Martin claimed that Depeche Mode “couldn’t make dance music if we tried.” What’s your take on the band’s influence on electronic music as a whole and functional music in particular?

Well, in the beginning, with Vince [Clarke], dance music is exactly what we wanted to do. I had a little group of friends, a gang, with whom I went to London to all these clubs that extended from the punk scene. And Vince was very smart with getting me on board because I was with the so-called “in crowd” in London and in Essex at the time where I grew up. We would always take the train to these exclusive little clubs in London where they’d be playing Kraftwerk and Berlin-era Bowie—Low, Station to Station—and it ended up being a little scene. It was one to two hundred people tops, and a lot of them were my friends, so Vince saw that we had an in to these places. Naturally, when Depeche Mode started out, my friends would always come. There was a ready-made following of around fifty people who would always be there. And we wanted to make music that we heard in clubs where we danced, you know? We wanted to make music that our friends could dance to that wasn’t disco.

How do you recall your trip to Detroit? And what role did the constant remixes play in popularizing Depeche Mode in clubs?

Well, it was kind of bizarre for us, to be honest. Derrick May was kind of a hipster at the time in the early dance-electronic-techno scene or whatever. Apparently a mix of “Get the Balance Right!” had been a hit in some of these underground clubs in Detroit and elsewhere. You know, that wasn’t a surprise for us because our early following in the U.S. around ’80 or ’81 was very underground. There was no radio play, it was all underground in a club setting. It was all mystery. Nobody knew or cared what we looked like. There were just our records—12-inch remixes and extended versions, which we did from the very beginning. We had an extended “Schizo Mix” of “Just Can’t Get Enough”, for instance. And back then, four-to-the-floor was either Giorgio Moroder and disco, or it was something stranger and deeper—Detroit, Suicide… stuff that was punky and raw, but not perfect. And that’s where we fit in. So we were flattered because at the time The Face was a really trendy magazine in England and we weren’t trendy there at all. We were very misunderstood at the time. You know, it was difficult for any magazine or newspaper to put us into a category and we did a lot of damage ourselves in the early days. We had no manager back then, and if somebody asked us to be on TV, we just did it, and it was inevitably some crappy, poppy, Saturday morning show that was really uncool to do. But we were, like, just trying to get our music out. We certainly weren’t trying to cultivate any kind of following and we got criticized for that. We’ve never really gotten over that in England. It’s one of our least successful markets. Out of all the places in the world… it’s weird.

But nowadays you guys get name-checked as influences by everybody and their cousin. New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones has claimed that you were the last significant British influence on American music. Does the rest of the world’s fawning reassessment of Depeche Mode neutralize the British music press’s past rejections for you?

Well, it makes sense to me that the British press turned their noses up in the beginning because for the first four years we were simply overdoing it with promotion. In England, whatever you do first is never forgotten. But keep in mind we still have a really strong following there and we do really well. We just sold out two O2 arenas, each with a twenty-thousand-person capacity. At any given time, we’re the band that’s had the most Top Forty singles. But in terms of sales, a band like Oasis will sell a million and we won’t sell that much.

OK, but in terms of influence, Oasis is kind of negligible compared to Depeche Mode. And they never got big in America—although it sounds like you don’t take much solace in that.

Well, Oasis are very English. I think we made it in other places because of this underground thing we had going for us, which, outside of the U.K., built very slowly. Our fans are extremely loyal and it just builds and builds and builds. Germany especially has also been really important for us. Last year, we played for the most people we’ve ever played for over there and all together that tour we played for over three million people. That’s really uncommon, especially for bands that have been together for over thirty years. U2 does it, The Rolling Stones do it… but we’re different. We’re a band that’s kind of odd. We don’t fit into that category. We are the alternative. We’re the other side. We mix rock and pop and electronics and dance music and imagery. It’s an artistic form that we’ve created and can use in different ways. We can have remixes done of our music that are drastically different from the original. The Stones can’t really do that. I mean, they can but it’s probably too far left for their fan base. And they probably wouldn’t want to do it either.

You mention your following in Germany, which is known for being obsessive. It was featured prominently and in all its eccentric glory in the documentary about your worldwide fan base The Posters Came from the Walls. Daniel Miller bankrolled the film, but according to Jeremy Deller, who we spoke with last issue, you guys weren’t crazy about how it portrayed you. Why?

