Sound Bites: Sugar Ray, Lenny Kravitz, Chemical Brothers

ByABC News
November 30, 2000, 2:23 PM

November 28 -- MTV Axes Sugar Ray AdMTV has decided that impressionable children need to be protected from watching Sugar Ray's Mark McGrath. Honestly.

The network has put the kibosh on a new commercial featuring the hunky singer because it deemed the spot too sexy, reports the New York Post. The ad for Candie's Shoes features McGrath whipping off a towel and hopping into the shower, then being joined under the nozzle by actress Jodi Lyn O'Keefe of Nash Bridges.

The network felt the 60-second clip got a little too steamy when the couple began to, um, jockey for position. MTV has decreed the spot "too provocative for an all-day rotation" and will only broadcast the commercial after 9 p.m. The designer shoe firm says its considering pulling the spot entirely in wake of the fuss.

Lenny Kravitz CuffedLenny Kravitz's riffs may not be too original, but that doesn't make him a thief. But apparently cops in Miami Beach thought otherwise Friday, when they fingered him as a possible bank robber.

According to the New York Daily News, Kravitz and his trainer were walking back to the singer's house after a gym workout, when three police cars pulled up and stopped them. Kravitz suddenly found himself in a pair of handcuffs and was informed he fit the description of the suspect in a robbery nearby.

"My trainer tried to tell them who I was, not that it mattered," Kravitz told the Daily News, "but I was in sweats and had no ID with me. They said they were looking for a black with an Afro and a beard. I hadn't shaved in a couple of days, so they obviously thought it was me."

Kravitz says the police didn't handle him with excessive force and stressed that he wasn't under arrest. When a bank teller summoned to identify the robber said Kravitz wasn't their man, the cops released the rocker, who says he has no plans to take legal action. "If they had cursed, or called me 'nigger,' or used excessive force, then maybe I would do something," he said.

Chemical Brothers Land U2 GigU2 has tapped blockbuster British electronic duo the Chemical Brothers to open its only U.S. date this year, on Tuesday, Dec. 5 at Irving Plaza, in New York City. The pair will spin an hour-long DJ set before the gig, which is only open to folks who win tickets via radio station sponsors WXRK (K-Rock). But don't fret, Big Apple Tom and Ed fans: The Brothers are also spinning at Centro-Fly on Saturday, Dec. 2, to celebrate the release of the new, six-track Music: Response EP.