PowerBlogs: Rumour Mills

The venues have finally been announced for Green Day’s upcoming North American tour, which kicks off July 3rd in Seattle. The trio will be supporting 21st Century Breakdown, which is in stores May 15th.  They play July 4th in Vancouver at GM Place.

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As has been rumored for weeks, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Beastie Boys and Kings of Leon have officially signed on to headline the Austin City Limits Music Festival October 2nd through the 4th at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas. Also on the bill are Ben Harper and Relentless Seven, The Dead Weather, The Levon Helm Band, Toadies, The B-52’s, Lily Allen, Citizen Cope, Arctic Monkeys, The Decemberists, Coheed and Cambria, The Airborne Toxic Event, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Sam Roberts Band, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Bell X-1 and Lisa Hannigan.

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Not only are U-2 getting ready for their 360-Degrees Tour, but so is their stage. The stage, which will afford the audience an unobstructed view of the band, is under construction in Belgium. Show designer Willie Williams says, “After two-and-a-half years of planning, this thing is almost built… I thought I was getting used to the scale of the operation, but it’s pretty staggering to look at this and imagine we’re taking it on tour…” You can see pieces of it on U2-dot-com.

U-2’s tour starts June 30th in Barcelona, Spain, with North American dates set to kick off on September 12th in Chicago.

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Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford wants you to dress like him.  Halford is creating a clothing line for men and women called Metal God Apparel.

The first selections are t-shirts with images of skeletons, crosses and three-headed demon dogs, but the company promises the shirts are lightweight and soft to the touch.

The items won’t be shipped until June 15, but you can look and order now at www.MetalGodApparel.com.

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Franz Ferdinand guitarist Nick McCarthy is touring on a broken left foot.

McCarthy writes on the band’s website it’s driving him insane, but he doesn’t say how he did it.

He’s been playing the shows sitting down.

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A suitcase used by former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley while on the road with the band in the ’70s is up for bids on E-Bay. But this is not an ordinary suitcase as it was signed by all four original members of the band in 1976 and has the KISS logo drawn by Paul Stanley on it. As of last night, the bidding was at just under 29-hundred dollars. Whoever meets the reserve price will get the Japanese version of the KISSology box set, which is now out of print. The bidding ends Sunday.

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Most of the shows on Creed’s upcoming 41-city reunion tour will go on sale May 9th, with the rest on sale May 30th. No venues have been announced yet, but the tour is set to kick off August 6th in Pittsburgh and wrap up October 14th in Nashville.

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Neil Young is the latest artist announced as taking part in the fifth annual Musicares Map Fund Benefit May 8th in Los Angeles. Young will be performing in what’s billed as a “special video segment.” The event will see Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis getting the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award and performances from Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood, Red Hot Chili Peppers members Flea and Chad Smith, and Iggy Pop.

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Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx says things are going pretty well on the second album by his side project Sixx A-M. He writes in his MySpace blog that “the new songs for Sixx A-M are all so inspiring — it feels like we may have topped ourselves on this album coming up and can’t wait for you to hear what it sounds like. Keep an ear and an eyeball here and maybe a surprise might get dropped in the next few months.”

Creed is back.

All four original members have reunited for a summer tour and an album.

The tour begins August 6th in Pittsburgh.

Details on the album were not released.

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Linkin Park are recording a new song and some of the score for Transformers Two: Revenge of the Fallen. Mike Shinoda writes on his blog that the band is teaming up Hans Zimmer, who had been working on the other parts of the core for the film.  Transformers Two: Revenge of the Fallen is due out June 24th, with Linkin Park’s new song expected out a couple of weeks before the film is released.

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Heaven and Hell — the Ronnie James Dio-era Black Sabbath — release their first full-length studio album in 17 years today. The Devil You Know is not the first use of the name of Satan by the band. Their 2007 comeback single was titled “The Devil Cried.” Ronnie James Dio has an easy explanation why they keep using devil.

Ronnie: “Geezer owns the patent — the copyright for the word devil. So every time we do something he makes sure that we stick it in there so he gets the money. I don’t know how it happened, but he did it. He’s like Gene Simmons.”

