In 40 years of ghoulish theatricality, Alice Cooper concerts have featured mock executions and live chicken dismemberment. Now two fans are battling in court over their own contribution to the mayhem.

One man is charged with assault after a fight at a Cooper concert in England last July. The defendant, a disabled man, is accused of infringing upon the personal space of the man next to him in the front row of the balcony -- by removing his prosthetic leg.

No subject, it seems, is too strange for musical theater. We've had musicals on the tabloids' Bat Boy, the failed sex-change candidate Hedwig and the neither-vampiric-nor-transgender (as far as we know) Eddie Money.

Now comes no-joke news of 'Octomom the Musical,' in production in Los Angeles, and set to premiere July 18. Writer-director Chris Voltaire promises 14 new songs based on the story of Nadya Suleman, the California baby mama who used in-vitro fertilization to give birth to octuplets in January. Good thing he's writing his own songs: 'Twenty Tiny Fingers' doesn't tell the half of it.

Chronic sufferers of sleep apnea may not have to listen to doctors drone on about their affliction much longer. According to a new study, playing the ancient Aboriginal instrument known as the didgeridoo has been identified as a potential cure for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), in which collapsing muscles cut off breathing, impairing the sleep cycle.

"A recent study showed that didgeridoo playing helped decrease snoring and OSA," said Dr. Geraldo Lorenzi-Filho of the sleep laboratory at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. The findings apparently contradict years of anecdotal evidence that didgeridoo playing actually causes snoring.

When Liverpool's Echo and the Bunnymen released their fourth album, 'Ocean Rain,' in 1984, an overzealous PR copywriter declared it "the greatest album ever made." The aging post-punk band is getting one more chance to shoot for the moon with an unusual offer from the American space program.

NASA astronaut Timothy Korpa has contacted his favorite band to let them know he's planning to take 'Ocean Rain' with him on his next mission into outer space. Singer Ian McCulloch said in a prepared statement that he dreamed of being an astronaut as a kid. "I cannot wait to hear from Tim what it is like to listen to 'The Killing Moon' in the actual glow of the moon," he said.

When Oscar-winning composer Maurice Jarre died a few weeks ago at age 84, many newspapers from around the world included his quote, "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear," in their obituaries. In truth, there may have been no song in his head at all during the composer's big finale: He never actually said what the papers printed.

As part of a sociology project, Irish college student Shane Fitzgerald duped the world's media by adding fake quotes to Jarre's Wikipedia page. The student posted fictitious quotes that remained on the site for more than a day -- long enough to be picked up by journalists at several major newspapers who were composing Jarre's obituary.

While doing time in Alcatraz, Al Capone once hit a guy in the face with his banjo. The notorious Chicago gangster, a lover of opera and jazz, got the instrument after pleading with the warden to let him form a band behind bars.

Capone's dream of a second career in music is now coming to light. A Boston dealer is offering a piece of sheet music, an Italian love song Capone wrote in prison called 'Madonna Mia,' for $65,000, and a historian has organized a recording of the song.

The Obama administration's $2 trillion economic stimulus package might prove to be "the road to hell," the prime minister of the Czech Republic recently warned. When world leaders expressed surprise at his frank talk, the outspoken PM, Mirek Topolanek, revealed he's been consulting with a grown man in short pants and a schoolboy uniform: He'd just caught an AC/DC concert.

"Their cult song 'Highway to Hell' may have influenced me to use, in my very improvised speech, 'the road to hell,'" he told one newspaper. Hey, no need to apologize. We realize it's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll.

The Czechs have a history of looking to rock music to explain the world. Some say the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 was named after the Velvet Underground. After the fall of Communism, Vaclav Havel told his idol, Lou Reed, "Because of you, I am president." And Havel once asked another hero of his, the late Frank Zappa, to be a cultural consultant with the new government.