Lambert side project Pistol Annies shake things up (AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Angaleena Presley was doing what she usually does at 2 a.m. — sleeping _when the phone rang.

On the other end of the line was Ashley Monroe, who had been hanging out with her friend Miranda Lambert and, perhaps, having a cocktail or two.

"And I went, `Hey, this better be important, by God,'" Presley recalled, her young son sleeping next to her.

"Turns out it was, huh?" Monroe said.

That call 2 1/2 years ago led to Pistol Annies, a concept group of sorts that's aimed at shaking things up and drawing attention to female singer-songwriters who get sometimes get overlooked in the rush to find the next big star.

"I just happened to be the one that got successful," said Lambert, whose breakthrough 2009 album "Revolution" established her as one of country's elite acts, with Grammy, ACM and CMA trophies to go along with her recent status. "There's a whole bunch of us that you haven't heard yet."

The trio launched the aptly titled "Hell on Heels" this week. It's a deep country take on life for the modern woman, running from glam to glum and back again.

Lambert, dubbed "Lone Star Annie," has been friends with Monroe ("Hippie Annie") since soon after both signed with Sony several years ago. Monroe met Presley ("Holler Annie") separately through her publisher.

Monroe decided that late night to put her two friends together after she and Lambert began talking about Presley's music. The friends started getting together to have fun. Alcohol might have been involved, though no one will confirm it. There was never talk of a concept group or even writing songs together. But eventually the guitars came out, and so did Pistol Annies.

"Hell on Heels" has an attitude for sure, best evidenced in the title song, the wonderfully tart "Bad Example," and Lambert's ode to jerks ("Trailer for Rent"). But it's more remarkable for its reflection of the times and how poverty and unhappiness are just a decision or two away. There are unpaid bills and plenty of pills. There's heartbreak and disrespect from a handful of lowlife men. There are hard decisions and wrong choices.

Monroe says the perspective comes from their backgrounds, each of which has been meager at times. The struggles Lambert's family faced are well-documented by now. Monroe lost her father when she was 13. And Presley actually grew up a coal miner's daughter in Beauty, Ky., before chucking her college degree and heading for Nashville.

Like life, the album alternates between good times and bad.

"It seems like when we all three got together, that's what came out," Monroe said. "We never thought about it, ever. ... When we get together to write I guess that part just comes out. We know what it's like to be struggling."

___

Online:

http://www.pistolannies.com

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The songs they are a'changing for The Dylan Project (Reuters)

CROPREDY, England (Reuters) – When a band of veteran British rock musicians took to the stage with a different take on Bob Dylan's music at the weekend, they were so good someone in the crowd even shouted "Judas."

The reference to the infamous moment when Dylan turned electric was tongue-in-cheek. The musicians concerned make no pretensions about being acoustic folkies.

Slide guitar, driving bass and drums is what they are in this persona. More blow the house down than "Blowin' in the Wind."

The Dylan Project is fronted by Steve Gibbons, who like Dylan turned 70 earlier this year -- a happy coincidence given that he claims Dylan's music changed his life.

Gibbons is one of those musicians who is well known in certain die-hard music circles, making a critically successful career for years without achieving widespread celebrity.

The eponymous Steve Gibbons Band is said to be the first rock band from the West to have been invited to tour East Germany in the early 1980s when the Berlin Wall was still up. It has toured with The Who and shared the stage with a plethora of rock names.

But when friends got together to celebrate Gibbons's big birthday in Austria in July, it was The Dylan Project that tuned up.

The band is a side project for various musicians from the British folk-rock or roots-rock scene, notably bassist Dave Pegg of Fairport Convention and slide guitarist PJ Wright of Little Johnny England.

It plays Dylan. But it is no tribute band, more an homage to the man Wright describes as inventing rock music.

"We have our own take on Bob's songs. We don't do core versions," Pegg said backstage after the Project played at his other band's annual Fairport's Cropredy Convention festival in rural north Oxfordshire.

That much was evident from the Cropredy set, a crowd-pleasing performance that focused on a lot of lesser-known Dylan numbers as well as the likes of "Highway 61 Revisited" and "Like a Rolling Stone."

