Odds & Ends: Neil Young, John Lennon, KISS

KISS and Def Leppard are looking for a few good men.

As part of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Capital One’s “Hiring 500,000 Heroes” campaign, the two bands are adding two veterans to the payroll for their joint 42-city North American excursion.  

Veterans who are up for the roadie gig can submit applications through May 9 at 11:59 p.m. via Military.com/Heroes. The two veterans will be selected by KISS and Def Leppard along with Military.com.

The rockers have also committed to donating $2 of every tickets sold during the summer tour to military nonprofits including Hiring Our Heroes, the USO, Project Resiliency/The Raven Drum Foundation, Augusta Warrior Project and Wounded Warrior Project.

The trek kicks off June 23 in Salt Lake City.

KISS previously hired Army veteran and longtime KISS fan Paul Jordan for its summer 2012 tour after a nationwide search for a veteran roadie brought in 1,900 applications.

The success of Neil Young’s PonoMusic Kickstarter proves that there are a ton of music lovers out there looking to take their digital music listening experience to the next level.

The PonoMusic team announced Thursday that with $5.75 million raised to date, the project is the third most funded campaign in Kickstarter history.

As of the time of this post, the pledged total had grown to $5.84 million, thanks to 17,136 backers. There are still 3 days left to fund the campaign, which started with a goal of $800,000.

PonoMusic and its portable PonoPlayer are the result of Young’s quest “to revive the music that has been squeezed out of digital music.” By trading in your MP3 player for a PonoPlayer, “now you’ll hear the nuances, the soft touches, and the ends on the echo – the texture and the emotion of the music the artist worked so hard to create.”

Backers of the Kickstarter can save up to $199 of the $399 retail value of the PonoPlayer. There are also artist signature series PonoPlayers signed by acts including Young, Elton John, the Eagles, Kings of Leon, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, Pearl Jam and more.

For more information click here.

If cloning technology is ever achieved to replicate humans, Dr. Michael Zuk has some big plans for the tooth that once belonged to John Lennon.

The Canadian dentist forked over $33,000 for the molar at an auction two years ago. During an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 for an episode of “Dead Famous DNA,” Zuk said that if there’s enough DNA available to sequence it, he’d clone the Beatle.

“He could be looked at as my son but I don’t think I would be the one, you know, owning his property, he would have the rights when he was old enough to make a claim,” Zuk told Channel 4 (via the Daily Mail).

As the Lennon clone’s parent, Zuk said he would “hopefully keep him away from drugs and cigarettes, that kind of thing. But you know, guitar lessons wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?”