• Britney Spears Delays Gig Over Weed Smoke
• Kanye Blogs About South Park Ego Slam
• Watch Metallica’s Rock Hall Set
• Unraveling the Mysteries of Lost
• Gorillaz Draft Bobby Womack for Next LP
• Beck Reveals One Foot Reissue Track List
• Is Kanye West Hip-Hop’s Kiss?
• Fricke’s Picks: Nels Cline
• MacIntyre Eliminated on American Idol
• Hype Monitor: Ape School, A Camp
• News Ticker: Taylor Swift, MCR
• Keith Urban Narrowly Beats Prince to No. 1
• No Doubt Go New Wave: “Stand and Deliver”
• Eighties Musical Rock of Ages Hits Broadway
• First Look: Taking Woodstock Movie Poster
• T.I. Plans Paper Trail Re-Release
• Eddie Vedder Plots Solo Tour
• Courtney Love Plans Suit Over Cobain Fortune
• Breaking: The Airborne Toxic Event
• Death Cab for Cutie Rock Deep Cuts in PA
• Billy Bob Thornton Tries to Outdo Joaquin
• New Music Report: Metric, Doves
• Sir Mix-a-Lot: Burger King Pitchman
• Remastered Beatles Catalog Due 9/9/09
• Eminem Mocks Spears, Palin in “We Made You”
• Coldplay, Satriani “Vida” Fight Hits Court
• Aerosmith Talk LP Delay, ZZ Top Tour
• From the Archives: DMB, Allmans
• McCartney and Starr Reunite in New York
• Metallica, Run-DMC Join Rock Hall of Fame

Scroll down for full news stories, commentary and much more in Rock Daily.

Photo: Oskin/WireImage

Aerosmith and ZZ Top announce their first three dates of their joint tour (Joe Perry talks about hitting the road with ZZ Top here), John Legend maps out the start of a summer jaunt and Ani DiFranco books slots at both Bonnaroo and Rothbury Festivals. The schedules as they stand now, after the jump. (more…)

As Rock Daily reported last week, Beck will reissue his 1994 slacker folk album One Foot in the Grave on April 14th.  Now, a mere week before it hits shelves, we have a track list. In addition to the album’s 16 songs, a second disc boasts an additional 16 tracks, 13 of which have never been officially released. One Foot, recorded before but released four months after Beck’s breakthrough Mellow Gold, will be re-released through Interscope Records after initially being issued by K Records.

“I’ve actually been working on this for the past two or three years,” Beck told the Daily Yomiuri in March. “[On] the original tapes there were an extra maybe 30 songs that weren’t on the record and I picked the best… and added them on there, so it’s got about a little over a dozen extra tracks that no one’s heard before.” To see which dozen extra tracks that no one’s heard before made the final track list, check below: (more…)

Photo: Ninjatune.net

Every week, Hype Monitor wades through the most buzzed-about bands all across the Internet to find the ones you need to hear now.

The Band: Ape School
The Buzz: Ex-member of the Lilys goes even deeper into the psych-left-field, lighting up songs with bright bands of sound, like one man singing beneath the auroroa borealis.
Listen If: You want the sonic equivalent of peyote-eating in the desert — arid, expansive and full of shape and color.
Key Track: The merry singalong “Did What I Did,” where group vocals unify campfire style over great, ghostly synths.

The Band: A Camp
The Buzz: Cardigan Nina Persson roams even further away from “Lovefool,” delivering china-delicate songs well-suited to her beautifully worn alto. (more…)

Photo:Loccisano/WireImage

On “Gorillaz On My Mind,” Gorillaz’s contribution to the Blade 2 soundtrack, guest rapper Redman dropped the lines “Soul survivor, I write with Bobby Womack hands.” On Gorillaz’s in-the-works third album, Womack himself may make an appearance.

“They called me from London and said, ‘Man, we want to do something with you,’ ” recent Hall of Fame inductee Womack tells Rolling Stone. The unfinished track arrived at his California home just a few days ago. “In the days when I would get loaded, I would have thought this was great,” says Womack. “Now that I’m straight, I think I’m too square to know where they’re at. I kept listening and thought, ‘Damn, why do they want me?’ It’s all new to me. The only thing that convinced me was my daughter said, ‘Dad, you got to do this. They’re awesome.’ I said, ‘You’re hip to them?’

