PowerBlogs: Rumour Mills

Metallica and Green Day are coming back to YouTube.

Videos by Warner Music Group artists had been taken off YouTube while the two companies fought with each other over a deal.

A YouTube spokesman says the companies will share ad revenue from the videos, with Warner Music getting the majority share.

The videos will return to YouTube by the end of the year.

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Authorities say D-J A-M died of an accidental overdose of cocaine and prescription drugs.

The toxicology report released yesterday by the New York City medical examiner’s office shows D-J A-M’s system contained cocaine, OxyContin, Benadryl, the anti-anxiety drugs Xanax and Ativan, an anger-controlling drug called Klonopin and another drug used to cut cocaine.

He was found dead in his apartment on August 28th.

He was supposed to star in a reality show called “Gone Too Far,” in which he staged interventions for drug abusers, but M-T-V has not said whether the show will air.

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Like the Energizer bunny, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke just keeps going and going and going. He’s just put together an all-star band to perform his growing backlog of solo material. The combo will include Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, R-E-M drummer Joey Waronker, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich and Brazilian musician Mauro Refosco. The band will play its first shows in Los Angeles on Sunday and Monday. Yorke writes at Radiohead.com, “We don’t really have a name, and the set will not be very long ’cause…we haven’t got that much material yet.”

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kick off a run of five shows at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey tonight. In celebration of the last ever shows at the venue, they will do a complete album each night starting with Born to Run tonight followed by Darkness on the Edge of Town Friday, Born in the U-S-A on Saturday, Born to Run on October 8th and Born in the U-S-A will close out the run, and concerts, at the stadium on October 9th. The stadium will be torn down after this year’s Giants and Jets N-F-L games.

E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren tells us, “I’m glad we’re closing Giants Stadium… It’s special and also that kind of run encourages Bruce to really try a lot of different songs, make every night special.”

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KISS frontman Paul Stanley has finally commented on the band being nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He tells the Boston Globe, “There’s a long way between a nomination and induction. That being said, this is really something that I think is exciting. There is a very vocal segment of KISS fans and rock fans who have wanted us in, and so for them I’m very, very pleased.” The Rock Hall’s class of 2010 will be announced in January.

KISS performs in Montreal tomorrow night.

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The non-invasive surgery that Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton underwent this summer was for a recurrence of throat cancer. He writes on Aero Force One, “I’ve been healing up from my ‘non-invasive surgery.’ I love that expression. I’ve rarely heard anything as brilliantly vague. At the time it’s just what I wanted to convey. Let’s just say that old [nemesis] Mr. C needed to get hit in the nose a few more times. He must not have liked it because he hasn’t been seen.”

The surgery force Hamilton to sit out dates on Aerosmith’s tour, which was eventually canceled after Steven Tyler broke his shoulder falling off the stage in South Dakota.

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New Hampshire is the latest state to roll out Aerosmith scratch lottery tickets. The game has cash prizes of up to 50-thousand dollars along with Aerosmith C-Ds and Dirico motorcycles — Steven Tyler’s company — autographed by the Demon of Screamin’. Commenting on the tickets, bassist Tom Hamilton tells us, “It’s one of those crazy things… It’s neat.” The tickets are also available in Rhode Island.

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Yesterday Genesis released a box set of live material, and in November they will release another box. The Movie Box is a five D-V-D set containing concert footage captured on The Mama Tour in 1984; Three Sides Live — the concert film shot in the U-S and released in tandem with the live album of the same name; Genesis Live at Wembley Stadium, shot in July 1987; and Genesis: The Way We Walk - Live in Concert, filmed in 1992. The set also contains bonus footage including the Behind the Music episode on the band. It’s tentatively set to be released on November 17th.

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Alice Cooper and Halloween go together like ice cream and apple pie — and so to celebrate, Cooper has released a new song called “Keepin’ Halloween Alive,” which comes with a bonus karaoke version called “Cooper-oke.” He jokes, “At home, my family all gathers around an old spooky tree decorated with skulls and bones in the living room, and we exchange gifts. It’s our holiday. We even all have matching black-and-orange Halloween sweaters! I wanted a theme song for people like me, and for us Halloween never ends.” The song is available on I-Tunes.

Cooper performs in Durham, North Carolina tonight.

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Chester Bennington has lined up a handful of dates for his new project, Dead by Sunrise. The sextet will take the stage in Las Vegas on October 1st, New York City on the 14th and Los Angeles on the 19th. As we’ve reported, Dead by Sunrise will also perform at M-T-V’s Ulalume [pr: oo-la-LOO-may] Halloween festival on October 23rd alongside Paramore and A-F-I. The show will air the following week.

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Bon Jovi is the subject of a Showtime documentary that will premiere October 24th on the premium channel. When We Were Beautiful, filmed last year during the band’s Lost Highway tour, tells the story of their 25-year career and features interviews with the band, behind-the-scenes footage, concert performances and more. The documentary dovetails with the November 10th release of Bon Jovi’s new album, The Circle.

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Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley’s side project Burning Empires has posted a new song titled “Disavowel” on its MySpace page.

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Songs by Marilyn Manson and GWAR will be added to Rock Band Two just in time for Halloween.

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Shins singer James Mercer and beat-master Danger Mouse have formed a new band called Broken Bells. They plan to release an album in the spring.

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Mars Volta guitarist Omar Rodriguez Lopez will release a new solo album, Xenophanes, on November 10th.

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Police drummer Stewart Copeland yesterday published his autobiography Strange Things Happen: A Life With The Police, Polo and Pygmies. He’ll do book signings at Amoeba Music in Hollywood on October 8th and Amoeba Music in San Francisco on the 10th.

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Ted Nugent, who stayed off the road this year, will resume touring in 2010 with three dates announced for January — the 22nd in Santa Ynez, California; the 23rd in Las Vegas; and the 24th in Agoura Hills, California.

Singer Jerry Cantrell hopes you notice the new sound of Alice In Chains, and he also hopes you don’t.

Cantrell says people who have followed the band know about what they’ve been through and know what it took for them to continue to make music.

Singer Layne Staley died of a drug overdose in 2002.

The new Alice In Chains album, “Black Gives Way To Blue,” is their first since his death.

William DuVall handles vocal duties, and Cantrell says they didn’t go on a game show and audition singers where if you won, you got to be the singer in the band.

Cantrell says DuVall was a friend of the band, so he was close already.

“Black Gives Way To Blue” is out today.

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Fred Durst and his wife didn’t even make it to their three-month anniversary.

Durst confirms on his Twitter site he and Esther Nazarov have decided to go their separate ways.

They were married in July.

He says they remain very positive and wish only the best for each other.

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Chickenfoot ended their tour behind their debut album at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, California Sunday night. During the show, singer Sammy Hagar told the crowd, “Thank you for allowing four self-indulgent musicians to play our self-indulgent music.” The project that brought former Van Halen members Hagar and Michael Anthony together with Joe Satriani and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith to play the kind of rock all four musicians cut their teeth on has been more successful than any of them had ever imagined it would be, according to Hagar.

In a ceremony before the show, the group was presented with gold albums for their self-titled debut having sold more than a half-million copies. Smith brought one on stage and noted that Hagar has now gone gold with four different bands — the others being Montrose, Van Halen and his solo group. 22-year-old U-K guitar phenom Davy Knowles joined the group for a jam during their encore, which concluded with the Montrose classic “Bad Motor Scooter” and a raucous version of The Who’s “My Generation” that ended with Smith destroying his drum kit a la Keith Moon.

Chickenfoot took part in the Recording Academy’s Grammy Soundcheck program before the show, sound-checking and answering questions for a group of local high school and Grammy University students. The group will perform together one more time — at Hagar’s Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico — before going on to their individual projects. The consensus among the group members is that they’ve all enjoyed being in Chickenfoot so much that they expect to do a second album when their schedules allow.

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A-C/D-C have been promising a big announcement today — and now we can tell you it was what we reported earlier this month…a box set that comes in a working amplifier. Backtracks will contain three C-Ds of live and studio rarities, two D-V-Ds — including the long-awaited Family Jewels disc three — a vinyl L-P of studio collectibles, a coffee-table book, facsimiles of authentic memorabilia, fine art lithographs and more. It will also be available as a two-C-D and one-D-V-D set. The deluxe edition of Backtracks will be limited to 50-thousand copies and is only available at ACDCBacktracks.com.

