PowerBlogs: Rumour Mills

Soon you will not only perform like Shirley Manson of Garbage.

You can be Shirley Manson.

New Music Express reports Manson will be a playable character in the upcoming video game “Guitar Hero 5.”

Manson says the game’s makers scanned her face and had her put on “this weird suit” with sensors to copy her movements.

She calls it “super freaky” but she says she’s a fan of the game and thrilled to be part of it.

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Bob Seger is used to performing in front of thousands, so why was he nervous yesterday?

Because this time it was golf, not rock.

Seger was paired up with Tiger Woods in the pro-am at the Buick Open outside Flint, Mich.

His drive off the first tee was described as ugly and he bounced off a tree on the 13th hole, but he sunk a long put for birdie on the fourth hole.

Seger says he hasn’t walked a golf course in 30 years and usually he’s a cart guy.

He says he was very tired afterwards and felt every one of his 64 years.

Woods says Seger “played great” and he was surprised how well Seger played and “how well he putted.”

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Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt has his own shoe.

Macbeth Footwear created the “45 R-P-M” with Dirnt in mind.

It’s black with patent-leather accents.

Dirnt is donating all his proceeds from the sales of the show to the charity Soles-4-Souls, which donates shoes to people in need.

Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong teamed up with Converse for a shoe last year. His shoe is also black, and he’s also giving proceeds to charity.

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All of those years of rocking out have taken their toll on Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine.

He writes on the band’s website he’s having surgery today for a damaged neck and vertebrae between his shoulders.

He calls it a very quick and painless procedure.

However, he says he will need a more complicated procedure after he gets back from touring around the end of the year.

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Linkin Park fans will get a taste of Chester Bennington’s side project, Dead by Sunrise, during Linkin Park’s shows over the next month. Bennington and company will play three songs in the middle of some of Linkin Park’s sets starting tonight in Stuttgart, Germany. They’ll do the same thing at four other overseas dates and at Linkin Park’s only U-S date of the year, August 22nd in Pomona, California.

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Aerosmith’s light show on their tour with Z-Z Top is inspired by the one used last year by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Steven Tyler, who sat in with the band last December at shows in the New York area, tells us, “The lights were fantastic… It won’t be a sight for sore eyes, trust me.” The folks in Tulsa, Oklahoma will see what he’s talking about when the tour rolls into the B-O-K Center tonight.

Z-Z Top guitarist Billy Gibbons has been joining Aerosmith on stage, playing on “Rattlesnake Shake” in Dallas and Phoenix.

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are working drummer Max Weinberg’s son Jay back into the set. The 18-year-old joined them for the six-song encore Tuesday night in Seville, Spain, playing on “Glory Days,” “Seven Nights to Rock,” “American Land,” “Bobby Jean,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Twist and Shout.”

Jay will be back with Springsteen and the band for much of their U-S tour from August into November as his dad goes back to his day job, leading the band on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien.

Tuesday’s show also included the tour premiere of Gary “U-S” Bonds’ “Quarter to Three.” Springsteen is in Spain tonight.

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Gene Simmons wants you to know that he’s been very busy. In addition to just wrapping up a Canadian tour with KISS, he’s been scouting talent for his Simmons Records label and joined his son Nick at Comic Con in San Diego. He also says he’s planning a speaking engagement tour next spring.

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Phil Spector’s wife Rachelle tells New York Post that Charles Manson has contacted Phil about making music. Manson and Spector are serving their sentences at the same California prison. But Phil has ignored the message from the frustrated rock and roll wannabe, who briefly collaborated with Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys and hung out with producer Terry Melcher before his “family’s” 1969 murder spree.

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The new Rolling Stones Box Set, which was first announced in the spring, is now available exclusively through Amazon. It contains 13 of the band’s albums recorded after 1971, and there’s a slot in the hardbound case for the re-issue of Exile on Main Street, which will be released early next year.

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Ex-Guns n’ Roses bandmates Slash and Steven Adler have each gotten a restraining order against the same woman. The order against Lisa Jill Martin-Cahn says she’s hired at least three private investigators since 2008 to hunt Adler down, claiming that they were long-lost lovers who met in rehab in the early ’90s.

Slash first mentioned it on his Twitter page, writing, “Had to get a restraining order for a crazed stalker this morning, nice.” He says Cahn contacted him and his family members — including his mother-in-law — by phone and letter in attempts to get in touch with Adler.

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A new documentary will present the Woodstock festival from a different perspective. Due September 22nd from M-V-D Entertainment, Woodstock Diary 1969 promises a “fly on the wall” view of the iconic weekend with over three hours of footage on the festival as well as the events that led to its being staged. Directed by D-A Pennebaker, whose credits include Monterey Pop and Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back, the film also includes interviews along with performances by Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby Stills and Nash, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and The Who.

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Robert Plant is set to do another collaboration, but it’s not with Alison Krauss. This one will either be with Razorlight, Joss Stone, David Gray, Tom Jones, Gabriella Cilmi, or Danny and Gaz from Supergrass as all the artists are taking part in a night of unique collaborations in aid of Nordoff-Robbins at the O-2 arena in London on September 11th. Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy is the U-K’s largest specialist music-therapy charity, providing more than 35-thousand therapy sessions a year through its National Center in London and more than 40 outreach projects nationwide.

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Marilyn Manson is pretty upset about an article in L-A Weekly in which blogger Travis Keller says he met Manson on Christmas Eve 2007 after the shock rocker called him and said, “Can you get us some cocaine?” Keller goes on to describe meeting a disheveled Manson in a hotel that had cocaine all over.

Manson writes on his MySpace blog, “I am far different than the soon-to-be-murdered-in-their-home press has decided to fabricate. But if one more ‘journalist’ makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans’ help greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech.”

