Rock Band

Danika Shinn, a pink-haired eighth grader at Andrew Jackson Public School in South Philadelphia, dreams of becoming a rock star. Though her cheeks, also pink, perhaps suggested a touch of nervousness, Shinn confidently flipped into her "head voice" last week when she and a dozen other eighth graders in the school's rock band warmed up the audience with the Rolling Stones' "Paint it Black," just before a ballet performance at the Wilma Theater....

Thirty years ago, Susanna Hoffs and sisters Vicki and Debbi Peterson formed a garage band in Los Angeles. They were the Bangs before they became the Bangles, and they were a jangly power-pop band before they, along with bassist Michael Steele, were the MTV darlings of the later '80s, with such hits as "Manic Monday," "Walk Like An Egyptian," and "Eternal Flame. " They parted ways in '89, but they rekindled a decade later. Steele left after 2003's Doll Revolution, but now the Bangles are back with a surprisingly strong new album, Sweetheart of the Sun, and a tour that begins Saturday night at the Theatre of Living Arts with Antigone Rising, an all-female rock band from New York City.

Dan Peek, 60, an original member of the rock band America who later forsook the group for a life in Christian music, died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Farmington, Mo. Formed in the late 1960s, America was known for its lush, melodic folk-rock sound and the tight vocal harmonies supplied by its members, Mr. Peek, Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell. Mr. Peek, who sang lead and backup vocals, also played guitar, bass, keyboards and harmonica. The band's best-known songs during his tenure include its two biggest hits, "A Horse with No Name" and "Ventura Highway," both written by Bunnell; "Sister Golden Hair," by Beckley; and "Lonely People," by Peek.

You might think that Lincoln Financial Field, an open-to-the-heavens football stadium with room for more than 67,000 souls on a flawless summer night, would be big enough to contain U2, the four-man Irish rock group that finally brought its outrageously staged "360 Tour" to Philadelphia on Thursday. Not a chance. For more than 30 years, U2 has aspired to be the biggest band in the world. (It had been slated to play the Linc in July 2010, on a stop that had to be rescheduled because Bono required emergency back surgery in Munich.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a guitarist in a rock band that has been performing in the San Francisco Bay area for five years. Because my on-again, off-again girlfriend, "Robin," didn't get along with my band mates, I found myself often caught in the middle. Her dislike of the band scene distanced me from the other members of the band and resulted in my not hanging out with them like I used to. Mounting pressures from both sides caused my breakup with Robin, someone I cared about and loved deeply.

POINT PLEASANT BEACH, N.J. - Warm sunshine, hot rock-and-roll, and cold beer got the holiday weekend started in New Jersey - all before 8 a.m. By the time the day was over, a daredevil had ridden a motorcycle over the Atlantic City Boardwalk to the third floor of a casino, business people had marched into the surf clutching briefcases in Ocean City, and other more traditional rituals - such as sitting in traffic, firing up the barbecue, and...

In 2003, Brendan Walter, guitarist for the rock band Valencia, was sued by the Recording Industry Association of America in the first wave of illegal-downloading lawsuits - now, he's a member of the same association. "I am definitely guilty of downloading music," Walter said. "On one hand, I know how expensive and time-consuming it is to make a record and how it's worth every penny," he said. "On the other hand, this day and age creates a whole new level of people's ability to check out music - you can download 15 albums in one day. " Although piracy is relatively simple with the technology available today, bands and recording compnaies say it is stealing money out of their pockets.

Pop Angles (RCA . 1/2) "People want a rock band of their generation they can trust," Julian Casablancas told Spin recently. The Strokes' leader got that right. And people of the Strokes' generation want the Strokes to be the band they were back in the early aughts, when the tightly wired Is This It (2001) and Room On Fire (2003) arrived as a most welcome corrective to the rap-rock knuckleheads ruling the charts at the time. Angles approximates that world-weary, insouciant spirit better than the last Strokes album, the too-worked-over First Impressions of Earth . But it's hardly the full-fledged return to form the New York quintet's fans so desperately seek.

Chelsea Handler used her Twitter account to respond to rumors that she and rapper 50 Cent are romantically involved. "Everyone, calm down. I met with Mr. Cent about a potential project. There's nothing to report yet, I'll let you know if there is," wrote the talk show host in a Wednesday night post. _ "American Idol" Season 10 winner Lee DeWyze has announced his first post-"Idol" album, "Live It Up. " DeWyze will debut its first single, also titled "Live It Up," Wednesday on "On Air with Ryan Seacrest.