Geezer: “Even Cliff Richard has to pay me for ‘Devil Woman.’”

Heaven and Hell will do a signing for their new album Saturday at a Best Buy store in San Bernardino, California.

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Def Leppard, who’ve dipped their toes into the country pool with duets with Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift, will perform on the C-M-T Music Awards on June 16th in Nashville. The band received two first-round C-M-T nominations for their performance of “Photograph” with Swift, from their appearance on C-M-T Crossroads. Their collaboration with Tim McGraw on “Nine Lives” also received a nomination.

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Add KISS frontman Paul Stanley’s name to the list of artists with their own line of wine. Stanley will donate the first bottles from his Paul Stanley Collection Wine Series to be auctioned simultaneously in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia on May 30th to raise funds for vital Red Cross services in light of the recent brush fires there. Stanley has also donated the original artwork for the label to be auctioned with the wines. Look for the wine, which is produced in Australia, to hit U-S stores next year.

Other artists with signature wines include Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Fleetwood, Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain, The Rolling Stones, KISS, The Doobie Brothers, Eddie Money, John Lodge of the Moody Blues, Mick Hucknall of Simply Red and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds.

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Reports out of Europe say that as soon as Ron Wood’s divorce from his second wife Jo is final, he’ll marry his 20-year old Russian girlfriend. The Woods split last July when Woody took up with the waitress. The Sunday Mirror quotes a source close to Jo, who says she is “devastated and now knows there is no turning back. Ronnie wants the divorce to be settled as soon as possible so he can marry Kat. Jo always believed this was just a silly fling but that couldn’t be further from the truth. She worked really hard to remain on good terms with Ronnie despite what he has done. But now instead of sorting things out he wants to fight out any claims (in court).” Ronnie and Jo were married for 23 years.

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Slash will be a “mentor” on American Idol next week. The guitarist let the news slip on Twitter over the weekend, saying he’s going to appear on “Rock Week.” American Idol airs live on Tuesday and Wednesday on FOX.

The Stone Temple Pilots reunion seems to have survived Scott Weiland’s solo album and tours over the past six months. The quartet has just announced four shows for July — one in Lansing, Michigan on July 7th and three others in Canada including the Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver May 18th.

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Both The Killers and Korn are planning to release cover albums. Neither band has a release date for these projects.

Korn have already demoed covers of Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like a Hole,” Faith No More’s “We Care a Lot” and the Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way” as they’ve been working on their next album of originals with producer Ross Robinson.

The Killers, who just released a cover of Bright Eyes’ “Four Winds” on their Spaceman E-P, have recently recorded a Cyndi Lauper song and ’80s-one hit-wonder Murray Head’s “One Night in Bangkok.”

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The biggest free-agent story right now might not be in sports — it involves Hellyeah. Drummer Vinnie Paul says he doesn’t know which label will release their second album, which they’ll start recording next month. Paul tells the Dallas Observer, “We had a one-disc deal with Epic, and they’re practically begging us to come back. We sold nearly 500-thousand records for them, which is practically unheard of these days. That’s like going platinum 10 years ago.”

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In 2007, Aerosmith canceled their performance in Maui, Hawaii, reportedly because of equipment routing problems. Fans with tickets to the show claimed they bypassed their island to play a more lucrative show in Chicago, as well as a corporate gig on Oahu and filed a class-action lawsuit. They claimed the cancelation cost them between 500-thousand and three-million in travel costs, handling fees and other expenses. The band has agreed to settle the suit by doing a show on Maui in the fall at the end of their tour with Z-Z Top.

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While we wait for Bruce Springsteen to finish up the deluxe version of his 1978 album Darkness on the Edge of Town, a book featuring stories and recollections by his fans from that period is simultaneously in the works. The Light in Darkness will also contain never-before-seen concert photos from Springsteen’s 1978 tour. No word on when it will be published.

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Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton will trade in his bass for a dress Wednesday night as he once again takes part in the Banned in Boston Comedy Revue at the House of Blues in Boston. Hamilton — who has portrayed Laura Bush, Barbara Bush and Camilla Parker-Bowles at past revues — will play the Queen of England this time at the benefit for Urban Improv, a leading youth charity in Boston. His performance is based on first lady Michelle Obama’s recent visit with the Queen and he will do a performance of “I Touched Michelle,” a takeoff on Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl.”