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Genesis weren’t done when they put out all their studio albums in three box sets — today they release the 10-disc concert box set Genesis Live 1973-2007. It contains four of their five live albums recorded during that time — Genesis Live, Seconds Out, Three Sides Live and The Way We Walk — and the packaging includes a slot for the recent two-C-D set Live Over Europe 2007. Each of the four albums contains new stereo mixes and bonus material, including the long-awaited stereo and surround-sound mix of Live at the Rainbow 1973. Guitarist Mike Rutherford says, “This is for the fans… It’s quite nice to get these recordings back out there.”

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Buckcherry’s first ever live album, Live and Loud 2009, hits stores today. The band recorded six shows in Canada in May, and guitarist Keith Nelson tells us they played different set lists every night so they could capture a wide range of their catalog. He adds that they didn’t do any overdubs on the album, saying, “The sound that you hear is the band playing without a net.”

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When he learned recently that Red Hot Chili Peppers were on the list of nominees for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year, drummer Chad Smith was on tour with two guys who are already members of the Hall. Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, who went to Cleveland as members of Van Halen are currently his bandmates in Chickenfoot. So did they have any advice for him about being a Hall of Famer should the Chili Peppers be voted in? “No, but they were very happy and [the band's other member, guitarist] Joe [Satriani] was very happy. They were like, ‘You deserve it, man. Your band has longevity and they’re relevant.” Chad says getting nominated makes him feel, “kind of old, [but] not as old as those guys!”

He also tells us that he hopes that The Stooges, who are also on the ballot, will go in with them. Smith says, “It would be an honor to be inducted the same year as Iggy.”

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Bruce Springsteen sat down with Elvis Costello at the Apollo Theater in New York last Friday to tape an episode of Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… Backstreets, the Springsteen fanzine, says they “discussed everything from their Catholic upbringings to fatherhood to being labeled ‘The Next Dylan’ to Asbury Park to the role of the songwriter in a democratic society.” Costello and the Imposters opened the show with a cover of Springsteen’s “Point Blank,” and Springsteen also performed — doing “Wild Billy’s Circus Story” along with E Street Band members Nils Lofgren and Roy Bittan, “American Skin (41 Shots)” and “Galveston Bay.” Costello joined Springsteen for “The Rising,” “Seeds,” covers of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” and Sam and Dave’s “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” and a “radio” medley of Springsteen’s “Radio Nowhere” and Costello’s “Radio Radio.” The second season of Spectacle will premiere December 9th on the Sundance Channel. No word on when the Springsteen episode will air.

Costello has booked his former collaborator Paul McCartney for an appearance on the show. No word on when it will be taped.

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Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd — who likes to paint when he’s not singing — was on hand this past Saturday at the L-A shoe store Undefeated to help launch a line of one-of-a-kind shoes made out of his artwork. Locally based Tom’s Shoes had supplied Boyd and collaborator Kristen Klosterman with three 15-by-5-foot canvases. Each painted one on their own and they collaborated on the third. The canvases were then cut into pieces and fashioned into 100 unique pairs of shoes by Tom’s.

Boyd — who did the paintings the week before he left on the recent Incubus tour — saw the finished product for the first time Saturday and thought “it turned out really well.” Priced at 125-dollars a pair, all the shoes Boyd had worked on were purchased during the event. In keeping with their company policy, Tom’s donated a pair of shoes to charity for each one sold.

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Don Henley will hit the road for dates between November 4th in Connecticut and November 20th in Virginia. He has eight shows scheduled so far, but a few more will be announced.

On Saturday, Henley was in east Texas for the dedication of the Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, where he used to go fishing as a boy in the mid-’50s. He said, “The older I got, I realized just what an important eco-system this is, and that we need to protect it.” Henley is the founder and board chairman of the Caddo Lake Institute.

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Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have yet to comment on KISS’s nomination for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but former members Peter Criss and Ace Frehley have. Criss writes at PeterCriss.net, “I would like to thank the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the nomination and recognition of the original KISS. As a founding member, I am deeply grateful to the Hall of Fame for their consideration. It would be an honor and a dream come true to be inducted.” Frehley is short and to the point, saying, “It’s a great honor.”

The class of 2010 will be announced in January with the ceremony set for March 15th in New York.

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Paramore had their commercial breakthrough thanks to a song on the Twilight soundtrack and now have a tune in Jennifer’s Body, but singer Hayley Williams doesn’t want the band to be pigeonholed. She tells Entertainment Weekly, “We got asked to do Transformers Two and New Moon, and we don’t want to be the movie band. When we got asked to do New Moon, we weren’t like ‘Ewww, I can’t believe you even asked,’ [but] it was time for another band to do it.”

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For the third time this year, Courtney Love is on the receiving end of a lawsuit over money. First Republic Bank is suing Love and a trust representing her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, claiming that both parties are trying to get at one-point-two-million dollars in royalties from songs written by Kurt Cobain. The bank says it has asked that Love and legal representatives for the estate sign a joint agreement on how to disburse the funds but has gotten no results. Now the bank wants the court to take control of the funds, releasing it from any liability.

American Express sued Love earlier this year over 352-thousand dollars in unpaid bills, and her bodyguards sued her last month for allegedly stiffing them on 58-grand in salary.

Papa Roach and Jet are teaming up for a co-headlining tour. The jaunt kicks off October 25th in Amarillo, Texas. The only other shows announced so far are October 26th in Denver and November 5th in St. Paul, Minnesota. The complete itinerary will be announced soon.

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With a new stage, semi new costumes and one new song, KISS started the North American leg of their Alive 35 tour Friday night with the first of two shows at the Cobo Arena in Detroit. It was at that venue, which is slated for demolition, that they recorded part of their 1975 concert album Alive. “This is the holy land,” said Paul Stanley, “the place where it all started, Detroit! You’ve always opened your arms and opened your legs for us!” Before doing 14 of the 16 songs on Alive (minus “Firehouse” and “Rock Bottom”), Stanley said, “We know what you’re here for — you want that cool, classic old stuff and we’re going to cover it all tonight.” The two-hour-and-20-minute show featured the usual array of pyrotechnics; Gene Simmons spitting blood and breathing fire; Stanley being hoisted by a cable above the audience to a small stage by the soundboard for “Love Gun”; and drummer Eric Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer doing solos.

The new stage show featured an H-D screen that ran the length of the stage. As they did on their Dynasty tour in 1979, the band rose from under the stage, and during “Rock and Roll All Nite,” the lifts elevated them above the crowd as confetti rained down. The giant KISS logo that is usually above the drums was on the stage with Eric Singer on top of it.

The five-song encore featured songs recorded after Alive, with the debut of “Modern Day Delilah,” the first single off their new album, Sonic Boom, in Wal-Mart stores next Tuesday. The show ended with “Detroit Rock City.”

Friday’s show was filmed for a possible D-V-D, and Kid Rock visited with the band backstage before the show. Next up is Cleveland tonight. The tour runs through December 6th in Dallas.

On Thursday, before an audience of 15-hundred in the Cobo Arena, KISS filmed the video for their new song, “Modern Day Delilah,” as well as “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Got to Choose” and “Shout It Out Loud.” Two of the songs will be featured on the October 7th (actually the morning of the 8th) episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley toured Cobo Arena on September 19th and took part in the filming of a documentary on the venue called Let’s Go Cobo.

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More than 84-thousand people were on hand for the first of U-2’s two concerts last Wednesday at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, which broke the record for that venue set by Pope John Paul the Second in 1995. Bono said, “I know they’re knocking this place down… We probably won’t be here again before the wrecking ball, but it was a magic place for us as well as the Giants.” Bruce Springsteen starts a five-night run at the stadium on Wednesday and will play the final show there on October 9th.

Bono has been invited to meet Pope Benedict the Sixteenth at the Sistine Chapel in Rome on November 21st. More than 500 artists and performers have been asked to attend as the Catholic Church tries to re-establish the relationship between the Church and art.

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A-C/D-C were set to resume their Black Ice tour this Thursday in Phoenix, but that show, along with five others — in Las Vegas, Louisville, Kansas City, Des Moines and Milwaukee — have been postponed as singer Brian Johnson recovers from an undisclosed medical procedure. His doctor has advised him to rest. This leg of the tour is scheduled through November 21st in Puerto Rico.

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Sunday’s Farm Aid concert from just outside St. Louis will be broadcast and webcast live. The annual benefit will air on Direct-T-V’s 101 Network and stream at FarmAid.org. Among those joining Farm Aid board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Willie Nelson in the lineup are Wilco and Jason Mraz.