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Ex-Panic at the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker have named their new project The Young Veins. They’ve started a MySpace page and have posted one new song called “Change.” They also say, “We are currently in the studio finishing up our first album.”

Ross and Walker announced they were leaving Panic at the Disco earlier this month.

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Robbie Robertson, director Cameron Crowe and others will work with the artists to curate the show at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th anniversary concerts — October 29th and 30th at MadisonSquareGarden in New York.

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Metallica played a cover of “The Ecstasy of Gold” for the first time ever Tuesday night in Denmark. The original version of the song, from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, has been played as Metallica hits the stage at all their shows since 1983.

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Daughtry’s run atop the charts lasted only one week, as Leave This Town drops to number-two on this week’s Billboard album chart.

One of the few “Jenny” phone numbers left is for sale on eBay.

The phone number made famous in the Tommy Tutone hit “867-5309/Jenny” is up for auction, with a Philadelphia area code of 267.

As of yesterday, the lead bid was 720-dollars.

The auction ends August 4th.

Many of the “Jenny” numbers were taken out of service because too many people would call that number and ask for Jenny.

A New Jersey “Jenny” phone number was sold in February.

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Judas Priest are planning to tear the roof off at their August 17th show in Hollywood, Florida.

The band will film that show for an upcoming live D-V-D.

Judas Priest have been performing their “British Steel” album in its entirety on tour. They will include the D-V-D in an 30th anniversary edition of the album.

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You’d think the residents of Dublin, Ireland, would love everything about U-2, but it’s different when a stage is being torn apart at three a-m.

Dubliners angry with the round-the-clock dismantling of U-2’s stage have mounted street protests.

As a result, more than 50 trucks carrying the stage missed their ferry on their way to the next stop on the tour.

Protesters say their gripe is not with U-2, but the Dublin City Council and the Gaelic Athletic Association, which authorized the late-night noise.

The tour’s production director says he’s not sure how the protests will affect the tour.

U-2 are using three stages.

The band members say they feel pure disappointment about an otherwise fantastic show.

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A stage version of Green Day’s “American Idiot” album will premiere September 4th in Berkeley, California.

The production is being led by the same director who did Duncan Sheik’s musical “Spring Awakening” and features the music supervisor who arranged the strings on Green Day’s current album, “21st Century Breakdown.”

The production includes every song from “American Idiot” and a few from “21st Century Breakdown.”

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Bruce Springsteen will perform his Born to Run album in its entirety when he plays at Chicago’s United Center on September 20th, according to Rolling Stone. His spokeswoman was unavailable for comment, so we can’t say whether he plans to do an album at each show on his tour, which starts August 19th in Hartford, Connecticut. Last year, Springsteen played Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town back-to-back at a fundraiser in Red Bank, New Jersey.

Springsteen trotted out two more tour premieres Sunday night in Bilbao, Spain — “Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street” and Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.” Springsteen and the E Street Band are in Benidorm, Spain tomorrow night.

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Breaking Benjamin will release their as-yet-untitled fourth album on September 29th. The first single, “I Will Not Bow,” will be featured in the upcoming Bruce Willis sci-fi flick Surrogates, which is due out September 25th. Breaking Benjamin will shoot a video for the track in New York later this month with director Rich Lee (Evanescence, All American Rejects).”I Will Not Bow” will be available on I-Tunes on September 1st.

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Last year, Jack Bruce of Cream told reporters at a London awards ceremony that Led Zeppelin was “lame,” adding that they are “crap and [will] never be anything else. Cream is 10 times the band Led Zeppelin is.” He then said he was “just having some fun with the press gallery.” But apparently a few people took his remarks to heart as he reveals in an interview with the East Anglian Daily Times. He says, “Some Led Zeppelin fans were really angry at me and I had a few death threats. People like me tend to forget that with YouTube and Twitter you can’t say anything without it getting around the world. We always used to have a pop at other bands in the old days and that was all it was. It was like I had spoken out against the Queen or something. You obviously can’t say anything against Led Zeppelin.” Bruce is on tour with guitarist Robin Trower and drummer Gary Husband in support of Seven Moons, the album he recorded with Trower last year. They have a show in Norway tomorrow.

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A-C/D-C is releasing a limited-edition version of their 1980 album, Back in Black, their first with singer Brian Johnson. Contained in a tin box, it will come with the re-mastered 2003 version of the album and a Back in Black T-shirt. Look for it in stores on August 11th.

A-C/D-C drummer Phil Rudd has helped Sonor create a signature-edition drum kit and snare drum. The Phil Rudd Special Edition Drum Set, in a gloss black finish, will retail for nearly 17-hundred dollars when it comes out in the fall. The snare drum will retail for 659 dollars, and will also be out in the fall.

A-C/D-C started their third North American leg of their Black Ice tour last night in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Show number-two is Friday in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale was on hand this past Monday to introduce the Australian band’s long awaited second album, Cosmic Egg, at a preview for an invited audience at Hollywood’s Laserium CyberTheater. It was a perfect venue for the unveiling, as much of the Alan Moulder-produced album sounds like a 21st century updating of the psychedelic blueprint laid down in the 1960s by Laserium perennials Pink Floyd. Wolfmother lay Cosmic Egg on all of us October 13th.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd are giving fans a sneak peek of the band’s new album, Gods and Guns. Their label, Loud & Proud / Roadrunner, is streaming the first single, “Still Unbroken,” and they want to know what the song means to you. The album, their first since 2003, will be out September 29th. Skynyrd is on the Rock and Rebels tour with Kid Rock with a show in Mansfield, Massachusetts tonight.

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A previously unreleased Weezer song — “Everybody Go Away” — is available on the new GuitarCenter compilation Fresh Cuts Volume Four.

