The Hives, Tom Morello, Pearl Jam, the Roots, Moby, Missy Elliott, System of a Down and others have designed personalized skateboard decks, which are being auctioned on eBay through December 19th . . . Starting December 16th, previously unseen footage from Paul McCartney's U.S. tour can be viewed through a secret Web site encoded in the DVD of Back in the U.S. . . . Cheryl Wheeler's anthology, Different Stripe, will be released on January 28th; a nine-date tour will begin on January 4th in Peterborough, New Hampshire . . .

Lionel Richie's twenty-song The Definitive Collection will be released on February 4th; a live album, Encore, and tour are also planned for next year . . . Eve will make a guest appearance on NBC's Third Watch on January 6th, playing a rookie paramedic . . . Cory Morrow will release a new live CD and DVD, Full Exposure, on February 25th . . . Tin Hat Trio's Rob Burger will release his solo debut, Lost Photograph, this month . . . The Yonder Mountain String Band will begin a twenty-three-date tour on January 31st in St. Louis; the group has also lined up a New Year's show in Denver . . .

Sheryl Crow will perform at the National Hockey League's All-Star Game weekend in Sunrise, Florida, on February 2nd . . . Interpol have lined up an eight-date U.S. tour starting January 10th in Columbus, Ohio. A tour of the U.K. and Ireland will follow starting January 24th in Dublin . . . "Do You Love Me" and other hits by the Contours will be included in a new compilation due January 28th . . . The White Stripes have recorded "Merry Christmas From the White Stripes," a holiday 7-inch due in the U.K. on December 16th . . . Redd Kross will release their 1987 cult classic Neurotica with bonus tracks on February 4th; co-founding member Steven McDonald and his band will release their debut EP, This Is Not a Rebellion, on January 21st . . .

Monty Python's Eric Idle will release The Rutland Isles, a new mock audio documentary about a group of fictional islands on the West Pole, on CD in March 2003 . . . Eric Andersen will release the two-CD Beat Avenue on February 25th; the Band's Garth Hudson, Lucy Kaplansky and former Hooters guitarist Eric Bazilian will guest . . . Les Paul has donated a classic Gibson guitar to eBay to raise money for the Uniformed Firefighters Association Widows and Children Fund . . . Florida rockers Kamelot will release their next album, Epica, on February 4th . . . Amy Grant, the Blind Boys Of Alabama and Pat Boone will be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame at the thirty-fourth annual Dove Awards in Nashville on April 10th . . .

Bono joined Senator Bill Frist in loading a cargo plane with more than 83,000 gifts to be airlifted to HIV-positive children in Uganda and Sudan; the Operation Christmas Child program was initiated by the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham . . . The Red Hot Chili Peppers will headline the U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix on December 20th in Park City, Utah . . . Backstreet Boy Kevin Richardson will take on the role of lawyer Billy Flynn in the Broadway musical Chicago starting January 20th . . . ZZ Top frontman Billy Gibbons will receive the Heart of Texas Hall of Fame award at the Cancer League, Inc.'s twenty-fourth annual Christmas Luncheon on December 13th in Houston . . .

A federal judge ordered the Internet Entertainment Group to pay Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson nearly $1.5 million from profits made by their infamous sex tape . . . Michael Stipe and Harry Belafonte were among the 100 performers who signed a December 10th letter urging President Bush not to wage war with Iraq . . . Tony Bennett, K.D. Lang, Linda Ronstadt, Nancy Sinatra and Diana Krall performed at a gala in honor of the late ROSEMARY CLOONEY in Beverly Hills on December 10th . . . Country singer Moe Bandy is recovering from triple bypass surgery after suffering a heart attack over the weekend; he's expected to be released from a Branson, Missouri, hospital by week's end . . .

Guns n' Roses' performance in Greenville, South Carolina, scheduled for tomorrow night has been cancelled; the status of the remainder of the group's Chinese Democracy Tour is still uncertain . . . Beyonce Knowles, Aretha Franklin and Shaquille O'neal will offer personal holiday greetings at the fifth annual Sears Soul Train Christmas StarFest, which will air between December 14th and 22nd; the show will include a montage of past performances by Mary J. Blige, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds and others . . . R.E.M.'s Document will be reissued as a DVD Audio on January 28th; in addition to the music, the DVD will include videos for three songs, on-screen lyrics, a discography and photo gallery . . . Laika will release Lost in Space, a two-CD collection of odds and ends, on January 21st . . .

The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network is appealing to President George Bush to free incarcerated rapper Slick Rick, who is being held by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services; INS plans to deport Rick to England after he served a five-year prison term for a 1990 shooting . . . Paul Van Dyk has lined up a four-date U.S. tour starting December 27th in Miami and including a pair of New Year's Eve dates, one in San Francisco and one in Los Angeles . . . Alien Ant Farm returned to the stage at the House of Blues in West Hollywood on December 7th, their first gig since a tour bush crash in May nearly killed singer Dryden Mitchell . . .

Run-DMC's Darryl McDaniels has recorded "I'm Missing My Friend," a tribute to Jam Master Jay, due later this year . . . Oasis resumed their European tour on December 8th in Wales, after canceling dates in Germany after frontman Liam Gallagher lost his front teeth in a brawl . . . India.Arie received five NAACP Image Award nominations to lead all acts; the thirty-fourth annual event will be held March 8th in Los Angeles . . . Rob Thomas will release "A New York Christmas," a holiday single, through the internet this month; proceeds will benefit the Blythedale Children's Hospital in Westchester, New York . . . December 10th has been deemed Bruce Springsteen Day in Rome, Italy . . .

Avril Lavigne will perform at the MTV Asia Awards in Singapore on January 24th . . . Cuban star Celia Cruz underwent undisclosed emergency surgery in New York on December 6th; she's listed in stable condition . . . The Waterboys will begin recording their next record in the U.K. next month; a June 2003 release is scheduled . . . Marvin Gaye's duets with Diana Ross, Tammi Terrell and others will be included on Greatest Duets: The Love Songs Collection, due January 14th . . . Henry Rollins will begin a fifty-date spoken word tour on January 8th in San Francisco; Rollins will also release I Am Spazticus, a CD and DVD of his stand-up material early next year . . . Our Lady Peace will begin a six-date Canadian tour on January 24th in Kelowna, British Columbia . . .

(December 13, 2002)