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Drivers in Southern California, be careful — Ozzy Osbourne writes on his Twitter page, “I just passed my driving test. [It] took me 60 years, but I did it! For the first time in my life, I’m legal to drive, so watch out!” Ozzy passed the test in Los Angeles, where he has a home.

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The long-running P-B-S concert series Austin City Limits has announced the schedule for its upcoming season. It will debut this weekend with Dave Matthews Band. Other acts appearing include Ben Harper and Relentless 7 on October 10th, Andrew Bird on October 24th, Elvis Costello on November 7th, Pearl Jam on November 21st and Them Crooked Vultures on February 6th.

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The Bon Jovi documentary When We Were Beautiful will debut on Showtime on October 24th.

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Fall Out Boy and Placebo will perform at Los Premios M-T-V Latin American 2009, the channel’s Latin awards show, on October 15th.

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Bruce Springsteen will now play his Born to Run album in its entirety at shows in Washington, D-C on November 2nd and Baltimore on November 20th. The Working on a Dream tour starts back up Wednesday with the first of the five final concerts at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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The American Music Awards will take place November 22nd at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles and will air live on A-B-C.

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Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford took part in the S-C-C-A Pro Racing Volkswagen Jetta T-D-I Cup series race Saturday at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia. He finished next to last.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday announced 12 nominees for possible induction into its class of 2010. The first-time nominees are KISS, Genesis, The Hollies, L-L Cool J, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jimmy Cliff and songwriter Laura Nyro. The rest of the ballot includes acts who’ve been nominated before — Donna Summer, Darlene Love, ABBA, The Chantels and The Stooges. Only five artists will be voted in, and those will be announced in the winter. The 25th annual induction ceremony is slated for March 15th in New York.First-time nominees KISS have been eligible for induction since 1999, 25 years after the release of their debut album. Singer-guitarist Paul Stanley says it would be “fine” if they were inducted, but he views the Hall of Fame as “a joke… The true Rock and Roll Hall of Fame exists in the music stores that sell C-Ds. And the members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are the ones who’ve lasted the longest and sold the most.” KISS start their Alive 35 tour tomorrow in Detroit.

Onetime Hollies member Graham Nash already is a member of the Hall, having been inducted in 1997 as a member of Crosby, Stills and Nash. Upon hearing the news he told us, “My heart really feels good for the Hollies, especially [frontman] Allan Clarke. I truly believe that they deserve to be so honored.”

Also nominated for the first time are the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Bassist Flea says, “Who would of thunk?”

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A new Red Hot Chili Peppers photo book is due out in November. Red Hot Chili Peppers: Me and My Friends by photographer Tony Woolliscroft compiles almost 20 years of pictures of the band on the road. Peppers drummer Chad Smith penned an introduction to the book.

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The British tabloids have been ripe with stories about the love life of Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood. On September 14th, he reportedly had a fight with his 20-year-old Russian girlfriend over him wanting to meet his estranged wife and daughter for dinner. Now comes word that they have patched things up and moved into a 65-hundred-dollar a week castle on the outskirts of London. The Telegraph is reporting that the home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms and a library.

As for how strong his relationship is with Ekaterina Ivanova, The Mail on Sunday quotes a source as saying, “It isn’t over with Ekaterina, but in all honesty, Ronnie doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s really unhappy. He’s told [his estranged wife] Jo that it isn’t all over with Ekaterina, but he’s agreed to put their divorce on hold until after the New Year. Ekaterina freaked out at that and it has added to the problems they’ve been having. They haven’t changed their minds about divorcing, but they’re not in any rush.”

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Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry will be on Capitol Hill today along with some of the country’s top experts on Alzheimer’s, cancer, genetics, post-traumatic stress disorder and H-I-V/AIDS. They’ll be taking part in the Rock Stars of Science Briefing, making people more aware of medical research and advocating for the importance of scientific inquiry. Perry will take part in a panel titled “The Rock Star and The Scientist: Same Brain Waves,” which will focus on the links between music and science and the importance of both. After the discussion concludes, Perry will jam with some of the scientists.

Perry and his wife Billie met yesterday with Senator John McCain of Arizona, last year’s Republican presidential nominee.

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Even though Aerosmith have some internal issues and the members are all pushing 60 — in fact, Steven Tyler is 61 — guitarist Joe Perry is still hopeful they’ll continue to record and tour. He tells the Boston Herald, “Maybe we have three more records in us. Maybe we have [between] five (and) seven years of touring.”

Aerosmith will re-group for four more shows later this year, but they have no other plans to perform or record. Joe Perry will hit the road in November with The Joe Perry Project in support of his new album, Have Guitar, Will Travel, in stores October 6th.

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U-2 played Giants Stadium in New Jersey last night, but they weren’t the only rock giants in the house. Garden State rock legend Bruce Springsteen, who was celebrating his 60th birthday yesterday, was at the show. It was rumored that Springsteen would join the Irish rockers on stage, but they just wished him a happy birthday, and covered “She’s the One” in the Boss’s honor. U-2 also performed a tribute to Quincy Jones, who was also in the audience, dedicating to him “It’s a Beautiful Day” and then segueing into Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.”

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Marilyn Manson says he’s got the swine flu. He made the claim on MySpace, writing, “So I have officially been diagnosed, by a real doctor, with the swine flu. I know everyone will suggest that [screwing] a pig is how this disease was obtained. However, the doctor said, my past choices in women have in no way contributed to me acquiring this mysterious sickness. Unfortunately, I am going to survive.” Manson has yet to cancel any dates on his Canadian tour, which wraps up Saturday.

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Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck will team up for a show at the O-2 arena in London on February 13th — about one year after they joined forces in Saitama, Japan. They plan to play their own respective sets and share the stage for a third. Clapton says, “I’ve always considered Jeff Beck to be one of the finest guitar players around. He’s a friend, a great guy and a truly gifted musician. We had such a fun time in Japan that it seemed natural to play together again.”

Beck performed Monday night in London with the Imelda May Band. He says Jimmy Page and Ron Wood were in the audience but they “declined my offer to join me on stage.”

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After touring together this summer, Def Leppard and Cheap Trick have announced the dates for a fall tour, which will hit mostly the northern half of the country and Canada. It starts October 22nd in Reno, Nevada and runs through November 25th in Louisville, Kentucky.

Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott joined Cheap Trick on stage in Las Vegas last weekend at their Sgt. Pepper show. He sang “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and “All You Need Is Love.” The Tricksters ended their nine-show run of Pepper shows last night.

The show’s coming to Vancouver Tuesday October 27th at the Pacific Colliseum.

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Muse have scored their highest chart debut ever with The Resistance, as it bows at number-three on the Billboard 200 album chart with 128-thousand copies sold last week, according to Soundscan. It’s their second Top 10 album — 2006’s Black Holes and Revelations peaked at number-nine.

Megadeth have the sixth Top 10 album of their career, as Endgame bows at number-nine. Their last album, 2007’s United Abominations, also made the Top 10, making this the first time Dave Mustaine and company have had back-to-back Top 10 albums since 1994’s Youthanasia and 1997’s Cryptic Writings.

The pride of Freehold, New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen, hits the big six-oh today and he’s showing no signs of slowing down, as he says he has toured more between the ages of 50 and 60 than at any other point in his career. But he won’t be celebrating the big occasion on the road — he and The E Street Band are off until next Wednesday when they start a five-night run at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the final concerts at the 33-year old venue.

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KISS will make recordings of each of the shows on their Alive 35 tour available for sale immediately after each performance. You’ll be able to buy the authorized bootleg as a U-S-B leather wristband with a KISS metal buckle or as a two-C-D collector’s box. The Alive 35 tour starts Friday in Detroit.

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Steven Tyler’s broken shoulder has less than a month to fully heal, as Aerosmith have booked two shows in Hawaii — October 18th in Honolulu and the 20th in Maui. These are the make-up dates for the shows they canceled two years ago, which prompted a class-action lawsuit against the band. They also have two other shows on the docket this year — one in the United Arab Emirates and one in San Francisco.

