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After nearly waiting four year between their last set of albums, 2003

Sonic Youth will head to Japan for a five-date swing in March, beginning March 16-17 in Tokyo. Tickets go on sale Dec. 25. The group is also working on a host of projects for hopeful 2005 release, including a double-disc reissue of its 1990 major label debut for DGC, “Goo,” loaded with previously unreleased tracks.

Additional releases on tap include an expanded edition of the group’s 1982 self-titled EP, the next installment in its experimental releases for its SYR label and the first DVD appearance of the 1992 film “1991: The Year Punk Broke,” which chronicles Sonic Youth’s 1991 European tour with Nirvana.

Source billboard.com.

Queen is reforming and is planning a European tour next year with former Bad Company and Free lead singer Paul Rodgers. “I won’t go into more details right now, but, barring accidents, Queen and Paul Rodgers will be on the road, pretty much for sure, around April 2005,” guitarist Brian May wrote on his official Web site.

“It really all came about because of the Fender 50th Anniversary gig that I did with Paul Rodgers,” he continued. “We were both so amazed at the chemistry that was going on in ‘All Right Now’ that suddenly it seems blindingly obvious that there was ‘something happening here.'” According to Queen’s official Web site, the shows will feature both Queen and Rodgers material.

May said the last two or three weeks have been spent discussing venues as well as material both Queen and Rodgers may approach in concert. “Suddenly the Queen Phoenix is rising from the again from the ashes, and will take precedence over everything in our lives,” he added.

Queen has not toured since the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in November 1991. In the spring of 1992, the surviving members staged a star-studded tribute concert at London’s Wembley Stadium for the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS-related charity.

The group’s last studio album was 1991’s “Innuendo” but May, drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon reunited to release 1995’s “Made in Heaven,” which featured vocals Mercury recorded prior to his death.

Queen returned to further notoriety with the recent musical “We Will Rock You,” which is playing at Las Vegas’ Paris Hotel.

Source billboard.com.

Merge will on March 22 reissue Dinosaur Jr.’s first three albums “Dinosaur,” “You’re Living All Over Me” and “Bug.” Previously released by the Homestead and SST labels, the sets have been remastered and include a smattering of bonus tracks and rare photos. Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Mike Watt and Guided By Voices’ Robert Pollard contributed to new liner notes.

The Massachusetts-based trio’s 1985 Homestead debut, “Dinosaur,” introduced the template of Neil Young-influenced guitar leads from J Mascis and a balancing act between noise and melody. The new edition is bolstered with a live version of album track “Does It Float.”

The group made a dramatic leap on 1987’s “You’re Living All Over Me,” featuring future college radio staples such as “In a Jar” and “Little Fury Things,” as well as “Poledo,” a track penned by bassist Lou Barlow that foreshadowed his future work in Sebadoh. The new edition features videos for “Little Fury Things” and “Just Like Heaven.”

Released a year later, “Bug” became the band’s best-selling album to date on the strength of such tracks as “Freak Scene” and “No Bones.” Videos for both are included on the reissue.

With Barlow having left to form Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr. signed to Sire in 1990 and released four albums for the label before splitting at the end of the decade. Mascis has subsequently released albums with his band the Fog for Artemis and Ultimatum.

In an unusual twist, Barlow is now also signed to Merge, which will in late January release his new solo album, “EMOH.” The set sports a cover of Ratt’s “Round and Round” plus guest spots by Sebadoh colleagues Jason Loewenstein and Russ Pollard.

Source billboard.com.

The road-trip flick “Sideways” led Golden Globe contenders Monday with seven nominations, including best musical or comedy film, three acting nominations and best director, while Jamie Foxx (news) scored a record three nominations.

The Howard Hughes biography “The Aviator” landed six nominations including best dramatic feature and best director.

Other best drama nominees were the caustic sex tale “Closer”; “Finding Neverland,” the story of “Peter Pan” creator J.M. Barrie; “Hotel Rwanda,” a tale set against the genocide in that country; “Kinsey,” a film biography of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey, and the boxing saga “Million Dollar Baby.”

Along with “Sideways,” best musical or comedy nominees were the whimsical romance “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”; the animated superhero adventure “The Incredibles”; “The Phantom of the Opera,” adapted from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, and the Ray Charles film biography “Ray.”

