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Yahoo! Inc. is rolling out a charged up search engine Monday in a bid to supplant its business partner, Google, as the most popular place to find things on the Internet. With the revisions, Yahoo believes its search engine will provide more useful information than Google’s and be simpler to use. The rebuilt version will combine Google’s index with Yahoo’s customized services spanning sports, driving directions and weather reports. Toppling Google won’t be easy. In just five years, Google has become synonymous with online searching. Yahoo played a vital role in Google’s rise. After encouraging Google to create its search engine, Yahoo raised the startup’s profile nearly three years ago by licensing Google’s software to run the searches on its popular online portal.
Source CNN.com.

Volumes 17-20 in the ongoing live Phish CD series have been announced and will be released on May 20. These selections were made by bassist Mike Gordon, who after reviewing 20 years worth of personal journals dwindled his favorites down to four.
Live Phish 17 is from 7/15/98 at the Portland Meadows in Portland, OR with a filler disc that includes material from the 7/29/98 show at Riverport Ampitheatre in Maryland Heights, MO
Live Phish 18 is from 5/7/94 at the Bomb Factory in Dallas, TX. It’s commonly referred to as the “Tweezerfest,” due to the spontaneous segues in and out of “Tweezer” during the course of the entire second set. It was only a matter of time before this was released. The filler contains material from 11/22/94 at the Jesse Auditorium in Columbia, MO, a show at the end of their live bluegrass experiments with the Rev. Jeff Mosier.
Live Phish 19 is from 7/12/91 at the Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH. This show was part of the “horn tour” featuring the Giant Country Horns that included at the time: Dave Grippo, Russ Remmington and Carl Gearhard.
Live Phish 20 is from 12/29/94 at the Providence Civic Center in Providence, RI. This show of course featured the epic “David Bowie” that found it

Another summer tour has been announced. The Counting Crowes and John Mayer will be on a twin-bill, co-headling outdoor ampitheaters from July 7th to early September across the United States. The Counting Crowes are currently touring the Eastern states with Sixpence None The Richer and Blue Merle as openers on select dates.John Mayer, a recent Grammy winner, has been laying low this year after his breakthrough 2002 that saw him rise to pop stardom. With the exception of a couple shows in Europe earlier this year, this will be Mayer

Donald Fagen, Walter Becker and the rest of the yet-announced 2003 version of the Steely Dan Orchestra will embark on a US tour late this summer, which is the first leg of a large tour. The band

The recording industry and Internet music broadcasters hope a new agreement will prevent a repeat of their recent battle over online music royalties, allowing them to focus instead on providing better music services for consumers. The two sides agreed Thursday on how much big webcasters like Yahoo!, America Online, Microsoft and RealNetworks must pay to broadcast songs over the Internet during 2003 and 2004. The new deal, if approved by the U.S. Copyright Office, will allow the two industries to avoid a lengthy arbitration process to set the royalty rates. “We are delighted to have reached an agreement that will bring compensation to musicians without a costly arbitration,” said Thomas Lee, president of the American Federation of Musicians. “We hope webcasting will bring more music to more fans.”
Source CNN.com.

The Trey Anastasio Band has announced a 10-date tour in support of their live album Plasma to be released April 29th. It includes 2 night runs at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC, the Warfield in San Francisco, Chicago Theatre, and the Memorial Auditorium in Burlington , VT which will be part of the city

Dozens walked out of Pearl Jam ‘s U.S. tour opener after lead singer Eddie Vedder took a mask of President Bush and impaled it on a microphone stand. Several concert-goers booed and shouted Tuesday night (April 1) for Vedder to shut up as he told the crowd he was against the war and Bush. “It was like he decapitated someone in a primal ritual and stuck their head on a stick,” said attendee Keith Zimmerman. Vedder used a Bush mask in Australia and Japan to perform the song “Bushleaguer,” from the band’s latest album, Riot Act. The song’s lyrics say, “He’s not a leader, he’s a Texas leaguer.”
Source Pollstar.com.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse have announced that their US summer tour will be with Lucinda Williams as the opening act. 26 dates are planned for the US tour with 16 confirmed right now, as the tour will launch in June and go through August. Noteworthy shows include a July 4th visit to Saratoga Center for the Performing Arts and a June 26th date at Madison Square Garden. Lucinda

More than two months before its planned June 10 North American release by Capitol, Radiohead’s upcoming album, “Hail to the Thief,” began appearing online in its entirety last weekend. Radiohead’s past two albums, “Kid A” and “Amnesiac,” were also were available online several weeks before street date, despite the fact that no advance copies were circulated and journalists were required to listen to them at the office of the band’s publicist.Early listens to “Hail to the Thief” reveal it to be just as experimental as “Kid A” and “Amnesiac,” which debuted at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, on The Billboard 200. The band continues to dabble in electronic music on such tracks as “Backdrifts” and “The Gloaming,” but veers back slightly to the more guitar-centric sound of its earlier work on such cuts as opener “2+2=5” and “There There.” The latter track is due to arrive May 26 as commercial single internationally.
Radiohead begins a U.K. tour of theater-sized venues May 17 in Dublin.
` Source Billboard.com.

