Early 1980s Los Angeles new wave stars Missing Persons will have a live album titled Late Nights/Early Days issued at the beginning of next year. Previously available only in Japan, the disc will come out on Designer Fruit, the label run by the group's former guitarist Warren Cuccurullo and his current Duran Duran bandmate Nick Rhodes. Nile Rodgers' company, Sumthing, is distributing the release. Meanwhile, Cleopatra Records is putting together a remix collection of vintage Missing Persons material. The album includes contributions from ex-Stray Cat Slim Jim Phantom, Anthony Resta ("Mental Hopscotch”) and TV Mania (a.k.a. Cuccurullo/Rhodes re-interpreting the hit “Destination Unknown.”)

Paul McCartney may not be able to handle life in the spotlight alone. The former Beatle reveals that he's still so overcome by sadness over wife Linda's death that he may never again perform live. “I might not be able to get up on stage again,” McCartney tells the British tabloid The Sun. “I don't know whether I can go up there and sing, thinking about Linda.” McCartney tells the paper that Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde has invited him to perform in a series of concerts next year that will promote Linda's animal rights causes, but he isn't sure he'll be up to it, saying he'll “play it by ear.” “If I can manage it, then I will,” McCartney says. “But I've said that if I can't do it, she'll just have to forgive me.” McCartney reveals he always carries Linda's wedding ring in his pocket, and admits he's “cried more this year that I have in my whole life.”

Jeff Watson, guitarist for Night Ranger, couldn't have been thrilled when he discovered a vest of his had been stolen from his dressing room during a concert in Wyoming last summer on the bands reunion tour. But his disappointment must have paled in comparison to the surprise he must have felt when he later received a postcard—from the vest itself. The Mann Independent Journal reports that Watson had received several Polaroid photos of a woman covered up by the vest at tourist attractions across the U.S. Along with the pictures are letters written from the vest's point of view. Updates have come from Seattle's Space Needle, a Boston exhibit on the Titanic and from Late Night With Conan O'Brien in New York. Most recently, the vest has traveled overseas—Watson received a postcard from London saying, “Oy, matey. I've just made it over the ‘pond,’ and enjoying it very much. Next stop, the Continent. Always yours, the Vest.”

Today a British High Court ruled against Smiths singer Stephen Morrissey. Morrissey had appealed a 1996 decision stemming from charges that he and guitarist Johnny Marr had taken more than their fair share of band profits from drummer Mike Joyce and bassist Andy Rourke. More than a decade after the band split up, the matter has still been pursued by Joyce; Rourke already settled out of court. Should the decision stand, Morrissey and Marr could have to shell out 1 millions pounds or so, not including legal fees. Morrissey has the option to appeal the decision once again, this time with the House of Lords, the final appeals court for England and Wales.

U2's Edge has been reticent to give too much away for fear of starting a rumor mill. I'm [nervous] about that—after what happened with Pop....the way people started making judgments even before they ever heard it.” The Edge projected a wrap date of sometime in the summer of 1999, but “we don't want to set a firm deadline because we don't want to get into the same trap that we did last time. We made a mistake of establishing a deadline too far in advance with Pop. The last month turned out to be a real scramble to get it out before the PopMart tour.” He continued, “We might have wanted another week to just sit back and relax with it...so that we wouldn't have had to deliver it to the record company the day it was finished, which is what we ended up doing.” The band currently has a new album in the works with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois as well as the tour that will likely follow its release.

INXS might not be entirely gone. Their manager Martha Troup has said that more than 40 unreleased songs by INXS exist and might still be issued. Currently there is a hold on the posthumous release of Michael Hutchence's solo material.

Less than a week to go before Tuesday's release of his double-disc greatest-hits collection, Ladies & Gentleman, The Best of George Michael, and he's already back in the hot seat. According to a spokesperson for the Beverly Hills District Attorney's office, the singer was to have completed 80 hours of community service by Tuesday, as per his sentencing in May over a lewd conduct charge. But because Michael had not completely served out his sentence, his attorney approached Judge Charles Rubin on Thursday to try to extend the deadline until sometime in February. The judge, who had a copy of the video in the courtroom, didn't grant the full request, but did extend the deadline to December 21st. During an interview that preceded the new video premier for “Outside”, Michael told an audience of his fans and spectators that police committed entrapment in arresting him, since they used an undercover officer who fooled him into thinking he was interested in engaging in a sex act with the singer. “I got followed into the restroom. I didn't know it was a cop, obviously. He started playing this game — ‘I’ll show you mine and when you show me yours, I'll nick you,’” Michael claimed during the interview. Police have said that the singer was arrested after committing an unspecified lewd act in a public area. It was the new video that made the boldest statement on his recent troubles with the law. Scenes in the video seem to make light of his arrest and conviction. Partially set in a public restroom that becomes a dance club when urinals disappear and disco balls descend from the light fixtures, the video features Michael dancing in a policeman's uniform while a host of couples kiss in various outdoor locales, including the roof of a building, on board a ship and on a golf course.