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Foo Fighters fans will officially be able to get their hands on the acoustic version of “Everlong” that Dave Grohl performed during a much bootlegged radio appearance in 1997. According to Rolling Stone, that track — as well as the studio version — will be on the band’s Greatest Hits album that’s due out November 3rd. The first single from the collection, “Wheels,” will have a video directed by Sam Brown, who did clip for “The Pretender.” The deluxe edition of Greatest Hits will be come with a D-V-D of the Foos’ videos, as well as live footage from their concerts at London’s Wembley Stadium and Hyde Park and the Skin and Bones acoustic tour.

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Jimi Hendrix’s sister Janie Hendrix says there’s plenty of unreleased material from her late brother still to come. She says, “We probably have another decade of music, including video. Every 12 to 18 months, we’ll continue to have new releases and official bootlegs. Jimi was a workaholic. After Electric Lady Studios was built, he was able to record constantly for as many hours as he wanted to. It’s almost as if he knew he had only four years to accomplish everything that he did.” Among the projects to be released is a film of his 1969 show at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

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Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee has signed on to be a judge for the ninth annual Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands. The event, taking place October 3rd at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, will see eight bands compete for the title. Lee says, “An amazing amount of talent exists across the country, and for people to come together in the workplace and express themselves in a different way proves what kind of power music has in elevating morale and bringing people together.” –Steve Reynolds

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Crosby, Stills and Nash postponed their show last night in Santa Barbara, California because David Crosby was under the weather. The show has been rescheduled for October 1st, making it the last date of the tour. C-S-N is in Los Angeles tonight.

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U-2 switched things around Monday night in Foxboro, Massachusetts opening their show with “Magnificent” instead of “Breathe.” The 360-Degrees tour continues tonight with the first of two shows at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

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The release of Composing Himself: The Authorized Biography of Jack Bruce has been pushed back to next February. Eric Clapton wrote the foreword.

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Cheap Trick wind up their run of nine Sergeant Pepper shows at the Las Vegas Hilton tonight.

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Slash hit the studio in Los Angeles yesterday to record one more track for his solo disc with Duff McKagan and Dave Grohl.

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Lego Rock Band, which features players as Lego figurines and includes songs by Foo Fighters, Blur and Tom Petty, hits stores November 3rd.

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Alice in Chains’ new album, Black Gives Way to Blue, is streaming now at Alice-In-Chains.net.

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Death Cab for Cutie’s new song “Meet Me On the Equinox” will be on the “New Moon” soundtrack.

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The C-D also includes new music from the Killers and Thom Yorke of Radiohead. Band of Skulls, Grizzly Bear, Anya Marina also contributed, as well as Stephenie Meyer’s favourite band, Muse.

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The soundtrack drops October 20th, one month before the movie opens.

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A publicist says Scott Weiland is “doing great” since he suffered a seizure during a flight that forced an emergency landing.

Weiland suffered the seizure on a flight from Los Angeles to Miami.

He reportedly has a history of seizures.

TMZ.com says after the landing in Dallas, Weiland was taken to the hospital, where he was treated and released.

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They’re still fab nearly 40 years after breaking up.

The Beatles have sold more than two-and-a-quarter million copies of their re-mastered albums in the first five days after their September 9th release.

The Fab Four breaks a number of records with those sales.

On Billboard magazine’s pop catalogue chart, for example, the band had 16 titles in the top 50, including all 14 re-mastered CDs and two box sets.

Another day, another charge against Coldplay — but this time, Chris Martin and company are being accused of plagiarizing a video instead of a song. Singer-songwriter Andy Gallagher says the band’s “groundbreaking” video for “Strawberry Swing” bears a striking similarity to a year-old clip for his song “Something Else” — which shows him flying superhero-like through the clouds, digging though a tunnel and fighting off attacks.

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Meanwhile…there’s a settlement in the lawsuit over Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida.”

Court records show guitarist Joe Satriani and Coldplay have reached a deal in the copyright infringement suit.

Satriani sued Coldplay in December, claiming the band copied “substantial, original portions” of his 2004 song, “If I Could Fly.”

Coldplay won a Grammy Award earlier this year for “Viva La Vida.”

A federal judge in Los Angeles last week dismissed the case at the request of lawyers for both sides.

No details about the deal are included in court papers, other than each side would pay its own legal costs.

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Meat Loaf said he was retiring from music, but that’s a lie.

He’s working on a new album right now.

Meat Loaf has said four times he’s giving up music, but he’s in the studio now with producer Rob Cavallo.

Cavallo happens to be working on another artist at the same time at Meat Loaf’s suggestion: Adam Lambert.

Meat Loaf won’t say what his album sounds like, only that “it’s so good that it’s frightening.”

He says he hasn’t gone off on a weird tangent or anything, and the only weird thing he’d ever do is an album of Broadway show tunes.

The as-yet-untitled album should come out in April.

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Five Finger Death Punch have found their missing guitarist. The band had lost contact with Zoltan Bathory on the eve of its biggest tour to date and posted a message on its website saying, “We have not been able to locate Zoltan since Friday night’s show in Las Vegas. He has not responded to calls, text messages or E-mails, and he was last seen at Wasted Space in the Hard Rock Casino, taking tequila shots at the bar with a group of guys from a bachelor party who came to the show.” But now a message on the site says, “Hey everybody — we found Zoltan!! We just talked to him and although he sounded somewhat incoherent he says he’ll be fine and the tour will start as planned tomorrow!! Sorry if he worried anyone!”

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The cameras and audio recorders were rolling when Paul McCartney played three shows in July at the home of the New York Mets baseball team, Citi Field in Queens, New York — and now a C-D/D-V-D package from those shows is in the works. Macca was the first act to play Citi Field, and along with The Beatles, he was the first to perform at Shea Stadium, the old home of the Mets.

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The Joe Perry Project did a rehearsal show Sunday night in Plymouth, Massachusetts that featured a few Aerosmith numbers, including a reggae version of “Dream On,” The Yardbirds’ “Train Kept-A Rollin’,” which Aerosmith does in concert, and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The next rehearsal show is set for Saturday in Foxboro, Massachusetts. He’ll then do a show on October 6th in West Hollywood, California in support of that day’s release of his new album, Have Guitar, Will Travel, followed by three-to-four weeks worth of dates in November and possibly more in January.

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Jack White did his best Kanye West impression on Friday night in Toronto, invading the stage during a question-answer session by the director of the White Stripes documentary Under Great White Northern Lights. Emmett Molloy was discussing his use of footage from Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, when White bounded onto the stage, grabbed the microphone and proclaimed, “I’m gonna let you finish, but Orson Welles did one of the greatest films of all time!”

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Metallica’s September 11th show at the two-thousand-seat Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Marin County, California raised 200-thousand dollars for Marin Rocks, an interactive museum of Marin music history that is scheduled to open next summer. In addition to Metallica, among the other artists based in or around Marin include members of The Grateful Dead, Journey, Sammy Hagar and Carlos Santana.

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Is racism responsible for the loud, angry protests over policies by President Obama? C-N-N asked that question of Dave Matthews, who said, “Of course it is! I found there’s a fairly blatant racism in America that’s already there, and I don’t think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it’s sort of thrust in your face, and then you came back here — I just see it everywhere.” Matthews points a finger at the news media for ratcheting up the level of bitterness in public discourse, and he doesn’t think Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite could get hired today because “they’re thoughtful, and they’re patient, and they’re trying to tell you a truly balanced story. They’re trying to impart information. I don’t think that’s the goal [today] because it’s not a good business plan.”

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The Killers have set a November 10th release for Live From the Royal Albert Hall, their first-ever concert D-V-D. The band recorded the disc during a two-night stand at the famed London venue in July. It also includes a behind-the-scenes documentary recorded on The Killers’ British tour and several performances culled from a series of U-K festival appearances.

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Add Judas Priest singer Rob Halford to the list of artists recording Christmas albums. This Christmas season, Halford will release Halford Three — Winter Songs, featuring such classics as “Come All Ye Faithful” and “Oh Holy Night,” as well as some new songs, including “Get Into the Spirit.” This will be Halford’s first solo album since 2002.

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In 2008, Jason Bonham left the drum seat in Foreigner hoping that his dreams of a Led Zeppelin reunion would come true. That was not to be, so he’s put his group, Bonham, back together with tour dates set for next month. In addition to Bonham songs, he’ll do material from the other bands he has played in, including Zeppelin, Foreigner and U-F-O. Bonham says the shows are a tribute to their former singer, Daniel MacMaster, who died last year.

