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From NME:

A species of spider has been named after Neil Young, after a university biologist discovered the insect in Jefferson County, AL.

Jason Bond of East Carolina University made the discovery in Alabama last year and established through DNA tests that the bug is a newly-discovered species. The spider is distinguishable from others in its genus through its genitalia.

This particular group of spiders is called 'trapdoor' as they live in burrows and build trapdoors at the burrow’s entrance.

Bond named the bug Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, after his favourite musician, and says naming a new species has strict rules that must be adhered to.

"As long as these rules are followed you can give a new species just about any name you please. With regards to Neil Young, I really enjoy his music and have had a great appreciation of him as an activist for peace and justice," reports the Associated Press

From a magazine exactly like Us Weekly:

Playboy editor Hugh Hefner says Miley Cyrus will be "welcomed in the magazine" when she's of legal age.

Hefner, 82, told Extra that the 15-year-old Hannah Montana star is a "very pretty lady."

Last week Cyrus said she was "embarrassed" by a racy semi-topless portrait shot by Annie Leibowitz for Vanity Fair.

"I think to make such a big to do over something as innocent as those photos, I think is a reflection on how schizophrenic America is about sexuality," Hefner told Extra.

And I think his outfit is a reflction "on" how some rich old men think they really are Thurston Howell III.

Festival organizers announced that they have chosen to take Allen's (certainly massive) performance fee and spend it on planting trees to offset the damage done to the environment by even the most progressive music festivals.

Investments have been made into general environmental measures, as well as a tree repopulation programme and an initiative to reduce travel by improving local business partnerships. Money is also being spent on research into bee habitats. We're not sure why. Maybe the Pistols are especially fond of bees, or the Police have a soft spot for honey. Come to think of it, everyone has a soft spot for honey.

The festival's decision to replace Lily Allen with birds and bees is a change of policy from 2005. That year, Morrissey dropped out of the fest. Rather than investing in dormice, organic food and anti-global warming measures, John Giddings and the other organisers just called up Travis.

Giddings admitted in yesterday's statement that the festival still has a negative impact on the environment, but said that these measures were at least a step in the right direction.

It's the best idea I've heard in centuries. Though, I heard if the Pistols pull out, they'll be replaced by Dutch Elm Disease. Ho ho.

PHOENIX — DMX was arrested after speed-enforcement cameras captured him in his bright yellow 1966 Chevrolet going 114 mph on a suburban Phoenix freeway.

The rapper/actor was taken into custody Tuesday at his north Phoenix home without incident, the Arizona Department of Public Safety said Wednesday. He posted bond and was released.

DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was booked on charges of criminal speeding, public endangerment, reckless driving and driving on a suspended license.

Electronically activated cameras placed along the Loop 101 freeway in Scottsdale captured him three times on Jan. 21 in his Nova II with a large "DMX" decal on the windshield. He was driving at 100, 101 and 114 mph.

The speed limit on the stretch of roadway is 65 mph.

The 37-year-old's lawyer, Murray Richman, said he had no comment.

Kanye West has lashed out at a US music critic who failed to award top marks to his live show.

US magazine Entertainment Weekly graded West's 'Glow In The Dark' tour a B+, prompting the rapper to launch a foul-mouthed tirade on his blog.

West wrote: "What's a B+ mean? I'm an extremist. It's either pass or fail! A+ or F-! You know what, f**k you and the whole f**king staff!!!

"You're f**king trash! I make art. You can't rate this. I'm a real person. I'm not a pop star. I don't care about anything but making great art."

West ended his rant by warning the critic never to attend one of his live performances again, writing: "Never come 2 one of my shows ever again, you're not invited and if you see me... BOW!!"

Why, you ask? It's not a sudden surge of good taste, nor a huge backlog of better things to do. No, it's loyalty to Axl Rose.

From Rolling Stone.com:

Despite getting the thumbs up from outgoing singer Scott Weiland, Sebastian Bach will likely not take over the lead-singing vacancy in Velvet Revolver, saying it would be “really awkward.” Talking to Tampa radio’s “The Buckethead Show,” Bach said he likes his own new album Angel Down more than the VR records, plus Bach would rather be singing “old songs” by Skid Row than Guns N’ Roses. Most importantly, “I’m very close friends with Axl,” Bach said. “Axl’s been so nice to me, I don’t think I would feel comfortable just joining Velvet Revolver and singing his songs every night. So I don’t think that’s gonna happen.” Besides, Bach’s calendar might be booked for a couple weeks after signing up to participate in the honky-tonk debacle known as Gone Country 2.

For the first time ever, I can truly say I'm sorry I wasn't there.

