P. Diddy was acting straight "foolie" and putting some of your favorite celebs "on blast" during his radio-a-thon on New York's Hot 97 on Wednesday. The Mohawk-sporting mogul was on the station trying to raise funds for his children's charity efforts. Among those calling in to donate money to PD's cause was Jennifer Lopez, who, along with her fiancé, Ben Affleck, donated a combined $78,000. R. Kelly, who was in New York, also phoned in and pledged 20,000 big ones. Other big spenders were Jay-Z and Dame Dash, Eminem and Paul Rosenberg, and Busta Rhymes. In total, Diddy is said to have raised more than $250,000. ...

Alien Ant Farm and founding guitarist Terry Corso have parted ways, citing the divorce staple "irreconcilable differences" as the reason for the split. The band's first show with temporary replacement Victor Camacho took place Wednesday in Birmingham, Alabama. ... Due to the California fires, Michelle Branch and Monica did not participate in this week's Monday Night at the Mic, the "battle of the bands"-style competition on ABC's "Monday Night Football." The game between the Chargers and Dolphins, set to take place in San Diego, was moved to Phoenix, and the segment was postponed until Monday, November 3. During the game between the Patriots and Broncos, Branch and Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George will take on Monica and Atlanta Falcons cornerback Bryan Scott. ...

Queens of the Stone Age singer Mark Lanegan will release the odds- and-ends EP Here Comes That Weird Chill (Methamphetamine Blues, Extras and Oddities) on December 9. A full album, Bubblegum, will follow in early spring. Lanegan will play a short West Coast tour in December, starting in Vancouver on December 11 and running through December 17 in Los Angeles. ... Meanwhile, Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen is getting in on the side-project action on which his bandmates thrive. At the end of November, Van Leeuwen will release a disc by his band Enemy, Hooray for Dark Matter, which will be available for purchase on www.enemyonline.com. Enemy will support Mark Lanegan on a number of dates throughout Europe and the U.S. ...

The Recording Industry Association of America announced on Wednesday it will ask online music companies to implement parental-control filters on downloads, much in the same way that CDs have "Parental Advisory" stickers. The trade group is currently providing companies with guidelines for how to label downloads. ... Alt-country roots rocker Steve Earle will duke it out with conservative newsman Bill O'Reilly on Monday on "The O'Reilly Factor," which airs at 8 and 11 p.m. ET. Earle will also speak his mind on the road during the Tell Us the Truth Tour, which also features Tom Morello and Billy Bragg. Earle will join the outing on November 11 in Royal Oak, Michigan. And on November 7, an Earle concert documentary will premiere in New York and Nashville. The film will screen nationwide in the weeks that follow. ...

After opening for Dashboard Confessional and other bands, Vendetta Red will finally headline their own tour. The outing, with S.T.U.N. and Armor for Sleep supporting, kicks off November 10 and wraps up December 12 in their hometown of Seattle. Vendetta Red just released "Seconds Away" as the follow-up single to "Shatterday." ... The second major-label Blindside album, About a Burning Fire, will be released on February 24. The album was produced by Howard Benson and features Billy Corgan on the first single, "Hurray." Other track titles include "Follow You Down," "All of Us," "Swallow" and "Eye of the Storm." ...   British indie legends the Mekons have returned to their raging roots for Punk Rock, which comes out January 20. The album features re-recorded versions of some of the first tracks they ever wrote. The band was inspired to rediscover the past after last year's career retrospective 25th anniversary tour. The Mekons will tour North America again in March. ... Irish rockers Ash have begun recording their fifth album in Los Angeles. Nick Raskulinecz, who worked behind the boards on the Foo Fighters' One by One, is producing the record, due in the spring. ...

10.29.2003

Russell Simmons and his Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will be holding a special tribute to Jam Master Jay outside the Queens Central Public Library in New York on October 30, the one-year anniversary of the pioneering hip-hop DJ's slaying. Jay's family is expected to announce updates on a biography, feature film, documentary and potential Queens street renaming in his honor. ...

