By Michelle Nichols 9 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Liam Finn will be a 24-year-old unknown to most Americans when his debut solo album is released in the United States on Tuesday, but Crowded House fans have already heard his work — nearly two decades ago.

The son of Crowded House frontman Neil Finn wrote the line "And here comes Mrs. Hairy Legs" and an accompanying melody in the hit Australian/New Zealand pop band's 1991 song "Chocolate Cake," and then last year toured America with them.

"He totally ripped me off," Finn joked of his father during an interview with Reuters from Auckland, where he says he is happy living with his parents when needed rather than hit up Crowded House for royalties.

Neil Finn has repaid the musical favor by playing bass guitar for a track on his son's album "I'll Be Lightning."

Billboard magazine likened Finn's music as "closer to the work of home-studio eccentrics like Beck than to the classically minded pop of his father," while Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper said, "This Kiwi is fresh, and does not fall far from the tree."

Billboard adds: "Each of these 14 tunes harbors handsome hooks that point to a childhood spent obsessing over Dad's Beatles and Beach Boys (and Crowded House) records."

'GUT FEELING'

Finn, named one of 10 artists to watch in 2008 by Rolling Stone magazine, said he was determined not to live in his father's musical shadow.

"I realized I can't really avoid who I am, and where I come from. I have to really embrace it because I love my dad's music," said Finn. "He's had a lot of experience so I definitely end up taking a lot of what he says on board. But sometimes you have just got to go with your own gut feeling."

The Australian-born New Zealander recorded his album almost entirely solo, having played nearly every instrument and then looped them together — something he also does on stage bit by bit until an entire song is created in front of the audience.

"Growing up with a lot of music around you, if you have got a musical bone in your body it's pretty natural to be able to make something work," he said. "I haven't really had traditional lessons in any of the instruments except for piano, but then piano is probably the thing I am least good at."

The Boston Globe newspaper, which also has named Finn as an artist to watch in 2008, said of his album: "He chops, blends, and twists his keyboards, guitars, electronics, and melodies into a shiny new beast that is both gentle and subtly feral."

Finn wrote most of the songs while he was in London with his band Betchadupa, which had a following in New Zealand and Australia but struggled to find its feet in Britain and broke up.

To promote his album Finn will play 13 U.S. shows in February and March — a long way from offering songwriting suggestions as a 5-year-old.

"As long as there's good music being made it doesn't really matter how it's being made — as long as it's good," he said.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

48 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Four eyewitnesses support a man’s assertion that Sean “Diddy” Combs assaulted him and his girlfriend at a post-Oscar party at a Hollywood nightclub last year, according to court papers filed by the plaintiff’s attorney.

Marianna Ruiz, one of the witnesses deposed by an attorney for Gerard Rechnitzer, said in papers filed Wednesday that the rap and fashion mogul struck Rechnitzer unprovoked.

“I just kind of remember seeing him go flying, not flying as in like feet off the ground, but he went back significantly,” said Ruiz, who was part of a group at the club with the Rechnitzer. “I was just in shock that somebody would … just kind of strike somebody out of nowhere.”

Another witness, Michael Sherman, said “all of a sudden, he hit him. And there was a taxi behind Gerard. Gerard got knocked into the taxi.”

Sherman said Combs then tried to spit on Ruiz, who was standing nearby.

Rechnitzer seeks unspecified damages in the suit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court last year. He claims the assault occurred in the early hours of Feb. 25 outside Teddy’s at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Attorneys for Combs have called the suit “completely baseless” and in court papers filed Wednesday said he is “in no way legally responsible for what happened to Rechnitzer.”

A message left for Combs attorney Hillary A. Jones after business hours Friday was not immediately returned.

6 minutes ago

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A popular Malaysian rock singer has been banned from appearing on television entertainment programs for three months after he sparked an uproar by baring his chest during a live TV concert, reports said Saturday.

Faizal Tahir — one of Muslim-majority Malaysia’s most exuberant stage performers — stripped off his jacket, undershirt and belt and flung them into the audience at a Jan. 13 concert in Kuala Lumpur. The moves revealed a bright red Superman logo painted on his chest.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission slammed Faizal’s premeditated stunt as “insensitive” to viewers and Malaysian culture, the New Straits Times said.

“It is a serious offense in a live entertainment program,” the commission was quoted as saying in a statement.

Malaysia’s government has strict guidelines for entertainers, who must cover up from chest to knee onstage. Jumping, hugging, kissing and throwing objects at the audience are prohibited.

Private television network 8TV was banned from broadcasting live and delayed telecast concerts for three months for flouting rules for live telecasts, it said in the report.

Commission officials, Faizal and 8TV personnel couldn’t be immediately reached for comments Saturday.

Faizal, 29, who shot to fame in 2006 when he was the runner-up in a reality singing competition, has apologized for sparking an uproar in Malaysia.

