Gina Serpe Tue Jan 29, 4:29 AM ET

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Gwen Stefani's father-in-law has left no doubt as to the cause of her slightly burgeoning belly.

After a few weeks of mild speculation (with all due respect, Gwendale's no Brangelina), Gavin Rossdale's father has confirmed that his rocker son and the Harajuku-loving Stefani are expecting their second child together.

"They and the whole family are delighted," Douglas Rossdale told People.

The elder Rossdale did not reveal a due date or sex of the forthcoming baby.

Reps for the duo are less loose-lipped than the once and future grandpa and have not yet confirmed that a storkwatch is in effect.

News of the Grammy winner's expectant state comes the same day Britain's Sun tabloid published a report claiming the singer was 13 weeks pregnant with a second child.

Last summer, the singer told InStyle that plans for another baby were already in the works.

"Obviously I'm in a race to have another, but I don't want to do it while on tour," she told the magazine. "But I can't wait to get pregnant again. It's so fun and consuming and romantic."

There's no word on whether Stefani's gestation period will in any way interfere with previously announced plans to reunite with No Doubt later this year. The Orange County, California-bred group has announced plans to release a new album and had been expected to begin recording sometime this year.

The 38-year-old platinum-haired songbird tied the knot with the 40-year-old former Bush frontman in London in September 2002. The duo has one child together, son Kinsgston James McGregor Rossdale, who formally enters his terrible twos on May 26.

Rossdale also has a 18-year-old daughter, Daisy Lowe, whom he discovered was his back in 2004.

Of his latest grandchild, Douglas Rossdale told People that Kingston was "a great lad."

"And we are very much looking forward to another grandchild."

25 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Police were called to Britney Spears’ neighborhood after someone reported that a swarm of paparazzi were trespassing in her gated community.

Los Angeles police Officer Mike Lopez said officers received a call around 7 p.m. Monday about a group of photographers “stepping onto the grounds” of the private neighborhood while following the 26-year-old pop singer.

When officers arrived, they didn’t see anyone trespassing, Lopez said. He said citations were issued for several illegally parked cars.

Lopez said he didn’t know how many photographers were following Spears.

Spears has spiraled downward since filing for divorce from Kevin Federline in November 2006. Her bizarre public antics include shaving her head bald, attacking a car with an umbrella and bringing along a paparazzo pal on trips to a courthouse in her custody case with Federline.

She was taken to a Los Angeles hospital by paramedics earlier this month after police were called to her home because of a dispute involving her sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1. She has lost custody and visitation rights with the boys.

53 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Missy Elliott is going 3-D.

Walt Disney Studios is creating a stereoscopic 3-D music video combining two of her songs featured in the studio's upcoming feature "Step Up 2 the Streets," which opens February 14.

MTV will premiere the video in 3-D on Monday (February 4) during "TRL." Glasses for home viewing will be distributed via various promotions.

The video combines Elliott's songs "Ching-a-ling" and "Shake Your Pom Pom" and was directed by Dave Meyers, who has helmed music videos for Elliott including "Work It" and "Get Ur Freak On."

In addition to the MTV premiere, the music video will be shown in 3-D during a special screening of "Step Up 2 the Streets" on February 5 in New York, with Elliott scheduled to attend.

Additional 3-D presentations may be scheduled, and the video also will be shown in 2-D.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

By LYNN ELBER, AP Entertainment Writer 22 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - Life just got a lot easier for the head of the Recording Academy.

Last month, Neil Portnow vowed to stage a full-scale Grammy Awards show with or without support from the striking writers guild.

He’ll find it a lot easier to live up to that pledge now that the Writers Guild of America has agreed to let its members work the show on Feb. 10.

Portnow called the guild’s decision Monday gratifying, and promised a 50th anniversary show “with an amazing lineup of artists and performances.”

With the guild’s board of directors deciding to sign an interim agreement for the awards ceremony, the Grammys will escape the fate that befell this month’s Golden Globes.

The Globes were stripped of stars and pomp when the guild wouldn’t agree to an interim deal and the Screen Actors Guild encouraged its members to boycott the ceremony, which was reduced to a news conference.

The agreement allowing guild-covered writing for the Grammys is in support of union musicians and also will help advance writers’ quest for “a fair contract,” the guild said in a statement.

“Professional musicians face many of the same issues that we do concerning fair compensation for the use of their work in new media,” Patric M. Verrone, president of the guild’s West Coast branch, said in the statement.

Payment for projects distributed via the Internet is a central issue in the contract dispute between the writers union and the alliance that represents studios.

Informal talks began last week between the union and several studio chiefs in an effort to resolve the nearly three-month-old strike that has disrupted movie and TV production. Formal negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers broke down in early December.

During the impasse, the Directors Guild of America reached a tentative deal with the alliance that addressed new-media issues and created pressure for the writers to resume talks.