Pearl Jam's benefit concert Wednesday at the Santa Barbara Bowl featured several special guests, including Chris Cornell, who, after playing solo acoustic versions of "Can't Change Me," from his 1999 Euphoria Morning album, and Audioslave's "Like a Stone," was joined by Eddie Vedder and the band for a Temple of the Dog reunion for "Hunger Strike" and "Reach Down." Former drummer Jack Irons, singer/songwriter Jack Johnson and Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante also joined Pearl Jam during the show, which raised funds for the Louis Warschaw Prostate Cancer Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. ...

Outkast, Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige, Eve, Ludacris and Chingy are scheduled to perform at the inaugural Vibe Awards, to be broadcast on November 21. The show, which will be taped the night before, will be hosted by Queen Latifah. ... Chingy is reissuing his platinum debut, Jackpot, on November 18 with a bonus DVD. The extra disc will feature all of the Ludacris protégé's videos, including alternate versions of "Right Thurr," as well as live performances and behind-the-scenes footage. ...

Hilary Duff will release her first music DVD, "All Access Pass," on November 4. Along with videos for "So Yesterday," "Why Not" and "I Can't Wait," the DVD will include making-of documentaries about the videos and acoustic performances of "So Yesterday" and "Little Voice" from her "Sessions @ AOL." ... Sniffing for hits? Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 14 features 20 more humdingers including Beyoncé's "Crazy in Love," Justin Timberlake's "Senorita," R. Kelly's "Thoia Thoing" and Good Charlotte's "Girls and Boys." There are also a couple of surprises: Fountains of Wayne's "Stacy's Mom" and Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?" ...

Hazen Street, the first signing to Good Charlotte brothers Benji and Joel Madden's D.C. Flag imprint, will enter the studio with producer Howard Benson (P.O.D., Papa Roach) next week to begin tracking their debut album. Boasting an all-star lineup of contemporary pop-punk rockers and hardcore heroes, Hazen Street are comprised of vocalists Freddy Cricien (Madball) and Toby Morse (H2O), guitarists Chad Gilbert (New Found Glory) and David Kennedy (Box Car Racer), bassist Hoya (Madball) and drummer Mackie Jayson (Cro-Mags, Bad Brains, Shelter). ...

The Transplants' Rob Aston and Tim Armstrong (also of Rancid) have collaborated with Cypress Hill on a song called "What's Your Number" for B-Real and the guys' upcoming seventh album, Till Death Do Us Part. Due in March, the record will otherwise focus more on hip-hop. ... After completing a tour with the Deftones, which runs through November 22, emo-metal band Poison the Well will embark on a headlining tour. The first date is November 23 in East Meadow, New York, and the final scheduled gig is December 12 in Savannah, Georgia. ...

The home of longtime Great White drummer, Audie Desbrow, burned down in the California blaze that has destroyed nearly 2,000 houses. Desbrow was living in the Del Rosa neighborhood of San Bernardino. Desbrow recorded with Great White from 1986 to 2000. ... The Dillinger Escape Plan, High on Fire and Meshuggah are among the bands slated for inclusion on the tribute album We Reach: The Music of the Melvins, due in the summer. The album will be the second release for Fractured Transmitter, the imprint owned by Mushroomhead frontman Jason Mann. The label's first offering will be a Meshuggah EP in the spring. ...

Rob Zombie bassist Blasko, who has also played with Prong, Fireball Ministry and the latest incarnation of Helmet, will unleash material from his project the Death Rays through Antidote Records, according to the label's Web site. New Death Rays music is expected to surface next year. ... Speaking of Helmet, Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale confirmed on his Web site that Page Hamilton will be producing his solo debut. He also reported that guitarist Chris Traynor and drummer Charlie Walker recently split from his backing band, adding that Traynor has rejoined his former bandmate Hamilton in the new Helmet lineup. Rossdale is still working on material with Rival Schools bassist Cache Tolman and as-yet-unnamed replacement members. On the movie front, having shot his scenes for the Brittany Murphy comedy "Little Black Book," Gwen's hubby is now gearing up for a role in the Keanu Reeves comic-book flick "Constantine." ...

