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TRAVEL & DEALS

King Kong set for return

For all those fans who mourned the fiery death of the “King Kong” attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood, take heart: The big ape will rise again in 2010.

The new “King Kong” attraction will derive its storyline from the 2005 Peter Jackson blockbuster, with visitors traveling through Skull Island, dodging a swarm of giant bats and bearing witness to an ape versus dinosaur finale.

Tram riders will don 3-D glasses just before entering the new “King Kong” soundstage for a digital 4-D multisensory experience that includes rolling, jolting and shuddering special effects. The new Kong soundstage will be built near the old attraction, but not in the same location.

Destroyed in a devastating backlot fire in summer 2008, the old attraction was a key element of the movie and television theme park’s tram tour.

-- Brady MacDonald

From: The Daily Travel & Deal Blog: Scouting the best airfares, hotels, cruises and vacation packages

For more, go to latimes.com/dailydeal

POP & HISS

Someone sign Maxim Ludwig

After my second time seeing the unnervingly young L.A. singer-songwriter Maxim Ludwig and his band, the Santa Fe Seven, (once at Stagecoach and then last week at the Troubadour), I hereby put out a call to P&H;’s myriad Nashville power-player readers to sign this fellow post-haste. Not only is he a virtuosic beard-grower but his live sets do so many different things right that it’s easy to imagine him crossing over into all sorts of fan bases -- Dwight Yoakam alt-folk types, catharsis-craving Conor Oberst fans and maybe even some adventurous dads who think “Nebraska” is still the best Springsteen album.

His Troubadour set (opening for the Detroit Cobras) missed the doo-wop accents provided by his backup singers at Stagecoach. But even in a smaller setting, Ludwig’s stage presence borders on feral. He spends about a fifth of each set seemingly trying to separate his larynx from his body, but it’s a deep, resonant scream that sounds rooted in real desperation rather than petulance (he hits a pretty pure falsetto too and it evens things out).

His band, many of whom looked dewy enough to get carded for buying cigarettes, is watertight and hit all the little stops and starts that take a good song’s moving parts and make them great. And the songs are very good; the slow-burn ballads (“To Be With Sweet Marie”) prove he’s spent time with Willie, and the bangers like “Big Black Train” have all the swagger of the E Street Band, if that E Street were in 1970s Laurel Canyon and gently tweaked hippies drove it riding in stolen Cadillacs.

His self-titled album is on iTunes now and anybody who remembers when Wilco wasn’t a noise band or when Ryan Adams wasn’t rapping should go buy it. And if you happen to own a tastemaking country label, let it be known that you should hop on this train early. This kid and his beard are going to be much more famous very, very quickly.

-- August Brown

From: Pop & Hiss: The Times’ music blog

For more, go to latimes.com/pophiss

BOOSTER SHOTS

A way to measure sperm counts

Women have had access to home ovulation test kits for years, but more options are becoming available to men to measure their lack, or abundance, of sperm.

In March, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first at-home test kit for men to use after a vasectomy to make sure they have achieved sterility. Called SpermCheck Vasectomy, the test measures a protein called SP-10 that is present in each sperm head. The test may be useful because sperm can remain in the male reproductive tract for weeks or months after a vasectomy. Men are advised to follow up with their doctors to determine if the operation was successful. But a study in the British Journal of Urology showed high numbers of patients fail to follow up with their doctors. The kit will be available in drug stores by the end of the year and is available now from doctors or from the manufacturer, ContraVac.

The company also expects to release a home test kit to assess sperm counts for men who are hoping to father a child. A couple of home sperm test kits are already on the market. ContraVac is also developing a test kit that will be used to help evaluate the effectiveness of male contraceptives.

-- Shari Roan

From: Booster Shots: Oddities, musings and news from the world of health

For more, go to latimes.com/boostershots

IDOLTRACKER

This hairdresser keeps it real

At Los Angeles’ Fusion Hair Salon on La Cienega Boulevard, you can visit Abrea Saunders. She’s the trusted friend and hairdresser of “American Idol” Season 8 stars Adam Lambert, Allison Iraheta, Megan Joy and Emily Wynne-Hughes. How is she handling her clients’ recent and extreme fame? Well, she hasn’t raised her prices but has been keeping unusual hours, visiting hotels with extensions for Iraheta and working on Lambert’s sleek black ‘do till early morning hours.

“It’s been pretty crazy,” she says The craziness includes a claim that Saunders gave someone a lock of Adam’s hair that ended up on eBay. While that may not be the case, Saunders did give us some inside info on the “Idol” crew -- she says Iraheta uses L’Oreal color, but in the salon Schwarzkopf and Special Effects dyes are used.

The hairdresser to the “Idols” says business is “slowly getting better” and thinks maybe people have a hard time finding the salon. Here’s some help with that: 371 N. La Cienega Blvd.

-- Leslie Anne Wiggins

From: Idoltracker: What you’re watching

For more, go to latimes.com/idoltracker