May 01, 2006 5:16 PM

Keith Richards, Sonic Youth, Ray LaMontagne and More

ROLLING STONES guitarist KEITH RICHARDS is recovering in a New Zealand hospital after suffering a mild concussion while vacationing in Fiji last Thursday, according to the country's Auckland newspaper, the Sunday-Star Times. Richards, who was vacationing at the Wayaka Island resort with his wife Patti Hansen, reportedly sustained head injuries after falling from a coconut tree and then later got into another accident while on a jet ski. Richards has had precautionary brain scans but no surgery, the newspaper reported. The sixty-two-year-old rocker had just played two New Zealand shows with the Stones as part of their worldwide A Bigger Bang Tour. The Stones are still expected to hit up Europe this summer for a three-month trek, beginning May 27th in Barcelona, Spain.

Sonic Youth Rip Thru Summer With Tour

SONIC YOUTH will hit the road for three weeks before they head off to open for PEARL JAM this July. The indie rock provocateurs begin the jaunt at New York's famed CBGB's on June 13th -- the same day their new album, Rather Ripped, hits every Converse-trampled neighborhood indie record mecca. In addition to the club dates and the mayhem of PJ's amphitheater trek, Sonic Youth will play sets at two of the summer's hottest festivals: Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee, on June 18th; and Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 5th. More tour dates will be announced.

LaMontagne, Guster Team for Tour

Singer-songwriter RAY LaMONTAGNE -- whose sophomore album, tentatively titled Till the Sun Turns Black, is scheduled for late summer release -- kicks off a co-headlining tour with college radio favorites GUSTER on July 11th in Baltimore. The five-week trek will hit amphitheaters across the U.S. before it wraps August 19th in Portland, Maine. LaMontagne's debut, Trouble, boosted by the made-for-TV-syndication title track, has sold more than 250,000 copies since its 2004 release.

Glitter Appeals Vietnamese Sentence

Veteran glam rocker GARY GLITTER, who was recently sentenced to three years in a Vietnamese prison for child molestation, will appeal in Ho Chi Minh City on May 19th. The disgraced sixty-one-year-old Brit, born Paul Francis Gadd, denies that he committed lewd acts with the girls, 10 and 11, involved in the case, maintaining he is a victim of a British tabloid conspiracy. Glitter was apprehended for his current sentence last November boarding an international flight out of the country. He also served two months in British prison for a 1999 child pornography possessions charge.

Eccentric MC Dr. Octagon Returns

Bronx-based MC KOOL KEITH is back as DR. OCTAGON -- the sexually deviant medicine man DR. DOOOM, his other trip-hop personality, killed off seven years ago. Octagon drops the thirteen-track The Return of Dr. Octagon on June 27th. An eight-chapter digital comic will accompany the album's release, and each episode will feature bonus remixes from PREFUSE 73, AESOP ROCK, KID LOCO and SPANK ROCK.

Modest Mouse, Bunnymen Get on the Bus

Indie rock breakouts MODEST MOUSE, reportedly hard at work on the follow-up to 2004's Good News for People Who Love Bad News with former the SMITHS guitarist JOHNNY MARR, will take a break and perform a handful of West Coast shows in August. On the 6th they'll hit Santa Barbara, California; on the 8th, Sacramento, California; the 9th in Bend, Oregon; and the 10th in Troutdale, Oregon . . . ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN will return to the States for a summer tour in continued support of last year's release, Siberia. The trek kicks off June 9th in Chula Vista, California, and wraps July 1st at New York's Irving Plaza . . . New York rockers WALKMEN have added dates (June 14th in Ponoma, California and June 15th in Los Angeles) to their summer tour, kicking off May 24th in their hometown. The trek -- in support of their latest, A Hundred Miles Off, due late this month -- wraps June 29th at Boston's Avalon . . . CALEXICO have also added five dates to their summer tour, now stopping in Chicago, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and Boston. The summer run begins June 13th in Los Angeles and wraps June 28th in Boston, after which the mellow rockers hit the summer's festival circuit.

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