Tantric
Photo: MTV.com

Tantric, Oleander and Beautiful Creatures will have one for the road when they embark on the Rolling Rock Town Fair tour.

The first Rolling Rock-sponsored trek kicks off September 25 in Cleveland and makes stops in 13 other confirmed cities thus far before wrapping up November 11 in New York, according to the tour's publicist.

Tantric and Beautiful Creatures are making the rounds in support of their self-titled debuts, released in February and August, respectively, while Oleander are pumping their third album, Unwind, released in March.

The Rolling Rock Town Fair tour follows two all-day festivals held in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Last year's inaugural Rolling Rock Town Fair featured the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Moby, Filter and Fuel. August's Rolling Rock Town Fair 2.0 featured Tantric and Oleander as well as Stone Temple Pilots, Live, Incubus and Staind.

Rolling Rock Town Fair tour dates, according to the publicist:

• 9/25 - Cleveland, OH @ Odeon Concert Club
• 9/27 - Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
• 10/3 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues
• 10/6 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
• 10/13 - Seattle, WA @ Showbox
• 10/16 - San Francisco, CA @ Slim's
• 10/19 - West Hollywood, CA @ House of Blues
• 10/25 - Austin, TX @ La Zona Rosa
• 10/30 - Atlanta, GA @ Earthlink Live
• 10/31 - Charlotte, NC @ Tremont Music Hall
• 11/4 - Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live
• 11/8 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
• 11/9 - Philadelphia, PA @ Electric Factory
• 11/10 - Boston, MA @ Avalon
• 11/11 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza

For more on Tantric, check out "7 Questions With Tantric".

• Tantric
• Oleander

Oleander
Photo: Universal

When Oleander asked radio programmers, "Are You There?" last week, the answer was a resounding "Yes." The melodic rock song, off the Sacramento, California, band's upcoming second album, Unwind (March 6), was the most added track at three formats — active rock, album rock and alternative.

Shortly before the song's release, singer Thomas Flowers and bassist Doug Eldridge said they didn't know if they could strike the same chord as they did with "Why I'm Here," their breakthrough single.

"We've got our fingers crossed," Thomas said.

"'Are You There' just made sense as the first single — it's a little heavier, and we wanted to go back to rock radio and kind of re-establish ourselves back there, where our roots are, and where 'Why I'm Here' did so well," Eldridge said. "Why I'm Here," from the gold-certified February Son, reached #1 on the rock charts in 1999.

Director Marc Webb, who has worked with artists ranging from Cold to Sting, shot a video for "Are You There" that depicts "a skater chick who sneaks out of the house and makes her way to an Oleander show," Flowers said.

The singer said the new disc is harder overall than their debut, with "some extra instrumentation that doesn't make it too hardcore." "It's more diverse," Eldridge said. "We've taken it in both directions, with some mellower tracks and heavier tracks." For Unwind, the band reunited with producer Richard Mouser, who handled 1997's Shrinking the Blob, Oleander's independently released demo CD. Blob helped Oleander land a deal with Republic/Universal, and most of its songs reappeared on February Son, produced by Steven Haigler (Fuel, Local H).

"We believed in [Mouser] when we did our demos," Eldridge said. "We wanted to use him on [February Son] but he wasn't available, so this was an opportunity for us to do what we wanted to do in the first place. He's always been kind of a founding member of this band in a way, because when we were no ones, he took us to another level." Oleander — whose lineup also includes guitarist Ric Ivanisevich and drummer Scott Devours — will join 3 Doors Down on the road beginning February 28 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Fuel comes aboard on March 6 in Stony Brook, New York.

Oleander plan to stay on the road through the summer and may stage a headlining tour if the album takes off, Flowers said.

• Oleander

Fuel's Brett Scallions
Photo: Sony

Fuel, Crazy Town and Oleander will musically take it to the river in Atlanta on February 27 to perform at the 99X Fat Tuesday concert to benefit a local environmental group, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund.

The three headlining bands will be divided between a pair of adjacent venues in downtown Atlanta for the Fat Tuesday concert. Fuel and Crazy Town will take the stage at the Tabernacle, while Oleander will set up their gear at the Cotton Club, a venue located downstairs from the Tabernacle.

Co-sponsored by Atlanta-area radio station WNNX, the Fat Tuesday concert is a sequel to last February's 99X Chinese New Year concert, an event that was held at the Fox Theater and featured appearances from 311, Our Lady Peace and Angie Aparo.

