Up in It

John Mayer took a break from the studio last Tuesday to play a four-song acoustic set at a party celebrating Elle magazine's first "green issue" and a screening of environmentalist Laurie David's HBO film Too Hot Not To Handle. Given the theme, Mayer chose to debut the song "Waiting for the World to Change," off his upcoming album. A talkative Mayer, who threw in a snippet of Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" during the closing "Daughters," said he was very happy to be playing for a cause he found to be "maybe the most logical cause out there." After the set, in between posing for pictures with David and her husband, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David, Mayer said he was off to the studio to record some more .. . .

Had a chance to hang in San Francisco with Umphrey's McGee before the first of the band's two nights at the legendary Fillmore. The Chicago jam band just finished a successful European run in support of their new album, Safety in Numbers. The trek overseas was sort of a milestone for the guys, according to bassist Ryan Stasik: "This was our first time where we played Milan, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, London -- and actually had European fans!" High on their recent jet-setting, the band plans on broadening their international touring in the future to include Japan and the Dominican Republic. In the meantime, they have some major U.S. dates lined up, including a few opening for none other than Dave Matthews Band. "We're really excited to meet them and see them," says Stasik. "I've never been to a DMB show." . . .

One of Up In It's favorite bands these days: Finnish hard-rockers H.I.M., who just recently announced a new string of stateside dates. With the success of Dark Light, the band is headlining, but there are a couple of bands they'd still be happy to support. "Iggy Pop and the Stooges would be good -- we're big fans," says H.I.M. frontman Ville Vallo. "And it'd be cool to tour with Queens of the Stone Age. They're similar to our band: It's very hard to categorize what they do. They've got that punkiness, and a bit of that stonerish, kind of doped-up space-rock vibe." Dialing Josh Homme . . .

Finally, Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell is more than a musician. With the singer recently opening his own restaurant in Paris, we asked Cornell for some culinary advice. For a dinner party . . . ? "I would probably broil salmon, and in a way that most people would probably think of as very undercooked," he says. "I don't know if I would put anything on it or not." But don't worry: Chris isn't forgetting what he's learned as a rock star. "The go-to dish every time, at any party, is an open bottle of champagne. You can't go wrong," he says. "And if you don't buy the best champagne, after the first couple of bottles are gone, no one's gonna care!" The best recipe for fitting into tight leather pants . . .