Billed as Sticks and Stones, New Found Glory performed a small club show in Anaheim, California, with their friends in the upstart outfit Breakdance Vietnam on Monday, playing a set that mostly avoided hit singles in favor of more fan-oriented material. ... On a related note, the side project featuring New Found Glory guitarist Chad Gilbert and members of New York hardcore staples Madball and H20 have changed their name from All Ages to Hazen Street. The band, which recently added former Cro-Mags/ Bad Brains/ Shelter drummer Mackie Jayson, will begin recording their debut album this weekend in Los Angeles. ...

Conan must really like the White Stripes. The red-and-white rockers will grace the stage four nights in a row on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," from April 22-25, performing a different song each night. ... What do Green Day, Blink-182, Third Eye Blind, 3 Doors Down, Alanis Morissette, Eric Clapton and Sheryl Crow have in common? They all play Fender brand guitars, and they all have tracks on The Players: Powered by Fender, which comes out April 22. Other Fender strummers included on the disc are Filter, Remy Zero, the Goo Goo Dolls, Smash Mouth and Sugar Ray. ...

On August 2 and 3 at Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, Maine, Phish will host It, the band's first concert festival since a millennium event three years ago in Florida. Phish will warm up for the shows with a 21-date tour kicking off July 7 in Phoenix. ... While Blue Man Group have been recruiting stars galore for their album, one of those songs is going to get an added push from the big screen. The art collective teamed with Bush's Gavin Rossdale for a song called "The Current" that will be used in "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," to be played while the credits roll. ... R&B veteran Patti LaBelle will record a remake of the hit "Dancehall Queen" with dancehall DJ Beenie Man. In 1997, Beenie had major chart success when he recorded the song with Chevelle Franklyn. ...

Perhaps only the most hardcore Duran Duran fans think the '80s glamour boys deserve a whopping 13-CD box set. Perhaps those folks also work at Capitol Records. The group's label throughout the 1980s will release Duran Duran: The Singles Box 81-85, a collection of all the band's singles from "Planet Earth" to "A View to a Kill," on June 10. Each disc features the hit, along with the b-sides that were included when the singles were originally issued. ... That same format is also being applied to snarling new wavers the Stranglers. The Stranglers: Singles Boxset Volume 2, also due June 10, is a 12-disc set that spans 1979's "Nuclear Device" to 1982's "Strange Little Girl," which eventually became the title track (using the pluralized "girls") to Tori Amos' 2001 covers album. Rare Swedish and French singles are also included. ...

Before Cracker's proper fifth album, Countrysides, is out in July, the band will release the "reinterpretations" collection Oh Cracker, Where Art Thou? on May 6 via Pitch-A-Tent Records, singer David Lowery's label. Lowery and Johnny Hickman recorded the album, which includes classic Cracker tracks like "Euro-Trash Girl," live in a studio with Colorado's Leftover Salmon serving as the backing band. ... British art-punk band Wire will release their first studio album in 12 years, Send, on June 10. The disc follows the 2002 EPs Read & Burn 01 and Read & Burn 02. ...

03.24.03

John "Fabolous" Jackson and four others were arrested Sunday night in New York on criminal weapons possession charges. Fab had just finished performing at Webster Hall as part of radio station Power 105's first anniversary celebration when, according to police, officers stopped the car the rapper was traveling in and found a loaded 9 mm handgun. He was still in custody, awaiting arraignment as of Monday afternoon. ... Train have set a June 3 release date for My Private Nation, the follow-up to 2001's Drops of Jupiter. The San Francisco roots rockers shot a video for the first single, "Calling All Angels," last week in Los Angeles. ...

Madonna took the most awards in the 23rd annual Golden Raspberry Awards, which honor the worst films of the year. Her "Swept Away" took Worst Picture and Worst Remake, and Madonna took Worst Actress. She shared honors for Worst Screen Couple with Adriano Giannini, and husband Guy Ritchie earned Worst Director for the flick. Britney Spears tied for Worst Actress with "Crossroads" and won for Worst Original Song. The awards were announced on Saturday in Santa Monica, California. Madonna and Britney were not there to claim their prizes. ... What's another two weeks for fans that have waited almost two years for the full-length debut from the Mars Volta? The as-yet-untitled LP from two-fifths of what was At the Drive-In now carries a June 17 release date. ...

A previously unreleased song Paul McCartney wrote when he was 16, "Thinking of Linking," will be included on the DVD release of "Beatles Anthology," due April 1. The track is one of five songs he, George Harrison and Ringo Starr played together during a private '90s jam session. Two of the others, "Ain't She Sweet" and "Baby What You Want Me to Do," were filmed while Harrison and McCartney sat on the grass strumming ukuleles and Starr drummed on his legs. ... Stone Sour guitarist Josh Rand's wife, Laura, gave birth to the couple's second child on Thursday. Mia Angelina Rand was born at 2:21 p.m. and weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces. ...

Liz Phair has changed the title of her first album in nearly five years from Happy Tragic Thing to Liz Phair. The set, produced by the Matrix (Avril Lavigne), singer/songwriter Michael Penn and R. Walt Vincent (Pete Yorn) and featuring the single "Why Can't I," is due June 24. ... It took only 10 days for the Eels to record their sixth album, Shootenanny, due June 3. Songwriter/violinist Lisa Germano appears on several tracks. ...

Everclear will promote their recently released sixth album, Slow Motion Daydream, with a spring tour beginning April 1 in Kansas City, Missouri. The outing, featuring the Exies and Authority Zero, will wrap May 15 in Seattle. ... DJs Dieselboy and Bad Boy Bill will headline the PlayStation 2 Dual Play tour, which kicks off Friday in Atlanta. Tiesto and Noel Sanger will take over April 13 in Las Vegas, through June 6 in San Francisco. ...