Billboard Bits serves up the best bite-sized nuggets of music news and gossip every afternoon.




After taking home the Grammy for Best Alternative Album a few weeks ago, French pop rock band Phoenix is turning its attention to a new project -- writing the score for director and frontman Thomas Mars' wife Sofia Coppola's next film, "Sometimes." "It's very minimal," said Mars of the new work. "It's almost like sound design. It wasn't like writing songs, it was more about trying to make a sound that fits with a Ferrari and the city of Los Angeles' theme. It was more of an engineer work than a composer."

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Its been nearly half a century since Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were fixtures in New York's burgeoning Greenwich Village folk music scene, and the two performed together during Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous March on Washington. According to Mojo, they will reunite Wednesday at the White House for a celebration of the music of the Civil Rights Movement hosted by President Obama.

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Paramore will tour Asia and the U.S. without guitarist Josh Farro, who is taking time off from the road due to 'marriage commitments." According to NME, he'll be replaced by Justin York, brother of Paramore's other guitarist Taylor.



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Leonard Cohen took home a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year's Grammys and was set to embark on a further round of dates on his highly successful world tour, but was forced to postpone the European leg after injuring himself while exercising. According to the New York Times, he's taking six months off on doctor's orders and will resume the concerts in September.



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Yoko Ono's first live show with the revived (We Are) Plastic Ono Band in more than 20 years, at the BAM Opera House in Brooklyn, N.Y., sold out in minutes. As Brooklyn Vegan reports, a second show is now on sale, being billed as a live rehearsal with Ono and her band - including son Sean Lennon, Cornelius, Yuka Honda and Haruomi Hosono - and with the added tease of possible special guests.

(Compiled by David J. Prince)