"I have let myself down," unsmiley Miley said in a statement. "I will learn from my mistakes and trust my support team. My family and my faith will guide me through my life's journey."

And by support team, she obviously means bra.

FAREWELL TO DANNY

Let me start with the stories.

Back in the days of miracles, the frontier days when “Mad Dog” Lopez and his temper struck fear into the band, small club owners, innocent civilians and all women, children and small animals. Back in the days when you could still sign your life away on the hood of a parked car in New York City.

Back shortly after a young red-headed accordionist struck gold on the “Ted Mack Amateur Hour” and he and his mama were sent to Switzerland to show them how it’s really done.

Back before beach bums were featured on the cover of Time magazine.

I’m talking about back when the E Street Band was a communist organization! My pal, quiet, shy Dan Federici, was a one-man creator of some of the hairiest circumstances of our 40 year career… And that wasn’t easy to do. He had “Mad Dog” Lopez to compete with…. Danny just outlasted him.

Maybe it was the “police riot” in Middletown, New Jersey. A show we were doing to raise bail money for “Mad Log” Lopez who was in jail in Richmond, Virginia, for having an altercation with police officers who we’d aggravated by playing too long. Danny allegedly knocked over our huge Marshall stacks on some of Middletown’s finest who had rushed the stage because we broke the law by…playing too long.

As I stood there watching, several police oficers crawled out from underneath the speaker cabinets and rushed away to seek medical attention. Another nice young officer stood in front of me onstage waving his nightstick, poking and calling me nasty names. I looked over to see Danny with a beefy police officer pulling on one arm while Flo Federici, his first wife, pulled on the other, assisting her man in resisting arrest.

A kid leapt from the audience onto the stage, momentarily distracting the beefy officer with the insults of the day. Forever thereafter, “Phantom” Dan Federici slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

A warrant out for his arrest and one month on the lam later, he still hadn’t been brought to justice. We hid him in various places but now we had a problem. We had a show coming at Monmouth College. We needed the money and we had to do the gig. We tried a replacement but it didn’t work out. So Danny, to all of our admiration, stepped up and said he’d risk his freedom, take the chance and play.

Show night. 2,000 screaming fans in the Monmouth College gym. We had it worked out so Danny would not appear onstage until the moment we started playing. We figured the police who were there to arrest him wouldn’t do so onstage during the show and risk starting another riot.

Let me set the scene for you. Danny is hiding, hunkered down in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. At five minutes to eight, our scheduled start time, I go out to whisk him in. I tap on the window.

“Danny, come on, it’s time.”

I hear back, “I’m not going.”

Me: “What do you mean you’re not going?”

Danny: “The cops are on the roof of the gym. I’ve seen them and they’re going to nail me the minute I step out of this car.”

As I open the door, I realize that Danny has been smoking a little something and had grown rather paranoid. I said, “Dan, there are no cops on the roof.”

He says, “Yes, I saw them, I tell you. I’m not coming in.”

So I used a procedure I’d call on often over the next forty years in dealing with my old pal’s concerns. I threatened him…and cajoled. Finally, out he came. Across the parking lot and into the gym we swept for a rapturous concert during which we laughted like thieves at our excellent dodge of the local cops.

At the end of the evening, during the last song, I pulled the entire crowd up onto the stage and Danny slipped into the audience and out the front door. Once again, “Phantom” Dan had made his exit. (I still get the occasional card from the old Chief of Police of Middletown wishing us well. Our histories are forever intertwined.) And that, my friends, was only the beginning.

There was the time Danny quit the band during a rough period at Max’s Kansas City, explaining to me that he was leaving to fix televisions. I asked him to think about that and come back later.

Or Danny, in the band rental car, bouncing off several parked cars after a night of entertainment, smashing out the windshield with his head but saved from severe injury by the huge hard cowboy hat he bought in Texas on our last Western swing.

Or Danny, leaving a large marijuana plant on the front seat of his car in a tow away zone. The car was promptly towed. He said, “Bruce, I’m going to go down and report that it was stolen.” I said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Down he went and straight into the slammer without passing go.

Or Danny, the only member of the E Street Band to be physically thrown out of the Stone Pony. Considering all the money we made them, that wasn’t easy to do.

Or Danny receiving and surviving a “cautionary assault” from an enraged but restrained “Big Man” Clarence Clemons while they were living together and Danny finally drove the “Big Man” over the big top.

Or Danny assisting me in removing my foot from his stereo speaker after being the only band member ever to drive me into a violent rage.

And through it all, Danny played his beautiful, soulful B3 organ for me and our love grew. And continued to grow. Life is funny like that. He was my homeboy, and great, and for that you make considerations… And he was much more tolerant of my failures than I was of his.