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Blink-182 is thanking the two burn centers that treated drummer Travis Barker following the plane crash he was in last year by donating 100-thousand dollars from their show last Saturday in Phoenix. In a statement the band says the donation is “being made in recognition of their tremendous care and aid of Travis Barker through his recovery from the 2008 plane crash.” The recipients are the Joseph M. Still Burn Center in Georgia and the Grossman Burn Center in California.

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Muse has contributed a fresh remix of “I Belong to You” to the soundtrack of the Twilight sequel New Moon, which hits stores on October 20th.

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Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason won his race at the Goodwood Revival Festival in the U-K Sunday, drivinghis red 1935 Aston Martin Ulster. His daughter Holly came in seventh in her father’s 1934 Aston Martin Ulster.

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Kings of Leon have been nominated in five categories at the M-T-V Europe Awards, which take place in Berlin on November 5th.

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A-F-I will stream their new Crash Love album on their MySpace page today and tomorrow.

MAJOR CONCERT ANNOUNCEMENT COMING UP AT 7:15 THIS MORNING!!!

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Scott Weiland, vocalist with Stone Temple Pilots and solo performer, suffered a health scare this week after he had a seizure during a flight to Miami.

The commercial aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing as flight crew called for him to be transported to hospital. They had already sought medical assistance during the flight and had administered pure oxygen.

Weiland was flying from Los Angeles to Miami to appear at a club. He was due to make a performance which would launch his new clothing line Weiland For English Laundry. However, the unexpected detour saw him landing at Dallas’ Fort Worth airport instead.

The singer was reportedly came around and was in high spirits as he was loaded into the ambulance. He is still expected to make his scheduled appearance at the Mansion club in Miami.

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Scott Weiland’s wife knew something was seriously wrong with her when she burned all his clothes in the driveway.

Mary Forsberg Weiland writes in her upcoming book, “Fall To Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Mental Illness,” that incident led to her diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

In 2007, the Weilands got into a fight, and Forsberg Weiland torched 10 thousand-dollars worth of her husband’s clothes in the front yard.

Forsberg Weiland says,” I just remember my true self watched helplessly as I fell into deep mania.”

The Weilands have since split up.

The book comes out November 10.

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Fans will pay tribute to Johnny Ramone of The Ramones by partying in a cemetery. Tommy and C-J Ramone will be part of the celebration of Johnny’s life at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles on October 3rd.

The party includes a showing of the 1977 Ramones concert film “It’s Alive” on the mausoleum wall, as well as a screening of Johnny’s favourite movie, “Night of the Living Dead.”

Proceeds from the event will benefit the Johnny Ramone Research Fund at U-S-C Westside Prostate Cancer Center.

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Even though they’re splitting up, Avril Lavigne has lovely things to say about Deryck Whibley of Sum 41.

He’s not saying anything.

Lavigne confirms on her Web site she and Whibley are separating after being married for three years.

She says she’s grateful for their time together and she feels blessed that they remain friends.

She calls him “the most amazing person I know.”

Whibley posted a video on Sum 41’s site on Saturday that only says the band is recording a new album.

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Leonard Cohen is recovering after collapsing onstage in Spain.

Cohen was performing his song “Bird on a Wire” in concert in Valencia when he collapsed.

Video shot by fans shows him kneeling down several times during the show and then falling over sideways.

His music company says Cohen was taken to a hospital with a stomach complaint but was released early Saturday.

Cohen turned 75 today.

He’s scheduled to perform the last stop of his Spanish tour tonight in Barcelona, and the equipment for his concert has been set up as usual.

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For alt-rock fans looking for a Halloween costume on the cheap, they can be Tom DeLonge of Blink-182.

DeLonge created a bunch of masks of himself to celebrate the launch of his new MacBeth shoe design.

In an instant the masks were hotter than the shoe.

Fans can now go to www.macbeth.com/blink182 and download their own Tom mask.

MacBeth is even raising the stakes.

It’s created a contest for fans to recreate a scene from their favorite Blink video wearing the Tom mask.

The top five videos will win a pair of MacBeth shoes.

A grand prize winner will win a trip to Blink’s New York show on October 4.

DeLonge himself will choose the winner.

The details are on MacBeth’s site, and the deadline to enter is Friday.

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Mike Byrne would have been happy just spending ten minutes in a room with Billy Corgan.

He’ll spend a whole lot more time than that with Corgan, since he’s been named Smashing Pumpkins’ new drummer.

Byrne tells The Oregonian he was “sort of geeking out” when he went for his audition. Corgan chose Byrne over 1000 other drummers.

Since Byrne is only 19, Corgan wanted to make sure it was OK with Byrne’s parents, and Byrne had to quit his job at McDonald’s.

How far he’s come since then.

One of Byrne’s rock star moments was to go into the headquarters of drum maker Zildjian (ZILD’-jin) and pick out anything he wanted.

He says it was “a really, really good day, to say the least.”

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Iggy Pop is being rendered as a Lego man.

Pop will be a Lego minifigure in the upcoming video game “Lego Rock Band.”

His voice will also be the guide for the game’s tutorial.

The game is due to come out by December.

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Sick Puppies has something that’s a bit rare in rock and roll these days: a female member.

Bassist Emma Anzai (AN’-zeye) says sometimes she gets mistaken for the girlfriend of one of the guys in the band, but on the whole she doesn’t get harassed.

She originally played guitar because that was the best way for her to play her favorite songs by herself, but she wanted to be in a band so she switched to bass.

Singer Shim Moore says people are respectful of Anzai, especially because “she smokes other bass players in other bands.”

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U-2 are still touring behind their new album, No Line on the Horizon, but Bono is already looking down the road. He tells Canada’s Sun Media, “We’ve got a few albums up our sleeves. We’ve got a whole album we started with Rick Rubin, which is a rocking club album with beats and big guitars, and I can’t wait to get back to that… We have five or six songs on that album. We have about 12 on the Songs of Ascent (ambient album they started), plus The Edge and myself have written Spider Man: The Musical — that’s nearly done. It’s been an incredible time as songwriters.” It looks as though Spider Man will be the first to see the light of day next year.

U-2 play the second of two shows in Foxboro, Massachusetts tonight.

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Bruce Springsteen will play at yet another benefit concert this fall. He’ll appear at the Concert for Autism Speaks on November 17th at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Jerry Seinfeld will headline the event, and N-B-C News’s David Gregory will M-C. The show will come between Springsteen’s concerts with the E Street Band in Milwaukee on November 15th and Nashville on November 18th.

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Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry plans to go ahead and tape his portion of The Beatles’ A-B-C special that was scheduled to air on Thanksgiving — even though, as we’ve reported, it’s been postponed to next year. The show will feature a number of today’s acts performing Fab Four songs, and Perry will record his segment early next month in Las Vegas. He tells us, “We haven’t figured out what song we’re gonna do, but it’s gonna be a lot of fun.” Perry and Aerosmith performed in the 1978 theatrical bomb Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They covered “Come Together,” which they occasionally still do in concert.

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A-C/D-C is reportedly working on a box set that will come in a box shaped like an amplifier that works. If it comes to fruition, it will reportedly contain three C-Ds, two D-V-Ds and a vinyl disc that will have studio and live rarities. It will also come with a 164-page book, lithographs of unpublished photos, a flyer for the 1976 Lock Up Your Daughters U-K tour and a poster from the 1977 European Let There Be Rock tour.

Also in the works is a three-disc box version called Best of the Box Set, which will have the studio rarities C-D, one C-D of live rarities and the Family Jewels part three D-V-D.

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Last Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the release of the four KISS solo albums, and former guitarist Ace Frehley tells us he tried to make his new album, Anomaly, like that first disc. Ace says, “I think this album’s probably the closest album to the first album than anything I’ve done after that… [The first album] was a good record. It had a lot of different facets to it.”

Ace will promote the album with two in-store appearances this weekend — Saturday at Vintage Vinyl in Fords, New Jersey and Sunday at Looney Tunes in West Babylon, New York.

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Slash will be bringing a lot of his friends to Las Vegas October 2nd for a concert to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Mirage Hotel. Joining the ex-Guns n’ Roses guitarist for the show are Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Jason Bonham, Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee, Courtney Love, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen, Rob Zombie and Slash’s Velvet Revolver and Guns n’ Roses bandmate Matt Sorum.

