Morrissey, Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth and String Cheese Incident are among the acts confirmed for the 2004 Lollapalooza tour, Billboard.com has learned. This year’s event will mark the debut of a two-day format and a more diverse musical lineup. Tour founder Perry Farrell will also be involved as a DJ or host, although his band Jane’s Addiction is not expected to be on the bill. Offers are also out to such acts as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Le Tigre and the Fire Theft.

“The only theme to the whole thing is eclectic music not driven by the commercial marketplace,” says Marc Geiger, the agent for Lollapalooza at the William Morris Agency, one of the founders of the festival. “Lollapalooza is different from year to year, if you look at it historically. Some years it was more indie, some years more dark.”

Two days means more bands, Geiger points out. “There are just too many great bands, and the one-day rock festival with 13 acts format has been co-opted by the radio shows,” he says. “What we’re doing is more akin to the great European festivals that originally inspired Lollapalooza, as well as [events like] Coachella and Bonnaroo. The two-day format will once again differentiate Lollapalooza from what everybody else is doing.”

Source billboard.com.

Hip-hop collective the Roots has set a June 29 release date for its next Geffen album, “The Tipping Point.” The album sports guest appearances from Jean Grae, Devin the Dude, Martin Luther, guitarist Captain Kirk Douglas, comedian Dave Chappelle and producer Scott Storch.

The Storch-produced first single “Don’t Say Nothin'” will be supported by a video that is currently in production. Other tracks earmarked for the album include “In Love With (The Mic)” featuring Chappelle and “Everybody Is a Star,” described as a “virtual duet” with Sly and the Family Stone.

Roots drummer Ahmir “?uestlove” Thompson describes “The Tipping Point” as the “sum of our six records and our 12 years as a band. Most of our album titles are chosen to reflect on the mood of where the group is and we feel as though this album is our biggest step.”

The new set is the follow-up to 2002’s “Phrenology.” So far, the Roots have a handful of tour dates on tap, beginning April 8 in Las Vegas. They will also play the Sasquatch! Music Festival on May 29 outside Seattle and Holland’s Pink Pop Festival two days later.

As previously reported, the Roots recently launched their own label, Okayplayer Records. The inaugural release is slated to be a compilation featuring the Roots, Skillz, Jean Grae, Madlib, Aceyalone, Little Brother and Dilated Peoples.

Source billboard.com.

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Copyright 2004 Billboard

Rumors have surfaced that The Rolling Stones are working on their first new album in seven years.

Comic actor Jack Black has been in cast alongside Naomi Watts in Peter Jackson (news)’s remake of “King Kong,” the director said Monday.

Black will play Carl Denham, an adventurer filmmaker who is trying to make a name for himself in 1930s New York. Robert Armstrong played the role in the 1933 original.

Watts is playing Ann Darrow, an American actress who makes a living performing in Broadway song and dance shows. The project, which will shoot in Jackson’s native New Zealand, is set up at Universal Pictures.

“I’ve been wanting to work with Jack Black ever since I saw him in High Fidelity,” said Jackson, who is also writing the remake along with his “Lord of the Rings” co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens. “He’s a smart and versatile actor blessed with an abundance of energy and charm and I’m absolutely thrilled that he is joining us on ‘Kong.”‘

Black earned a Golden Globe nomination this year for his starring role in last fall’s hit comedy “The School of Rock.” His other credits include “Orange County” and “Shallow Hal.”

Source yahoo.com.

A number of Bruce Hornsby summer tour dates have been added, as he

Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer’s fall 2003 tour will be chronicled on the upcoming CD/DVD set “Music for Two.” Due April 27 from Sony Classical, the audio disc will feature the banjo virtuoso and the double bass master playing innovative original material and arrangements of largely classical works.

The album boasts 16 tracks the duo honed during their first duo tour in 2001, four of which can be traced to J.S. Bach. Four cuts are true collaborations between Fleck and Meyer, while others are solo compositions, such as Fleck’s opening “Bug Tussle” or Meyer’s closing “Wishful Thinking.” In addition, the pair interprets Henry Eccles’ “Sonata – Largo and Allegro Vivace” and covers Miles Davis’ “Solar.”

The DVD comprises a 40-minute film shot by Fleck’s brother, filmmaker Sascha Paladino. Along with performance and backstage footage, “Obstinato: Making Music for Two” also spotlights Fleck and Meyer in rehearsal and composition settings.

The pair will support the release with a brief tour in late May. Fleck and his progressive bluegrass act the Flecktones have a full slate of dates before and after that outing; the group plays Greenville, S.C., tonight (March 30).

Meyer and Fleck shared a 2001 Grammy award for best instrumental arrangement for “Dr. Gradus Ad Parnassum,” from Fleck’s Sony Classical debut, “Perpetual Motion.” The album reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Classical Crossover chart.