Gibbons, it has to be said, can sound eerily like Dylan -- at least on the latter's good-voice days -- which threatens at times to slip into parody.

But the music overcomes any similarity.

Each song is an interpretation. The overall effect is jazzier and bluesier that the originals, exemplified by a particularly haunting "Ballad of a Thin Man."

The Dylan Project plays around a dozen gigs a year -- mainly in Britain and continental Europe -- and there appears to be no great desire to extend the touring.

This is mainly because it is a side project for the musicians, most of whom can afford to keep it that way.

"We do it for the craic," Wright said, using an Anglo-Irish expression for entertainment. "We do it for fun."

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Coastal agency rejects project led by U2 guitarist (AP)

LOS ANGELES – Despite promises by U2 guitarist The Edge that it would be one of the greenest developments in the world, California's coastal development agency rejected a proposal for five mansions overlooking Malibu citing concerns that it would irrevocably damage the environment.

On Thursday, staff told the California Coastal Commission that approving such a project would set a precedent and invite other large developments to rugged, environmentally sensitive locations. Commissioners voted 8-to-4 against the proposal.

"In my 38 years I have never seen a project as environmentally devastating as this one," said Peter Douglas, executive director for the commission. "An environmentally sensitive person would never pick this site to develop."

Following the vote Fiona Hutton, spokeswoman for the property owners, said they would be "vigorously exploring all potential options including litigation."

"The property owners worked diligently to develop home designs that would meet some of the highest standards for sustainability, blend seamlessly with the natural landscape and preserve the vast majority of their private lands as open space," she said.

The proposal led by the musician, whose real name is David Evans, called for five multilevel homes of up to 12,785 square feet to be built on 156 acres in the Santa Monica Mountains. Project designers said the homes would have the top green building certifications and the guitarist said the mansions would be some of the most environmentally sensitive in the world.

Project opponents, including the National Park Service, however, said the development would scar the expansive ridgeline. The musician and his partners had earlier appeased one of its staunchest opponents, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, after agreeing to give the agency more than $1 million, dedicate nearly 100 acres to open space and provide public access to hiking trails if the homes were approved.

One sticking point was the claim by proponents that they are five separate owners each building a single home on separate lots, an argument that would make it more difficult for the commission to deny their proposals.

Commission staff said the current owners did not adequately show that the properties were individually owned. Staff members said they believe the project is a single coordinated development with a single project manager, single architect, single website and — until recently — a single agent that came before the commission. Staff suggested building fewer homes on the site but proponents called that a violation of property rights.

To prove that each lot was under individual control, one owner flew in from England while others sent video clips telling commissioners they were not taking any direction from Evans regarding the development of their site. Attorneys, meanwhile, said commission staff's single ownership theory would not stand up in court and that the owners are the entities that hold the titles.

Don Schmitz, the project's planning consultant, told commissioners there are homes at similar elevations in the Santa Monica Mountains and there is plenty of development near the site including Malibu's exclusive Serra Retreat neighborhood.

"We're flummoxed to understand why we're so special," said Schmitz, adding that they've done everything that staff has asked. "There is nothing these property owners can do that they haven't already done."

In the end, however, most of the commission didn't appear to buy that argument. While some complimented the project's green intentions and overall design, which included organic features such as a home that wrapped around an existing pile of boulders, commissioners said the project was simply too big and sited in the wrong area.

Commission Chair Mary Shallenberger recalled talking with the musician and how "he and his wife fell in love with the land but couldn't afford it so they got some friends to go in on it."

"Yes they have a right to a house but they don't have the right to the houses they've proposed," she said. "People don't have a right to build on the ridge just because it happens to be the most beautiful part on the property to build."

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Heidi Klum going nude for "Project Runway" promo (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Former supermodel Heidi Klum is stripping down to promote Lifetime's "Project Runway."

While she has yet to sign off on a final image from a shoot held earlier this week, the show's host opted to bare all as part of the promotional campaign for the fashion competition series' ninth season, which will kick off this summer.

The decision was inspired by the cable network's push -- and for that matter, need -- to embrace the contemporary woman.