The writers guild has agreed to allow next month’s NAACP Image Awards to proceed with guild support, a courtesy also granted to Sunday night’s Screen Actors Guild Awards.

But the guild has declined a waiver for the Academy Awards, raising doubts about how the Feb. 24 ceremony will be staged if the strike continues and actors stage a boycott. The ceremony’s producer has vowed the show will go on, hinting it could be padded with clips from 80 years of Oscar history if writers and stars do not cooperate.

24 minutes ago

NEW YORK - A judge has denied Foxy Brown’s request to get out of jail early so she can go to California for an ear examination and for repair of an electronic ear implant.

State Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson ruled Thursday that the singer will not let Brown go to Los Angeles’ House Clinic for the exam and repair of a defective cochlear implant, the Manhattan district attorney’s office reported Monday.

Brown, 29, revealed her hearing problems during a court appearance in 2004. Her petition to Jackson said that her condition was worsening in jail and that she faced serious harm to her hearing unless she had the cochlear implant reprogrammed and repaired.

Prosecutors say Brown can get the treatment she needs in New York, but her attorneys say she requires the treatment of specialists at House Clinic.

Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, was sentenced in September 2007 to a year in jail for violating probation. Jackson had put her on probation after she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault of two manicurists at a Manhattan nail salon in August 2004.

Brown’s albums include “Ill Na Na” and “Chyna Doll,” and she is known for her sexy outfits and racy lyrics. Her lawyer, Laura M. Dilimetin, had no comment on the ruling.

5 minutes ago

LONDON (Reuters) - Sheffield band the Arctic Monkeys was nominated in a record seven categories for the NME music awards on Tuesday, while Amy Winehouse, critically acclaimed but in rehab for drug problems, was largely frozen out.

The Arctic Monkeys are contesting the best British band, best live band, best album, best track, best video and best video album artwork categories, while lead singer Alex Turner is nominated for the "best dressed" award.

NME music magazine said the nominations, decided by public vote, made the indie group the most voted-for band of the decade and their generation's answer to Oasis.

"It's sound the readers keep voting for us," said guitarist Jamie Cook. "Live would be good — it's good to have been picked up in that because we put a lot of effort into our live work last year, I thought we got a lot better."

Klaxons notched up four nominations ahead of the awards ceremony on February 28 for best British band, best album, best video and best dance floor filler.

Winehouse, nominated for six Grammys and enjoying commercial and critical acclaim for her album "Back to Black," is up for four awards, including "villain of the year" and "worst dressed."

The 24-year-old soul and jazz star entered a rehab clinic last week for treatment.

She is up against former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, his successor Gordon Brown and U.S. President George W. Bush in the villain category.

Winehouse was also nominated for best music DVD and best solo artist.

Best international band will be contested between Arcade Fire, Foo Fighters, the Killers, Kings of Leon and My Chemical Romance.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, Editing by Matthew Jones)

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer 50 minutes ago

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea’s main symphony orchestra will play in Britain in September in the communist country’s largest-ever musical performances abroad, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported.

The State Symphony Orchestra of the reclusive communist regime will perform three times in London and Middlesbrough and British Broadcasting Corp. television will broadcast each concert live, Radio Free Asia reported on its Web site. It cited a British businessman who said he arranged the tour.

A spokeswoman for London’s Royal Festival Hall, where the report said the orchestra would play on Sept. 9, said discussions were taking place but nothing was confirmed.

The Radio Free Asia report quoted businessman David Heather as saying Middlesbrough was chosen because that was where the North Korean soccer team beat Italy in a historic 1966 World Cup match. The 1-0 victory made North Korea the first Asian country to reach the quarterfinals of soccer’s global showpiece.

The New York Philharmonic is scheduled to perform in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, in February.

The North Korean orchestra will include 120 musicians and 30 support personnel, the report posted last week said. The concerts will be North Korea’s largest musical performances in a foreign country, the report said.

The orchestra played in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, in 2000 following the first-ever summit between the two countries’ leaders.

___

Associated Press writer D’Arcy Doran in London contributed to this report.

By Kate Holton 31 minutes ago

CANNES, France (Reuters) - Away from the headlines of job losses, grumbling artists and falling global sales, the music industry is trying new business models to boost digital sales and offset the fall in CD sales.

At the annual industry meeting on the French coast this week, much of the talk was dominated by a new service called Qtrax, which plastered all available space with huge posters declaring the CD dead and estimating that over 1.2 billion illegal downloads would be made during the event itself.

Qtrax, which allows fans to download songs for free, was launched on Monday with the backing of major labels and claims to have over 25 million copyrighted tracks.

As a legal online file-sharing site, it will be funded through advertising, and its launch follows criticism from some that the music industry has been distracted by the fight against piracy, when it should have been developing alternative services.

CARROT AND STICK

Janus Friis, who once terrified the media industry with file-sharing network KaZaa, told the Midem conference that the industry was beginning to move from the "stick" to the "carrot" approach, citing legal online services Last.fm and Imeem as leading examples.

