I have seen some brutal, brutal things on the internet, but I'm not sure I've ever seen anything so all-fired repugnant as this video right here of Hannah Montana DRINKING KETCHUP FROM THE BOTTLE on national TV.

Ummm... REDNECK!

You may be surprised to learn that human corpse Keith Richards has some issues. You may have noticed, also, that every time the Rolling Stones get ready to release a new product, be it an LP, a greatest hits package, a tour, or, in this case, a new concert film directed by the great Martin Scorsese, those issues tend to center on his bandmate and songwriting partner of 40(0) years, Mr. Mick Jagger. To wit:

Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger is a "power freak" who is also a "bit vain", bandmate Keith Richards said in an interview set to be published Thursday.

Speaking to Uncut magazine in an interview to promote a Martin Scorsese documentary about the band, "Shine A Light", the guitarist also said he would have told his younger self to "lay off" drugs.

"Mick's a maniac. He can't get up in the morning without knowing immediately who he's going to call," the 64-year-old Richards said.

"Meanwhile, I just go 'Thank God I'm awake' and wait for three or four hours before I do anything. He is a power freak and there's nothing we can do about it. I don't want to do anything about it. Let him bugger about. It doesn't make any difference to what we do."

Addressing Jagger's on-stage presence, Richards told the magazine, "Excuse me while I laugh. He's a bit vain, let's put it like that," before adding: "We want a vain bloke up there, don't we? Meanwhile, the band can go to work. Vanity will not carry a band. But a band can carry vanity."

I'm not sure if the world was dying to know, but this press release arrived today, and at least one line in it makes me very excited:

New York -- The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation today announces the artists who will induct this year’s honorees at a ceremony on March 10, 2008, at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City:

Leonard Cohen will be inducted by Lou Reed

The Dave Clark Five (Dave Clark, Lenny Davidson, Rick Huxley, Denis Payton and Mike Smith) will be inducted by Tom Hanks

Madonna will be inducted by Justin Timberlake

John Mellencamp will be inducted by Billy Joel

Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff will be inducted by Jerry Butler

The Ventures (Bob Bogle, Nokie Edwards, Gerry McGee, Mel Taylor, Don Wilson) will be inducted by John Fogerty

Little Walter will be inducted by Ben Harper

The 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees were chosen by the 600 voters of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation. Artists are eligible for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after their first recording is released. John Mellencamp and The Ventures are among the artists slated to perform at the event.

In addition to being honored at the ceremony on March 10, 2008, each artist who is inducted is commemorated within the I.M. Pei-designed museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame displays the signature of each inductee inscribed in glass. In addition, there is an exhibit of artifacts from this year’s inductees, and a multi-media film presentation with highlights from each artist’s career. The exhibit on this year’s inductees will open in March, 2008 and will run for one year.

Lou Reed + Leonard Cohen! That sounds weirdly perfect. I only hope they'll perform together.

Proving once and for all that she's just an average, ordinary citizen who happens to have grillions of dollars and more hit records than the entire music business put together, Madonna performed a spot of jury duty the very morning after all the fabulous Oscar parties in Hollywood. Just think: If they can't decide on a verdict, maybe she can explain to the defendant that she and her fellow jurors are "Hung Up," on him/her.

All right. That pun might have been a bit labored.

In case the idea itself weren't repulsive enough, there is now legal confirmation that the black and white, to-the-tune-of-Foreigner-no-less, anti-erotic explosion that has been sweeping the www for the last few days, is the real deal. Yes, that is Gene Simmons, yes of Kiss, yes having totally airless sex with a woman who may or may not have been paid to be involved (how else to explain that bustier, and the pad on the bed!?). And no, he doesn't even bother to remove his pants.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, dude EW!

Doesn't this make you wish you were British? I mean, even just a little bit? (Wish a little bit, not a little bit British?)

In case you were wondering why the self-proclaimed King of Pop didn't turn up at the Grammys, it wasn't drugs, and it wasn't sexual abuse charges. It was simple unprofessionalism on the part of the Grammy producers. They were TOLD that MJ (allegedly) wanted the evening to be dedicated to his career and have presenters refer to him as 'The King Of Pop' 30 times. They'd been filled in that he'd wanted a new award to be created in his honor. (Um, how 'bout Actually Freakiest Freak of the Year)

The show's producer Ken Ehrlich reportedly balked at the requirements and retracted Jackson's invitation.

Oh, nothing ever works. Let's beat it! said someone, probably.

The childhood home of Karen and Richard Carpenter, an unassuming tract house in unassuming Downey, CA, may be demolished and rebuilt by its current owners in response to all the Carpenters fans who—inspired and informed by the cover of the band's 1973 hit record Now and Then—keep coming by to see it. New owners Manuel and Blanca Melendez Parra have caused quite a ruckus with the fans, and they've only just begun.

In case you were wondering about Christina Aguilera's birth methods, she went for the Caesarean, because she was "too scared to push." Because of—well, there's a word for what she was afraid of, but I'm afraid to publish, or even type it. Hello! Magazine isn't. Something to think about, anyway.

After John McCain's recent spat with John Mellencamp, you'd think Republican spoiler candidate Mike Huckabee (who either believes or claims to believe the planet Earth is only 2,000 years old, which should disqualify a person from public office) has run afoul of no less classic a classic rock band than Boston, whose resident wizard, Tom Scholz, is an Obama man!