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Former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley will take part in a tribute to the late Pantera guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott August 16th at the Ride for Dime 5 B-B-Q & Bash All Star Jam in Dallas.

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Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” is the second most popular song for U-K newlyweds’ first dances, according to P-R-S for Music, the U-K music royalties collecting service. Country group Lonestar’s “Amazed” is number-one. Third is Shania Twain’s “From This Moment On” followed by Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It for You)” and Take That’s “Rule the World.”

The Sick Puppies song “You’re Going Down” makes a nice soundtrack to a beatdown, and that was their intent.

Singer Shim Moore says the people who helped them with their first album cover recommended them to the creators of “Street Fighter 4.”

They wrote songs aimed at that imagery, and they wrote“You’re Going Down” for use in the ad campaign.

However, it was another Sick Puppies song, “War,” that was used instead.

“You’re Going Down” still has life in it.

Not only is it the first single off the band’s “Tri-Polar” album, the W-W-E is using it for their pay-per-view.

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Coldplay singer Chris Martin will pay a visit to Springfield.

Entertainment Weekly reports Martin will be a guest voice for an upcoming episode of “The Simpsons.”

The episode has Homer hitting the lottery and hiring the band to play for just Bart and him.

When Bart goes to the bathroom, Coldplay has to stop, according to the show’s executive producer.

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Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden is becoming an author.

Madden tells People magazine he is “lightly working” on a book.

He says the book would be about his life — specifically, kids, relationships and moving to Los Angeles.

He says he wants to put out a book that matters to him, not just to put out a book.

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As first reported last September, Eric Clapton and Robbie Robertson shelved the album they started working on in the spring of 2008. There was speculation as to what happened, including them not seeing eye-to-eye on its production. But, according to Robertson’s son Sebastian, Clapton wanted to spend more time with his family. Clapton does make an appearance on Robertson’s fifth solo album, which he’s currently working on.

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Once again an attempt will be made to break the Guinness World Record for the largest guitar ensemble. The promoter of West Fest, the free San Francisco concert on October 25th celebrating the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, is asking three-thousand guitar players to simultaneously play Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.” The current record was set last year when just over two-thousand guitarists came together in Concord, California to play Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” In 2007, 18-hundred people played Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” in Germany. If you’re interested in joining in the Hendrix jam, you can learn more at SteveRoby.com.

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Robert Plant was involved in a car accident on July 2nd in northwest London. Plant’s Audi A-8 collided with a Mercedes S-L 300 driven by Richard Grant, who tells the Telegraph, “I went to the hospital for five hours and luckily there were no broken bones, but I was badly bruised on the arm and had whiplash. My Mercedes is smashed up and I’m not in a good way.”

34 years ago next week, August 4th, 1975, Plant and his family were seriously injured in a car accident on vacation on the Mediterranean island of Rhodes, forcing Led Zeppelin to postpone their fall U-S tour.

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The legal battles between Motley Crue’s manager and Vince Neil’s former solo manager have finally been settled. Neil’s manager Burt Stein and Crue manager Allen Kovac sued each other at least three times in the past year, with Neil and the rest of Motley Crue named as co-defendants with Kovac in two of the cases. No details of the settlement have been released except for a joint statement that said, “All parties are pleased that the litigation has been amicably resolved.”

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George Thorogood and the Destroyers have a new album out today. The Dirty Dozen contains six new songs combined with six previously released ones, three of which were out of print in the U-S. Thorogood tells us, “I always liked that title. What else are we? If someone comes up to me and says, ‘Describe your sound,’ I always go, ‘It’s dirty.’” Thorogood is currently on tour with Jonny Lang with a show in San Diego tonight.

Thorogood performed in his hometown of Los Angeles Sunday night and was joined by his 12-year old daughter Rio on guitar on “Get a Haircut.”

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The latest edition in the Madden video game franchise features a mixture of hard and classic rockers. Madden N-F-L ‘10 includes Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Iron Maiden’s “Aces High,” Judas Priest’s “Painkiller,” Korn’s “Blind,” Nirvana’s “Breed” and System of a Down’s “Sugar.” Madden N-F-L ‘10 is due out August 14th.

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The star-studded concerts held last year to benefit victims of Australia’s devastating brushfires are being boiled down into a four-disc D-V-D set that will raise funds for the same cause. Sound Relief, which will hit shelves in October, will include live performances by Coldplay, Jet, Wolfmother and Kings of Leon.

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Slash joined Aerosmith on stage Saturday in Las Vegas to play “Mama Kin” with them. Aerosmith and Z-Z Top are in Tulsa, Oklahoma Thursday.

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KISS performed without Paul Stanley at the San Diego Comic-Con International on Saturday. Without make-up or costumes, Gene Simmons, Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer did “Deuce.” It was the band’s first unmasked performance since 1995.

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A-C/D-C’s Brian Johnson was recently a guest on the British car show Top Gear. He took part in the Star in a Reasonably Priced Car challenge. Johnson, who is an amateur racer, clocked the show’s second fastest time by a celebrity in a four-door economy car.

Bono jokes the rest of their European tour was just a bunch of rehearsals for the Dublin gig.

U-2 played their hometown in Ireland on Friday.

Bono told the crowd, “You know the best place to see U-2 live is right here.”

Even the Dublin Criminal Court shut down jury deliberations for the weekend because too many jurors had U-2 tickets.

However, the economy is hitting Ireland as hard as anyplace.

It was the first U-2 gig in Dublin since 1980 that wasn’t sold out.

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It was a rare occurrence in Bosnia.

A crowd of people came together, not for a political gathering or an economic protest, but to hear Lenny Kravitz.

He played a concert in the former Yugoslav republic on Thursday for 6,000 fans.

The country’s economy has been in shambles since the mid-1990s, with 40 percent unemployment and an average salary of about 570-dollars a month.

Rock concerts are rare there.