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Coldplay are auctioning off V-I-P tickets to their summer tour to raise money for one of their favorite charities, Oxfam America. The organization looks to create “lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and injustice.” Coldplay’s online auction offers a pair of V-I-P tickets for every show. The tour starts May 15th in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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Judas Priest have added more dates to their summer tour, in which they will play their 1980 album British Steel in its entirety. Whitesnake will open all but four shows.  The only Canadian date is Toronto July 9th.

Buckcherry are looking for fans to appear in the video for their next single, “Talk to Me.” The band has set up a website where you can submit video of yourself, friends, family members and even dogs lip synching along to the song. The best clip will be edited into the official video for “Talk to Me.”

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Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler will publish his autobiography, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You, on October 27th. On May 28th, Tyler will deliver the keynote address at Book Expo America at the JavitsCenter in New York. Also giving a keynote address is E Street Band sax player Clarence Clemons, who will publish his autobiography, Big Man, on October 12th.

Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer will publish his autobiography, Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, in June.

Aerosmith’s autobiography, Walk This Way, was published in 1997.

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Just a few days after suggesting a subscription service to witness the Smashing Pumpkins record their new album, Billy Corgan is already having second thoughts. In an E-mail sent to fans that showed interest in the service, Corgan said he made the mistake of reading comments about his proposal to charge 40 dollars. He wrote, “Reading how something as open-hearted as inviting you into my inner-world of creativity turns into a sick, capitalistic manipulation is really disappointing to me personally. I speak not as the head of a multi-million-dollar corporation, but as someone who lives and breathes being a musician.”

Corgan closes by proposing six-thousand fans sign up at 20 dollars apiece, saying that would cover the costs of the whole 12-week project. “If 20 dollars is too much for 12 weeks of unique, daily content and the trust isn’t there for me to deliver it, then I might as well just focus on the mainstream fan who I know already doesn’t give care for ‘the art’ and get back to the — yawn — grunge.”

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It might be some time before we see Queen and Paul Rodgers working together again.  

“We did two world tours and we did a studio album and all kinds of D-V-Ds and I don’t see myself touring for the three, four months again because I find that I like to work at a more leisurely pace, you know. I like to go out, do some shows, come back home and have a bit of a life, you know. The full-on on-the-road thing is very hard on the system. I think it’s okay when you’re 21 and stuff and you don’t have too many responsibilities. So, I don’t know whether we’ll do full tours again. But, it’s always open to do say, something like, a big sort of charity show perhaps, you know.”

Queen and Rodgers will release Live in the Ukraine, a C-D/D-V-D collection, on June 9th. Rodgers will reunite with Bad Company for 10 U-S shows in June and July.

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Tickets for Chickenfoot’s brief U-S tour next month are a hot item. The nine shows have all sold out, but Sammy Hagar says not to worry — they’ll be adding dates in August and September. The tour starts May 14th in Seattle and runs through May 29th in Philadelphia. Chickenfoot’s self-titled debut will be released on June 9th exclusively at Best Buy.   They’ll be playing at the Commodore May 15th.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will be without the services of back-up singer and guitarist Patti Scialfa for a while. Springsteen told the audience Tuesday night in Boston that his wife “took a spill” while horseback riding last Saturday. “She wasn’t riding with Madonna — it wasn’t a Madonna-like spill,” he joked, but he did say that she suffered multiple contusions and bruised ribs, “and whiplash, from me driving her to the hospital.”

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Rod Stewart joined his old boss Jeff Beck on stage Tuesday night in Los Angeles for the first time in more than 25 years. Dressed in a white sport coat and black tie, Stewart walked out for the encores at the El Rey Theater carrying his own mic stand before launching into Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and Willie Dixon’s “I Ain’t Superstitious,” which he recorded with The Jeff Beck Group in 1968.

Also joining Beck at Tuesday’s show was Joss Stone on Sly and the Family Stone’s “I Want to Take You Higher.” Beck wraps up his U-S tour tonight in Oakland, California.

