the Rock Report

Apparently, Joe Satriani is getting ready to take down the UK alt-rock group Coldplay at Sunday’s Grammy Awards.

Y’see, he decided to sue the band last year because their song Viva la Vida contains ’sunbstantial original portions’ of a song he wrote four years ago, called If I Could Fly. But, since ever the lawsuit was filed in December, 2008, Coldplay has dodged being served with the legal summons to respond or appear.

But get this: Satriani’s lawyer is now threatening to serve the papers to the band in front of the whole world at this weekend’s Grammy Awards!
“We have warned their British lawyers that we have hired a fleet of process servers lined up to dog the band everywhere they go this weekend in the hopes of serving them,” he said.

So we just might see a few fireworks at the show! It’ll show that you can run but, quite evidently, you can’t hide from ‘the Satch’!

Looks like blues legend Etta James is doin’ a bit of backpedaling.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, she told a Seattle audience last week that she “can’t stand” Beyoncé (ummm, didn’t she say Beyoncé would, er … “get her ass whupped”?).

Well, yesterday (5 February), she retracted it, sayin’ that she was just joking — though she still feels she would have done a better job singing her signature tune, “At Last,” to Barack and Michelle Obama at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball.

“I didn’t really mean anything,” James told the New York Daily News of her onstage rant. “Even as a little child, I’ve always had that comedian kind of attitude…That’s probably what went into it. Nobody was getting mad at me in Seattle. They were all laughing, and it was funny.” She said her little tirade didn’t come “from a vicious place.”

But when asked if she could have out-sung Beyoncé (who played Etta in the film, Cadillac Records, and walked the red carpet with her at the film’s premiere, Ms. James replied, “I think so. That’s a shame to say that.”

A few readers (who also know I’ve been involved as guest announcer at pro wrestling gigs) have written in and asked if WWE star Shawn Michaels (Michael Higgenbottom) was actually wiped out by Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
Honestly (now, watch double-E get into trouble here!), no. It’s just part of what we call a gimmick — somethin’ to create a storyline (sorta like a sub-plot) to keep fans interested.
But one of the biggest names in music has been a victim — even posthumously! John Denver Enterprises and John Denver Concerts, which ran the estate of the late singer, were on a list of those duped by the shady New York investor Bernard Madoff. An “Ann Denver” at the same address as the companies (presumably, John’s first wife) was also listed.

FYI, other well-known victims included baseball legend Sandy Koufax, talk host Larry King, actor Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgewick (from the TV series “The Closer”) and John Malkovich. All told, investors lost $50 billion in the Ponzi scheme.

Well, that’s gonna be it for now … but stay tuned: There’ll be more in 24 or less. That being said …
I’ll see ya on the flip side!

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