Fatboy Slim, Groove Armada and Santana are among the artists nominated for the 1999 International Dance Music Awards. That's right, Santana's "Smooth" was nominated for best Alternative/Rock 12". Right again, the IDMA's actually do have a rock category, be it one that considers Santana alternative. The awards ceremony comes as part of the music industry's biggest dance and electronica event, the Winter Music Conference, in Miami Beach, Fla. The five-day event, held from March 24 through March 29, includes a new artists' showcase, a DJ spin-off, poolside performances and DJ sets. Some of the headline performers this year include Moby, Gus Gus and Fatboy Slim. For more information on the event check their site at www.wmcon.com . . .
Canadian rockers the TRAGICALLY HIP have finished recording, mixing and mastering their seventh studio album, Music @ Work. The Sire/London album, which is scheduled for worldwide release on June 8, was produced by Los Lobos member STEVE BERLIN (who also produced the Hip's 1998 effort, Phantom Power). There are no North American tour dates yet, but the band will perform four shows in Europe beginning June 3 in Hamburg, Germany, at Grunspan and ending June 8 in London at Shepherds Bush Empire. Full tour and album updates can be found at www.thehip.com . . .
Former BAY CITY ROLLERS drummer DEREK LONGMUIR was given a slap on the wrist by a British court after he confessed to child pornography possession. Longmuir, forty-eight, was ordered to perform 300 hours of community service by the court, which spared him a prison sentence. He claimed that the indecent films and photography in his home was left there by an American friend . . .
DAVID BOWIE may not be touring this year, but that doesn't mean he's sitting around knitting booties as he and Iman wait for the stork. The Thin White Web Entrepreneur has just added teen sensations HANSON to his list of web clients, which includes the New York Yankees (YankeesXtreme.com) and Baltimore Orioles (OriolesWorld.com). Bowie's UltraStar Internet Services has been working on a site to bring a new and improved Hanson to the unsuspecting world in anticipation of their new album, This Time Around, due May 9. At midnight on March 29, Hanson.net will go live, giving fans a peak at the new album which features guest appearances from Beck, John Popper and Jonny Lang. . .
WILCO and BILLY BRAGG have put the finishing touches on their second collaboration built around WOODY GUTHRIE lyrics, according to Wilco's management. Elektra is tentatively planning to release the album in June, and the working title "Mermaid Avenue Vol. II." The album is culled from a variety of sources, including the original sessions for the first album, and new takes recorded in Ireland and Chicago. The original Mermaid Avenue, in which Wilco and Bragg put unreleased Guthrie lyrics to new music, was released in 1998. . .
Cleopatra Records, the same folks who brought you tributes to Alice Cooper, Prince and Aerosmith, have cooked up a new cover project. The label will release a VAN HALEN tribute album later this year. So far organizers have snared a virtual guitar army led by fretmaster YNGWIE MALMSTEEN. GUNNAR NELSON, the TUBES and MARK SLAUGHTER are among those who will offer their personal stamps to the bombastic hits from the Van Halen catalog. . .
METHODS OF MAYHEM have just signed on to play this year's Ozzfest. TOMMY LEE's new outfit will join PANTERA, KITTIE and OZZY OSBOURNE for the fifth annual hard rock festival. FLASHPOINT was forced to drop out of the lineup after singer OLLIE LUTTGENAU was injured in a snowboarding accident. Ozzfest 2000 kicks off on July 2 in West Palm Beach, Fla., and despite rumors, reps for the festival claim this year is far from being the festival's last. . .
The JVC Jazz Festival has announced its schedule of performers for this summer. RAY CHARLES, ARETHA FRANKLIN, CASSANDRA WILSON, CESARIA EVORA and DIANA KRALL are among those tapped to play the two-week festival, which runs June 12-24 at a variety of venues throughout New York City. Tickets for the festival go on sale May 7. For more details check out www.festivalproductions.net/jvc/ny. . .
JOSEPHINE WIGGS, former bass player for the BREEDERS, and ex-LUSCIOUS JACKSON keyboardist VIVIAN TRIMBLE have recorded an album together under the name DUSTRY TRAILS. Their debut is slated for release in May and features appearances by EMMYLOU HARRIS and Trimble's former Luscious Jackson cohorts, JILL CUNNIFF and KATE SCHNELLENBACH. . .
