Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl
Photo: Karl Walter/Getty Images

Foo Fighters have sketched out their 2008 tour plans, which include the band's first-ever show at Madison Square Garden in New York. Dates for the jaunt — the Foos' biggest one yet in the U.S. — are as follows, with more expected to be announced: Sunrise, Florida (January 16); Orlando, Florida (January 17); Birmingham, Alabama (January 19); Pensacola, Florida (January 20); Houston (January 22); Dallas (January 23); Memphis, Tennessee (January 25); Nashville (January 26); Fayetteville, Arkansas (January 28); Oklahoma City (January 29); Worcester, Massachusetts (February 18); New York (February 19); Philadelphia (February 21); Detroit (February 24); Chicago (February 25); and Minneapolis (February 27). The band will be trekking in support of September's Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace. ...

Chris Brown, John Legend, Queen Latifah and Wyclef Jean appear on various covers of Black Enterprise's December issue, which hit stands Tuesday (November 27) with five different covers. Mary J. Blige, Nick Cannon, Diddy, and Alicia Keys are also included on the magazine's year-end Hot List celebrating "bold innovators" under age 40. The issue hits newsstands Tuesday (November 27). ... Legend can't get enough of Baileys — first the singer/songwriter linked up with the liqueur maker for his Baileys Get Together Tour, and now there's a related hourlong special on the way. "Baileys Entertainment Presents Get Together With John Legend," which was taped earlier this month during a stop on the tour, will feature concert performances, interviews and exclusive behind-the-scenes clips with Legend and artists from his Homeschool Records label: Estelle, the James Gang and Vaughn Anthony. The program will air December 16 at 9 p.m. ET on TV One. ...

Kevin Federline — who only made $7,436 in 2006, news outlets reported after documents pertaining to his child-custody battle with ex-wife Britney Spears were released a few weeks ago — has nevertheless landed on the cover of Details magazine's "Power + Influence Issue." He and former Anna Nicole Smith boyfriend Larry Birkhead are tied for the seventh spot on the magazine's list of most-influential men under 45. "They emerged as unlikely candidates for Dad of the Year," Details says. ... A-list celebs Angelina Jolie and Don Cheadle, who have been in the limelight as much for their social-outreach efforts as they have for their movie roles, have been nominated for Spirit Awards. Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Sienna Miller will also be up for honors at the show, due to air live on the Independent Film Channel on February 23. ...

Lily Allen has announced that she was diagnosed with a heart murmur three months ago, BBC News reports. The 22-year-old told Grazia magazine that she found out about the condition when she recently switched doctors and that her recent 19-pound weight loss was a result of exercise and a diet change following the discovery. "I used to love nothing more than sitting in front of the telly with two packets of Ginger Nuts and two bags of milk-bottle sweets — and I'd devour the lot," Allen told the magazine. "But this heart thing has made me cut back on all that kind of crap," she said. "I now find that, because I am looking after myself, I don't feel like eating the bad stuff so much." ... Radiohead have finally announced some tour dates for 2008, according to Pitchfork. The group will reportedly play Germany's Southside Festival and Hurricane Festival, both of which are slated to take place June 20-22. It's not yet clear on which dates the band will perform. ... Rick Ross' second effort won't be happening this year, Billboard.com reports. According to the site, Trilla has moved from a December 18 release date to February 19. ...

Three detectives accused of covering up evidence in the Notorious B.I.G. case can be added as defendants in a wrongful-death lawsuit the late rapper's family filed against the City of Los Angeles, a judge ruled Monday. The Christopher Wallace family has argued that Los Angeles Police Department Risk Management Group detectives Stanley Nalywaiko and Stuart Maislin, along with detective Steven Katz, "failed to supervise or directly participated in the concealment of evidence in this case." U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper — who declared a mistrial in the case two years ago after determining Katz hid statements linking the Notorious B.I.G.'s death to two policemen, David A. Mack and Rafael Perez, said "the attempted concealment of evidence and failure to respond to officer wrongdoing is a central issue in this case," and that the family's request could be granted. The Wallace family's top attorney, Perry R. Sanders Jr., said the ruling "gives the family a chance to prove to the world that police were involved in the murder — and that high officials have covered up for those officers. The family is extremely pleased to have the opportunity to hold accountable some of the key people involved in the coverup." The Wallace family also asked that other defendants be added to the suit — that request was denied, although the estate will be able to file separate suits against the additional individuals. ...

Nine Inch Nails' new Remix.NIN.com Web site has launched despite coming under fire from their former record label, Universal. Controversy had erupted over the site, which was intended to be erected following last week's release of Y34RZ3R0R3MIX3D as a home for fans' mash-ups of NIN songs. ... Interpol have pumped out their first batch of official live recordings, exclusively via ThinkIndie.com. Their six-song, simply titled Live EP is available now and captures the band playing at London's Astoria on July 2. The tracks include "Obstacle 1," "Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down," "Pioneer to the Falls," "Mammoth," "Rest My Chemistry" and "The Heinrich Maneuver." ... The four members of the Bratz plan to give four girls something new to cheer about: $15,000 scholarships for college. Named after the group members — Yasmin, Cloe, Sasha and Jade — the scholarships will be awarded to the girls who create the best essays answering the question "What are you most passionate about in life, and how would you use this scholarship to help you grow?" Additional details on the Bratz Scholarship Contest are included in the just-released DVD "Bratz: The Movie." ...