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Former Journey singer Steve Perry was scheduled to be at this weekend’s game between the longtime rival Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants in Los Angeles, but he wasn’t staying for all nine innings. Perry, a Giants fan, does not like that the Dodgers play Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” in the eighth inning as a rally song. He tells the San Francisco Chronicle, “I have to. I don’t want to hear it. It tweaks me to know they’re using the song as a rally song. I really wish we’d have hijacked it first. I think the song is about hope and power, and it’s working for them, damn it.” And it worked for them again as the Dodgers took two out of the three games.

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Rush have launched an auction of rock memorabilia on E-Bay as part of their Grapes Under Pressure initiative in support of Grapes for Humanity, an organization that raises funds with the assistance of the international wine community to benefit humanitarian causes around the world. Among the items up for grabs are autographed guitars signed by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and members of Pearl Jam, Judas Priest and others, as well as a signed cymbal from Neil Peart’s personal drum kit.

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Korn singer Jonathan Davis will D-J before Infected Mushroom perform at their record release party at Terminal 5 in New York on October 3rd.

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Eddie Van Halen appears as himself tonight on the season premiere of Two-and-a-Half Men, the C-B-S sitcom starring Charlie Sheen.

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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concerts at New York’s MadisonSquareGarden on October 28th and 29th will be edited down to a four-hour special that will air on H-B-O on November 29th. The shows star Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, C-S-N, Eric Clapton, Simon & Garfunkel, U-2, Metallica, Van Morrison, Sting, James Taylor, Jackson Browne and many others.

Smashing Pumpkins aren’t just releasing an album for free — it’s an entire boxed set of new material. It’s called “Teargarden by Kaleidyscope” and it will include 44 songs. Billy Corgan says it’s based on “The Fool’s Journey” of the Tarot (TAYR’-oh), broken down into four phases by four characters: the Child, the Fool, the Skeptic and the Mystic. He says Smashing Pumpkins will release a song at a time beginning around Halloween. The songs will be free with no strings attached: no need to give an e-mail address or sign up for anything, and fans can download the songs as many times as they want. Smashing Pumpkins will also issue 11 limited edition EPs of four songs each, and a deluxe boxed set that will have different elements than the EPs.

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Joe Perry hasn’t spoken to Steven Tyler in over five weeks. Perry says he hears Tyler is getting better since falling off a stage on August 5, but he doesn’t really know what’s going on with him. Tyler broke his left shoulder and got 20 stitches in his head, forcing the cancellation of the tour. Perry acknowledges he was upset when Tyler was hurt, because right before that Tyler had pulled a muscle in his leg and Aerosmith had to take off for two weeks. Perry says Tyler “has got to get his act together.” He says they haven’t written a song together alone in the same room in over 10 years. He says, “There’s been some changes in paradigm of what Aerosmith is.”

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The manager for former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor refutes a story in the Mail on Sunday that says Taylor is down on his luck and plans to sue the Stones over unpaid royalties. Jeff Allen tells the N-M-E that Taylor and the Stones are on good terms and that the last time they saw each other they acted like “long-lost lovers.” He goes on to say, “When Mick was ill either six or eight weeks ago with some kind of chest complaint, Mick Jagger had his office phone up to see what was going on, and then he phoned up the hospital just to check on Mick because they were worried about him. So there’s absolutely no animosity between Mick and the Stones.” As for his living situation, Allen says Taylor lives in Holland with his girlfriend and that he’s having his suburban London home — which was described as being run down — fixed up. The Mick Taylor Band will tour Germany and France in October.

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Pavement are reuniting. Matador Records confirms Pavement will do a tour beginning September 21 in New York. No other dates have been announced and they do not plan to make an album. Pavement broke up in 2000.

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Michael Jackson’s mom is getting $86,204 to support herself and his three kids. That’s not per year — per month. Katherine Jackson, his three children and unnamed charities were named the estate’s primary beneficiaries. The amount Katherine Jackson was receiving was unsealed yesterday.

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Ozzy Osbourne admits to biting the head off a bat and off a dove, but he never refused to go on stage until he killed 15 puppies. Osbourne writes on his Web site he’s giving the straight story in his new autobiography, “I Am Ozzy.” He says he took a potentially lethal combination of drugs for 30 years, survived a direct hit by a plane, overdosed, and dealt with STDs, yet he almost died riding over a bump on a quad bike at two miles per hour. Osbourne says his life story “ain’t gonna be pretty,” and he’s always been drawn to the dark side, but he isn’t the devil. The U.S. release date for “I Am Ozzy” has not yet been announced, but it will come out in the U.K. on October 1.

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Ozzy Osbourne says he’s about halfway through recording his next album — and he’s doing it with a new guitar player. Gus G, who filled Zakk Wylde’s shoes at Ozzy’s last two gigs, is working on the disc. Ozzy says Wylde doesn’t need him because he has his own great band in Black Label Society. But he insists, “I don’t want people to think we’ve fallen out, because we’d never fall out.”

Ozzy will receive the Legend of Live award at the Billboard Touring Awards on November 5th in New York. The award “recognizes an individual who has made significant and lasting contributions to live music and the touring business.” The Allman Brothers Band got the award last year.

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John Oates of Hall and Oates will be the headliner for the American Mustache Institute’s ‘Stache Bash. According to the news release, it will be the first appearance of Oates and his mustache since they parted ways in 1990. Oates’ mustache is starring the online animated series “J-Stache.” The ‘Stache Bash is October 30 in St. Louis. Hall and Oates will release a boxed set on October 13. They will appear on QVC on Monday. Oates released a solo album last year called “1000 Miles of Life.”

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Andrew McMahon of Jack’s Mannequin is proud to say his cancer is four years in remission. He was diagnosed with leukemia in 2005. He was first taken to the hospital the day their “Everything in Transit” album was finished and it came out the day he got a stem-cell transplant that saved his life. He says he has a few blips every now and then, but mostly he’s feeling fine, even when he’s on tour. He says touring is punishing enough, and sometimes it’s tough to tell if it’s an effect of his cancer treatment or “traveling around on a bus with 12 other dudes.” A documentary about McMahon’s struggle with cancer, “Dear Jack,” comes out November 3. McMahon will hit the road for a solo tour beginning October 4 in Denver.

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Queensryche are taking Lita Ford on tour with them. Ford will perform three songs during Queensryche’s set, including her duet of “Close My Eyes Forever,” with Queensryche singer Geoff Tate singing Ozzy Osbourne’s part. Ford will perform with Queensryche beginning October 15 in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Big Star are showing themselves, and that’s a rare thing. Big Star will play a show in New York on November 18. Big Star have not played live much over the years. The current incarnation of the band includes original frontman Alex Chilton and drummer Jody Stephens, and Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of The Posies.

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Pearl Jam’s ninth studio album, Backspacer, will be available at Target starting on Sunday. (The retail chain starts its sales week on Sunday, so that’s when their exclusive albums hit the racks.) The album — which features the single “The Fixer” — sees the veteran Seattle band reunited with producer Brendan O’Brien for the first time in over a decade. (O’Brien was the band’s producer from 1993 to 1998.) Fans won’t need to go only to Target to get Backspacer — it’s also available through I-Tunes and select independent record stores.

The Target version comes with an online bonus. When the disc is put into a computer, it will unlock a vault of 11 concerts recorded throughout the band’s career. Fans then can download two of the shows.

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Director Jonathan Demme says his upcoming Neil Young concert film, Neil Young Trunk Show, is the second in a trilogy of films he plans to make with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame legend. Demme, who conceived the 2006 film Heart of Gold as a look at Young’s acoustic side, tells Rolling Stone that Trunk Show is not for everyone. “I always tell people, absolutely and sincerely, if you’re not a Neil Young fan, don’t waste your time. Second of all, if you don’t love electric guitar, don’t go. Because of [the 20-minute long] ‘No Hidden Path,’ you’ve got to be there for electric guitar. It’s got to speak to you in order to get what that’s all about.”

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band resumed their Working on a Dream tour last week in Florida after two weeks off, and guitarist Nils Lofgren tells us those two weeks re-energized the band. “I think when we came back, we weren’t as rusty as I thought we’d be and our batteries were a bit recharged.”

The dates on this final leg are spaced out with Chicago being the next stop Sunday, followed by Des Moines, Iowa on Monday. Then they’re off for eight days before doing the first of the five final shows ever at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey on September 30th.

Sunday’s show in Chicago will feature the Born to Run album in its entirety.

