Panic at the Disco announced that they will be splitting in half, with chief songwriter Ryan Ross taking bass player Jon Walker and heading out "on a new musical excursion." Frontman Brandon Urie and drummer Spencer Smith will continue on as Panic at the Disco, and the pair will still play their scheduled dates on the Blink-182 reunion tour (with two replacement members, of course).

Ross and Walker haven't named their new group, nor have they given any indication what it would sound like. But Urie and Smith will reportedly finish up the already-in-progress third album. But what will all this new music sound like? For those answers, we take a look at John Norris' conversation with the band just prior to the release of their last album. Since Pretty. Odd. had such a strong Beatles influence, Norris asked the group to name their favorite Fab Four songs, and the individual results could be very telling.

Urie and Smith both selected more psychedelic entries in the Beatles catalog (not unlike "Nine in the Afternoon"), while Walker and Ross went with more conventional tunes. Both "Octopus Garden" and "I Am the Walrus" are pop-minded tracks with big choruses — the same types of songs that make up the band's debut A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (like "Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off"). So it seems like the band called Panic at the Disco will continue along the lines laid out on Pretty. Odd. and the Ross/Walker combination might be a little more straightforward.

For Panic fans, we want to know: Will you follow both new bands or are you loyal to a particular member?

During Sunday night's Tony Awards, the most newsworthy event was not the overall snub of the '80s hair metal musical "Rock of Ages" or the fact that three kids inexplicably won a single award for one performance but the fact that Poison frontman (and "Rock of Love") star Bret Michaels had an unfortunate incident with a piece of scenery that knocked him to the floor and broke his nose. Michaels was up and joking around shortly after, which probably qualifies this as one of the lamest rock and roll injuries in history. What are some others? Glad you asked:
Read more...

By Lisa Gonzalez

If you want to locate stars in Hollywood, you can always head down to Sunset Boulevard and buy a star map. But this was the VMAs — so why not install high-tech VehiclePath GPS tracking devices in their cars and have MTV News correspondent Sway find them from his helicopter?

MTV thought it would be fun to track the stars' arrivals to this year's VMAs for the live preshow, given that the big show was in Hollywood and traffic here is a way of life. But to be extra-careful, even though the red carpet opened at 3 p.m., we asked all the stars in GPS cars to stay home till 4:45 p.m. — just 15 minutes before the live event.

Cut to show day. The preshow was 30 minutes away, and according to my VehiclePath GPS screen, Panic at the Disco's car had arrived and the band was about to walk the red carpet. NOOOO! We asked Panic to get back in their car and circle the Paramount lot for a half-hour. Since when have stars ever been early?
Read more...

· After sharing the stage with Snoop Dogg for a run through of "Gin and Juice" at the debut of "FNMTV" three weeks ago, Panic at the Disco are reportedly planning to team up with Snoop again to record a song.

· Gregg Gillis, a.k.a. Girl Talk, is hitting the road in support of his Feed the Animals album. His latest round of U.S. dates kicks off at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, Colorado, on July 11 with opening acts Hearts of Darknesses, Grand Buffet, Cx Kidtronik and the Death Set.

· Dave Matthews Band saxophonist LeRoi Moore is in fair condition after being seriously injured in an ATV accident on his Charlottesville, Virginia, farm.

· First the good news: You will soon hear some new music from Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. The bad news for hard-core Rage fans? It's not from the band but from Morello's side project, the Nightwatchman. The guitarist is prepping his second solo album, The Fabled City, for a September 30 release.

· In other Rage news, singer Zack de la Rocha is about to break his silence by releasing his first album in eight years under the name One Day as a Lion. The five-song EP with drummer Jon Theodore will be released July 22 and is described as a "sonic reflection of the visceral tension between a picturesque fabricated cultural landscape and the brutal socioeconomic realities it attempts to mask." Exactly. Read more...

By Danielle Beavers

Rants from the Gallagher brothers don't exactly ripple through the States the way they used to. But when Noel Gallagher — guitarist and chief songwriter for Oasis — sounded off on Jay-Z back in April, he was definitely heard ... even by Jay himself.

Gallagher was unhappy that Jay-Z would be performing at this year's Glastonbury festival, saying that the fest was "built on the tradition of guitar music." Once upon a time, in 1995 and 2004, Oasis headlined the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury, playing to sold-out crowds. The 40-year-old Gallagher pointed to Jay-Z's spot on the bill as the reason the festival has not yet sold out. This year, 100,000 tickets were sold on the first day, but in past years, the tickets have sold out in a matter of hours.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Gallagher complained back in April. "If you start to break it, then people aren't going to go. I'm sorry, but Jay-Z? No chance." Read more...

· We kind of thought Taco Bell's name-change offer for 50 Cent was a joke, but apparently the rapper didn't think it was so funny. He's mad ... that his team didn't get a chance to review the offer before the taco chain went public, and he's now considering litigation. That's ... gangsta?

· In other 50 Cent litigation news, the rapper plans to file a defamation suit against his 11-year-old son's mother, Shaniqua Tompkins, for claiming that he was behind the mysterious fire that burned down the $4 million home she was living in.

· Panic at the Disco, Lupe Fiasco, Wyclef Jean, Death Cab for Cutie and Erykah Badu have joined the list of performers for this year's Voodoo Experience in New Orleans.

· After several years of minor activity and major drama, D'Angelo is finally at work on his first album since 2000. He's already collaborated with Raphael Saadiq and plans to hook up with John Mayer soon.