His Behind the Music made you cry, and now former teen idol LEIF GARRETT is trying to thrill you again. Garrett and his band GODSPEED will head out on a tour opening for veteran noise-makers the MELVINS. The two-month trek kicks off March 29 in Las Vegas. . .
TRENT REZNOR has taken a page out of Smashing Pumpkins' tour journal and is stingily doling out NINE INCH NAILS North American tour dates a few at a time. NIN will descend on the eastern seaboard early in May. Tickets go on sale March 25 for the following shows: the Centrum in Worcester, Mass., on May 2; the Civic Center in Providence, R.I., on May 3; the Civic Center in Hartford, Conn., on May 4; the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pa., on May 6; and the Star Lake Amphitheater in Pittsburgh, Pa., on May 7. . .
The NBA has nabbed JAMES BROWN to star in their $5 million playoff ad campaign, airing on TNT and TBS next month. The flashy spots feature the Godfather of Soul singing "The Boss," with some of the league's big-name players like Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson and Glen Rice. Brown filmed his first ad with the Iverson in Philadelphia on Tuesday. . .
To very, very loosely quote one of their songs, summer's coming up fast, and DONALD FAGEN and WALTER BECKER of STEELY DAN are about to get busy promoting their new album Two Against Nature on the road. Although full U.S. dates will not be announced until April 9, the official Steely Dan site confirms two dates -- June 13 and 14 -- at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles. By then Fagen, Becker and their assembled road mercenaries should be good and limbered up after five dates in Japan (beginning May 14 in Tokyo) and a May 5 appearance on the Today show. An episode of VH1's Storytellers featuring the duo is also scheduled to air sometime in early May . . .
PHISH lyricist TOM MARSHALL has recorded a solo project that is set for release next month. Amfibian Tales will feature fourteen new tracks penned by Marshall and performed by him and his new band, Amfibian. The album should be available in early April. More information will be made available at www.amfibian.com. . .
TOM WAITS, ELVIS COSTELLO, RICKIE LEE JONES, BRIAN SETZER and BETTE MIDLER are among guests on Beatin' the Heat, the first release by the Seventies genre-defying cult-band DAN HICKS AND THE HOT LICKS in more than two decades. Beatin' the Heat is scheduled for release on July 18 on Surfdog Records. . .
LINDA McCARTNEY's former husband JOSEPH MELVILLE SEE JR. died Tuesday at his home in Arizona, of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The sixty-two-year-old geologist and cultural anthropologist married Linda Eastman in the Sixties and the two had one daughter before their divorce. See was the subject of rumors during his life as the possible "Jo Jo" from Tuscon, Ariz. in the Beatles tune "Get Back". . .
In a collaboration that accentuates the stylistic enigma that is Texas music, PANTERA drummer VINNIE PAUL and guitarist DIMEBAG DARRELL are collaborating with country outlaw DAVID ALLEN COE. The collaboration has apparently yielded several songs, but is still considered "pretty unofficial stuff," according to a source for the band. No word yet about any plans for release. . .
"Fasten thine seatbelts, Fellow Minions... for the Tattooed shall inherit the earth, and the trumpets will sound, and the Ears will bleed..." So reads one fan's posting on www.tattootheearth.com, the official Web site for the inaugural Tattoo the Earth Festival. SLIPKNOT, SEVENDUST and COAL CHAMBER will be joined by tattoo artists Hanky Panky and Sean Vasquez, who have inked the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Sex Pistols respectively, for a tentatively scheduled thirty date tour to begin in mid-summer. The festival village promises to include body piercers and painters, henna artists and temporary tattoos (for those who don't like to say, "Ouch"). But make no mistake about the tour's intent. "Our goal is to tattoo the Earth," according to festival producer Paul Zukoski, "the whole Earth." Official dates and an extended lineup are expected to be announced shortly . . .
GARTH BROOKS' visit to the New York Mets spring training was a success despite the continuation of a hitting slump. The country music star pulled an ohfer, going hitless in seventeen at-bats. Following last year's one for twenty-two stint with the San Diego Padres, don't look for Brooks in a uniform anytime after April. But Brooks managed to round up more than 100 commitments from Major League Baseball players for his Touch 'em All Foundation, a children's charity. The exact amount Brooks raised will be determined as the season progresses, as many players make a pledge based on specific statistics. Last year Brooks pulled in nearly $2 million for the foundation . . .