Since taking the reins a year ago, Lifetime president and general manager Nancy Dubuc has pushed both her programing and her marketing teams to move away from that "women in peril" stereotype that has plagued the one-time ratings champ in recent years.

Instead, her staff has been tasked with finding and celebrating female characters who are brazen, strong, confident and sexy. To hear Dubuc tell it, having Klum show off her model figure is a way of showcasing a woman who has all of those attributes.

Plus, she said with a big smile, "it's Heidi F--in' Klum."

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Heidi Klum going nude for "Project Runway" promo (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Former supermodel Heidi Klum is stripping down to promote Lifetime's "Project Runway."

While she has yet to sign off on a final image from a shoot held earlier this week, the show's host opted to bare all as part of the promotional campaign for the fashion competition series' ninth season, which will kick off this summer.

The decision was inspired by the cable network's push -- and for that matter, need -- to embrace the contemporary woman.

Since taking the reins a year ago, Lifetime president and general manager Nancy Dubuc has pushed both her programing and her marketing teams to move away from that "women in peril" stereotype that has plagued the one-time ratings champ in recent years.

Instead, her staff has been tasked with finding and celebrating female characters who are brazen, strong, confident and sexy. To hear Dubuc tell it, having Klum show off her model figure is a way of showcasing a woman who has all of those attributes.

Plus, she said with a big smile, "it's Heidi F--in' Klum."

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Spain's Almodovar eyes English-language project (AP)

CANNES, France – Pedro Almodovar helped launch the international careers of several Spanish actors who are now Hollywood legends, including Antonio Banderas, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. Now the celebrated filmmaker says he's toying with the idea of making his first movie in English.

The Academy Award-winning Spaniard has always remained deeply attached to his homeland, and none of his 18 films has been set beyond its borders.

That could change if one of three projects currently in development comes to fruition.

"There's a script that ... could perhaps become my first project in English," Almodovar said in an interview at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was promoting his latest movie, horror thriller "The Skin I Live In."

"I'm writing it in Spanish but I've spoken to an American writer about doing the English version."

Almodovar declined to provide any details about the project, which he said is in the early stages of development.

"The Skin I Live In" — one of 20 movies competing for the top Palme d'Or prize at Cannes — marks the return of a Hollywood heartthrob who was a regular feature of Almodovar's movies from the 1980s, Antonio Banderas. The two haven't worked together since 1990's "Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!"

In "The Skin," Banderas actor breaks out the Latin Lover mold of his Hollywood work, playing an icy and calculating plastic surgeon bent on avenging the rape of his daughter. Banderas' pared-down performance is among his strongest in recent memory.

Almodovar "wanted this character to always be under control, to never reveal the monster he has inside," Banderas said. "This character with Pedro actually opened the door with me to a different turf.

"I'm going to be 51 this year and now I'm getting the possibility of doing characters I've never done before," Banderas said.

Almodovar said he thought Banderas' co-star, Elena Anaya, could follow in the footsteps of Almodovar muse, Penelope Cruz. In "The Skin," Anaya delivers a zinger of a performance as a victim of the Banderas character's Machiavellian plot.

"In addition to her youth and the fact she's a beautiful girl, Elena isn't afraid of any kind of scene," said Almodovar.

"I think she's the most open actress in this way that I've ever met. She can be in physical situations that are really atrocious," like the movie's brutal rape scene, and not blink, he said.

"She has the hardness necessary to handle really difficult scenes and the sensitivity to be able to transmit emotion in a really direct and immediate way," said the filmmaker. "I don't like to make comparisons, but I predict for Elena a future like that of Penelope in the U.S."

Anaya has already had a taste of the experience of working in Hollywood, with her role as a vampire in the 2004 action flick "Van Helsing." Though she said she had "lots of fun" on the project, Anaya said she's not angling for roles in big-budget blockbusters.

Still, the doe-eyed 35-year-old said she's not ruling anything out.

"You never know what kind of opportunities life holds in store," she said. "It goes without saying that I'm super content and incredibly happy with the opportunity Pedro has given me here."

(This version correct spelling of 'Amaya' to 'Anaya.')

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