PowerBlogs: Rumour Mills

Even though Scott Weiland’s estranged wife gets into some gritty details of their marriage in her autobiography, she doesn’t have an axe to grind.

Mary Forsberg Weiland says she was working on her book, “Fall To Pieces,” before they filed for divorce.

She says Scott supported it then and now and she’d never say anything bad about the father of her children.

Her big regret — filing domestic abuse claims against Weiland in 2001.

She says she made it up to force him into rehab, and she was shocked when he pleaded guilty.

Forsberg Weiland is bipolar, and many rock fans may recall how she torched all of her husband’s clothes in 2007.

She says that was the episode that finally got her into the right treatment.

“Fall To Pieces” is out now.

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Susan Boyle’s dream has come true in a big way.

When she auditioned for “Britain’s Got Talent,” she said she wanted to be a professional singer but had never been given the chance.

Now her debut album, “I Dreamed A Dream,” has hit number one in Britain.

It sold more than 410-thousand copies its first week out, according to industry figures.

Her album has set a record for the largest first-week sales for a debut album in U-K chart history.

Early sales figures indicate Boyle may make a huge debut on the U-S charts as well.

Final sales numbers come out later this week.

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Drummer Vinny Appice (AP’-ih-see) of Heaven and Hell is having surgery today.

He writes on his MySpace site doctors will correct an injury to his right shoulder sustained during the band’s last tour.

Appice is expected to be playing drums again within five months.

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Creed are putting out their first concert DVD.

“Creed Live” was recorded in September in Houston, the same show that was streamed on the Internet and Creed set a record for most cameras used for a live recording, with 239.

“Creed Live” will play in theatres on December 7th and be released to D-V-D on December 8th.

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Kid Rock is once again entertaining U-S servicemen for the holidays. Tour for the Troops 2009 kicks off today and will visit troops in Southwest Asia and families in Europe before it wraps up on December 12th. Joining Rock and his Twisted Brown Trucker Band on the tour is comedian Carlos Mencia and pop-country singer Jessie James.

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The National Football League has finally confirmed that The Who will provide the halftime entertainment at Super Bowl 44 on February 7th in Miami. They are the fifth classic rock act to perform since Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 game. Since then, the halftime show has featured the “safe acts” Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.

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Roger Daltrey wraps up his Use It or Lose It tour tonight in Clearwater, Florida. The two-month trek covered the country, with only one show having to be canceled — Baltimore, because of throat problems. Unfortunately, his manager says Daltrey has “work commitments” in the U-K and is unable to re-schedule the show.

Up next for Daltrey is The Who’s halftime performance at Super Bowl 44 on February 7th in Miami.

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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have a new release in stores for Christmas. The Live Anthology is a four-C-D box set containing 48 tracks from 1978 to 2007, putting the band’s hits alongside covers of The Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well,” Booker T. and the M-Gs’ “Green Onions” and James Brown’s “Good, Good Lovin’.”

It’s also available in three other versions:

A deluxe box set featuring 62 tracks on five C-Ds plus…
A D-V-D of the band’s 1978 New Year’s Eve concert in Santa Monica, California and the documentary 400 Days, which was shot during the recording and tour for Wildflowers.
A re-mastered vinyl edition of the promo-only 1976 Official Live ‘Leg bootleg.
And a Blu-ray disc featuring all 62 tracks. This is available either through TomPetty.com or at Best Buy.
A seven L-P vinyl box set.
An online-only release called the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Superhighway Tour. Fans who sign up will get 24 of the 48 Live Anthology tracks over an eight-week advance period, along with “archived memorabilia, new band commentary and classic reviews from the vaults.” The final 24 tracks will be available on the day of release.

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Trent Reznor is having a garage sale, and everyone’s invited. The Nine Inch Nails frontman is auctioning off scads of musical equipment on E-Bay, starting with a batch of eight guitars and one hybrid banjo-guitar he’s used on the band’s tours. Reznor says he’s “no longer in need” of the items, which might lend some credence to his promise that the Nails are never going to tour again.

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Them Crooked Vultures didn’t crack the Top 10 as albums by Dave Grohl, John Paul Jones and Josh Homme usually do. The trio’s self-titled debut has landed at number-12 on the Billboard album chart with 70-thousand copies sold, according to the latest SoundScan figures.

The trio shot the clip for “New Fang” just before Thanksgiving in Los Angeles. It’s expected out before Christmas

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Hope you hadn’t gotten your hopes up — Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry and Brad Whitford are not starting a super-group. A post on engineer Kevin Shirley’s webpage has been taken out of context and falsely reported. He’d simply written about working with and admiring a number of great guitarists, including Page, Clapton, Perry and Whitford.

Shirley clarified the post, saying, “Unfortunately, it’s a misread — all I said was I am recording a legend (and I have done plenty in the past), and this guy is seriously thrilling! The Page-Zep thing is not what it is. There is a super-group — there is a classic rock re-mix, but the speculation is all misguided.”

Robert Plant was recently in a Los Angeles recording studio with producer Daniel Lanois [pr: lan-WAH]. Plant was lending his voice to demos by Black Dub vocalist Trixie Whitley.

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Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman and drummer Andy Hurley will be spending the band’s hiatus working with a new project called The Damned Things. That group also includes Anthrax’s Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano, Every Time I Die’s Keith Buckley, and bassist David Karon, who’s the mutual friend that brought all the players together. The Damned Things will hit the studio in December to record the 15 songs they’ve demoed so far.

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Is there another reunion in future for The Police? Drummer Stewart Copeland tells us, “If you ask the three members of the band, you’ll get three different answers.” He believes guitarist Andy Summers would say yes and Sting would say no. But, Copeland adds, “it might happen. In fact it most likely will happen.” The band’s last reunion was in 2007 and 2008. Copeland is promoting his autobiography, Strange Things Happen. Sting just released a holiday album, If on a Winter’s Night, but there’s no word on what Summers is up to.

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Jimi Hendrix’s fret work in “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” tops a MusicRadar.com poll that names the greatest guitar riff. Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’Mine,” which topped the poll five years ago, is number-two, followed by Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.” The rest of the Top 10 has Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” at four, Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla” at five, A-C/D-C’s “Back in Black” at six, Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” at seven, The Beatles’ “Day Tripper” at eight, Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” at nine and The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” at 10.

Led Zeppelin, led by guitarist Jimmy Page, had three songs in the Top 20, followed by A-C/D-C (Angus Young), Black Sabbath (Tony Iommi) and Eddie Van Halen with two each.

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Eric Clapton performed at a benefit last week in Geneva, Switzerland, playing a three-song acoustic set that featured “Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out.” A charity auction included a Clapton-autographed Martin acoustic guitar that went for 150-thousand dollars.

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For the second time in two months, Slash joined The Joe Perry Project on stage, this time at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California. The former Guns n’ Roses guitarist jammed with the Project on the night’s second song, “Walkin’ the Dog.”

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The Smoking Gun website got hold of Shinedown’s backstage concert rider, which proves the band has a sense of humor. Echoing Van Halen’s old “no brown M-and-Ms” demand, Shinedown requests Skittles, but “absolutely no purple Skittles — purple is for terrorists.”

Chris Ross and Myles Heskett, the founding members of Wolfmother who split with Andrew Stockdale before the recording of Cosmic Egg, have joined the rap-rock band The Slew.

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Britain’s Guardian newspaper has named Jack White “Rock Star of the Decade.”

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Muse will perform on the December 19th episode of N-B-C’s Saturday Night Live.

Wendy Dio, the wife and manager of Ronnie James Dio, has released a statement saying her husband has stomach cancer.

“Ronnie has been diagnosed with the early stages of stomach cancer.

We are starting treatment immediately at the Mayo Clinic.

After he kills this dragon, Ronnie will be back on stage, where he belongs, doing what he loves best, performing for his fans.

Long live rock and roll, long live Ronnie James Dio.

Thanks to all the friends and fans from all over the world that have sent well wishes.

This has really helped to keep his spirit up.”