Wednesday’s show in Greenville, South Carolina featured the tour premiere of The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

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Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee wants fans to help out on Public Mayhem, the new album by his side project Methods of Mayhem. Starting on October 5th, Lee and producer Scott Humphrey will post isolated instrument tracks, called stems, on ThePublicRecord.com. You can download the stems and add your own musical ideas to them, and then upload your work to the website. The winner will get a chance to perform with Methods of Mayhem at a record release party when the album comes out early next year.

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Weezer is the latest act to get into the official bootleg business. They’ve launched a Live Official Bootleg website at Weezer.com/Live and will sell the recordings in three packages — a digital-only version with hi-res pics from each show, a C-D with a download and digital pictures, and a C-D with a tour T-shirt, digital download and pictures.

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Jon Bon Jovi says he can understand why people don’t want to see the late Kurt Cobain singing “You Give Love a Bad Name” in the new Guitar Hero 5. Last week, Cobain’s Nirvana bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic expressed their dismay that players could unlock Cobain avatar in the game and make him sing songs by Bon Jovi and Bush. Jon Bon Jovi tells the B-B-C that he declined the offer to be an avatar in the game, adding, “I don’t know that I would have wanted it either. To hear someone else’s voice coming out of a cartoon version of me? I don’t know. It sounds a little forced.”

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Avril Lavigne is looking for a new “Skater Boy.” The Canadian pop singer and her husband of three years, Deryck Whibley — the lead singer of the Canadian pop-punk band Sum 41, announced yesterday that they’ve separated. In a posting on her website, Lavigne writes, “Deryck and I have been together for six-and-a-half years. We’ve been friends since I was 17, and started dating when I was 19, and married when I was 21. I am grateful for our time together, and I am grateful and blessed for our remaining friendship. Deryck and I are separating and moving forward on a positive note.” Rumors of rocky times between the pair have been swirling for the past several months, with the couple only being seen in public once in the past several months.

The U-K’s Classic Rock magazine will present its Classic Rock Roll of Honor awards on November 2nd in London. Among the nominees are A-C/D-C, Chickenfoot, Heaven and Hell, Black Sabbath, The Who, Z-Z Top, Def Leppard, The Rolling Stones, KISS, The Kinks and Deep Purple. Iggy Pop will receive the Living Legend Award. Previous Legend recipients include Alice Cooper, Jimmy Page and Ozzy Osbourne.

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Dave Matthews appears on — and did the cover art for — the new album Pizza Box from banjo player Danny Barnes. Barnes has opened for D-M-B over the years, and fans who pre-order the album will get a bonus C-D called Catterpult Into Outerspace, which features Danny and D-M-B performing two songs from Pizza Box at shows over Labor Day weekend in George, Washington. Pizza Box is in stores October 20th.

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Bruce Springsteen will sit down with Elvis Costello to tape an episode of Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… on September 25th at the Apollo Theater in New York. Costello will be taping episodes for the second season of his talk show — which debuts December 9th on Sundance Channel — all next week at the Apollo. Guests slated to appear on the show include Levon Helm, Sheryl Crow, Lyle Lovett, Ray LaMontagne and Richard Thompson.

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Radiohead drummer Phil Selway has tapped some fellow famous musicians to back him on his solo debut. Selway’s done some sessions with Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche and guitarist-keyboardist Pat Sansone, along with multi-instrumentalist Lisa Germano and ex-Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg. Selway became friends with the four musicians when they worked on Neil Finn’s Seven Worlds Collide project earlier this year.

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Ozzy and Jack Osbourne have teamed up to provide a new police dog for the Muncie, Indiana police department. The new dog will be named Ozzy, and will be replacing K-9 officer Rover, who is retiring at the age of 13. The Osbournes have a connection to Muncie because of Sergeant Jay Turner, who helped Jack Osbourne on the short-lived 2006 reality series Armed and Famous.

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It’s well known that Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson is a commercial pilot, and it seems on the surface he’s balancing two very opposite sides of himself.

Dickinson says being a pilot is a sober life, where he puts on his uniform and goes to work each day.

He says the public see rock stars as wild and out of control, with parties and groupies and drugs backstage.

The two have more in common than you might think.

It’s not that pilots are like rock stars, but rock stars are like pilots.

Dickinson says there’s no way Iron Maiden could have survived as long as it has without the band taking care of themselves.

He says they only punish their bodies on stage and it just looks crazy.

Iron Maiden’s latest D-V-D is called “Flight 666 - The Movie.”

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Creed’s September 25th show in The Woodlands, Texas will be webcast at Rockpit.com.

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Local H frontman Scott Lucas will release an album called Where Did All My People Go with his side project The Prairie Cartel on November 17th.

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Jack Bruce and Robin Trower’s album, Seven Moons Live, will be released in the U-S on October 13th.

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A-C/D-C will tour South America in late November and early December.

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Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong has put his suburban San Francisco home on the market for just under five-million dollars. The five-bedroom spread includes a pool house and professional quality recording studio.

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Chickenfoot’s concert next Wednesday in Phoenix will be filmed for a possible D-V-D. They also filmed their show last month in Atlanta.

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Sting will be in his native Newcastle, England on Sunday as the honorary starter of the 2009 Bupa Great North Run, the 29th staging of the world’s biggest half marathon.

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Kentucky chicken farmer Kevin Skinner now has quite a nest egg.

The country singer has won a million bucks on “America’s Got Talent.”

He’s a country singer.

Skinner also gets a headliner gig in a Las Vegas show.

After the results were announced on N-B-C last night, Skinner thanked his fans for voting for him and said, “I love you all.”

He tops Barbara Padilla, an opera singer from Houston, who’s a cancer survivor.

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Maybe more than hearing who the winner would be on “America’s Got Talent,” the big anticipation was for Susan Boyle.

She gave her first American performance on last night’s show doing a re-working of the Rolling Stones song, “Wild Horses.”

Boyle didn’t seem nervous at all.

Her voice was smooth and strong.

“Wild Horses” will be on her album which will be available November 24th.

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“Heartsick beyond words.”

That’s Noel “Paul” Stookey’s reaction to the death of bandmate Mary Travers.

She was the female third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.

She died in a Connecticut hospital yesterday after battling leukemia for several years.

She was 72.

Bandmate Peter Yarrow says in her final months, Travers handled her declining health with bravery and generosity.

He says Mary was “honest and completely authentic.”

Their version of “If I Had a Hammer” became an anthem for racial equality. Other hits included “Lemon Tree,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane” and “Puff”

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The members of Lit honored their late drummer Allen Shellenberger on what would have been his 40th birthday Tuesday night. Shellenberger died of brain cancer on August 13th. The tribute took place at The Slidebar in Fullerton, California, which the band owns. Among the friends and family in attendance were No Doubt’s Adrian Young, Butch Walker and Sugarcult drummer Kenny Livingston.

Lit used the event to debut a video they’ve put together that features a new song they wrote in memory of Shellenberger, titled “Here’s to Us.” The video was posted on YouTube and the band’s MySpace page yesterday.

They also showed a D-V-D that featured Shellenberger narrating the story of Lit from its first incarnation as a teenaged metal band called Razzle through its last full tour with their late drummer. It closed with footage from last year’s benefit fundraiser in Anaheim that turned out to be Shellenberger’s final live performance.

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Jay-Z is bigger than The Beatles.

“The Blueprint 3” by Jay-Z has sold 476-thousand copies its first week.

It puts him at number one on the Billboard album chart.

It’s Jay-Z’s eleventh number-one album, and that makes him bigger than Elvis too.

He now pushes ahead of Elvis Presley as the solo act with the most number-one albums.

The remastered Beatles catalog has sold a combined 626-thousand copies in the U-S last week, as opposed to 21-thousand copies of their catalog the week before.

“Abbey Road” was the top seller.

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A judge has refused to dismiss a case involving the Allman Brothers Band and their record label in a dispute over royalties.

The band say they have been cheated out of millions of dollars from their early recordings with Capricorn Records.

Those recordings were bought over the years and now are owned by U-M-G Recordings.

U-M-G tried to get the case dismissed, claiming the band’s contract states they should be paid for digital downloads at the same rate as for vinyl records.

A judge disagreed.

The case is expected to go to trial early next year.

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Guitarist Norton Buffalo of The Steve Miller Band is battling cancer.

Buffalo writes on his website he was on tour with Steve Miller all summer and thought he was developing asthma because he was short of breath.

He saw a doctor who said he was fine.

He was still sick a few weeks later and saw another doctor, who diagnosed him with pneumonia.

The first night he got home from the tour, he had a coughing fit.