Ghostface, Raekwon, Talib Kweli, Young Buck and others have piled onto Hi-Teknology 3, the latest collection from Cincinnati hip-hop producer Hi-Tek. The disc is due December 11, and its first single is "My Piano" (featuring Ghostface, Raekwon and Dion). ... Fat Joe is getting a big thank-you from In Arms Reach Inc., a nonprofit group that reaches out to New York children whose parents are or have been incarcerated. The rapper will be honored Thursday at a dinner and awards ceremony to be held at the City University of New York's City College. Trey Songz will perform at the event. "I'm proud to help bring awareness to this segment of youth, at a time when so many of our families in the minority community remain separated by the system," Fat Joe said in a statement. ... Alanis Morissette is slated for induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, according to the Globe and Mail. The 33-year-old Ottawa native will receive the award on March 7 as part of the Canadian Radio Music Awards in Toronto. ...

Van Halen have spilled out loads more 2008 dates for their ongoing reunion trek. The additional gigs will be held in San Antonio (January 24); Dallas (January 26); Denver (February 1); New Orleans (February 8); Orlando, Florida (February 14); Jacksonville, Florida (February 16); Tampa, Florida (February 18); Charlottesville, Virginia (February 22); Fort Wayne, Indiana (March 3); Cincinnati (March 5); Raleigh, North Carolina (March 7); Baltimore (March 9); Manchester, New Hampshire (March 11); East Rutherford, New Jersey (March 13); New York (March 17); Hershey, Pennsylvania (March 19); Pittsburgh (March 21); Providence, Rhode Island (March 24); Uncasville, Connecticut (March 26); Atlantic City, New Jersey (March 28); Columbus, Ohio (April 1); Chicago (April 3); Grand Rapids, Michigan (April 5); and Milwaukee (April 7). ... Ozzy Osbourne is even more controversial than his fans thought. According to NBC News affiliate KGET, the metal god inspired an emergency ordinance in Bakersfield, California, prior to his playing in the city for fear that he would repeat some of his notorious behavior onstage. Back in 1982, weeks before Osbourne was to perform in Bakersfield, then-Mayor Mary Kay Shell "advised the council [that] a musical rock star scheduled to perform in Bakersfield in June sometimes makes it a practice to bite the head off a bird during or at the conclusion of his performance," according to KGET. The council then adopted an ordinance prohibiting the killing of animals during theatrical performances — or the Ozzy Osbourne Ordinance, as it was called at the time. ...

Janet Jackson fans, get psyched for '08: The singer is prepping a tour and has penciled in her new album for February, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her yet-untitled debut for Island Def Jam will be executive produced by L.A. Reid — not boyfriend and Island Urban prez Jermaine Dupri. ... New York hip-hop personality Angie Martinez survived an ugly car crash late last week as she readied her first annual Angie Martinez Hair Show and Beauty Expo over the weekend at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The Hot 97 on-air jock told MTV News she fell asleep at the wheel of her car and crashed over a median before colliding with several cars. Martinez was uninjured except for a slight limp. Her two-day expo brought out Missy Elliott, Lil Mama, Nina Sky, Jim Jones, Juelz Santana and others. Cassidy, Trey Songz and Fabolous performed. ...

The Black Crowes have pegged March 4 as the release date for their first new studio album in seven years, Warpaint. The disc will feature 10 songs written by Chris and Rich Robinson — plus a cover of "God's Got It" by Reverend Charlie Jackson — and come out through the band's Silver Arrow Records label. It will also help usher in two new Crowes, guitarist Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars and keyboardist Adam MacDougall. In related news, Dickinson is re-forming his side project the Word with fellow Allstars Chris Chew and Cody Dickinson, John Medeski and Robert Randolph. The group, which also reunited in 2005 for Bonnaroo, has lined up four December gigs, in Hartford, Connecticut (26th); New York (27th); Philadelphia (28th); and Washington, D.C. (29th). ...

For years now, American festival promoters have shamelessly borrowed from English fests like Glastonbury in setting up multi-day destination events like Bonnaroo and Coachella. Now, Festival Republic — the promoter behind three of the biggest English festivals: Reading, Leeds and Glasto — is getting together with the promoters of the revived Lollapalooza, Austin, Texas' C3 Presents, to put on the Vineland Music Festival on a privately owned 500-acre farm in New Jersey on August 8-10. No lineups have been announced yet, but in a press release, organizers promised a "weekend of pure unadulterated rock and roll pleasure" with a "heady mix of the greatest bands in the world, energy charged sets; new rising stars and the freshest acts hitting the stages before the press have had a sniff of them." Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, said last month that he had secured a site in Jersey and was eager to join the fray in America with his own camping fest. "It hasn't gone unnoticed that American promoters keep coming over and seeing my shows, so I thought, 'Crikey!, I need to get over there and do something before there's no room left." ...