• Diddy
• Jennifer Lopez
• Eminem
• Alien Ant Farm
• Vendetta Red

Le Tigre
Photo: Mr. Lady

Standing onstage Thursday (August 16) in Chicago's Congress Theater, Kathleen Hanna caught her breath between songs and attempted to boil down the impetus behind this month's feminist Ladyfest music gigs to a single sentence.

Society, said the former Bikini Kill frontwoman, tries "to make you feel stupid because you're making work about your friends and neighbors." But your friends — and your bands and festivals — are just as valid as anything else on the mainstream's radar, she implied.

Then Hanna and her new band, Le Tigre, laid waste to the mainstream's dismissals with a new stick-to-your-guns tune called "My Art Is Better Than Your Art."

Le Tigre's lo-fi, disco-punk set was a clear rallying point for Ladyfest Midwest, underscoring that women of all genres could and should create their own art, with their own values, based on their own experiences.

The four-day event, which ended Sunday, saw more than 1,000 women (and dozens of men) trek to the Windy City for sets by minimalist funk pioneers ESG, Indigo Girl Amy Ray backed by queercore punks the Butchies, country singer and Mekons member Sally Timms, art-metal punishers Loraxx and scores of others.

The Chicago festival followed the smaller but equally energized Ladyfest Scotland, held August 12-14 in Glasgow. Like its Midwestern sister, Ladyfest Scotland featured numerous do-it-yourself and feminist workshops on topics such as DJ skills, violence against women and alternative ways to deal with menstruation. Scottish synth-pop outfit Bis, American garage acts Bratmobile and the Gossip, plus Katastrophy Wife — Babes in Toyland leader Kat Bjelland's new band — all took the stage, along with numerous other rock and spoken-word acts.

Both events took their cue from last summer's inaugural Ladyfest, a stridently independent arts and activism conference that took place in Olympia, Washington, a hub of the 1990s riot grrrl feminist-punk movement.

"This time, people haven't allowed it to remain in Olympia," said Glasgow co-organizer Lee Beattie, 22, taking a breather in the basement of the 13th Note Club on LF Scotland's opening day. "With Riot Grrrl, lots of people were happy to just sit back and take what they were doing. The riot grrrl creators were exhausted. You cannot maintain the energy to keep doing that and produce things all the time. This time it hasn't just moved from Olympia to Seattle or Washington, D.C. It actually moved across the world."

An emphasis on empowerment connected events within each festival and linked the independently organized Midwest and Scotland Ladyfests to each other.

In Glasgow, women plotted to commandeer the reins of publishing during a workshop on postering zines throughout one's neighborhood; in Chicago, they got seductive in "Kinky Crafts: Cheap and Fun Ways to Enhance Your Sex Life."

Meanwhile, Amy Ray and the Butchies stomped through a cover of Tom Petty's "Refugee," turning the song's chorus ("You don't have to live like a refugee!") into an anthem of lesbian and gay rights. In the cloistered confines of the 13th Note, the Gossip's hefty singer Beth Ditto spread her "fat positive" message by shimmying and shaking through a raucous set stripped down to her underwear.

Numerous fans at both Ladyfests said they came to the events for the music but were heading home inspired to become producers of zines, shows and festivals of their own. Just as last year's Ladyfest inspired Beattie and Ladyfest Midwest organizer Marf Wright, this year's events have sparked the DIY urge in other attendees. A handful of Glasgow fans began talking about staging a Ladyfest in Nice, France, next summer, while in Chicago flyers circulated for a 2002 Ladyfest South in Atlanta.