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Kings of Leon have announced some North American summer dates. The tour kicks off with an appearance at Lollapalooza on either August 7th or 8th and runs through mid-September. More shows are expected to be announced soon.

Kings of Leon continue their current tour tomorrow in Fairfax, Virginia.  They’re in Vancouver August 15th.

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Apparently Slipknot and Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor just doesn’t have enough outlets for his music. He’s formed yet another group called The Junk Beer Kidnap Band that’s billed as “stoner rock disco.” The group will play a show tomorrow night in Des Moines, Iowa to warm up for festival appearances in Kansas City, Missouri on May 30th and Des Monies on May 31st.

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Alice Cooper will put in a three-day appearance at the Texas Frightmare convention from May 1st to the 3rd in Irvine, Texas. He’s also announced his first round of U-S summer dates, which are from August 1st in Columbus, Ohio through the 13th in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, with more shows to be announced from July to December. In June, Cooper will tour Russia on a bill with the Scorpions.

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Tom Morello has lengthened the name of his new band. Street Sweeper is now known as Street Sweeper Social Club, and the group’s self-titled debut album is due out June 16th. The band includes Morello and rapper Boots Riley from The Coup.

Street Sweeper Social Club will hit the road this summer as the opening act on the Nine Inch Nails-Jane’s Addiction tour.

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Limp Bizkit frontman, Fred Durst, has apparently gotten over Britney Spears, finally — he’s engaged. He popped the question to fiancee Neil Lane last week and has posted a picture on Twitter’s photo service, TwitPic. Durst has two children — a teenage daughter and a seven-year-old son.

As widely rumored for weeks, Depeche Mode, Tool, The Killers, Jane’s Addition, Beastie Boys and Kings of Leon will headline Lollapalooza August 7th through the 9th at Chicago’s Grant Park. Among the 100 other acts announced for the festival are Rise Against, Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Coheed and Cambria, Kaiser Chiefs, Cold War Kids, The Airborne Toxic Event and Cage the Elephant.

Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan hopes Lollapalooza is as good as their 2006 experience at Coachella.

“The only other thing that we’ve done in the States that’s sort of close to that is Coachella, which was amazing. That was one of the best shows on the tour, actually. One of the most memorable shows to me. It was fantastic. You know the setting and everything. It’s such a great lineup, the Lollapalooza thing. I think it’s going to be a really great show.”

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Dave Grohl has another lady in his life.

His wife, Jordyn, gave birth to their second daughter on Friday.

They’ve named her Harper Willow Grohl, and Grohl says she’s “loud as hell.”

The couple named her after Grohl’s great-uncle Harper Bonebrake.

Their other daughter, Violet Maye, is two.

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A Detroit-area trash hauler is suing Bob Seger and his bandmate over a traffic accident.

Scott Martin claims he was injured August 8th when his motorcycle was hit by a 2004 Lexus registered to Seger and driven by Seger’s bass player, Christopher Campbell.

Campbell was ticketed for failure to stop after the accident.

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Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready wants you to play with him on stage. The guitarist is holding an online auction to raise money for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America, and the top bidder will get to be on stage with McCready and his side band Flight to Mars on May 2nd at the Showbox in Seattle. The auction ends Tuesday.

McCready will perform the national anthem at the Seattle Mariners game on May 19th.

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Billy Corgan is hoping Smashing Pumpkins fans will want to pay to witness his progress on the band’s next album. He’s announced plans for a subscription service to exclusive audio and video — and it costs 40 bucks for 12 weeks. Corgan promises that there will be five updates a week, that each will be at least five minutes, and that he’ll likely add streaming video from the band’s sessions. Fans can sign up through the Pumpkins website.

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Metallica will appear on April 29th episode of Discovery Channel’s Time Warp. The program films ordinary events (such as Metallica rehearsing at their studios) and then uses new video techniques to “slow it way down so you can see the activity in a whole new light.”

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Black Sabbath collectors will have a field day trying to pick up all the versions of the new Heaven and Hell album The Devil You Know. The band’s label has struck deals with various retailers for exclusive features.