He went to a hospital and was diagnosed with cancer in the lower right lobe of his lung and in his brain.

He’s called off the rest of his concerts.

Buffalo has been with The Steve Miller Band for 34 years.

The Steve Miller Band is scheduled to start touring again October 1st in Thackerville, Oklahoma.

Bob Dylan’s paintings will be the focus of a major exhibit at the National Gallery of Denmark.

The museum will feature nearly 100 works by Dylan, including the premiere of 30 large-format acrylic paintings from Dylan’s “Brazil Series.”

Dylan has been a visual artist for four decades.

The exhibit opens in fall of 2010.

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All-American Rejects spent yesterday on the set of “One Life To Live.”

They will perform two songs on the show, “Mona Lisa” and “I Wanna.”

Their episodes air December 4th and 7th.

Lionel Richie and Jeremih (jayr-eh-MY’) will appear on the September 29th episode.

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The Fray believed they had signed an agreement with their manager for a finders fee, but now they claim he tricked them into giving him ownership in their songs.

Joe King and Isaac Slade of The Fray are suing manager Gregg Latterman, claiming fraud over a publishing agreement they signed in July 2005.

King and Slade say Latterman told them his company was getting a finders fee, but instead he is now a part owner of their songs.

Their lawsuit says band members Dave Welsh and Ben Wysocki are entitled to part of King and Slade’s publishing income.

Latterman did not return a message requesting comment.

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Phil Collins is clarifying his health issues after media reports stated he’d never drum again.

The British press had picked up on comments Collins made recently at a charity event and ran headlines like “Phil Collins’ Drumming Career is Over.”

Collins writes on the Genesis website that’s only partially true.

He says during the last Genesis tour, he dislocated some vertebrae in his neck and that affects his hands.

He says he had successful surgery, but his hands still can’t function normally.

He says maybe that will change in a year, but for now, he cannot play drums or piano.

Contrary to media reports, he says he is not “distressed” and “stuff happens in life.”

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Christmas will have a new sound this year because the Metal God himself will be belting out “O Holy Night.”

Judas Priest singer Rob Halford is putting out a holiday album called “Halford Three - Winter Songs” with his side project, Halford.

Besides “O Holy Night,” Halford also sings “What Child Is This,” “O Come All Ye Faithful” and several original Christmas songs.

Halford says he’s always wanted to produce a Christmas C-D.

“Winter Songs” comes out October 26th.

The first single, “Get Into The Spirit,” will be played on the radio and on www.RobHalford.com beginning September 29th.

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Toto founding member David Paich will provide the soundtrack to the Emmys.

He will be the bandleader for the Emmys on September 20th.

Bassist Daryl Jones of the Rolling Stones and Ray Parker Junior will be in the band.

Paich calls the band “a big soul group with strings.”

Paich knows what it’s like to be on that stage.

He won an Emmy 35 years ago for co-writing the song “Light The Way” with his dad for the show “Ironside.”

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Anthrax are reliving 1987.

They are releasing a digitally remastered edition of their “Among the Living” album from 1987.

Bonus tracks include alternate takes of “Indians, “One World,” and “Imitation of Life,” plus some live tracks and B-sides.

It also comes with a bonus D-V-D of an Anthrax concert in London originally issued on video in 1987.

The deluxe edition of “Among the Living” comes out November 10th.

That same day, they will release a two - C-D set called “Caught in a Mosh: B-B-C Live in Concert,” based on their live shows from 1987.

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Aerosmith hasn’t broken up, but guitarist Joe Perry says things aren’t good. He tells us he has the same feeling he did when he left the group in 1979. “I think we need everybody to get some perspective, everybody to sit back, and this is actually the first time that we’ve all kind of agreed on it. Me and the other three guys (Brad Whitford, Tom Hamilton and Joey Kramer) want to sit back and wait for the fifth guy (Steven Tyler) to come around, and maybe we’ll have a band back. And I’m hoping that happens in the next couple of years.” Perry goes onto say that they will regroup for four more shows later this year that have been on the books for a while — one in the United Arab Emirates, one in San Francisco and two in Hawaii — but beyond that is anyone’s guess.

Aerosmith cut short their summer tour with Z-Z Top after Tyler broke his shoulder falling off the stage. Since then, there have been allegations that Tyler is no longer sober, a claim he denies.

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Joe Perry will go before Congress next Thursday in Washington D-C. He is part of a panel that is bringing awareness to science. While it might seem a bit strange, he did have aspirations about being a marine biologist. How this came about is he just took part in a photo shoot for G-Q magazine called The Rock Stars of Science, in which scientists were pictured with rock stars. Perry tells us, “There’s a movement to try and show just how much glamour there is in [being a scientist]. They are rock stars and they do have groupies and they do have parties and they do have a lot of fun.” Following the question-and-answer session with Congress, Perry and some of the scientists will have a jam session.

Perry and the Joe Perry Project will perform at Memorial Hall in Plymouth, Massachusetts this Sunday. He’ll release his new album, Have Guitar, Will Travel, on October 6th.

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More acts have been added to the concerts celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on October 29th and 30th at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Added to the lineup on the 29th are Jackson Browne, Little Richard, Bonnie Raitt, Smokey Robinson, Sting and James Taylor, who will be joining the previously announced bill of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Crosby Stills and Nash, Simon and Garfunkel, Stevie Wonder and Paul Simon. The lineup for the 30th now includes Jeff Beck, Jerry Lee Lewis and Van Morrison, along with U-2, Eric Clapton, Metallica and Aretha Franklin.

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The White Stripes and The Raconteurs frontman Jack White lives in Nashville, but he hasn’t forgotten his hometown of Detroit. White donated 170-thousand dollars to have the Clark Park ball field totally renovated. White played baseball on the field as a kid, back when he was still known as Jack Gillis.

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A new name has been added to the list of suspected people who may have killed Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, if he indeed was killed and did not drown in his pool as was claimed. British police recently decided to look back into the case, and on Monday a new name emerged. The band’s former road manager, Sam Cutler, wrote on his blog that Tom Keylock, the band’s former chauffeur, killed Jones. He says that the Stones’ late ex-manager, Allen Klein, launched a private investigation of Jones’ death and that Keylock was “the prime (and only) suspect named in that report.” Cutler goes onto say that in the days following the death, Keylock acted suspiciously and removed or destroyed items at Jones’ house. Keylock died on July 2nd, the day before the 40th anniversary of Jones’ death. Klein died two days later. Representatives for Klein’s ABKCO Music label were not available for comment.

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Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan will make his art gallery debut September 24th at the Hotel Kirkwood in Des Moines, Iowa. The show will feature Crahan’s acrylic-on-canvas paintings, framed photography, prints and Polaroid pictures from his upcoming book The Apocalyptic Nightmare Journey. Slipknot D-J Sid Wilson will perform at the event with the Sound Proof Coalition.

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It looks like Coldyplay and Joe Satriani are going to settle their differences out of court. The suit Satriani filed last December accusing Coldplay of plagiarizing his 2004 song “If I Could Fly” for “Viva La Vida” was dismissed Monday “upon stipulation,” which usually means both sides have come to an agreement about damages.

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U-2 will take time out from their tour to perform at An Evening With Gavin Friday and Friends, an October 4th benefit at New York’s Carnegie Hall. (Gavin Friday is an Irish singer-songwriter who’s a childhood friend of Bono’s.) The show — which includes performances from Scarlett Johansson, Courtney Love and Rufus Wainwright — will raise money for the Global Fund, a charity run by Bono’s Red organization.

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More details have emerged about the 25th anniversary re-release of U-2’s 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. In stores October 27th, it will be available in four configurations — each with B-sides, rarities, alternate versions and previously unreleased songs including “Disappearing Act,” which they first started recording in 1983 and recently finished.

The four versions include vinyl, a standard C-D, a double deluxe-version with a 36-page book, and a limited-edition super-deluxe box set that comes with the two-C-D version, a 56-page book, five portfolio prints and a D-V-D with videos, concert footage and a “Making of” documentary of the album.

U-2 does the first of two shows in Toronto tonight.

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The Scorpions are among the all-star line-up of musicians hoping to bring attention to climate change with a cover of Midnight Oil’s 1988 hit “Beds Are Burning.” The remake, which also features such acts as Duran Duran and Bob Geldof, will be released on October 1st as a free download by Global Humanitarian Forum. The cover does not feature any members of Midnight Oil.