Another offshoot, Ladyfest East, will take place in New York in early September.

Standing out in the Glasgow rain, getting ready to catch a set by Brighton, England's electronic-buzz band Electrelane, Bratmobile singer Allison Wolfe observed that a resurgent energy is coursing through women in the indie punk scene.

"It feels like the spirit of riot grrrl all over again, though maybe in a slightly modernized package," said Wolfe, 31. Bratmobile were one of the earliest Riot Grrrl bands, and the only act to play Ladyfests in Olympia, Glasgow and Chicago.

"It's interesting, because it's a little bit looser-knit. People can put on their own festival and make it however they want, whatever suits their communities. And a lot of us will attend. It's great that the pressure's not always on the same people. I don't think it has a chance to get too stale."

• Bratmobile
• Le Tigre
• Amy Ray
• The Butchies
• Bis

Jurassic 5
Photo: Interscope

When the electronica revolution hit Austin, Texas' South By Southwest festival four years ago, it was hard to picture how anonymous DJ culture was going to coexist with four nights of indie rock, Americana and roots music.

But now, even though the electronica invasion has faded somewhat from public consciousness, you're almost as likely to see a rapper or button-pushing mixer during the fest as you are a standup bass player or string-tie-wearin' Tex-Mex combo.

When the 14th annual music gathering kicks off Wednesday, it will have the usual wide variety of acts — 1,000 total. But as far as creative director Brent Grulke is concerned, at this point beats and boots are just business as usual in this music Mecca.

"The interaction between electronic music and hip-hop now represents a really significant part of the festival in a way that was virtually nonexistent a few years ago," said Grulke, who has been involved with the festival every year of its existence.

Part music-industry confab, part band showcase and all about schmoozing, SXSW is the kind of place where you can see ya'llternative singer/songwriter Sally Timms playing just a few doors down from ghetto tech star DJ Assault.

Its 8,000-plus registered attendees will descend on the college town and state capital to stumble from venue to venue, drink beer, eat barbecue and check out panels on such topics as, "How Do You Publicize a Mike Watt in a Britney Spears World?" "It's not just the numbers [of hip-hop groups] involved," Grulke said. "We now have very established talent that performs, we have two of our largest venues, Stubb's and the Austin Music Hall, with entire nights dedicated to hip-hop this year." Among the big names on tap for this year are twangy singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams, who will debut some of the material from her upcoming album, Broken Butterflies, (due in the spring) and the Black Crowes, in town to preview songs from their upcoming album, Lions (May 8).

Also performing are hip-hoppers Jurassic 5, the Liks and Black Eyed Peas; local rockers Fastball; experimental turntablist DJ Spooky; and a rare show from ex-Tina Turner hubby Ike Turner with his Ike Turner Revue.

Psychedelic popster Robyn Hitchcock will head up a reunited version of his late-'70s psych-pop band the Soft Boys, and Juliana Hatfield will take the stage for a reunion with her mid-'80s Boston pop rock group the Blake Babies.

Other acts performing on more than 40 stages include bluegrass star Ricky Skaggs, Los Angeles rock 'n' soul act the Bellrays, arty poppers the New Pornographers, Japanese pop punkers Ex-Girl, Canadian live house band the New Deal, turntablists X-ecutioners, world beat star Thomas Mapfumo, Latin all-star band Los Super Seven and Los Angeles punk rockers Texas Terri & the Stiff Ones.

Grulke said the festival also will feature one of the biggest slates to date of world music acts. Joining such international rock bands as Aterciopelados (Colombia), Coccoon Pit (Japan), the Gift (Portugal) and Yao (China) will be more than 70 other acts spanning the globe, including Moroccan reggae group Sawt el Atlas, world beat singer Henri Dikongue (Cameroon), Hungary's DJ Pozsi and hip-hoppers Pepe Deluxe (Finland).

