Alanis Morissette
Photo: Regina Thomas/Heather Stanley

Alanis Morissette, long a vocal supporter of a woman's right to choose, will put her music where her mouth is when she headlines a benefit concert for Voters for Choice in Washington, D.C., later this month.

The singer will appear along with Blues Traveler's John Popper and Chan Kinchla, as well as Michael Franti & Spearhead and Joe Henry, at D.A.R. Constitution Hall on September 25, according to Voters for Choice executive director Maureen Britell. Feminist activist Gloria Steinem is the board president of the organization, which works to elect pro-choice candidates.

Britell said the group asked Morissette to play an acoustic set, but the Canadian singer offered to bring her band. Morissette wrapped up her next album, for which a release date has not been set, earlier this year (see "Morissette Previews New Album At Los Angeles Show").

Tickets for the concert will go on sale Friday through Ticketmaster. VIP seats, including packages with passes to an after-show party with the artists, can be purchased from Voters for Choice at (202) 944-5080.

• Alanis Morissette
• Blues Traveler
• Spearhead
• Joe Henry

Dave Matthews Band
Photo: RCA

Pearl Jam, Alanis Morissette and R.E.M. all on the same bill? Yep, and it's not a mid-'90s flashback — the three acts will perform October 22 at Seattle's Key Arena in a concert culminating a week of shows in the city to raise awareness and money to combat world hunger.

Other concerts include an October 17 show at the Experience Music Project's Sky Church featuring the Wallflowers, blues-rocker Chris Whitley, and former Clash frontman Joe Strummer with the Mescaleros,

An October 14 event at Paramount Theatre will feature Dave Matthews in a solo performance as well as singer/songwriter Emmylou Harris, producer/artist Daniel Lanois and gospel legends Blind Boys of Alabama. October 19 finds Heart's Ann and Nancy Wilson at the EMP, while Michael Franti & Spearhead join Joe Henry and Chocolate Genius there on October 20.

Planned by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and produced by the EMP, the Groundwork 2001 concert series will support U.N. efforts to provide the hungry with seeds, livestock and tools to help them become self-sufficient.

"The first casualty of hunger is hope," said Madonna, honorary Groundwork 2001 chair, in a statement. "The most subversive act you can perform is on behalf of someone's sense of hope."

The organization intends to release a CD called Groundwork featuring album tracks and B-sides by the likes of Madonna ("Cyber-Raga"), Moby ("Whispering Wind"), David Gray ("My Oh My") and Sheryl Crow, who contributes an unreleased live version of "Everyday Is a Winding Road." The disc will be available in October at Hear Music and Starbucks as well as online.

Groundwork aims to televise some of the Seattle concerts in October or around Thanksgiving, according to a spokesperson; further details have yet to be worked out.

Click for a feature interview with R.E.M.

• Pearl Jam
• Dave Matthews Band
• Dave Matthews
• R.E.M.
• Alanis Morissette

John Popper
Photo: Jason Campbell for MTV.com

NEW YORK — When many people think about jam bands, they picture tie dye, hacky sacks and earthy, organic music filled with instrumental noodling. But lately, musicians have been expanding the boundaries of jam music by infusing elements of techno, hip-hop, avant-jazz and prog rock into their songs.

The goal of the second annual Jammy Awards, held Thursday at the Roseland Ballroom, was to celebrate the growing diversity among jam bands and to encourage artists from different backgrounds to join each other onstage and let fly with the spirit of spontaneous invention. Bluesmen collided with alt-rockers, rappers joined pop stars, turntablists merged with bluegrass twangers, and three-chord punkers dueled with drum'n'bass artists. Regardless of the styles they explored, nearly all the acts held true to the jam edict of pinpointing an emotional moment and stretching it out for minutes at a time.

The house act for the proceedings was the Derek Trucks Band, fronted by the nephew of Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks. Derek, who replaced guitarist Dickey Betts in the Allmans last year, set the tone for the evening with music that ranged from soulful blues with slippery slide guitar leads to freaky Zappa-esque workouts and covered various strains of funk, free jazz and Latin music in between. During its various sets, the band was joined onstage by Col. Bruce Hampton, pedal steel player Robert Randolph and former "Saturday Night Live" comic Jim Breuer, who led the group through an impromptu blues rendition of his routine "Party in Your Stomach." First to take the main stage was the Del McCoury Band. Accompanied by Randolph and DJ Logic, they played a Southern-fried bluegrass version of "Swing Low Sweet Chariot." While the dense blend of mandolin, violin, keyboards, banjo and acoustic guitars left little room for Logic to scratch, Randolph's frenzied pedal steel playing gave the music a fiery charge even though the country-hick harmonies eventually wore thin.

With a career batting average of .304 and four Golden Gloves to his name, New York Yankees center fielder Bernie Williams won't be in need of a new job for years to come, but during his brief (by jam band standards) set he showed that when he leaves the majors he can probably find work in the music biz. Joined by the Jazz Mandolin Project, Williams batted out some impressive John Scofield-style guitar licks on a version of Ornette Coleman's "Ramblin'." Adhering more closely to traditional notions of jamming, the Steve Kimock Band and Trucks played extended and sometimes overly indulgent funk-jazz excursions.