Dio entered the hospital last week, resulting in the cancelation of his U-K tour.

His age is reported to be 67, although there have been reports that he is older.

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John Mayer has landed his second number-one album.

“Battle Studies” has taken the top position on the Billboard album chart its first week out.

It sold 286,000 copies, according to industry figures.

His “Heavier Things” album also hit number one in 2003.

His last album, “Continuum,” sold more copies than “Battle Studies” its first week — 300,000 — but only peaked at number two.

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Sting wanted to make a winter album, not necessarily a Christmas album.

He says he’s ambiguous toward Christmas and the season is not all joy and light.

He did research for his album, “If On A Winter’s Night,” looking at songs from different cultures and time periods that dealt with snow, ice or Christmas.

He came up with 15 or 16 that encapsulated his feelings.

He says all the songs “have a kind of spooky, ghostly quality about them because I think winter’s the season of ghosts.”

He will do some of those songs on “Great Performances” on P-B-S beginning tonight — check local listings.

The C-D is out now.

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Bon Jovi and Muse will be upcoming guests on “Saturday Night Live.” 

Bon Jovi will play December 12, with Taylor Lautner as host.

Muse play on December 19, when James Franco hosts.

The one thing the backstage people must keep in mind with Shinedown: they’re southerners.

The Smoking Gun has posted Shinedown’s backstage rider and their dinner request states, “Remember, we are southern boys. Lamb and duck are welcome, but nothing beats a good ole fried chicken.”

They don’t like pink cups because they’re guys.

They ask for grape Pedialite, which they note is “guaranteed to cure a hangover, or if we find a sick baby.”

They like pulp-free orange juice, because they say, “For every piece of pulp we find, an angry gnome breaks into a good middle class family’s home.”

Shinedown also ask for Skittles, but “absolutely no purple Skittles.

Purple is for terrorists.”

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There were plenty of times when Richie Sambora wanted to ditch school.

Now the street leading up to it bears his name.

Students at Woodbridge High School in Woodbridge, New Jersey, will go to school by walking up Richie Sambora Way.

Sambora paid for a new weight room in the school and named it for his father, Adam, who died of cancer two years ago.

Sambora is also raising funds for Woodbridge teenager Kelly Mahon, who was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

He’s been working on projects to benefit his hometown and he says he’s never taken his success for granted.

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Bon Jovi has filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against a Minneapolis bar for allegedly playing the band’s songs without paying royalties. Sally’s Saloon and Eatery is being accused of failing to secure proper licensing, and the group is seeking unspecified damages. Bon Jovi performs on the Today show this morning (Wednesday).

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The Recording Academy has decided “California Girls” by the Beach Boys and “Feliz Navidad” by Jose Feliciano are worth keeping for posterity.

The academy is adding 25 recordings to its Grammy Hall of Fame, which preserves recordings of historic or cultural significance.

This year’s batch also includes “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors, Janis Joplin’s “Pearl” album, “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World” by James Brown, “Mr. Bojangles” by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Isley Brothers’ “Twist and Shout.”

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A four-hour highlight reel of last month’s two Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concerts will air Sunday on H-B-O at 5:00 p-m [PT]. The shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden featured Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, U-2, Crosby, Stills and Nash, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Simon & Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Jeff Beck, Metallica, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Billy Joel, Ray Davies, John Fogerty, Sting, B-B King, Ozzy Osbourne, Lou Reed, Billy Gibbons and many others. The broadcast will be repeated numerous times throughout December and into January with a D-V-D to be released next year. Net proceeds from the shows will benefit the Rock Hall’s endowment fund.

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Creed will release their first live D-V-D on December 8th. Creed Live was filmed September 25th just outside Houston and is the show the band streamed on the Internet. A deluxe edition of the D-V-D is coming out early next year, packaged with their album Full Circle, a C-D of the concert, a T-shirt, poster and a backstage pass from the Full Circle tour.

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Highlights of concerts from Bruce Springsteen, U-2, Green Day and Creed will air on a new V-H-1 series called Friday Night Alright. The show kicks off on New Year’s Day at 8 p-m [PT]. The Creed episode will air January 29th, Green Day on February 19th, U-2 on March 12th and Springsteen on March 26th.

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Saving Abel were on tour during the US Thanksgiving week last year and are doing it again in 2009. Last year, the band had just played a gig near where most of the members are from, Corinth, Mississippi. Guitarist Scott Bartlett didn’t grow up in the town, so instead he and the Abel crew went to Tupelo, Mississippi, where his parents had built a new home — although his mom and dad were away visiting his brother and sister for the holiday. Bartlett and the crew arrived at the house at 3 a-m to find that there was no turkey in the freezer. With no chance of finding a bird at that time, he and the gang went to Wal-Mart, bought a deep fryer and proceeded to make a great meal out of various “exotic meats” his parents had in their ice box.

Saving Abel are spending this Thanksgiving in Boston, and Bartlett jokes that the group plans to enjoy a more traditional holiday… “We’ll watch football and apologize to our loved ones for everything we did in the past year.”

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Joe Perry’s tour bus was recently involved in a fender-bender with a deer outside Detroit. Perry wasn’t on board and his driver was not hurt, but the deer and the bus weren’t so lucky. The deer was killed and the bus is now in the shop. While it’s being fixed, Perry is using singer Englebert Humperdink’s bus. Perry and The Joe Perry Project are in San Francisco tonight (Wednesday), Mesa, Arizona on Friday and Las Vegas on Saturday.

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The Rolling Stones will take advantage of the publicity surrounding the release of British singing sensation Susan Boyle’s cover of “Wild Horses” by re-releasing the original. The digital release also includes a stripped-down version taken from their 1995 live album, Stripped. It was released on Monday through I-Tunes, along with a video of the Stones performing the song live.

Other artists who have covered “Wild Horses” include Neil Young, Guns n’ Roses, Sheryl Crow and Mazzy Star.

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With Slipknot finally off the road, frontman Corey Taylor is shifting his focus to the next Stone Sour album. The band plans on going into the studio in January to start work on its third album. Taylor tells Noisecreep, “We’ve already got 10 tunes fully written and another 15 we’re kind of working on here and there. When I’m not on the road I’m still working, I never stop. And it’s really good, everything we’re doing is really, really good.”

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The line-up for Warren Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam in Asheville, North Carolina just got a dose of star power with the addition of Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford, Collective Soul frontman Ed Roland and the The Xmas Jam Band, which includes ex-Black Crowes guitarist Audley Freed, The Wallfowers drummer Fred Eltringham and Lynyrd Skynyrd bassist Robert Kearns. They’ll be joined by the already announced Gov’t Mule, Counting Crows and Ani DiFranco at the December 12th show.

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More than two-thousand people were on hand yesterday (Tuesday) in Feltham, England for the unveiling of a Hollywood-style star honoring late Queen singer Freddie Mercury on the 18th anniversary of his death. Queen guitarist Brian May unveiled the commemorative plaque along with Mercury’s 87-year-old mother, Jer Bulsara. Addressing the crowd, May — who also grew up in Feltham — said, “Freddie, we pursued your dream, our dream, and we love you and we always will, and we are very happy to honor you in this way.” Mercury’s mom said of her son, “He grew up to be a man with a big appetite for life and an even bigger talent for music. These things were there in him even as a boy, and coming here to England in 1964 gave him the opportunity to develop his talent and ambition.” The plaque reads, “Freddie Mercury — musician, singer and songwriter,” as well as “1964 and 1968,” denoting the years he resided in Feltham.

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Rush was honored Monday night in Toronto by the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada at its 20th annual awards gala. The Canadian trio was recognized with an international achievement honor for their most recent tour and the release of Snakes and Arrows Live.

Tom Cochrane was honored for having five songs played 100-thousand times on Canadian radio in 2008, including “Lunatic Fringe,” which he recorded with Red Rider.

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The season premiere of Spectacle: Elvis Costello With… on December 9th will feature a conversation with U-2’s Bono and The Edge.

