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The second annual Virgin College Mega Tour (VCMT) will feature Cake as the headliner, with support from British rock quintet Gomez, Billboard.com has learned. The trek is set to begin in early April, with an official announcement expected on Monday (Jan. 31).

Presented by Dentyne Fire & Dentyne Ice, the 20-market tour also feature a daytime village on college campuses that will include an “emerging artist” stage, karaoke booth, contest give-a-ways and the latest games, new product demonstrations and gadgets for the college market.

Last year’s inaugural tour boasted Michelle Branch in the headline spot, with support from Rooney and Joe Firstman, as well as Gavin DeGraw on select dates.

On Monday, Cake will begin a European tour in Dublin that will end Feb. 15 in Tourcoing, France. The band is supporting its latest Columbia album, “Pressure Chief,” which debuted in October at No. 17 on The Billboard 200.

Gomez has just two other dates on its schedule: tomorrow (Jan. 29) in London and March 28 at the East Coast Blues & Roots Music Festival in Byron Bay, Australia. The band’s last Hut/Virgin album, “Split the Difference,” opened in June at No. 11 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers tally.

Here are Cake’s confirmed tour dates:

Jan. 31: Dublin (Vicar Street)
Feb. 1: Glasgow (Garage)
Feb. 2: Manchester, England (Academy)
Feb. 4: London (Astoria)
Feb. 5: Brugge, Belgium (TBD)
Feb. 7: Copenhagen (Vega Musikkenshus)
Feb. 8: Dusseldorf (Zakk)
Feb. 9: Darmstadt, Germany (Central Station)
Feb. 10: Munich (Muffathalle)
Feb. 12: Zurich (X-Tra Limmathaus)
Feb. 13: Dijon, France (La Vapeur)
Feb. 15: Tourcoing, France (Le Grand Mix)

Source billboard.com.

Although Phish is only a memory, group members Trey Anastasio and Mike Gordon have signed on for separate appearances at the fourth Bonnaroo festival, to be held June 10-12 in Manchester, Tenn. Anastasio and his solo band will perform what is billed as a “very special late night show” on a date to be announced, while Gordon will play a set with New York improvisational act the Benevento/Russo Duo.

Other newly confirmed additions to the Bonnaroo lineup are Mouse On Mars, Tea Leaf Green and the Old Crow Medicine Show. Organizers promise additional “major acts” to be added in the weeks ahead.

The Dave Matthews Band, Modest Mouse, Joss Stone, Toots and the Maytals, the Allman Brothers Band and Gov’t Mule lead the list of previously announced performers for Bonnaroo, tickets for which go on-sale tomorrow (Jan. 29) via the event’s official Web site.

This year’s on-sale is a month earlier than the three previous years, which organizers say is a reaction to market conditions. “We felt this would be a year to get out there early,” says Jonathan Mayers of promoter Superfly Presents.

Source billboard.com.

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Copyright 2004 Billboard

Legendary rock drummer Jim Capaldi died today (Jan. 28) after a brief fight with stomach cancer, his publicist said.

The 60-year-old Capaldi, born in England of Italian immigrant parents, died in his sleep at the London Clinic in the early hours with his wife and family at his bedside.

Capaldi, whose driving rock rhythms and songwriting ability helped make groundbreaking band Traffic a household name in the 1960s and ’70s with — among others — Steve Winwood and Dave Mason — also had an illustrious solo career.

“Steve rang me when he heard this morning. He is very upset. They were very close and had plans to record and tour again. He was praying Jim would recover from his illness,” Winwood’s manager Mick Newton said.

Capaldi was inducted with Traffic last spring into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just five months before being diagnosed with terminal cancer. A reunion tour was in the works but was scotched last August due to Capaldi suffering what at the time was described only as a “severe gastric ulcer.”

When Traffic finally broke up in 1974 after releasing 11 albums, Capaldi busied himself with solo projects. Traffic eventually reformed to tour in 1993-94, and Capaldi toured in 1998 with fellow band founder Mason.

Source billboard.com.

