Fresh off her Saturday Night Live lip-syncing incident, ASHLEE SIMPSON is planning to launch a tour in January. The pop star also recently teamed up with older sister JESSICA to record a duet of "Little Drummer Boy" for Jessica's upcoming holiday record, now available at convenience store chain 7-Eleven . . . ERIC CLAPTON will release a follow-up to his ROBERT JOHNSON tribute album, Me and Mr. Johnston, on December 7th. The CD/DVD package, Sessions for Robert J, features tour rehearsals and intimate acoustic performances . . . The WU-TANG CLAN is set to perform on the East Coast for the first time in five years on November 12th. All nine members swear they're going to show up in one place: the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey . . .

POLYPHONIC SPREE frontman TIM DELAUGHTER has penned and recorded the soundtrack for Thumsucker, a comedy starring VINCE VAUGHN and KEANU REEVES set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. The Spree will perform their fifth-annual holiday show in their hometown of Dallas on December 18th, to benefit Toys for Tots . . . The family of JAM MASTER JAY will host a gathering this Saturday in Hollis, Queens, to commemorate the second anniversary of the RUN-DMC DJ's death. They will also hold a local benefit concert in January on what would have been Jay's fortieth birthday. Jam Master Jay was shot to death inside his studio in 2002, and his killer has not yet been found . . . STEREOLAB will release a three-CD box set of rarities reaching as far back as 1993. The collection will hit stores next April . . .

GARBAGE singer SHIRLEY MANSON will join the National Organization for Women at a rally in support of presidential candidate JOHN KERRY Friday afternoon at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. According to NOW president KIM GANDY, she and Manson will "remind young women they have the power to stop Bush's war on women by voting on Tuesday" . . . KANYE WEST heads the list of special guests at New Life Project's inaugural show on November 5th at Hammerstein Ballroom. The new non-profit aims to combat homelessness in the U.S. through special music, spoken word and film events. Also on board are COMMON and MUSIQ, and AL GREEN and Q-TIP are honorary board members . . .JAY-Z and LINKIN PARK's show at L.A.'s Roxy Theater has spawned both a CD/DVD, Collision Course, and an MTV special, MTV Ultimate Mash-Ups, set to premiere November 10th. Collision, out November 30th, includes the entire concert and behind-the-scenes footage . . .

USHER, EMINEM, OUTKAST and ALICIA KEYS lead the nominees for the People's Choice Awards, set to air on January 9th . . . NELLY, SNOOP DOGG, PHARRELL and JADAKISS will perform at the second annual Vibe Awards in Santa Monica on November 16th. ASHANTI will debut her new single "Only U" at the show . . . SNOOP DOGG's upcoming album, Snoop Dogg R&G (Rhythm & Gangsta): The Masterpiece, will feature guest spots by 50 CENT, NELLY, LIL JON, BOOTSY COLLINS and JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE. The record hits November 23rd . . . PAUL MCCARTNEY's 2001 world tour will be documented through interviews and hundreds of never-before-seen photographs in the upcoming book Each One Believing: On Stage, Off Stage and Backstage, due November 1st . . . A documentary about photographer MICK ROCK's work with BLONDIE, Picture This: Blondie and DEBBIE HARRY, will premiere at the New York Independent Film and Video Festival, which runs November 11th through the 21st. The film also features R.E.M. frontman MICHAEL STIPE . . .

Scottish rockers FRANZ FERDINAND will release an expanded version of their self-titled debut on November 23rd. The new edition will include four U.K.-only B-sides as well as an alternative version of "This Fire" . . . ALICIA KEYS will release The Diary of Alicia Keys DVD, featuring behind-the-scenes footage from video shoots, studio sessions and concerts, on November 16th . . . P. DIDDY's Bad Boy Records has compiled its best R&B tracks for the CD/DVD R&B Hits, for a November 23rd release. The twelve-track disc will include Diddy's "I Need a Girl (Part One)," featuring USHER and LOON; Diddy's "Satisfy" with R. KELLY; and MASE's "What You Want" . . .

