ABBA Reunites???

The Swedish pop quartet Abba plan to get together after 25 years on Friday for the premier of the film Mamma Mia! in Stockholm.

But the four will be attending the screening of the Hollywood version of the Abba hit-musical starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan as members of the audience.

A spokesperson for film distributer UIP told the Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper that ex-Abba singer and songwriter Benny Andersson, 61, and Bjorn Ulvaeus, 63, wanted to appear alongside Singer Anni-Frid Reuss-Lyngstad, 62 and Agnetha Faltskog, 58 at the gala premiere.

Streep and Brosnan wanted the film, which has already premiered in London and Berlin, to also premiere in Abba's home country.

Because of Faltskog's reclusive lifestyle, the reunion was still not certain.

In 2004, the singer pulled out at the last minute of a performance to mark the 30 years since the group's won Eurovision Song contest in Bristol with the hit Waterloo.

Former ABBA star BENNY ANDERSSON hopes the Swedish band will one day get back together - for a private rendition of all their hits.
The singer/songwriter doubts the pop group - which broke up in 1982 - will ever appear together on stage again, but he is convinced that one day they will be able to enjoy a reunion out of the glare of the public eye.
He says, "We never sing our stuff together. But I do think we should secretly get together and sing all our songs that we ever recorded, the four of us, with a bottle of champagne and no one else."

Guitar Great, Jeff Healey Lost battle to Cancer at 41

Grammy-nominated guitar great Jeff Healey, who rocked Patrick Swayze's Road House, died Sunday at a hospital in Toronto of the cancer that left him sightless as a child. He was 41.

Top 40 fans may remember Healey for the 1988 soulful hit, "Angel Eyes." Bad-movie fans surely and fondly remember Healey as Road House's Cody, the blind musician who memorably observed of Swayze's philosophizing, Tai Chi-posing bouncer, James Dalton, "I thought you'd be bigger."

Bryan Adams, a Canadian like Healey, remembered his countryman more simply, calling him one of his nation's "greatest talents."

"It is a huge regret to have to say goodbye," Adams said Monday, per the Canadian Press. "Wherever you are Jeff, we remember rocking with you."

Born March 25, 1966, in Toronto, Healey was stricken with retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye, at age one.

"My eyes were unable to be saved and had to be removed, so I was fitted with artificial eyes," Healey wrote on the website for his self-titled band.

The blind Healey picked up a guitar at age three and essentially never put it down. From the outset, Healey developed the style that would become his trademark: Playing while seated, with the guitar flat on his lap.

"I tried playing the normal way," Healey wrote on the band website, "but I just wasn't very comfortable."

By the time he was barely out of his teens, the prodigy with a penchant for the blues had jammed with the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughn, B.B. King and Albert Collins.

The Jeff Healey Band released its first album, See the Light, in 1988. The collection spawned "Angel Eyes," and helped Healey collect his first Grammy nomination, for Best Instrumental Rock Group.

Road House opened in 1989. In addition to appearing in the movie, Healey and his band contributed to the soundtrack, including the cut, "Roadhouse Blues."

Healey never acted in another movie. But his music career went on and on.

In the 1990s, his Hollywood and music careers came together again in a way, when he opened Jeff Healey's Roadhouse, a still-thriving Toronto-based blues, jazz and rock club.

In late 2006, the cancer that plagued Healey as an infant returned, this time affecting his legs and lungs.

"Please be assured, all, that I am happy and positive about all this," Healey wrote on his official website last September.

In January, Healey, by then about to head off to Nevada and to a round of alternative therapy, optimistically wrote of touring dates and a new album.

"My energy is up, my spirit is strong and I'm read[y] for anything," he wrote.

While a new tour was not meant to be for Healey, the new album was. Mess of Blues is due out Apr. 22, his website said.

"All I can modestly say about the CD is..." Healey wrote in January. "ENJOY!!!"

Nine Inch Nails Bucks the Industry trend with Online release

Nine Inch Nails has surprised the music industry by coming out of nowhere with a new album release with a different variety of online purchasing options. The album is entitled Ghosts I-IV and is a 36-track instrumental album.

NIN is no stranger to the area of online album releases , but this is a bit different than the "pay what you want" theme made popular by Radiohead.

In this case, NIN has supplied five extensive ways to get Ghosts I-IV. For free you can download the first nine tracks, known as Ghosts I. A $5 fee gets you all 36 tracks as well as a 40-page informational PDF as a digital download. A $10 two-CD set is the third option. Also available is a $75 deluxe edition package that includes the audio CDs, a data DVD, Blu-ray disc, hardcover slipcase and more. Finally, the band offers a $300 ultra package that includes everything -- the deluxe edition as well as four LP180 vinyl discs and two Giclee prints all signed and numbered by NIN frontman Trent Reznor. The latter two packages won't ship until May 1 and the ultra package is limited to 2500 pieces. The three CD packages also include an immediate digital download of the entire album.

Yet again, Reznor proves he knows how to launch an album online. Trent has even gone as far to populate popular BitTorrent trackers like The Pirate Bay with a copy of the free music.

Bonus points for NIN with the digital album download options. You can choose among 320 kbps MP3 files, FLAC lossless files, and Apple lossless files and everything is 100 percent DRM-free.

It's important for other artists and record companies to realize how Reznor and NIN succeed with online releases, and it all comes down to having options. DRM-free options? All the better.

Bad Guitar playing and Booze cause Van Halen to Cancel the rest of their reunion tour

Van Halen's tour has been reportedly cancelled because frontman Eddie Van Halen is battling "issues", it has been claimed.

The group cancelled two concerts in Virginia and Georgia late last month but rescheduled the dates for mid-March. No reason was given for the postponements.

However, internet reports claim the remaining tour dates have now been pulled indefinitely.

Apparently, the cancellation has been blamed on guitarist Van Halen's poor performances, after he turned up for several gigs apparently intoxicated.

The Wheelchair rockers - who reunited with original singer David Lee Roth last year are scheduled to play a series of gigs across America until April 19th, but sources claim all of the band's hotel reservations currently being cancelled.