Celebrity Gossip, News and Entertainment

R&B star Beyonce Knowles is holding open auditions for an all-girl band to play on her forthcoming world tour. The former Destiny’s Child leader is looking for an all-female group to support her on tour for her second album, B’Day, which is due this fall. The catch? She needs musicians as soon as possible, the Associated Press reports. B’Day is scheduled for international release on Sept. 4 – Knowles’s 25th birthday – but won’t hit U.S. shelves until the following day.

She is looking for drummers, keyboard players, bassists, guitarists, horn players and percussionists and auditions will take place in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Burbank, California and Weehawken, New Jersey, next Monday (12.06.06).
Finalists from the local auditions will have to travel to New York to perform for Knowles later in the week and to begin performing on tour by 20 June, Columbia Records said.
Aspiring band members must be 18 or older and will be asked to play Knowles’ Work It Out, as performed on the Beyonce: Live At Wembley DVD. Read more!

In a new interview with Time magazine, posted online Sunday, the Dixie Chicks firebrand takes back the apology she extended to President Bush three years ago. Maines and bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison are back with a new album, Taking the Long Way, in stores Tuesday, and a new, no-apologies attitude. The CD’s first single, aptly titled “Not Ready to Make Nice,” is selling well on iTunes but has been picked up by few country stations. Due out Tuesday, the collection is the country-raised outfit’s first collection since Maines, 31, began wearing a bull’s-eye for bashing Bush when his then-70 percent approval rating made the sport unfashionable.

“I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President,” Maines says in Time. “But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.” Read more!