Kravitz said he loved and respected the crowd for laying out the money to see him. The cheapest tickets were about 21-dollars.

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Eddie Van Halen is recovering from surgery on his left hand.

Rolling Stone reports Van Halen thought he had arthritis while on tour, but doctors discovered a bone spur, a twisted tendon and a cyst in the joint of his left thumb.

He says he was freaked out about needing surgery, but he was told it was the only solution.

He says he’s letting it heal and he expects to be back to normal in four months.

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Billy Joel appears to have the flu.

He’s postponed a second concert with Elton John because he’s sick.

The Times Union Center in Albany, New York, says Joel’s doctors advised him not to perform for 72 hours because of “extreme fatigue.”

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Serj Tankian is working on another poetry book. Tankian writes on his blog, “The new collection of works is yet to be titled but it will definitely feature illustrations by Roger Kupelian, the director of my music video for ‘Honking Antelope.’ I am looking to create a visual/interactive element to the new poetry book.” Tankian’s first poetry book, Cool Gardens, was published in 2002.

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Fans who catch Green Day on their current North American tour are being exposed to art inspired by the band as well. A roving gallery is set up at each venue with 18 works, each inspired by a different song on 21st Century Breakdown. The show also features portraits of Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt done by Logan Hicks, who organized the exhibit. Green Day’s tour continues with the first of two shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden tonight.

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Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer continues to press the flesh in support of his autobiography, Hit Hard. Last week, at a Barnes and Noble in his hometown of Hingham, Massachusetts, he was joined by fiancee Linda Pappan and answered fans’ questions. Kramer tells us his goal in writing the book was to “help people out… if my book helps one or two people then my mission was accomplished.” In addition to his role in the band, Kramer writes about addiction, depression, anxiety and abuse. He has two more book signings this week — tomorrow in Tempe, Arizona at Changing Hands and Friday at the Tattered Cover bookstore in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. Aerosmith is on stage tonight in Phoenix.

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Robert Plant will make a second album with Alison Krauss, but not as quickly as previously indicated. They are already considering material to record, but Krauss just began work on a new disc with her band, Union Station. She tells the U-K’s Telegraph, “It’ll be different, as if we hadn’t made the first. I love being in the world of the unknown.” Their first album, 2007’s Raising Sand, sold two-point-five million copies worldwide and earned them numerous awards.

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Radiohead singer Thom Yorke has recorded a song for the soundtrack to New Moon, the sequel to the smash teen vampire flick Twilight. New Moon director Chris Weitz let the news slip during an appearance at the Comic-Con in San Diego. Since Weitz had yet to hear the song, he joked that “unless it’s sounds of him belching, I think I’ll put it in.” New Moon is due in theaters November 20th.

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A trailer for a documentary film about the late Quiet Riot and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads is online, although the film is still in production. According to a statement issued by the producers, “It was on the Internet for a day or two, then pulled. Apparently, [director Peter] Margolis did not have clearance for all of the images on the trailer and threatened to halt production of the film if the trailer was not removed.” But it has resurfaced and can be seen at BraveWords.com/news/118500. Rhoads was killed in a plane crash in 1982 while on tour with Ozzy. He was 25.

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Three Days Grace are close to wrapping up their third album. The band finished all the vocals and guitars last Thursday and mixing begins today. There’s no title or release date yet, but the disc is expected out in the late fall.

World Wrestling Entertainment has picked up Aerosmith’s song “You Gotta Move” as its theme song for SummerSlam.

The song originally appeared on their “Honkin’ On Bobo” album.

SummerSlam will air live on pay-per-view on August 23rd.

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Drummer Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction is seeking treatment for an infected elbow.

The band’s management says he’s been admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles.

He’s expected to be there for the next few days for observation.

Perkins noticed severe swelling and pain in his elbow after Jane’s Addiction got back from their European tour.

Perkins is expected to recover in a few weeks.

The band has called off their Australian tour, which was supposed to begin tomorrow.

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Tony Iommi has struck a deal to license the Black Sabbath name for a series of horror films. The flicks, which will be produced by Next Films, won’t be about the group but will use the band’s name as a starting point. Iommi also will score the movies.

Iommi has sole ownership of the Sabbath name, but Ozzy Osbourne is challenging that in a lawsuit, saying he owns a half a stake in the Black Sabbath trademark.

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Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry isn’t sure why they’re the headlining act on their tour with Z-Z Top. He tells us, “Either one of us could have headlined. But I wouldn’t even call it headlining. I’d call it we’re both playing on the same stage that night.” Aero and Z-Z will be on the stage Saturday when the tour resumes in Las Vegas.

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Despite a previous report, the new Queen and Paul Rodgers concert D-V-D, Live in Ukraine, is not out yet. It’s been pushed back to September 8th and will be available exclusively at Best Buy. Also out that day are the vinyl re-issues of five of their albums, including their 1973 self-titled debut and 1977’s News of the World.

Live in Ukraine won the Grand Prix of Styria award at the Austrian Music Film Festival.

Queen guitarist Brian May, chancellor at Liverpool John Moores University in Liverpool, attended the school’s graduation ceremony on Wednesday.

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U-2 bring their 360-Degrees tour home tonight (Friday) to Dublin, Ireland for the first of three shows in Croke Park. On U-2-dot-com, guitarist The Edge says, “A lot of times when we do play Dublin there is a kind of a magic that occurs that just doesn’t happen anywhere else.” Shows number two and three are tomorrow (Saturday) and Monday.

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Last month we told you about a fan at an Alice Cooper show in the U-K last summer who removed his false leg and punched a fellow fan in the face 10 times after he was asked to calm down. The case involving Andrew Miller and John Lynch, who claims he asked Miller repeatedly to remain in his seat during the show and who was then assaulted by Miller, was heard this week. Miller, who claimed self-defense, was given a six-month sentence, which was suspended for 18 months. Lynch suffered severe bruising and a hemorrhage behind his right eye in the attack.