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Dave Navarro will appear at the Need to Feed Thanksgiving Food Drive at Wonderland in Los Angeles tonight (Wednesday).

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Puddle of Mudd will appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live on January 7th.

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Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello produced the debut E-P from New York band Outernational called Eyes on Fire. It’s due out December 8th.

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KISS will tour Europe from May 7th in Dublin, Ireland through June 27th in Belgium. Their North American tour hits Los Angeles tonight (Wednesday), with the show being streamed on their Facebook page.

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Sting’s A Winter’s Night… Live From Durham Cathedral D-V-D, which was released yesterday, will be shown on Great Performances on P-B-S on Thanksgiving night.

Daughtry will play a halftime show on the U-S Thanksgiving as part of a good cause. The band will play during halftime at the Dallas Cowboys-Oakland Raiders game on Thursday.

Their performance is being sponsored by the Salvation Army to draw attention to its annual Red Kettle Christmas charity campaign.

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Colleagues of Haydain Neale are remembering the Jacksoul frontman as an “amazing individual” and a “joyful presence”.

Neale died at Toronto hospital Sunday after a seven-month battle with lung cancer.

He was 39.

Neale had also been recovering from serious injuries after being hit by a car while driving his motor scooter in Toronto in 2007.

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Three Days Grace want to see your football team in action.

The band wants fans to use their song “Break” to create pump-up videos or highlight reels for high school football teams.

They’re looking for video, stills or graphics that showcase a team’s best moments, memorable plays, behind-the-scenes footage or fans.

The winning team will receive autographed copies of Three Days Grace’s album, “Life Starts Now,” for everyone on the team, plus an autographed football.

Details can be found at www.threedaysgrace.com/thegamestartsnow. Deadline is December 2.

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Joe Perry tells us once he’s done with the 2009 leg of his tour next month, he’ll get together with the other three members of Aerosmith — minus Steven Tyler — to discuss auditioning new singers. He tells us, “There’s a lot of good guys out there. It’s just a matter of seeing how it works… We’ll try some different people out… We’ll know pretty quick once we find him.” Perry’s Have Guitar, Will Travel tour pulls into the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California tonight.

As for Tyler, who has yet to comment on the band’s desire to replace him, he performed at the Michael J. Fox Foundation benefit for Parkinson’s disease Saturday night in New York. Also on the bill were Roger Daltrey, Gregg Allman and Elvis Costello.

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Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy has been making good use of his downtime while his bandmates have been busy with the Creed reunion. Kennedy went onto his MySpace page to announce, “I have been locked away working on my [solo] record. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to get everything done. It’s been an amazing experience. I’m working with some great people. I’ll go into more detail at a later date.” Kennedy says he hopes to release the disc next year, but also promises that his group will be returning to action. He insists, “The day after I finish tracking my record, I will fly to Florida to finish Alter Bridge 3.”

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Bob Seger is back in stores today with Early Seger, Volume One, a collection of 10 songs, four of which were previously unreleased. The rest are taken from his early 1970s albums Smokin’ O-Ps, Back in ‘72 and Seven. It is available only at Meijer’s [pr: MY-yers], a Midwest retailer with 190 stores in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky. It will go on sale at BobSeger.com on November 30th followed by a wider release early next year.

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Saving Abel were on tour during Thanksgiving week last year and are doing it again in 2009. Last year, the band had just played a gig near where most of the members are from, Corinth, Mississippi. Guitarist Scott Bartlett didn’t grow up in the town, so instead he and the Abel crew went to Tupelo, Mississippi, where his parents had built a new home — although his mom and dad were away visiting his brother and sister for the holiday. Bartlett and the crew arrived at the house at 3 a-m to find that there was no turkey in the freezer. With no chance of finding a bird at that time, he and the gang went to Wal-Mart, bought a deep fryer and proceeded to make a great meal out of various “exotic meats” his parents had in their ice box.

Saving Abel are spending this Thanksgiving in Boston, and Bartlett jokes that the group plans to enjoy a more traditional holiday… “We’ll watch football and apologize to our loved ones for everything we did in the past year.”

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band wrapped up their Working on a Dream tour Sunday night in Buffalo, New York with a 34-song, three-and-a-half hour affair that included no less than six tour premieres — “Mary Queen of Arkansas” and “The Angel,” from their first-ever performance of the entire Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey album; “Restless Nights” from Tracks for birthday boy, guitarist Steve Van Zandt; “Merry Christmas Baby”; “(I Don’t Want to) Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes)”; and “I’ll Work for Your Love.” Regarding it being the last show, Springsteen said, “It’s been just about the best time in our band’s work life. We want to thank you for supporting our old music, our new music, our tour… So we’re gonna say goodbye, but just for a little while…”

Springsteen dedicated Greetings to his first manager, Mike Appel, who was at the show. Hometown boy Willie Nile joined in for “Higher and Higher.”

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Another Bridge School Benefit album is available on I-Tunes today. The Bridge School Collection, Volume 4 features songs recorded mostly from 2005 to 2008 at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit concerts. The 22-song collection includes performances by John Mellencamp, Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, John Mayer, Norah Jones, Death Cab for Cutie and others.

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A live Dave Matthews Band box set is due out in January. Dave Matthews Band Europe 2009 includes three C-Ds with the group’s July 5th, 2009 show in Lucca, Italy and a D-V-D from the June 26th, 2009 show at O-2 Academy Brixton in London. The box comes with a photo book chronicling the band’s entire 2009 tour and includes room to place the Super Deluxe Edition of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King. Europe 2009 is available as a pre-order now through the D-M-B store.

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Sunday night Slash gave fans a taste of the old Guns n’ Roses line-up at the Slash and Friends LAYN Rocks benefit in Hollywood. He was joined by his old G-N-R bandmates Duff McKagan on bass and Stephen Adler on drums for a take on “Paradise City” that featured Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington on vocals and Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro on rhythm guitar.

The event featured a heavy dose of classic hard rock, as Ozzy Osbourne closed the night with a four-song set, including “Iron Man” and “Crazy Train.” Bennington also tackled Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times Bad Times” while Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale sang lead on “Tangerine.” And Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello led the all-star band through a take on Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak,” with Morello, Navarro and Slash trading off solos during the song.

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Nickelback will be flogging their latest album, Dark Horse, one more time in North America. The tour starts April 6th in London, Canada and has Shinedown and Breaking Benjamin on board as opening acts.  No BC dates…wahhh…wanna see Shinedown again!!!

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U-2 have signed on to headline next summer’s Glastonbury Festival in England.

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Creedence Clearwater Revisited — featuring original C-C-R members Stu Cook and Doug Clifford — have contributed their version of “Run Rudolph Run” to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Hope for the Holidays charity C-D.

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Sting, a supporter of the rain forest, is speaking out against the Brazilian government’s plan to build a massive hydroelectric dam in the Amazon rain forest. Sting founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989.

Taylor Swift and the late Michael Jackson were the big winners at the American Music Awards last night. She was in London preparing for a stadium show and did her bubbly acceptance speeches by live video. The five trophies that will be shipped to her are for Artist of the Year, Favorite Female Artist in Pop/Rock, Country and Adult Contemporary, and for Fearless, named Favorite Country Album. Michael was awarded statues for Favorite Male Artist in the Pop/Rock and Soul/R-&-B categories — which brought the King of Pop to an all-time record of 23 total A-M-A awards — were accepted by his brother Jermaine, who wore a sparkly glove and thanked Allah.

The awards, many of them presented outside the telecast, took a distinct back seat to the performances, a cavalcade of pop stars doing their energetic best to equal or top the dancing and theatricality of their videos on live television. Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna and Black Eyed Peas and all went way over the top, with flaming pianos, flaming homosexuality, a boxing ring, torture rack and choreographed robots, but it was Mary J. Blige, demure in a short dress, and finally Whitney Houston — standing nearly still in a white gown, earning a standing ovation for “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” — who showed the artistry and emotion of serious performers.

