Blog Posts by Billy Altman

I don't know how much wristbands in Denver are going for, but I'm here to tell you that if you missed Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella, Warped, or any of the other 2008 music festivals and have the next few days free, you still have a chance to head for Colorado to get in on the action before the unofficial summer-ending Labor Day weekend.

I refer, of course, to the big music bash happening in the Mile-High city right now. The list of performers appearing at various venues in town this week is not only star-studded, but reaches across virtually all stylistic and demographic lines imaginable. From Bono to Bennett (Tony), Moby to Mos Def, Bon Jovi to Black Eyed Peas, JT (James Taylor) to J.Lo, Daughtry to DiFranco (Ani), and West (Kanye) to Willie (Nelson), there seems to be something for just about every age and taste.

All in all, it's a pretty democratic approach to organizing a festival, I'd say. No wonder the Democratic Party is throwing its 2008 Presidential Convention there this

I'm sure you're all as relieved as I am to wake this morning and find out that Kara DioGuardi has survived her first day on the job as the just-added fourth judge on American Idol. I mean, what with Paula Abdul reportedly "concerned" about whether the public would accept her and Simon Cowell already calling her "bitchy" before they'd even convened for their initial round of contestant adjudicating at New York's Chelsea Piers on Tuesday, you might think that DioGuardi is diving into the kind of metaphoric shark-infested waters that newly bit Ryan Seacrest can tell her may well be more dangerous than real ones.

Then again, the 37-year-old songwriter goes back with both Abdul and Cowell long enough that most of the supposed drama surrounding the New Judge On The Block is really just plain hype--which, of course, is the one real thing American Idol has proven itself good at producing (rather than, say, music). Paula's known Kara since 2000, when she met the then Billboard magazine

By now, I'm sure virtually everyone has seen the pictures of U.S. Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps flashing the most gold we've seen around anyone's neck since Mr. T. And I'm also sure that, faster than you can say "B.A. Baracus" (Mr. T's character on The A-Team; the "B," by the way, stood for "Bosco"), we'll all be witnessing the greatest fruits of Michael Phelps' world-record-setting labor - namely, commercials! But, seriously, after the polish is off the medals, and the public begins to tire of Phelps' overexposed endorsement of bankcards, timepieces, and breakfast cereals, exactly what is Michael going to do with himself? Remember, the Olympics happen only every four years. Once upon a time, you know, Mr. T had his own cereal, too.

There may be hope, though, for the world's greatest swimmer to start to, as they say, "give back" to his sport and perform true public service. And far sooner than you'd expect from an athlete in his early twenties. And I say this not simply because it's

Up until this week, the most controversial thing anyone could probably come up with concerning pop-punk (or should that be punk-pop?) princess Avril Lavigne would have been the question of whether or not she ripped off her 2007 hit song "Girlfriend" from the 1979 Rubinoos song "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." And even though she clearly would have been found innocent in any copyright infringement case, if for no other reason than the fact that the Rubinoos song was itself a ripoff of the old Rolling Stones hit "Get Off Of My Cloud," the record shows that Lavigne, seeking to spare everyone getting dragged through the mud, simply settled out of court and that was that. Let's just say then that unless you're the eyemakeup police, you're not figuring Avril Lavigne for much of a troublemaker.

This week, however, the girl once known for the straightest hair (like, ever) has found herself entangled in the political affairs of, of all places, Malaysia. Lavigne was scheduled to kick off a

Ah, the wonderful world of symmetry. We've just gotten another could-be-true-could-not report that the new Guns N' Roses CD Chinese Democracy, which has been "in the making" for a mere 14 years, may well finally turn up in the flesh, as they say, and as an exclusive at retail giant Wal-Mart at that. It seems to have something to do with the fact that Guns N' Roses - aka Axl Rose and a revolving cast of associates (can anyone prove there haven't been multiple Bucketheads? Just asking…) is now being managed by Front Line Productions — aka Irving Azoff, who last year bestowed on Wal-Mart the honor of being the official home of the Eagles album Long Road Out Of Eden, their first all-new studio release in, oh, just 28 years.

So — if the Eagles went 28 years between new albums, and Guns N' Roses will clock in at 14 between albums, it stands to reason that ubermanager Azoff should already be thinking about acquiring an act that can give the public a good seven year wait between successive