Sisqo's naugh-tay "Thong Song" has brought him a No. 1 single, a stint as host of MTV's summer dance series Sisqo's Showdown, a co-starring slot in the upcoming Miramax flick Getting Over Allison and now a TV sitcom. The Viacom-owned studio Big Ticket Television, the same company that turned Brandy into a TV star with Moesha, inked the deal with the former Dru Hill singer. The studio hopes to land a pilot deal for fall 2001. Meanwhile Sisqo will appear on Fox's Summer Music Mania Aug. 9 and the Teen Choice Awards Aug. 22 . . .

Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young extended the lineup of Farm Aid to include Barenaked Ladies and teen sensation Shannon Curfman . Young also announced that he will join his buddies Crosby, Stills and Nash for a set. This year's benefit concert will be held at Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Va., (near Washington, D.C.) on Sept. 17. The television coverage will be handled by County Music Television (CMT) . . .

In other Neil Young news, he has agreed to provide daily video footage of his Silver and Gold tour rehearsals for a week. The video will be beamed out from Young's digs in Hawaii prior to heading out on the road with the Pretenders on Aug. 8 in Virginia Beach, Va. To take a peek, check in at www.neilyoung.com at Archives Theater . . .

The lineup for the second annual Voodoo Festival is taking shape. So far, the New Orleans-based Halloween Day celebration will feature Eminem, Stone Temple Pilots, Cypress Hill, Counting Crows, 311, Ben Harper, Blues Traveler and Live, among others. Additional acts will be announced in coming weeks. For those unable to make the trek to the Crescent City, the festival will be Webcast at www.voodoomusicfest.com, www.rollingstone.com and www.icast.com. Tickets for the event go on sale Aug. 4 through the festival's Web site . . .

A confrontation between Ted Nugent and anti-fur protestors in front of Neiman Marcus in San Francisco on Sunday, July 30, landed one protestor in jail after he reportedly harangued the Motor City Madman about his stance on hunting. The Coalition to Abolish the Fur Trade identified their foot solider as twenty-one-year-old Bhaskar Sihan, who was charged with threatening to attempt to terrorize and battery, according to a spokesperson for the San Francisco police. The protestors -- who regularly picket the store because they sell furs -- had no advance knowledge that Nugent would there, but according to witnesses, some of the protesters recognized the outspoken musician and began hurling insults at him. After Sinha reportedly threatened Nugent and his family, the musician marched the protester over to one of the two officers stationed outside the store during the two-hour protest. Nugent also claimed that the protestor hit him over the head with his protest sign. According to the other activists, Nugent reportedly spat on a leaflet that Sihan thrust at him, hitting the activist as well. But when police viewed a video from a store security camera they found no indication that the musician spit on or assaulted Sihna . . .

Twenty-four-year-old Jacob Stanley was stabbed while in the mosh pit during NOFX's appearance at the Mars Music Amphitheater on July 29 in West Palm Beach, Fla. The perpetrator attempted to flee from the scene, but was tackled by concertgoers and held until police arrived. Stanley was airlifted to nearby St. Mary's hospital and is in stable condition following emergency surgery. The suspect, whose name has not yet been released, is being held by police for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The tour winds up its six-week run on Aug. 6 in El Paso, Tex. . .

Sean "Puffy" Combs was in court Monday for a scheduling hearing for the weapons possession and bribery charges case stemming from a December nightclub shooting in New York. A Sept. 13 court date has been set to attempt to establish a start date for the trial . . .

The Moody Blues taped the last show from their U.K. tour for a television special and new album. The program, The Moody Blues at Royal Albert Hall, will air on Aug. 8 on American Public Television, as well as seeing release on DVD and VHS. The band has also pulled Hall of Fame -- Recorded Live at the Royal Albert Hall out of the performance to be released on Ark 21 Records. As you may have guessed, the obligatory full symphony orchestra was in tow for the performance . . .

Though MP3.com has settled copyright infringement suits with three of five major record labels, the remaining two are still seeking damages from the company. But a New York judge offered a rope to the online company Monday when he ruled that in the two pending cases, damages to the record labels would be based on infringements against albums rather than individual songs. Since the damages could reach as much as $150,000 per incident, a per-song ruling would have been catastrophic to the company. MP3.com was found guilty of copyright infringement in April. An Aug. 28 hearing has been set to establish damages sought by Sony and Universal . . .

