NEWS DIGEST: Monday, February 18

9:29 AM GMT 18/02/2008

MOJO faves, Klaxons, will perform with US r&b hitmaker Rihanna at this week's Brit Awards. The Mercury Prize winners will act as Rihanna’s backing band as she once again reworks her mammoth smash Umbrella.

Prince and The Village People are gearing up to sue a Swedish download portal following revelations that their songs were being given away without consent. Pirate Bay, which is currently embroiled in legal shenanigans with a British law firm, had not been granted permission to use their tunes.

Counting Crows will headline this year's Wireless Festival in London's Hyde Park. The event runs from July 3-6. Powderfinger and Ben Harper will provide support for Adam Duritz's Americana stalwarts as they close the final day. Fatboy Slim will top the bill on the Saturday night.

A computer games tycoon from California reportedly paid Pete Doherty £15,000 to play a private gig for him and his wife over the weekend. The Babyshambles frontman arrived seven hours late for the show, scheduled to take place at 9pm in a rented property in Malborough. He eventually arrived at 4am, greeted Greg and Cynthia Thomas and played for an hour. Doherty has said: “These people were real aficionados. They certainly know their stuff. Everything I played went down really well, from old songs all the way through to my new stuff which no one's heard."

Mercury Rev will make their only British festival appearance of the year at End Of The Road festival in September. The Dorset event takes place at Larmer Tree Gardens between September 12 and 14. Two Gallants, Micah P Hinson and Jeffrey Lewis have already joined the bill.

And finally...Paul Cole, the bespectacled gent that can be seen in the background of The Beatles' Abbey Road cover, died on Wednesday. He was 96. Click HERE for more.

Posted by Ross_Bennett at 9:29 AM GMT 18/02/2008

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