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The Mars Volta has committed its epic live show to disc on “Scab Dates,” due Nov. 8 via GSL/Universal. Recorded at various shows between 2003-2005, the set features only six songs over the course of its 72-minute running time. The four-part closer “Cicatriz” alone runs more than 40 minutes, half of which is taken up by its 20-minute final portion.

Samples of “Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt” and “And Ghosted Pouts” can be streamed on the band’s official Web site.

Having recently completed a run with System Of A Down, the group is gearing up for the Dec. 2-4 edition of the U.K.’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, which it will curate. Among the acts slated to perform are Antony & the Johnsons, Dungen, Diamanda Galas, the Kills, Weird War, Les Savy Fav, Blonde Redhead, Acid Mothers Temple and various members of Can.

As previously reported, Mars Volta has also signed on for the annual Big Day Out festival tour of Australia and New Zealand, which kicks off Jan. 20 in Auckland.

Here is the track list for “Scab Dates”:

“Abrasions Mount the Timpani”
“Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt”
a) “Gust of Mutts”
b) “And Ghousted Pouts”
“Caviglia”
“Concertina”
“Haruspex”
“Cicatriz”
a) “Pt. I”
b) “Pt. II”
c) “Pt. III”
d) “Pt. IV”

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Two live Jack Johnson DVDs will be released together Nov. 22 via his own Brushfire Records label. “Live in Japan” was shot in August 2004, while “A Weekend at the Greek Theatre” was lensed during an Aug. 19-20, 2005, stand at the Berkeley, Calif., venue. Both DVDs were directed by Brendan and Emmett Malloy.

“Live in Japan” spotlights Johnson’s band in a trio setting, with bassist Merlo Podlewski and drummer Adam Topol focusing on songs from the albums “Brushfire Fairytales” and “On and On.” Also featured is an early version of “Banana Pancakes,” which turned up on this year’s album “In Between Dreams,” plus guest shots from Donavon Frankenreiter and Money Mark.

“A Weekend at the Greek Theatre” finds Johnson’s band expanded to a quartet with pianist/accordionist Zach Gill of the Animal Liberation Orchestra. The group is joined again by Money Mark and fellow Brushfire signees G. Love, Animal Liberation Orchestra and Matt Costa.

Beyond an Oct. 29 appearance at Las Vegas’ Vegoose Festival and a Nov. 20 show in Kahului, Hawaii, Johnson has begun lining up 2006 tour dates, beginning Feb. 22 in Dublin.

He is also at work on new music for the upcoming animated film “Curious George,” the soundtrack for which is due in February via Brushfire. The movie will boast the voice talents of Will Ferrell, David Cross, Drew Barrymore, Eugene Levy and Dick Van Dyke.

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Los Lobos will perform its adventurous 1992 album “Kiko,” its entirety at the band’s annual holiday shows. The run includes performances Dec. 16-17 in San Francisco, Dec. 27 in Los Angeles, Dec. 29 in Anaheim, Calif., and Dec. 30 in Las Vegas.

“We knew it would be hard work, but the fans have always said ‘Kiko’ was special, so we’re doing it in part as a present to them,” Los Lobos’ Louie Perez says of the upcoming shows.

Meanwhile, the band will begin working on a new studio album next month. Perez and playwright Luis Torres have also been commissioned to adapt “Kiko” for a theatrical production slated for a spring 2008 debut.

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Common recorded a podcast with DJ Gilles Peterson, whom he met up with at New York’s Hudson Hotel. During their hour-long session, they play and discuss tracks by A Tribe Called Quest, Gil Scott-Heron and Tiombe Lockhart. Also featured are two other podcasts, featuring a discussion/tour of musically significant New York and London landmarks.

The podcasts will be available for 30 days starting tomorrow, Wednesday on MOTO ROKR and the iTunes Podcast Directory. These podcasts are also some of the first to use licensed music.

The Eames Era and C-Student Records are sad to announce the cancellation of the band’s upcoming tour following a violent car accident with a National Guard military truck. The accident occurred as the band was about to embark on a tour of the Midwest and Northeast to support the release of their debut album, Double Dutch, which comes out today on C-Student Records. “It was definitely an experience we’ll never forget,” said lead singer Ashlin Phillips, who has several stitches in her face as a result of the trauma. “In hindsight, it could have been much worse, and I just feel lucky that we escaped the accident with relatively minor injuries.” All five band members received varying degrees of injury, the worst being guitarist Ted Joyner’s broken arm, on which he had surgery yesterday afternoon.