Upset over what they saw as the excessive level of corporate involvement at the Hard Rock CafT Rockfest July 22 at Chicago's Motor Speedway, Boston band Guster used their stage time to diss the sponsors, and had their payment withheld as a result. Singer-guitarist Ryan Miller read a comment to the crowd which promoter Brian Murphy, executive producer of SFX-owned TBA Entertainment, had made to the Chicago Tribune ("Rockfest is designed to be a national platform for corporate sponsors to market their products") before later repeatedly screaming, "This is not your father's Oldsmobile!" This prompted promoters to refuse to pay the remaining half of the band's $10,000 performance fee. "We can live without the five grand," the band wrote on its Web site, www.guster.com. "What sucks is a feeling you have to kiss corporate ass to expose your music to people. We could have gone up there and sung a bunch of lyrics about gay-bashing and that would have been fine. That we made fun of Oldsmobile earns us a penalty? Something's wrong with that." In response, Murphy said in a statement, "We're surprised at Guster's naivete considering the fact that perhaps every sports or music venue is advertising- and sponsorship- supported. If Guster wants to play in front of three people in an empty field, so be it. We wish them all the best in their career" . . .

Just because Rob Zombie backed out of penning the last Crow movie doesn't mean the series would shrivel up and disappear. Instead the producers recruited rapper-cum-actor DMX for a starring role and plan to again show that there is life after death -- aptly dubbing the next installment in the supernatural series, The Crow: Lazarus. This time out, the movie will follow the life of a rapper who leaves the music business for love and is killed during a drive-by shooting. The rapper is naturally reincarnated as the Crow and wreaks revenge on the gang that killed him . . .

U2 previewed their first single, "It's a Beautiful Day," from their as-yet-untitled new album online July 31 at their work-in-progress Web site www.u2.com. The song is a throwback to the band's pre-Achtung Baby days, with ringing guitars and a vocal that recalls a younger, edgier Bono . . .

You'll have to wait until October to hear Bono's vocals on "Air Suspension," for New York techno artist, Mocean Worker's forthcoming album Aural & Hearty. The two met when Adam Dorn (Mocean Worker's alter ego) worked on the soundtrack to Bono's Million Dollar Hotel. But that's not the only hand U2's frontman has extended recently: The singer donated a Mercedes Benz for the Postcard From Ethiopia charity auction held in Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel in Dublin on Sunday, and snared $78,000 for the charity fund, after the Pespi Cola Company bought the classic car . . .

Offspring have found time once again to lend support to their favorite file-swapping Internet company, right in the middle of recording their follow-up to Americana with producer Brendan O'Brien. In response to Napster's latest legal scuffles, the band has designed a new "Save Napster" t-shirt to add to its already popular Napster merchandise line. Sure to be the fashion hit of the summer, the $10 black-and-red tee is available via www.offspring.com . . .

With an album five years in the making, Elastica are officially no longer Britpop casualties, as the group has just finalized its deal with Atlantic. The quartet will release The Menace, the follow up to 1995's Elastica, on Aug. 22. A three-week tour will follow beginning mid September. "In many ways it does feel like we're starting again," Frischmann said in June. "I feel like this is a cool starting point for whatever we're gonna do from now on" . . .

The lid is finally off on who's really singing "Will the Real Slim Shady Please Stand Up (My Reply)." You'll be relieved (or perhaps disappointed) to find out it isn't Christina Aguilera hitting back at Eminem for saying that she had dalliances with Carson Daly, Fred Durst and Eminem himself. Instead Las Vegas singer Emily Ellis took up her fight, fortified with lyrics penned by KLUC radio programmer Mike Spencer, who was inspired by another parody of the song he heard on Salinas, Calif., radio station KDON sung from the male point of view. "We didn't want to slam one of our biggest artists, so we adapted the song for the female perspective." Ellis rapped back at the Detroit bad boy: "I'm sorry Slim, but this is gonna hurt/They both got farther than you ever will, jerk." Even though the perpetrators have confessed that it's not the former Mouskeeter on the record, it hasn't slowed down requests for the song; in fact, Spencer explained that "It has been our most requested song for the past month." Are they afraid of Aguilera's wrath? Spencer told us, "We don't even think she cares." And he may be right since Aguilera's label said the diminutive singer "hasn't even heard it" . . .

JOLIE LASH, RICHARD SKANSE, JAAN UHELSZKI, JENNIFER VINEYARD
(August 2, 2000)