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Seventeen years after the last tour by The Cars – one of the most successful and influential bands of the late ’70s/early ’80s “New Wave” era – two of its seminal members have customized a modern model that’s ready to hit the road this spring in the form of The New Cars. Joining The Cars’ original guitarist Elliot Easton and keyboardist Greg Hawkes for Road Rage Tour 2006 Presented by VH1 Classic, will be an all-star group of rockers: vocalist/guitarist Todd Rundgren, fellow Utopia bassist/vocalist Kasim Sulton and former Tubes drummer Prairie Prince.

Newly inducted Rock Roll Hall of Famers, Blondie will ride shotgun with The New Cars, performing classics from their new Greatest Hits- Sound Vision album (Capitol/EMI) which includes the new hit “Rapture Riders,” a mash-up of Blondie’s “Rapture” and The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm.” The Los Angeles Times calls it “one of the best mash-ups ever produced.” Other classics on the new CD include “Heart of Glass,” “Call Me,” “The Tide is High” and “Sunday Girl.”

VH1 Classic Presents: The New Cars and Blondie – Road Rage Tour 2006

5/12 – Robinsonville, MS – Grand Casino Tunica Event Center
5/13 – Grand Prairie, TX – Nokia Theatre
5/17 – Phoenix, AZ – Dodge Theatre
5/19 – Las Vegas, NV – Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts
5/20 – Universal City, CA – Gibson Amphitheatre
5/23 – Alpine, CA – Viejas Casino
5/25 – Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery
5/26 – Reno, NV – Reno Events Center Downtown
5/27 – Kelseyville, CA – Konocti Field Amphitheater
5/30 – Englewood, CO – Coors Amphitheatre
6/1 – Hinckley, MN – Grand Casino Amphitheatre
6/3 – Highland Park, IL – Ravinia Pavilion
6/4 – Cuyahoga Falls, OH – Blossom Music Cetner
6/6 – Vienna, VA – The Filene Center
6/7 – Boston, MA – Bank of America Pavilion
6/9 – Wantagh, NY – Jones Beach Music Theater
6/10 – Holmdel, NJ – PNC Bank Arts Center
6/13 – Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live (Universal Studios)
6/14 – Clearwater, FL – Ruth Eckerd Hall
6/15 – Hollywood, FL – Seminole Hard Rock Hotel Casino
6/17 – Atlanta, GA – Chastain Park Amphitheater
6/18 – North Charleston, SC – Oyster Shell North Charleston Coliseum
6/21 – Toronto, ON – Molson Amphitheatre
6/23 – Montreal, QC – Bell Centre
6/24 – Atlantic City, NJ – The Borgata Event Center
6/25 – Uncasville, CT – Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort
6/30 – Clarkston, MI – DTE Energy Music Theatre

The Temecula Music Festival has announced all of the selections for the 2006 festival. This year

Radio Woodstock, founder of the Mountain Jam Music Festival, has joined forces with world renowned guitarist Warren Haynes (Allman Bros. & Gov

Between an ugly feud among Blondie members spilling over onstage and a rancorous letter from the absent Sex Pistols, the latest Rock and Roll Hall of Fame class did not enter quietly on Monday.

The animosity even made Ozzy Osbourne, inducted with Black Sabbath, seem sedate.

As midnight arrived under the chandeliers of the Waldorf-Astoria’s grand ballroom, Lynyrd Skynyrd was performing the song that launched countless cigarette lighters, “Free Bird,” to celebrate their own induction. Famed jazz trumpeter Miles Davis completed the honorees.

When Blondie, the most commercially successful band to emerge from a fertile New York rock scene that also produced Talking Heads and the Ramones, reformed after 15 years, they didn’t include former members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison. They sued unsuccessfully to join.

Infante, Harrison and Gary Valentine, another former member left behind in a business dispute, were barely acknowledged by former chums Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke as they received their awards.

Infante begged to perform with the band.

“Debbie, are we allowed?” he pleaded before Blondie performed their hits “Heart of Glass,” “Rapture” and “Call Me.”

“Can’t you see my band is up there?” Harry replied. The three rejected members walked offstage, but not before Infante groaned into the microphone.

Punk rockers the Sex Pistols had turned down the honor in a profane letter that compared the hall to “urine in wine.” Rolling Stone magazine founder Jann Wenner read the letter, and invited the band to pick up their trophies at the rock hall in Cleveland.

“If they want to smash them into bits, they can do that, too,” Wenner said.

Behind the unnerving stare of singer Johnny Rotten and the lacerating lyrics of “God Save the Queen” and “Pretty Vacant,” the Sex Pistols appeared the most shocking of the first punk-rock generation in the mid-1970s. The Pistols imploded after one album, with Rotten saying, “ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” before walking offstage after their last show for decades.

Osbourne may be better known now as an addled reality TV star, but his musical legacy with Black Sabbath got its due with the band’s induction.

Osbourne has badmouthed the hall of fame for waiting a decade to induct Sabbath, a cause taken up by Metallica member Lars Ulrich in his induction. Metallica guitarist James Hetfield and Ulrich both said their band would not exist without the example of Black Sabbath.

“If there was no Black Sabbath, I could still possibly be a morning newspaper delivery boy,” Ulrich said. “No fun.”

Osbourne, Geezer Butler, Tony Iommi and Bill Ward did not perform, but Metallica rattled the walls with versions of “Iron Man” and “Hole in the Sky.”

To read more visit yahoo.com.

