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A signed sketch believed to be the last thing John Lennon wrote before being assassinated about half an hour later is on sale for $325,000, the former switchboard operator to whom he gave it said on Monday.

Rabiah Seminole said she was working at the Record Plant recording studios in Manhattan on Dec. 8, 1980 when Lennon left the building with Yoko Ono at about 10:25 p.m.

She asked him for an autograph and he dashed off a sketch of two faces, signing it “for Ribeah, love, John.” Ono also signed it.

The former Beatle was shot and killed by Mark Chapman when he arrived back at his apartment just before 11 p.m.

Seminole said she had decided to sell the sketch to raise money for a horse rescue center she runs in Chesapeake, Virginia.

The Blue Horse Mukwa Equine Retirement and Rescue Center is home to 27 horses who have suffered such injuries as broken legs, gunshot wounds and abuse. One horse had his eye poked out by a former owner, she said.

Damage from a hurricane last fall has put a strain on the rescue center’s finances, she said.

The sketch and autograph by Lennon is being sold online by dealer Gary Zimet on a site called www.momentsintime.com.

“Drawings like this are fairly common from him. He probably did thousands of these in his lifetime,” he said. “But what is special is it’s the last thing he ever wrote. That puts it in a league by itself.”

Last fall, a copy of Lennon’s handwritten lyrics to the song “Nowhere Man” fetched $455,000 in an auction at Christie’s.

Source yahoo.com.

One of reggae’s original superstars will be touring the U.S. all summer long. Having just finished a stint downunder with fellow Jamaican legends Toots & The Maytals, Burning Spear will kick off more than three months of U.S. dates June 12 in Cleveland.

He’ll hit the Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tenn., the next day, and proceed across the country, wrapping back around to New York City by September 19, when he’ll play the Central Park SummerStage concert.

Last summer, Burning Spear (real name Winston Rodney) released Freeman, a new album recorded at the famous Harry J’s studio in Jamaica. Rodney’s own Burning Music label is re-releasing a batch of classic albums from throughout his 35-year career this month.

Source pollstar.com.

As expected, tickets for the first day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival have sold out, as have two-day passes. Fans can now only purchase tickets for the second day of the May 1-2 event, which will feature Radiohead, the Pixies and the Cure, among others. The festival is expected to boast its biggest crowd to date, on the heels of its 2003 edition, which drew 60,000 people to the Empire Polo Field in Indio, Calif.

In other news, the event’s on-site film festival has confirmed a sizable slate of offerings, including “Bodysong,” scored by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, and “Dig!,” a documentary about the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. For more information, visit CoachellaFilmFestival.com.

Source billboard.com.

A guitar once owned by Kurt Cobain has been auctioned and has fetched a huge sum. The instrument was sold for $117,500 at the auction at the Heritage Galleries in Dallas, Texas, according to BBC.

The guitar is the only known example in existence of a right-handed 1960’s Mosrite Gospel Mark IV and was bought by Cobain in San Francisco in 1990 and modified by him for a left-handed player.

The customised guitar is the first of the Nirvana star’s instruments to go on public sale since his death ten years ago.

Other instruments at the auction include a piano owned by Elton John, Roger McGuinn from The Byrds’ custom-built guitar, a Woodstock ticket autographed by Jimi Hendrix and John Lennon’s 1975 Grammy Medal.

Source nme.com.

Funk legend William “Bootsy” Collins is the latest addition to Thump Records’ new classic R&B division. On June 8, the label will release Play With Bootsy, his first studio album in six years. Guests on the project range from Snoop Dogg, Fatboy Slim and Macy Gray to Bobby Womack and George Clinton.

Play With Bootsy doubles as Thump’s inaugural classic R&B release. Under the direction of Jay King, the label will issue two CDs each month from a roster that includes Lakeside, Midnight Star and Michael Cooper.

Meanwhile, Collins has executive-produced a second album by fellow Cincinnati bassist Freekbass. The Air Is Fresher Underground (Gemini Records/Bootzilla Productions) features Collins, Catfish Collins, Buckethead and Bernie Worrell. Among the ear-worthy tracks are “Burnt Cat” and “Always Here.”

Source Billboard.com.

ZZ Top will celebrate its 35th anniversary with a North American summer tour. The shows begin June 25 at Kay Yaeger Coliseum in Wichita Falls, Texas, and will include visits to arenas, amphitheaters, fairs, festivals and casinos.

The recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees have dates on the books through September, concluding with a Sept. 24-25 stand at the Las Vegas Hilton. Preceding the tour is a previously announced June 6 engagement at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas with Eric Clapton, Carlos Santana, B.B. King and Buddy Guy, as part of the Crossroads Guitar Festival to benefit Crossroads Centre Antigua, the treatment and education center founded by Clapton in 1997.

