Hollywood Amoeba Music instore man of the moment Paul McCartney is among the many artists scheduled to be contributing to an upcoming Fats Domino tribute/benefit project. Entitled "Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino" and scheduled to be released by Vanguard in the Fall the collection will feature numerous artists doing covers of the New Orleans great's music including Elton John (Blueberry Hill), Randy Newman (Blue Monday), Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (I'm Walkin'), and Willie Nelson (I Hear You Knockin'). According to the Goin' Home project's creative consultant Tim Donnelly McCartney will be covering Fats Domino's "I Want To Walk You Home"   The CD compilation, executive produced by Bill Taylor, will be a benefit for the Tipitina Foundation whose goal is to "save the music culture of New Orleans"

  Big props to San Jose competitive hot dog eater Joey Chestnut, the 23 year old engineering student, who took the title the other day when he became the new reigning champ in the Nathan's famous hot dog eating contest in Coney Island on July Fourth. At the annual event which makes food eating a competitive sport, he deposed the reigning champ, Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, when the Californian ate a world record 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Damn!  And he's a skinny dude which, he said in one interview,  is how he can manage to eat so many dogs - by staying fit and in shape.




Album/CD sales continue to decline while digital sales continue to grow. According to new figures released by Nielsen SoundScan this week sales of physical albums (meaning mainly CDs) were down 15.1% for the year to nearly 230 million units in the six-month period ended July 1, 2007.  Meanwhile digital sales continued to increase with track downloads totaling 417.3 million units in the first half of 2007, representing a 48.5% increase over the corresponding period last year when tracks download totaled nearly 281 million units. And in terms of what labels did the most business so far this year: the Universal Music Group finished first among U.S. distributors with a 31.6% market share in album scans.