Members of Franklin, TN based rock band Paramore gave MTV News a tour of their hometown recently. The band stopped at Puckett’s Restaurant and Grocery in Historic Downtown for lunch. Paramore’s third studio album, Brand New Eyes is releasing nationwide today (9/29) through Fueled by Ramen. The feature can be seen on the MTV News Web site.

Also in Franklin, young actress Amanda Waters is getting a lot of attention. She has appeared in several family friendly films and was also chosen to be the modern face of Laura Ingalls Wilder on the cover of the newly updated Little House on the Prairie books. Waters also plays in the new movie, Mandie & the Secret Tunnel, which will have its Tennessee premier at The Factory in Franklin on Thursday, Oct. 8 at 7pm.  Tickets are available to the public.

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A fire across the street from the Big Machine/Valory/Republic Nashville headquarters last week was quickly put under control thanks to the Nashville Fire Department. Valory and Big Machine staffers came out to support the Fire Department and are pictured below: (L-R) Justin McIntosh, Jack Purcell, Whitney Sutton, Kelly Rich, Lindsey Jackson, David Beller, Scott Borchetta, Erik Powell, Jon Loba, Jayme Austin, George Briner, Allison Jones, JoJamie Hahr, Andrew Kautz, Nikki Burns, Harry Lyons, Wayne Milligan, Natalie Kilgore and Bobby Young.

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Andy Dodd, writer of hits for Hannah Montana, High School Musical, Camp Rock and Jesse McCartney, dropped by the ASCAP office in his “new” hometown last week. Pictured (L-R) are ASCAP VP/GM Marc Driskill, Dodd, and ASCAP VP Dan Keen.

Have you visited Music Row’s Twitter chart and/or Artist Chat Wall? Over the past 30 days, the two sites have been consistent top 10 traffic destinations on MusicRow.com. In fact, Twitter and its related pages are now the No. 1 referrer of traffic to Musicrow.com followed by Facebook and Nashville’s City Paper.

What Are They
The Chart, powered by AristoWorks, shows the Top 75 country artists ranked by the number of Twitter followers. Each artist entry also has a “stats” button which shows a graph of the artist’s growth and predictions for future progress.

The Chat Wall is a real time, continuously updating display of comments from over 128 country artists which can be thought of as a real time conversation. For example, when Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift at the MTV Music Video Awards, the Twitter Wall began to erupt almost immediately, with artist comments…

Both pages are loaded with interactive links making it easy to jump to specific artist pages for a closer look and can be found under the “Charts” link at the top of the page on musicrow.com.

MusicRow, which began using Twitter almost a year ago, now has almost 10,500 followers.

Seventeen record labels have banded together to sue the Ellen DeGeneres Show over its alleged use of music without permission. The complaint says the show producers acted with complete disregard for the legal framework of the music business. Read the entire article at Nashville Post.

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Matt Fisher joins 615 Music as Director of Licensing, Film Division. In his new role, Fisher will oversee the company’s nationwide film industry presence. 615 Music President and CEO Randy Wachtler said, “Matt’s proven sales experience and background make him a solid addition to the team and a great asset to our clients.” Fisher is a graduate of Nashville’s Belmont University Music Business Program.

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Songwriter-driven label Nashville Underground is celebrating its 10 year anniversary with the Nov. 10 release of a retrospective 4-CD box set. The label was formed by songwriters Lari White and Chuck Cannon. The new set features tracks from 24 songwriters and will launch with a party/concert at Nashville’s 3rd & Lindsley club on Nov. 9. Label co-founder  and President, Lari White commented, “We modeled Nashville Underground after Windham Hill Records, an amazing jazz label that single-handedly created a brand for a very unique style of music. People came to know Windham Hill as a source for great modern modal jazz, even though the artists’ names might not be familiar. That’s where we hope to take Nashville Underground, to being the source for America’s best hit-song writer/artists.”

Rising artist Minnie Murphy will appear in the new film Bailey, which is being shot around Nashville. When the project is released in 2010, she will be seen performing her original song “Bluer than Blue” at one of the many juke joints featured in the movie. She got the gig after producer Rhoads Rader saw her performance at hip Nashville restaurant Sambuca. The film is directed by veteran Hollywood actor Mario Van Peebles (Kerosene Cowboys, Bring Your “A” Game, New Jack City) and co-stars Michael Clarke Duncan (The Green Mile, The Whole Nine Yards, The Island), Morgan Simpson, and Tom Skerritt.

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The ten finalists from the Doorpost Film Project’s Short Film Contest will be shown at Nashville’s Belcourt Theatre on Thursday, Sept. 17 beginning at 7 p.m. The popular contest is voted on by fans at thedoorpost.com as well as members of the industry. Voting ends on Wednesday, Sept. 16.

The winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony on Sept. 19, also at the Belcourt Theatre. On hand to make the announcement will be Doorpost jurist and writer/producer Jeff “The Dude” Dowd, the inspiration for “The Dude” in the Cohen Brother’s The Big Lebowski. He will be joined by producer Dean Batali (That 70’s Show). The festivities will begin with red carpet arrivals at 6 p.m. followed by the awards presentation at 7:30 p.m. The three films with the highest scores will receive cash prizes of $100,000, $35,000 and $25,000 respectively. The Sept. 17 and 19 events are open to the public, but to attend you must RSVP to RSVP@thedoorpost.com.