Ryan Adams, ever the prolific singer-songwriter is on tap to release three new records in 2005. Produced by Thomas Schick and co-produced by and engineered by Thomas Gloady, Cold Roses is scheduled to be released on April 19th. Jacksonville, another album produced by Schick and Gloady is scheduled for release in 2005 as well. And 29, produced by Ethan Johns ( Kings Of Leon, Ray LaMontagne) will be released later in 2005. North American & European tour dates in spring, summer and fall.

Visit ryanadams.com for more information.

Classic rock trio Cream is reuniting for a four-show run at London’s Royal Albert Hall this spring. The May 2-3, 5-6 shows will constitute guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker’s first on-stage appearances together since Cream’s 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Tickets for the run will go on sale Monday (Jan. 31). Cream’s final shows were held at Albert Hall in 1968.

“Live, Cream was a great, hardworking band — Eric was supreme and Ginger the most musical drummer alive — and those original live albums were very good, probably the best records of their kind up to that point,” Bruce told Billboard in 1997, prior to the release of the boxed set “Those Were the Days.” “But our studio recordings were probably more important, although there you can tell that each one of us had a different idea of what Cream should be.”

Clapton is up for two Grammys at the 47th annual ceremony on Feb. 13: best traditional blues album for his Duck/Reprise set “Me and Mr. Johnson,” and best pop collaboration with vocals for his rendition of the Beatles’ “Something” with Paul McCartney, released on the live album “Concert for George.”

Source billboard.com.

Wilco, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Hot Heat and Interpol are among the artists that have contributed rare or previously unreleased tracks to a double-disc compilation that will raise funds for Asian tsunami relief.

The 26-track set sprang from a partnership with Filter magazine and Urban Outfitters, which will on Feb. 28 begin exclusively selling the album at its retail outlets and Web site. The UNICEF Tsunami Relief Fund will receive 100% of the proceeds from sales of the collection.

Among the notable inclusions here are Interpol’s “Slow Hands” remixed by Spoon’s Britt Daniel, Franz Ferdinand’s “Matinee” remixed by Headman and previously unreleased tracks from Hot Hot Heat (“Apt. 101”), Rilo Kiley (“American Wife”), Clinic (“Fingers”) and Earlimart (“Lullaby”).

Live tracks have been turned in by Wilco (“Jesus, Etc.”), My Morning Jacket (“The Bear”), the Futureheads (“Piece of Crap”) and French Kicks (“The Trial of the Century”), while the Queens Of The Stone Age track “Hangin’ Tree” is presented in an early version recorded as part of the Desert Sessions series.

In related news, Death Cab For Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard will join with Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painter leader Mark Kozelek, Jonathan Richman and Crooked Fingers’ Eric Bachmann tomorrow (Jan. 28) for a tsunami relief benefit at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall.

Here is the track list for the Urban Outfitters CD:

Disc one:
“Love Song,” Death Cab For Cutie
“Slow Hands” (Britt Daniel mix), Interpol
“We Are Nowhere and It’s Now,” Bright Eyes
“Hangin’ Tree,” Desert Sessions 7/8
“Jesus, Etc.” (live), Wilco
“Apt. 101,” Hot Hot Heat
“The Trial of the Century” (live), French Kicks
“Piece of Crap” (live), Futureheads
“The Bear” (live), My Morning Jacket
“Heaviest Heart,” Magnet
“American Wife,” Rilo Kiley
“Fugitive Motel” (RDJ2 mix), Elbow
“Fingers,” Clinic
“In a Funny Way,” Mercury Rev

Disc two:
“Matinee” (Headman remix), Franz Ferdinand
“Huddle Formation” (radio session), the Go! Team
“Nacher Anthem,” Grandaddy
“Take My Temperature,” Kaiser Chiefs
“Lullaby,” Earlimart
“I Disappear,” the Faint
“Barnowl,” Caribou
“Lost at Sea” (remix), Eisley
“Everyday,” Dios
“Isabel,” Juana Molina
“The Song the Sinner Sings,” Adam Arcuragi
“A Guitar and a Heart,” M83

Source billboard.com.

This year’s top Grammy Awards nominee is planning to show his skills in a monumental way during next month’s 47th annual ceremony. Kanye West, who is up for a leading 10 honors, including best new artist, will stage a performance incorporating the talents of R&B legend Mavis Staples, celebrated vocal group Blind Boys Of Alabama and R&B newcomer John Legend.