Activist Gloria Steinem will join rockers LE TIGRE at their shows Wednesday in Pittsburgh and Friday in Philadelphia. Steinem, a friend of Le Tigre frontwoman KATHLEEN HANNAH, is in the midst of a swing-state tour to encourage people to vote . . . U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival will re-name one of its stages in honor of DJ JOHN PEEL, who died this week of a heart attack . . . STEPHEN STILLS and wife KRISTEN welcomed a new son, OLIVER RAGLAND STILLS, on Monday . . . The second single off of R.E.M.'s Around the Sun will be "Aftermath," due in late November in two versions: a two-track version, with recordings from summer rehearsals; and a three-track version, with 1997's "So Fast, So Numb" and 2001's "All the Right Friends". . .

DESTINY'S CHILD will headline New York radio station Z100's annual Jingle Ball holiday concert on December 10th at Madison Square Garden. MAROON 5, ASHLEE SIMPSON, KELLY CLARKSON, HILARY DUFF, GOOD CHARLOTTE and VANESSA CARLTON are also set to perform . . . SUM 41 were forced to cancel three shows over the weekend due to frontman DERYCK WHIBLEY's bronchitis and laryngitis. Whibley is now recovering . . . An animated video for EMINEM's anti-Bush song "Mosh" has appeared online at the Guerilla News Network site. The clip features the rapper mobilizing a mass of people clad in dark, hooded sweatshirts against the president . . . METALLICA's limited-edition vinyl box set has been pushed back to November 23rd. The collection includes the mega-band's first four albums and the Creeping Death EP. The Monster Lives, the behind-the-scenes book on the recent Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster, hits stores November 10th . . .

Bomp! Records founder and garage-rock connoisseur GREG SHAW, 55, died October 19th in Los Angeles of heart failure . . . On November 16th, SNOOP DOGG will release a DVD of live and backstage footage from 2001's twenty-nine city Puff Puff Pass Tour with NATE DOGG and WARREN G . . . Country star TOBY KEITH's Greatest Hits 2, is out November 9th. Keith's U.S. tour wraps up in Tallahassee, Florida, on February 13th . . . SLAYER frontman/bassist TOM ARAYA was rushed to the hospital after a gig in Holland last week after the final show of their Unholy Alliance European tour with SLIPKNOT. Araya was ordered not to sing or even speak for one week -- or to perform more than four nights in a row -- leading to the cancellation of the Slayer-headlined Jagermeister Music Tour concerts on October 29th and 30th and November 6th and 26th. The tour will now kick off in St. Louis, Missouri, on Halloween . . .

WILCO, the FLAMING LIPS and SLEATER-KINNEY are already set to ring in the New Year with a stellar joint show at New York's Madison Square Garden . . . USHER and ALICIA KEYS will perform their hit duet "My Boo" live on TV for the first time at the American Music Awards. The show, to take place November 14th at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium an air on ABC, will also feature performances by LENNY KRAVITZ, MAROON 5, TOBY KEITH, JOSH GROBAN, SNOOP DOGG and PHARRELL, GWEN STEFANI and KANYE WEST, and JIMMY KIMMEL will host . . . P. DIDDY's Citizen Change voting campaign has organized three days of voter-awareness rallies in swing states, kicking off Tuesday in Milwaukee and Detroit and then moving to Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittburgh and Miami. According to the rapper, actor LEONARDO DICAPRIO and R&B star MARY J. BLIGE will make appearances along the way . . .

QUEEN LATIFAH and LL COOL J are set to star in a Wayne-Wang-directed remake of the 1950 comedy Last Holiday. Latifah will play a saleswoman who learns she has a terminal illness and takes off for a trip through Europe . . . LLOYD WASHINGTON, a member of the legendary vocal group the INK SPOTS who died in June, is finally going to be buried in the New Orleans Musicians Tomb, which was recently created by descendants of jazz pioneer ISIDORE BARBARIN as a resting place for area talents who could not afford to make their own burial arrangements . . . Rocker LENNY KRAVITZ has been sued for over $300,000 for alleged water damage to a neighbor's apartment due to a toilet in one of the singer's eight bathrooms in his Soho apartment overflowing two months ago.