With Army of Anyone on hiatus, singer Richard Patrick has revived his former band Filter. A new album is in the works and could be in stores early next year, he announced on his MySpace page. "I am totally cramming on a new Filter record," he said. "I'm working with some amazing people — all new people. This is absolutely the most amazing stuff I've ever done, and I'm really proud of it." ... Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor's cover band, the DumFux, have booked a gig at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines, Iowa, for December 31. On a Pale Horse and Scrue are also on the bill. Tickets for the show will set you back $15. ...

Mario Gutierrez, guitarist for Los Angeles death/thrash metallers Engrave, died late last week of gunshot wounds he sustained during an argument with his brother-in-law, according to the Los Angeles Times. Gutierrez, 37, was reportedly shot and killed in El Sereno, California, at about 10:45 p.m. on Thursday. Police said Gutierrez and his brother-in-law got into an argument during the family's Thanksgiving gathering over a remark the brother-in-law had made about Gutierrez's wife, according to the Times. The argument reportedly escalated to pushing and shoving, and eventually spilled out onto the street, where Gutierrez was shot. The 27-year-old brother-in-law turned himself in to the police a few hours later. ...

Carson Daly is going it alone. The host of "Last Call With Carson Daly" has announced that he will be the first late-night talker to go back on the air since the writers' strike started on November 5. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Daly is expected to start taping new episodes this week and will begin airing them next week.

11.26.07

Wildfires broke out in Malibu, California, again over the weekend, and among those impacted were Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, who lost a home due to the flames, and Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose, who had a close call when the fires burned his roof and singed some of his property. According to a report on KCAL-TV, Rose's assistant said the rocker "was with the hose everywhere" on his property, fighting to save his home. The Los Angeles Times reports that Flea said in a text message that his $4.8 million home in Corral Canyon was "burnt to a crisp" by the fires on Saturday morning. According to TMZ.com, a second, $10 million Malibu home owned by Flea — the one in which he currently resides — did not burn. The one that did was a $4.8 million house that the bassist rents and currently has up for sale, the site reports. ...

Mary J. Blige is slated to perform at an upcoming Lifebeat benefit event honoring Stephen Hill, executive vice president of entertainment and music programming at BET. "Live Beats: A Night of Musical Mayhem and Tonal Terror Fashioned by Fun(k)," set to take place December 4 at New York's Highline Ballroom, will salute the Lifebeat board member for his work in fighting AIDS/HIV. Proceeds from the event will go to Lifebeat, and a related contest will give the winner a chance to play onstage at the venue with Blige's 10-piece backing band. For more info, go to Lifebeat.org. Adding to her good-Samaritan cred, Blige also played last week at a homeless-initiatives benefit show hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and staged by the Staples Center Foundation at the city's Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE. ...

Ho ho huh? Nelly Furtado has ganged up with members of AFI, LCD Soundsystem, the Faint, Panthers, the Horrors, Terror and the Black Lips for an upcoming charity release by Canadian hardcore-punk princes F---ed Up. The track is featured as the B-side on the band's new holiday single, and all proceeds will go to the George Herman House, a Toronto transitional-housing and life-skills program supporting women with mental-health issues. In more conventional news, Furtado has piled together a CD and DVD for her recent Get Loose World Tour. The items, both called Loose the Concert, will drop December 4 and feature 11 and 17 selections, respectively, from the trek. The DVD features a cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" as well as 30 minutes of documentary material ...

If you think Furtado's collaborative affair is out there, try this one on for size: Pete Wentz + Perez Hilton. The Fall Out Boy bassist and gossip guru have joined forces to create a new tee for Wentz's Clandestine Industries. They've come up with a name for it — "I Love Being a Sh--talker" — but are staging a contest to determine the design. The shirt will be sold at the new Clandestine Industries store in Chicago and on the company's Web site, ClandestineIndustries.com, and the winner will get a tee signed by Wentz and Hilton. The deadline to submit an original design is December 14, and the winner will be named seven days later — go to FriendsorEnemies.com for the 411 on how to enter. ...

While Time has yet to decide if J.K. Rowling will best Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore and others for Person of the Year, the "Harry Potter" author has earned her place as the Entertainer of the Year in another magazine, Entertainment Weekly. The publication said she deserves the honor for getting "people to tote around her big, old-fashioned printed-on-paper books as if they were the hottest new entertainment devices on the planet." Angelina Jolie, Johnny Depp, George Clooney and Will Smith also made EW's list of 25 top entertainers of the year. ...