Aerosmith has pulled out of plans to continue their tour through January and February, putting a string of at least fifteen dates in limbo. Pollstar reports this week that the band's management has indicated that frontman Steven Tyler may need a rest. Concert dates scheduled after January 4th will reportedly be postponed until March or April, according to the report.

Pressed for the most important figure of the 20th Century, few of us would name They Might Be Giants’ John Flansburgh. However the TMBG guitarist now sees his name being bandied about next to Jesus Christ and Adolf Hitler in a serious online poll designed to determine the Person Of The Century. The poll, being conducted by Time magazine's website has logged votes for historical figures like Gandhi, Billy Graham, Winston Churchill, and Ronald Reagan, as well as Flansburgh and a few other surprises. "He's behind, I think number one is I believe Jesus Christ, number two is Adolf Hitler, number three is the wrestler Ric Flair, and Flansburgh is at number four,” his TMBG partner John Linnell told the MTV Radio Network recently. “And then behind him are some very serious notables.” “If I find that Ric Flair, I'm gonna kick his ass,” Flansburgh barked. I'm warning you Ric Flair; it's me, Jesus and Hitler. There's no room for you. Get out.”

Former Page Three model Samantha Fox has been fined £1,000 and banned for 18 months after being caught driving home with more than three times the drink-drive limit. The 32-year-old was followed for more than three miles by a police car with flashing lights as she veered across the road and slowed to five mph at one point on a three-lane dual carriageway, Enfield magistrates court in north London was told. Fox was taken to Edmonton police station where test results showed a reading of 107 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Rush is not in danger of breaking up. The band is just in a holding pattern. At least, that's the viewpoint of Alex Lifeson, guitarist for the venerable Canadian rock trio, which has no long or short-term plans beyond the Nov. 10 release of the triple-CD live set Different Stages. Lifeson and bassist-singer Geddy Lee are giving drummer-lyricist Neil Peart time to grieve the loss of his wife Jackie to cancer this year, following the death of their 19-year-old daughter in a car accident in 1997. "As far as the band is concerned, we're just waiting for Neil to really get better," Lifeson said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I got to think in my heart there are things about what we do that Neil really loves a lot and is not prepared to give up," Lifeson said. But the musician admitted he and Lee, both 45, have "spent hours and hours" talking about the tragic turn of events. They've decided there will be no Rush without Peart.

Considerable urban interest in the band Blondie, mainly stemming from their embracing of rap on their 1981 hit, "Rapture," has prompted Loud Records to release a 10-inch of the song "No Exit," from Blondie's upcoming album of the same name, due Feb. 9 on Beyond Records. The vinyl-only release, due in early December, will feature guest appearances by Coolio and possibly members of the Wu-Tang Clan, as well as several other Loud acts, according to a spokesperson for the band. The band will embark on an extensive U.S. tour in the spring of 1999. They are also currently filming a concert video in Europe which will be released by Hal Duce Productions/Big Events to coincide with the band's American tour.

Recently, a Bjork obsessive broke into her mother Hildur's home, according to the Swedish newspaper Expressen. (Bjork is living in Sweden now while she films the new movie, Dancer in the Dark.) The fan, a Spaniard who's been stalking her for four years, entered the house while Bjork's mother was away and generally made himself at home. He slept in Hildur's bed, ate her food, and left threatening messages for Bjork. When Hildur returned 24 hours later, the man refused to leave, saying it was his home. The police were called and the man taken away. "This is worse than the mail bomb," Bjork said in the article. "My mother would not have to meet strange men in her home just because of my job. In that case, it's better to quit as an artist." Bjork's mother had been receiving strange phone calls for a while, but never told Bjork out of fear of worrying her. "That the people I love are subjected to threats because of me is horrible!" Bjork said. "And the thought alone that someone could hurt my son makes me feel sick. I feel very guilty."