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Wolfmother will be the opening act for The Killers from August 31st in Columbia, Maryland through September 6th in Toronto. Frontman Andrew Stockdale will be unveiling the band’s new lineup and debuting songs from their upcoming album, Cosmic Egg, which is due out October 13th.

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Bruce Kulick, a one-time member of KISS and now the guitarist in Grand Funk Railroad, has finished his new B-K-3 album. His third solo disc features contributions from Gene Simmons and his son Nick, KISS drummer Eric Singer and former Motley Crue singer John Corabi.

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After doing a handful of U-S dates in June followed by Europe, Crosby, Stills and Nash start a more extensive U-S leg of their 40th anniversary tour tomorrow (Saturday) in Portland, Maine. It runs through September 29th in San Diego followed by the Rock and Roll Hall Fame 25th anniversary concert on October 29th at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

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Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett, Mudvayne guitarist Greg Tribbett, Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell will take part in an online poker tournament organized by Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian August 19th on UltimateBet.com.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced the details of its 25th anniversary celebration at a press conference yesterday at the Hall’s Annex in New York. Two four-hour shows, dubbed the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concerts, will be held at New York’s Madison Square Garden on October 29th and 30th. Taking the stage on the 29th will be Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Paul Simon solo and then with Art Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Friends and Stevie Wonder. The lineup on the 30th will include Eric Clapton, Aretha Franklin, Metallica and U-2. Both nights will also feature surprise guests, and more acts are expected to be announced.

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For close to 40 years there’s been speculation over whether Jimi Hendrix was murdered. Now John Bannister, the doctor who tried to resuscitate Hendrix on September 18th, 1970, says it’s “plausible,” citing as evidence the “volume of wine [that was] saturated right through [Hendrix's] hair and shirt [and filled] his lungs and stomach.” Former Hendrix roadie James “Tappy” Wright writes in his new memoir, Rock Roadie, that Hendrix’s late manager, Michael Jeffrey, admitted to killing him, saying Hendrix was more valuable to him dead than alive. Wright says a gang forced their way into Hendrix’s London apartment and forced sleeping pills and wine down his throat until he drowned.

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Daughtry have scored their second chart-topping album, as 269-thousand copies of Leave This Town sold last week, according to the latest Soundscan figures. Daughtry’s self-titled debut album debuted at number-two on the Billboard album chart in 2006 with 304-thousand copies old, and topped the chart eight weeks later.

In other album chart news, The Dead Weather’s Horehound bows at number-six, making it Jack White’s sixth Top 10 album. He’s scored three with The White Stripes and two with The Raconteurs.

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A-C/D-C singer Brian Johnson tells Classic Rock magazine that he was planning on retiring next May after the band finished its tour in Japan, but rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young nixed that plan as the band has been offered festivals in the U-K next summer. The 61-year old Johnson says, “It’s a tough one. It’s not me — it’s just my age. I try to keep myself fit, and I love it being in this band… The other lads are in their early 50s. I’m the old dog in the regiment. It’s a purely selfish thing. I don’t want to look like a jerk if I try to push it too far. I don’t want for people to see me on stage and say, ‘Oh, poor old [bleeper], the band’s carrying him!’” Johnson, who says he’d like to spend more time auto racing, will publish his autobiography, Rockers and Rollers, in October.

A-C/D-C start another North American leg of their Black Ice tour Tuesday in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

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Now that Paul Rodgers is done touring with Bad Company and there’s no work with Queen on the horizon, what’s next? He tells us, “I’m looking forward actually to getting to a point where I can focus more on some new material, ’cause I have loads of ideas that I want to take the time to develop in the studio.” In the fall, Bad Company will release a D-V-D of their one-off 2008 reunion show in Florida.

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Blink 1-82 kick off their reunion tour today with the first of two shows in Las Vegas. The tour will run through early October. On board as the opening acts at various points will be Weezer, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, All-American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday. Besides all the trio’s hits, fans can expect to hear one new song called “The Night the Moon Was Gone” on the tour. It’s one of four songs Blink have demoed so far for their new album.

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Marilyn Manson have announced dates for a brief tour after the <i>Mayhem Festival</i> wraps up August 15th in Dallas. The jaunt picks up August 21st in Las Vegas and runs through September 13th in Winnipeg, Manitoba.   The Mayhem Festival hits Victoria September 9th, Calgary September 10th and Edmonton September 11th.

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Panic at the Disco’s “New Perspective” — their first recording since guitarist Ryan Ross and bassist Jon Walker left the band — will be the lead single off the soundtrack to Jennifer’s Body. The disc includes a solo track from Paramore’s Hayley Williams called “Teenagers” as well as tunes by Cobra Starship, Dashboard Confessional and Silversun Pickups. The soundtrack is due out August 25th, with the movie in theaters September 18th.

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Tuesday in Turin, Italy, Bruce Springsteen did six tour premieres — “Loose Ends,” “Murder Incorporated,” “Drive All Night,” “My Love Won’t Let You Down,” “Travelin’ Band” and “My Hometown.” He does his final show in Italy tonight in Undine.

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Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider sliced open his foot at his Long Island, New York home, requiring 12 stitches. As a result the band has canceled its appearance tonight on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.

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A new concert film about the Warped Tour, The Vans Warped Tour 15th Anniversary Celebration, will be shown in theaters across the country September 17th.

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Bruce Kulick, a one-time member of KISS and current guitarist in Grand Funk Railroad, has finished his new album, B-K-3. His third disc features contributions from Gene Simmons and his son Nick, KISS drummer Eric Singer and former Motley Crue singer John Corabi.