Linkin Park plan to keep touring in 2008, and they'll be bringing Coheed and Cambria along for the ride. So far, just two dates have been announced for the groups' tour leg: February 16 in Detroit and February 18 in Manchester, New Hampshire. More dates will be revealed in the coming weeks. ... Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood's instrumental score to the upcoming Paul Thomas Anderson film "There Will Be Blood" is due in stores December 18. The movie hits theaters eight days later. The score includes material Greenwood wrote for a previous orchestral piece, "Popcorn Superhet Receiver," which will debut in concert in the U.S. in January when he participates in New York's Wordless Music Series. ... U2's Bono and the Edge surprised about 200 fans on Friday at the small London venue Union Chapel with a 20-minute, four-song acoustic set. According to a report on the band's Web site, the duo played "Stay," "Desire," "Angel of Harlem" and the recently unearthed rarity "Wave of Sorrow," which had never been played live and for which the Edge played keyboards. The gig was part of the Little Noise Sessions put on by Mencap, a group that aids people with learning disabilities. ...

Hulk Hogan said he was totally unaware that his wife of 24 years, Linda Marie Bollea, had recently filed for divorce when asked to comment on Friday by the St. Petersburg Times. According to the paper, Linda filed a petition for the dissolution of their marriage last Tuesday, unbeknownst to her husband. After learning of the development, the wrestler then reportedly thanked the reporter for the "great information" and hung up, calling back five minutes later to say he'd been "kind of shocked" by the news. "You caught me off guard. My wife has been in California for about three weeks," Hogan reportedly said. "Holy smokes. Wow, you just knocked the bottom out of me. I just pulled over to the side of the road for five minutes to find out what was going on here." According to The Associated Press, Linda Bollea requested alimony and child support for their 17-year-old son, Nick Bollea, as well as a share of the family's two multimillion-dollar properties in Florida, in her divorce petition, which calls the marriage "irretrievably broken." The couple married in 1983 and have two children, 19-year-old singer Brooke Hogan and Nick, who was involved in an August car crash that left a passenger critically injured. ...

The critics and moviegoers might be loving "American Gangster," but one New York City Drug Enforcement agent apparently isn't so fond of the film. According to TMZ.com, ex-agent Gregory Korniloff is threatening legal action against the movie's studio, Universal, for what he claims are "false and defamatory statements." In a recently filed cease-and-desist letter filed by his attorney, Korniloff demands a retraction of statements made in the movie, which allegedly presents several misleading facts and incorrectly states that a third of NYC DEA agents were convicted on charges related to gangster Frank Lucas. The now-retired agent was the case agent for the DEA and, as the letter reportedly states, "personally participated in the search of Lucas' house ... and the arrest of Lucas on that same day."

It was another rough weekend for Amy Winehouse. First, according to Reuters, the singer's husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, was denied bail and ordered to remain in custody until at least January 18 after appearing in a London court on Friday, charged with allegedly beating up a bartender. Fielder-Civil and another man, Michael Brown, were slated to stand trial this month in the case, in which they are accused of roughing up pub landlord James King last June. But the trial was recently delayed after police arrested Fielder-Civil and accused him of conspiracy to obstruct justice in the assault case. The news was hardly better for Winehouse, who reportedly showed up 45 minutes late for her gig Saturday night at London's Hammersmith Apollo, at which point some fans were already asking for refunds. NME reported that there was a loud chorus of boos by the time Winehouse finally took the stage and things only got worse from there, including a bit where her famous towering beehive almost toppled over and fell off. At one point, looking bored, she walked offstage and let her backup singers take over lead vocals. During the show's encore she left again, midway through a song, and didn't return. ...

The mystery surrounding AlbumSix.com just keeps growing. The site, believed by many to be a stealth Weezer affair, was under scrutiny again, when the bandmembers posted on its official Web site last week that they have no affiliation with it or any news it purports to have. Weezer also disputed the site's claims that the next album would be called Tout Ensemble and that it already has an official release date. According to a post on AlbumSix, "Weezer and Geffen Records have no affiliation with www.albumsix.com. ... We are honestly surprised how long this lasted. We expected that the media would contact Interscope or Weezer, and they would squash things immediately. But somehow, we slipped through the traditions of journalism. ... We never expected anyone to believe it. We thought we'd get a few Weezer fans on the boards to get excited, but we never actually thought we'd become a legitimate news source. We can't say we blame the media. Viral marketing is the hot new thing. However, we hoped you learned a lesson. ... We are extremely excited about the new Weezer album and are glad to see that everyone seems to share our excitement. We will be anxiously awaiting the real release date and title of album six along with everybody else. Until then, thanks for playing." Weezer offered a "well played" to the people behind the site. ...

Break out your lighters: Extreme are reuniting for a world tour and new album next year. The group broke up 11 years ago but got together in 2004-'06 for a brief re-formation. Guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, who is slated to produce the group's yet-untitled LP, said that in light of the inclusion of the band's song "Play With Me" in "Guitar Hero," "We realized, not only are the people starved for rock 'n' roll, so are we," according to a press release. "Let's eat," he added. ... The Romantics have filed a lawsuit against the makers of the "Guitar Hero" video game series, claiming a cover band tapped to record the act's signature song for the game sounds too much like the original, according to AP. The band's "What I Like About You" appears in "Guitar Hero Encore, Rocks the '80s," and, after declining permission to allow game manufacturer Activision to use the song in the game, the re-recorded version sounds too similar to the original. The band is seeking a cut of royalties produced through sales of the game. ...