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys also got a good response for “Empire State of Mind,” which he did in full-on Sinatra mode, wearing a white jacket and black bowtie, hand casually jammed in his pants pocket. Green Day, who won Favorite Alternative Rock Artist, played the subdued, mostly acoustic “21 Guns,” which left Daughtry to bring the rock, with “Life After You.”

Otherwise, the emphasis was on skin, dancers and eye makeup. (Oh, and every T-V show A-B-C has — in between A-list presenters like Alex Rodriguez, Joe Perry, Samuel L. Jackson and Nicole Kidman, there were cast members from everything on the network’s prime-time schedule.) J-Lo stagerd a boxing match with men in trunks; Shakira had a line of women practicing pelvic thrusts — even Carrie Underwood rocked skimpy hot pants and a gang of Vegas dancers to go along with “Cowboy Casanova.” And, of course, it was Lady Gaga who pulled out all the stops, smashing a glass plate with a mic stand and demolishing a bunch of stunt bottles against a fiery keyboard. And Adam Lambert ended it all with a hyperventilating melodramatic performance of “For Your Entertainment” that Liberace might have found excessive

SHOCKERS

A male dancer grinding his face in Adam Lambert’s crotch

The flesh-colored body suit (with crotch panel) Lady Gaga wore

Jennifer Lopez falling during “Louboutins”

Rihanna’s peekaboo white bandage catsuit

Breakthrough award going to Gloriana, a country quartet who came onstage and admitted a lot of people have never heard of them.

PERFORMANCES

Janet Jackson: medley of “Control,” “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” “Miss You Much,” “If,” “Make Me,” “Together Again”

Daughtry: “Life After You”

Shakira: “Give It Up to Me”

Keith Urban: “Kiss a Girl”

Kelly Clarkson: “Already Gone”

Jay-Z and Alicia Keys: “Empire State of Mind”

Black Eyed Peas: “Meet Me Halfway” and “Boom Boom Pow”

Rihanna: “The Wait Is Over” / “Hard”

Carrie Underwood: “Cowboy Casanova”

Lady Gaga: “Bad Romance” / “Speechless”

Mary J. Blige: “I Am”

Jennifer Lopez: “Louboutins”

Whitney Houston: “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength”

Alicia Keys: “Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart”

Eminem and 50 Cent: “Crack a Bottle” / “Forever”

Timbaland with Nelly Furtado and SoShy: “Morning After Dark”

Green Day: “21 Guns”

Adam Lambert: “For Your Entertainment”

WINNERS

OVERALL

International Artist of the Year: Whitney Houston

Artist of the Year: Taylor Swift

Breakthrough Artist: Gloriana

POP/ROCK

Favorite Male Artist: Michael Jackson

Favorite Female Artist: Taylor Swift

Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Black Eyed Peas

Favorite Album: Michael Jackson - Number-Ones

COUNTRY

Favorite Male Artist: Keith Urban

Favorite Female Artist: Taylor Swift

Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Rascal Flatts

Favorite Album: Taylor Swift - Fearless

RAP/HIP-HOP

Favorite Male Artist: Jay-Z

Favorite Album: Jay-Z - The Blueprint Three

SOUL/R-&-B

Favorite Male Artist: Michael Jackson

Favorite Female Artist: Beyonce

Favorite Band, Duo or Group: Black Eyed Peas

Favorite Album: Michael Jackson - Number-Ones

ALTERNATIVE ROCK

Favorite Artist: Green Day

ADULT CONTEMPORARY

Favorite Artist: Taylor Swift

CONTEMPORARY INSPIRATIONAL

Favorite Artist: Mary Mary

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Green Day are coming full circle with their own music.

They’ve recorded a new version of “21 Guns” with the cast of the musical “American Idiot,” which is based on Green Day’s 2004 album.

They will release it as a digital download soon and they’re filming a video with the cast as well.

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Chickenfoot are putting out a concert movie for one day.

They’ve filmed one of their lives shows and it will be released to theatres on December 1st — and only on December 1st.

For a list of theatres running the film, check out sonyclubdates-dot-com/chickenfoot.

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band wrapped up their Working on a Dream tour last night in Buffalo, New York, and now The Boss will be working on two new releases. His manager, Jon Landau, tells Rolling Stone that 2010 will see the release of the Darkness on the Edge of Town anniversary box set and a Working on a Dream tour D-V-D.

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Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry may not have written a song with Steven Tyler in 10 years, but that’s not stopping him from putting pen to paper. He tells us, “I have a notebook in almost every room [and] I always have a tape recorder with me.” Perry and The Joe Perry Project are on tour in support of his fifth album, Have Guitar, Will Travel, and they’ll be traveling to the House of Blues in Anaheim, California tonight.

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Rush drummer Neil Peart will record a special rendition of “The Hockey Theme,” which will be used during N-H-L broadcasts on Canadian networks T-S-N and R-D-S throughout the remainder of the N-H-L season. Peart says, “Having started out as a Canadian kid who skated on his ankles, and never made a hockey team, it is particularly sweet to be invited to be a part of this national institution — if not on skates, then on drums, performing Canada’s ’second national anthem.’ At last I’ve made the Big Leagues!” Peart has also commissioned D-W Drums to create a special hockey-themed drum kit specifically for use on the song.

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Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington has signed onto PETA 2’s “Ink, Not Mink” anti-fur campaign. He appears bare-chested in a print ad, showing off his tattoos. He says, “I’m a big believer in animal rights. What’s really important is for people to understand the cruelty behind the fur industry.”

PETA 2 is the youth-focused division of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

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Mastodon wrapped up their tour with Dethlock, Converge and High on Fire this past Saturday in San Jose, California and are looking forward to two months off before heading to Australia in January and Europe in February. Drummer Brann Dailor says he plans to “eat turkey, get as fat as possible” and hang out at home in Atlanta, then visit his family in Rochester, New York during the Christmas holiday. He adds that he’s looking forward to “some quality time on the Gold Coast” of Australia in January.

Mastodon will issue a “Royal Edition” of their album Crack the Skye on December 15th. In addition to the original, it includes special packaging and artwork, an instrumental version of the disc, a new lithograph and an instant download of two songs performed live.

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John Fogerty credits his eight-year-old daughter with keeping him young. He tells Parade magazine that he doesn’t “think about age too much, because I’m just in my child’s universe. To me, the best writing in the world is SpongeBob Square Pants.”

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Former Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash recently re-recorded Guns’ “Paradise City” for his Slash and Friends album, due out next spring. Joining him on the song, which was leaked last week, are rappers Cypress Hill and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. On his Twitter page, Slash writes, “Until now, not too many people have heard Fergie sing rock and roll, but she sings it better (than) most dudes I know. She’s a screamer at heart.” Also joining him on the album are Ozzy Osbourne, Meat Loaf, Dave Grohl, Flea, Chris Cornell, Duff McKagan, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper and many others.

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Chicago-based Janus have been drawing a lot of attention with “Eyesore,” the first tune off their debut album, Red Right Return. But frontman David Scotney doesn’t want people to think of the quartet as a singles band. Scotney tells us, “We [spent] a lot of time on each song, so that each song went down its own path to really be as strong as we could make it. I think that philosophy is probably the one thing that ties the whole thing together as an album.”

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Elton John will not re-schedule the U-K Red Piano shows he canceled last month after being hospitalized with the flu and E-coli. However, he is re-scheduling some of the dates on the fall leg of the Face to Face tour with Billy Joel, which they scrapped because of Elton’s condition and “private medical business” that Joel is taking care of.

The following cities have been rescheduled:

Portland, Oregon: February 10th
Salt Lake City: February 19th
Denver: February 22nd
Oklahoma City: February 25th
Kansas City: February 27th
Elton and Billy are also expected to make up the two shows they canceled this summer. They’re slated to be in Buffalo, New York on December 4th and Albany, New York on December 7th.

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Five Finger Death Punch, Zakk Wylde and Biohazard are among the acts who’ve contributed songs to a “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott tribute album compiled by Britain’s Kerrang magazine. The disc will be issued next month to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the guitarist’s murder on an Ohio club stage. It will consist of covers of songs by Pantera and Damageplan.

