Free Republic

Two lovers had a brush with death after their car plunged 46m down a cliff, while they were having sex in the back seat. According to the police Lin Gu, 25, and lover Lee Shin, 29, suffered broken bones when their car tipped over the edge of the hill in XinDian, Taiwan. "They had parked up close to the edge of the mountain and had left the handbrake off," Daily Telegraph quoted a spokesman, as saying. "When they started having sex the rocking motion started the car moving and it rolled off the hill. They were lucky they were not...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A spokeswoman says rock pioneer Bo Diddley has died. He was 79. The spokeswoman says Diddley died of heart failure Monday. He had suffered a heart attack in August 2007, three months after suffering a stroke while touring in Iowa. Doctors said the stroke affected his ability to speak, and he had returned to Florida to continue rehabilitation. Diddley was known for his homemade square guitar, dark glasses and black hat. His first single, "Bo Diddley," introduced record buyers in 1955 to his signature rhythm: bomp ba-bomp bomp, bomp bomp, often summarized as "shave and a...

Today in music history...2007, a leaked copy of the new White Stripes album ‘Icky Thump’ was played completely on Chicago's radio station Q101-WKQX. Jack White personally called the US radio station from Spain, where he was touring, to voice his displeasure.2004, Madonna was forced to pay out £250,000 in a lawsuit after copying ideas by the late French erotic photographer Guy Burton. Madonna had admitted that the video for her song ‘Hollywood’ was inspired by Burton. 1992, The Black Crowes went to No.1 on the US album chart with 'The Southern Harmony And Musical Companion'1988, Leonard Cohen played the first...

ALBANY - Gov. Paterson, who confessed to repeated infidelities last week, admitted tonight that he used cocaine and marijuana when he was in his 20s. Paterson, 53, the former lieutenant governor who succeeded disgraced Gov. Spitzer last week, claimed on NY1 that he had only used cocaine "a couple of times" when he was "22 or 23" years of age. He said he had only used marijuana "probably when I was about 20," adding, "I don't think I've touched marijuana since the late 70s."

On the surface to a casual observer the 2008 Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame class appears to be fairly strong and rather non-controversial. Three of the five artists being enshrined in the main performer category are very well deserving, including one of the most dominant artists in rock history. They also have seen fit to give overdue recognition to some long eligible figures in other categories and so on the whole this year's inductees are a solid group deserving of their honors.

The notion that country music is, and has always been, politically conservative seems so ingrained in our culture that it passes not just for cliché, but as a truism beyond reproach. Take for instance the media commentary that followed Dixie Chicks frontwoman Natalie Maines's well-publicized criticisms of President George W. Bush back in 2003. In the Associated Press's coverage of the controversy, one leading country radio programmer wondered whether Maines had considered the political demographics of her audience, saying that country is “more on the right than on the left and it’s always been that way.” Even CMT.com editorial director...

...It was about 1 a.m., Feb. 3, 1959, when a light plane carrying Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. (The Big Bopper) Richardson crashed near Mason City, Iowa. The trio had just finished a concert in Clear Lake and was headed to Fargo, N.D., the next stop on their tour, when the plane went down in bad weather. All three were hitmakers on the music scene at the time, Valens with the song “La Bamba” and Richardson with “Chantilly Lace.” But the real star of the group was Holly. He was the creator of songs which are now considered to...

In recent months, the sporting world has been rocked by a steroid scandal that has tarnished the achievements of some of baseball's biggest stars. This week, a new investigation into illegal steroids is threatening to destroy the image of yet another of our pop cultural pillars: rock stars. A report in the Albany, N.Y., Times Union on Sunday linked a number of prominent performers, among them rappers 50 Cent and Timbaland, to a Florida osteopath facing a federal indictment for illegally selling prescription drugs, including steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). According to the Times Union, these drugs could minimize...

As someone who actually talks to teens, I hated, hated, hated this movie. In the liner notes to "Juno: Music from the Motion Picture," the soundtrack album released on Tuesday, director Jason Reitman writes about how the movie's star helped choose its music, which was key in setting the pervasive sarcastic-hipster tone. "Two months before we started shooting 'Juno,' Ellen Page was hanging out at my office when I asked her 'What kind of music do you think Juno listens to?' " Reitman recalls. "Without pause, she blurted out 'the Moldy Peaches.' " Within seconds, the actress was downloading songs...

