ROCK ’N’ ROLL NEWS

DEPARTMENTS

ABSOLUTELY NO BOWIE

In this month’s exclusive non-tour news, let it be known that David Bowie has no intention of doing any 1986 shows, preferring instead to be seen on the big screen. In addition to his appearance in Absolute Beginners, Bowie has a role in Labyrinth, a George Lucas/Jim Henson film that should be playing as you read this. The soundtrack LP includes five Bowie compositions.

WASTED LIVES &THE BIRTH OF TWINS

Love is back! Not the group, but the subject—that according to John Flanagin, a sociologist at the University of South Dakota, who has made a study of Top 10 pop songs dealing with amour. According to Flanagin’s figures, 87 percent of the Top-1 Oers in 1965 deaft with love as their niä~n subject, wIth the numbers dropping to 85 percent (1960), 76 percent (1965) and an alarming 63 percent (1970). Since then, it's all been uphill, with 1985 showing a commen dable 80 percent love quotient. No word on how Robyn Hitch cock figures in alt this.

The finest record in the world, The Prisoner: Original Soundtrack has been released in Great Britain on the BamCaruso label. The album features music from television’s much-loved Prisoner series, including such classics as "Villagers Celebrate Passing Their Exams.” Order your copy now!

Pogues’ vocalist Shane MacQowan was hit by a cab as he was crossing a street in London recently, suffering a fractured arm, torn ligaments in his leg and cuts to his face. A complete recovery is predicted, but the accident forced the cancellation of the band’s tour of Germany and France.

Judas Priest are recording dates on their current tour with the intention of releasing a live album in 1987.

Michael Hutchence, lead singer of INXS, is playing the lead in Dogs In Space, a movie being filmed in Melbourne, Australia. The flick will revolve around the late’70s music scene, whatever that was. Meanwhile, fellow INXSer Andrew Farrlss is handling the production of Jenny Morris’s album. Morris sang back-up on the most recent INXS tour.

We’re saddened to report that Kelley Isley, a co-founder of the Isley Brothers, died of a heart attack in his New Jersey home. Isley was 48 years old.

Andy Rourke, bassist and an original member of the Smiths, has left the group for reasons no one has cared to disclose. His replacement will be Craig Gannon, a session player who has worked with Aztec Camera.

Metal Shake-Ups Dept.: After a five-date stint as Black Sabbath’s lead singer (establishing an enviable longevity record for the Sabs), Glenn Hughes left their world tour and was replaced by Jerseyite Ray Gillen. If this ink is dry, though, Gillen’s probably been replaced three or four times himself. And joining the mighty Dio—in the wake of departed guitarist Vivian Campbell—is Craig Goldie, ex-Giuffria plunker. The Utterly Fascinating Desk be a-hoppin’!

BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL

Scenester Iggy Pop is slated to appear in Martin Scorsese’s The Color Of Money— a.k.a. Hustler II. The multi-talented Pop will be seen shooting pool in a cameo. The Ig is also slated to do some of his famous singing on the next Elvis Costello album.

ROCK ’N’ ROLL NEWS

zoso WHAT?

Cult guitarist Billy Duffy says he doesn’t mind the “many” comparisons between his band and—ahem—Led Zeppelin, “as long as people aren’t saying it with the belief that Led Zeppelin are boring and better off dead. I mean, I view the band as a bunch of innovative musicians who put out some great albums, so I think the comparisons are cool.”

WORKING CLASS ZEROES

Recording news: Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force are working on their next album, tenatively titled Trilogy, in Los Angeles. Belinda Carlisle, ex-Go-Go, should have her IRS debut out by the time you read this. And over in Europe, perennial recording favorites Frankie Goes To Hollywood are doing their next smash LP called—thus tar—Cut Off His Legs! The Sickest Escape Into Degeneracy Since Winston Churchill. Listen, we weren’t kidding about that Prisoner soundtrack.

Speaking of the Frankies, Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s drummer, Ray Mayhew, was arrested after attacking three people in the audience at a Reading University concert recently. Seems the audience began hurling glasses at the band and Mayhew enthusiastically reciprocated, consequently being charged with “unlawfully and maliciously wounding” the hapless trio.

Our Heee Desk is wondering whether it would be a good Rock ’n’ Roll News item to note that Qtn* Simmons seems to be getting... uh... incredibly fat, that’s it...in recent photos. No, we don’t think that would be a nice thing to actually put in print, Heeesters. Then Gene wouldn’t like us anymore.

Donnis DeYoung has done it all by composing “Run, Sox, Run,” the new official song of the Chicago White Sox. Or should we say the last-place Chicago White Sox?

Life Imitates Art Dept.: Among 2,200 Indiana farmers receiving notices of foreclosure recently were the owners of the farm on which John Cougar Mellencamp s Scarecrow cover was shot.

John Taylor, a mere onefifth of the artist’s collective known as Duran Duran, had this to say about the moderatelypopular Bruce Springsteen: “He’s as popular as he is because he’s mediocre. No one’s going to tell me that Born In The U.S.A. is Stravinsky or Lennon and McCartney. To be popular and get through to millions of people means that you have to be on a fairly low level,” added the man whose own band is amazingly unpopular with children of all ages.

In another salvo against the Boss, musical entrepreneur Mick Jagger added this: “He and John Cougar Mellencamp are playing the same four chords on their guitars that we all did 15 years ago.” Jagger, of course, is probably bitter at discovering that Springsteen’s actually a male after releasing his own ill-titled solo album.