WEEN, the PATTI SMITH BAND, GUSTER and the JAZZ MANDOLIN PROJECT featuring PHISH drummer JON FISHMAN have joined the lineup for the Bonnaroo 2004 music festival. Previously announced acts include the DEAD, BOB DYLAN, DAVE MATTHEWS AND FRIENDS, WILCO, WILLIE NELSON and YO LA TENGO. The third annual festival is set for June 11-13 in Manchester, Tennessee . . .

SONIC YOUTH will headline a benefit in THURSTON MOORE and KIM GORDON's adopted home of Northampton, Massachusetts, for the Community Resources for People With Autism on April 30th. The show, set for John M. Greene Hall on the campus of Smith College, will also include Northampton natives J. MASCIS and his former DINOSAUR JR. bandmate LOU BARLOW with SEBADOH. Four local acts will also appear on the bill . . .

JESSICA SIMPSON and NICK LACHEY will host their own variety show on ABC on April 11th. The Nick and Jessica Variety Hour will include appearances by JEWEL, BABYFACE, KENNY ROGERS and others . . . The THRILLS kick off a thirty-one-date tour on March 27th in Boston. On select dates the band will open for PHANTOM PLANET . . . ARETHA FRANKLIN was hospitalized on Saturday for an undisclosed ailment and is listed in stable condition . . . MY BLOODY VALENTINE will release a two-CD collection of their out-of-print EPs in April . . . Producer, singer and songwriter JOHNNY BRISTOL, who worked with MICHAEL JACKSON, STEVIE WONDER, MARVIN GAYE and others, died Sunday at his home just outside of Detroit. He was sixty-five . . . AEROSMITH guitarist JOE PERRY has loaned his voice and likeness to the new computer game "Genie Joe and the Axeman" . . .

A year-long exhibit at the Patton Museum in Fort Knox, Kentucky, will focus on ELVIS PRESLEY's military stint . . . A previously unreleased NICK DRAKE song, "Tow the Line," will be included on the new Drake compilation Made to Love Magic, due in May . . . JIMMY BUFFETT will usher in summer with a nineteen-date tour to begin April 22nd in Tampa . . . TEARS FOR FEARS have shifted the release of their reunion album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending, from April 5th to "in the near future" . . . MODEST MOUSE will offer a live bootleg, Baron Von Bullshit Rides Again, through their Web site next month . . . VAN HUNT begins a twenty-five-date tour on March 26th in Athens, Georgia. Some dates will be opening gigs for the ROOTS, SEAL or ANGIE STONE . . .

BRITNEY SPEARS injured her knee at a recent Illinois show forcing her to cancel dates in Chicago and Detroit. Her Onyx Hotel Tour will resume tonight in Atlanta with the nixed dates to be rescheduled in April . . . FLEETWOOD MAC, SHERYL CROW, ALANIS MORISSETTE, GILLIAN WELCH, COUNTING CROWS and others will appear on the 2004 season of Soundstage, which begins airing June 17th on PBS . . . SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES keyboardist MARTIN HEDEROS and HELLACOPTERS' guitarist MATTIAS HELLBERG have covered songs by TOM WAITS, BOB DYLAN, GRAM PARSONS, LOU REED and others for a new album due this spring . . . OUTKAST won two Soul Train Awards (including Album of the Year for Speakerboxxx/The Love Below) Saturday in Los Angeles . . . PINK GREASE's full-length debut, This Is for Real, will be released on April 14th . . . The PINK DOTS kick off a tour on May 20th in Sauget, Illinois . . .

Sony Corp. and McDonald's Corp. are finalizing a deal that would offer customers at the fast food chain access to free songs through the Sony Connect online music store, which launches this spring. The deal is similar to the recent Apple, Pepsi Co. deal where the latter offered 1 million free song downloads in the lids of their products for the iTunes music store. Sony Connect has already signed a pact with United Airlines offering travelers the opportunity to trade frequent flier miles for free songs . . .

The new video game SNOOP DOGG Boxing will pit gamers against the rapper to the sound of his hit single "Who Am I?" The game will become available in late April . . . SLEATER-KINNEY have lined up a fourteen-date tour to begin April 21st in Towson, Maryland . . . A June start date is being eyed for the big screen biopic of JOHNNY and JUNE CARTER CASH. The film will star JOAQUIN PHOENIX and REESE WITHERSPOON . . . FLAT DUO JETS guitarist DEXTER ROMWEBER will release Blues That Defy the Soul on June 1st . . . NIGHT RANGER and DAMN YANKEES singer JACK BLADES will release his self-titled solo debut on April 6th . . . GEORGE JONES has expanded his food line with the new "White Lightning Tennessee Spring Water" and a line of microwaveable country sausage . . . SEAL launches a fourteen-date tour on April 23rd in Las Vegas . . .

(March 23, 2004)