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U-2 did tour premieres of “Elevation,” “Until the End of the World” and “Bad” at their second, and final, show in Amsterdam Tuesday night. The 360-Degrees tour will have “A Sort of Homecoming” in the band’s native Dublin with the first of three nights on Friday.

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Serj Tankian is getting his own signature-edition Taylor T-5 acoustic guitar. It will begin shipping to stores late this month.

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Neil Young’s annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts will be held October 24th and 25th at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California.

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Hinder’s Austin Winkler, Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix and ex-KISS guitarist Ace Frehley joined Nickelback to cover A-C/D-C’s “Highway to Hell” in Holmdel, New Jersey Tuesday night.

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A guitar autographed by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and Stone Gossard and Velvet Revolver’s Duff McKagan is up for bids at Charitybuzz.com.

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Kings of Leon will appear on The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien on August 24th.

The man who created the visual style for the Beatles film “Yellow Submarine” has died at the age of 75.

Heinz Edelmann died Tuesday in a hospital in Stuttgart, Germany.

The cause of death was not given.

Edelmann was a graphic designer when he was called to work on “Yellow Submarine.”

He also designed several book covers and created the rainbow bird mascot for Seville’s Expo 1992 world fair.

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A documentary about the White Stripes’ 2007 Canadian tour will debut at the Toronto Film Festival.

“Under Great White Northern Lights” will premiere September 18th.

The band played the usual venues and some unorthodox places as well, like a youth centre, a bowling alley, a flour mill, a pool hall and on a city bus.

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Steely Dan had to re-learn their own songs.

Their “Rent Party” tour begins tonight in Boston, and on some dates of the tour, Steely Dan will be performing an album in its entirety, either “Aja,” “Gaucho” or “The Royal Scam.”

On other dates, they’re letting fans make requests on the Internet.

Donald Fagen says they had to re-learn their songs in anticipation of what fans might choose.

Walter Becker says he’ll be interested to see how it turns out because they had retired from touring in the 1970’s and some of the songs were never played live.

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Anthrax just got a new lead singer and he wasn’t able to perform on the first three dates of their European tour.

Anthrax called off shows in Sweden, Denmark and Germany after singer Dan Nelson unexpectedly told the band he’s seriously ill.

The next scheduled date is tonight in Oslo, Norway.

The band is considering what to do about the rest of the tour.

Nelson’s first album with Anthrax is “Worship Music,” but the U-S release date has not been announced.

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Jason Mraz, Wilco and country singer Jamey Johnson are joining the lineup for Farm Aid.

They will perform with Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews.

This year’s Farm Aid is October 4th outside St. Louis.

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This morning at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York, Hall of Fame chairman Jann Wenner and president and C-E-O Joel Peresman will announce details of a 25th anniversary celebration this fall in New York. That celebration will likely come in the form of two all-star concerts at Madison Square Garden in October. Among the stars rumored to be performing are Bruce Springsteen, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Aretha Franklin, U-2, Metallica and Eric Clapton. However, a spokeswoman for the Hall tells us that the information that has been previously reported is “not completely accurate.”

On September 2nd, 1995, the Rock Hall held a grand opening all-star concert in Cleveland that featured Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Kinks, John Mellencamp, Bob Dylan, The Pretenders, John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, The Allman Brothers Band and many others.

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Tom Petty, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Depeche Mode are among the artists who’ve donated autographed items for the latest Grammy online auction to raise money for MusiCares and the Grammy Foundation. Petty and Depeche Mode have each autographed guitars, while Grohl has signed a copy of Rock Band for the X-Box. The auction runs through July 31st.

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Dead by Sunrise, the side project of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, have already filmed videos for the first two singles from their upcoming debut album, Out of Ashes. Bennington and company recently shot clips for “Crawl Back In” and “Let Down” with director P-R Brown (Slipknot, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold).

Dead by Sunrise are also streaming the track “Morning After” on their MySpace page. Out of Ashes is due out in late September.

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Ozzy Osbourne’s I Am Ozzy - The Autobiography will be published in the U-K on October 1st, with a U-S date yet to be announced. Ozzy says, “It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for 30 [bleeping] years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, sexually transmitted diseases. I have been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at [bleeping] two miles per hour. People ask me how come I’m still alive, and I don’t know what to say.” Ozzy will do a week’s worth of publicity in the U-K when the book comes out, including two in-store appearances.

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The longer Velvet Revolver goes without a singer, the more Slash seems to want to talk about it. He tells Classic Rock magazine that ex-singer Scott Weiland is “to me now like George Bush — you know, I like him now that he’s not here. I have nothing bad to say about Scott, but he doesn’t work well with others in a group situation.”

Slash isn’t very optimistic about the future of Velvet Revolver. He says, “That was the toughest five years, dealing with that band, just because of the obvious [Weiland] and really, really bad management. Joke management for the entire time. For some reason in that entire five years I could never be happy. I could never get comfortable and happy with it because it was such a mess.”

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Foreigner is taking a page out of Journey’s book by releasing a three-disc set that will include a new album, re-mixed hits and live performances as a way of introducing the new lineup. Can’t Slow Down will be out on Rhino on September 29th and includes 13 new songs, which were co-produced by Mark Ronson, the stepson of Foreigner founder and guitarist Mick Jones. And like the Journey album Revelation, released last year, the Foreigner collection will be available exclusively at Wal-Mart.

Foreigner starts a tour on July 30th in Morristown, New Jersey.

The Beastie Boys have cancelled all of their upcoming shows and have put the release of their album Hot Sauce Committee Part One on hold as Adam “M-C-A” Yauch has been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his left parotid (salivary) gland. Yauch says in a video posted to the band’s site, “It’s also in a lymph node right in that area. So I’m actually going to have to have surgery probably next week coming up. And then after that have some radiation done, localized in that area.”