• Best Buy will offer a version featuring a D-V-D with unreleased video of the band recording the album.
• Wal-Mart will offer an exclusive alternate cover that features the traditional Black Sabbath devil logo.
• The I-Tunes version of the album will come with previously unreleased live recordings of “Die Young” and “I” from Heaven and Hell’s 2007 European tour.

Heaven and Hell’s Geezer Butler and Ronnie James Dio say digital downloading has changed the way they think about making albums.

Geezer: “The first thing I ever do is — if you buy a C-D, put it on your computer and put it in the order you wanna listen to it in your car or whatever. I think a lot of people do that now, especially with I-Tunes.”

Ronnie: “Well that’s what kids do with their I-Pods. They just make their own list out. At the end of the day, does it really matter what list you have? In fact, we even said that, ‘Why do you need a running order?’ I mean, they’re just going to do what they do anyway, aren’t they? I guess some old habits die very, very hard, so we did.

The Devil You Know will be out on Tuesday.

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Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason will helicopter into Cadwell Park in the East Midlands section of England today to drive his two-point-two-million-dollar Ferrari 512 on the track there. The car was raced in 1970 by a number of professional race drivers, including Mario Andretti, and was seen in the 1971 movie Le Mans starring Steve McQueen. Mason is driving the car in a track test event for a number of automotive publications including Octane, for which he writes a monthly column.

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Linkin Park have signed a deal with Artificial Life to create applications for the I-Phone and the I-Pod Touch using the band’s image and music. The company plans to release two apps each year, with the first one due out this fall.

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Here’s what winning an Academy Award will do for you — A-R Rahman, who penned the Oscar winning song “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire –will reportedly meet with Mick Jagger this week in L-A. The Times of India says Rahman and Jagger, who first jammed together when the Indian composer attended the Academy Awards last winter, plan to have a jam session. Since their first one went well, it’s possible they’ll collaborate on a future project. Rahman, who played in local rock bands before becoming Bollywood’s top tunesmith, has expressed interest in working with international stars.

Green Day have announced the cities — but no venues — for the first leg of their North American tour. It kicks off July 3rd in Seattle and hits 36 other cities before wrapping up in Los Angeles on August 25th. Green Day’s new album, 21st Century Breakdown, is due out May 15th.  They’ll be playing in Vancouver July 4th.

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Pink Floyd are suing their record label over royalties.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper reports the band is suing E-M-I, claiming royalty payments have been miscalculated.

Thousands of dollars could be at stake.

In the last 25 years, Pink Floyd’s catalog has been outsold only by The Beatles.

Representatives for E-M-I and for Pink Floyd could not be reached for comment.

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The Grateful Dead are offering not just a commemorative book from their current tour — they’re offering a commemorative book from each stop.

The Dead have partnered with Blurb to create collectors’ edition books that document each stop on the tour, which is going on now.

The books will be available within 72 hours of the concert’s finale.

You can even personalize the cover with your own image.

The books range in price from $23 to $35, depending on hard or softcover.

Details are at www.blurb.com/thedead.

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Pete Townshend is working on a stage production of The Who’s 1973 album, Quadrophenia.  Townshend says ’Austin Powers’ has done a lot of damage to the image of swinging London so his mission is to bring back some of the grayness, the bleakness of those years, and demonstrate to the cast that what happened simply had to happen. Quadrophenia will open in Plymouth, England on May 9th and will tour the U-K until October.

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Eight Canadian cities dominate the list of towns that want KISS to play there. KISS are leaving it up to fans to route their next tour — through an online vote — and Winnipeg tops the list, followed by two Ontario towns, Oshawa and Kingston. Two U-S cities are in the Top 10 — Dallas at number-six and their hometown of New York at 10. Canada will get its fill of KISS when the band starts a five-city tour on July 10th in Sarnia, Ontario.  Vancouver is number 11 on the list.

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Police drummer Stewart Copeland is the final member of the three-piece band to write his autobiography. Strange Things Happen: Life With the Police, Polo and Pygmies is scheduled to be published on October 6th. Copeland is also composing a new piece of music to be performed with Red Fish Blue Fish, a University of California at San Diego percussion ensemble. The piece was commissioned for the La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest on August 21st.

Police guitarist Andy Summers will be part of a panel discussion on photography in Toronto on June 6th.

