2006

The mainstage lineup for Ozzfest 2006 will boast founder and namesake Ozzy Osbourne for 10 shows, along with System Of A Down, Disturbed, Hatebreed, Lacuna Coil and another major act to be announced on May 23. The tour begins July 1 in San Francisco and will play 20 cities.

The second stage features Black Label Society, Atreyu, Unearth, Bleeding Through, Norma Jean, A Life Once Lost, Strapping Young Lad, the Red Chord, Full Blown Chaos, All That Remains and Between The Buried And Me.

The Ozzfest dates will be Osbourne’s first solo performances in three years; he has spent the last two summers on stage with his pioneering metal act Black Sabbath.

Ozzfest’s Village of the Damned concourse attractions will again be an active part of the tour and Ozzfest remains a valuable commodity for corporate sponsors. On board this year are Monster Energy, Hot Topic, Sony PlayStation, F.Y.E., Trojan and Jagermeister.

Source billboard.com.

Rock act Tool will break a five-year silence on May 2 with its next Volcano album, “10,000 Days.” No other details have yet been revealed about the project, which is the follow-up to 2001’s “Lateralus.” That set debuted at No. 1 on The Billboard 200 and has sold 2.3 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

As previously reported, Tool will play its first U.S. show since late 2002 when it headlines the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival on April 30 in Indio, Calif. No other U.S. dates have been confirmed.

Afterward, Tool will spend the first portion of the summer playing the European festival circuit, with dates on tap through July 9 at Finland’s Turku Festival.

Here are Tool’s tour dates:

May 26: Lisbon (Parque Tejo)
May 27: Madrid (Festimad)

Mat 29: Barcelona (Razzmatazz)
May 30: Villeurbanne, France (Transbordeur)
May 31: Luxembourg (Rockhal)
June 2: Nurburgring, Germany (Rock am Ring)
June 3: Nuremberg, Germany (Rock im Park)
June 4: Landgraaf, Holland (Pink Pop Festival)
June 5: Hamburg (Sporthalle)
June 7: Berlin (Columbiahalle)
June 8: Dusseldorf, Germany (Phillipshalle)
June 9: Donington, England (Download Festival)
June 17: Nickelsdorf, Austria (Nova Rock Festival)
June 19: Milan (Filaforum)
June 21: Rome (Foro Italico Center)
June 22: Bologna, Italy (L.R. Arena)
June 24: Katowice, Poland (Spodek)
June 25: Prage (T-Mobile Arena)
June 28: Paris (Le Zenith)
June 29: Werchter, Belgium (Rock Werchter Festival)
July 1: Roskilde, Denmark (Roskilde Festival)
July 4: Kristiansand, Norway (Quart Festival)
July 7: Gothenburg, Sweden (Metal Town Festival)
July 9: Turku, Finland (Turku Festival)

Source billboard.com.

The T. J. Martell Foundation is proud to announce it will auction off on eBay a limited number of one-of-a-kind, numbered and framed concert poster prints of legendary guitarist Derek Trucks, beginning March 15, 2006, at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST, with proceeds going to Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS Research. The framed Derek Trucks concert poster prints will be autographed by Derek Trucks and the poster

Regina Spektor will release her new record entitled BEGIN TO HOPE (Sire Records) June 13, 2006 and will embark on a warm-up tour in support, beginning April 8th in Montreal, Canada. Spektor recently completed a tour of the UK and Ireland, which included sold-out shows at London’s Shepherd Bush Empire and Manchester’s Academy. The dates in the US are the first for Spektor since her 25-date sold-out tour in the summer of 2005.

Produced by David Kahne in New York City at New York Noise Studios, Spektor’s new record offers the touchstones of her last album, SOVIET KITSCH, which garnered praise from such magazines as Time Magazine, Rolling Stone, Spin, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and many others. BEGIN TO HOPE will reveal that this Russian-born, Bronx-bred musician isn’t the same artist that emerged from the NYC caf

Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes music and video store on Wednesday took its first step toward a monthly subscription model with a new service called Multi-Pass that lets users buy TV shows on a monthly basis.

The service is being launched by iTunes in partnership with Viacom Inc.’s Comedy Central cable network, which is rolling out “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report” on the service.

Fans will be able to buy the next month’s series of 16 new episodes via Multi-Pass for $9.99, or to pay $1.99 per episode. Four episodes air each week and viewers can download each episode after it’s been broadcast.

TV shows and other video have been available for sale on iTunes since late last year. Comedy Central announced a relationship with iTunes six weeks ago with shows including “South Park,” “Drawn Together” and “Comedy Central Stand-Up.”