As with last year's fundraiser, proceeds from the Fat Tuesday show will be donated to the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, which received more than $12,000 from the 2000 Chinese New Year benefit, according to a publicist for the radio station.

Founded in 1994, the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund is a private environmental organization that seeks to protect a 200-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee River that runs through North and Central Georgia.

For more on the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Fund, check out the group's Web site (www.ucriverkeeper.org).

• Fuel
• Crazy Town
• Oleander

3 Doors Down
Photo: Universal

Mississippi rockers 3 Doors Down, who performed in Puerto Rico on Saturday, will return Stateside this week for a series of one-off shows,leading up to the launch of a winter U.S. tour, starting on February 28 in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Opening for 3 Doors Down on all dates of the tour will be Oleander, while Fuel will join the bill starting on March 6 in Stony Brook, New York, and continuing through a March 19 concert in Marietta, Ohio.

"That ought to be fun," 3 Doors Down guitarist Chris Henderson said of touring with Fuel. "Those guys are cool, and we're gonna step up to the next size venue, with bigger shows, bigger production, and everybody's going to have a good time. ... Our tours are usually pretty fun. It's like one big family." After a break for the holidays, Henderson said, the band — which has sold some 3.89 million copies of its debut album, The Better Life, according to SoundScan — was eager to get back out on the road and start playing in front of live audiences again.

"We're going to tour until we just can't tour anymore," Henderson said. "That's the good thing about this band. It's a rock band, and we love the road. ... It gets tiring and you want to come home, but [after] two or three days in the house, you can go do six months again. So, we're going to stay on the road as long as we can possibly can." 3 Doors Down found inspiration for the video to their new single, "Duck and Run," during their tour last fall, as director Marc Webb, who also helmed Cold's clip for "Just Got Wicked," followed the band on- and offstage for five straight days.

"Every shot on the screen was taken live, just by a film crew that walked around with us for five days and filmed five different shows," Henderson said of the "Duck and Run" video. "It's backstage, it's on the bus, it's us in restaurants. ... Wherever we went, they followed us with a camera and they pieced the video together like that.

"And it just kind of shows what life on the road with 3 Doors Down is all about," he added, "and it's a pretty accurate representation, too, because none of it was staged. It was just cameras in your face, kind of like 'The Real World.' " Though there is not yet a release date for the "Duck and Run" video, the single was released to radio last week.

3 Doors Down will travel to the Sundance Festival in Deer Valley, Utah, for a performance on Wednesday, and the group will also travel to Ybor City, Florida, this weekend for a Super Bowl-related gig.

3 Doors Down dates:

• 1/24 - Deer Valley, UT @ Snow Park Lodge — Sundance
• 1/27 - Ybor City, FL @ Downtown Stage

• 2/1 - Baton Rouge, LA @ LSU — Pete Maravich Center
• 2/28 - Spartanburg, SC @ Memorial Auditorium (w/ Oleander and Shades Apart)
• 3/2 - Raleigh, NC @ The Ritz (w/ Oleander and Shades Apart)
• 3/3 - Norfolk, VA @ Boathouse (w/ Oleander and Shades Apart)
• 3/4 - Erie, PA @ Eric Civic Center Complex (w/ Oleander and Shades Apart)
• 3/6 - Stony Brook, NY @ SUNY-Stony Brook Sports Complex (w/ Fuel and Oleander)
• 3/7 - New York, NY @ Roseland Ballroom (w/ Fuel and Oleander)
• 3/14 - Newark, DE @ University of Delaware — Bob Carpenter Center (w/ Fuel and Oleander)
• 3/16 - Asbury Park, NJ @ Asbury Park Convention Hall (w/ Fuel and Oleander)
• 3/17 - Fairfield, CT @ Sacred Heart University — Pitt Center (w/ Fuel and Oleander)
• 3/19 - Marietta, OH @ Ben Johnson Fieldhouse (w/ Fuel and Oleander)

• 3 Doors Down
• Fuel
• Oleander

The Sacramento-based band Oleander has just completed a video for its cover of The Cure's seminal alternative hit "Boys Don't Cry," and the clip stars none other than Bloodhound Gang leader Jimmy Pop.

In the video, which was directed by Cousin Mike, Pop plays a nerdy guy in an apartment who is surrounded by members of Oleander performing the song loud enough to make him cry.

In a recent interview with Oleander, frontman Thomas Flowers said that it was both his love for The Cure, as well as his own punk rock ethic, that made him try and convince the rest of Oleander to record the track.

"[We did it] 'cause it's punk rock," Flowers said.