The White Stripes will visit "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" for a four-night stretch, starting April 22nd. The group will play a different song from the upcoming Elephant each night. Word.

Korn's Brian "Head" Welch and Snot's Mike Smith will fill the guitarist vacancy in Limp Bizkit when the band plays at Wrestlemania XIX (Bizkit's big time, now, com'on...) on March 30th (somebody's birthday...) in Seattle.

Eric Clapton, ZZ Top and John "Cougar" Mellencamp will perform at a concert to celebrate Willie Nelson's seventieth birthday on April 9th in New York City; the show will be filmed and broadcast on USA Network on May 26th. The Top are also going on a 37-date tour in support of their new album Mescalero, and said tour is entitled "Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers Tour", so go crazy 'bout some sharp-dressed men...

In about two weeks you can expect new material from Bridge 9 punkers Stars and Stripes and Slapshot. That's the first release for 7 years for Slapshot, 15 for Stars and Stripes, so ya'll get excited now...

Sully Erna from Godsmack went to bat for fans against his record label to keep the price down on the band's upcoming album, Faceless. Sully, who said he wants to entertain - not bankrupt- rock fans, fought for special low pricing on the record - a fight he won for at least the first week of the record's release, which starts on 4/8.

How unamerican?! Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth is involved in curating the recently opened Protest Records. It's a website devoted to well, protesting stuff. The site statement sums up the idea, "Protest Records exists for musicians, poets and artists to express LOVE + LIBERTY in the face of greed, sexism, racism, hate-crime and war. FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT. All songs and designs on this site are free to share, not to sell." There's a bunch of mp3's already up including songs by the Beastie Boys, Eugene Chadbourne, and Cat Power. You can also download nifty anti-war stencil designs that you can use in any way you please.

While a host of artists are canceling tour plans in Europe due to security concerns during our war, Wu-Tang Clan has announced plans to dive right into the hornet's nest that is the Middle East and tour Israel in May. Why are they doing this? Cappadonna had this to say, "As Americans and hip-hop artists, we want to show solidarity with the people of Israel. No one thinks that a Hebrew-speaking country has anything to do with hip-hop, but hip-hop is alive in Israel and we are going there to foster the new generations’ way of communicating." No dates have been announced yet, but the cities they plan to visit are Tel Aviv, Beersheva, Haifa, Eilat, and Jerusalem.

As more and more us are discovering his amazing video for "Hurt," Johnny Cash has been hospitalized for more than two weeks now with pneumonia. The 71 year old singer is in stable condition and is expected to recover from this apparently very serious bout with the infection. However, he does have a condition known as autonomic neuropathy that leaves him particularly susceptible to more pneumonia in the future.

Itching to see Ministry live? While rumors of a tour with Mudvayne and In Flames have proven to be just rumors, Ministry will be hitting the road last week (did I give you enough notice?) with Nothingface, Lollipop Lustkill, and Motograter. Thank God for an endless supply of band names that perfectly convey how sinister they think they are and how dorky they actually are. The remaining tour dates follow...

In a recent email to helmetband.com that has since been made public, former Helmet frontman and current leader of Gandhi, Page Hamilton revealed quite a bit about Gandhi's current status as well as any future Helmet activity. Among the revelations is that the door is open for a Helmet reunion, but that as of now all the members are busy with other projects (Gandhi, Tomahawk, and mastering steel guitar in Hawaii). As far as Gandhi goes, Page 'dissolved' the east coast version of the band and is now working with the John Tempesta, Rob Nicholson, and Charlie Clouser out west. He also plans on playing Helmet songs with Gandhi. Hit 'more' to read the entire email.

Fresh off of debuting "The Last Straw" (it's another anti-war song) at a surprise mini show in Vancouver recently, R.E.M. has confirmed the details of a North American tour kicking off at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle on September 1st. For openers, the band has selected the likes of Wilco, Ed Harcourt, and Sparklehorse. So check the tour dates to see who's playing at which show.

Aside from heading out on Lollapalooza this summer, Queens of the Stone Age recently took the time to help in creating one of the best music videos I've seen in quite a while. You can head over to MTV.com and stream the video for "Go With The Flow," the second single from, Songs For The Deaf. If you'd like to see it on the idiot box, stay tuned to MTV and MTV2, because it officially premiered last Friday.

It's been a while since our last Wilco update, so why not give you one now? The Wilco gents have arranged a few dates in late April and early May. In addition, Wilco will play a few shows with Sonic Youth on the East Coast this summer (ticketing info can be found over at their website). Oh, and we're still waiting on that EP. For now, here are the dates...

Staind will reemerge on the US music scene on May 20th with 14 Shades of Grey. While you might have caught that bit of news previously, I bet you haven't heard the snippet of the first single, "Price To Play." While it doesn't come off as wimpy as their last album, we'll see who laughs/cries last come May 20th.

According to the band's official website, The Dropkick Murphys have announced newcomer Scruffy Wallace as the replacement for Spicy McHaggis, who parted ways with the band unexpectedly a couple weeks ago. The Irish punkers will release their new LP, Blackout, on June 10th via Epitaph, and then, after one too many pints, they'll do just that.

As previously reported, a rash of Foo Fighters dates have been sprouting up all across the United States. As this epidemic was expected to spread, we have gained access to specific times and locations this deadly force is set to reek havoc...

Calla, in the midst of a huge-ass European tour (i'll spare you the dates -- just look on their website if you're one of our Euro buddies) have just announced a set of U.S. tourdates (which I will provide, just click the "more"). What? You haven't heard Calla? Well, then go buy their latest album, Televise or check out the video for "Strangler" (download it here or keep your eyes peeled for it on MTV2).

Gob is set to release their Arista Records debut, Foot in Mouth Disease, on April 1st. The band is toruing with Simple Sucky Plan and will have a supporting spot on the Avril Lavigne Tour (don't judge by them by their friends, have you heard their cover of "Paint it Black"?) beginning April 9th in Toronto. Check out the first single off of Foot In Mouth Disease entitled "Give Up the Grudge" in Real Media.

Want to hear what 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts sounds like? Come on, you know you are at least interested. I mean it is Russel Crowe's band and their new album hits stores April 8th. Well, good thing we have streams of the track "Never Be Alone Again," a duet with Chrissie Hynde none the less, in Real Audio and Windows Media. Now, we didn't say it was good, we just thought you might want to hear it.

Capitol Records is gearing up to release a 13-disc Duran Duran box set entitled The Singles Box 81-85 containing, you guessed it, the bands singles from 81-85. Each disc will have between 2 and 4 tracks containing their original b-sides. All 40 tracks will retail for around $50 and is set to hit shelves on June 10th.