The reunited Spice Girls want to set the record straight. After an e-mail went out over the weekend claiming that the group had scrapped a planned gig in Buenos Aires, Argentina, due to high demand for other dates, a spokesperson said the e-mail was a fake and the gig is penciled in for February. A statement on the group's Web site reads, "The Spice Girls would like to make it clear that they have not canceled their Buenos Aires show. ... A story has appeared on several Web sites that includes a fake e-mail and competition from the girls. The fake e-mail claims that due to the demand so far in the U.K. and the U.S. this show is going to be canceled. ... The e-mail goes on to say that they will be running some competitions for their South American fans to travel to the U.K. to watch a show. This is not the case and this email is 100 percent unofficial and has nothing to do with the Spice Girls." ...

A judge set a February 25 court date for faded 1980s pop star Boy George, who has been accused of falsely imprisoning a 28-year-old male escort by chaining him to a wall in his London apartment in April. George (born George O'Dowd), 46, spoke only to confirm his name in court on Thursday, and was released on bail and ordered to have no contact with the alleged victim, according to reports.

• Foo Fighters
• Lily Allen
• Fat Joe
• Alanis Morissette
• Slipknot

Nelly (file)
Photo: Universal

The closest competition Nelly will face on next week's Billboard albums chart comes from the St. Lunatic leader himself. Having simultaneously released two albums last week, the St. Louis MC has a lock on the #1 and #2 spots.

It's Suit that trumps Sweat, by more than 54,000 copies, according to SoundScan. The album featuring the smash single "My Place" (with Jaheim) sold more than 395,000 copies to take the top slot, while its companion moved more than 341,000 copies on the strength of the suggestive single "Flap Your Wings."

Nelly's two-album total barely pushes past the first-week sales of his last album, Nellyville, which in June 2002 also debuted at #1, with 23,000 fewer copies.

Tim McGraw's Live Like You Were Dying will drop a notch to run a distant third, with more than 121,000 copies sold. It'll be followed by Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company, which also takes a step back, to #4. The late soul pioneer's duets album sold more than 113,000 copies.

For the fourth week straight, the immovable object that is Now That's What I Call Music! 16 will remain at #5. The more than 100,000 copies it sold last week brings its eight-week total up to 1.8 million. Ashlee Simpson will also hold on to her old place at #6, as Autobiography tacked on another 75,000 to its total.

Although it sold slightly fewer copies last week than the week prior, Maroon 5's Songs About Jane managed to climb back into the top 10 by sidling up three spots to #8 and moving more than 63,000 copies. Usher, too, will make some forward progress, as Confessions takes a two-step shimmy up to #10, with more than 61,000 copies.

The remainder of next week's top 10 finds last week's top album, Alan Jackson's What I Do, dropping to #7, with more than 71,000 copies sold; and Anita Baker's My Everything moving from #4 to #9 with more than 63,000 copies sold.

Aside from the Nellys, the next new album to make the chart is from heavy-metal vets Megadeth. The band's 10th album will land at #18. Two notches later, Los Angeles' Irish punks Flogging Molly will place at #20 with Within a Mile of Home.

While the single "1985" is keeping Bowling for Soup part of the pop vernacular a year and a half after earning a Grammy nomination for their last album, 2002's Drunk Enough to Dance, it didn't immediately translate into massive album sales for the Wichita Falls, Texas, quartet. Their fourth album, A Hangover You Don't Deserve, will debut at #37.

Other notable debuts on next week's chart include Tears for Fears' reunion album, and first in nine years, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, at #46; the TV series soundtrack Will & Grace: Let the Music Out! at #57; electronica act the Prodigy's Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned at #62; Gov't Mule's Deja Voodoo at #88; the Faint's Wet From Birth at #99; and the Thrills' Let's Bottle Bohemia at #153.

• Nelly
• Ashlee Simpson
• Maroon 5
• Bowling For Soup
• Usher

The White Stripes' Elephant, their first release since becoming the darlings of the music world, finds Jack and Meg up to their same old — and good — tricks. The album continues their trend of lo-fi rock and blues with numbers like "Seven Nation Army" and sugary love songs like "I Want to Be the Boy."

Meanwhile, cheeky British singer Robbie Williams wants to be the boy who, after umpteen tries, finally hits it big in the U.S. market with his latest effort, Escapology.

The soundtrack to Rob Zombie's directorial debut, "House of 1,000 Corpses," features the score by Zombie himself, plus tracks by the Ramones, Slim Whitman and Buck Owens.

The Faint remix their electro-pop Danse Macabre, while Placebo and their glamour/sleaze rock are busy Sleeping With Ghosts, and Ghostface Killah — ostensibly sleeping with ghosts, too — proves that he's Shaolin's Finest.

The X-ecutioners' Rob Swift mixed Under the Influence,an album less devoted to scratching (though there are some chances for Swift to show off)than to showcasing '60s soul, '80s hip-hop and present-day Latin grooves.

