It’s George Lucas day! And this time he’s hanging out with the former Mr. Brody Dalle instead of Snoop and various members of the Diplomats: “Outside the theater [on Lucas' Skywalker Ranch] I see some guys with tattoos and skater-metal hair. It’s the band Rancid, visiting the ranch scoring stage for a three-week album session. (The place has lot of music clients; the Rolling Stones, Herbie Hancock, Faith Hill, Third Eye Blind and Kronos Quartet have recorded here, some looking for the perfect acoustics, others for a studio with no pubs in sight). As I pass Rancid, they are discussing the vagaries of punk-rock credibility while sipping tea and coffee drinks. I bite my tongue and keep walking.” Good idea. Because it might not have actually been Rancid after all, and the Kronos Quartet ain’t nothing to fuck with. [LA Times; HT: Ned "Ruby Soho" Raggett]