SXSW's star-making mythos has been overstated in the past, but it is a good opportunity for bands to get in front of what is arguably one of the biggest concentrations of U.S. music media. No pressure, right? Just imagine if it was among your first-ever U.S. performances. That's the case for English hip-hop/punk group Brassy, who will have played just five shows in this country before unleashing their Digital-Hardcore-meets-Luscious-Jackson sound on the media elite Friday night.

"I don't know anything about it," said lead singer/guitarist Muffin Spencer, 32, an expat American who said she left the U.S. 14 years ago because she thought British bands were more interesting. "We met with our former publishing company and there was a little old man there who said it [SXSW] is a place to go and get smashed on tequila, which sounds fine." Spencer, younger sister of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion leader Jon Spencer, said she thinks the festival will be a good chance for critics who might have missed the recent U.S. release of the band's full-length debut, Got It Made, to check out their energetic live show. The 17-track album features such break-beat pop as "Work It Out" and the band's electro-punk anthem "No Competition." Grulke said one thing that won't be as prominent in the festival's sprawling trade-show area this year is the proliferation of dot-com booths that sprung up like weeds last year. "A lot of those companies that didn't know what their business agendas were are gone," Grulke said.

• Jurassic 5
• DJ Assault
• The Mekons
• Lucinda Williams
• The Black Crowes

August 5 [14:00 EDT] -- Schoolly D, Vic Chesnutt, Giant Sand, the Grifters, and the Mekons are among the artists who give some childhood classics very modern makeovers on "Rudy's Rockin' Kiddie Caravan."

Schoolly D takes on "This Old Man," Chesnutt reworks "Home on the Range," and The Grifters weigh in with "The Muffin Man" on this twisted collection, which is a companion piece to TNT's equally off-kilter "Rudy and GoGo."

The non sequitur-laden adventures of Rudy the marionette and his goat pal GoGo make the goings on in Pee Wee's Playhouse seem relatively lucid. The duo are often joined by fellow marionette Jesse B [IMB QuickTime], as well as the Mekons' Jon Langford as the Old Salty SeaBiscuit, Bill Taft of Smoke as Unkle Carbunkle, and pop/country singer Sally Timms as Cowboy Sally.

If the mix sounds intriguing, you'll have to look harder than your local record store to find it. The album is available for only by mail order from Bloodshot Records, but with all proceeds from sales of the $12 CD going to the National Center for Family Literacy, it might be worth tracking down.

Bloodshot can be reached by mail at 912 W. Addison, Suite 1, Chicago, IL 60613, by phone at (773) 248-8709, or by e-mail at bludshot@mcs.com.

Here's what you can expect in the mail:

• "Bus" - Susie Honeyman
• "This Old Man" - Schoolly D
• "Old Joe Clark" - Smoke
• The Man on the Flying Trapeze" - Calexico
• "Them Bones" - The Waco Brothers
• "Blow The Man Down" - Giant Sand
• "What Can The Matter Be?" - Anne Richmond Boston
• J'Ai Passe Devant Ta Porte" - D.L. Menard & The Louisiana Aces
• "The ABC Song" - Zydeco Elvis
• "Hush Little Baby" - Sally Timms
• "Nokas For The Kinder" - New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars
• "Playmate" - The Chiselers
• "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain" - The Rock*A*Teens
• "Skip To My Lou" - Moonshine Willy
• "The Great Titanic" - Kelly Hogan
• "A Frozen Road" - The Black Mama Dharma Band
• "Oranges & Lemons" - Mekons
• "John Henry" - New Kingdom
• "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" - Rob Gal
• "Froggie Went A-Courtin'" - Blacktop Rockets
• "Home on the Range" - Vic Chesnutt
• "The Muffin Man" - The Grifters

Of course, the television show is a bit easier to find. "Rudy and GoGo" turn up on TNT each Saturday at 5 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern time.

• Vic Chesnutt
• The Mekons
• Schoolly D