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In Stores This Week…

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: The Live Anthology (Warner Bros.)
This four C-D box set contains 48 tracks from 1978 to 2007, mixing the band’s hits with covers of The Grateful Dead’s “Friend of the Devil,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well,” Booker T. and the M-Gs “Green Onions” and James Brown’s “Good, Good Lovin’.”

The Black Crowes: Cabin Fever (DVD) (Megaforce/Red)
This D-V-D documents the Crowes recording their latest album live at Levon Helm’s Barn Studios.

Genesis: The Movie Box (5-DVD box set) (Rhino)
This box set contains 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.

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Allman Brothers guitarist Warren Haynes joined Deep Purple on stage the other night in Amsterdam for a jam on “Black Night.”

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There’s no official word, but rumor has it that Ronnie James Dio was hospitalized last week for a heart condition.

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KISS are expected to announce their 2010 European tour today. They perform in Anaheim, California tomorrow night.

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The Bamboozle Festival, which takes place annually in New Jersey and California, is expected to stage a Midwestern edition in 2010. The rumored date is May 15th in Chicago.

Z-Z Top came to the rescue of two stranded motorists this week. They were traveling from North Dakota to British Columbia in a snowstorm when they came upon a car stuck in a ditch. They attempted to pull the car out with one of their tour buses to no avail. But instead of leaving the couple there, they invited them on board and drove them to Jasper, British Columbia.
Z-Z performs in Penticton tonight (Friday); Kamloops on tomorrow and Abbotsford on Sunday. The tour runs through December 1st in Calgary.

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Alice in Chains will hit the road in earnest early next year in support of the comeback album Black Gives Way to Blue. The re-constituted group, which is playing its way across Europe, will kick things off in Vancouver on February 2nd and wind them down in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 21st.  They’ll kick it off February 2nd in Vancouver at the Orpheum.

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Stone Temple Pilots are on a roll in the studio, so they’re calling off their tour dates after next week.

The band say they are postponing their U-S dates in December and January so they can finish their next record.

They will complete their Canadian dates through Tuesday.

STP hope to have the album out by spring.

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The American Music Awards will be heavy on the Jacksons and heavy on “American Idol.”

Janet Jackson has a greatest-hits album out and will do an eight-minute medley of her hits to open the show.

Michael Jackson is up for five awards, including artist of the year.

His biggest competition includes Taylor Swift, with six nominations, and Eminem, with four.

As for “American Idol,” the list of performers includes Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, Daughtry and Adam Lambert.

Other performers include Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Green Day, The Black Eyed Peas, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Whitney Houston and Rihanna.

The American Music Awards will be given out Sunday in Los Angeles and shown on ABC.

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Picture it: Bob Dylan in a Santa hat dancing the polka.

You can see it in the video for “Must Be Santa,” off his album “Christmas in the Heart.”

The video is set at a big holiday house party.

Dylan also has hair down to his shoulders.

Dylan has said he will donate all his royalties from “Christmas In The Heart” to charities to feed the hungry. You can see the video at www.BobDylan.com.

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Ronnie James Dio is in the hospital for an undisclosed ailment.

Dio’s web site says he has taken ill but no other information is given. Dio has called off his European tour.

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Ringo Starr was looking for the perfect producer and happened to look in the mirror.

As he puts it, “I was looking REAL groovy that day.”

For the first time, Starr produced his own album, called “Y Not.”

He got a lot of help in making it.

Dave Stewart, Don Was, Joss Stone, Ben Harper and Richard Marx all make appearances on it.

So does Paul McCartney, who plays bass on one song and does a duet with Starr on another.

Joe Walsh also plays on the album, but perhaps that’s a family connection.

Last December, Walsh married the sister of Starr’s wife, making them brothers-in-law by marriage.

“Y Not” comes out January 12.

Starr will also get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8.

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KISS will stream their November 25th show from the Staples Center in Los Angeles live on their Facebook page. You’ll also be able to interact with other members of the KISS Army on Facebook or at UStream.TV.

KISS is in Fresno, California Saturday and Oakland on Sunday. Tickets to the Oakland show apparently did not sell well, as the band gave away up to eight tickets per person for just the service fee.

KISS will announce their 2010 European tour on Monday.

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My Chemical Romance fully embraced the bigger-is-better approach on their sprawling concept album The Black Parade — and now they’re making a U-turn. Frontman Gerard Way tells Rolling Stone that the album they spent most of 2009 recording is intended to “harness everything that’s great about this band into shorter songs. Almost proto-punk, like The Stooges or M-C-5 — [like] an American rock band instead of a British rock band.”

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Chickenfoot — Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith — will premiere the concert film Chickenfoot Live in theaters on December 1st. It will be shown in high definition and surround sound. No word on when the film, which was shot in Atlanta and Phoenix, will be released on D-V-D.

For a list of theaters, go to SonyClubDates.com/Chickenfoot.html.

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Dates for 2010 the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival have been announced — June 10th through 13th. It’ll once again take place in Manchester, Tennessee. Tickets go on sale the day after Thanksgiving, but if you don’t have the scratch right now, don’t worry — the organizers are once again offering a five-installment payment plan. And if you buy your tickets by December 16th, you’ll also get a Bonnaroo holiday greeting card featuring a photo from the festival’s colorful past.

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Mightier Than the Sword Records is releasing a limited-edition vinyl re-issue of Blink 1-82’s 1997 album Dude Ranch. The disc will be released in black, orange and brown vinyl versions.

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Alkaline Trio has signed to Epitaph Records and will release their next disc through the label in February.

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Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi has had to leave the band’s current tour with The Dear Hunter because of what’s being described as “a family emergency.” A rotating cast of guest musicians will fill in until he’s able to return.

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Airbourne has been added to the bill of the upcoming Canadian tour co-headlined by Motley Crue and The Joe Perry Project.

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Joe Perry’s wife Billie writes on her Twitter page, “This year Joe and I are buying all of our holiday gifts made locally or in the U-S-A to support growth in our country.”

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Bruce Kulick’s next solo album, B-K-3, is slated to hit stores on February 16th. The guest list on the disc includes Kulick’s former KISS bandmate Gene Simmons, Knack frontman Doug Fieger and one-time Motley Crue singer John Corabi.

Bon Jovi’s new album “The Circle” has debuted in the top spot of the Billboard album chart with first-week sales of 163 thousand copies, according to Nielsen/Soundscan. It’s the New Jersey group’s second consecutive number one album and their fourth overall after “Slippery When Wet,” “New Jersey” and “Lost Highway.”

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Former Kiss drummer Peter Criss figures as the Cat Man, he’s got nine lives, but he may be down to five now. Criss discovered a lump near his nipple while lying down watching the news. He says a guy never expects to be sitting in the waiting room of a breast cancer specialist with a group of women, and he doesn’t know how the technician managed to squeeze his pec into a mammogram machine, but he did it. As a result, his cancer was removed in time and he’s doing well. This happened two years ago and Criss says he didn’t tell anyone because he’s had bad luck with the tabloids in the past. His advice for any guy with breast cancer? Criss says he spent most of his life in high heels and red lipstick, so he embraced his feminine side.

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The Top 20 Concert Tours ranks artists by average box office gross per city and includes the average ticket price for shows in North America. The previous week’s ranking is in parentheses. The list is based on data provided to the trade publication Pollstar by concert promoters and venue managers.

TOP 20 CONCERT TOURS

1. (1) U2; $7,689,626; $93.77.

3. (3) AC/DC; $1,827,586; $85.45.

4. (4) Jonas Brothers; $1,388,330; $66.31.

5. (5) Metallica; $1,372,098; $68.13.

6. (7) Depeche Mode; $1,248,377; $64.77.

7. (6) Kenny Chesney; $1,216,996; $64.17.

8. (8) Dave Matthews Band; $1,073,658; $49.62.

9. (9) Britney Spears; $1,022,687; $66.58.

10. (10) Miley Cyrus; $1,012,567; $68.77.

