As Kelly Clarkson fans know, the singer wrote or co-wrote every track on her new album My December -- but they probably don't know just how quickly. "I've written every song in 15 to 20 minutes. It has to come out of me like that, or it won't at all," Clarkson told Self for its August issue cover story. "It's not even that hard a thought process for me." She revealed to the magazine that she has a microphone hooked up to her computer, which she keeps by her bed so she can record music when a song pops into her head. She has drafts of 150 new songs saved. Check out behind-the-scenes video from the cover shoot on Self.com. ...

A Britney Spears bodyguard is facing a battery charge after wrestling with a pair of men who were trying to photograph the singer with her children in Las Vegas on Thursday, The Associated Press reports. Cesar Julio Camera was issued a misdemeanor battery summons after allegedly grabbing and punching one photographer and pushing another into a wall. Spears and Kevin Federline are involved in divorce proceedings in California that include restrictions on traveling out of state with the children, according to AP. ...

Have a burning "Harry Potter" question for J.K. Rowling? Look out for the J.K. Rowling and the Open Book Tour Sweepstakes launching Monday -- 1,000 fans will get a pair of tickets to an evening with the author on October 19 at New York's Carnegie Hall. Rowling will read from "Deathly Hallows," answer questions and autograph copies of the volume. Go to publisher Scholastic's Web site for details. ...

Kid Rock is priming his first studio album in four years -- and on the release, he finds room to take a jab at ex-wife Pamela Anderson, Billboard.com reports. The album -- due October 9 and tentatively titled Rock'n'Roll Jesus -- closes with the country song "Half Your Age," in which Rock says he's found a younger girlfriend who's "twice as hot." The LP also includes a mash-up of Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," and is dedicated to Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, who passed away last year. Kid Rock told Billboard he wants the album to make people feel as if they were "going to church drunk on Saturday night." ... Beck and Jamie Lidell have ganged up for a direct-to-disc recording session at a studio in East Los Angeles, Pitchfork reports. ...

Fall Out Boy already have more songs in the can -- and they look to Green Day for inspiration, Billboard.com reports. "I've got a bunch of songs written, but I think I'm going to wait a while before we release it, because I'm still really proud of [Infinity on High] and I want to kind of give it some space," singer/guitarist Patrick Stump told the outlet. He also said Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong's declaration that he didn't want to play "four-chord punk-rock for the rest of his life," according to Stump, has impacted the band's outlook. "They're really just true to what they are, and so that's how we are," he said. "I think we'll change stylistically, but at the end of the day, that's just something you wear. You're still yourself." ...

Don Imus and CBS Radio are close to a settlement that would pre-empt his $120 million breach-of-contract suit, AP reported Friday (July 27). It's not clear whether the deal would bring Imus back to the airwaves. ... Michael Moore might be subpoenaed by federal officials over his trip to Cuba for his "Sicko" documentary, Reuters reported Friday. On "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" on Thursday, he said he had been notified at the studio that a subpoena had already been sent out, but according to the news outlet, he hasn't been served with one yet. ...

The Spice Girls have added three more dates to their upcoming reunion tour. The shows, in Vancouver, British Columbia (December 2); San Jose, California (December 4); and Shanghai, China (January 8), join a roster of 11 previously announced dates, with the Vancouver gig now serving as the tour's opening night. ... She Wants Revenge will return to record stores this fall with their sophomore LP, This Is Forever. The album drops October 9 and will feature 13 tracks, including "Written in Blood," "She Will Always Be a Broken Girl" and "Pretend the World Has Ended." ...

Forensic pathologist Werner Spitz sparred with the prosecution in the Phil Spector trial on Thursday, repeating the claim that actress Lana Clarkson's gunshot wound was self-inflicted, the Los Angeles Times reports. He said the force of the gunshot in her mouth caused blood to spray out of her mouth and nose -- which then landed on the music producer's jacket several feet away. When asked why blood wasn't found on the floor, furniture or elsewhere after it sprayed, Spitz said he couldn't comment on the death scene because he had only seen photos of Spector and Clarkson's clothing and relied on reports made by other experts. ...

A man accused of shooting Ray Davies in a 2004 holdup is off the hook for now -- prosecutors dropped the charges after the Kinks frontman didn't show up in a New Orleans court on Thursday, AP reports. It was the second time prosecutors dropped armed-robbery and aggravated-battery charges against the man because Davies wasn't in court. Davies told AP prosecutors didn't notify him about the trial until a few days ago and that he didn't have time to get from London to New Orleans. "I am very disappointed with the way this case has been handled," he said. "I intend to pursue it further." ...

David Bowie is celebrating the 35th anniversary of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars with an innovative alternate-album-cover contest on his Web site. ... Led Zeppelin are getting a whole lot of love via a new batch of reissues, Billboard.com reports. The best-of collection Mothership is due November 13 and will be followed a week later by spruced-up versions of the DVD concert film "The Song Remains the Same" and its accompanying soundtrack. Configurations of each release will have additional content, some of which is previously unreleased. ...

According to a report from Interfax, a Russian nongovernmental news agency based in Moscow, most heavy-metal songs are about murder and suicide -- so says Serbsky State Research Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry professor Fyodor Kondratyev. "Having researched 700 most popular heavy-metal songs revealed that half of them is about murder, 7 percent is positive about suicide, and 35 percent preaches a variety of Satanist ideologies," Kondratyev said, in broken English.

