Between the Raconteurs' hiatus and an upcoming solo album, Detroit-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter Brendan Benson has found a great way to occupy his time. "If I'm not working on music then I'm frantically weeding or gardening," Benson tells Spinner. "I'm not too good with knowing the different kinds of flowers but I know a few. There's a few I like, like the dahlia. I do mostly the landscaping part. My girlfriend, she picks out the flowers and stuff. I mostly weed and dig the hole for her to plant them."

But later this summer, Benson will shift his focus from yard work back to music in support of his latest album, 'My Old, Familiar Friend,' which was named for reasons that weren't readily apparent to him. "It's a lyric in one of the songs," Benson says. "It leapt out at me. I had a hard time thinking of a name and then I was listening to the record, trying to think that it might provoke a name. Sure enough, that just kind of popped out at me. I wasn't sure why I liked it. After doing these interviews and answering that question, after being with the Raconteurs and coming back now to my solo stuff, it's like my old familiar friend."

A self-professed "shark" who managed the Beatles and the Rolling Stones among others, Allen Klein died Saturday, July 4, in New York City after a long battle with Alzheimer's Disease. Klein was most famous for his vigorous negotiations, unprecedented deals and the bitterness he left behind with some of his clients.

As the founder of ABKCO Records, Klein worked with some of music's biggest names, including Herman's Hermits, Bobby Darin, and legendary soul singer Sam Cooke. But the Newark, NJ native became a music industry titan when he signed the Stones in the mid-'60s, securing them a rich record deal. However, the band became furious with him when he purchased the rights to several of the band's songs from a former manager. Mick Jagger testified against Klein at a 1984 trial over royalties and Keith Richards once described the band's five year relationship with Klein as "the price of an education." In the aftermath, Klein walked away with the rights to many of the band's songs that were written before 1971, including '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and 'Jumping Jack Flash.'

''Lonesome" George Thorogood is far better equipped than most to speak about the ongoing steroids controversy in baseball. Prior to being 'Bad to the Bone,' Thorogood was a semi-pro baseball player who, even today, speaks as passionately about Sandy Koufax versus Bob Gibson as the Rolling Stones versus the Beatles.

So, who does the guitar slinger think is responsible for the steroids controversy that has dogged baseball for more than a decade and has implicated such major players as Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens and Alex Rodriguez? "If Keith Richards wrote the number one song of all time back in 1973 and he was mixing cocaine with heroin to do it, what do you think the president of that company and the producer of the record would give him?" Thorogood asks Spinner. "They all understood what was going on. Everybody knew what was going on. Nobody cared because the ball was going into the seats. That thing had been going on for years; somebody was gonna find an edge."

Did Bo know?

That'd be Bo as in Diddley, of course. AKA Ellas McDaniel, the rock 'n' roll architect who passed away last year. And did he know that the famous beat that came to have his name on it -- clap along: duh-duh-duh DUH DUH ... the engine driving 'Hey, Bo Diddley,' 'Bo Diddley Was a Gunslinger,' 'Who Do You Love?' ... perpetuated by Buddy Holly in 'Not Fade Away,' Johnny Otis with 'Willie and the Hand Jive,' Bruce Springsteen with 'She's the One,' U2 with 'Desire' (just to touch on a very long list) -- originated in West Africa?

Sure, that's old news. As well-documented in various musicological explorations such as Ned Sublette's fascinating music-and-so-much-more book 'The World That Made New Orleans,' the beat moved with the slave trade from Africa through Haiti and then New Orleans' Congo Square and out as the "juba" through the Mississippi Delta and, eventually, up to Chess Studios in Chicago.

But did Bo know?

"I don't know," says English guitarist Justin Adams, on the phone from his London home. "That's a question for the history of culture. These are fascinating questions."

Sonic Youth have no desire to follow in the footsteps of bands like Radiohead and the Rolling Stones.

Following the release of Youth's latest, 'The Eternal,' bassist Kim Gordon dismissed Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' business model, which found the Brit rockers initially offering the album online to fans who could pay whatever they wanted for it, but later, releasing the album formally via Matador.

"I don't really think they did it by themselves," Gordon told the Guardian. "They did a marketing ploy by themselves and then got someone else to put it out. It seemed really community-oriented, but it wasn't catered towards their musician brothers and sisters, who don't sell as many records as them. It makes everyone else look bad for not offering their music for whatever."

Having been in a band with Jeff Tweedy (Uncle Tupelo) before their acrimonious split, Son Volt's Jay Farrar is no stranger to idiosyncratic musicians, excessive and/or obsessive behavior, and other indulgences of rock 'n' roll. Still, when he heard that Rolling Stones' Keith Richards reportedly cut some cocaine with his father's ashes and then railed them, he became inspired enough to write a song about it.

"I just thought that him doing that was an honest, profound statement of his love for his dad," Farrar tells Spinner. "I suppose I can relate to Keith's experience in a way, in that my own father passed away. I can kind of relate to that feeling of being a tree pulled from your roots and trying to find a way to deal with it."

"It made me sick. It hardly makes it against Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, does it?" --Keith Richards

In a recent interview, the Rolling Stones' guitarist admitted he used to despise his name, saying he even tried to re-brand himself as "Boy Blue" -- an attempt he called "pathetic."

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