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It’s juust a little ironic that a band named Live, never actually got around to releasing any live material. So, after 20 years of existence, Live are finally announcing plans for their first-ever live release. It will be a  CD/DVD package documenting a June concert in Amsterdam, and you can expect it to come out in October. Singer Ed Kowalczyk thinks it will be worth the wait. He says he’s "hard-pressed to think of another recent concert movie where they captured the essence of the fans' response and reaction so profoundly."  

The new Coldplay album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends officially comes out  on June 17th–-but apparently NOBODY is willing to wait that long!   It’s already the best-selling album presale in iTunes history, and it's on the verge of breaking the iTunes record for first-week sales.   Also, in a less, um, legal capacity, the album has leaked all over the place. But in case you don’t want to get taken out by a S.W.A.T. team just to have a listen, you can check out a totally legit stream of the entire thing at Iheartmusic.com.

The Violent Femmes have apparently recovered from Cheeseburger-Gate 2007 where the bandmates were squabbling over the use of the song Blister in the Sun for a Wendy’s commercial. They’ve decided to offer Gnarls Barkley some quid pro quo.   Gnarls Barkley covered Gone Daddy Gone on their first album "St. Elsewhere," so the Femmes have returned the honor and covered the Gnarls Barkley song Crazy.  It will be released as a single June 24^th at violentandcrazy.com

In the battle of Tool vs. Beast…Beast always wins. Tool drummer Danny Carey had to undergo treatment for "throbbing pain" and a nasty infection in his left hand after he was injured on vacation in Hawaii last February by a "marine hazard."  And by "marine hazard,"  they mean anything from a jellyfish to an angry manatee to an old tire.   He’s hoping after two surgeries the finger will finally heal.   See pictures at toolband.com

Lucky Matt Bellamy from Muse---he's got himself his very first stalker!  Not just some crazy broad who tries to get backstage to show him the Muse tattoo she has on her inner thigh, but a dude who actually knows where Matt's home in Italy is and leaves him bags full of bottles with messages on them.  Matt says he's freaked out, but really, by stalker standards, this is pretty tame.  Just wait until the bags of toenail clippings start showing up.   That's when things will get weird!   

 The one you were really excited about? The one that could not possibly suck because it featured collaborations with Beck, Billy Corgan, and Jack White?   It may never actually come out.   Sorry.  Shirley Manson played it for her record label, and they said it was very "noir," and she realized they didn’t mean it as a compliment. Which is weird, because you know, all of her other songs are about puppies and kittens and rainbows and junk. The album was orignially scheduled to be out in May, but Manson says she doesn’t know what will happen to it now.

A lot of people thought Tom DeLonge was a crazy ass egomaniac when he claimed that the Angels and Airwaves album “We Don’t Need to Whisper” would be the best album anybody had heard in 20 years.  But its not Tom’s fault that he said all that stuff, the magic pills made him do it.  He said "I did  feel and believe those things, but I had no clue how to communicate because I was spun out on painkillers."  Oh. Ok. So the lesson for today kids,  if you really feel and believe something, say it when you’re on painkillers.   And then no one will think you really meant it, even though you did.  

 A crappy band ripping off Kurt Cobain's music? It's been done.  A crafty thief ripping off Kurt Cobain's money?  Now, that's new and exciting!    Courtney Love claims that as much as 72 million dollars has been stolen from Kurt's estate by evil identity thieves.  Before you start dreaming up  conspiracy theories about Courtney Love stealing the money herself, or making all of this up for attention, or  not even remembering that she spent the missing money on booze and lipo,  she's already responded to haters on myspace.  She's already taken the offending credit reports to the LAPD.  Aaaand she's not crazy, she's just eccentric.   Glad she cleared that up.