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Just in time for their reunion tour, Jane’s Addiction today release a box set called A Cabinet of Curiosities. The three-C-D, one-D-V-D set features demos, live performances and rarities, as well as all the band’s videos and previously unreleased live footage from a 1990 concert on M-T-V Italy.

Jane’s frontman Perry Farrell says all the credit for the box goes to drummer Stephen Perkins, who’s the band’s archivist.

Farrell did help design the elaborate packaging, which he predicts will score him a Grammy nomination.

Early in his set, Paul McCartney told Friday’s crowd at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, “We have come from many miles away to rock your world.” Two-and-a-half hours later, he left the stage having delivered on his promise. The former Beatle and his four-piece band performed a career-spanning 34-song set that proved conclusively that even at 66 Macca can still rock with the best of them.

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This year marked the 10th anniversary for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Only one artist has performed at all 10 Coachella weekends and that’s Perry Farrell, who was a headliner at the very first gathering with Jane’s Addiction and has since hit the stage with Porno for Pyros and Satellite Party, as D-J Peretz and under his own name, as well as making regular guest appearances with other artists.

Not only does he look forward to the festival each year, but he thinks he “would probably silently be very depressed” if they didn’t invite him.

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This past weekend was a big one for The Killers. The Las Vegas band went directly from re-opening the newly refurbished hometown club The Joint on Friday to headlining the main stage at the Coachella Festival the next night.   Singer Brandon Flowers commented from the stage on how gratifying it was to be headlining an event they had played early in the day just a few short years ago.

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In addition to selling two downloadable singles on Amazon from their forthcoming album, Live at Madison Square Garden, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood are streaming two of the songs on Winwood’s website. Click on the home page for free playbacks of “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and “Cocaine.”

Live at Madison Square Garden will be released on May 19th, and they’ll support it with a 14-city tour starting June 10th in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Whitesnake singer David Coverdale is not pleased with remarks made by former Rainbow and Deep Purple singer Joe Lynn Turner, who said Coverdale lip-synchs in concert.

Coverdale says, “I have no idea what the hell the daft bugger’s talking about. I do not, have not and will not use tapes of my voice to mime in concert. My band and I perform and sing live in concert. Yeah…we’re that [bleeping] good! What a total [jerk].”

Whitesnake will tour North America this summer with Judas Priest.

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The All American Rejects and The Ting Tings have joined the lineup of the Bumbershoot Festival, which takes place in Seattle over Labor Day weekend.

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Coldplay and The Beastie Boys are among the headlining acts for the fourth annual Osheaga Festival, to be held in Montreal on August 1st and 2nd.

Green Day continued their series of surprise club gigs Wednesday night in Oakland, treating a packed house at the Fox Theater to a run-through of their upcoming album, 21st Century Breakdown. The trio — joined by three additional musicians — also offered up a second set that went heavy on obscure numbers like “Going to Pasalacqua.”

21st Century Breakdown is slated for release on May 15th.

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Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder is one of about two dozen performers who’ve contributed to a new History Channel program called The People Speak. The documentary, which features actors and musicians discussing pivotal events in American history, will air on the network and will be distributed in schools. Vedder will read the lyrics of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.”

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Paul McCartney will make his first ever U-S festival appearance and The Cure will make their second headlining appearance at the 10th edition of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California this weekend. McCartney will headline on Friday, with The Airborne Toxic Event, Silversun Pickups, Cage the Elephant, Morrissey and Franz Ferdinand on the bill. The Killers will headline on Saturday, and The Cure will close the festival on Sunday, with Yeah Yeah Yeahs also appearing that day.

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The second annual Record Store Day takes place at independent record stores around the country on Saturday. The event, designed to promote shopping at these stores, includes a bunch of exclusive releases on vinyl and a number of in-store appearances. Shinedown will do an acoustic set at J and R in New York; Chris Cornell will be at Electric Fetus in Minneapolis; Disturbed will do a signing at Bullmoose in Portland, Maine; Silversun Pickups will appear at Rasputin Music in Berkeley, California; Killswitch Engage will be at Bullmoose in Scarborough, Maine; Static-X will appear at Bullmoose in Portsmouth, New Hampshire; and Pop Evil, Framing Hanley, Trapt, Anberlin and Hollywood Undead will all be at Plan 9 Music in Richmond, Virginia.

