Pete Doherty gave a few lucky fans the ride of their life last night. The Babyshambles frontman rented a double decker bus and transported them to his gig in Paris. The bus was decked out with posters and pictures, and the album cover for Doherty's upcoming solo album, Grace/Wastelands, was plastered all over the walls. 

While on the trip, Doherty serenaded his fans with some acoustic tunes, including "The Good Old Days" and "Can't Stand Me Now." Check out footage.

Photo: HBO

Not only is HBO's Eastbound & Down one of the funniest fuckin' things we've ever seen, but the music on the show is amazing!

Like when Kenny Powers is riding his jet-ski to "Black Betty," by Ram Jam. Or when he's blowing coke to April Wine's "Could Have Been A Lady." Eastbound has also featured kick-ass jams like MC5's "Miss X" (probably not a coincidence: Wayne Kramer contributes original music to the show), and Early Man's "Death Is Not the Answer," and R.L. Burnside's "Let My Baby Ride," and Black Keys' "Your Touch," and Tindersticks' "The Organist Entertains."

But our favorite jam is the theme song, Freddie King's "Going Down." Freddie was one of the great Texas blues guitarists, influencing Stevie Ray Vaughan, John Mayall and, above all, Eric Clapton.

He recorded "Going Down" during his five-year tenure at Shelter Records, the label run by the greatest rock-pianist ever, Leon Russell. Those hammering keys on the tune are from Russell himself.

One of the greatest compilations of all time is The Best of Freddie King: The Shelter Records Years, which is hard to find, but available on iTunes. You must hear the whole thing. 

In the meantime...

Freddie King - "Going Down"

Photo: Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

If this were around back in the day then we may have gone to college!

The Liverpool Hope University will begin offering students the chance to get their Masters degree in the subject of...  the Beatles! The course will apparently have a particular focus on how the Beatles and their music impacted Liverpool. Everything from the clothes they wore to their peace efforts will be covered.

Course leader Mike Brocken said in an interview with the BBC that he thinks this is the first program of its kind to be offered to graduate students. "There have been over 8,000 books about the Beatles but there has never been serious academic study,” he said. "The Beatles influenced so much of society, not just with their music, but also with fashion from their collar-less jackets to their psychedelic clothes."

But don't expect to learn a few random facts and walk away a graduate; a degree in Beatles requires just as much time and effort as other graduate programs. Students are expected to take on four 12-week sessions and complete a dissertation.

Then you could apply that knowledge to...... (we have no idea).

Photo: Shearer/WireImage

We just got off the phone with the lovely Norah Jones. We had a little chat about the amazing version of "Baby it's Cold Outside" that she recently recorded with her hero, Willie Nelson, that will be featured on Willie's upcoming standards record.

An unreleased Beatles tune has popped up on the internet, and it's pretty cool. 

The nearly 11-minute track is apparently "Take 20" of the White Album's "Revolution 1." It starts off with studio chatter, including a high-pitched John Lennon saying, "Take your knickers off and let's go," before it goes into a  a take on "Revolution 1." Around the five-minute mark the song takes an unexpected turn toward "Revolution 9" territory, using tape loops, voice distortion and samples.

"Take 20" ends with some heady conversation between Lennon and Yoko Ono, something about being naked and how things are "going to be alright."   

Bruce Springsteen blogs too!

The Boss has written a lengthy journal posting on his website detailing the events surrounding the Superbowl performance, from the airplanes soaring overhead to the now legendary "crotch to the camera" knee slide.

"During 'Tenth Avenue' I tell the story of my band…and other things 'when the change was made uptown'…. It goes rushing by, then the knee slide. Too much adrenalin, a late drop, too much speed, here I come, Mike…BOOM! And I'm onto his camera, the lens implanted into my chest with one leg off the stage. I use his camera to push myself back up and…say it, say it, say it, say it…BLAM! BORN TO RUN…my story."

The emotions Springsteen enumerates during the moments leading up to and during the 12-minute show vary from the superficial to the heart-felt. Take, for instance, the decision on what boots he should wear, the stylish pointed cowboy boots or the tried and true steel-toed? (He went with the steel-toed.) But then there's the sensitive reflection that undoubtedly comes with playing an event of such proportions. From the post:

"I'm on top of the piano (good old boots). I'm down. One…two…three, knee drop in front of the microphone and I'm bending back almost flat on the stage. I close my eyes for a moment and when I open them, I see nothing but blue night sky. No band, no crowd, no stadium. I hear and feel all of it in the form of a great siren like din surrounding me but with my back nearly flat against the stage I see nothing but beautiful night sky with a halo of a thousand stadium suns at its edges. I take several deep breaths and a calm comes over me."

Everybody knows that feeling -- that feeling you get when you really have to take a crap.

But very few understand that pain like Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, who suffers from the gastrointestinal disorder known as Crohn's disease, which causes instant, explosive diarrhea.

Last week, McCready asked Washington state lawmakers to pass a law allowing Crohn's disease victims emergency access to private restrooms at places of business.   

"Imagine the worst diarrhea you've ever had, and then times it by 10, with a knife in it," McCready said. "You have maybe a half-a-second to find out where a bathroom is."

(Because, we assume, by the time you run up to someone's door and explain -- "Hi, I'm Mike McCready, I'm the lead guitarist for Pearl Jam, nice to meet you. By the way, I suffer from a gastrointestinal affliction known as Crohn's disease and I need to take a shit immediately, can I use your toilet?" -- it's too late.) 

And yes, McCready has soiled himself while on stage. "I was in the middle of a solo and it hit, and I can't go anywhere because I'm playing in front of 20,000 people," McCready told The Associated Press after he testified. "So I just let go. I went back stage and cleaned up, because the show must go on."

Is that what "Yellow Ledbetter" is about?