11. (11) Keith Urban; $861,143; $64.15.

12. (12) Rascal Flatts; $809,361; $56.25.

13. (13) Nickelback; $746,730; $43.99.

14. (14) Taylor Swift; $623,743; $47.75.

15. (15) American Idols Live; $614,114; $62.22.

16. (16) Brad Paisley; $607,249; $40.07.

17. (19) Maxwell; $587,183; $72.97.

18. (17) Blink-182; $543,428; $32.79.

19. (18) Lil’ Wayne; $506,278; $41.63.

20. (20) Kings Of Leon; $504,868; $41.81.

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A judge says two Web sites that were selling music by The Beatles for 25 cents a song should remain shut down.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter issued a preliminary injunction against BlueBeat.com and Basebeat.com on Wednesday, effectively halting them from streaming or selling music indefinitely.

A hearing in the case had been scheduled for Friday but has been cancelled.

Music company EMI Group filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month to stop the sites from streaming tracks by The Beatles, Coldplay and other artists. The songs were also available for cheap download.

Site owner Henry Risan argued in court filings that he had re-recorded the music and inserted artistic touches. A phone message left Wednesday evening for Risan’s attorney was not immediately returned.

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David Lynch, the man behind such creep-fests as Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, has his sights set on a more peaceful topic — the life of late Beatles guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Lynch, a longtime follower of the Maharishi and his Transcendental Meditation technique, tells New York magazine that he’s heading to India next month to begin work on the film. The director says, “It’ll have to go in the documentary department, I think. I don’t think it’ll be a talking heads kind of thing, but we’re going to do a lot of interviews with people. We’ll interview — I hope — a 97-year-old man who was with Maharishi from the beginning and get stories of times that weren’t so well recorded.” The Maharishi died in February 2008 at age 90.

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Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer and Brad Whitford both believe that Steven Tyler’s recent gyrations may be a signal that he’s fallen off the wagon. Kramer tells Billboard, “He isolates more and more all the time — that’s what gives it away to me that there’s something going on. I don’t know what that is. I know he’s made some not-so-great choices and he’s got some negative influences around him now… I just want to see him get some help.”

Whitford adds, “This guy has a tremendous history of drug abuse, and…I have a feeling we might be looking at someone who’s just really struggling very badly… But we would never shut the door.”

Nonetheless, Kramer wishes Tyler well in his solo endeavors. At a Connecticut book signing the other day, he said, “I support him. I will always love him. I have always supported him…but we want to play too. I can’t sit around for two years and not play my drums — or not function as a band.”

But Kramer says it will be difficult to replace Tyler. “There’s a difference between a singer and what I call a frontman or a performer. Luckily for us, Steven is both of those and probably the best out there… It would have to be somebody that can…perform the songs as well as sing them.”

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Bono and Wyclef Jean were honored last night in New York by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Awarding the activist musicians with the 2009 Ripple of Hope Award, R-F-KCenter founder Kerry Kennedy said, “As champions of justice, Bono and Wyclef have brought the national spotlight to human rights violations, empowered local activists and transformed the lives of millions of people living in poverty from Port-au-Prince to Darfur. Their efforts evoke the spirit of my father and we are honored to recognize them.” Bono was cited for his role in founding the advocacy organization ONE and (Product) RED, along with his fight against AIDS and poverty in Africa. Wyclef was honored for his work to bring change to his native Haiti through his Yele Haiti organization.

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Mary Forsberg Weiland, the estranged wife of Scott Weiland, has just published her memoir, Fall to Pieces. The book chronicles her childhood in a lower-class Southern California family, her troubled marriage to the singer and her descent into drug addiction and mental illness. While the book is filled with painful stories, the one-time model tells us she’s using it to heal. She says, “What it felt like was my true self hovering over this crazy person who just could not control herself… It’s hard to put all the pieces together. I’m still trying.”

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Flyleaf made a big impact on the Billboard album chart this week with their much-anticipated sophomore album, Memento Mori — which debuts at the number-eight position. Bassist Pat Seals explains the title by telling us, “We were like, what’s the most important thing we could say to anybody who might hear our record — and that’s ‘Remember you will die, remember to treasure each moment you have and really seek out your purpose.’”

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Slash has re-recorded a song from his former band, Guns n’ Roses. The rap-guitar heavy version of “Paradise City,” released only in Japan, features rappers Cypress Hill and Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. Slash is currently working on his debut album, which will be released next year.

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If you can’t make it to a KISS concert on their Alive 35 tour, fear not. They have launched an app that takes you behind-the-scenes of the tour via your I-Phone, mobile phone and online. In addition to what’s happening on the tour, you can preview and purchase music from the band’s 28 albums, buy tickets, get updates, interact with other fans and more.

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Ronnie James Dio and his band, DIO, have canceled their European tour as Ronnie has been hospitalized with an undisclosed ailment. His wife and manager, Wendy Dio, says, “We are waiting for further news.” The tour was scheduled to run through November 29th in Bristol, England.

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Days after Andy Hurley freaked out Fall Out Boy fans by Tweeting about the band’s status, Pete Wentz has weighed in. He tells M-T-V they’re spending some time apart, but says, “I don’t think I would use the word hiatus because I think that word has gotten a dirty name, especially if you say ‘indefinite hiatus.’ I wouldn’t use the word breakup because that’s not true. It’s a break — we’re de-compressing.”

THREE DAYS GRACE POSTPONED DUE TO FAMILY EMERGENCY…RESCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY JANUARY 7th, 2010…hang on to your tickets for the new date!!!

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High school football teams around the country have adopted Three Days Grace’s “Break” as a theme song of sorts, and the band wants to see just how worked up the tune can get them. They’re sponsoring a contest that asks the gridiron heroes to submit videos using the tune as a backdrop for game highlights and/or pre-game rituals. Winning entrants will get autographed copies of Three Days’ Grace’s new album, The Game Starts Now, and an autographed souvenir football. For more information, go to the band’s website.

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It’s hard to imagine Steven Tyler wearing a polo shirt, but it could be yours.

A white polo with the Aerosmith logo owned and worn by Tyler will be sold for an expected 150-dollars by Julien’s Auctions in New York Saturday.

You can also get genuine Tyler-worn boxer shorts with the Tasmanian Devil on them. Guitars owned by Carly Simon, Ron Wood, James Hetfield, David Lee Roth and U-2 will also be sold.

So will Buddy Holly’s Social Security card.

The auction will benefit MusiCares and the Musicians Assistance Program.

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Sting is bringing his winter music to your living room.

His performance from Durham Cathedral in northern England was taped and will be shown on P-B-S as part of its “Great Performances” series.

He performs a mix of carols, lullabies and other songs. “Sting: A Winter’s Tale” premieres on the U-S Thanksgiving night on P-B-S stations — check local listings.

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Elton John says his recent stay in the hospital was just about the first time he’s had to stay put.

John says except for when he had his tonsils out, his recent hospitalization for the flu and an E. coli infection was the first time he’s ever been in bed for nine days.

He says he had a good rest and he’s back on his feet, and the worst part was having to cancel shows.

John made his comments yesterday in New York at a benefit for his AIDS foundation, the first performance he’s done since he was sick.

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John Mayer didn’t want cameras following him to the studio, and he didn’t want them to be there when he walked in, either.

Mayer kept a low profile while recording his “Battle Studies” album, and he thought it would be dishonest to have a camera documenting the recording process when he wanted the paparazzi to leave him alone.

He found a way to keep the paparazzi from following him to the studio: he put the studio in his house.

Mayer calls it “a gorgeous time” because he could have a cup of coffee, think about what he wanted to play and then go do it.

“Battle Studies” is out this week.

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Singer-songwriter Jessie Baylin may have married into the Followill family when she and Kings of Leon drummer Nathan tied the knot in Tennessee this past Saturday, but that doesn’t mean she’d ever want to open for the band. Baylin — who met her husband backstage at Bonnaroo in 2006 — tells us she imagines that, “Rotten tomatoes would be thrown at me or something. They would rip me to shreds, their crowd. They want spit flying at them [and] rock in their face.”