First of all, no disrespect to Jeremy Deller. He made an extremely good documentary film about this band that’s pretty accurate in terms of how important we are to some of our fans: in their growth, in their lives, in their beings. When people come up to me on the street, it’s not usually like, “Whoa! It’s the guy!” Rather, most people look me straight in the eye and say: “Thank you so much for the music. It’s truly helped me.” That’s an amazing thing. But what I felt about the film was, and I can’t speak for Martin and Fletch, the whole thing was just too sycophantic, almost to a point of being comedic. And not in a good way. It didn’t show the diversity of our fans and focused in one area. However, that’s also why it was a really good documentary, a really good film. I just felt like us putting it out and putting our name behind it said, “Look how important we are.” It was just self-promotion. Which is OK, it’s what we do. It’s what we’re doing now…

Well, not only.

That’s true. Anyhow, I’d have to see it again. But I’ve already watched it twice. The whole drum corps and the Russian girl with the drawings of us, and of course the German family… it wasn’t objective enough for me. Even if it was well done. And the timing was weird, much too focused on what was and not what is today.

Back to today, you guys left Mute to release Delta Machine, though Mute has always been, amongst other things, an anchor of coolness for you guys in terms of association. Why the label change?

It’s kind of complicated. Daniel’s certainly been very involved in the making of this record—with the process of recording and lots of the choices made throughout the whole journey. What happened was around the time of Exciter, Daniel, with our blessing, signed Mute to EMI. And he gave over a lot of control to them. He retained complete artistic control, but right before we were set to record Delta Machine, there were rumors about EMI folding. We didn’t want to be stuck in limbo and have this thing stuck in the courts, because you hear about this stuff happening. Now Daniel still owns Mute Artists, but not Mute Records, which he tried to buy back after he sold it, without success. He got outbid and was very upset, which I only found out recently. He wanted to take it all back, but we basically told him, “Dan, we’ve got to move on.” And we don’t want to be the lynchpin that holds it all together. We had to ask ourselves, “Where is Mute? What is Mute? Who’s distributing it?” So we decided to shop around and Sony came up with the best offer to make sure Daniel is still around for us, and to make sure we were able to gain control of what we’re doing. Most importantly, in 2015, we’ll be able to get control of our entire catalogue. We’ll own it. It won’t be in limbo. After Delta Machine, we’ll be in real control. For us, Daniel’s one of the most important parts of what we do. He’s a constant and we want to keep it that way.

In his recent biography, Simon Spence described the band as purveyors of a particularly British electronic blues, based in the hardship and working class background of Basildon…

That’s true.

But it seems to me that somewhere around Violator, the band’s blues have changed to something much more spiritual and classically American—which is especially apparent on Delta Machine. Much of the record deals with traditional blues tropes of battling the devil and exorcising demons. To what extent do drugs and addiction continue to be your main demon?

Well, certainly the music has become very Americana. We were these kids from this little town who were influenced by the hell that we lived in and wanted to get out. Music was a way to get out and see the world and we were all very ambitious to do that. We loved to travel, to record in Berlin or Spain or Denmark or wherever. The kids where I grew up didn’t leave town, and at a very young age I was looking for something else. That’s probably why drugs played such a big role in my life. They took me to a place that was not in this body. I’m much more comfortable with that now, and that comes with age and experience of life. I was talking to my wife about it last night, because a friend of ours has gone through something extremely traumatic about a year ago, really bad stuff. I was just telling her that I really have nothing to complain about and all the things I thought were so horrible about life seem, from my perspective now, not so bad.

Along with music, you also started getting high at a young age. When was the first time you took heroin and what was the experience like?