· OK, so Queens of the Stone Age singer Josh Homme may have gone a bit off the rails last week when he verbally lashed a fan for pelting him with a shoe. But if this is his apology, whoa, we'd hate to see him in confession!

Since nearly everyone at MTV News is currently in LA tanning on the rooftop of whatever Santa Monica hotel in preparation for the MTV Movie Awards (live! this coming Sunday!), the remaining souls in the department are going to just do whatever the hell we want. All week long. (This is also a test to see what our bosses mean when they say they read Newsroom “regularly.”) And if that means posting a completely random list of the spring releases we like but have yet to give proper amounts of MTV-official love, well so be it.

Our props to the albums we're feeling truly, madly, deeply right now, after the proverbial jump. Read more...

Now, personally, I always took the Panic At the Disco song “That Green Gentleman” to be more about the, um, 4:20 club than the Sierra Club, if ykwim. The band, however, wouldn’t cop to that when I talked to them yesterday…Whatever.

But Panic did want to talk about the environmental consciousness of their current trek, the 2008 Honda Civic Tour. Before each night’s show, singer Brendan Urie appears in a video, encouraging fans to take part in an “eco-contest” to decide how a large chunk of change raised on the tour will be used to help the planet. (For more info on that, go here.)

Brendan also explained to me that the band is working on the tour with two non-profit eco organizations: Reverb, which facilitates environmentally friendly touring; and Global Inheritance, which seeks to inspire more eco-activism. “Plus, at each show there’s a few things to get kids involved,” he told me. “Honda have a bike setup where you can charge your phone, and there’s pamphlets and information. Lots of good stuff.”

Ryan Ross said the band has been doing good things as well, from traveling on a biodiesel bus, to re-using plastics, and recycling more backstage. “It’s been cool for us because we’re young guys -- we’re still learning about what’s going on, too. So it’s been personal,” he said. “I think it’s been good for everybody to try and do a little something.”

Now fellas, back to this “Green Gentleman”? “Green can be so many things,” Brendan said with a smile. “You’re new to something…You’re jealous…It could be my favorite color…” But Ryan stopped me in my tracks: “You’ll never know, John. You’ll never know!”

Prince has made a habit of busting out the odd cover now and then during his shows, from the Foo Fighters (“Best of You”) at the Super Bowl to Joan Osborne’s “One of Us,” you just never know what he’s going to hit you with. He pulled a major surprise over the weekend during his headlining set at Coachella, though, covering not only the Beatles’ “Come Together” but also Radiohead’s 1993 debut single, “Creep,” which he flipped from a grungy anthem of angst and self-loathing into a towering soul jam about longing that sounded like it could have been on his seminal Purple Rain album.

That got us thinking about all the other oddball Radiohead covers out there. No, not the cheesy business like Korn’s lounge-pop version of “Creep,” but things like Bilal and the Roots funking up “Everything In Its Right Place” at Clive Davis’ Grammy party last year, jazzer Brad Mehldau getting all meditative on “Exit Music (For a Film)” and Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante taking “Lucky” to the acoustic side.

Hell, everyone has taken a swing at “Creep” -- from Moby to Tears For Fears -- but one of the weirdest, non-hit-single covers is the glam-metal, high-kicking falsetto-rama of “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” unleashed by late, lamented English rockers the Darkness. The boys made it sound like a lost Judas Priest single from the early 1980s. And remember Panic at the Disco’s Queen-like emo take on “Karma Police,” complete with xylophone and cello?

Certain Radiohead tracks have been covered to death by a wide swath of pop and rock singers: “Fake Plastic Trees,” Alanis Morissette; “Karma Police,” Howie Day; “Knives Out,” Flaming Lips; “No Surprises,” Iron & Wine. But covers have also emerged from artists of just about every genre, perhaps taken with the English band’s majestic arrangements. From NPR-favorite classical piano player Christopher O’Riley, to string quartets, bluegrass pickers, and even dub reggae fanatics. (Awkward? Yes.)

And then, of course, there’s John Mayer, who not only raved about Radiohead’s “Kid A” but covered it and put it on the bonus disc of his Heavier Things album. That surely gives the kid more cred than that tattoo sleeve.

We’ve said it before, people, but it bears repeating. Along with your sound, the second most important thing any band has to do, maybe even more important than your sound in the beginning, is choose a name that’s either: a) instantly cool and/or intriguing (Nirvana, Radiohead) or so lame it’s back to being great again (Weezer, Panic at the Disco).

Clearly, many of the bands who played showcases Friday night at South by Southwest didn’t get this memo. Among them: Vancougar, Coconut Coolouts, the Show Is a Rainbow, Mittens on Strings, We Versus the Shark, Everlovely Lightningheart, Psychedelic Horses---, the Homosexuals, the Crash That Took Me, and Goat the Head.

Honorary mentions go to other bands playing the festival, including What Laura Says, Thinks and Feels, 43 Songs about 43 Presidencies, Songs for Moms, Til We’re Blue or Destroy, Ringo Deathstarr, Gorch Fock, Woodpigeon, Uh Huh Her, Death Sentence: Panda!, Collections of Colonies of Bees, I Was a Cub Scout, Does It Offend You, Yeah? and one of my favorites, DJ Pube$.

Then, there’s the names that guarantee that the band will probably never make it beyond SXSW, but we appreciate their creativity and we applaud their awesome, if scary, imaginations: A Thousand Knives of Fire, Dixie Witch, Tennessee Boltsmokers and Bible of the Devil.

Check back with the Newsroom blog throughout SXSW for more highlights, and be sure to visit our sister blog You R Here for concert reviews, photos and more.