8TV, which has said it was shocked by Faizal’s stunt, has put him on six months’ probation during which he cannot appear on the network’s shows and must take part in 8TV community projects.

In 2006, the Malaysian organizer of a Pussycat Dolls concert was fined after the group was accused of flouting decency regulations.

By Ann Donahue 17 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Billboard) - Reality TV producer Bunim-Murray Productions is launching a music management division, M Music, with the goal of representing artists who could play just as well to the mass market as to MTV.

The first band signed to M is A Cursive Memory, a just-out-of-high-school pop act whose music has already appeared on Bunim-Murray's "The Simple Life." The group's first album, "Changes," arrives February 19 via Vagrant.

With hit-the-jackpot reality successes like MTV's "The Real World" and E! Entertainment's "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," why would Bunim-Murray take the leap to the riskier world of artist management? For Bunim-Murray vice president of music Dave Stone, it was a natural extension of his job of breaking undiscovered artists through the company's shows — for instance, he first placed a John Mayer track on "The Real World" in 2000.

Stone discovered A Cursive Memory on PureVolume.com several years ago and arranged a meeting with the band, only to discover to his chagrin that the members were a bunch of 14-year-olds. He promised to take them on once they finished high school.

"I was hooked on these demos they did," he said. "They figured out really early how to write some tremendous, hooky pop songs. It's been three years getting them some shows, being strategic and pacing them out. I wanted people to take them seriously."

A Cursive Memory just completed a tour with New Found Glory and is working on a music video for online distribution. For its TV debut on "The Simple Life," "all our families got together to watch and kind of geeked out," singer/guitarist Colin Baylen said. Up next, The band will be seen on a segment of MTV's "Real World/Road Rules Challenge" as part of a promotion for Jessica Alba's next movie, "The Eye," which is produced by MTV's corporate sibling Paramount Vantage.

Bunim-Murray COO Gil Goldschein said the company wants to expand its music management division slowly, possibly adding just one more band to its roster in the coming year.

And with more than 30 music cues on any given episode of "The Real World," Bunim-Murray still wants to be the company that breaks all kinds of bands in front of a younger audience — not just the ones it represents.

"We have a strength in the area, so we said, 'Sure, let's try this,"' co-founder Jonathan Murray said of the new management division. "It felt like a natural outgrowth."

Reuters/Billboard

Josh Grossberg Fri Jan 18, 5:15 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - It seems Foxy Brown's initial get-out-of-jail request has fallen on deaf ears.

A New York judge wants more information about the rapper's debilitating hearing condition before granting her an early release from jail. Brown had asked for the pass so she can seek treatment to fix a defective ear implant.

On Thursday, State Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson told Brown's attorney she wanted additional evidence to support the hip-hopster's contention that the procedure can only be done at Los Angeles' House Clinic before making a ruling.

"I need to have more information on this," the judge said, per the New York Daily News.

In a petition filed this week, the 28-year-old performer wrote that due to the severity of her condition, she faces "imminent harm to her hearing" if she's not let out of the clink by Jan. 30 so that she can have "her cochlear implant reprogrammed and repaired" by House specialists.

Assistant District Attorney Cindy Chung opposed the motion for an early release, stating there's no sufficient reason Brown couldn't get the implant fixed in New York and adding that prisoners with medical conditions are typically not allowed preference over the physicians treating them.

"The mere existence of a debilitating health condition does not merit a sentence reduction, even if it is a terminal illness," the prosecutor told the judge. "Basically, your honor, this is a desperate and frivolous petition."

The Broken Silence emcee has been holed up at Rikers Island since early September after being sentenced to a year of incarceration for repeatedly violating her probation for attacking two manicurists at a Manhattan nail salon in 2004.

Jackson set the next court date for Jan. 31; by then, Brown must be checked out by a doctor from New York's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

The judge also told Brown attorney Laura Dilimetin to give the DA, the Department of Correction and the Department of Probation copies of Foxy's medical records so that they could inform the court with their position on the matter.

Hoping to make nice with the judge before heading back to her cell, Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, said her stint behind bars has given her plenty of time to reexamine the error of her ways, including keeping her emotions in check and exercising better judgment.

"I have too much talent to throw it away," the Brooklyn-born entertainer told Jackson. "I know I will make you proud and my family proud."

Replied the judge: "I'm glad you're learning some very hard lessons that needed to be learned."

Brown pleaded guilty in 2006 to misdemeanor assault resulting from the smackdown and initially received probation.

But a string of transgressions soon followed: She failed to show up for anger-management classes; she left New York without permission and went to Florida, where she wound up getting arrested there for a fight at a beauty store and resisting arrest; and she attacked her neighbor with a BlackBerry.

Jackson sentenced Brown to one year in the slammer, which would have been her original sentence for the nail skirmish.

Should the judge grant the petition, Brown would be out in time to promote Brooklyn's Don Diva, her first studio album since 2001, which drops Feb. 5.