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Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton have both commented on the band’s summer tour with Z-Z Top on their website, AeroForceOne-dot-com. Now it’s Steven Tyler’s turn. He says, “You’re gonna hear every rock n’ roll lick that ever made you wanna kiss a girl. From A to Z — Aero to Z-Z Top! Is that good enough for ya? We thought so. Grab that person who makes your pants wet and get ready for a performance that’ll seal the deal.” The tour starts June 10th in St. Louis with Z-Z coming on board on the 16th in Mansfield, Massachusetts.

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Jet are gearing up to return after a three-year layoff. The Australian quartet have wrapped up work on their as-yet-untitled third album and are streaming a new track called “K-I-A (Killed in Action)” at their website. No release date has been announced yet, but the album is expected out this summer.

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The future is looking bright for Jack White’s new project, The Dead Weather. The group will be hitting the road this summer, and has already hit the studio for a second round of recording. Guitarist Dean Fertita tells Billboard that the group “[doesn't] feel like we’re ready to stop. I don’t know if it’ll be a second record or singles to release throughout the year or stuff like that. There are a few things floating around, and there will be more soon, too.” Fertita also reveals that they’re likely to begin a North American tour in June that should take them through the summer.

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Pearl Jam and R-E-M will sponsor entrants in The Great Turtle Race, which National Geographic is hosting online. The race, which unfolds later this month, follows 11 sea turtles on a real-life migration from the North Atlantic to the Caribbean. To play along, go to GreatTurtleRace.org.

U-2 will release “Magnificent,” the second single from their album No Line on the Horizon, on May 5th. They recently filmed a video for the song in Morocco and will post it on their website soon. For now, they’ve posted a video of them doing the song live last month in the Boston suburb of Somerville, Massachusetts.

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Even though Jack White has started a third band, The Dead Weather, he hasn’t forgotten the group that made him a rock star. White tells Self-Titled magazine, “The White Stripes are releasing a film this year, and I’m going to mix all the music for that, which is like 40 songs, so that’s going to take a lot of time.” White plans to work on the film before The Dead Weather hit the road in June.

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Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones is being secretive about a collaboration he’s part of this summer. He says, “I’m working on some other music, which is more rock based, with a couple of other people. We hope to be everywhere this summer… It’s a secret, actually. I shouldn’t have even said that, you know? There are some exciting projects coming up, let’s put it that way.” Jones was recently working with Jimmy Page and Jason Bonham, but Page pulled the plug.

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Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood have released two singles from their upcoming concert album, Live From Madison Square Garden. “Forever Man” and “Little Wing” were recorded during their shows there in February 2008. They are currently available only in the U-S as digital downloads from Amazon. Live From Madison Square Garden will be released on May 19th. Clapton and Winwood start a 14-city U-S tour on June 10th in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Nine Inch Nails is the latest artist to release an app for the I-Phone. Nine Inch Nails Access gives fans the latest news and blog updates, as well as the ability to stream the multi-media on the band’s website, listen to fan-created re-mixes and use Google Earth to locate and communicate with other fans nearby.

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John Lennon’s performance at the Sweet Toronto Peace Festival in 1969 with the Plastic Ono Band has been in and out of print over the years.

It’ll be available again on D-V-D starting June 23rd.

It’ll be called “John Lennon The Plastic Ono Band Live In Toronto ‘69.”

The band included Lennon, in full beard, with Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voorman on bass and Alan White on drums.

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Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart will be honoured at the Annual ASCAP Pop Music Awards next week.

The Wilson sisters will get the Founders Award, which is given to songwriters who’ve been pioneers in their field.

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Steven Tyler, Todd Rundgren and Duff McKagan are some of the stars who’ll be teaching people how to be rock out at the annual Rock-`n’-Roll Fantasy Camp taking place this year in Hollywood, California.

Former Grand Funk Railroad singer Mark Farner, Kip Winger of Winger and Alan White of Yes are some of the other rockers taking part.

The camp runs from April 29th through May 3rd.