THE BLACK CROWES Update: The New York Post Perspective

The following item was published in today's edition of The New York Post:

THE BLACK CROWES are dead ducks.

After more than 10 years of hits and hell-raising, the swaggering Southern rockers anchored by battling brothers Chris and Rich Robinson have called it quits.

Sources close to the band are blaming their bust-up on Chris Robinson's wife, actress Kate Hudson, best known for her role as a groupie queen in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous.

Though they stopped short of branding Hudson rock's latest Yoko Ono, who broke up THE BEATLES, our sources says: 'Ever since Chris married Kate the whole band dynamic has changed. He's just not around the guys the way he used to be.'

The band's longtime publicist, Mitch Schneider, told The Post's Dan Aquilante that Robinson has decided to pursue a solo career and that the CROWES 'are taking a hiatus, for the time being.' He added that drummer Steve Gorman has left the group for 'personal reasons.'

Schneider shot down rumors that Robinson had broke up the CROWES via a fax that announced his solo career and declared the band 'irrelevant.'

"'There was no fax,' Schneider said. 'Rich talks regularly with his brother. In fact, they spent Christmas together in Aspen.'

THE BLACK CROWES rocketed up the charts with their rollicking 1990 debut Shake Your Money Maker, which drew comparisons to the ROLLING STONES and THE FACES.

But from the very start, the Atlanta-bred band was plagued by the stormy, often violent relationship between frontman Chris Robinson and lead guitarist Rich.

The brothers frequently got into fist fights on-stage and bickered during interviews. Chris recently told an interviewer: 'We're definitely older and wiser, but the fact is we are brothers. Brothers are supposed to fight. We're getting along better now than ever. You have to go through rough times to get tighter.'

The band spoofed its notoriously bad behavior by touring last year with OASIS, whose Liam and Noel Gallagher have also scrapped on-stage, and calling it the Brotherly Love tour.

Chris Robinson has one of the shorter fuses in rock. In 1991 he was convicted of spitting on a 7-Eleven customer for not knowing who THE BLACK CROWES were. The shaggy-haired singer has also barred The Post from his New York concerts because of an unfavorable record review.

But Chris's rancor mellowed somewhat after he married Hudson last year. After he got hitched to the 22-year-old blonde daughter of Goldie Hawn, Robinson, 35, became a fixture at chic parties in Hollywood and Aspen, and was often quoted gushing about his beautiful bride.