Out Tuesday, April 1:

• 808 State - Outpost Transmission (Shadow)
• Adventures of Mary Kate and Ashley - Give Us Mystery (Sony)
• Agoraphobic Nosebleed - Altered States of America (Relapse)
• The Alarm - 68 Guns (Simply the Best)
• Aphrohead - Thee Underground Made Me Do It (Clashbakk)
• A.R.E Weapons - A.R.E Weapons (Sanctuary)
• Asleep at the Wheel - Served Live (Acadia)
• Bass Syndicate - Slow Low Techno (D.M)
• Big Mountain - Cool Breeze (Rebel Ink)
• Billy Blanks - Taebo Mix (Red Ball)
• Blue Flames - Drivin' and Dyin' in Texas (Voodoo Valley)
• Boo - Naughties (Sheer Sound)
• Boo - Shooting Star (Sheer Sound)
• Boy Sets Fire - Tomorrow Comes Today (Wind-Up)
• Bridge - Blown Away (Hole)
• Chris Cagle - Chris Cagle (Capitol)
• Cenobites - Demons to Some Angels to Others (Drunkabilly)
• Cheka Tu Mail - Cheka Tu Mail (Universal)
• Chromatics - Chromatics (Gold Standard Labora)
• County Sareno - 13 With a Bullet (Teen Angel)
• Dangerous Garden - Dreams and Rain (The Orchard)
• DJ Napey - Illfinger (P-Vine Japan)
• DJ Zappi - Enjoy the Silence (KJU)
• Ester Drang - Infinite Keys (Jade Tree)
• Even in Blackouts - Myths & Imaginary Magicians (Lookout)
• Exploding Heats - Guitar Romantic (Dirtnap)
• The Faint - Danse Macabre Remixed (Astralwerks)
• Flamers - 20 Super Flamazos (I.M)
• The Fugees - Greatest Hits (Sony)
  Buy Now: Greatest Hits (Sony)
• Ghostface Killah - Ghostface Killah: Shaolin's Finest (Sony)
  Buy Now: Ghostface Killah: Shaolin's Finest (Sony)
• G-Man - Electro-Bop (Delvian)
• G-Man - Grin Groove (Delvian)
• Gob - Foot in Mouth Disease (Arista)
• Godflesh - Messiah (Relapse)
• Grand Drive - Grand Drive (RCA)
• Isaac Hayes - At Wattstax (Stax)
• Hellbats - Fast and Heavy (Pure and Proud)
• I-Roy - Deejay Menace Babylon (Varese)
• J Geils - Showtime (EMI)
• Bob James - Hi-Fi (Morada)
• James Boy - Raps and Ballads (The Orchard)
• Jets - Bolt of Lightning (Krypton)
• Angela Johnson - They Don't Know (Purpose)
• Kendalls - Love Is a Long Hard Road (Varese)
• Kills - Keep on Your Mean Side (Rough Trade)
• Langhorns - Mission Exotica (Bad Taste)
• Lil Flip - Lil Flip & Sucka Free: 713 and Undaground Legend (Sony)
• M Path - Wanderer (Razor & Tie)
• Millencolin - Battery Check (Burning Heart)
• Millencolin - E20 Norr (Burning Heart)
• Mirahj - Bounce All Night (The Orchard)
• Mistahs - Mistahs (Aries)
• Modeste - Modeste (Space Shop)
• M.O.P. - 10 Years and Gunnin' (Sony)
• Mötley Crüe - New Tattoo (reissue, BMG)
• Numbers - Death (Tigerbeat6)
• Numbers - Ee-Uh (EP, Troubleman)
• Roy Orbison - Essential Sun Years (Metro)
• Peepshows - Refuge for Degenerates (Burning Heart)
• Phantom Rockers - Rise Up (Drunkabilly)
• Pieces - Pieces (Benchmark)
• Placebo -Sleeping with Ghosts (Astralwerks)
• Puffball - Leave Them All Behind (Burning Heart)
• Punkles - Beat the Punkles (Bitzcore)
• Radio Dept -Lesser Matters (Shelflife)
• Red Snapper - Red Snapper (Lo)
• Sid Selvidge - Little Bit of Rain (Archer)
• Smash King All Stars - Smash Rhythm (P-Vine Japan)
• Starvations - One Long Night (Kapow)
• Steamhammer - MK II (Akarma)
• Stereomud - Every Given Moment (Sony)
  Buy Now: Every Given Moment (Sony)
• Stitches - 5 More Songs from the Stitches (Kapow)
• Rob Swift - Under the Influence (Six Degrees)
• Swirlies - Cats of the Wild 2 (Bubble Core)
• Devin Townsend - Accelerated Evolution (Inside Out)
• Triggers - Shoot Your Mouth Off (Dirtnap)
• Vaux - There Must Be Some Way to Stop Them (Volcom)
• Ventures - Surfin' with the Ventures (EMI)
• Venus Hum - Big Beautiful Sky (MCA)
• White Stripes - Elephant (V2)
  Read: "White Stripes To Put Their Best Trunk Forward On April Fool's Day With Elephant"
  Buy Now: Elephant (V2)
• Robbie Williams - Escapology (Virgin)
  Buy Now: Escapology (Virgin)
• George Winston - Velveteen Rabbit Anniversary Edition (Windham Hill)
• Lucy Woodward - While You Can (Atlantic)
  Buy Now: While You Can (Atlantic)
• Various artists - Aromatherapy (Nukarma)
• Various artists - "Assassination Tango" soundtrack (RCA)
• Various artists - Booty Essentials from Da ATL (D.M.)
• Various artists - Chicano Rap Oldies (Sideshow)
• Various artists - Cosmic Sounds Remixed (Cosmic Sounds)
• Various artists - "Crossing Jordan" soundtrack (Sony)
• Various artists - Dinner at Eight (Varese)
• Various artists - Dinner for Two (EMI)
• Various artists - "Dreamcatcher" soundtrack (Varese)
• Various artists - Drum and Bass Sessions (Sessions)
• Various artists - Dutch Assault (Relapse)
• Various artists - Euromix Greatest Hits: A Decade of Dance (SPG)
• Various artists - Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan (Sony)
• Various artists - "The Guys" soundtrack (Sony)
• Various artists - House Breaks Sessions (Sessions)
• Various artists -"House of 1,000 Corpses" soundtrack (Interscope)
• Various artists - Inside Deep Note: Music of 1970s Adult Cinema (OST)
• Various artists - More Hot N Hip Harmony (Sweet Beat)
• Various artists -Music from Woody Allen's Films (Soundtrack Factory)
• Various artists - Old School Lowrider (Thump)
• Various artists - Skank Mania (P-Vine Japan)
• Various artists - Then: Totally Oldies 80s (Varese)
• Various artists - Troubleman Sampler (Troubleman Unlimited)
• Various artists - "What a Girl Wants" soundtrack (Atlantic)