"You have the carrot and you have the stick, and you kind of need to use both, but the carrot has become much more important," he said. "Last.fm and Imeem are beginning to be great Internet services."

London-based Last.fm has more than 15 million active users and is known for its song-recommendation system amongst fans. It also announced a deal last week to allow users to stream a song for free, up to three times, while a link connects a user to a legitimate music store such as Amazon or iTunes.

Social network Imeem is also built around music, is supported by advertising and boasts 20 million users. Steve Jang, Imeem's chief marketing officer, told Reuters the site commanded great loyalty from its users because it was much more than just a retail offering.

As part of the transition, U2 manager Paul McGuinness told the conference that the time had come for new thinking on how the music and technology sectors worked together, saying their "snouts have been at our trough feeding free for too long."

He touted the idea that music could be provided as part of a subscription service for an Internet service provider in the same way that some mobile phone companies have worked, with the revenue being shared.

But it is not just the payment systems that are changing.

When Guy Hands, the new owner of British major EMI, unveiled his plans for the struggling group recently, he said he would look into the role of corporate sponsorship arrangements, where an album or tour could be backed by a sponsor.

Veteran music promoter Harvey Goldsmith told Reuters that the idea of combining musicians with a brand was not new, but warned it had to be handled carefully.

"Some acts like the Arctic Monkeys would think their street cred was under attack," he said. "But the truth is it's an opportunity. You have to remember that a band is also a brand, and if you can link the two and it makes sense, then it's cool.

"But it's just as valid for new, up-and-coming acts as the established ones, because what better credibility can a big brand have than discovering a new band."

(Editing by Will Waterman)

By Yinka Adegoke 44 minutes ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world's biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, denied that they have agreed to license songs for a free download service that was launched by Qtrax on Monday.

Qtrax told Reuters and other media outlets last week that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales, to let users download songs for free in a new service to be supported by advertising revenue.

But by Monday, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner had publicly denied that they had agreed to back the new Qtrax service.

A source close to Universal Music, the largest of the group, said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions.

And a source close to EMI Group said that while its song publishing unit has an agreement with Qtrax, its recorded music arm, EMI Music, does not.

"Sony BMG can confirm it has not signed a deal with Qtrax for the ad-supported service," said a spokesman for Sony BMG, a joint venture between Sony Corp and Bertelsmann AG.

EMI Music, Sony BMG and Warner all previously had agreements with Qtrax, which was testing a paid music download service. Sources say those agreements expired in the last year and did not cover the new free, ad-supported model now being promoted by Qtrax.

The first denial came from Warner late on Sunday and appeared to force the startup to backtrack on its earlier claims of having deals with all majors.

Qtrax said late on Sunday, "We are in discussions with Warner Music Group to ensure that the service is licensed and we hope to reach an agreement shortly."

Qtrax did not immediately respond to further queries about its agreements with other companies.

Qtrax is not the first startup company proposing a new business model for marketing music to run into licensing difficulties with major labels.

Social music network Imeem was sued by Warner Music before agreeing on terms with all majors late last year. A free ad-supported download service from SpiralFrog has struggled to sign any other major record company since launching last September with music from Universal Music.

Reuters/Nielsen

By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer 1 minute ago

TOKYO - Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday he was ready to take the iconic band on a world tour after burning up the stage at last month’s reunion concert in London. But it probably won’t be before September.

“The amount of work we put into O2 was what you would normally put into a world tour anyway,” Page, 64, said of the intense rehearsing the band did for the Dec. 10 concert at London’s O2 Arena.

The band’s three surviving members — Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones — were joined at the sold-out benefit show by the late John Bonham’s son Jason on drums.

Page, who was in Japan to promote the new Zeppelin release, “Mothership,” said the two-hour-plus concert was proof that Led Zeppelin can still perform at its best.

He said the band, which formed in 1968, was ready musically to get back together and take it out on a wider run, but it was not clear when it would go on tour as the singer had other plans.

“Robert Plant has a parallel project and he is busy with that until September,” Page said.

Plant and bluegrass star Alison Krauss will begin their world tour with a run of shows in the southern U.S. this spring. The two released an album in October called “Raising Sand” that debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard chart in the U.S. The duo will tour Europe in May before returning for North American shows still to be announced for June and July.

Page said the band set their standards very high before agreeing to do the reunion, their first in 20 years. Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 after the elder Bonham’s death.

Page said they rehearsed for weeks, apprehensive that the cohesion they had in the 1970s when they were at their peak might be hard to rediscover.

“We wanted people who might not have even been alive in 1980 when we finished to understand what we were,” he said.

Page said all went well until he broke a finger in three places, forcing the band to postpone the show for several weeks.

“But we did the show, and it was great,” he said. “It was instant in terms of chemistry.”