POP/ROCKDeadhead Alert: An 18-minute animated home laser...

POP/ROCK

Deadhead Alert: An 18-minute animated home laser disc aiming to capture the “feeling” of live Grateful Dead concerts will hit stores this week through Image Entertainment. Produced by Len Dell’Amico and Larry Lachman, who conceived and staged special effects for Grateful Dead concerts from 1987-1991, the laser disc--which will also be made into a video soon--is called “Infrared Sightings.” Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia, who died Aug. 9, was involved in the initial planning of the project. . . . Also, two Garcia albums with mandolinist David Grisman will be out next spring, including a second volume of “Old and In the Way,” a bluegrass album that Garcia and Grisman and other musicians recorded in 1972. The second compilation will be made up of Garcia-Grisman sessions recorded between 1990 and 1995.

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Dangerously Successfully Music: The movie is no longer No. 1 at the box office, but the soundtrack to “Dangerous Minds” sold 208,000 copies last week to remain the nation’s top-selling album for the third consecutive week, according to SoundScan figures released Wednesday.

MUSIC

Composer Honored: California composer Miguel del Aguila, a native of Uruguay, now living in Oxnard, is one of five honored composers in the annual Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, to be given Oct. 29 in the Terrace Theater of the Washington showplace. Five nominated works--also including compositions by Osvaldo Golijov, Bright Sheng, Ezequiel Vin~ao and Charles Wuorinen--will be performed at that time, and all the composers given cash prizes. Top prize is $5,000. Aguila’s work is the Wind Quintet No. 2, first played in Santa Barbara in January.

TELEVISION

In Living Color: “CBS This Morning” will be produced live, with a studio audience, beginning Oct. 16, in New York. The show--which will include celebrity and other guests interacting with the audience--will be produced from the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of “The Late Show With David Letterman.” In an experimental week earlier this year, House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared for an hour on the show. Retired Gen. Colin Powell will be the guest for the premiere of the newly formatted show.

ART

Simon Says: Completing a transition in leadership at the Norton Simon Museum after the death of its founder in 1993, the Pasadena museum has appointed five new trustees. Joining the board are: architect Frank Gehry; attorney and international affairs expert Lester S. Hyman; journalist Eppie Lederer, who writes the Ann Landers syndicated column; attorney Edward Rover; and psychoanalyst Dr. Milton Wexler. Jennifer Jones Simon, wife of the late philanthropist, entrepreneur and art collector, has assumed the role of museum president after serving as board chairman since 1977.

EVENTS

Eazy-E Remembered: A memorial breakfast honoring late rapper Eazy-E (Eric Wright) will be held today at 8 a.m. at the Bel Age Hotel. On hand will be rappers Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Das EFX and Tomika Woods-Wright. The event, which coincides with Wright’s 31st birthday, will benefit the Minority AIDS Project, for which $10,000 was raised by several record companies. Wright died of complications of AIDS in March.

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Opening Doors: An all-day conference designed to expand dialogue between studio and network executives and producers, directors and writers regarding projects about the Latino lifestyle will be held at the Sheraton Universal next Thursday. Scheduled to attend are actors Jimmy Smits, Edward James Olmos, Esai Morales and Julie Carmen as well as directors Gregory Nava and Alfonso Arau. Topics include “Casting an Image” and “Niche Marketing/Distribution.”

PEOPLE WATCH

A Pricey Pitch: A San Diego limousine driver with a movie-of-the-week idea based on his troubled childhood took out a full-page ad in Variety Wednesday, with a letter addressed to eight of Hollywood’s top honchos, including Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz and Michael Eisner, asking that they meet with him. Scott Lawrence, 41, said he spent $1,800 on the ad, in which he described himself as “a positive male role model and a productive member of society. . . . The public is tired of 40-year-old crybabies blaming everything from a parking ticket to murder on their childhoods and setting poor examples for our children. . . . This is a survivor’s story rather than that of a victim.”