April 22:

• Evan Dando - Baby I'm Bored (Bar None)
• Flaming Lips - Fight Test (EP, Warner Bros.)
  Buy Now: Fight Test (EP, Warner Bros.)
• Madonna - American Life (Warner Bros.)
  Read: "Madonna To Follow Spiritual Muse For New Album"
  Buy Now: American Life (Warner Bros.)

April 29:

• Kelly Price - Priceless (Universal)
  Buy Now: Priceless (Universal)
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever to Tell (Touch & Go)
• Various artists - American Idol Season 2: All-Time Classic American Love Songs (RCA)

May 13:

• Macy Gray - The Trouble With Being Myself (Epic)
• Third Eye Blind - Out of the Vein (Elektra)
  Read: "Third Eye Blind Recruit Fred Durst, Andrew W.K. For Third Album"
  Buy Now: Out of the Vein (Elektra)

June 10:

• Metallica - St. Anger (Elektra)
  Read: "Metallica To Give Rock And Roll A Good Thrashing"

June 17:

• Limp Bizkit - Bipolar (Interscope)
  Read: "Snoop Dogg, Bubba Sparxxx May Appear On Limp Bizkit Album"

• The White Stripes
• Ghostface Killah
• The Faint
• Robbie Williams
• Stereomud

Electro chanteuse Björk will release a yet-untitled greatest hits collection on September 3. The disc will span her entire solo career since leaving the Sugarcubes in 1992. ... A pair of Rollins Band shows recorded at Chicago's Metro in March will surface on a double-live album titled The Only Way to Know for Sure, which hits shelves June 25. The 28-track LP also includes three videos and photos as bonus material. ...

Todd Baechle, singer for synth-pop band The Faint, was arrested for public nudity Monday night in Albuquerque, New Mexico after hopping onstage during No Doubt's set and yanking off a napkin loincloth to reveal the letters "ND" on his buttocks. Police confronted him in his hotel room after the show, dragged him back to the station and held him overnight. ... DJ Spooky's Optometry, the latest album in Thirsty Ear Recording's experimental jazz Blue Series, is due July 9. The turntablist will promote the album with a July and August tour. ... All that remains of All That Remains are vocalist Philip Labonte, guitarist Oli Hebert, bassist Dan Egan and drummer Mike Bartlett, since guitarist Chris Bartlett recently quit the experimental metal band to pursue bleaker and blacker pastures. Axe grinders interested in auditioning are asked to e-mail drectasslt@aol.com. ...

"24 Hour Party People," a movie about the formation of Britain's Factory Records, is due in Stateside theaters August 9. Several bands are portrayed in the film, including Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays. ... Journey, Tim McGraw and Ted Nugent will gather in Atlanta on July 20 and 21 to headline the first weekend of the Open Road Tour, a traveling music festival sponsored by Harley-Davidson in honor of their 100th anniversary. Bob Dylan, Billy Idol, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Hootie & the Blowfish are among the headliners of the other festivals, for which tickets can be purchased at www.harley-davidson.com. ...

05.13.02

Philly hip-hop collective the Roots will be the first musicians to appear in a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) campaign to promote vegetarianism. Images of group members Leonard "Hub" Hubbard, Ben Kenney, Black Thought and Kamal Gray will be plastered across the country on a series of posters set to launch this summer. ... A house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, belonging to Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton was destroyed by a fire Saturday night. The home, which was under construction at the time, was empty when the blaze occurred. ... Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One announced the addition of Norwegian bassist Sigve, who'll pair with new drummer Adrian to replace Dorian Heartsong and Alan Pahanish, the rhythm section that left the band in November. There's still no official release date for the group's third album, Anyone for Doomsday?, which is still being worked on.