“Ray” star Foxx was nominated for best musical or comedy actor for that film, for supporting actor for “Collateral” as a taxi driver whose cab is hijacked by a hit man, and as best actor in a TV movie or miniseries for “Redemption.”

Other stars have received two nominations in a single year, but Foxx was the first to receive three.

Source yahoo.com.

Irish rockers U2, R&B singers The O’Jays and soul balladeer Percy Sledge are among five musical legends to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame during the foundation’s 20th annual induction ceremony next year, the organization announced Monday.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation will hold its induction ceremony March 14 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

U2, which became one of the planet’s most popular bands in the 1980s with their megahit “The Joshua Tree,” is still making the charts: Their November release, “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb,” is the No. 2 album according to Billboard.

The O’Jays had eight No. 1 R&B hits during the 1970s and ’80s, including “Love Train” and “Use Ta Be My Girl.” Sledge will forever be associated with “When a Man Loves a Woman,” one of the songs that made him a figure in deep Southern Soul in the late 1960s.

The Pretenders and blues guitarist Buddy Guy will also join the organization’s Class of 2005.

The artists beat out an impressive list of nominees including Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, which would have been the first rap group to be inducted; “Centerfold” singers the J. Geils Band, and the late country singer Conway Twitty.

Also, Frank Barsalona and Seymour Stein will be inducted in the non-performer category.

Barsalona is credited with creating the first legitimate rock and roll booking agency. His roster included acts like Led Zepplin, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and The Who.

Stein, who is chairman and co-founder of Sire Records, is noted as one of the most successful executives in the recording industry. He is known for signing artists like Madonna, The Ramones and The Talking Heads.

Musicians, industry professionals and journalists vote on the nominations, which were announced in September. Artists are eligible to be inducted into the Rock Hall after at least 25 years have passed since their first record was released.

Source CNN.com.

Please read Glide’s recent article on the omission of Lynyrd Skynyrd in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

While their five-times-platinum 2003 Arista set, “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below,” continues to yield hit singles, the members of acclaimed hip-hop duo OutKast have an ambitious slate of projects on tap for 2005. Andre 3000 and Big Boi have just finished filming their first movie, which will air on HBO, and are simultaneously working on two albums.

The pair has also signed a distribution deal with Virgin for its Purple Label imprint, which will house longtime collaborator Sleepy Brown and rapper Bubba Sparxxx (formerly of Interscope).

“We just finished the OutKast movie, which will be out next year,” Big Boi said on the red carpet at the Billboard Music Awards, where OutKast took home five trophies. “We don’t know what it will be called yet. The next album probably will be the soundtrack to the movie. But we’re also working on another album called ‘The Hard 10,’ which is top secret.”

Big Boi added that the new music features he and Andre 3000 working together, as opposed to “Speakerboxx/The Love Below,” which comprised one disc of material from each artist. As for the film, it is set in the Prohibition-era South and features Ving Rhames, Terrence Howard and Paula Jai Parker, in addition to Big Boi and Andre.

OutKast manager Kenneth “Blue” Williams told Billboard.com scheduling is still up in the air for the film and album projects. “If the movie comes out in the spring, the next album will be the soundtrack to that,” he said. “If we push the movie until fall, we may drop ‘The Hard 10’ in the spring, to hold fans over. But creatively, with Dre and Big, they may just say, ‘No, we’ll wait,’ and the next album will be the soundtrack to the movie.”

Asked to describe the sound of the new tunes thus far, Williams enthused, “You’re going to be surprised, because you’ll be like, ‘How did they do it again, musically?’ I can’t really describe it, but whenever I go into one of their new projects and hear the music, I find myself going, ‘Wow, it’s different, but it’s still a hit.'”

Source billboard.com.

Soul legend James Brown has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. In a statement released this morning, said that he will undergo surgery for the ailment on Wednesday.

“I have overcome a lot of things in my life. I will overcome this as well,” Brown said.

Brown is also a diabetic. Dubbed “the hardest working man in show business,” he just finished a two-week Canadian tour last night. The artist is expected to spend three weeks recovering from the procedure.

Earlier this year, Brown faced other troubles when he was charged with domestic abuse after an altercation with his wife. The allegation was resolved when he failed to contest the charge.

