MUSIC NEWS YOU CAN USE FOR THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26TH

Your birthdays for today...
The lovely lady of the 10,000 MANIACS, NATALIE MERCHANT, turns 43...
And, women of the world rejoice: DURAN DURAN'S SIMON LEBON turns 48.

Oh, and it was back on this very day in 1992 that PEARL JAM set a new record for first week sales when their second album, VS., sold 950,000 copies. I can still remember buying my copy in Searcy, Arkansas, of all places.

Your music news for this Thursday...
* The FOO FIGHTERS have announced a release date for the live album and DVD documenting their recent acoustic tour. It's called "Skin and Bones" and will be out November 28th.

* The sound engineer and lighting director for the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS are literally offering up the shirts off their backs...for advertising, that is. The duo have posted the ad space on their shirts on Ebay, and they'll wear it during every stop of the CHILI PEPPERS U.S. tour. The current bid is $173.00.

* PEARL JAM'S EDDIE VEDDER will appear tonight on the new Sundance Channel interview program, "Iconoclasts." VEDDER, whose love for surfing is well documented, will interview legendary surfer Laird Hamilton. That all gets started at 9 p.m.

* And finally...
Some guy who bags groceries for a living down in Medford, Oregon, is suing GREEN DAY. Yep, Paul McPike claims it was he, not Billie Joe, who penned the lyrics and created the melodies for Green Day's "American Idiot." McPike says he wrote the songs back in 1992 when he was in high school, and that a friend must've recorded him performing it at home...and that Green Day somehow got ahold of the tape.
Uhm...attention shoppers: We need a BS cleanup in aisle 12.