Michele Ganeless, executive vice president at Comedy Central, said there would be no advertising on the service for the time being, similar to the network’s DVD business.

Apple has so far resisted calls from media companies and competitors to adopt a monthly subscription fee favored by the likes of Napster and Real Networks Inc.’s Rhapsody, preferring an a la carte download model where music tracks cost 99 cents and videos $1.99.

Videos downloaded from the iTunes Music Store can be played back on a personal computer or an Apple iPod portable media player, among other devices. More than 8 million videos have been sold since it launched at the end of last year.

Shows including Walt Disney Co.’s “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost” were among the first to be made available on the service.

Source yahoo.com.

Bruce Springsteen and his new Seeger Sessions Band, Herbie Hancock, Etta James and Warren Haynes have been added to the lineup for the 2006 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which will be held April 28-30 and May 5-7 at the Fair Grounds Race Course.

As previously reported, Springsteen will on April 25 release an album featuring songs long associated with folk icon Pete Seeger. It is not known if the Jazz Fest appearance will be the new band’s first, but at deadline it is the first to be confirmed as part of a spring tour.

Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Dave Matthews Band, Jimmy Buffet, Allen Toussaint with Elvis Costello, Lionel Richie, Keith Urban, Ani DiFranco, the Meters and Fats Domino are among the other superstars on the bill for Jazz Fest, which is moving forward despite New Orleans’ ravaging at the hands of Hurricane Katrina.

Source billboard.com.

Frank Black has wrapped work on a new solo album. The double-disc “Fastman/Raiderman” will arrive June 20 via Back Porch/EMI and is the follow-up to 2005’s country-tinged “Honeycomb.”

Among the musicians that lent a hand on “Fastman/Raiderman” were Steve Cropper, Spooner Oldham, the Band’s Levon Helm, Bad Company’s Simon Kirke, Cheap Trick’s Tom Petersson, Al Kooper and Rich Gilbert, a member of Black’s one-time solo band, the Catholics. Tracks confirmed to appear include “My Terrible Ways,” “Elijah,” “In the Time of My Ruin,” “Sad Man’s Song,” “Fitzgerald” and “Kiss My Ring.”

Source billboard.com.

The lineup has been confirmed for this year’s V Festival in the U.K., with Radiohead and Morrissey topping the bill.

The two-day event, which sold out all 130,000 tickets within hours of the March 3 on-sale, will take place August 19-20 at Hylands Park in Chelmsford and Weston Park in Staffordshire.

Beck, Faithless, Razorlight, Kasabian, Paul Weller, Fatboy Slim, Bloc Party, Keane, The Charlatans U.K., The Magic Numbers, Rufus Wainwright, The Go! Team, Gavin DeGraw, Fatboy Slim, and Editors are among the names set to appear over the weekend.

Last year’s V Festival featured close to 80 acts, including headliners Oasis, Franz Ferdinand, and Scissor Sisters.

Source pollstar.com.

Billboard.com reports “MMJ are roaring back to life this spring as the support act on the first leg of Pearl Jam’s North American tour. A number of high-profile festival appearances are also confirmed, including Coachella, Bonnaroo and High Sierra. In late summer or early fall, MMJ plans to make up dates it was forced to cancel in Europe after Jim James took ill, to hopefully be followed by a North American headlining run.

And while James says not to expect MMJ back in the studio until the spring of 2007, there will be new product to savor this fall. The band is finishing up work on a double-disc live album as well as a DVD, which will be released separately. Eschewing the straight-up “film the show” approach, the DVD follows a storyline that transports fans to an MMJ show in the middle of a forest (oddly enough, the “Z” track “Into the Woods” is not included).”

My Morning Jacket’s tour dates:

April 21: Nashville (Rites of Spring)
April 29: Indio, Calif. (Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival)
May 9-10: Toronto (Air Canada Centre; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 12: Albany, N.Y. (Pepsi Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 13: Hartford, Conn. (New England Dodge Music Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 16: Chicago (United Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 19: Grand Rapids, Mich. (Van Andel Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 20: Cleveland (Quicken Loans Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 22: Auburn Hills, Mich. (Palace of Auburn Hills; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 24: Boston (TD Banknorth Garden; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 27: Camden, N.J. (Tweeter Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
May 30: Washington, D.C. (MCI Center; w/ Pearl Jam)
June 1, 3: East Rutherford, N.J. (Continental Airlines Arena; w/ Pearl Jam)
June 16-18: Manchester, Tenn. (Bonnaroo Festival)
June 29-July 2: Quincy, Calif. (High Sierra Festival)