One of the highlights of the Jammy Awards was the Tom Tom Club, who performed a percussive reggae-fueled version of Phish's "Sand" before being joined by Michael Franti of Spearhead for the Club's "Genius of Love" and "Wordy Rappinghood." The most incongruent performance came from spontaneous combo Lake Trout, who played moody music that incorporated elements of ambient electronica, drum'n'bass, prog rock and avant-jazz. The band's first jam ended with torrents of distorted vocals and epileptic beats that sounded like a slightly less amped-up Atari Teenage Riot. Then the combo was joined by Ramones drummer Marky Ramone and Misfits bassist Jerry Only on vocals for two storming Ramones tunes, "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Blitzkrieg Bop." An ambitious but ultimately unsuccessful collaboration between Meters bassist George Porter Jr., Roots vocalist Black Thought and Soulive on Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and James Brown's "Soul Power" ranked as the only major disappointment of the show.

Far more kinetic was Les Claypool's Frog Brigade performance with "Late Show" keyboardist Paul Shaffer and string-slinging maverick Junior Brown. The combo burned through a bizarre, uplifting version of the Beatles' "Taxman," slipping in snippets of Primus' "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver." During maniacal solo breaks, Brown strangled a whirlwind of sound from his double-necked guit-steel guitar, Shaffer played intricate organ runs and Claypool thrummed out a variety of rhythmic, funky bass passages. Claypool ended his band's set with a galactic version of King Crimson's "Thela Hun Ginjeet." The last band of the evening was Disco Biscuits, who along with Blues Traveler singer John Popper and jazz virtuoso guitarist Stanley Jordan played Jane's Addiction's "Three Days" and Led Zeppelin's "Bring It on Home." On the former, Jordan provided angular texture to the band's dusky, moody playing and Popper filled in the sonic gaps with wailing harmonica solos.

The Jammys concluded with various artists including Popper, Jordan and the Derek Trucks Band jamming to the Meters' "Cissy Strut" after Porter won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Other award winnners included:

• Release of the Year - Ladies and Gentlemen, the Grateful Dead
• Jam of the Year - Phil & Friends with Mike Gordon (12/31/00)
• Live Performance - Phish at Deer Creek in Noblesville, Indiana (7/11/00)
• Live Album - Live Frogs, Set 1, Les Claypool's Frog Brigade
• Studio Album - Farmhouse, Phish
• Mimi Fishman Memorial Award - Mockingbird Foundation
• Festival of the Year - Gathering of the Vibes
• Fan Website - www.etree.org
• Radio Show - "Jam Nation"
• New Groove of the Year - Yonder Mountain String Band

• Phish
• The Allman Brothers Band
• Col. Bruce Hampton
• Del McCoury
• Jazz Mandolin Project

Medeski, Martin, & Wood, moe., Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, String Cheese Incident, and more of the jam world's finest will come out next month for the third annual Berkshire Mountain Music Festival in Massachusetts.

Those acts will join Femi Kuti, Spearhead, Deep Banana Blackout, Galactic, Peter Rowan and Tony Rice, and others for three days of music and camping.

The music will be spread out across five stages, and organizers are also promising banjo and DJ workshops, an arts and crafts fair, children's activities, and movies, as well as food and micro-brewed beer.

Advance tickets for the entire weekend are $85 (jumping to $95 on August 4), and walk-up tickets for the three-day event will jump to $100. Potential concertgoers can find more information at www.berkfest.com.

• Bela Fleck
• Femi Kuti
• Spearhead

It was music, sun, fun, and rock stars on the slopes this past Saturday for the fourth annual Boarding for Breast Cancer show at Lake Tahoe's Sierra-at-Tahoe resort. The all-day benefit concert featured Ozomatli, Spearhead, Blink 182, Less than Jake, tha Alkaholiks, and former Porno for Pyros members Mike Watt, Stephen Perkins, and Peter DiStefano.

• Ozomatli
• Spearhead

Rapper Spearhead has been tapped as the headliner for this year's Boarding for Breast Cancer Snowboard and Music Festival. The event will be held on April 17 at the Sierra-At-Tahoe Resort in Twin Bridges, California.

• blink-182
• Ozomatli
• Spearhead

Ani DiFranco, Me'Shell Ndegeocello and Spearhead's Michael Franti will perform at a concert on September 19 at the Berkeley Community Theater in Berkeley, California, as part of a benefit for the state's Coalition for Women Prisoners and the Prison Activist Resource Center.

Christened the "Critical Resistance: Music and Solidarity" concert by organizer and infamous Black Liberation Movement activist Angela Davis, the show will focus on reforming the criminal justice system and the need to increase public spending for the construction of new schools rather than new prisons.

Joining DiFranco, Ndegeocello and Franti onstage for the concert will be Sioux poet and musician John Trudell, who helped form the American Indian Movement in the 1970s.

