You might not place David Byrne atop a list of rock's great hell-raisers, but the art-damaged singer thinks he knows a thing or two about the dark side -- enough, in fact, that he's decided to write a full-length book about some of his favorite sins. Byrne, you see, thinks the Bible's list of no-no's is a bit too stodgy for today's climate -- besides which, that bit about not mixing two fabrics just doesn't wash in the modern world. As such he's taken some of the Good Book's greatest hits and updated them in The New Sins (due next month), which comes complete with illustrations by the former Talking Head himself. Wonder if "Thou shalt not be pretentious enough to sing in French" made the grade? . . .

Proving that no good deed goes unpunished, a passel of British bands have been called onto the carpet by a radical vegetarian group -- for daring to perform at a benefit designed to aid farmers who lost their shirts in Europe's recent outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. Becky Smith, the head of Voice for Animals, wants the members of Coldplay, Toploader and Reef -- among others --to know that she and her compatriots don't approve of the Farm Aid event, and think that the farmers "brought the disease on themselves." Ms. Smith, who apparently doesn't get out very much, also objected to the use of the name "Farm Aid," noting that it was "too similar" to "Live Aid" . . .

We were a little puzzled when we thought Missing Persons guitarist Warren Cucurrullo was going around proclaiming that he proffered the hardest rock in the world -- but then we realized it was merely our ears playing tricks on us. The fey axeman was actually enumerating his qualifications for his latest moonlighting gig -- as a primary model for a company marketing a new line of, shall we say, "marital aids." Cucurrullo intends to make a real impression on America with the Rockrod, crafted in the exact shape of his own "instrument," giving fans all the pleasures of groupiedom without any of those pesky free clinic follow-ups . . .

When the now-famous photograph of a butt-naked John Lennon and Yoko Ono first appeared on record store shelves some three decades back, a lot of folks immediately wanted to grab a drink to get the image out of their minds. Well, the booze-peddling potential of those ample derrieres finally dawned on some beverage-industry bean-counters, who'll try to use the cover graphic from Two Virgins to move more bottles of Absolut vodka. Terms of the deal were not released, but it's estimated that the Lennon estate will receive nearly a half-million bucks for use of the picture -- which, thankfully, avoids the full-frontal shot on the front cover . . .

DAVID SPRAGUE
(September 7, 2001)