Add a third Vegas band onto Michael “Elvis” Baskette’s to-do list: Lydia Vance. On August 10, the band flies to Virgina to record with the modern rock producer/engineer. Otherwise and 7th Son are also working with Baskette. … Speaking of Otherwise: On July 13, the band and other local music acts take over the main hall at House of Blues. KVGS-FM 107.9 spearheads the five-band bill that also includes Solidify, The Day After, Big Beat Battalion and Leaving Springfield. The free show starts at 6 p.m.; print your tickets at www.area1079.com. …

Sound the kazoo: Hey Mister made the finals of the Independent Music World Series. On July 17, it’ll vie for the best-unsigned-band title at Hollywood’s Knitting Factory. … Love Pentagon and Pan De Sal tour the Western U.S. starting July 10 in Los Angeles and ending July 16 in Boise, Idaho. … The Direct Method celebrate the release of its new CD Most Likely Not 10 p.m. July 10 at Freakin’ Frog. … If we have to type the words “ultra-lounge” one more time, we’re gonna scream. Cover your ears: The Ultra Lounge at Dal Toro & Lamborghini inside the Palazzo have begun a Thu.-Sat, 6-10 p.m. happy hour, with “Soundbar” principal Keith Evan in charge of the musical offerings. …

Who’s coming to town to save us from mash-up-classic-rock hell? Check it: Minnesota house man Chuck Love helms “Late Night Empire” July 12 at Tabu; U.K. Essential Mix founder Pete Tong headlines July 13 Moon; that same day, San Fran’s prog house wiz Behrouz complements the mood at Tao Beach; on July 14, Cabo San Lucas’s Roman Rosati has at “3400″ inside Jet; and Dutch dynamo Sander Kleinenberg returns to Sin City July 16 for Body English’s “Godskitchen.”

News and Notes is compiled by “Poizen” Ivy Hover. Send items of lurid self-promotion and shameless gossip to ihover@lvcitylife.com.

Howard Hughes — he’s dead. But he lives thrillingly on in Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue, a recent book by CityLife Publisher Geoff Schumacher, who totally doesn’t know we’re writing this. Now Geoff has started a new blog devoted to Hughes news, theories and miscellaneous tidbittery. Find it here. Return often to post your flights of Hughesian fancy.

Hey, have you read the latest book by Vincent Bugliosi, the famous prosecutor who sent Charles Manson to death row and later put three books at the top of the New York Times bestseller list, starting with Helter Skelter, about the Manson case?

Odds are you think that latest book is Reclaiming History, Bugliosi’s 1,600-plus page investigation into the John F. Kennedy assassination. (His conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.)

But it’s not Bugliosi’s latest book. His latest book is The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, a tightly wound marshaling of the evidence to show the president led America to war based on intentional, repeated lies, and that he’s guilty in the deaths of more than 4,100 dead American soldiers as a result.

Never heard of it? Big surprise. Despite the fact that Bugliosi is a known literary performer, despite the fact that Prosecution is No. 36 on Amazon and No. 14 on the New York Times bestseller list, the book has hardly received any press in the mainstream media. In fact, the book’s most prominent mention in the Times is a story that recounts how little press he’s getting.

(For the record, we reviewed Bugliosi’s book — positively — in the June 19 edition of CityLife.)

But thus far, we haven’t seen Bugliosi interviewed on the nightly news, profiled on 60 Minutes, interviewed on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, cross-examined on Meet the Press, debated on the op-ed pages of the Times or the Washington Post, challenged on All Things Considered or even set up for a Frontline documentary!

Major props, by the way, to the uncompromising Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! for being the exception that proves the rule. Once again. And locally, radio host Doug Basham featured Bugliosi on his radio show at KLAV-AM 1230 back on June 9.

This isn’t a quack we’re talking about here: Bugliosi is an accomplished author, a well-regarded prosecutor and a keen legal intellect (witness his deconstruction of a feckless Supreme Court in No Island of Sanity — about the Paula Jones case — or The Betrayal of America — about the outrageous Bush v. Gore decision that handed the presidency and the title commander in chief to Bush to begin with in 2000).

What gives? Why is a guy like Olbermann — perfectly willing to criticize the president and his baseless war rationale in very harsh terms — unwilling to entertain the notion that Bush should be held accountable for the very crimes Olbermann details on a nightly basis? Why is the rest of the media, so sheepish and, later, guilt-ridden about carrying Bush’s pro-war propaganda before the Iraq invasion, so willing to let the president get away with entire enterprise? Aren’t they angry about being lied to repeatedly? Didn’t they resolve to do better after the truth about Iraq became known?

Instead, lipless prevaricating weasels like William Kristol of the Weekly Standard are allowed to go on Fox News Sunday and say how unprecedented in American history it is for the Democrats to be trying to end a war before someone’s twisted notion of “victory” is achieved. No, Mr. Kristol, what’s truly unprecedented are the presidential lies that started this entire unnecessary war in the first place, and what’s truly shocking is that people still believe those well-debunked lies even as their perpetrators prepare to skip town, leaving somebody else holding the bag.

In the meantime, and totally without assistance from any major media outlet, Bugliosi’s book is still on its way to becoming a bestseller. Maybe then, when it can no longer be ignored, people in living rooms across the country might become aware of a little fact that their trusted TV friends have yet to tell them: Bush isn’t just an unpopular president. He’s not just an incompetent manager. He’s not just the leading candidate for worst president ever. There’s very good evidence that he’s guilty of the crime of murder, brought by somebody who knows a thing or two about it. And through our silence, we all become co-conspirators.

Good thing, as Bugliosi notes, there’s no statute of limitations on murder.

UPDATE: Here’s a couple clips from You Tube, featuring Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzales interviewing Bugliosi, here and here.