Some Skinny Puppy fans were in for a bit of a shock when they bought the band's new remix album, "Remix Dys Temper." Instead of the godless goth rock of the defunct industrial veterans, they heard songs by a very godly gospel group. Nettwerk's Kim Hardy confirmed reports that a screw up at the EMD pressing plant in Jacksonville resulted in 6,000 copies of the Puppy product being shipped with Puppy packaging intact including the label copy, but with a different band's music. The CD actually featured tracks from an album called "Worship Song" by a Christian duo with the moniker Weeding of the Lamb. Hardy added that the same problem once happened to Puppy's Nettwerk rostermate Sarah McLachlan when some fans buying copies of her ethereal "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy" actually heard the decidedly non-ethereal Ozzy Osbourne.

America Online and AOL Live are proud to present Barbra Streisand in her first ever online appearance on Monday, November 2 at 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT.

In a recent interview with Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen. "It's like we're bigger than record companies. When you see people at shows singing along, they're not singing [the label's] songs, they're singing our songs. We're bigger than we were 10 years ago, and 10 years ago we had a 'hit' ["The Flame," a No. 1 single] at the time. We were opening for Robert Plant then, and he kept on saying, 'You guys should be closing the show!' But no thanks! People come from all over to see us. It's amazing. And it's not like the Grateful Dead. You don't get free acid or joints at the door. It's not even for sale--that I know of!"

Kiss frontman Paul Stanley and the band's former guitarist Bruce Kulick are being sued for copyright infringement by a music publishing company that claims a song on the group's new album is too similar musically to Alice Cooper's song "Eighteen." Six Palms Music Corp., which filed the complaint, claims that the Kiss song "Dreamin'" from the band's "Psycho Circus" album is a bit too close to the Cooper nugget. The company, which published the Cooper hit, alleges that Stanley (who co-wrote the song with Kulick) must have heard Cooper's 1971 classic track several times as the two groups rose together in the theatrical rock genre. Six Palms is seeking an unspecified dollar amount in the case. A spokesperson for both Kiss and Mercury Records had no comment on the suit, but did say that as of press time, the record label had not been served.

The seminal rap group Run-DMC is now looking to return to the studios for a new album, thanks to a new deal with Arista Records, which has also acquired the rights to Profile's back catalogue. The group, which hasn't issued an album since 1993's "Down with the King," enjoyed a revival of sorts last year when DJ Jason Nevins worked up a series of remixes of Run-DMC's very first hit, "It's Like That," from 1983, a song which will appear on Arista's upcoming "Ultimate Dance Party 1999" compilation. Run says that "quite a bit" of the new album is already completed, and that the rap group hopes to have the album out in the next five months. Run also indicated that they were in discussions with Will Smith's production company to make a movie that he described as "something like a 'Krush Groove 2,'" a sequel to the 1985 hip-hop film that featured L.L. Cool J, Kurtis Blow, New Edition and Sheila E.

Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown has been sentenced to four months in jail for threatening a British Airways airline pilot and stewardess on a flight from Paris to Manchester last February. According to British press reports, the stewardess had been serving duty free goods when she mistakenly thought Brown had waved her over. She then realized he was actually just putting something in his pocket. She apologized with another wave, at which point Brown complained and threatened to cut off her hands for waving at him. She testified that he kept up the abuse by pointing his finger and using a menacing tone. The captain intervened and Brown repeated the threat. An argument ensued, and after the pilot returned to the cabin to land the plane, Brown got up and spent 20 to 30 seconds pounding on the door as the plane approached the Manchester airport. The pilot radioed ahead and arranged to have Brown arrested after the plane landed. Brown, 35, fronted the Stone Roses, one of the most popular groups in the country, from their late '80s inception to their demise in 1996, which followed a steady exodus of band members including mainstay John Squire who left to form the Seahorses.

The television presenter Paula Yates has lost the custody battle with her former husband, Bob Geldof, for their three children. The former Boomtown Rats singer and Live Aid hero won the right to have the children with him for most of the year after a three-day hearing at the Family Division of the High Court, in London. Fifi Trixibelle, 15, Peaches Honeyblossom, nine, and Pixie, eight, will live with the 45-year-old during term time. Miss Yates, 38, is also facing a possible custody battle over the future of Tiger Lily, her two-year-old daughter by rock star Michael Hutchence. The INXS singer left Miss Yates devastated after he committed suicide in a hotel room in Sydney last year. The child's grandfather Kell Hutchence has launched proceedings in Australia seeking sole custody of the couple's child after concerns over a new relationship Miss Yates began while being treated at a clinic for a nervous breakdown earlier this year.