ASHANTI, HILARY DUFF, USHER and FEFE DOBSON will perform at the NBA's All Star Read to Achieve charity event on February 14th in Los Angeles . . . A Florida judge ordered a 50 CENT fan to listen to VERDI's La Traviata as punishment for violating Miami's noise pollution laws by playing the rapper's album too loud in his car. In other 50 Cent news, one of the rapper's security guards has been hit with weapons charges stemming from a shootout outside a New Jersey hotel in September . . . BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, the STILLS and STARS will begin a twenty-date tour on March 2nd in Victoria, British Columbia . . .

RADIOHEAD will include ten remixes on The Com Lag EP, which will be released exclusively in Japan in conjunction with the band's tour of the Far East later this year . . . JIMMY BUFFETT filed a lawsuit against a Hockessin, Delaware, restaurant that had named its outdoor bar "Margaritaville" . . . MASTER P pleaded guilty Thursday for failing to file a corporate income tax return seven years ago. He could be fined up to $200,000 . . . NORAH JONES adds a guest vocal on Oenublu Sessions, the new album by New York spoken word/trip-hop collective WAX POETIC, due this week . . .

EMINEM will again lend his voice to Crank Yankers when the Comedy Central program begins its new season next Tuesday . . . Songs by NORAH JONES, DIANA KRALL, SARAH VAUGHAN and ELLA FITZGERALD will be included on the two-CD Torch Songs, due March 23rd . . . DAVID BOWIE's Outside, Earthling and Hours will be reissued on March 23rd with bonus tracks . . . RANDALL BRAMLETT will sit in for the late CHRIS WOOD when TRAFFIC perform at their induction ceremony into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15th in New York . . . NO DOUBT and BLINK-182 will team for a summer tour starting June 1st in Noblesville, Indiana . . .

R&B singer FAITH EVANS and her husband, record exec TODD RUSSAW, will enter a drug rehab facility for a thirteen-week program in order to have drug possession charges, stemming from a January arrest, dropped . . . JEWEL has lined up another tour behind last year's "0304," starting March 11th in Bozeman, Montana . . . Singer-songwriter KATE JACOBS will release You Call That Dark on April 6th . . . TERRY ALLEN's 1975 debut, the cult favorite Juarez, will be reissued by Sugar Hill this spring . . .

OUTKAST's ANDRE 3000 has signed on to star in Be Cool, the sequel to Get Shorty, with JOHN TRAVOLTA and DANNY DEVITO . . . GARTH BROOKS has been invited as a non-roster player for the Kansas City Royals spring training camp in Surprise, Arizona, next month. Brooks, who batted .027 in three previous spring training stints, will appear to raise money for a variety of children's charities . . . Saxophonist CORNELIUS BUMPUS, who played with the DOOBIE BROTHERS in the Eighties and with STEELY DAN since 1993, died of a heart attack on Tuesday while on a flight from New York to California; he was fifty-eight . . .

Songs by U2, VAN MORRISON, SINEAD O'CONNOR, the POGUES, the CORRS and the CRANBERRIES are included on the Great Irish Bands collection, due February 24th, three weeks before St. Patrick's Day . . . Former BUCKCHERRY singer JOSH TODD will release his solo debut, You Made Me, on March 9th . . .SEAN "P. DIDDY" COMBS will be awarded the Patrick Lippert Award at the February 7th Rock the Vote Awards along with the DIXIE CHICKS . . . Rapper ERICK SERMON will release his new album, Chilltown NY, on May 4th . . Songs by the BEATLES, the WHO, the KINKS, DUSTY SPRINGFIELD, the SMALL FACES and others will be included on the three-CD set The British Invasion, due March 2nd . . .

DIXIE CHICKS singer NATALIE MAINES and her husband, actor ADRIAN PASDAR, are expecting their second child later this year. Chicks' fiddler MARTIE MAGUIRE is also pregnant with twins . . . Electronic act LMC has used U2's "With or Without You" as the basis for their new dance single "Take Me to the Clouds Above" . . . "The PAUL SIMON" Songbook," a rare 1965 solo album, will be reissued on March 23rd. The album features several songs that Simon would re-record for "The Sounds of Silence" with ART GARFUNKEL . . . BUILT TO SPILL, MODEST MOUSE and QUASI will perform at a five-day festival to celebrate Seattle indie label Up Records' tenth anniversary, starting February 23rd. Proceeds will go to the local chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society . . . TORTOISE will release their fifth album, "It's All Around You," in April. The group begins a five-date tour on April 0th in Boston . . . VARNALINE's first three albums and one EP will be reissued on frontman ANDERS PARKER's new label, Cloud Records, after being out of print for five years . . . Country songwriter HUGH PRESTWOOD was indicted on a felony weapons charge after he was arrested in January for carrying a loaded handgun in his carry-on luggage at an airport in Riverhead, New York . . . JAMES BROWN filed papers seeking an annulment from his wife. Last week, Brown was arrested on domestic abuse charges . . . The SUBDUDES will release "Miracle Mule," their first album in eight years, on April 20th. The WHITE STRIPES will perform at the Reading and Leeds Festivals in the U.K. in August, making up for canceling last year's appearance after frontman JACK WHITE injured his hand in a car accident . . . Though B2K recently called it quits, the R&B troupe's new feature film, You Got Served, debuted at the top of the box office for the weekend, pulling in $16 million . . . Former MEN AT WORK frontman COLIN HAY will begin a forty-nine-date tour on February 5th in Birmingham, Alabama . . . FEFE DOBSON kicks off a ten-date tour on February 18th in Cleveland . . . A California judge dismissed a suit against SNOOP DOGG that charged the rapper with using a telephone voice mail message on an album without authorization . . .

WILCO, the FLAMING LIPS, MY MORNING JACKET and TRAIL OF DEAD have been added to the lineup for the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, set for May 1st and 2nd in Indio, California . . . BOYZ II MEN have covered AL GREEN, MICHAEL JACKSON, HALL AND OATES and the ISLEY BROTHERS on their new album, Throwback, Volume One. The set will be sold in Japan in early April, with a broader international release to follow . . . Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn will declare RAY CHARLES one of the city's "Cultural Treasures" later this month . . . CALEXICO begin a six-date tour on March 11th in Pioneertown, California, before heading to Europe for a string of dates.

(February 6, 2004)