plus: The Breeders [ tickets ]. Esquire's profile of Michael Stipe. 93XFest security costs. A Clapton anecdote for guitar geeks.

"Sixteen teenagers were rushed to hospital after a stampede at a Westlife [ tickets ] appearance in Jakarta yesterday (May 24)," NME.com reported. According to the article, a "brawl" broke out between police and concert security (we've never heard of that before), and--this part seems less certain--the brawl inspired a panic-fueled surge toward the stage.

The Breeders are in the studio with producer Steve Albini, Billboard.com reported.

Once a magazine to be taken seriously--a long, long time ago, but still--Esquire published in its June issue a neo-profile of R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe, half of which is fictional.

Even though the neo-profile's sub-headline states up front that the writer made up half of it, published reports and opinions suggest that this is kind of a big deal--we've been semi-ignoring it all week, but we keep seeing headlines about it, so maybe it is a big deal.

The writer--who so has his ass in the air for attention, so we won't mention his name--told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "I want people to question the enterprise of celebrity journalism ..." liveDaily Briefly may get around to questioning the enterprise of celebrity journalism, though right now, we're occupied with questioning the ability of this guy to meet a deadline.

("What the hell is this? Half the words in this story are misspelled and there's no punctuation!"

"Oh, um, I, uh, uh ... I want people to question the English language. Yeah! I'm being provocative!")

According to the St. Paul PioneerPlanet, the police department in Somerset, Wis.--the town that's hosting the big 93XFest this weekend--needs a federal grant to afford all of the overtime pay to the officers who patrol the festival.

From the Austin Chronicle's article on Doyle Bramhall II:

Last year, God rang up Doyle Bramhall II on his cell phone.

"Along with D'Angelo, I think you're the best contemporary artist I've heard in a decade," Eric Clapton told the former Fabulous Thunderbird and Arc Angel. "I was wondering if you'd like to get together and maybe play a little guitar with me?"

Actually, Clapton was calling to ask for a guitar lesson. A copy of Bramhall's 1999 solo album, Jellycream, had been in his car stereo for months, and the Hall of Fame guitarist had fallen in love with "I Wanna Be" and "Marry You." Clapton wanted to cut the songs with B.B. King for their Riding With the King album, but he couldn't quite get a handle on reproducing Bramhall's parts.

"It was surreal, flattering, and intimidating," says Bramhall of his first visit to the White Room, an Antone's[-nightclub]-size, white-furnished living room in Clapton's Los Angeles home. Two acoustic guitars had been set out for the occasion. It wasn't until Bramhall started playing that Clapton saw the problem: Bramhall plays guitar left-handed and upside down. "Playing lefty the way I do can make fairly simple stuff look much harder than it is," admits Bramhall.