Talib Kweli hit the studio with Les Nubians on Monday night in New York to record a new version of the duo's song "Temperature Rising." The track is the first single off of their March 25 release One Step Forward, which also features guest spots from Morgan Heritage and I.G. Culture. ... Ghostface Killah is in Miami writing songs for his next album. Now signed to Def Jam, Ghost is expecting to drop his yet-to-be-titled LP in March. ...

If you think all Black Sabbath tribute albums sound the same you haven't heard Rondellus' fourth album, Sabbatum: A Medieval Tribute to Black Sabbath. The disc features the Medieval and Renaissance band playing "War Pigs," "After Forever," "Wheels of Confusion" and other Sabbath cuts on 14th century instruments, and to top it off, they're all sung in Latin. Who said metal ain't educational? ...

Galactic experimental Canadian rock band Godspeed You Black Emperor! will begin a 20-date tour on March 2 in Bennington, Vermont. The tour, to support the band's latest album, Yanqui U.X.O., runs through August 7 in Portland, Maine. ... Metal mavens and fellow Canadians Kittie will hit the road in support of their latest release, the seven-song EP Safe, beginning January 15 in Syracuse, New York. A month of dates lead the band across the U.S. before the trek wraps up February 15 in San Francisco. ...

The first solo album by former Lemonheads frontman Evan Dando is set for an April release in the States, coming some six years after the last Lemonheads project. Tentatively titled Baby I'm Bored, the album boasts 12 tracks and includes collaborations with longtime songwriting partner Tom Morgan, former tourmate Ben Lee and Spacehog's Royston Langdon. ...  

12.19.2002

Justin Timberlake, Nelly, P. Diddy, Ashanti, Avril Lavigne, John Mayer, Kenny Chesney and Cyndi Lauper will announce the nominees for the 45th annual Grammys on January 7 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The awards ceremony will be held at the same venue on February 23. ...

Nelson Mandela has called on such artists as Bono, Ludacris, Nelly Furtado, Eve and Shaggy to perform at his SOS Concert on February 2 at South Africa's Robben Island Prison. Mandela, who served 18 years at Robben Island as a political prisoner, is dedicating the concert, which will be broadcast live, to stop the spread of AIDS. ... Shakira and her foundation Pies Descalzos (which means "Bare Feet" in English) has teamed with the Reebok Human Rights Program to distribute l0,000 pairs of shoes to Colombia's neediest children, beginning this week in the singer's hometown of Barranquilla. The remainder of the shoes will be distributed early next year. ...

If you weren't lucky enough to be in the audience for Nas' recent God's Son concert in New York City, don't worry — that show, as well as other live performances, will be included on an upcoming DVD. The as-yet-untitled disc, due out in April 2003, will combine concert footage, music videos and exclusive interviews with the Queensbridge rapper. ... Ludacris will bring a bit of dirty South flavor to the Yuletide season on Wednesday when he helps children at New York's Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine celebrate the holidays. The rapper will entertain the kids as the Intimate Apparel Square Club presents the institute with $700,000. ...

After 34 years of lying in obscurity, an early, pre-reggae recording of Bob Marley surfaced in New York, and will go up on the Christie's auction block Friday. The 24-minute R&B tape — featuring five songs written by Tuff Gong himself and three by Al Pyfrom and Jimmy Norman, who recently found the tape in his Upper West Side apartment — were recorded in the Bronx in Spring 1968. The hand-labeled cassette is expected to fetch between $10,000 and $15,000. ... Iggy Pop has recorded two tracks with Green Day for his next album, due in the spring. The album will also feature the singer's first recording with former Stooges bandmates Ron and Scott Asheton since the seminal proto-punk outfit's 1973 release, Raw Power. ...

A reunited Camper Van Beethoven, Local H and Grandaddy are among the first batch of artists announced to perform at the South by Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas. Clem Snide, Burning Brides, Apples in Stereo, Lucinda Williams and Willie Nelson are performing at the event in mid-March, which will feature Daniel Lanois as the keynote speaker. ... Radiohead popped out of their Oxford studio last night to give their fans a holiday treat — a surprise four-song webcast. The band played the first song, "Punch Up at a Wedding," during last year's tour of Spain and Portugal, but the organ-based ballad "I Froze Up" and the melodic "Good Morning Mr. Magpie" were brand-spankin' new, as was their cover of the seasonal classic "Walking in a Winter Wonderland." During the performance, Radiohead seemed to be enjoying themselves, and at one point donned masks of President Bush and Saddam Hussein. ...

Beastie Boys have spearheaded the release of the book "New Yorkers Against Violence: Photographs From a Benefit Concert in Response to the Events of September 11, 2001." The hardcover volume features an introduction by Adam Yauch, a forward by Yoko Ono and over 80 pages of photos of the Beasties, the Roots, Rival Schools, Mos Def, the Strokes, N.E.R.D., Moby and others. Proceeds will go to the New York Women's Foundation (September 11th Fund) and the New York Association for New Americans. ... Joey Fatone and singer/songwriter Michelle Marie, founder of Blankets for Warmth, hosted a benefit at Suede in New York on Tuesday to collect blankets for the homeless. Charles Barkley, MTV's Quddus, and Tracy Morgan of "Saturday Night Live" helped gather more than 200 blankets. ...

