In a move that is so bombastic yet embarrassing that it sounds like something straight out This is Spinal Tap—ya know what, let's just let ABC Australia fill us in:

[KISS] cancelled its other [Australian] concerts after lead singer Paul Stanley pulled out due to illness.

But a line-up featuring bass guitarist Gene Simmons, lead guitarist Tommy Thayer, and drummer Eric Singer took to the seas as part of an Airbnb promotion designed to promote tourism locations around the world.

The concert was billed as KISS playing to great white sharks — although no sharks actually turned up.

That's it. That's what actually happened. In Australia, of all places. There were reportedly eight people who paid actual currency to watch this stunt on the boat, along with some media people and stray boaters, for a total estimated crowd of maybe 50 people. Watching 3/4 of KISS perform with a terrible sound system. Okay.

The event was hosted by Adventure Bay Charters, a company that apparently promises "shark cage diving" adventures in the waters around Australia. Hence, the concert was supposed to demonstrate the company's ability to attract sharks for the experience using sound waves instead of blood…except that the whole thing failed in that regard.

"KISS cancel Australian tour but show must go on for great white sharks" [Jodie Hamilton, Emma Pedler and Paul Turton / ABC]

Image via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest

Stonehenge! Where the demons dwell! Where the banshees live, and they do live well. Stonehenge! Where a man's a man, and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan.

Science has uncovered more about who built the 'Henge and who is interred there.

Via CNN:

Much of the previous research around the monument in Wiltshire, England, has centered around how or why Stonehenge was built -- not the people buried there or who built it.

But studying the human remains at Stonehenge is no easy task. In addition to dating back to 3,000 BC, the remains were also cremated. During the early phase of Stonehenge's history, it largely served as a cemetery.

Fortunately, lead study author Christophe Snoeck, post-doctoral researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, combined his passions for archeology and chemical engineering to pioneer developments in archaeological analysis.

The results revealed that 40% of the people buried at Stonehenge likely came from west Wales, the suggested origin of the site's smaller bluestones, and they most likely helped transport the stones and build Stonehenge. Signals from the bone analysis suggested that within the last ten years of their lives, these people were not living at Stonehenge nor originally from the area around Stonehenge, known as the Wessex region.

"Our results are the first one to provide direct evidence on the origin of those buried at Stonehenge, shedding light on the importance of the site in the Neolithic landscape," Snoeck said in an email.

Stonehenge has been stuck in my head like an ice pick during every summer solstice for as far back as I can remember. I'm a day late with it, but now my pain/joy is yours. Read the rest

A man named Johnny Dixon complained to the Washington Personalized License Plate Committee about the Spinal Tap-homage vanity plate GOES211 on Tony Cava's BMW. Dixon thought Cava was boasting about his penis length. The DOL let Cava keep the plate.

A man identifying himself as Johnny Dixon wasn’t thinking “Spinal Tap” when he spotted the plate.

Last October, Dixon emailed the Department of Licensing: “I find it in poor taste that the great state of Washington would issue a plate that allows a driver to insinuate in public that his penis grows to 11 inches in length. The rest of the citizens of Washington should not be subjected to this vulgarity.”

And so the case of GOES211 ended up before something called the DOL’s Personalized License Plate Committee. Bureaucracies like committees, and lists.

...Asked for comment about his complaint, Dixon emailed back, “What exactly is it that you want to know? I find it disturbing that you can access my emails to the DOL.”

Vanity plates: some take too much license [Seattle Times/Erik Lacitis]

(Thanks, Marty!) Read the rest