07.26.07

Seems like Rihanna may be listening to too much T.I. (or is that T.I.P.?) lately. In the August/September issue of Vibe Vixen, the cover starlet told the magazine about resolving her own split-personality issues, one being her crafted stage persona, Rihanna (her actual middle name), and the other being her given namesake and usual self, Robyn. "It wasn't that [my management or the label] told me what to do," she explained. "It was more of what I couldn't do. I couldn't wear red lipstick. I couldn't wear my hair in a ponytail; all kinds of stupid things. Being 'Rihanna' wasn't natural. So I rebelled. I'm doing me. Now, Robyn and Rihanna are much more similar." In the issue, hitting newsstands August 7, the Bajan singer also addressed the Jay-Z rumors once more, revealing at one point she couldn't even look him in the eye she was so embarrassed by all the gossip. But, according to Rihanna, Jay approached her and told her to just ignore the lies. " 'It is what it is,' " she quoted him as saying. ...

On Thursday (July 26) the Santa Monica Police Department in California released the 911 call made by the mother of Lindsay Lohan's former personal assistant -- in the three-minute call, which was made at 1:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, the woman begged for help after a GMC began trailing her and appeared not to know that Lohan was driving it. When the dispatcher asked where she was, the woman said she was heading to the police station, and she wound up parking at the nearby Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Muffled yells can be heard near the end of the call, after which the woman can be heard apparently identifying people to the police. According to The Associated Press, police said Lohan and the woman were having a heated debate when they showed up, and that two men had accompanied Lohan in the car. ...

The Lohan debacle is getting even messier: In an e-mail sent Wednesday to 24/Sizzler's David Caplan, Ali Lohan defended her mother against father Michael Lohan, who has been making the media rounds to comment on Lindsay's arrest. "My father is telling all lies to people and saying he was such a great dad and was always there for us, my father was never there for us. I think that the whole reason why my sister is upset with herself and not as confident is because of my dad not being around and always staying out late and not coming home for days." ...

And Dina Lohan isn't too happy about Rob Schneider spoofing her daughter Lindsay on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" Tuesday night. A statement issued to "Access Hollywood" and attributed to "Dina and family" reads: "We have a great respect for Jay Leno, but we are disappointed in the path he chose to allow a guest to make light of a very serious situation concerning Lindsay. Thank you to Craig Ferguson for not making a mockery of such a serious situation to which teens and young adults are facing across the country." ...

Maroon 5 have been tapped to join previously announced performers Alicia Keys, Usher, Avril Lavigne and Fall Out Boy at this year's Fashion Rocks event, taking place September 6 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event will be hosted by "Entourage" star Jeremy Piven and air the following day on CBS at 9 p.m. ET. ...

Chuck D handed out advance copies of Public Enemy's new album, How You Sell Soul to a Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul?, at the Guitar Center near Union Square in Manhattan, New York, on Thursday (July 26). The project, due August 7, is being released by the PE frontman's label, SlamJamz Records, and TuneCore, a digital distribution company that offered fans at the event a chance to make their own music available on online stores like iTunes. ...

Island Def Jam Records launched a campaign on Thursday for Ronald "Mr. Biggs" Isley in hopes of securing an executive pardon for the singer, who was indicted on tax-evasion charges in September. A federal judge originally ordered Isley to three years in prison, but his sentencing hearing had been postponed until next month. The label is citing Isley's declining health and his efforts to pay down the IRS debt as reasons for the pardon. ...

Don't expect to see a sexy starlet in the new Marc Jacobs ad campaign -- Michael Stipe is doing the honors, RollingStone.com reports. The bare-and-hairy-chest R.E.M. frontman wears baggy blue pants in the ad. He's not the only rocker cropping up in clothing ads these days: John Mayer is part of the new Gap ad campaign. ... Jamie Reynolds of the Klaxons broke his leg stage-diving at a show in France over the weekend, and the band has had to table four concerts in Australia as a result, according to its MySpace page. ... Take a bite out of this: Apple shipped 9.82 million iPods last quarter, helping boost profits 73 percent. The company expects to ship 1 million iPhones this quarter. ...

A man who demanded $1 million not to publish stolen photos of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' wedding has been arrested, The Associated Press reports. David Hans Schmidt was caught Tuesday, a bail bond was set at $100,000 and he is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. The FBI had been contacted after Schmidt approached Cruise's representatives six weeks ago with the photos. ... Naomi Watts gave birth to a baby boy on Wednesday. The dad is longtime boyfriend and actor Liev Schreiber. ...

Izzy Stradlin fan site ChopAway.com says the guitarist sent along an e-mail letting it know that he might turn up for the 20th anniversary celebration of Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, set to take place Saturday at West Hollywood, California's Key Club. In the note, Stradlin added that Appetite drummer Steven Adler will be performing, and, according to RollingStone.com, L.A. Gun Tracii Guns will also be there. The site reports that Slash and Duff McKagan are "maybes." ...

To mark the 30th anniversary of the release of the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks ... Here's the Sex Pistols, the band is planning to release a special edition of the LP on October 29 -- but not on plastic. The album will be reissued in heavyweight vinyl with a 7-inch insert of "Submission" and a poster -- just as the record was originally released October 28, 1977. The Pistols will also reissue their four classic singles "Anarchy in the U.K.," "God Save the Queen," "Pretty Vacant" and "Holidays in rhe Sun" on vinyl as well throughout the month of October. ...

Veteran rock/industrial drummer Martin Atkins, who has played with Ministry, Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke, has compiled his 30-plus years of knowledge about how to survive on the road into a 530-page bible called "Tour: Smart ... and Break the Band." Due in September, the book has tips on everything from how to write contracts, pick tour vans and market yourself to making a guest list, decorating the stage, getting paid and what to do when your gear gets stolen. Among the contributors to the book are Steve Albini, Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, Henry Rollins and former Marilyn Manson guitarist Zim Zum.