• Björk
• Rollins Band
• No Doubt
• The Faint
• DJ Spooky

The Faint
Photo: Saddle Creek Records

The Faint's music has been known to make people dance, to even make them climb onstage and strip their clothes off, and don't expect that to stop just because they've made an album about death.

On the recently released Danse Macabre, the Omaha, Nebraska, quintet ponders mortality, but at the same time the Faint show they just can't get enough of the new wave electro-pop experimentation that inspired 1999's Blank-Wave Arcade, a synthesized about-face to their straightforward 1998 indie rock debut, Media.

"Basically we got tired of how we were presenting music live," singer/synth player Todd Baechle said of the band's evolution. "We wanted to make it more of a show — have more fun doing it and be more entertaining and try to escape from the indie rock-type sound that we were surrounded by. The kind of guitar-playing that we knew how to play was getting boring for us."

So the band began focusing less on guitars and more on synthesizers, arriving at a sound that is at times vaguely familiar — touching on everything from Depeche Mode and Duran Duran to Gary Numan and Nine Inch Nails — without ever blatantly borrowing from any one artist.

"We weren't into new wave any more than anybody else," Baechle said. "We just wanted to make more upbeat songs, something more danceable. Keyboards seem to have so many more possibilities than, at least, what we could do with guitars that we ended up having a rock background and then electronic instruments. That's basically what happened in the early '80s with the new wave groups, so I think that's where any similarities stem from."

After motivating scores of normally jaded indie rock fans to shake their Dickies-clad booties on several successful tours behind Blank-Wave Arcade, Baechle and company — drummer Clark Baechle, bassist Joel Petersen, synth player Jacob Thiele and guitarist Dapose — set out to make an even more danceable record with Danse Macabre.

"We wanted to make sort of a dance club feel," Baechle said, and although he insisted the album is not intended for dance club play, it's easy to imagine the skittish keyboards and pulsing bass of "Glass Danse" fueling a sweaty, churning discotheque. The "upbeat and darker" disc, which recently hit #3 on the CMJ 200 college airplay chart, also uses liberal doses of vocal effects and employs studio techniques the group learned while putting together a remix 12-inch of Blank-Wave Arcade songs.

"Doing [the remix LP] helped us move along toward being more proficient at electronic music and the different little tricks," Baechle said. "In each style of music there's a bag full of tricks, and we like to take from all the different bags as soon as we learn 'em. It doesn't matter if it's pop metal or country or whatever — it doesn't really matter where they come from because they're all useful and we find ways to work 'em in."

Which explains the diversity of Danse Macabre. Its nine tracks range from "Posed to Death," whose swingy beat is supplemented by Baechle's repeated pants of "Oh, oh, ah, oh," to "The Conductor," an apocalyptic industrial track that namechecks conductors Leonard Slatkin and Herbert von Karajan.

Although they vary in terms of sound and structure, many of the songs share a common carpe diem theme. On the album's leadoff track, "Agenda Suicide," a driving, bleep-bloop-sprinkled composition with tense waves of keyboard and machine gun spurts of electronic drums, Baechle sings, "As I lay to die, the things I think/ Did I waste my time? I think I did — I worked for life/ All we want are just pretty little homes/ Our work makes pretty little homes."

"All of us have been thinking a lot about what death is," he explained, "and what you want to look back on as your life when you're dying. I think it's kind of interesting to think about making sure you're doing what you like with your life just as if it's your last day."

Another track, the bleak and haunting "Ballad of a Paralyzed Citizen," tells the story of a young lifeguard who becomes paralyzed after diving into the shallow end of a pool to rescue a child who was only pretending to be drowning. "I've felt the hand of God/ And that's the last thing that I felt/ At all below my back," the song's protagonist says.

"It's a reminder about how anything could change," Baechle said. "At any moment your life could be ruined or over ... [so] make sure you're doing something that you like with your life. Don't use your life to make somebody else's dreams come true, working for Starbucks or Coke or whatever the big company is that you'd be supporting just to make your life go by."

While Danse Macabre may not immediately convince listeners to re-evaluate their lives, it ought to at least get them dancing. At every show, though, there are a few who are either too cool or too self-conscious to burn some calories. For them, the band offers a musical nudge with "The Passives," a Blank-Wave Arcade track about overcoming inhibitions.

"I don't wanna be the guy who's up there yelling at people to dance," Baechle said, "and yet I still want everyone to dance because I know they have more fun when they do."

• The Faint

Best of 2004: Live Concert Photos

• No Doubt
• Ashlee Simpson
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Evanescence
• Velvet Revolver

CMJ Music Marathon 2004 in NYC October 13-16

• The Faint
• TV On The Radio
• Har Mar Superstar
• The Concretes
• The Dears

• The Faint