Staples is among the Recording Academy’s 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award honorees, while the Blind Boys are nominated with Ben Harper for “There Will Be a Light” (Virgin) in the best traditional soul gospel album category. The set’s title track is up for best gospel performance.

The Feb. 13 show at Los Angeles’ Staples Center will also feature a tribute to the late Ray Charles by contemporary blueswoman Bonnie Raitt and storied soul artist Billy Preston.

Another newly planned performance is a landmark Southern rock jam featuring members of genre stalwart Lynyrd Skynyrd joined by former Allman Brothers Band guitarist Dickie Betts, Elvin Bishop and country artists Tim McGraw, Keith Urban and Gretchen Wilson.

They join previously announced performances by U2, McGraw, Alicia Keys and Green Day.

Norah Jones, Ludacris, Sugar Ray singer Mark McGrath and actor Gary Sinise have signed on as presenters for the show, which will be hosted by Queen Latifah and broadcast live on CBS.

Source billboard.com.

Sir Paul McCartney will take advantage of media focus surrounding his halftime performance at Super Bowl XXXIX on Feb. 6 to announce his upcoming tour of North America, sources tell Billboard.com. The Beatles legend will play 38 North American cities beginning Sept. 16 in Miami and running until the end of November.

Tickets are expected to go on sale the last week in February. McCartney last visited North American in 2002 as part of a world tour that grossed more than $126 million and drew nearly one million fans.

McCartney is working on a new album for Capitol but no timetable has been set for its release. As previously reported, the artist has collaborated with producer Nigel Godrich (Beck, Radiohead) and multi-instrumentalist Jason Falkner on the set, which will be his first studio album since 2001’s “Driving Rain.”

The touring landscape will be relatively crowded with superstars this fall, as U2 will be on the second U.S. leg of its Vertigo tour, and the Rolling Stones also are believed to have an outing in the works.

Source billboard.com.

Wilco are offering free bonus tracks to people who have purchased their A Ghost Is Born CD. On March 7th, Ghost outtakes “Panthers” and “Kicking Television,” along with live versions of “Handshake Drugs,” “The Late Greats” and “At Least That’s What You Said,” will be available for download at wilcoworld.net. Visitors must insert a copy of the CD into their computers to gain access to the downloads.
The following day, the band will release a double-LP vinyl edition of A Ghost Is Born, featuring new art work and album cover, as well as a limited-edition vinyl version of 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Wilco will be touring the U.S. through February before heading to Europe in March.

Wilco U.S. tour dates:

2/8: Champaign, IL, Foellinger Auditorium
2/9: Columbus, OH, Wexner Center
2/11: Cincinnati, Taft Theater
2/12: Memphis, Orpheum Theater
2/13: Birmingham, Alabama Theater
2/15: Orlando, House of Blues
2/16: Tampa, Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center
2/17: Pompano Beach, FL, Pompano Beach Ampitheater
2/18: Savannah, GA, Savannah College of Art and Design
2/19: Myrtle Beach, SC, House of Blues
2/21: Charlotte, Ovens Auditorium
2/23-24: Washington DC, 9:30 Club
2/25: Cleveland, House of Blues
2/26: Kalamazoo, MI, State Theater

Source rollingstone.com.

Guitar slinger Charlie Sexton will release his first solo album in 10 years in July as the first fruit of a multi-album deal with Narada’s Back Porch Records. Described as “contemplative and gritty” by the label, the set will be supported by an extensive tour. Sexton plans to debut material from the set in March during the South by Southwest music conference in his hometown, Austin, Texas.

Often described as a musical prodigy, Sexton was just 16 years old when MCA released his debut album, 1985’s “Pictures for Pleasure,” and scored a hit with the single “Beat’s So Lonely,” which reached No. 17 on Billboard’s Hot 100. A self-titled solo set followed in 1989, as did a mid-’90s stint in the Arc Angels and a turn as leader of the Charlie Sexton Sextet.

He’s also become an in-demand guitarist, playing with the likes of Bob Dylan, Don Henley, Ron Wood, Lucinda Williams, Edie Brickell and Double Trouble.

Source billboard.com.