Paul Clifford & Gary Morissette Top 24 on Canadian Idol

Getting your foot in the door in the music industry is aa difficult task for anyone, no matter where you�re from � small town or big city.

But when that opportunity comes knocking on your door � like Canadian Idol � having moral support to help push you forward gives you the strength to go for it. For 26-year-old bartender Paul Clifford of Port Moody, B.C., trying to grab that opportunity isn�t as easy as it sounds.

�You really have to have put the time and effort into each performance and are always hoping that someone out there is listening,� says Clifford, one of this year�s Top 24 contestants. �And wanting to give an independent artist like myself an opportunity that perhaps would be a little easier to find if you where playing in the hub of a city rich with musical culture.� 

Coming from a smaller city can be an advantage because you have your friends, family and your hometown behind you. That installs a fire in Clifford�s heart knowing that the local community is behind him.

�We�re all in this together. I am hoping that the word is spreading and that I have this amazing chance to get my name out there and create some opportunities for myself and my music career,� he says.

Unlike anyone else in the Top 24, Gary Morissette auditioned online. But like his fellow competitor Clifford, this Fruitvale, B.C., musician and construction worker felt secluded from a good music scene.

�It made me think that I had to prove myself with every performance,� says 21-year-old Morissette. �It gave me a strong will because I had to overcome a place where many people thought it was an unrealistic career choice.�

Morissette says he plans on using the fact that he�s from a small place like Fruitvale to his advantage because it helped shape who he is today.

�It made me a very simple minded person on the outside, but searching for something much deeper inside,� he says. �In an early original song called Guitar Boy I sang, �just a guitar boy growing up in the woods, playing a song for whomever he could.��

>> For more on Canadian Idol, go to www.metronews.ca/idol.

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Bullets and Octane

   
Artist: Bullets and Octane

   Genre(s): 
Pop
   

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Discography:


   
 Song for the Underdog

   Year: 2007   
Tracks: 13

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Bullets and Octane frontman Gene Louis grew up in St. Louis with a jazz drummer forefather world Health Organization taught his boy how to roleplay his instrumental role at an other long time, and shortly the whitney Young musician was sitting in at his father's gigs. When Louis and longtime champion and bassist Brent Clawson affected to Orange County, CA, to initiate Bullets and Octane in 1999, Louis stayed behindhand the kit, just when the pb isaac Merrit Singer fall by the wayside, he distinct to pace up to the situation of vocalist. Soon Ty Smith, a popular punk rocker studio drummer, and guitar player James Daniel, some other Missourian, united the duo. In 2004 they released Revelry on Criterion Records, and later a European spell opening move for Avenged Sevenfold, their second album, In the Mouth of the Young, came verboten in 2006 on RCA.

Duane "dog" Chapman - Employee Sues Psychotic Chapman

TV star DUANE 'DOG' CHAPMAN is facing legal action from a producer on his reality show DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER - who has accused the star of "psychotic behaviour".

Actor Boris Krutonog - Chapman's former agent - worked as an executive producer on the TV series but is now suing the show's network A+E.

He is accusing programme bosses of failing to pay his salary, cutting him out of agreed DVD royalties and creating an "intolerable and hostile workplace".

Krutonog, who is best known for his role in Star Trek: Voyager, has slammed Chapman and his wife Beth - accusing the TV network of failing to restrain the couple during "episodes of psychotic behaviour". Krutonog was eventually removed from his position for refusing to work on the show.

Legal papers filed at New York Supreme Court reveal Krutonog is seeking over $800,000 (GBP400,000) in damages as well as attorney fees.

Chapman has now responded to the allegations through his attorney Marty Singer, who tells TMZ.com, "It is unfortunate that Boris Krutonog, who was Dog Chapman's and Beth Chapman's former agent and manager, has made gratuitous, ridiculous and outrageous statements about his former clients. Mr. Krutonog was fired for cause more than two years ago after he refused to work on the series."

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Courtney Love bins new album to work with unknown

Courtney Love certainly knows how to confound expectations. The singer has for some time been working on a follow-up to her solo album, America's Sweetheart, which she made with pop genius (and James Blunt discoverer) Linda Perry. But that's all been thrown out in favour of working with a peripheral member of a minor UK indie band.

Perry - who began her career as one of 4 Non Blondes - was an essential part of Love's reinvention, helping her to ditch her grunge sound for the 2004 solo release. The two were understood to be working together on the new one.

But Digital Spy reports that the entire album has been binned with Love spinning off on a different direction - and her new collaborator is not the most obvious of partners.

Micko Larkin is now Courtney Love's right-hand man, assisting at sessions in Los Angeles. Larkin was the shaggy-haired guitarist you may or may not remember playing in the now defunct (and aptly named) indie band Larrikin Love.

While Linda Perry wrote songs including Christina Aguilera's Beautiful and Pink's Get the Party Started, Micko Larkin's work consisted of the rather more erudite At the Feet Of R� and Edwould. He played with Larrikin Love for at least a year and contributed strumming duties at a birthday party gig in London before the band broke up. Love was at the time playing the songs she wrote with Perry, calling her a "genius".

It seems she changed her mind.



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