It was actually a kind of mistake, and I was a lot younger—around eighteen or nineteen years old. I remember it was at a gig in London and I thought the heroin was amphetamines, so I took a bunch and then I got violently ill. I missed the whole gig and came to in the corner of the club. It wasn’t something I was so interested in so it didn’t surface again until the late eighties—’88 or ’89. And even then it was sporadic. But in my experience it all starts with being way too high on cocaine and then somebody’s like, “You should smoke a little of this, it’ll bring you back down.” For some reason when that happened, I took to it like a duck to water. The key fit the lock. I was like, “Wow, this really works for me.” Over the next few years after moving to Los Angeles, I used that drug a lot. I loved it. It was the first thing I really felt in love with. Addicts are a weird bunch; we’re always looking for something to get out of ourselves. I’m aware of the fact that I generally overindulge, but today it’s in other things. Even the way I perform onstage, I have to go 110% and Martin always says I’m too hard on myself and tells me to chill out. My body’s getting older and I can’t do the things I did when I was twenty-five. I don’t recover so quickly. It’s been fifteen years since I drank anything or did any drugs, but at the time when I was in my late twenties, it took over everything because it worked for me. I’m not going to sit here and put it down. I was able to function with it and do what I wanted to do… Until it didn’t work anymore and I was sick all the time. Once you’ve gone to a place like that, it’s in your soul, it’s in your spirit. It’s there. I had that experience. I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone, in terms of where it goes, but I really felt at that age that I could deal with it. I could take it or leave it. People would always warn me not to take it more than a few days, and I guess I should have listened. Especially when I moved to L.A. at the time it was a very trendy drug. The music scene and the Hollywood scene—or should I say the “darker” Hollywood scene that I hung out with—was getting high. So it just fit. And the drug gave me a break from myself. It was the first drug I used that allowed me to escape from my thoughts and get my head to stop spinning.

Do you still consider yourself a recovering addict?

That’s a good question. I like going to meetings. I don’t have to go to so many any more, but I have lots of friends who are recovering addicts who I can talk to.

The title Delta Machine references the album’s mix of blues and technology. Have you noticed a change in DM’s sound with the introduction of new technology and digital production tools? The in-the-studio video for “Angel” certainly shows you guys more in the midst of analog gear revelry, even though I couldn’t totally detect that.

I would say the album’s sound is very much influenced by modular synthesis, and there is actually very little use of plug-ins. Our producer Ben Hillier interviewed all sorts of musicians to work on this record, and they all said “Oh yeah, we know electronics.” But what they meant was that they knew how to program software and things on the computer. They didn’t know really how to use the massive modular hardware systems—ARP gear and all that. The thing is that Martin actually collects this stuff and has entire rooms full of modular set-ups, so we did quite a bit of experimenting. For example, Martin might come up with a guitar riff, but we’ll send it through an ARP 2600 and get something very different out of it in the end. We wanted to keep this album truly moving and breathing, get it off the grid. We were constantly asking ourselves how we could make an electronic record and not be tied down by quantization. With modular stuff you get a sound the way you want it and then you’ll be like “Ok, that’s good, that’s good, don’t touch it, it’s just right!” And then with the next run of it the filter sounds different or the release is shorter or something… there are things that are always changing and so many parameters being tweaked. The unpredictability is exciting.

Using modular synthesis to make pop songs instead of experimental electronics is a very Depeche Mode thing to do.

You have to be extremely patient to work these things and Martin really knows how to do it. There were days where I would get bored out of my mind, trust me. We had this studio in downtown Santa Barbara. Martin would be in there fiddling around and after hours of patching I would be like, “Am I going to sing today?” All you would hear was [imitates far out mod synth sounds], and I’d be like “Jesus Christ!” Christoffer Berg and Martin were just this perfect couple, walking around all day, plugging in and out of these giant machines with cables around their necks. I’ve got loads of pictures of it.

Depeche Mode always had a reputation for being sonic futurists, while the songwriting was always very classical. Delta Machine seems to really home in on this dichotomy.

Martin is a futurist. I’m not. And that’s why it works. I’m the one who’s always trying to bring in this really human element, if you like. Martin’s songs, like mine, are written in a more “regular” format, if you will. The demos are usually a lot warmer. When I first heard the ones for Delta Machine at his house I said, “I don’t think we should be doing a lot to this stuff.” What struck me is that even though it was really electronic and he used a lot of plug-ins to make the demos, it moved. It didn’t feel changed or transferred. It just sounded progressive, like with “Angel” or “Welcome to My World”. It was all very visual. I could see myself onstage performing these songs. That’s where I go when I write. Martin does it differently. At the end of the album, after we worked on “Long Time Lie” together, Martin asked me “Would you be interested in me sending you things to write to?” And I was like, “If it’s as abstract as just sending me interesting sounds or chords and atmosphere, then yeah, I’ll come up with the rest.” I can sit down and work out songs and chords, but I prefer bouncing ideas off someone else. I think it was Martin’s way of complementing me that I’m a good enough songwriter now. That after ten years he feels like we’re on the same kind of page.