Former Pavement front man and lyrical genius Stephen Malkmus will be hitting clubs across the US in support of his most recent release Pig Lib with his band

For anybody who wants to hear energy up close and personal, get ready for this. The Beastie Boys have announced that they will play a club show at the House of Blues in Las Vegas on April 25th. The show will serve as a warm up to the band

In case you missed getting tickets to the Tennessee Bonnaroo, there will be another one on the East wing of Long Island near the Hamptons. Superfly and AC Entertainment have announced Bonnaroo NE will take place August 8-10 at Enterprise Park at Calverton – Riverhead, New York. Bonnaroo NE is modeled after the original Bonnaroo, as it will be a camping-and-music festival, featuring several performance stages, and a unique lineup of major headline artists and high-quality emerging acts. The festival will be similar in purpose and set-up to the original Bonnaroo, with its own individual character.
More details, including confirmed artists, ticket prices, and the on-sale date, will be announced soon. Stay tuned to the mailing list and www.bonnaroo.com for updates.
Source Bonnaroo.com.

Singer-Songwriter Warren Zevon, who was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer last August with a warning of just a few months left to live, is making the most of his final days. He is currently putting the finishing touches on his final studio album, “My Dirty Life and Times.” Zevon plans to ad some more vocals over the next couple week to this record featuring a vast lineup of all-star talent. Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Emmylou Harris, and Joe Walsh have recently added their names to the list of contributors to the record. Other musicians on the album include: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Ry Cooder, Dwight Yoakam, Timothy B. Schmit, Jim Keltner, John Waite, David Lindley and Billy Bob Thornton. Capitol Records will reissue three of Zevon

The White Stripes, whose upcoming release Elephant was given an illustrous five stars by Rollingstone will be making a small residency at the Late Night With Conan O

If you thought that drum circle in Golden Gate Park was big, time to step it up a notch as some big name drummers are ensembling a full scale drum event of a different kind.
Bun E. Carlos (Cheap Trick), Alan White (Yes) and Michael Derosier (Heart), are calling all drummers to Tacoma Narrows Airport in Tacoma, Wash., March 29 to make an attempt at setting a world record for simultaneous drumset playing.The event takes place from 1-3 p.m. and hopes to break the previous Guinness world record of 120 drummers drumming at one time. Each drummer is responsible for bringing his/her own equipment, which consists of at least a bass drum, snare drum, drum throne, hi-hat with cymbals and at least one tom, and a carpet or rug for the floor. In addition to their world record goal, the group is also raising money for the Rotary International’s Polio Plus program. All money collected will go to the program, which seeks to rid the world of Polio by 2005. Check out the rotary8.org Web site for full details and how to register for the event. There is a $10 entry fee.
Source Pollstar.com.

Aston “Family Man” Barrett, the longtime bassist with Bob Marley & the Wailers, received the green light from London’s High Court to mount a claim over the band’s royalties, potentially worth millions of pounds.Barrett is suing Universal-Island Records Ltd and Island Def Jam Music Group, claiming that both he and the estate of his late brother, drummer Carlton Barrett, have not been paid years’ worth of royalties due to them under two recording agreements made in the 1970s. In the ongoing claim, Barrett says he and his brother, together with other members of the Wailers at various times, entered into partnerships with Marley on the basis that profits would be shared equally between Marley, on the one hand, and the remaining partners on the other.Therefore, he claims that Marley entered into recording agreements in 1974 and 1975 as their agent and they were party to those agreements, but Island and its parent Universal Music Group have failed to account to them for any share of the royalties they are due on the albums made under those agreements: “Natty Dread,” “Live!,” “Rastaman Vibration,” “Exodus,” “Kaya,” “Babylon by Bus,” “Survival,” “Uprising,” and “Confrontation.”
Source Billboard.com.

R.E.M. will launch a 26-date North American Tour, it

Always turning new albums out at a steady pace, and just a year since the release of “Are You Passionate,” Neil Young has finished a new studio album with help from Crazy Horse members: bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina. Frank (Pancho) Sampedro was reported to not be involved, which does not make this a full scale Crazy Horse record. The album is due out later this year. Neil Young has begun confirming dates for a summer North American tour backed by Crazy Horse. A spokesperson says the trek is still being booked, but so far, three dates are set: June 8 in West Palm Beach, Fla., June 9 in Tampa, Fla., and June 23 in Toronto. Young and Crazy Horse will also appear at the second annual Bonnaroo festival, to be held June 13-15 in Manchester, Tenn. Young begins a 20-date solo acoustic tour of Europe April 22 in Stockholm.
Source Billboard.com.

Another item of interest for Beatles fans. The London home where Beatle John Lennon lived from the ages of 5 to 23, and where many of his most beloved songs were born, is being opened to the public. Last year, Yoko Ono purchased the semi-detached home and has donated it to the National Trust. It has been restored to how it looked when Lennon had lived there in the 50