ZZ Top, which boasts founding members Frank Beard, Billy F. Gibbons and Dusty Hill, claims to be the longest running “intact” road show in rock history. The summer tour is support of the band’s latest RCA release, “Mescalero.” A comprehensive boxed set, “Chrome, Smoke & BBQ,” was released last October.

Source and complete list of tour dates visit billboard.com.

Plans are underway for a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame Museum, which will open in November in New York. Organizers of the museum — including Hip-Hop Hall of Fame Awards founder/executive producer James “J.T.” Thompson and legendary artist Grandmaster Caz — last week announced plans for a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame mini-empire, which will include the museum, a televised awards show and a TV network called Hip-Hop 1. The museum will house memorabilia and historical records, as well as a TV studio, a retail store and a themed restaurant.

The Hip-Hop Hall of Fame ceremony was first televised on BET in 1996, but organizers say competition from the Source Hip-Hop Awards (which has been televised on UPN and BET) in part hindered plans to bring the award show back to TV. But with the planned opening of the museum in November, organizers are aiming to televise the next Hip-Hop Hall of Fame ceremony, which will take place in February 2005.

The Hip-Hop Hall of Fame also plans to stage other events, including the Urban Music Festival and Back 2 School Music & Fashion Fest. The 1999 Urban Music Festival, featuring Goodie Mob and the Ying Yang Twins, aired on NBC.

There will also be a Hip-Hop Hall of Fame reunion concert featuring host Grandmaster Caz and performances by several artists, including Rob Base, Melle Mel and Raheim. The concert will take place May 19 at private location in New York. Thompson says that the organization is in talks with the USA Network and Fox to televise the event, which may be released on home video/DVD.

Grandmaster Caz is also the president of the Hip-Hop Hall of Fame’s music and video operations. Hip-Hop 1, headed by chief programming officer Craig Cason, is expected to initially launch later this year on satellite TV for up to 10 hours a week and expand to 24-hour programming next year.

The Hip-Hop Hall of Fame organizers say that they will reveal the exact location of the museum at a later date, but they did confirm that it will be an existing building in midtown Manhattan. The museum plans to host workshops and seminars aimed at improving communities and hip-hop relations in the music industry.

Source billboard.com.

Rock supergroup Velvet Revolver plans to jumpstart the release of its debut album Contraband with its first-ever tour.

The band is composed of ex-Guns N’ Roses members Slash (guitar), Duff McKagan (bass) and Matt Sorum (drums) with ex-Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland as well as guitarist Dave Kushner. A 2003 Los Angeles show remains the band’s only live appearance thus far.

Velvet Revolver’s long-awaited tour begins May 13 in St. Louis, Mo., and hits major cities including Detroit, Toronto, New York, Seattle, and San Francisco, with the current itinerary stretching into early June.

The much-hyped album comes out June 8, when the band plays the first of two nights at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theatre.

Source pollstar.com.

The Pixies unleashed a 27-song set last night (April 13) at Minneapolis’ Fine Line Music Cafe in what was the pioneering alternative rock act’s first show in 12 years. The evening went heavy on the group’s earlier material, including nine songs from the album “Doolittle” but just one each from the Pixies’ final two releases, “Bossanova” and “Trompe le Monde”

Tickets to the gig were selling for $400 on Internet auction site eBay, and shirts inside jokingly commemorated the production as the “Pixies Sellout” tour. Perhaps the lone track not immediately recognizable to the audience was a cover of Neil Young’s “Winterlong,” which was sandwiched in-between the group’s own “The Holiday Song” and “Nimrod’s Son.”

Obscure oldies such as “Broken Face” and “Levitate Me” were received as warmly and vocally as the band’s nearest things to hits: “Here Comes Your Man,” “Velouria” and “Monkey Gone to Heaven.”

As previously reported, the Pixies are selling instant live CDs from the tour, which culminates May 1 at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Pre-orders for the first three gigs have already sold out.

After spending the summer touring internationally, the group will return to North America for an extensive fall run. Ten dates for that tour have been booked so far, through Nov. 24 in Toronto.

Source billboard.com.

Tortoise’s April 24 show at Washington, D.C.’s 9:30 Club will by cybercast on the Web site of the Chicago band’s label, Thrill Jockey Records. Afterward, the concert will be available from the site as an audio stream, as will photos from the gig. The label says it is hoping to begin offering live music events on the site on a regular basis.

Tortoise recently launched its first official Web site, which features a 15-track online radio show and will in the future host remixes and hard-to-find tracks for download. The group is touring in support of its brand new sixth album, “It’s All Around You.”

Source billboard.com.