Ashanti and Ja Rule will perform at "Mesmerize," an April 19th concert at the National Stadium in Barbados . . . Ween will release their new album, Quebec, in June . . . Bon Jovi will be joined by Sheryl Crow and the Goo Goo Dolls for a July 19th performance at Comerica Park in Detroit . . . Joe Ely will release his new album, Streets of Sin, on July 8th on Rounder . . . DMX, Eve and Shaggy will headline the 2003 St. Kitts International Music Festival, set for June 26-29 in the Leeward Islands . . . Willie Nelson has enlisted Neil Young and Crazy Horse, the Dead, Toby Keith, Billy Bob Thornton and Pat Green for his annual Fourth of July Picnic in Spicewood, Texas . . .

Queens of the Stone Age will begin an eleven-date tour on April 26th at the Coachella Festival in Indio, California, before joining Jane's Addiction and others on Lollapalooza . . . Classical pianist Christopher O'riley will release True Love Waits, an album of Radiohead covers, on June 10th . . . Aretha Franklin will begin her "Aretha Sings Her Musical History Tour" on June 1st in Toronto. The soul legend has said that the tour will be her last . . . A new Grateful Dead DVD, View From the Vault, which captures two 1987 concerts in California, will be released later this month . . . The soundtrack to Fame will be reissued by Rhino on April 22nd including a previously unreleased song sung by actor Paul McCrane (ER) . . .

The Beastie Boys, Beck, the Roots, Liz Phair, Interpol, Elliott Smith, the Raveonettes and the Streets will perform at the Field Day Music Festival in Long Island, New York, June 7th and 8th . . . Bob Dylan will co-headline the second leg of the DEAD's summer tour, starting July 29th . . . Steven Tyler will receive an honorary doctorate of music degree at the Berklee College of Music's 2003 Commencement on May 10th in Boston . . . U.K. buzz band the Libertines will begin a six-date tour on April 24h in San Francisco in support of their acclaimed debut Up the Bracket . . . Jimmy Buffett's endless tour rolls on with a seventeen-date run of summer performances, starting tonight in Houston . . . Sonic Youth and Erase Errata will issue new material on a limited edition dual EP later this year . . .

Blackstreet will give a free performance for U.S. troops at Fort Lee in Virginia on April 19th . . . Eminem won Best National Single for "Lose Yourself" at the 2003 Detroit Music Awards on April 12th in the Motor City. Other winners included the Funk Brothers and Sista Otis . . . Hootie and the Blowfish donated $66,000 to a South Carolina education program that provides adults with computer skills and helps children learn to read . . . Noel Fox, who sang bass for the Oak Ridge Boys from the late Sixties until 1972, died in Nashville last week after suffering a series of strokes; he was sixty-three . . . Drummer Jeremiah Green has left Modest Mouse after ten years with the band. He plans to spend more time with his pop side project, the Vells . . .

(April 15, 2003)