Just a week after the new album, Youth was released, The New York Times reported today that Matisyahu has breached his contract with JDub Records (with a term of three years remaining), and dropped the non-profit independent label which gave the artist his start and supported his remarkable rise to stardom.

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As Matisyahu’s love for hip-hop and his dedication to Orthodox Judaism grew, he hit the clubs in a black suit, hat and full beard, and with JDub behind him made one of the most unlikely rises in pop music history. He is surely the only Hasidic reggae singer to sell out 2,000-to-3,000-seat concert halls regularly around the country, and last week he released “Youth” (JDub/Or/Epic), his major label debut, which is widely expected to make it high in the Top 10 when the charts are compiled later this week.

But a few days before “Youth” was released, Mr. Bisman and his partner, Jacob Harris, received an unexpected phone call from their prize talent, telling them their management services were no longer required. “He was in Kansas,” Mr. Bisman said. “He said, ‘I don’t know if you guys are old enough or have enough experience.’ ”

For Mr. Bisman, 25, and Mr. Harris, 26, it was a shock from an old friend and a potential blow to their business. They had shepherded Matisyahu through his early career, setting up gigs and handing out fliers and the like

Lucero is set to release a re-issue of The Attic Tapes on CD and vinyl April 11th on the band’s Liberty & Lament label, thru East West. It’s a re-release of their first EP which was originally co-released by Soul Is Cheap and Lucero guitarist Brian Venable’s own label.

Alternative Press once named The Attic Tapes “One of the top 5 home recordings EVER.” The recordings capture the sound of the band at its inception better than anything else currently in print. The re-issue includes 5 bonus tracks, including the original 7″ recording of “My Best Girl” and its b-side, a cover of Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle”. The latter has become a Lucero live staple. The limited edition LP version will feature a collectable re-pressing of the band’s first “My Best Girl/Kiss The Bottle” 7″ inserted inside the vinyl album.

To celebrate this reissue, as well as to road test new material, Lucero hits the road in March for SXSW and then 3 weeks of touring in April with Langhorne Slim supporting. The band are set to enter the studio in May with producer David Lowery at Sound of Music studios in Richmond VA to record the follow up to 2005’s Nobody’s Darlings.

According to NME.com Courtney Love has said she is preparing to sell a share of her rights to the Nirvana back catalogue.

Love has been in London over the last week. While in the UK she’s had meetings about a new record deal, making a TV documentary, taking a theatre role in the West End, and been to various gigs.

“I have decided that I need some co-management and a strategic partner [to help me] as it’s such a huge responsibility,” Love told NME.COM of her Nirvana plans. “This is the right thing to do for my family…whoever I do this deal with, I really have to like.”

Love is also quoted in the Sunday Mirror (March 12) as saying that she’s thinking about selling “25 per cent of the catalogue for quite a lot of money.”

Love was married to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain prior to his suicide in 1994.

A pair of apparent Ryan Adams fans ran afoul of a new law making it a crime to publish songs before their release to the general public when they made portions of the singer’s latest album available on a Web site frequented by his fans.

Robert Thomas of Milwaukee and Jared Bowser of Jacksonville, Fla., were indicted under a provision of the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (FECA) law that makes it a separate federal crime to pirate music and movies before they are released to the public, Memphis-based U.S. attorney Jim Vines and FBI special agent My Harrison said.

The indictments are believed to be the first under the prerelease provision of the 2005 FECA law. The men are alleged to have posted portions of Adams’ “Jacksonville City Nights” on a fan Web site about a month before its official release last September. Adams records for Lost Highway Records, whose Universal Music Group parent did not grant authority for the Internet distribution.

Source billboard.com.

The Allman Brothers Band kicked off its annual residency at New York’s Beacon Theatre last night (March 9) with an epic set highlighted by a cover of the Band’s “The Weight” and a guest appearance by longtime Howlin’ Wolf guitarist Hubert Sumlin.

Introduced by guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes as “someone who has influenced everybody,” 74-year-old Sumlin joined the Allmans for the first three songs of the second set, kicked off by a Gregg Allman-sung take on the late Wolf’s signature, “Smokestack Lighting.” One of the few remaining original Chicago bluesmen, Sumlin basked in the opportunity and took a seemingly unexpected turn at the mic, leaving band members smiling.

An annual tradition in New York since 1992, the Allmans’ Beacon stand routinely offers the iconic act an opportunity to spread its creative wings and tinker with the set list, as opposed to playing the hits-driven set expected on summer shed treks. This year’s 14-night Beacon run continues through March 26.

Source billboard.com.

The mainstage lineup for Ozzfest 2006 will boast founder and namesake Ozzy Osbourne for 10 shows, along with System Of A Down, Disturbed, Hatebreed, Lacuna Coil and another major act to be announced on May 23. The tour begins July 1 in San Francisco and will play 20 cities.

The second stage features Black Label Society, Atreyu, Unearth, Bleeding Through, Norma Jean, A Life Once Lost, Strapping Young Lad, the Red Chord, Full Blown Chaos, All That Remains and Between The Buried And Me.

The Ozzfest dates will be Osbourne’s first solo performances in three years; he has spent the last two summers on stage with his pioneering metal act Black Sabbath.

Ozzfest’s Village of the Damned concourse attractions will again be an active part of the tour and Ozzfest remains a valuable commodity for corporate sponsors. On board this year are Monster Energy, Hot Topic, Sony PlayStation, F.Y.E., Trojan and Jagermeister.

Source billboard.com.