When Danny wasn’t causing chaos, he was a sweet, talented, unassuming, unpretentious good-hearted guy who simply had an unchecked ability to make good fortune and things in general go fabulously wrong.

But beyond all of that, he also had a mountain of the right stuff. He had the heart and soul of an engineer. He learned to fly. He was always up on the latest technology and would explain it to you patiently and in enormous detail. He was always “souping” something up, his car, his stereo, his B3. When Patti joined the band, he was the most welcoming, thoughtful, kindest friend to the first woman entering our “boys club.”

He loved his kids, always bragging about Jason, Harley, and Madison, and he loved his wife Maya for the new things she brought into his life.

And then there was his artistry. He was the most intuitive player I’ve ever seen. His style was slippery and fluid, drawn to the spaces the other musicians in the E Street Band left. He wasn’t an assertive player, he was a complementary player. A true accompanist. He naturally supplied the glue that bound the band’s sound together. In doing so, he created for himself a very specific style. When you hear Dan Federici, you don’t hear a blanket of sound, you hear a riff, packed with energy, flying above everything else for a few moments and then gone back in the track. “Phantom” Dan Federici. Now you hear him, now you don’t.

Offstage, Danny couldn’t recite a lyric or a chord progression for one of my songs. Onstage, his ears opened up. He listened, he felt, he played, finding the perfect hole and placement for a chord or a flurry of notes. This style created a tremendous feeling of spontaneity in our ensemble playing.

In the studio, if I wanted to loosen up the track we were recording, I’d put Danny on it and not tell him what to play. I’d just set him loose. He brought with him the sound of the carnival, the amusements, the boardwalk, the beach, the geography of our youth and the heart and soul of the birthplace of the E Street Band.

Then we grew up. Very slowly. We stood together through a lot of trials and tribulations. Danny’s response to a mistake onstage, hard times, catastrophic events was usually a shrug and a smile. Sort of an “I am but one man in a raging sea, but I’m still afloat. And we’re all still here.”

I watched Danny fight and conquer some tough addictions. I watched him struggle to put his life together and in the last decade when the band reunited, thrive on sitting in his seat behind that big B3, filled with life and, yes, a new maturity, passion for his job, his family and his home in the brother and sisterhood of our band.

Finally, I watched him fight his cancer without complaint and with great courage and spirit. When I asked him how things looked, he just said, “what are you going to do? I’m looking forward to tomorrow.” Danny, the sunny side up fatalist. He never gave up right to the end.

A few weeks back we ended up onstage in Indianapolis for what would be the last time. Before we went on I asked him what he wanted to play and he said, “Sandy.” He wanted to strap on the accordion and revisit the boardwalk of our youth during the summer nights when we’d walk along the boards with all the time in the world.

So what if we just smashed into three parked cars, it’s a beautiful night! So what if we’re on the lam from the entire Middletown police department, let’s go take a swim! He wanted to play once more the song that is of course about the end of something wonderful and the beginning of something unknown and new.

Let’s go back to the days of miracles. Pete Townshend said, “a rock and roll band is a crazy thing. You meet some people when you’re a kid and unlike any other occupation in the whole world, you’re stuck with them your whole life no matter who they are or what crazy things they do.”

If we didn’t play together, the E Street Band at this point would probably not know one another. We wouldn’t be in this room together. But we do… We do play together. And every night at 8 p.m., we walk out on stage together and that, my friends, is a place where miracles occur…old and new miracles. And those you are with, in the presence of miracles, you never forget. Life does not separate you. Death does not separate you. Those you are with who create miracles for you, like Danny did for me every night, you are honored to be amongst.

Of course we all grow up and we know “it’s only rock and roll”…but it’s not. After a lifetime of watching a man perform his miracle for you, night after night, it feels an awful lot like love.

So today, making another one of his mysterious exits, we say farewell to Danny, “Phantom” Dan, Federici. Father, husband, my brother, my friend, my mystery, my thorn, my rose, my keyboard player, my miracle man and lifelong member in good standing of the house rockin’, pants droppin’, earth shockin’, hard rockin’, booty shakin’, love makin’, heart breakin’, soul cryin’… and, yes, death defyin’ legendary E Street Band.

Toby Keith Returning to Persian Gulf for USO Tour

Toby Keith will make his sixth USO tour soon with a visit to the Persian Gulf. He plans to visit small, remote operating bases, greet newly-deployed service members and perform 18 shows in six days. "There's no denying I am definitely busy these days, but no matter how busy I am, I always make the time to visit our nation's troops," says Keith. "They all mean a lot to me, and my trips overseas to visit them is what I look forward to every year. I only wish everyone had the opportunity to travel with the USO as it's been the experience of a lifetime for me."