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Ozzy Osbourne is a huge Beatles fan, and he recently revealed that he tried to get Paul McCartney to participate in the recording of one of his albums. In an interview with the British magazine Heat, Ozzy says, “I was in the studio at the same time as him, and tried to get him to play bass on one of my songs. But he said he couldn’t improve on the bass-line that was there. I said, ‘Are you kidding? You could [urinate] on the record and I’d make it my life.”

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The Rolling Stones have a new line of wine available — Forty Licks Merlot. Winemaker Mark Beaman says, “For the Forty Licks Merlot, I wanted to work with a wine that captured the essence of what the album was about. Forty Licks, it’s forty tracks covering the Rolling Stones from the 1960s to just a few years ago is really a statement of timeless classic rock.” The wine, which was poured backstage at last month’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concerts at New York’s Madison Square Garden, retails for 50-bucks for athree-pack — 16-99 a bottle.

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

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During his recent divorce proceedings from his second wife, Jo, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood revealed that he “spends money like water,” including 280-thousand dollars a year on chauffeured limousines and 16-hundred a week on flowers. He settled the divorce for 11-million and claims to be down to 60-million in his bank account because of bad management.

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Rise Against are the poster boys for a new campaign sponsored by PETA. The longtime animal-rights activists are appearing in a series of ads urging fans to boycott non-food products tested on our furry little friends. The band issued a statement, saying, “With alternatives to animal testing out there, it’s truly sickening that animals in laboratories are still poisoned or have chemicals rubbed in their eyes in outdated, ineffective tests for yet another shampoo or cleaning product.”

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Bad Company reunited once again yesterday for an intimate afternoon performance at the Hard Rock Cafe in London and to announce their first U-K tour in more than three decades. They’ll do eight shows between April 1st in Birmingham and the 11th in London. The Joe Perry Project will open the tour.

On February 9th, Bad Company will release Hard Rock Live, recorded during their one-off reunion show at the Hollywood, Florida Hard Rock in 2008

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Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy, who has a lot more time on his hands since splitting with Katy Perry, has completed his first solo album. There’s no release date for The Lazarus Project, but McCoy says fans should expect something different from his work with the band. He tells Billboard, “It’s me showing another side of Travis. I feel like a lot of people in the hip-hop world don’t take me seriously as a rapper. And I feel that first and foremost, I came up as a rapper before I started singing.”

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Slash says his former Guns n’ Roses bandmate, drummer Steve Adler, will join him on stage Sunday night in Los Angeles for his benefit show for the Los Angeles Youth Network. Also on the bill are Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol and Dave Navarro.

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Cheap Trick will perform before the Miami Dolphins-Houston Texans game at Landshark Stadium in Miami on December 27th.

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The Strokes’ This Is It has been named Album of the Decade by Britain’s New Musical Express.

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Jack White has announced plans to produce the next album from 70-something rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year.

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Blink 1-82 are preparing a second limited-edition vinyl pressing of their Enema of the State re-issue. That three-thousand copy run is slated to ship on January 12th.

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Story of the Year singer Dan Marsala has formed a punkier side band called The [Blank] Off and Dies. They’ve posted some tracks on their MySpace page.

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Otep’s “Smash the Control Machine” has been chosen as the theme song for T-N-A Wrestling’s pay-per-view Final Resolution event, which takes place on December 20th.

THREE DAYS GRACE POSTPONED DUE TO FAMILY EMERGENCY…RESCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY JANUARY 7th, 2010…hang on to your tickets for the new date!!!

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Motley Crue will take to the road after the first of the year for a series of Canadian dates on which they’ll share a bill with The Joe Perry Project. That run of shows will kick off in Victoria, British Columbia on January 23rd, play in Vancouver at GM Place January 24th and wrap up in Montreal on February 5th.  Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am.

Elsewhere on the Crue front, Vince Neil has announced plans for a new solo album, which he hopes to finish by the end of the year. The singer tells BackstageAxxess.com that the working title for the disc is Tattoos and Tequila.

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With the members of Aerosmith contemplating working without Steven Tyler, Classic Rock magazine has put together a list of possible replacements. Among the choices are Mick Jagger, because “Tyler did base a lot of his act on the cricket-loving Stone. So, why not go for the original?”

Jon Bon Jovi — “Remember the way he used to cover his microphone stand with scarves in the early days? Perhaps he’s always wanted to be Steven Tyler anyway.”

Tim “Ripper” Owens — “Everyone else seems to turn to him when they need to replace an iconic singer — well, Judas Priest did, anyway.”

Joan Jett — “A female fronting Aerosmith? But she’s probably shagged as many girls as Tyler (allegedly).”

Gary Cherone — “Poor old Gary, the man who still gets blamed for how appalling the Van Halen Three album was. He is from Boston, though, and that’s gotta be a plus.”

Jim Dandy — “The Black Oak Arkansas leader would bring washboard credibility to the band.”

Joe Perry — “Well, he’s in the band, he knows the songs…why the hell not?”

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U-2 have been fined 53-thousand dollars for violating noise regulations during their three outdoor shows in their native Dublin last July. They apparently broke the noise barrier 12 times during the three shows. Pat Gates of the Croke Park Area Residents’ Alliance says, “It is a paltry penalty, it really isn’t a disincentive. They would write that off in terms of planning for such things. Any fines that do accrue to the city council should be invested back into the local community as they were the ones that put up with it.”

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Nuno Bettencourt of the band Extreme has an unusual gig: he’ll play guitar on Rihanna’s tour.

Bettencourt writes on his MySpace site when he was first approached about the job, he thought there aren’t many guitar parts on Rihanna songs.

Rihanna’s music director says she’s going in a different direction for her live shows.

Bettencourt describes it as “heavy and funky” and very much his style.

He says he got excited about giving Rihanna’s music a heavier treatment.

They’ve already been in rehearsals and Bettencourt says it was better than he expected.

Tour dates have not yet been announced. Bettencourt says it’s not the end of Extreme.

They’re planning a live D-V-D and C-D for early next year and they’ll be writing new music.

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Paul McCartney says he’s “highly honoured” to receive a music award from the Library of Congress.

McCartney will be given the library’s Gershwin Award, named in honour of composers George and Ira Gershwin.

The prize is given to a pop musician who the library feels exemplifies the excellence of the Gershwins.

McCartney will receive his prize during an all-star tribute in the spring.

Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder are past recipients of the prize.

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Flyleaf return today with Memento Mori, their second album. It’s been four years since the release of the band’s platinum-selling debut, and singer Lacey Sturm says they spent a fair amount of time making sure they were able to craft exactly the album they wanted. She tells us, “We had a book actually made with our past history with the first record — of promo shots and songs and shows and all that. And we thought, ‘You know, that’s not really me at all, I don’t know how they talked me into doing that.’”

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Bruce Springsteen will perform his first album, Greetings From Asbury Park, New Jersey, in its entirety on Sunday in Buffalo, New York — the last show on his Working on a Dream tour. It will be the first time for Greetings, and with this announcement, Springsteen will have played his first five albums on this tour. The next show, featuring Born to Run, is tomorrow night in Nashville.

Springsteen will be at Carnegie Hall in New York tonight for a benefit for Autism Speaks.

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Fall Out Boy drummer Andy Hurley caused quite a stir in the Twitter universe over the weekend when he wrote that the band was planning a hiatus. After fielding a number of panicked Tweets from fans, Hurley explained, “Everyone, when I said F-O-B was on hiatus, I didnt mean hiatus. I meant break. Which is what I understood hiatus to mean.”

The drummer also said he’d be using the downtime to focus on his hardcore band, Burning Empires.

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Casablanca Records gave us KISS, Donna Summer and The Village People during the 1970s — a time when the record industry was at its frenzied, free-spending, wild-living peak. Larry Harris, who co-founded the company with his cousin Neil Bogart, had a birds-eye view to the music, the merriment and the madness. A longtime executive at the label, he shares his memories in the just-published book And Party Every Day — The Inside Story of Casablanca Records. Harris brings us along as the label signs and markets its first important act with KISS, then, while attempting to sign some German bands, the label discovers Summer, whose success leads them to ride the disco wave and then crashes with it just a few years later.

