The White Stripes were on hand Thursday to help Loretta Lynn celebrate the release of her new album, Van Lear Rose, at a party at Nashville's Hermitage Hotel. More than 500 guests attended, including Steve Earle, Nanci Griffith and Crystal Gayle. Jack White produced the album, which hits stores on Tuesday. ...

No vacations for Suge Knight. He was released from Mule Creek State Prison on Thursday around 5 a.m. and he immediately got on a plane to Los Angeles to join his family and close friends. On Friday morning, Knight dove right back into his CEO duties at Death Row, holding marketing and promotion meetings for the upcoming compilation LP he's trying to put together benefiting the families of U.S. troops in Iraq, as well as for Kurupt's Against the Grain LP. According to Tha Row, Kurupt's first single is "Stalkers." ... Eminem won a "cyber-squatting" lawsuit against a British company that had been using the rapper's likeness and music to sell mobile ringtones and photo messages. The company, Visitair, registered the domain name eminemmobile.com last year to sell the ringtones. As a result of the ruling, the domain name now becomes Eminem's possession, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization, which arbitrated the suit. ...

Scott Weiland got a breather on Friday when his DUI trial was postponed. He's next due in court on May 11, two days before his band Velvet Revolver are set to launch their tour in St. Louis. ... Sting is releasing three separate videos -- all shot by Nick Quested -- for his new single, "Stolen Car (Take Me Dancing)," with each one for a different mix of the song. One of the mixes is a collaboration with Twista, another features Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas. The main storyline of each video centers around a Brooklyn, New York, warehouse party, with each of the clips showing different events taking place around the festivities. ...

Two days after he was indicted by a grand jury, Michael Jackson released a statement via his Web site asking the media to leave him alone. "As I release this statement there are helicopters hovering above my residence, reporters staking out and photographers lurking behind bushes, running rampant around my compound," wrote Jackson, who is living at a secluded estate in central Florida. "I am respectfully requesting that media organizations please respect my privacy and that of my children." ... In other Jackson news, media outlets covering his case, as well as the singer's lawyers, have asked the California Supreme Court to remove a gag order imposed on both sides. "The protective order bars those who are most knowledgeable about a criminal case that has garnered intense public interest from speaking to the public about the case, cutting off the best sources of truthful, timely information," a petition filed Friday read. ...

The 24th annual CMJ Music Marathon is set for October 13-16 in New York. Daytime events will be held at the Jacob Javits Center and the Westin Hotel in Times Square, while more than 50 venues will host the nightly performances. Participating artists have yet to be announced. ... The world's first charitable music download site will launch in June. Warchildmusic.com, an arm of the War Child organization, which helps children in war-torn countries, will feature exclusive tracks updated each month. The first crop will include tunes by Travis, Badly Drawn Boy and Spiritualized. ...

D.C. punk band Fugazi have begun selling CDs of their live shows dating back to their maiden gig on September 3, 1987, via their Web site www.fugaziliveseries.com. In keeping with the band's ethos, the albums are reasonably priced at $8 for a single disc and $10 for a double-disc set. ... Liz Phair will headline the Chicks With Attitude Tour, traversing the country from August to September. Cardigans lead singer Nina Persson, Katy Rose and Charlotte Martin will also be aboard for the ride. ...

Best known for their banging but ridiculously titled "Shh ... (Hope Diggy)" two years ago, Apex Theory have not hung it up after the departure of singer Andy Khachaturian. Instead, guitarist Art Karamian will handle vocal duties as the band works on its next album. ... Auf Der Maur, the band fronted by former Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, will support their self-titled debut, due June 1, by opening up for the Offspring. The trek begins May 11 in Minneapolis and wraps June 2 in New York. ... The pride of the Garden State stoner-rock scene, Monster Magnet, are set to release their sixth album, Monolithic Baby!, May 25. Following a tour of Europe with Gluecifer and the Quill, the band plans to embark on a North American tour. ...

04.22.2004

A judge on Thursday (April 22) ordered the jury in Beanie Sigel's attempted-murder trial to continue deliberating despite the jury's assertion that it can't reach a verdict. The judge chastised jurors for not paying attention during the trial after they asked to see all the evidence again. What was expected to be a speedy trial will now enter its third day of deliberations on Friday. Jay-Z, Kanye West, Damon Dash and others in the Roc-A-Fella and State Property camps were once again on hand in court. ... It's not just music, J-Kwon is really living his words. In two weeks, the 18-year-old "Teen President" will take his film crew to the 'hood. He's shooting the video for his second single, the title track off his Hood Hop album. ...

Britney Spears' mom is in Boston helping with the interior design of the Britney room at the real Onyx Hotel. Lynne Spears is tinkering with the idea of decorating it in an "early Britney" style, to reflect her childhood room at their home in Louisiana. Ten percent of the revenue generated by the room will go to the singer's charitable foundation. ... Christina Aguilera is doing an ad campaign for Virgin Mobile, for the continuing "The Devil Makes Work for Idle Thumbs" series. Though the ad will be filmed in Los Angeles this weekend, it's to be shown only in the U.K. Two versions of the commercial will air starting in mid-May. ...