I recently rewatched D.A. Pennebaker’s 101 and then got to thinking about his famous Dylan documentary, Don’t Look Back. For me, one of the most fascinating scenes is when Donovan and Dylan meet in Dylan’s hotel room, and Donovan plays him some really mediocre song, and then Dylan shows him up with, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”. It’s almost painful to watch. Were there ever awkward or uncomfortable moments collaborating or meeting other artists outside of Depeche Mode? What about the competitive spirit in the band?

As a songwriter I constantly hear things where I wonder, “Why didn’t I write that?” There have been moments meeting people where it’s like, “I know you. I know what you’re getting at. I know the person who writes that song. Maybe I don’t know you, but I know the person you’re talking about is in your soul.” I think there’s definitely been a healthy competition with Martin since I started writing—not because I was a better songwriter, but because I was jumping in on his turf. That’s really changed. I can now feel a mutual admiration. I’ve really come to respect Martin’s amazing work and discipline. Songs like “Heaven” are what got me excited about making this album.

The video for “Heaven” seemed to me like an overt avowal of Depeche Mode’s goth identity.

That’s where I dwell! In the shadows and in the darkness is where I find all my ideas of redemption, knowing and understanding. Through that darkness you’ll find the light. And I can’t go any other way. Music does that, you know? All that stuff I was afraid of and trying to escape in the late eighties—that constant noise—I can escape by writing songs. And it used to be only through drugs. You can’t think your way into doing the right thing. You have to act your way into it. Sitting on my couch getting high, was not going to change my spirit. But crawling off my couch and writing music did. ~

Source

Performances from last night:







Source for videos: 1|2|3 (fixed it mods)

"And you look like the joker with your uly upside frown!!! ... UGLY!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Kevin Connolly, best known for playing "E", the uptight one on Entourage, hasn't really been in the public eye since the show went off the air.

However, he's recently landed a role as an OBGYN in a new CBS sitcom about a pair of male OBGYNs who believe they can have it all.

Or whatever. This is ironic, since he's recently been on Twitter and Facebook calling women names.

Katie Nolan, a woman who makes YouTube videos for Guyism, a website that covers important issues like Christina Hendricks' bouncing boobs, first interacted with Connolly when she was perusing Twitter one day.

Nolan currently describes him as the "former crush-of-my-life," and so at the time she thought he was the bee's knees.

So, when Connolly tweeted something about hockey — Nolan's an aficionado — she publicly replied to him.



Someone Tweeting at a celebrity online? Not weird. However, what happened next is strange — Connolly responded.

Two minutes after she poster her reply, Nolon received this DM:



She was so psyched that she posted a screengrab of it to her Facebook fan page.

Nolan writes:

12 people "liked" it, a few commented that they miss Entourage, but most made jokes about Kevin's excessive exclamation points and weak first line. I chimed in that we were having a full-blown conversation in Twitter messages (at that point, we were), and also that people can judge him for being short all they want - I like short guys and was obsessed with the movie John Q because of this one in particular.

Here's the actual thread:





There's some uncool shit in there, but Nolan isn't involved in it.

The next day or two, Nolan and Connolly DM back and forth quite a bit, and when the hashtag #MentionYourCutestFollower starts trending, Nolan named a few — including Connolly.

He then sent her a DM saying he had a crush on her, too.




However the honeymoon didn't last long, because immediately he informed Nolan that he was upset about the "shitty comments" she posted on her Facebook page about him.

Although she didn't post anything negative about him — outside of maybe saying he's short, and that she likes short dudes — it was pretty much over between them. The DMing petered off.

But it wasn't over yet. A few evenings later, Connolly found Nolan's Facebook fan page, and proceeded to be a racist, sexist idiot all over it:



He also charmingly called Nolan ugly multiple times.




Connolly unfollowed and blocked Nolan on Twitter so she couldn't respond to him.

In turn, she tweeted publicly that Kevin Connolly was mad at her and her followers.

He them DM'ed her and they went back and forth about the names he called people and the names they called him and he was very, very upset pouty face.









For her part, Nolan tells me the whole experience was most upsetting because he attacked her followers.