Dig it:

Dear Gov. Huckabee:

It has come to my attention that your campaign’s use of my song More Than a Feeling and my band’s name BOSTON has resulted in a great deal of false information, which it now appears may exist permanently on the Internet.

While I’m flattered that you are fond of my song, I’m shocked that you would use it and the name BOSTON to promote yourself without my consent.

Your campaign’s use of More Than a Feeling, coupled with the representation of one of your supporters as a member “of BOSTON” clearly implies that the band BOSTON, and specifically one of its members, has endorsed your candidacy, neither of which is true.

I wrote and arranged More Than a Feeling, engineered and produced the recording, and actually played all the guitars on that BOSTON hit as well as most of BOSTON’s songs, not the person holding a guitar in your promotion who identified himself as being “of BOSTON.” Your claim that this was “the guy who originally did it” is a bit mystifying since he never played on that recording, nor has he been “of BOSTON” since he left my band over a quarter century ago, after performing with us for only three years.

BOSTON has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything BOSTON stands for. In fact, although I’m impressed you learned my bass guitar part on More Than a Feeling, I am an Obama supporter.

While this may seem like a little thing to you, BOSTON has been my life’s work. I hold the trademark to the name and my reputation is inexorably tied to it.

By using my song, and my band’s name BOSTON, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!

The unfortunate misconceptions caused by your campaign now live indefinitely on Internet news sites and blog archives.

As the “straight talk candidate,” I hope you will help undo the damage still being caused by this misleading use of BOSTON and More Than a Feeling.

Still evolving,

Tom Scholz for BOSTON

Martin Scorsese continues his run of making documentaries about important musical figures (Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, an upcoming look at late Beatle George Harrison) with a newly announced biographical study of none other than the legendary Bob Marley.

The Oscar-winning Scorsese's penchant for making films about musical legends began three years ago with No Direction Home, a critically acclaimed biopic about Bob Dylan. He has now signed up to make a documentary about Marley, the reggae icon who died in 1981 at the age of 36. Marley's son Ziggy will produce the film, which is scheduled for release on February 6 2010; this would have been Marley's 65th birthday.

The Country Music Hall of Fame has announced its inductees for 2008, including Emmylou Harris, Tom T. Hall, and the Statler Brothers, every last one of whom is well deserving of such an honor.

Andy Summers admits that he and his bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland are actually enjoying one another's professional company as their mega world tour stretches on. But unlike certain other reunion tour-prone older bands, no one's getting carried away...

The great Pete Townshend has announced that The Who, who are/is now more or less just him and Roger Daltrey and some day laborers, are working on a new album to follow up the (Consumer Guide-rated dud) Endless Wire LP from 2006.

If, like me, you're obsessively interested in The Beatles, and everything that ever happened to them before, after, and during their break-up, then you would read with interest this account of the drunken 1975-76 period when John Lennon split with Yoko Ono and went to live in California with her assistant, who was also his assistant, and girlfriend. May Pang, surely one of pop music's least understood (or even considered) peripheral figures, offers her memories and her photographs here for the first time.

It was a good night for the UK's favorite tabloid victim who actually, yes, makes music in addition to getting high and sobbing in public, Ms. Amy Winehouse, who won Best New Artist, Song of the Year, Record of the Year, Pop Vocal Album, and Female Pop Vocal Performance. In other news, zzz.

Well, I'll be hornswaggled if The Artist Formerly Known as John Cougar didn't just do something totally righteous.

"Are you sure you want to use his music to promote Senator McCain's efforts?" according to the letter sent to McCain's campaign on Monday. "Logic says that the facts might prove to be an embarrassment, were they to be circulated widely."

McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers in Washington, D.C., said Thursday that the songs would no longer be played. He declined to elaborate.

The letter explained Mellencamp was a liberal who had supported Democrat John Edwards, who recently dropped out of the race.

Publicist Bob Merlis said Mellencamp told him that the situation made him uncomfortable and he couldn't imagine McCain would want to be associated with him.

"You know, here's a guy running around saying, 'I'm a true conservative.'" Merlis told The Associated Press. "Well, if you're such a true conservative, why are you playing songs that have a very populist pro-labor message written by a guy who would find no argument if you characterized him as left of center?"

Mellencamp songs that had been played at McCain's events included "Our Country" and "Pink Houses." In "Our Country," Mellencamp sings, "There's room enough here for science to live, and there's room enough here for religion to forgive." In "Pink Houses," he sings about a simple man who "pays for the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill."

Of course, no mention was made of the Mellencamp-Travis Tritt duet "What Say You," from the last presidential election cycle. But some of us remember.

Seems that good ol' Willie, musical genius and legend though he is, has added krazy Kool-Aid to his menu of intoxicants, siding with the fools and charlatans who claim that the World Trade Center was imploded by Dick Cheney. Sigh. Video here.

An alarming fact: this year, Madonna, Prince, and Michael Jackson will all turn 50 years old. If that doesn't make you question your mortality, perhaps this provocative essay will make you question theirs!

"Rockstar," a single by Canada's soft-grungiest early '00-ies rock band, is currently number three in Great Britain, where chart position still means a lot to many people. Not all Britons are happy about it.