Pavement are gathering material for a live album from their Brighten The Corners tour. Matador spokesman Paul Sommerstein said that the band is checking out board tapes from the tour for the album, scheduled for

release "sometime this year." In addition, Sommerstein said that the band

plans to head back to the studio in April to record a new album ... The Verve won awards for Best Band, Best Single ("Bitter Sweet Symphony") and Best Video in categories voted on by New Musical Express readers at Tuesday's NME "Brat Awards," presented by the British music weekly NME. Also voted tops by the readers were British rockers Radiohead, who won for Best Album. Techno-folk rocker Beck took home the Best Solo Artist Award, electronica's Prodigy were voted Best Dance Act and Danish pop group Aqua received the dubious Worst Single Award for "Barbie Girl." The editors of the mag voted Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space as LP of the Year and the "Godlike Genius Award for Services to Music" was presented to The Fall's Mark E. Smith ...

S.P. Leary, the blues drummer who sat behind the kit for blues legends Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters, died from cancer on Monday in a Chicago hospital, according to Reuters. The 67-year-old drummer, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, played on such classic Howlin' Wolf tunes as "Howling For My Darling" and "I'm Leaving You" and on Waters' "You Can't Lose What You Ain't Never Had" ...

Rapper Meen Green, whose most recent album is The Smoking Section, will appear at a pro-smoking rally in front of the state capitol building in Austin, Texas, at 1 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30. The event is sponsored by Fight Ordinances & Restrictions to Control & Eliminate Smoking (F.O.R.C.E.S.) ... Fugazi singer and guitarist Ian MacKaye recently returned

from a trip to England where he was mastering his band's sixth album,

End Hits. The collection is slated for an April release ... Razor & Tie records has teamed with Rolling Stone magazine for The Rolling Stone Women in Rock Collection, a three-CD set due in June of this year that features previously released tracks by everyone from legendary songwriters Carole King, Joan Baez and Etta James to newer artists Eurythmics, Pat Benatar, X-Ray Spex, Jewel, Madonna and Sonic Youth. Proceeds from the sales of the set will benefit breast cancer research ...

Tin-foil loving extraterrestrial-pop-punkers Supernova will release a new album, Rox, on Feb. 10 ... Gothic-blues moaners Sixteen Horsepower have just released the follow-up to 1996's Sackcloth 'n' Ashes, the equally dim Low Estate. The band features two new members, Pascal Humbert on bass and Jeffrey Paul Norlander on strings and guitar ... A memorial concert for late "Lotta Love" singer Nicholette Larson, 45, who died on Dec. 16 of an accumulation of fluid on the brain, will be held at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on Feb. 20 and 21. Among those expected to perform are folk-rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash, legendary pop-songstress Carole King, singer Linda Ronstadt and some unannounced special guests ...

After attending the American Music Awards on Monday night, Jewel popped over to L.A.'s Roxy to catch a set from good friend and songwriting collaborator Steve Poltz. Jewel then unexpectedly joined the Rugburns singer onstage, crooning along to "Silver Lining" and "I Thought I Saw You Last Night," both of which appear on Poltz's upcoming solo debut, One Left Shoe (March 17), and were co-written with Jewel. The pair also sang "Old Lover's House," a song by the Rugburns ... -- Gil Kaufman, Chris Nelson, Colin Devenish and Dakota Smith [Wed., Jan. 28, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]

Ex-X singer Exene Cervenka said on Monday that her side project, Auntie Christ, which features fellow ex-X drummer DJ Bonebrake and Rancid bassist Matt Freeman, will release another album before the end of 1998. The band released their debut disc, Life Could Be A Dream, last year ... Champaign, Ill., melancholy rockers Hum have just released their fourth album, Downward is Heavenward. The first single is "Coming Home" ...

Country legend Waylon Jennings will release a single on Bong Load Records with contemporary-country outfit the Old 97's at the end of March. The 97's act as backing band on the two new Jennings songs ... The sophomore album from Firewater is called The Ponzi Scheme (March 31). The klezmer-bossanova-blues-lounge band, fronted by former Cop Shoot Cop singer/bassist Todd A. and featuring Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison, Soul Coughing's Yuval Gabay and Paul Wallfisch of Congo Norvell, are joined this time by guitarist Oren Kaplan, saxophonist Tim Otto, drummer George Javori and violinist Hahn Rowe, all members of the touring version of the group ... San Francisco buzz band Creeper Lagoon will release their still-untitled debut on the Dust Brothers' Nickel Bag Records in April. The group, recently signed to the Dreamworks imprint, will be remixed on a few tracks by the Brothers themselves ... The next single from anarchist-punkers Chumbawamba will be "Amnesia." -- Gil Kaufman and Chris Nelson [Tues., Jan. 27, 1998, 9 a.m. PST]