The Berkeley performance will also mark the first date of sorts for DiFranco's fall tour in support of her newest album, "Little Plastic Castle," while Ndegeocello plans to head into a studio soon to start work on her third album.

• Ani DiFranco
• Spearhead

May 19 [10:00 EST] -- If the Spearhead tour that kicked off earlier this month isn't coming your way any time soon, you can still catch the raggae-influenced rappers.

The group, who are currently on the road with Camp Lo, will turn up on SonicNet (at soncinet.com) for a live cybercast and pre-show chat from New York City on Tuesday. Spearhead will take to the Net at 9 p.m. Eastern time before hitting the stage at Tramps later that night.

If you'd rather see the band yourself, you can check out the complete Spearhed/Camp Lo itinerary in our "Spearhead And Camp Lo Take To The Road" story in the MTV News Gallery or check out the band's April 1997 chat transcript in the MTV Live area.

• Spearhead

May 5 [16:00 EST] -- Reggae-tinged rappers Spearhead and 70's blaxploitation iconographers Camp Lo kicked off a month-long tour Friday night in Palookaville, California.

Spearhead, which is supporting the release of its second album "Chocolate Supa Highway," and Camp Lo, which is turning heads with its debut effort "Uptown Saturday Night," will roll across the U.S. until they wrap up their tour on June 13 in San Francisco.

If you can't make it out to see Camp Lo live, you can keep your eyes open for the group's third single and video from "Uptown Saturday Night," "Black Nostaljack." But if you'd rather see them in the flesh, here's where they'll be:

• 5/6 - West Hollywood, CA @ House Of Blues
• 5/7 - Solana Beach, CA @ Belly Up Tavern
• 5/10 - Fort Worth, TX @ Caravan Of Dreams
• 5/11 - Houston, TX @ Rockefeller's
• 5/12 - New Orleans, LA @ House Of Blues
• 5/14 - Myrtle Beach, SC @ House Of Blues
• 5/15 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
• 5/17 - Wilmington, NC @ Forum
• 5/18 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 5/20 - New York, NY @ Tramps
• 5/23 - Boston, MA @ Avalon
• 5/25 - Montreal, QUE @ Le Spectrum
• 5/26 - Toronto, ONT @ Lee's Palace
• 5/27 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Metropol
• 5/29 - Cleveland, OH @ Odeon Concert Club
• 5/30 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
• 5/31 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogart's
• 6/1 - Chicago, IL @ House Of Blues
• 6/3 - Fargo, ND @ First Avenue Club
• 6/5 - Columbia, MO @ Blue Note
• 6/6 - Lawrence, KS @ Granada Theatre
• 6/7 - Buffalo, NY @ Ogden Music Hall
• 6/10 - Seattle, WA @ Show Box
• 6/11 - Vancouver, BC @ Rage
• 6/12 - Portland, OR @ La Luna
• 6/13 - San Francisco, CA @ Maritime Hall

• Camp Lo
• Spearhead

April 11 [16:30 EST] --As Spearhead prepares to head out on the road with Camp Lo, band member Michael Franti will turn up on MTV Online at America Online Tuesday night to chat with fans.

When the chat kicks off at 9:30 p.m. Eastern time, Franti will presumably discuss Spearhead's new album, "Chocolate Supa Highway," and its upcoming tour, which kicks off on May 2.

If you want to catch Franti online, head to America Online at keyword: mtvarena, and if you want to check out Spearhead and Camp Lo in concert, head to the following venues:

• 5/2 - Santa Cruz, CA @ Palookaville
• 5/3 - San Francisco, CA @ Fillmore
• 5/4 - Santa Barbara, CA @ The Hub
• 5/6 - Los Angeles, CA @ House of Blues
• 5/7 - San Diego, CA @ Belly Up
• 5/8 - Phoenix, AZ @ Ballroom
• 5/10 - Dallas, TX @ Caravan of Dreams
• 5/11 - Houston, TX @ Rockefellers
• 5/12 - New Orleans, LA @ House of Blues
• 5/14 - Myrtle Beach, SC @ House of Blues
• 5/15 - Atlanta, GA @ Masquerade
• 5/16 - Hickory, NC @ Bogeyís
• 5/20 - Washington, DC @ 9:30
• 5/21 - Baltimore, MD @ Bohagers
• 5/22 - Philadelphia, PA @ Factory
• 5/24 - New York, NY @ Tramps
• 5/26 - Boston, MA @ Avalon
• 5/27 - Montreal, QUE @ Rialto Theater
• 5/28 - Toronto, ONT @ Phoenix
• 5/30 - Detroit, MI @ St. Andrews Hall
• 5/31 - Cincinnati, OH @ Bogarts
• 6/1 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
• 6/3 - Minneapolis, MN @ 1st Avenue
• 6/5 - Columbia, MO @ Blue Note
• 6/6 - Lawrence, KS @ Granada
• 6/7 - Denver, CO @ Ogden
• 6/10 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
• 6/11 - Vancouver, BC @ Rage
• 6/12 - Portland, OR @ La Luna

• Spearhead