Economy so bad we're turning to Mick for help!

Mick Jagger will be putting some of his London School of Economics training to good use when he helps draw up an e-commerce report for the European Commission. The Guardian reported that Jagger will work on the report with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, EMI's Roger Faxon, and representatives from eBay and Fiat. Jagger recently met with other members of the Online Commerce Roundtable in Brussels.

The group's report "will be concerned with the cross-border frustrations of European e-shoppers, such as problems with guarantees, after-sales service and the finer points of online music copyright." Jagger spoke at the meeting about music retailing and "the intricacies of intellectual property law and digital rights management."

European Union's competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes explained the need for the report, which will be published this month: "Consumers often find the products they are looking for are not available to them. I want to know why."

Jagger has been recording with the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart on a new, still-unnamed project.
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Paul McCartney says that the lyrics to his latest experimental album under the Fireman moniker are literally happy accidents. McCartney, who usually writes his own lyrics, chose a more avant garde approach for the third Fireman album, Electric Arguments, which is the first to feature vocals and lyrics.

McCartney explained to The Telegraph how the lyrics came about: "It was sort of a William Burroughs, cut-up approach," he says. "I'd get out poetry books and just kind of scour them and find phrases, then stick them to a phrase from another book, so I wasn't nicking somebody's whole poem. And I'd go on like that until I had enough to sing. I still don't know the lyrics myself."

For the past 15 years, McCartney's Fireman collaborator, DJ/producer Youth, has helped McCartney take his improvised studio pieces and form them into musically diverse and off-beat records. The former Beatle says he welcomes the teamwork in the studio: "I like having a collaborator. Otherwise, I get the feeling of being an absent-minded professor alone in his laboratory all day. I did the first solo McCartney record all on my own. It seemed a bit lonely. There's a track on there that's about 10 minutes long. Try playing maracas for 10 minutes in a row on your own. I was standing in the room thinking, 'That's it -- I've really lost the plot.' So, after that, I thought it was probably nice to have someone in the room with me."
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Rolling Stone magazine will be shrinking the size of its future issues beginning with its October 30th issue, which is due out this week. The Associated Press reported that the new size, which is more in line with other magazines on the market, will reduce production costs -- although Rolling Stone says that any savings will be offset to the magazine being able to print on thicker, glossier paper with additional pages.

The October 30th premiere of the "new" Rolling Stone will feature Senator Barack Obama on the cover. Editor and publisher Jann Wenner wrote in the new issue, "Like the man we are featuring on the cover for the third time in seven months... we embrace the idea of change. Not change for the sake of change, but change as evolution and growth and renewal, change as the kind of cultural renaissance that gave birth to Rolling Stone more than four decades ago."

Publisher Will Schenck told AP: "The size is a nostalgic element but not the iconic part of the magazine. Evolution and change is part of our DNA... We're expecting to get better placement (on the magazine stands). Right now, because of the size, it tends to be placed on the floor."

The original issues of the magazine starting in 1967 were printed as a tabloid-style newspaper, before switching in 1973 to a four-color press. In 1981 the magazine shrank to the now abandoned 10-by-12-inch size.
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A source has squashed rumors that White Stripes and Raconteurs frontman Jack White was approached to tour with Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham. White had reportedly been mentioned as a fill-in for Robert Plant, who has no plans to tour with Zeppelin despite the band's massively successful reunion gig last December in London. However, the source told the U.K.'s Daily Star that White was not involved, adding, "I do not believe you can have a band called Led Zeppelin, singing Zeppelin songs, without Plant."