Juvenile and original big butt supporter Sir Mix-A-Lot will join NAAM Brigade in Los Angeles on Friday to film the video for the Brigade's next single, "Real Women With Curves." Set in a nightclub, the clip will also feature a contest winner from a recent episode of "Ricki Lake," where NAAM Brigade and other judges chose the best dancer from a group of women who dreamed of being in a music video. ... Pink drummer William Johnson was arrested Sunday in Honolulu after a passport check revealed a warrant for his arrest for grand larceny in New York, according to Associated Press. Johnson, whose lawyers said the arrest stemmed from the purchase of a car that was later returned, posted $50,000 bail and performed on the last stop of Pink's tour there on Wednesday. He was due in court on Thursday. ...

Wesley Willis — homeless bard and indie icon best known for his songs about other rock stars and such memorable tracks as "I Whupped Batman's Ass" and "Rock Saddam Hussein's Ass" — was recently diagnosed with Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, a treatable form of cancer, according to the staff at Alternative Tentacles Records. Willis is currently undergoing treatment. ... After pleading guilty to assault with a deadly weapon last month for attacking Unwritten Law guitarist Steve Morris' apartment with a pair of homemade bombs in September, Martel Duvigneaud was sentenced on December 12 to serve 240 days in prison. The computer programmer also received five years probation. ...

• Talib Kweli
• Ghostface Killah
• Wu-Tang Clan
• Black Sabbath
• Evan Dando

Courtney Love
Photo: Bruce Weber

Courtney Love put in her first live performance in two years during a surprise appearance with former Lemonheads singer Evan Dando at a Vancouver nightclub Saturday night.

Love, dressed in a black halter top, gray swing skirt and striped black nylons, first jumped onstage guitarless for Dando's encore rendition of the Lemonheads tune "Into Your Arms," according to fans in attendance. The singer complained that she couldn't play thanks to her "movie nails," but she soon took care of that problem by leaving the stage to chew them off. That allowed Love to borrow an instrument and return for an acoustic version of the Hole hit "Doll Parts." The evening's highlight was an improvised song that offered up lyrics about her life. The tune asked listeners if they wanted to be like her, and touched on topics ranging from being strung out on drugs to walking the red carpets of Hollywood. In the song she asked the audience if they wanted to know if she slept with "Gladiator" star Russell Crowe, and talked about hanging out with Oasis' Liam Gallagher. It also covered her early days in Vancouver, where she pretended to work on the set of the TV series "21 Jump Street" while dancing at a nearby strip club. Also referenced was her appearance at the "Pearl Harbor" premiere, which she said she attended because she couldn't resist the Versace gown being offered to her.

"She sounded great and she looked great," house sound technician Rob Foort said. "I'm kicking myself for not having a tape running — it was classic." Unfortunately, the club's management wasn't quite as impressed. According to a club employee, the Dando show, which had started at 8 p.m., was supposed to wrap up by 9:30 in order to turn the small house (estimated at just 100 or so fans) for the club's regular disco night. By 10 p.m., with Dando and Love still onstage, the staff aggressively tried to wrap up the performance. Love offered to buy the house a beer with actress Charlize Theron's platinum credit card, fans in attendance said, and offered to recap her sexual history (prompting a retort from Dando that it would take way too long). But what ended up buying the duo another 10 minutes was Love pulling up her halter top and flashing her breasts for the benefit of the staffers who were trying to evict them. The Hole frontwoman is in Vancouver shooting the movie "24 Hours" with co-stars Theron and Kevin Bacon. Oddly enough, her last live performance was also in Vancouver when Hole played the final date of the Edgefest Festival tour in July 1999 (see "Hole Ends Touring Year; New Album Planned").

Love is scheduled to perform a set of jazz and blues standards that she's recording for another movie, "Hello Suckers," at the Russian Tea Room in New York on June 11, according to movie director Scott Elliott's theater company, the New Group (see "Courtney Love Sings The Blues").

(This story was updated at 3:29 p.m. ET Tuesday, May 29, 2001.)

• Hole
• Evan Dando
• The Lemonheads

Abba, the dance-pop group that wouldn't die, will get the tribute treatment courtesy of Evan Dando, Ash, Bananarama, and a host of others next month.

• ABBA
• Ash
• Bananarama
• Evan Dando
• The Lemonheads

The group released "Car Button Cloth" in 1997 and garnered positive reviews, but little sales steam as Soundscan reports that the album sold only 84,000 copies. The Lemonheads, which in recent years has become lead singer Evan Dando and a rotating group of musicians, were frustrated by the label's promotional strategy for the album.

Dando, who recently moved to Tucson, Arizona, swears that the Lemonheads will continue to put out music. He is currently working on new material.

Sources close to Atlantic say the label has the option to put out a Lemonheads greatest hits package, and may do so in the near future.

• Evan Dando
• The Lemonheads