Wednesday Newsmix: Robert Plant kicks balls, Gaga bares all, and more

Please kick the football. I passed it to the goalkeep.

When former Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant isn’t busy making low-key folk music with Alison Krauss, he’s apparently watching football. (No, I don’t mean American football, you uncultured dunderhead.) So much so, in fact, that yesterday the football club Wolverhampton Wanderers – with whom Plant has been involved for all of his adult life – have made him their official Vice President. In a press release concerning his new status, Plant stated that he was, “flattered, but [also] embarrassed,” due to feeling that others might be more deserving of the honor. Nice to see that one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll singers of all time can maintain an air of humility.

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How much do you really want to see of pop star Lady Gaga? If you’ve been following certain rumors considering her private parts, the answer may be, “not much,” but this may change your mind. Gaga, a noted LGBT activist and self-described bisexual, is slated to pose sans clothing in the forthcoming issue of Out Magazine. (NOTE: Link may not be work-safe.) And according to reports, at least one of the pictures shows, yes, definitive proof that the rumors are not true. Hopefully this will finally put such speculation to rest (excepting, of course, a few obligatory conspiracy nuts who will cry, “Airbrushing!”, but nothing will ever sate them anyway.)

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…and speaking of seeing too much of someone, pop-punks Fall Out Boy are in the news again. Only this time, it’s none other than a Prince doing the calling out! Well, okay – the Prince Regent of Sealand, a “country” consisting of an abandoned British sea fort several miles off the coast of England. But anyway, His Royal Highness Prince Regent Michael (yes, he apparently wants to be called that) has officially accepted Fall Out Boy’s offer to play a comeback show aboard the sea fort. You can read the entire message (sent from the Royal Illustrious Prince Regent’s iPhone) in the link – he seems pretty cool. Either way, I’d definitely go just to say that I set foot in Sealand.

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Shifting gears to our daily dose of Jacko news, the late pop singer is slated to be buried August 29 in a cemetary outside of Los Angeles. The ceremony, which will take place on what would have been Jackson’s 51st birthday, will be private, consisting of only his family and close friends. I’m guessing that his burial place will become a pilgrimage destination a la Elvis’ grave in Memphis, whcih makes me wonder what the gravestone will look like. Hopefully I’ll see for myself someday.

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Anyone else fondly remember The Squirrel Nut Zippers? After achieving unlikely success with their breakout ragtime/swing-influenced radio singles, “Hell” and “Put A Lid On It,” in the mid ’90s, the seven-piece band (who at one time included singer-songwriter Andrew Bird among their ranks) survived several years and four more albums until calling it quits in 2001. Now, in about two months, the newly-reformed group will release their first new album in almost a decade. The album (which doesn’t have a title yet) will have “a little more of a Southern roots approach” than SNZ’s previous work, according to vocalist/guitarist Jim Mathus. Sounds pretty cool to me. This one’s definitely on my radar.