Twenty-nine years ago today, John Lennon died. I was 7 years old. A first grader. I didn't learn of his death until the following evening while my parents were watching "ABC World News Tonight." Too young to be a real fan of rock music (my favorite band at that time was KISS, because they scared the crap out of me), the event was a small blip on my radar.

As the film's end credits rolled, drummer Hal Blaine appeared on screen playing an impressive drum solo as part of a 1970 performance with Nancy Sinatra in Las Vegas. As the clip ended, a voice shouted from the audience, "What an incredible drummer!"

The voice was Hal Blaine's.

Last night I finally started reading Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, by Peter Ames Carlin. After reading a section about Brian's adoration of Phil Spector in the early 1960s, I started thinking about the group of session musicians Spector used on many of his recordings. Known collectively as "The Wrecking Crew," these professional players turned up on many of the biggest hits of the sixties for a wide array of artists, including The Beach Boys. (In fact, they were the studio musician's for the 1966 BB masterpiece Pet Sounds.)

With my curiosity piqued, I began to wonder whether there were any books or movies out there that would tell the Wrecking Crew's story, even telling M. that I wished there was a documentary about the group, something like Standing in the Shadows of Motown, the 2002 film about the Funk Brothers, a group of Detroit musicians who played on numerous Motown hits.

I kept reading the Brian Wilson book, all the while thinking about the need for a Wrecking Crew documentary, even being so bold as to think that if there was nothing suitable out there, perhaps I should look into making the documentary myself (because, you know, I have SO MUCH filmmaking experience!).

After I put my book down and started getting ready for bed, I did a quick Google search to see if such a documentary already exists.

It does.

Not only does the film exist, but it starts THIS FRIDAY at the IFC Center in Manhattan. This freakin' Friday. Two days from now. What are the odds?

The movie is titled, fittingly, The Wrecking Crew and was directed by Denny Tedesco, son of Wrecking Crew guitarist Tommy Tedesco.

Anyway, looks I'll be in NYC this weekend if anyone wants to join me.

Sweet fancy Moses...

Paris Hilton is no stranger to self-promotion. But when she asked DJs to play songs from her upcoming debut album, "Paris," last spring, she wasn't so confident. "People go crazy," the 25-year-old socialite/reality TV star/singer says in an interview in the September issue of Blender magazine, on newsstands Tuesday. "They love it. Everyone's like, 'Who is this?' I don't tell. Because I don't want someone putting their phone up and recording it and making a ring tone off of it. [...] Of her album, she says, "I, like, cry, when I listen to it, it's so good."

Yeah, I, like, cry when I listen to it, too. And it's awfully modest of her to take such thorough credit for an album whose lead single is almost entirely plagiarized from "Kingston Town," a song recorded by UB40 17 years ago. 303 days... 303 days... 303 days... [USA Today] Paris Hilton praises her debut album

...Nelly Furtado. I wonder if it ever occurred to the once-great-now-skanky singer that the Teen Choice Awards might not be the most appropriate forum for singing a song called "Promiscuous." Probably not, considering that she ended her performance by telling the all the 12-year-olds in the audience to use condoms.