Luckily, Womack’s daughter was able to explain that the Gorillaz are a rotating cast of musicians, rather than a wild band of primates. (more…)

Many have tried, all have failed, but in the end it only took four animated children from Colorado to topple Kanye West’s ego. South Park absolutely eviscerated the 808s & Heartbreak rapper in their episode last night, with the show painting West as the most egocentric person in the world. The plot of last night’s episode had something to do with Cartman starting a joke that everyone deemed the funniest joke in the world, except West doesn’t “get” it. There were also some gags about “fish dicks” and “gay fish,” as evidenced by the excellent 808s & Autotune rip-off track performed by “Kanye” at show’s end (Video above.)

In addition to today’s reporting on West’s new fragrance, shoes and energy drink, the entire blogosphere has been waiting on pins and needles for Kanye’s inevitable response, which West finally posted on his blog this afternoon. Clumsily using the headline instead of the body to put the entirety of his text, a suddenly humble Kanye had this to say: (more…)

If you missed Metallica’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this past weekend — or if your DVR screwed you over and cut off the band’s performance — you can catch it on Fuse’s Website now. The music network just posted highlights from this year’s Rock Hall ceremony from Cleveland (check ‘em out, above) featuring Metallica’s performance of hits “Master of Puppets” and “Enter Sandman” — a set that marked the return of bassist Jason Newsted, who was invited to the ceremony despite quitting the band in 2001. “I’ve been levitating all weekend,” Newsted said during his speech. The father of bassist Cliff Burton, who died in a tragic tour bus accident in 1986, also spoke, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea gave a fantastic induction speech.

Fuse also posted a pair of all-star jams featuring the majority of the night’s honorees: Spooner Oldham, Wanda Jackson, Jeff Beck, Little Anthony, Bobby Womack and many more sang “Jailhouse Rock,” while Metallica, Beck, Jimmy Page, Flea and special guest Ron Wood busted out “Train Kept A-Rollin’ ” for the Cleveland crowd. (more…)

Photo:PEAK

When he joined Wilco in 2004, guitarist Nels Cline was already a star out in the margins, leading a prolific, acclaimed life in free rock and avant jazz as a solo performer, sideman and leader of multiple bands, including the Nels Cline Singers (it’s an instrumental group). But even in a discography of more than 130 albums (so far), Coward (Cryptogramophone) is a rare adventure: a series of dreams and sound portraits, played by Cline on an overdubbed ensemble’s worth of guitars, etc. Nearly half of Coward is taken up with “Rod Poole’s Gradual Ascent to Heaven” — Cline’s memorial for a late friend, which sounds like a room of John Faheys coming out of grief — and the suite “Onan,” a wild high of hectic breakbeats, chunky noise and ecstatic psychedelia. “Prayer Wheel” and “The Divine Homegirl” are quieter spins through British-folk motifs and ECM ambience; “Thurston County” is a vigorous tribute to Sonic Youth guitarist Thurston Moore in Balkan wedding-song time with freak-rock lightning. Cline does all of the above when he plays with Wilco. But this is a chance to hear Cline’s tone-color inventions, slashing ways in a solo and the melodies lurking even in his most challenging improvisations in a dramatic, often beautiful isolation.

Photo: Perez/ABC

The only thing more baffling than the plot of Lost is how its creators have opted to reveal its story. In Mikael Gilmore’s illuminating new piece on the ABC series, co-producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof explore their show’s storytelling techniques, and let viewers in on a few secrets (no spoiler alerts required!). “The real mystery about our show,” says Cuse, “is not what is the island; it’s who are these people? We’ve always approached it from that angle. That’s what we are really untangling: Who are these people?”

• Unraveling the Mysteries of Lost

Also see: Q&A: Lost’s Michael Emerson

Photo: Kambouris/WireImage

Kanye West is quickly become the Kiss of hip-hop: the rapper has branded himself onto a fragrance, energy drink and Nike shoe all in one week. West, along with Jay-Z, Rihanna and another “well-established female artist” all inked deals with fragrance maker Parlux through Jigga’s licensing company Iconic Fragrances, People’s Style Watch reports. West and Rihanna’s scent will hit nostrils by the summer of 2010, while Jay-Z and the mystery singer’s fragrances are out the following summer. Hmm, Jay-Z’s licensing company, a “well-established female artist,” both scents out in summer 2011… who wants to smell like Beyoncé?

At 4 a.m., when the majority of the world is sleeping, paparazzi always seem to catch Kanye out at the clubs or hitting the studio. Ever wish you had the rapper’s stamina? Well, now you can, thanks to his new energy drink from beverage company Guru, Pitchfork reports.  “I express myself through music, fashion, art, and design, and that’s why I am excited to collaborate with Guru; because the brand values what I value, and I can put what inspires me into this new product,” Kanye said in a statement. Finally, an alternative to 50 Cent’s VitaminWater flavor Formula 50. (more…)

Photo: Miller/Getty

• Taylor Swift’s prom dress claimed $1,200 at auction for the charity DonateMyDress, People’s Style Watch reports. “I chose to give away this prom dress because I wore it once and loved it! I want another girl somewhere to feel good in it and have a great prom night because of this dress,” Swift said. For more relics from Swift’s past, check out
  Taylor’s Family Album.