...the fact that this guy found the time to find me on Facebook and then go to each individual page of anyone that said anything even remotely negative about him and tear them/their loved ones apart that made me feel like he was just a mean person who has no sense of gratitude for where he's at or even just personal decency. And I don't think celebrities should get away with being dicks just because they're celebrities.

Source, Original

For Monday, March, 11, 2013:

• Jennifer Love Hewitt Says Her Breasts Are Worth $5 Million
• Resident Flop, Azealia Banks, Cancels Set & Humiliates Herself on Twitter Again + Releases Underwhelming Track: 'Yung Rapunxel'
• Richard Armitage Photo Shoot & Interviews
• One Direction Accused of Encouraging Illegal, Underage Tattoos
• Sherlock Series 3 Read-Through Begins
• Josh and Anna Duggar Expecting Third Child
• 12 Celebrities Hacked, Finances Exposed
• Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience Streaming on iTunes
• Haley James Scott & Wyatt Halliwell Are Dating
• New Images of Emma Watson, Paris Hilton and More In "The Bling Ring"
• Ian Somerhalder meets Grumpy Cat
• Who Went Home on RuPaul's Drag Race?
• Promo for Next Week's 'The Following'
• Stephanie Meyer on Twilight, Feminism and True Love
• Yesterday's ONTD Roundup

Michael Fassbender, who was to have played the male lead in the Natalie Portman-led Western, has exited the movie, while Joel Edgerton, who was on board to play the villain, will step into the hero role. Jude Law, in the meantime, has signed on for the villain, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.

Gun centers on a woman whose outlaw husband returns home riddled with bullet wounds and barely alive. When her husband’s gang eventually tracks him down to finish the job, she is forced to reach out to an ex-lover and ask if he will help defend her farm.

Edgerton will now play the ex-lover while Law will be the leader of the gang that lays siege to the homestead.
The moves come a couple weeks before the start of shooting in New Mexico. Sources say the actor rotation came about due to Fassbender's schedule conflict with his upcoming shoot in Montreal for X-Men: Days of Future Past. Gun has been pushed back several times and now is scheduled to begin filming in April.

Scott Steindorff, Aleen Keshishian and Terry Dougas are producing. Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) is directing. Edgerton, who next appears in the all-star adaptation of The Great Gatsby, is repped by CAA, Shanahan Management and Hirsch Wallerstein

Law is coming off a starring turn in Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects and just wrapped shooting Wes Anderson’s latest, the ensemble comedy The Grand Budapest Hotel. He is repped by WME, LBI Entertainment and Jackoway Tyerman.

Source.

Studio 8H, baby, Studio 8H!

Vince Vaughn, the original Swinger himself, will host the April 13 Saturday Night Live, NBC announced Tuesday.

Singer Miguel will be the musical guest that evening.

The episode will mark Vaughn’s second hosting stint; the first came in 1998.

After getting his big break in Swingers, Vaughn’s prolific career has included comedies like Wedding Crashers, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Old School and Couples Retreat.

NBC also confirmed that Mike & Molly star Melissa McCarthy will host the April 6 outing with musical guest Phoenix.

Source

DNW!

Last night March 7th, the minds and bodies behind the great Braverman clan took to the stage at PaleyFest to discuss everything from a potential season five to the reason why Mark and Sarah will never work (Hint: Jason Ritter is moving to a new show, where he’s dating Lauren Graham’s one-time TV daughter, Alexis Bledel).

Parenthood actors Craig T. Nelson, Max Burkholder, Miles Heizer, Mae Whitman, Sam Jaeger, Erika Christensen, Joy Bryant, Dax Shepard, Lauren Graham, Jason Ritter, Monica Potter, and Peter Krause joined executive producer Jason Katims for an hour-long conversation about the story lines that made us cry our eyes out for all of season four. Here are 10 things we learned:

• According to Graham, Sarah didn’t really make a choice: In the season four finale, Sarah chose to be with Hank, but then Hank decided to move to Minnesota. So as Graham sees it, Sarah’s romantic life was left open. But she’s pretty sure things are over for Mark and Sarah considering Ritter’s new role as Alexis Bledel’s man. “They always trade you in for someone younger, don’t they?” she joked. And despite being freaked out by the news at first, Graham admitted that, “the two of them are perfect to work together.” That being said, Graham did mention the idea that one of Rory’s exes should now play Sarah’s next love interest. Let the Dean vs. Jess vs. Logan debates begin!


