Three exclusive live video tracks by the DARKNESS will premiere on RealNetworks on Monday and be available through early May. The songs -- "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," "Growing on Me" and "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" -- were recorded for the Down the Alley concert series and can be heard at real.com. Down in the Alley features performances and interviews with bands conducted at RealNetworks' Seattle studio . . .

A KURT COBAIN television biopic is in the works. The film will be based on writer CHARLES CROSS' 2001 biography Heavier Than Heaven . . . The BEASTIE BOYS' new single "Ch-Check It Out" will be featured in the April 28th episode of The O.C., the same day it premieres on radio . . . KISS and POISON will begin a thirty-eight-date summer tour on June 10th in Selma, Texas . . . LOUDON WAINWRIGHT has placed a free download of his new song "President's Day," a critique of George Bush, on his Web site lwiii.com . . . THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS have wrapped work on their new album, The Spine, due this summer . . . The BODEANS will release a new studio album, Resolution, on June 22nd . . .

MISSY ELLIOTT will launch her new Respect Me sportswear line in September . . . BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB have parted ways with Virgin after two records . . . The FIXX will celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary with a summer tour to launch May 15th in San Pedro, California . . . Garage rockers the CONTRAST, a favorite of garage enthusiast LITTLE STEVEN VAN ZANDT, will release Fade Back In on June 1st . . . MICHELLE SHOCKED is offering two previously unreleased albums -- Good News and Artists Make Lousy Slaves -- as MP3 downloads or CDRs through michelleshocked.com . . . Poems, Prayers and Promises: The Art and Soul of JOHN DENVER will be sold as a songbook/CD later this spring . . .

BJORK is working on songs for her next record with Japanese beatbox artist DOKAKA. The album, the follow-up to 2001's Vespertine, is due this fall . . . STEVIE WONDER will receive the Johnny Mercer Award at the 2004 Songwriter's Hall of Fame induction ceremony in New York. CAROLE KING, BURT BACHARACH, PAUL SIMON and BILLY JOEL are previous recipients of the honor . . . NO DOUBT drummer ADRIAN YOUNG will sit in with BOW WOW WOW during their four-date East Coast tour that begins July 16th in New York . . . Expanded reissues of ELVIS COSTELLO's Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World and Kojak Variety will be released in August . . . AMFIBIAN, featuring PHISH lyricist TOM MARSHALL, have lined up four tour dates, starting April 24th in Winooski, Vermont, in support of the new album, From the Ether . . .

GOMEZ and BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB have joined the lineup for this summer's Lollapalooza, set to kick off on July 14th in Auburn Washington . . . RAY CHARLES' RPM International studio in Los Angeles will be officially designated as a historic landmark on April 30th. "It's the only home I've truly had for most of my professional career," Charles said . . . BEULAH kick off a twenty-seven-date tour on May 14th in Los Angeles . . . A two-CD edition of the "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" soundtrack is due May 11th . . .

The BEASTIE BOYS will offer "Ch-Check It Out," the first single from their new album, as a digital download on the iTunes Music Store starting April 28th, the same day it will make its debut on radio. The track is from To the 5 Boroughs, the BEASTIES' first album in six years, due this summer. The trio has shot a video for "Ch-Check," with ADAM YAUCH directing. The Beasties are also planning a world tour for later this year . . .

The POLYPHONIC SPREE will make a pair of appearances on NBC on April 20th. The group has been written into the storyline of an episode of the network's sitcom Scrubs. Later that night, the twenty-five-piece choral/pop troupe's appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno will air. The Spree are plugging their second album, Together We're Heavy (due July 13th) in advance. Also on the docket is a July 12th visit to The Late Show With David Letterman and a main stage slot on this summer's Lollapalooza tour. Currently the group is on the road with David Bowie's Reality Tour. The Spree's opening slot has been extended through June 5th in Holmdel, New Jersey . . .

Jury selection began this week for BEANIE SIGEL's attempted murder trial in Philadelphia. The troubled rapper will be sentenced on July 8th in a separate case for drug and weapons charges . . . The CURE, MORRISSEY and the PIXIES have joined the lineup for the Move Festival in Manchester, England, to run July 8-11 . . . THALIA has launched a new magazine that bears her name and is aimed towards Latina girls. Issues will run in May and June, with more to follow if there is sufficient demand . . . A federal judge lifted the injunction that stopped the sale of an album of previously unreleased O'JAYS songs from the Eighties. The group claimed the material was "stale and artistically inferior" . . .