To kick off the 2004 NBA Playoffs, the league is throwing a party in Los Angeles on Friday, where attendees can take in the Lakers-Rockets game on a panoply of TV monitors. Those expected to attend include Macy Gray, Ice Cube, Xzibit, B2K, Fred Durst, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Lisa Leslie and Vince Vaughn. ... If you've ever wanted to toss balls in the face of two members of the Strokes, now's your chance. On Tuesday, singer Julian Casablancas and drummer Fabrizio Moretti will compete in the next installment of Xbox Game With Fame, by playing "ESPN Major League Baseball" and the tennis game "Top Spin," respectively, against fans online. Between 4 and 6 p.m. ET, log on to www.xbox.com and enter the Xbox Live arena. The Strokes, using the gamertag newyorkcitycops, follow Fefe Dobson, Everlast, Outkast and New Found Glory, previous artists who've gone head-to-head with their fans. ...

The Pixies are steadily adding dates to their fall North American tour and have confirmed stops in Berkeley, California (September 24); Atlanta (October 13-14); St. Paul, Minnesota (November 11); Toronto (November 24); and four nights in Chicago (November 13-16). ... P. Diddy is focused like a sniper on his acting career with the play "A Raisin in the Sun," but he isn't neglecting his other businesses. On Wednesday it was announced that Combs will be partnering with fellow fashioner Zac Posen for Posen's clothing label. Meanwhile, Diddy says Sean John will release a women's line soon. ...

Supergroup Camp Freddy, featuring Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, Cult bassist Billy Morrison, Velvet Revolver drummer Matt Sorum and singer Donovan Leitch, took over the airwaves of Los Angeles station Indie 103.1 Saturday evening to launch their weekly radio show. Sorum calling in from his Las Vegas hotel room and Carmen Electra doing the weather were among the highlights. ... Velvet Revolver's Scott Weiland has more than his own legal issues on his mind. He posted a rant on his band's Web site, saying that he was "disgusted with the music industry" because of the current climate of censorship. "Since making my last record two years ago, I've encountered more censorship in the past three months than in 10 active years with S.T.P.," he wrote. "Let's hear it for the lambs! Censorship is Nazism." ...

Courtney Love's got more legal trouble on her hands -- the managers of her New York condo have filed a lien against her, claiming she owes nearly $18,000 in common charges, late fees and other costs. The singer paid $2.64 million three years ago for her 4,123-square foot apartment in SoHo but told Rolling Stone recently that she's facing foreclosure on both this home and the one she has in Los Angeles. ... In the meantime, Love is facing off with the Foo Fighters, as she's been added to the lineup for Atlanta's Music Midtown fest, which takes place April 30 to May 2. Among the headliners are Jessica Simpson, Twista, Ludacris, Big Boi and Hoobastank. ...

Brownsville's finest, M.O.P., are living up to their name. They've recorded a rock-rap album titled Mash Out Posse that will hit stores on their own label, Family First, in June. This LP is different from their Roc-A-Fella debut, Ghetto Warfare, which is due in the fall. ... A Perfect Circle will release the DVD "Lost in the Bermuda Triangle" on May 4. The disc, a companion to the band's single "The Outsider," features an extended and unedited version of the song's video, plus previews of the upcoming Bikini Bandits films "The Golden Rod" and "Bikini Bandits Save Christmas." …

Music fans rioted during an impromptu show by the Libertines at Stoke-on-Trent, England, leading to the destruction of the venue in which the band was booked. The show was supposed to be a launch party for singer/guitarist Pete Doherty's side project Babyshambles, but when the band took the stage the fans became unruly, dragging down drapes that covered the ceiling and surging against a wall until it collapsed. ... English electronic-music duo Orbital will throw in the samplers this summer, ending a 17-year career. The group, which features brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll, decided to split because the siblings were no longer seeing eye to eye musically. Orbital's swan song, The Blue Album, will come out June 21. ...

After an intense bidding war, publishing house Crown coughed up seven figures for the North American rights to an ambitious Beatles project, a three-volume biography about the band to be published over the next decade by Beatles authority Mark Lewisohn. Said one publisher who pulled out of the bidding when it got too expensive: "To call it just a book is missing the point. This would treat the Beatles as important figures of the 20th century, as if the history of the Beatles is the history of the '60s in its entirety." The first volume will center on the years 1940-1963, the second volume on 1964-1967, and the third on 1968 to the present day. ... Wednesday 13, the frontman for the Murderdolls (whose roster includes Slipknot's Joey Jordison), is working on a solo album, which he plans to release this fall. The singer will also launch a solo tour in the summer. ...