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The Scorpions will not only release a new album next March, but in January they’ll announce that they’ll hit the road for two years in support of it, including dates in the U-S. Guitarist Rudolf Schenker says, “We want to throw a party for all our fans!” The Scorpions’ last album was 2007’s Humanity Hour, Volume One.

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The Deftones will stage two benefit concerts in Los Angeles on Thursday and Friday as part of their ongoing efforts to raise money for bassist Chi Cheng, who’s been in a semi-conscious state since an auto accident last November. All proceeds from the shows will go to the Chi Ling Cheng Special Needs Trust, as will money raised by an online auction that starts today. For more information, go to Deftones.com

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Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson will be featured in a Canadian sitcom with the working title of The Drunk and on Drugs Happy Funtime Hour, which will air next year.

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Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton joined The Joe Perry Project on stage Saturday to do “Walk This Way” and “Stop Messin’ Around.”

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Ex-Beatles wives Cynthia Lennon and Pattie Boyd (Harrison) recently appeared together at the grand opening of the Cafesjian Center for the Arts in Armenia, which features an exhibit of Pattie’s photos.

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Sammy Hagar made a surprise appearance at his new Cabo Wabo Cantina in Las Vegas Saturday night, jumping on stage for a few songs. He’ll be at the grand opening on December 4th.

Gunnar Nelson of Nelson calls himself “the world champion hair farmer of all time.” Back when the band was huge, they were known as much for their long blond hair as their music.

Both Nelson and his twin brother Matthew have cut their hair since then.

The band is working on new music, but Nelson isn’t going to grow his hair out.

He says he figured he saves two weeks a year not having to blow-dry his hair.

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Alanis Morissette says she used to eat hardly anything for as long as six months.

She tells Health magazine she’d live on a diet of Melba toast, carrots and black coffee when she was a teenager with bulimia and anorexia.

A friend confronted her when she was 18 and that was the start of her recovery.

She eats healthier now and is so obsessed with spinach she puts it in her smoothies. She still indulges every now and then with a glass of wine or chocolate, because she says, “Treats are mandatory.”

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Queensryche singer Geoff Tate did well with red wine, so he’s going for white wine now.

Tate has been working with Three Rivers Winery outside Walla Walla, Washington, to create a white wine blend called Insania.

Tate and the winery already offer a red wine by the same name.

The white wine will be introduced early next year for about 25-dollars a bottle. Details can be found at ThreeRiversWinery-dot-com.

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Oops — “Spinal Tap” moment for Bruce Springsteen.

He hit the stage Friday and said, “Hello, Ohio!” — in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

The Detroit Free Press says Springsteen referred to Ohio several times until guitarist Steve Van Zandt whispered in his ear.

Springsteen was visibly embarrassed and said he was guilty of “every frontman’s nightmare.”

Van Zandt tells Rolling Stone he’s sure Springsteen knew they were outside of Detroit, “but somehow Detroit wound up in Ohio for a minute.”

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Kings of Leon drummer Nathan Followill got married over the weekend.

People magazine reports Followill married singer Jessie Baylin at an outdoor ceremony in Brentwood, Tennessee, on Saturday.

Followill and Baylin met at Bonnaroo in 2006.

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The guitar that Buddy Holly customized himself as a tribute to Elvis Presley is going to be auctioned.

Christie’s auction house will sell Holly’s Gibson J-45 guitar.

Holly did leatherwork as a hobby and he covered the guitar in leather because he had seen Presley play a leather-covered guitar in 1955.

It’s expected to sell for 450- to 550-thousand dollars.

Holly’s tweed stage jacket will also be sold, and it’s expected to go for at least three-thousand dollars.

Original 78’s of Presley’s first five singles for Sun Records will also be on the block.

The auction will take place in New York on December 3rd.

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Lita Ford was not interested in the upcoming movie about The Runaways until she saw the actress who plays her spit.

Ford says she didn’t want anything to do with the film because she feels some of the people involved in it have been trying to ruin her career since 1980.

The actress who plays Ford in the film, Scout Taylor-Compton, met Ford after her show with Queensryche in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, on Saturday.

Ford says she feels better about the movie because Taylor-Compton “hocks a mean loogey and really is a lot like me.”

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Ex-Oasis singer Liam Gallagher says he’s started a new band — whose lineup is Oasis minus his brother Noel. Gallagher let the news slip during an interview with an Italian radio station, saying that he and the rest of the guys from Oasis are “sort of doing things at the moment. Not Oasis, Oasis is done. Everyone except for Noel.” Gallagher added that he expects to start playing shows “in a couple of months.”

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Under the make-up, body armor and high heels, KISS bassist Gene Simmons certainly does not look 60 as he continues to stomp around the stage with just about as much energy as he did in the band’s glory days. He says, “It’s physically draining, but spiritually in your heart, exhilarating. Like no feeling you can get. You can’t buy that feeling if you’re the Pope.” Simmons will take that feeling into Portland, Oregon tomorrow night when KISS bring their Alive 35 to the Rose Garden arena.

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Casablanca Records gave us KISS, Donna Summer and The Village People during the 1970s — a time when the record industry was at its frenzied, free-spending, wild-living peak. Larry Harris, who co-founded the company with his cousin Neil Bogart, had a birds-eye view to the music, the merriment and the madness. A longtime executive at the label, he shares his memories in the just-published book And Party Every Day — The Inside Story of Casablanca Records. Harris brings us along as the label signs and markets its first important act with KISS, then, while attempting to sign some German bands, discovers Summer, whose success leads them to ride the Disco wave and then crashes with it just a few years later.

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The latest edition of Beck’s Record Club on his website features him covering the 1969 cult favorite Oar, the solo album by the late Jefferson Airplane - Moby Grape member Skip Spence. This time around, Beck uses Wilco as his backing band and gets some vocal help from Feist. Beck.com is now streaming the first cover, “Little Hands.”

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When Carlos Santana resurrected his career in 1999 with the Supernatural album, it was due in large part to the effort of Matchbox 20 singer Rob Thomas — who co-wrote and sang the album’s smash single, “Smooth.” Thomas will lend a hand to the album Santana is currently recording, as he writes on his Twitter page, “Going in the studio to sing a song for the new Carlos record [today].” The album should be out next year. Santana is currently doing his residency in Las Vegas with the next show scheduled for Wednesday night.

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If you couldn’t get down to the Austin City Limits festival back in September, you can replicate the experience in theaters next month via the concert film Larger Than Life…in 3-D Featuring the Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper and Relentless 7 and Gogol Bordello. The flick, which will hit somewhere between 300 and 400 theaters on December 11th, is the first in a planned series that will also include a Phish movie filmed at Festival 8 and “best-of” versions of Lollapalooza and the A-C-L.

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Slipknot singer Corey Taylor got married on Friday at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas. According to People magazine, he and Stephanie Luby walked down the aisle to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” Among the guests at the wedding-turned-concert were Camp Freddie’s Dave Navarro and Billy Morrison — who also officiated the ceremony — and Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath.

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Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich and Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider make cameos as themselves in the movie Get Him to the Greek, which is due in theaters in June. The film stars Russell Brand as the same rock-star character he played in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and focuses on attempts to get him to a show in Los Angeles.

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Courtney Love has shifted her focus from bizarre blog posts back to music — and she’s completed her first album in six years. Love has even resurrected her old band name, Hole, for Nobody’s Daughter, which will be issued in January.

Although some of her old bandmates have objected, Love defends that decision in Rolling Stone, declaring, “Wherever I lay my head is Hole. It is one of the best band names in [freaking] history, if I do say so myself. For a while I was a little embarrassed it was maybe vulgar, but at least it’s not phallic. It’s H-O-L-E, it’s a great band name, and it’s mine.”