Although times have been tough for The Eames Era in 2005, the band has proven resilient in the face of so many difficult challenges. Having survived two hurricanes, a population boom of epic proportions in their hometown, and now this major accident, the band is handling the adversity with grace and determination. To that end, The Eames Era are planning on touring in support of their album as soon as their bruises are healed. Look out for a fresh set of tour dates by the year’s end.

Radiohead recorded a “song a day” last week in its Oxfordshire, U.K., studio, and is planning to spend this week putting ideas on tape before breaking until December. The group’s as-yet-untitled seventh studio album is expected next year; as previously reported, its contract with longtime label EMI has expired.

According to a post from bassist Colin Greenwood on the band’s Web site, there is also “exciting talk of shows next year. It’s good to have a plan.”

Among the songs that appear on the studio blackboard as having been attempted are “Pay Day,” “Burn the Witch,” “Videotape,” “Solutions,” “House of Cards,” “Down Is the New Up,” “Last Flowers,” “Skirting on the Surface” and “Morning Mi Lord.”

“The blackboard [is] filling up with ideas,” frontman Thom Yorke wrote recently. “Lots of things happening all over the studio at once, which I always like, although I keep having to remind myself to sit down occasionally.”

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The Black Crowes have tapped My Morning Jacket and the North Mississippi Allstars for a New Year’s Eve show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, marking the reunited rock act’s first headlining concert at the venue. Tickets go on sale Saturday (Oct. 22) via Ticketmaster.

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A never-before-released Bob Marley song believed to have been recorded in a Miami bedroom in 1979 will be found on the upcoming compilation “Africa Unite: The Singles Collection.” Due Nov. 8 via Island/Tuff Gong/UME, the set features “Slogans,” the master tape of which was discovered in 2003 by Marley’s sons Ziggy and Stephen.

In addition to adding their own parts and producing, the Marleys drafted Eric Clapton to record a guitar part for the finished version. Ziggy first revealed the existence of unheard Marley material to Billboard.com in 2003.

“I didn’t know any of these songs,” he said at the time. “The way he was playing the guitar on one song that I heard, it was like jazz. It wasn’t what you would expect from him at all.”

“Africa Unite,” which collects early recordings as well as Marley’s biggest hits, is rounded out by a new remix of the title track from the Black Eyed Peas’ will.i.am plus Ashley Beedle’s mash-up of “Get Up, Stand Up” and youngest Marley son Damian’s “Welcome to Jamrock.”

As previously reported, Nov. 8 will also see the release of the DVD “Live! At the Rainbow,” a 1977 London concert originally released in 1991 on VHS. A sample of Marley’s “Johnny Was” can be heard on a newly released Notorious B.I.G. single, “Hold Ya Hand.”

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On what would be the last day of his life, John Lennon posed for photographs with Yoko Ono in a session with photographer Annie Liebovitz. One of the pictures, a naked Lennon curled around and kissing a clothed Ono, became the cover for Rolling Stone magazine’s tribute to him.

That iconic image published a month after his December 1980 death has been ranked the top magazine cover of the last 40 years by a panel of magazine editors, artists and designers. Others on the list include images from the Sept. 11 attacks, the Vietnam War and of Katiti Kironde II, the first black woman on the cover of a national women’s magazine, in the August 1968 Glamour.

The American Society of Magazine Editors announced the winners of the competition on Monday during the American Magazine Conference in Puerto Rico. The competition was held as a way to mark the 40th anniversary of the group’s awards.

“Both the choice of a cover and the execution of a cover are crucial for any magazine,” said Mark Whitaker, editor of Newsweek and ASME president. “Every editor wants their cover to stand out.”

Coming in second was the shot of a very pregnant Demi Moore on the August 1991 cover of Vanity Fair, followed by an April 1968 image from Esquire of boxer Muhammad Ali with arrows in his body. The Saul Steinberg drawing of New York’s West Side dwarfing the rest of the country, published in The New Yorker on March 29, 1976, came in fourth. Esquire’s May 1969 image of Pop Art maven Andy Warhol drowning in a can of tomato soup took the fifth spot.

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Sonic Youth will record its next studio album without the aid of multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, who has been part of the band on stage and in the studio since 2002’s “Murray Street.” Guitarist Lee Ranaldo tells Billboard.com O’Rourke is planning to devote his full energies to his own recording projects as well as forays into film.

“Jim is going through a lot of different stuff personally and about where he sees his future,” Ranaldo says. “He’s really interested in pursuing stuff outside the musical arena, particularly film work. Not necessarily soundtrack work, but making films and getting involved in that community.”

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