Yauch adds that he had a full body scan that was clean, and that he’s sorry to inconvenience fans who’d made plans to see them this summer.

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U-2 are helping to fund a music program to give young people in Ireland the opportunity to learn an instrument or take vocal lessons. They’re donating five-million euros (a little more than seven-million dollars) for the Music Network program, which will be rolled out next year. The Edge says, “Being around music at a young age was important for us, and we were lucky to have it at school. We had been looking for some time for a way to get involved in an initiative in music education in Ireland.”

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will announce the details of a 25th anniversary celebration tomorrow at its Annex in New York. That celebration will likely come in the form of two all-star concerts at Madison Square Garden in October. The shows will reportedly feature such Rock Hall inductees as Bruce Springsteen, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Aretha Franklin, U-2, Metallica and Eric Clapton. However, a spokeswoman for the Hall tells us that the information that has been previously reported is “not completely accurate.”

On September 2nd, 1995, the Rock Hall held a grand opening all-star concert in Cleveland that featured Springsteen and the E Street Band, The Kinks, John Mellencamp, Bob Dylan, The Pretenders, John Fogerty, Jackson Browne, Bruce Hornsby, The Allman Brothers Band and many others.

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It looks like Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has once again gotten fed up with nasty fans on Twitter. First, in early June, Reznor shut down his Twitter page, saying, “It’s now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture, and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.” He returned a couple weeks to start posting news about the band, but over the weekend, his account completely disappeared.

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Weezer will be hitting the road as a five piece this summer, as veteran drummer Josh Freese will be behind the kit and drummer Pat Wilson will be playing guitar and keyboards. Freese played with the band once at a festival show back in May and has stayed on to work with them on their seventh album, which is due out in the fall. Also in the works is a deluxe reissue of the band’s 1996 album Pinkerton.

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John Fogerty has secured a record deal and release date for his new album. The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again will be out on September 1st on Fortunate Son/Verve Forecast. The follow-up to his solo debut, 1973’s The Blue Ridge Rangers, features covers of songs by John Prine, Delaney and Bonnie, Rick Nelson, John Denver and others. Fogerty says, “They are songs that influenced me and helped form who I am as a musician and certainly as a songwriter. There is something very American about all these songs and the original arrangements.” The album features appearances by Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles, and Bruce Springsteen.

Fogerty’s summer tour hits the Blue Balls Festival tomorrow in Lucerne, Switzerland.

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Cheap Trick release their new album in stores and through digital retailers today. The Latest, which had been available exclusively through their website and Amazon.com, contains 13 tracks, which guitarist Rick Nielsen says are four trilogies and an extra song. He says, “13 is a lucky number.”

Cheap Trick will celebrate today’s release on stage tonight in Kansas City, Missouri, as their tour with Def Leppard and Poison plays the Sprint Center.

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Sammy Hagar will open his third Cabo Wabo Cantina in the fall, this one inside the Miracle Mile Shops at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. It will be a two-story, 15-thousand square-foot restaurant and nightclub that will replace Trader Vic’s. Hagar says, “I am ecstatic to finally introduce Las Vegas to the Cabo Wabo lifestyle. We are going to rock the Vegas Strip!” This is Hagar’s second Cabo in Nevada — the other is in Lake Tahoe. The original is in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Hagar briefly opened one in Fresno, California, but it quickly closed and Hagar is in litigation with its developers.

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Metallica will warm up for their fall tour with a benefit right in their backyard in northern California. They’ll play at the two-thousand seat Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael on September 11th to launch an exhibit called Marin Rocks that will run at the Marin History Museum. Proceeds from the gig will go directly to the museum.

Metallica’s North American tour kicks off September 14th in Nashville.

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Pearl Jam’s new single, “Fixer,” is streaming at their MySpace page.

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Dave Matthews Band will be the musical guest on The Late Show With David Letterman on July 27th and July 31st.

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3 Doors Down’s video for “Let Me Be Myself” — which features the Geico cavemen — is now streaming at their website.

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Chevelle’s Sci-Fi Crimes album will now be released on September 1st.

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Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman now has Twitter (twitter.com/bill_wyman), Facebook (facebook.com/officialbillwyman) and MySpace (myspace.com/billwyman) pages.

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Don Henley wants his fans to know that he does not have Twitter, Facebook or MySpace pages. A post on his and the Eagles’ websites says, “He does not communicate via social networking sites and has not authorized any account to be created on his behalf.”

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Eric Clapton recently took part in a charity cricket match in England. Clapton’s team lost, but his CrossroadsCenter at Antigua came out a winner along with a few other charitable recipients.

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A desktop photocopier once owned by the late Pink Floyd singer Syd Barrett is for sale on E-Bay. It comes with the instruction manual, which is signed by Barrett, along with a receipt from P-C World in Cambridge, England and a letter of authenticity. The proceeds will benefit Escape Artists, which promotes mental well-being through the arts. The bidding is currently at 388-dollars. The auction ends on July 26th.

Poison drummer Rikki Rockett is a dad.  His wife, Melanie, gave birth to a boy, according to his MySpace site. They’ve named him Jude Aaron Rockett.

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Dave Matthews has created a new shoe for the ladies, and it helps out children as well.

Matthews partnered with TOMS Shoes to create a woman’s slip-on shoe.

It’s brown with a stylized sun design in yellow, orange, blue and pink — plus it’s described as “vegan friendly.”

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Supporters of Deftones have donated nearly 55-thousand dollars to help defray the medical costs of bassist Chi Cheng, who continues his long recovery from a near-fatal car accident last year. They hope to raise 100-thousand, which will be enough to get Cheng into a long-term rehab facility.