• Winans family patriarch David “Pop” Winans passed away April 8th in Nashville. A heart attack and stroke last October forced the gospel star in a hospice, the AP reports. Winans was 76.
• My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way has found a screenwriter for the film adaptation of his comic book series The Umbrella Academy. Producers have hired Live Free or Die Hard writer Mark Bomback to script the forthcoming movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Britney Spears stopped performing halfway through her concert at the GM Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, after smoky conditions and ventilation problems forced the singer and her dancers to leave the stage for more than 30 minutes, the Vancouver Sun writes in their concert review. After performing a few songs, Spears and her dancers vanished for no reason, leaving the impatient crowd to chant and do the wave in complete darkness. (Check out photos of Britney’s Circus show.)

After about 20 minutes, a voice came over the loudspeaker to tell concertgoers that smoking marijuana and cigarettes is illegal at GM Place. “It’s become uncomfortable and unsafe for the performers, including Ms. Spears. The show will resume as soon as the air around the stage is clear,” the announcement said. After performing the final encore, Spears walked offstage with the words, “Thanks Vancouver. You were wonderful. Drive safe. Don’t smoke weed! Rock out with your cocks out!” Yes, this really happened (watch the video above). (more…)

Photo: Becker/FOX

Scott MacIntyre attempted to save himself on last night’s American Idol by singing Survivor’s “The Search Is Over” in an effort to convince the judges to use their new “Judge’s Save” to keep him in the competition. But after some half-hearted debate, Simon Cowell delivered the blow: MacIntyre is gone. Paula Abdul gave a brief speech thanking the blind contestant for inspiring viewers worldwide, calling him “classy.” And with that, now there are seven. We’ll miss Scott, and not just because he performed a song from Broadway’s new Rock of Ages musical. (Read our episode recap and follow all the Idol action from Season Eight’s Top Eight to the End of the Line in a gallery.)

The episode overall was a bit of an abomination. The group number — Kylie Minogue’s 2002 hit “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” in honor of the year the show was born — was otherworldly awful (who dressed Lil Rounds like Q-Bert? Adam Lambert totally forgot the words!). Sadly, the mayor of Kalamazoo, Michigan, was in the house supporting Matt Giraud, witnessing the first and last time Frankie Avalon, Flo Rida and Kellie Picker will ever share a stage. Only one of those three performed a song about oral sex — guess which one! (more…)

Photo: Bedder/Getty

The newest jukebox musical on Broadway begins with an announcement from Whitesnake’s David Coverdale: “No flash photography unless you’re really, really hot and willing to show us your boobs.” Rock of Ages, a show featuring Eighties hits from Poison, Styx and Journey, made the leap to the Great White Way last night, April 7th, after a three-month off-Broadway stint (Rock Daily first reported on Rock of Ages in October 2008). The musical, which features onetime American Idol hopeful Constantine Maroulis and an onstage metal band led by Night Ranger’s Joel Hoekstra, uses familiar tunes including “More Than Words” and “Heat of the Moment” to tell the story of a wanna-be rocker who works in a legendary L.A. dive and chases the girl of his dreams while German developers threaten to demolish the Sunset Strip. (Get a close-up look at the show in our Rock of Ages photo gallery.)

Broadway has been hit hard by the recession, but Rock of Ages producer Janet Billig Rich says the production is thriving thanks to low ticket prices and the music’s accessibility. The 30-plus crowd has “so many emotional memories attached to these songs,” and “from Behind the Music to Rock Band, these songs are in teenagers’ canon too,” she says (the full set list is available on the Rock of Ages Website). “We’re the musical dudes like.” Strippers pack the aisles, attendees wave LED lighters and swill beer in their seats, and unlike Mamma Mia and Jersey Boys, which feature songs by one act (Abba and the Four Seasons, respectively) Rock of Ages is a “mixtape musical” that draws from 20-plus artists, says its writer, Chris D’Arienzo. (more…)

Photo: Kambouris/WireImage

Eddie Vedder plots a solo jaunt that includes three shows in Hawaii, Korn return to the road this spring and Aussie Breaking band the Veronicas hit the States again. Full details for all three tours after the jump. (more…)