• Fans of Pirates of the Caribbean, look no further. Our next cover story is a Q&A with the most rock & roll “father and son” of all time: Keith Richards and Johnny Depp. Come back Wednesday for a look at the bitching cover image and a peek at the story. Tomorrow we’ll drop our lead album review, in which Rob Sheffield gives Wilco’s new disc four stars.
• Speaking of Wilco, Jeff Tweedy and co. ask (very politely) that you please purchase their new four-star album Sky Blue Sky when it comes out tomorrow.
• After you’re finished stealing Paul McCartney’s recently-leaked Memory Almost Full, make amends by legally downloading the remainder of Paul McCartney’s solo works.
• More post-Imus fallout? The new 50 Cent video “Amusement Park” has been deemed too hot for MTV.
• Billy Corgan, Jimmy Chamberlin, and whoever else is in the new Smashing Pumpkins have announced a two-city residency to promote their new album Zeitgeist. During the 17-gig residencies (8 shows in San Francisco and 9 in Asheville, NC) the band will be “taking chances in the hope of taking fans, and their music, to new places.” By new places, we assume they mean Asheville, NC. Full press release after the jump.

As they get ready to release ZEITGEIST–their sixth album and first of new material since 2000–THE SMASHING PUMPKINS have announced two sets of residency gigs: nine unprecedented shows at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC (June 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30 and July 2, 3, and 5) plus eight shows at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco (July 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 30 and 31 and August 1).

At these very special and intimate residencies, the band will vary set lists from night to night. They’ll perform songs from Zeitgeist and Pumpkins classics plus retool songs that didn’t make it onto Zeitgeist and even offer tunes written the day of the show. The shows will give fans a unique opportunity to see the Pumpkins inside the process of creation and operating in the spur of the moment. The band will be taking chances in the hope of taking fans, and their music, to new places.

The eight concerts in San Francisco mark the first time the band has returned to The Fillmore since April of 1994 when they were invited to be the band to re-open the historic venue. The Asheville shows mark the first time the Pumpkins will have played a residency since their four gigs at the Double Door in Chicago in 1994 before the release of Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. Fans attending the Fillmore and Orange Peel shows are invited to capture the concerts with audio and video recorders.

General admission tickets for these all-ages shows go on sale Sunday, May 20. The San Francisco tickets ($25.00 each) and will be available at 10:00 AM Pacific via www.ticketmaster.com and www.livenation.com. For the Asheville show, tickets ($20.00 each) will go on sale at 1:00 PM Eastern at www.theorangepeel.net or www.ticketweb.com.

PLEASE NOTE: Tickets for both shows will be available through internet ONLY. Tickets will NOT be available at either box offices, charge-by-phone or ticket outlets. Two-ticket limit per person. Purchaser must pick up tickets at the box office night-of-show only. Ticket-holders must immediately enter the venue. Photo ID required for ticket pick-up. Tickets are non-transferable. No refunds or exchanges. A service charge is added to each ticket price.