The Deftones have recruited former Quicksand bassist Sergio Vega to fill in for Cheng on an upcoming European tour that starts in Hasselt, Belgium on August 20th.

You can make a donation at OneLoveForChi.com.

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Paul McCartney did the first and second of three shows Friday and Saturday at Citi Field in Queens, New York, the new home of the New York Mets. In 1965, The Beatles did the first show at the Mets’ former home, Shea Stadium, which was adjacent to Citi Field. McCartney joked that they could not hear themselves then because of the women screaming, which the thousands of ladies at Citi Field spontaneously duplicated.

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Aerosmith’s recent postponement of seven shows due to Steven Tyler’s leg injury led drummer Joey Kramer to cancel an in-store appearance in Florida in support of his autobiography, Hit Hard. Kramer says when the show is re-scheduled he’ll make good on his appearance. He’ll be at the Barnes and Noble in Hingham, Massachusetts on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, guitarist Joe Perry did spend some time in Florida, where he has a home, and took part in a reef cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico. He and his wife Billie joined about 85 divers in picking up trash in the waters off Lido and Longboat keys. Perry tells the Sarasota Herald-Tribune the cleanup “makes people realize you can’t just throw stuff off the side of the boat.” Money raised from the effort went toward the Mote Marine Laboratory’s Center for Coral Research.

We’re not sure why Joe Perry’s wife Billie is making this announcement, but on her Twitter page she says that Steven Tyler no longer has the same manager as the rest of Aerosmith. She writes, “We [and] the [rest of the] band still have the honorable Howard Kaufman/Trudy Green,” who have managed Aerosmith for 10 years. Tyler is now with the Union Entertainment Group, which represents such bands as Nickelback and Cinderella.

Aerosmith resume their tour with Z-Z Top on Saturday in Las Vegas.

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Flyleaf and Underoath are among the headliners scheduled to play this year’s Revelation Generation festival in Frenchtown, New Jersey on September 4th and 5th. The fest, which is in its fifth year, focuses on bands with a Christian message. The lineup also includes Switchfoot, Relient K and The Devil Wears Prada.

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Slipknot will treat fans to a deluxe 10th anniversary re-issue of their self-titled 1999 debut album on September 9th. They’ve promised that the box-set package will contain plenty of extras, including extensive video footage and a selection of “deep cuts from the vaults.”

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Cheap Trick will perform their new song “Sick Man of Europe” on N-B-C’s Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien on September 1st. Their new album, The Latest, is out tomorrow.

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Kings of Leon, Rancid and Rise Against are the latest additions to the soundtrack of Rock Band 2, which hits stores this week.

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Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Don Airey will perform at The Sunflower Jam 2009 on September 24th in London. Paice’s wife Jacky assembles the annual cancer-charity fundraiser. The bill also includes Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson and Procol Harum singer Gary Brooker.

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Cream singer-bassist Jack Bruce will receive an honorary doctorate from Glasgow Caledonian University this year.

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Jeff Beck recently picked up a platinum award for his Live at Ronnie Scott’s D-V-D.

So perhaps Zakk Wylde isn’t out of Ozzy Osbourne’s musical plans after all. It started last week when Osbourne said in an interview with Classic Rock magazine published last week that he was looking to work with another guitarist and Wylde responded on his Twitter page by saying, “I haven’t heard anything about this. Until I talk to the boss, I don’t know.” Wylde now writes on his Twitter that he met with Osbourne and “everything is great with Ozzy. See you at the Blizzcon convention in Anaheim August 22nd.” Ozzy is scheduled to perform that day at the annual gaming convention.

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Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde have recorded a cover of Graham Nash’s “Chicago”/”We Can Change the World” that’s now available as a digital download at LondonTV.net. The track can be purchased with a donation to the campaign for Gary McKinnon, a U-K man suffering from a mental disorder who’s in danger of being extradited to the United States for allegedly committing “cyber-terrorism.” The track includes lyrics reworked by McKinnon’s mother.

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Neil Young will co-headline a benefit with Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan and Sheryl Crow on September 12th in Vancouver. Summer Sessions: A Premiere Benefit Concert will raise funds for the Sarah McLachlan Foundation, which is focused on bringing music into the lives of young Canadians. Young’s appearance is a payback of sorts — McLachlan performed at his Bridge School Benefit in 1998.

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Gibson has introduced a limited-edition Les Paul Standard guitar that is a copy of Z-Z Top frontman Billy Gibbons’ “Pearly Gates” axe. That’s the guitar Gibbons has used on all of Z-Z Top’s albums. Only 350 of the instruments are being made, with 100 of them being aged to resemble the 1959 original. And Gibbons will autograph and play half of the guitars before they’re shipped out.

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Former members of Papa Roach, Chevelle and P-O-D have teamed up to form a new band called Interview. It features Dave Buckner (from Papa Roach) on drums, Joe Loeffler (from Chevelle) on bass, Marcos Curiel (from P-O-D) on guitar and Lukas Rossi (of Rock Star: Supernova fame) on vocals. They’ve competed six songs so far, but have not yet announced when their debut album will be released.

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Billy Idol will hit public T-V this weekend on the P-B-S show Soundstage. The program features Idol doing his classic hits, including “Dancing With Myself,” “Rebel Yell,” “White Wedding” and “Flesh for Fantasy.”

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Coheed and Cambria’s Claudio Sanchez will debut his new comic, Kill Audio, at the Comic-Con in San Diego next weekend.

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Lily Allen will duet with ’70s teen star David Cassidy next month at Ireland’s Flatlake Arts Festival, an annual event promoted by her uncle.

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Jack White’s new band The Dead Weather will play a noontime show today at the Third Man Records “pop-up store” in New York City. Only the morning’s first 100 customers will get to stay for the performance.

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Modest Mouse will release a new E-P, No One’s First and You’re Next, on August 4th.