2sday Rock Roundup

The dates for Van Halen's first tour with David Lee Roth in 23 years have been announced. It will kick off September 27th in Charlotte, North Carolina and run through December 11th in Calgary, Canada. Tickets for many of the shows go on sale this Saturday through Livenation-dot-com. Diamond Dave emceed the announcement, which took place yesterday afternoon in Beverly Hills, California. He did most of the talking -- and joking. He started by hugging Eddie Van Halen, who called Roth his "new brother." Roth promised that this is more than a reunion tour and said they are looking forward to the future, which includes recording a new album. Eddie agreed, saying, "We are a band and we are gonna continue. It's a whole new beginning."

Nearby Van Halen dates:
10/10 - Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
10/14 - Indianapolis, IN - Conseco Fieldhouse
10/16 - Chicago, IL - Allstate Arena
10/18 - Chicago, IL - United Center
10/22 - Auburn Hills, MI - The Palace

U-2 recently got together in Morocco to work up songs for their next album. Footage from those sessions are included in Here Is What Is, a documentary by their producer, Daniel Lanois. The documentary will have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival next month.

This fall Aerosmith will resume work on the album they started last year. In an interview with the Boston Globe, drummer Joey Kramer says, "We've never sounded better. It's a little spooky, actually." They'll record the album at their Boston studio following a run of amphitheater dates starting September 8th in suburban Detroit. Aerosmith's last studio album of original material was Just Push Play in 2001. Honkin' on Bobo, their album of blues covers, was released in 2004.

Rush will release a special version of their latest album, Snakes and Arrows, in Britain ahead of touring there in October. The Special 2007 U-K Tour Edition will contain two discs -- a C-D and D-V-D, and a 28-page color booklet. The D-V-D portion contains a surround-sound mix of the album, a documentary on the making of the album, M-P-3 files of every track, wallpapers, buddy icons, a screensaver and a scrollable dialog written by drummer Neil Peart.

Eric Clapton's band Derek and the Dominos appear on an upcoming Johnny Cash D-V-D and P-B-S special. They played on Cash's short-lived variety show on November 5th, 1970, performing "It's Too Late" off of their album Layla and Assorted Love Songs and Carl Perkins' "Matchbox" with Perkins and Cash. The P-B-S show, Johnny Cash: A Man and His Vision, airs this month. The D-V-D, The Best of the Johnny Cash T-V Show, hits stores September 18th. It also has performances from the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell.

Pearl Jam's performance last week at Lollapalooza in Chicago contained some harsh words for George W. Bush, but fans watching the performance via A-T-and-T's cybercast never heard it. Producers apparently edited out the portion of the band's cover of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" during which frontman Eddie Vedder sang, "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home." A-T-and-T released a statement attributing the edit to a "mistake by a webcast vendor" that was "contrary to our policy. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but A-T-and-T does not censor performances. We very much regret that this happened in the first place."

NEW RELEASES THIS WEEK

KISS release KISSology Volume Two today. The three-disc collection, which covers 1978 to 1992, includes seven hours of live footage; their appearances on Tomorrow with Tom Snyder; an appearance with N-B-C newsman Edwin Newman from 1978; videos; and their unmasking on M-T-V in 1983. The first KISSology was certified six-times platinum.
Wild Hogs DVD...Fracture DVD...Vacancy DVD
Collective Soul - Afterwords CD
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds - Live at Radio City Music Hall CD