Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — For Donnie Wahlberg, it’s not a matter of why now, rather “why not?” The recording artist-turned-actor was referring to the news of a major tour with his New Kids on the Block, who’ll be joined this summer on “The Package Tour” by 98 Degrees and Boyz II Men. “The state of the boy-band union is strong,” Wahlberg joked Tuesday. “Even though technically we’re not really boy bands, but we’re OK with that,so we’ll accept it.” The three groups sold millions of records in the 1980s and ’90s and helped usher in a wave of vocal groups that continues today. The Boston-based New Kids on the Block formed in 1984 and amassed 10 Top 20 hits. The band broke up in 1994, but its members got back together after a 14-year hiatus. Wahlberg said he feels that the break coincided with the maturation of their fan base. “They needed time to have families and husbands and children and get jobs and live their life,” Wahlberg said. But now he sees his band’s music as a complement to the fans’ adult lives. “We created an outlet for them to feel good about themselves and tap into that youthfulness that had been put to bed for a long time ... you may be 40, but the euphoria of it makes you feel 14 all over again,” Wahlberg said. The band also announced a new single, “Remix (I Like The),” which is to be released Monday, and a new album, 10, which is to be out April 2. That music will be a bit more mature than some of the band’s previous material, member Joey McIntyre said. Wahlberg, who stars as detective Danny Reagan on the CBS television series Blue Bloods, said the boy bands’ tour, kicking off May 31 in Uncasville, Conn., and continuing into July with more than 30 dates, is going to be “great.”

Stung by the overwhelmingly negative reaction to removing the name of original Saturday Night Live cast member Gilda Radner from a cancer-support group’s title, a Wisconsin chapter is borrowing one of the comedian’s catch phrases for its next announcement: Never mind. Gilda’s Club Madison will remain just that, group leaders said Wednesday. The board voted last week to keep the name after an avalanche ofcriticism in November when it announced that it was switching to the more generic Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin, in part out of concern that young people today were unfamiliar with Radner, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989.