Tuesday Rock Roundup

Pollstar has released its mid-year tally of 2007's top tours, and the big winner is Rod Stewart, who's raked in 48-point-one-million dollars thus far in 2007. The Police's reunion tour has brought the trio 41-point-nine-million bucks, which is good enough for third place on the list, while Roger Waters' world tour has generated just over 30-million in ticket sales. Other classic rock artists making big bucks include Eric Clapton, Billy Joel and Bob Seger, all of whom rank in the Top 20.

Roger Waters wrapped up his 2006-2007 world tour Saturday night in Toronto. The tour featured a complete performance of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, and now Waters will turn his attention to another Floyd album, The Wall, which he's developing for Broadway. He tells us he'll have a "think-tank" session with a writer and director later this month. "Hopefully I'll be able to push it further and we'll get it closer to a production."

The vocal cords of Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler are going to be featured on a new special on the National Geographic Channel this fall. The Incredible Human Machine is a look at all the mechanical processes in the human body, and series producers got permission to film Tyler's vocal cords before and after he had surgery in 2006. The Incredible Human Machine will premiere on October 21st.

Bono and The Edge were in New York last week and took in a Broadway musical, Spring Awakening. Perhaps they're getting tips as they work on music for a stage version of Spider-Man.

While Angus and Malcolm Young continue to work on the next A-C/D-C album, singer Brian Johnson and bass player Cliff Williams are on the road as part of the Classic Rock Cares tour, which raises money for the John Entwistle Foundation for music education for disadvantaged children. Johnson tells New Jersey's Daily Record, "There's an album in the works, and a tour, too, I think. The boys are working on something special. They don't want to do just another album." A-C/D-C's last studio effort was 2000's Stiff Upper Lip.

Metallica fans will have to wait about six more months to hear the band's new album. Drummer Lars Ulrich says they're going back into the studio next month to do overdubs and for James Hetfield to record his vocals. If everything goes according to plan, the disc will be out in early 2008. Ulrich tells us he can't wait for the C-D to be done. "It's been too long. It's always too long. I don't understand how it ends up being five years between records."

A pair of "granny" eyeglasses that John Lennon wore during The Beatles' last worldwide tour is reported to have drawn bids for more than one-point-five-million dollars. The auction house 991-dot-com says John received the gold-rimmed specs in the summer of 1966 from a producer for the Nippon T-V network who served as his translator in Japan. The auction runs through the end of this month.

Queen has released another hits collection. A to Z of Queen: Volume One, a C-D/D-V-D set, is available exclusively at Wal-Mart stores.

Longtime Grateful Dead collaborator Donna Jean Godchaux's new band, Donna Jean and the Tricksters, will release their self-titled debut album in January. She was always one of the least-popular members of the band, but I always dug her work on Terrapin Station.

Paul McCartney's new album, Memory Almost Full, was released on vinyl yesterday in the U-K. An American vinyl release is also planned but the date has not been announced.

IN STORES TODAY:


Nothing important on CD this week but next week the soundtrack for The Simpsons Movie will be out, as well as Peter Criss' new album...and a disc from Billy Bob Thornton. Yes, really.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 DVD
Premonition DVD
A 2-Disc set of Red Dawn (1984) DVD
Gunsmoke - The First Season DVD