NICK CAVE, RUFUS WAINWRIGHT, LINDA THOMPSON and LAURIE ANDERSON will perform at Came So Far for Beauty, a HAL WILLNER-organized tribute to LEONARD COHEN at the U.K.'s Brighton Festival in May . . . SOPHIE B. HAWKINS successfully retrieved $346 in small claims court from an eBay seller who sold promotional copies of her new album Wilderness prior to its release . . . MY MORNING JACKET and M. WARD kick off a thirty-date tour on May 7th in San Diego . . . The POINTER SISTERS, CHIC and the THREE DEGREES have lined up the six-date Best Disco in Town Tour in the U.K. for October . . .

A Louisiana judge denied COREY "C-MURDER" MILLER bond a week after granting the rapper a new trial following a murder conviction. The thirty-three-year-old Miller, MASTER P's brother, was accused of killing a teenager in a bar dispute in 2002 and convicted last September. But State District Judge Martha Sassone granted him a new trial because prosecutors withheld information about trial witnesses. Sassone denied Miller bond due to other outstanding felony charges; he has a June court date for assaulting a prison guard . . .

OTEP will release their second album, House of Secrets, on July 27th. The Los Angeles metalmen recorded the album with producer GREG WELLS (DEFTONES, MICHELLE BRANCH) late last year. Six cuts on the record feature guest percussion by SLIPKNOT's JOEY JORDISON. The group will promote House this summer by appearing on the Ozzfest tour, the third year the group has been on the trek, which kicks off on July 10th in Hartford, Connecticut . . .

JEM, ROBERT EARL KEEN and PRAXIS, the group featuring BUCKETHEAD, BERNIE WORRELL, BRIAN "BRAIN" MANTIA and BILL LASWELL, have joined the lineup for Bonnaroo 2004 . . . WEEN will release Live in Chicago on DVD on May 4th. After a spring tour, the duo plans to begin work on a new studio record . . . Hershey Foods has hired THALIA to appear in a series of Spanish-language print and television ads . . . BONNIE RAITT, MICK FLEETWOOD, PETER FRAMPTON, OMARA PORTUONDO and BURT BACHARACH are among the artists who appear on Bridge to Havana, a CD that paired American and British pop stars with their Cuban counterparts. The set is due in July . . . BRITNEY SPEARS is pitching a reality television series based on her current Onyx Hotel Tour . . .

LIL' FLIP plans to launch his Lucky Nites pineapple-flavored liquor on May 1st . . . DOLLY PARTON will receive the Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., tonight. Previous honorees include RAY CHARLES, JOHNNY CASH, MARTIN SCORSESE and BOB HOPE . . . TEXAS TERRI BOMB will release their new album, Your Lips, My Ass!, this spring . . . The WHO are planning to visit Australia in July and August for their first performances on the continent since 1968 . . . American Idol also-ran RJ HELTON has signed with the management company run by BEYONCE's father MATTHEW KNOWLES . . . CAT POWER begins an eight-date tour on May 18th in Tucson, Arizona. The tour wraps with a May 29th stop at the Sasquatch Music Festival in George, Washington . . .

The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have placed a full-page open letter in this week's Billboard urging BEYONCE to quit wearing furs . . . M.O.P. will take PHAROAHE MONCH and former ROOTS member SCRATCH out on the two-month Weapons of Mic Destruction Tour, starting in May. The group will release its new album, Ghetto Warfare, this summer . . . The WHO have lined up two U.S. tour dates, both in California, in early August . . . CLINIC begin a fourteen-date tour on May 8th in Brooklyn, New York . . . Bluesman J.J. CALE will release To Tulsa and Back, his first album of new songs in eight years, on June 8th. Cale is scheduled to perform at ERIC CLAPTON's June 4-6 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Dallas . . . MARILYN MANSON and burlesque artist DITA VON TREESE are engaged to be married . . .

PHISH are in negotiations to host a concert at the Newport State Airport in Vermont this year. If the gig goes through, it will be Phish's first show in their home state since 1995 . . . TEGAN AND SARA are mixing their third record in Vancouver with plans for an August release. Former WEEZER bassist MATT SHARP added keyboards on three songs . . . Officials in Indianola, Mississippi, are planning to erect a stature to honor hometown hero B.B. KING before the opening of the town's B.B. King Museum in 2005 . . . The elderly parents of "WEIRD AL" YANKOVIC were found dead in their Fallbrook, California, home Friday, apparently of carbon monoxide poisoning. "Weird Al" went ahead with a Mankato, Minnesota, show the next night, dedicating the set to NICK and MARY YANKOVIC . . . MONSTER MAGNET will release Monolithic Baby on May 25th.

(April 16, 2004)