Brown is due to release an autobiography next month. Besides promoting the project with a slew of appearances, he still plans a tour of Asia and Australia early next year.

Source billboard.com.

Snoop Dogg will star in and executive produce a feature based on his real-life experience of coaching his son’s youth football team. 20th Century Fox beat out several bidders, including Sony and Paramount, paying $1 million for the pitch titled “Coach Snoop.”

“This film is about how I learned to be a good father through coaching,” Snoop Dogg said. “It’s also about life lessons learned on and off the field. But most importantly during the football season, if you aren’t wearing a helmet, get the f*** away from me. Football first; everything else second.”

“I’m just really excited to work with Snoop,” says producer Todd Lieberman. “I have been a fan for a long time, and this is actually based on his life and a very inspirational story, so I can’t wait to get into it. It’s the story of what Snoop did himself. In his real life as in the movie, like any regular overworked father, he put aside his whole career to coach his kid’s football team. They won 13 straight games and won the Super Bowl.”

Mark Gibson and Philip Halprin are penning the project. Their prior credits include “Snow Dogs” and “The Wild.”

Source billboard.com.

The gunman who fatally shot four people — including Damageplan (and former Pantera) guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott — at Columbus, Ohio’s Alrosa Villa nightclub Wednesday night was a discharged Marine described as a “disturbed” loner by hometown acquaintances.

Soon after Damageplan began playing at the Alrosa Villa nightclub, the gunman, identified as twenty-five-year-old Nathan Gale of nearby Marysville, charged the stage, shot Abbott several times at close range and then began firing into the crowd of 450. Three others were killed before thirty-one-year-old patrol officer James D. Niggemeyer, who had entered the club through the back door, fatally shot Gale.

The others killed were identified as fan Nathan Bray, 23, Erin Halk, 29, and Jeff Thompson, 40. Halk and Thompson’s reasons for attending the show have not been confirmed, but Thompson was likely a security guard for the band. Two wounded individuals are currently at Riverside Methodist Hospital and have not yet been identified. In addition to Abbott, 38, Damageplan includes singer Patrick Lachman, bassist Bob Zilla and Abbott’s brother, ex-Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul.

Gale was an employee for a temp agency who was on medication for mental-health issues. Brandy Brown, the bartender at a local bar Gale frequented described him as “a hermit kind of guy. I think he lived with his mom.” Lucas Bender — the owner of Bear’s Den Tattoo Studio, which Gale frequented constantly in past weeks — said of the young man, “He kind of gave everyone a weird impression — you know how some people just seem disturbed? . . . After he would leave, my friends and I would all talk and say, ‘Gosh, what’s wrong with that guy?” Gale was discharged from the Marines in November 2003 after less than two of the typical four years of service.

Gale also alarmed Alrosa Villa workers before the gig. “He was hanging around trying to get in,” manager Rick Cantella says. “We told him . . . that he had to pay to get in like anyone else. One of my loaders told him to leave . . . He was hanging around trying to talk to the members of the band, and he was shooed away.” Just before the show, Gale jumped an eight-foot fence to get inside, and headed straight for the stage. “There were guys chasing him as soon as he got in,” explains Cantella, “not because [they saw] he had a gun, but because he jumped this fence and didn’t pay.”

During the gunfire, a local nurse in the audience, twenty-eight-year-old Mindy Reece, stepped in to aid Abbott. “The one thing that stands out in my mind was I could see Vinnie [Paul] stand up from behind the drums and look down…He had this look on his face like, ‘Oh my fucking God.'” says Reece, a Pantera fan since the age of thirteen. With the help of another audience member, she performed CPR on Abbott for several minutes until the paramedics arrived. “I kept saying, ‘Dimebag, come on, come on please, stay with me,'” she recalls. “It was bad . . . There was blood on the floor.”

“The motive is very unclear,” says Sherry Mercurio, a Columbus police department spokesperson. “Right now, we’re trying to piece together statements, which may take some time.” Approximately 250 of the audience members are still being questioned by police. Amateur video was also shot during the show, but investigators have not yet determined whether any of the incident was caught on tape. There have been previous incidents of violence at or outside the Alonsa Villa, including a parking-lot shooting as recently as January of last year.

Source rollingstone.com.