Rock stars -- notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles -- really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age. A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population. Between 1956 and 2005 there were 100 deaths among the 1,064 musicians examined by researchers at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University. As well as Presley, the toll of those dying before their...

Two Swedish tabloids have provoked the ire of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards. In what the veteran rocker claimed was the first time he had publicly reacted to a review, he lashed out at Aftonbladet and Expressen's reports on the band's performance at Gothenburg's Ullevi stadium earlier this month. The papers both gave the Stones two stars. An article in Expressen was headlined "Keith was very drunk," and gave the star a personal zero stars. "This is a first! Never before have I risen to the bait of a bad review. But this time... I have to stand up for...

This weekend over 10,000 classic cars will converge on Västerås at the Power Big Meet as car enthusiasts from Sweden, Europe and as far afield as Russia, Israel and Australia make their annual pilgrimage to the biggest Classic car event in the world. For Sweden’s Raggare, the Power Big Meet is more than just a car show - it’s a celebration of a way of life that is peculiarly Swedish, despite being entrenched in the fashions, music and motor cars of Americana. Since the 1950s, a version of the American Dream has been embraced with an enthusiasm that has endured...

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability. The results of a psychological analysis enable the metal lover to supplement his income with state benefits. Roger Tullgren, 42, from Hässleholm in southern Sweden has just got part time work as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work. "I have been trying for ten years to get this...

SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. is expanding its online music section to include the lyrics of 400,000 songs, hoping to strike a chord with Web surfers looking for a more reliable alternative to Internet sites that publish the words without the permission of the copyright owners.The Sunnyvale-based company is touting the free service to be unveiled Tuesday as the Web’s largest legally licensed database of lyrics.“It fills a huge, gaping hole out there,” said Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo music. Song lyrics have been available through scores of other Web sites for years, but most of those destinations are...

Credited throughout his career with creating super sounds in super groups, the ultimate Clapton collaboration will take place July 28, 2007 when he gathers the past, present and future of guitar music onto one stage for an incredible full day musical event. Announced today, the second Crossroads Guitar Festival, scheduled for July 28, 2007 at Toyota Park in Chicago, will be a cornerstone of this year's summer music festival season. Profits from the Festival will benefit The Crossroads Centre in Antigua, a treatment and education facility founded by Clapton for chemically dependent persons. Since its inception, Clapton's vision for the...

THERE are the Stooges, from Ann Arbor, Mich., accidental inventors of punk, in the summer of 1970, on nationwide television. And there’s Iggy Pop, their singer: bare torso and sausage-casing jeans, silver gloves, dog collar, chipped front tooth. The song is “TV Eye,” and they have gotten wickedly good at their primitive groove — as good as they will ever get. Iggy weaves in and out of the beat: one second borne by the music, one second abstracted from it. Suddenly he does a violent knock-kneed dance and slips into the audience, gone except for his wounded-animal noises. “There goes...

His poem "Woman In The Window" is set to music and will be released as a single in April. Rock legend Jim Morrison is helping the fight against global warming from beyond the grave, with the release of a song he wrote. Environmental campaigners have taken a poem, "Woman In The Window," written by Morrison shortly before he died in 1971, and set it to music, with the help of New Order and former Jane's Addiction star Perry Farrell. The track was given to Farrell by the Jim Morrison estate. It will be released as a single in April. Dan...

Late Doors frontman Jim Morrison is to make an unlikely comeback - an unreleased song featuring the rocker has been found. "Woman in the Window" will be featured on a forthcoming album by rockers Satellite Party. The new song will feature both Morrison and vocals from Satellite Party. An industry insider says, "To hear Morrison performing on a new track is obviously going to be a dream come true for fans. It's being tipped as a massive hit." The icon died of heart failure in 1971, at age 27.

Candy fans are all shook up over plans by Hershey to sell a peanut butter and banana crème version of its Reese's cup to honor The King, as in Elvis Presley. Elvis' favorite sandwich was fried peanut butter and banana - sometimes with honey or slices of bacon added. ....to mark the 30th anniversary of the rock legend's death, in July, Hershey will introduce a limited edition featuring a layer of peanut butter and a layer of banana crème.....will picture young, thin Presley on the package in time for Elvis Week in Memphis...Aug. 11 to 19......the wrapper will give buyers...