It was only a matter of time before KISS got their own Pepsi commercial, but fans may be surprised that the band will play second fiddle to the soft drink's ringlet-wearing, tough-talking eleven-year-old mascot Hallie Eisenberg. This time the little tyke will dress up like a member of KISS and perform a song with band, with her own miniature, rhinestone-studded, Paul Stanley Signature Series Washburn guitar. The commercial will debut on Sunday during the Academy Awards show on ABC. Those who have seen it say that it sizzles more than Michael Jackson's hair . . .
Former Blake Babies bassist and indie-rock princess JULIANA HATFIELD will return on May 16 with not one, but two albums to follow-up 1998's Bed. Beautiful Creature features producer SCOTT LITT (R.E.M., Indigo Girls, Nirvana) on several tracks and is described as more mellow than its counterpart, Total System Failure. The second album, which features MIKEY WELSH of WEEZER on bass and ZEPHAN COURTNEY of MILLIGRAM on drums, was recorded under the moniker JULIANA'S PONY. A special limited-edition package -- containing both albums, an additional track and a letter from Hatfield -- will be released the same day . . .
While SILVERCHAIR frontman DANIEL JOHNS has been taking advantage of his band's twelve-month hiatus to work on a solo album and bassist CHRIS JOANNOU has been tinkering with vintage cars, drummer BEN GILLES went out of his way to find out how the other half lives. Specifically, he's been working for $12-an-hour behind the counter at Sound World record store in a shopping center in Newcastle, Australia. Although the drummer only punches in for one or two days a week, fans have already gotten wind of his new gig -- but one condition of Gilles employment is that he's not allowed to sign autographs on the job. Australia's Sunday Telegraph went into the shop and asked workers if Gillies' presence has boosted sales any; lo and behold, one co-worker fessed up that "people are actually buying more Silverchair singles." Meanwhile, according to Epic Records, Silverchair are still signed to the label and plan to release another album, but there is currently nothing on the schedule . . .
An estimated 11,000 Dubliners were treated to a free U2 mini-concert Saturday when the band performed "All I Want Is You," "Desire," "The Sweetest Thing" and "One" at the city's Smithfield Civic Plaza. Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr. were celebrating their newly anointed status as "Freemen of the city of Dublin," an honor they now share with the likes of Mother Theresa, the Pope, Nelson Mandela and John F. Kennedy. The band members were given the award because of their role in changing the image of Dublin abroad and for their support of such causes as the Third World debt-busting Jubilee 2000 as well as Live Aid and Amnesty International. "If there is one idea that this city treasures above all others," Bono told the crowd gathered to see them receive the award in Smithfield market, "it is freedom" . . .
MARC ANTHONY spent Saturday night in a St. Louis hospital, apparently after taking sore throat medication on an empty stomach. Anthony's condition meant two missed performances, Saturday in St. Louis and Sunday in Atlanta, but the Salsa star will reschedule both gigs. "Marc would like to thank all his fans for their expressions of love and concern and apologizes for any inconvenience the concert postponements may have caused," a statement on his official site read . . .
Throat problems also felled D'ANGELO. The R&B singer was forced to postpone a Radio City Music Hall gig Friday in New York City. The previous night, D'Angelo thrilled a Big Apple crowd, but on Friday swollen vocal cords, laryngitis and an admonishment from his doctor caused him to bump the show to Monday, March 20. The postponed performance is taking the place of a Boston show that will be rescheduled for a later time. New York fans who are unable to attend Monday night can return their tickets to Radio City for a full refund . . .
COUNTING CROWS are the latest act to bail on an Austrian appearance. The band won't be bumming around Vienna's Libro Hall on March 23 in reaction to the inauguration of the recently elected, far-right freedom party. LOU REED and STING had previously cancelled gigs in the country . . .
The BLOODHOUND GANG will kick off a U.S. club tour in support of their recently released Hooray for Boobies on April 13 in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The funk-metal act's current single, "The Bad Touch," is at No. 11 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. For the full list of tour dates go to www.bloodhoundgang.com.
BILL CRANDALL, ANDREW DANSBY, RICHARD SKANSE, CHRISTINA SARACENO, JAAN UHELSZKI
(March 25, 2000)