• We aren’t the only ones who want more Matt Lauria: Turns out, Mae Whitman is very good friends with Lauria, who plays her on-screen love interest, and Katims also confirmed that the writers would love to see more Ryan-Amber time. Originally, Lauria’s Ryan wasn’t even supposed to stick around as long as he has, but Katims said that so long as he’s available, they’d love to see more of him. “I will make sure he’s available,” Whitman said.


• Who wants a baby? Last season, two couples found out that parenthood could be a part of their future. For Drew and Amy, that option was quickly turned down. Crosby and Jasmine, however, will have a baby if there’s a season five. And while Joy Bryant and Dax Shepard admitted that they’re “not at all” looking forward to working with a newborn, Heizer is a little jealous. When it came to last season’s abortion plot, Heizer and Graham both wanted Drew to keep the baby to see where the story would go. Alas, Heizer might have to settle for babysitting his newest cousin.


• You cry, you drink: As a gift at PaleyFest, the members of the audience received a small package of tissues, which is fitting for a show that made us cry just about every episode. But why is that? Turns out, the actors don’t even really know. Other than good writing, real stories, and memorable moments, they have just accepted the tears. Monica Potter has taken to playing a drinking game: Every time you cry while watching the show, you chug your drink. And it was a good thing she didn’t have a beer handy last night, because when Peter Krause started talking about one of his favorite moments on the show between Zeek and Amber (in the junkyard after her car accident), multiple cast members started tearing up on stage.

• Mae Whitman really wants Tim Riggins on the show: When asked if any more Friday Night Lights actors will be on the show, Katims said that it’s a possibility (assuming there’s a fifth season, obviously). The process is as follows: Step one: The writers create a character. Step two: The writers realize that a former-FNL actor might be a perfect fit. Step three: Jason Katims picks up the phone and “begs” the actor to come to Parenthood. Hey, it worked with Michael B. Jordan, Minka Kelly and Matt Lauria. Where you at, Taylor Kitsch?!


• There might be a gay character in the future: When a fan brought up the idea of having a gay character on the show, both Potter and Whitman revealed that they, at one point or another, wanted their character to be gay — Potter said it jokingly; Whitman not so much. But don’t worry: Ryan and Amber won’t be breaking up over her sexual orientation. The possibility of introducing a new character who is gay, however, is something Katims would love to do.


• Drew won’t pull a Haddie: Katims revealed that by attending Berkeley, Drew will still be around if the show is granted a fifth season.


• Matt Lauria’s abs are really Jason Ritter’s abs superimposed on his body: They kid, they kid!


• The cast members have matching necklaces: This isn’t a joke. And it’s adorable.


• The possibility of a fifth season: When it came to the question everybody wants answered — Will there be a season five? — Katims quickly passed things to the young Max Burkholder, who simply said that it’s always hard to know, but that he is crossing his fingers. So are we, Max. So are we.

watch the panel here


yay Parenthood!


tyfyt and I checked the NBC tag so don't bitch @ me if someone posted something about this already!! xo

Michelle Obama is the latest hacking victim in what has become an alarming breach of security.



The website that has disclosed detailed financial information about celebs like Beyonce, Jay-Z, Britney Spears, Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian has now upped its game, revealing very personal financial info about the First Lady.



The website has posted Michelle's credit report, which includes her social security number, phone numbers, banking and mortgage info and credit card details.


The website also hacked into Joe Biden's history, but the info the hackers were able to obtain was extremely limited.  They obtained much more in Michelle's case.





When you click on Michelle's name on the website, it reveals this comment:  "Blame your husband, we still love you, Michelle."  So this could be more than sport ... maybe this is a clue the hackers have beef with Barack.


UPDATE

6:36 AM PT -- The Secret Service and the FBI have taken an unusually cautious stance by not even confirming the existence of an investigation ... although law enforcement sources tell us they are extremely concerned about the leaks and other powerful people who may have been compromised.


7:43 AM PT -- The FBI has now "officially" confirmed an investigation is under way.



10:05 AM PT -- Al Gore has just been added to the list of hacking victims
.

Source

The story is on CBC and HuffPost now, this is becoming ridiculous.