Here are Fleck and Meyer’s tour dates:

May 19: Carlisle, Pa. (Regional Performing Arts Center)
May 20: Washington, D.C. (Lisner Auditorium)
May 21: Glenside, Pa. (Keswick Theatre)
May 22: New York (Town Hall)
May 23: Cambridge, Mass.)Sanders Theatre)
May 25: Saint Louis, Mo. (Sheldon Concert Hall)
May 27: Aspen, Colo. (Harris Concert Hall)
May 28: Boulder, Colo. (Boulder Theater)
May 30: San Francisco (Herbst Theatre)
May 31: Palo Alto, Calif. (Stanford University)
June 1: Petaluma, Calif. (Mystic Theatre)

Source billboard.com.

Prolific singer/songwriter Ryan Adams is offering a three-track EP for sale via Apple’s iTunes download store. The “Moroccan Role” EP boasts the songs “Ah, Life,” “I’m Coming Over” and “Don’t Even Know Her Name.”

In addition, Adams’ two recent “Love Is Hell” EPs will be combined onto a single 15-track disc to be issued May 4 by Lost Highway. The EPs debuted late last year on The Billboard 200 at No. 78 and No. 171, respectively.

Adams has been sidelined since injuring his wrist in a Jan. 22 fall from a Liverpool, England, stage. “[I’m] currently doing stuff but its none of anybody’s business and get out of my yard before I hit you with a rake,” Adams says by way of an update on his official Web site, which also features post-operative pictures of his injury.

Source billboard.com.

On May 25, the Grateful Dead will release Rockin’ the Rhein with the Grateful Dead, a three-CD set that features the band’s complete concert on April 24, 1972 in Dusseldorf, West Germany.

Norah Jones, Lucinda Williams and Dwight Yoakam are among the artists who will take part in a pair of California concerts remembering late country rock pioneer Gram Parsons. Dubbed Return to Sin City: A Tribute to Gram Parsons, the shows are set for July 9 at the Santa Barbara Bowl and July 10 at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles.

Jones, Yoakam, Williams, Steve Earle and Jim Lauderdale are confirmed to perform. Artists who have been invited to take part include Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, Elvis Costello, Beck, Emmylou Harris, Ryan Adams, Ben Harper, Starsailor and the Old 97s.

Jointly produced by House of Blues Concerts and Nederlander West Coast, the Return to Sin City concerts are being organized by Parsons’ daughter, Polly.

Tickets will go on sale May 8 via Ticketmaster. A portion of the proceeds from the shows will be donated to the Musicians’ Assistance Program. For more information, visit gramparsonstribute.com.

The legendary tale that followed Parsons’ death from a morphine and tequila overdose in September 1973 is the subject of the film “Grand Theft Parsons,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The movie relates the heist of the artist’s coffin from Los Angeles International Airport by his road manager, Phil Kaufman, and the subsequent a pilgrimage to the Joshua Tree desert to incinerate his body, according to Parsons’ wishes.

Starring Johnny Knoxville as Kaufman, as well as Christina Applegate, Michael Shannon and Marley Shelton, the film was released earlier this month in the United Kingdom and Ireland. For more information, visit its official Web site.

Source billboard.com.

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Copyright 2004 Billboard

The surviving three MC5 members — guitarist Wayne Kramer, bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson — are planning to tour as DKT/MC5 with guest vocalists including Evan Dando, Marshall Crenshaw, Mudhoney’s Mark Arm, Radio Birdman’s Deniz Tek and the Hellacopters’ Nicke Royale.

The tour comes amid a ripe period of discovery of the politically minded, legendary pre-punk band. The Motor City rockers — singer Rob Tyner died in 1991 and guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith passed in 1994 — are at the heart of a pair of upcoming DVDs. First up is Sonic Revolution: A Celebration of the MC5, filmed at a London concert last year when the remaining MC5 members were joined on stage by Motorhead’s Lemmy Kilmister, Ian Astbury, Royale, the Damned’s Dave Vanian and others. Also included on the DVD, due July 6th, is a thirty-minute documentary that includes interviews with Jack White and members of Primal Scream and Death in Vegas, along with footage taken by the U.S. Department of Defense, which kept tabs on the band during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

A second DVD, the documentary MC5: A True Testimonial, was scheduled for release in May, but it was recently put on indefinite hold because of publishing clearance issues. Testimonial includes film and television footage of the band, as well as interviews and testimonials from the likes of Cheap Trick, Blue Oyster Cult, Primal Scream and Kilmister.

The tour will kick off in June and make several North American stops (including a hometown gig in Detroit) before visiting Europe, Australia and Japan.

Source rollingstone.com.