Ace Frehley, who used to play guitar for Kiss says that he’s treating his sobriety and legite lifstyle very seriously; not only does he stay clean and sober, but he also requires that from the band members he is currently playing with. He is currently on a solo tour on which (as strange as it may sound) he has forbidded drugs and booze.

The recovering alcoholic and drug user could be a great example of the ‘drugs, sex and rock’n'roll’ lifestyle. “This time around, I’m real serious about my sobriety,” Frehley says recently.

Still, he says he doesn’t regret much from his past, which is great! We could really learn something from that. But still, it is said that his battle against addiction fueled the force behind the KISS split up in 1983, about three years after the departure of original drummer (Petere Criss).

While they were (supposedly) staying clean and sober, Frehley was definitely using, and he dragged some people into trouble on several occasions.

“I did some silly things in those days and (there were) a lot of car accidents and missed recording sessions and you know, this that and the other thing. I’m glad that all that mayhem and insanity is behind me,” says Frehley, who once led police on a 145-kph car chase in 1982.

Here are the tour dates:
Fri 02/01/08 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
Wed 02/20/08 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live!
Fri 02/22/08 Atlanta, GA Center Stage

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The already humongous lineup for this year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has been updated with the addition of a few more artists, such as Chromeo, Cat Power, Zappa Plays Zappa, The Disco Biscuits and MSTRKRFT. As usual, the festival will take place between June 12-15 in Manchester, TN. Tickets can be pro-bought from here.

Avril Lavigne has a simple description for her upcoming live production:

“It rocks,” Lavigne said during a recent teleconference. “It’s very much me, but just the next level. And it’s exciting because the reason why I wanted to bring in more [dancers] and I got a new band and added more players to it is because I wanted more energy on stage.”

No comment here. I can take this. This could be a good thing might not be as bad as it sounds. Lavigne’s stage will be decorated with LED screens, checkered flooring, a pink sparkle drum kit, a pink piano and flags (a pink piano ? what the ….).

“A lot of people don’t know this about me, but I”m actually shy around people I don’t know,” Lavigne said. “I would just say, with my first concert, my first tour, I didn’t really talk on stage. I was like, ‘Thank you. I love you guys,’ or whatever.

Sounds fair enough. Still, doesn’t that make you the pop chick you once said you’re not?

“My songs aren’t bubblegum pop dance songs and I don’t have background dancers on every single song like them,” Lavigne said. “I’m not wearing a headphone, microphone on my head. It’s a totally different thing. I’m playing guitar. I’m playing the drums. I’m playing the piano. I’ve had dancers a couple of times and they’re like ‘my girls’ and they come out with their attitude.”

OK, this is just too much. C’mon girl, face it! You’re mainstream! When she released her first album, I loved it; and her. She was so authentic, so strong in her frailty and sang such great songs that you had to love her. Now, her songs are (mostly) just bubblegum pop dance songs. You were supposed to be the wonder girl of rock; WTF happened?

Ahh the mighty sasquatch. Such a noble, but at the same time fierce beast, who’s myth has intrigued, rather entranced, so many people, is once again making a stop at Gorge, Washington.

Before you start calling me a cuckoo or something, I’m talking about the Sasquatch! Music Festival that is. The three long festival will be held between May 24-26 2008, with tickets on sale starting March 8th. The peaceful green sasquatch has also revealed to his loyal followers the lineup for the fest:

R.E.M. / The Cure / The Flaming Lips U.F.O. Show / Death Cab For Cutie / Modest Mouse / M.I.A. / Flight Of The Conchords / Rodrigo Y Gabriela / Michael Franti & Spearhead / The Breeders / Built To Spill / The Hives / Tegan & Sara / Ghostland Observatory / Ozomatli / The New Pornographers / Blue Scholars / The National / The Kooks / Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks / Cold War Kids / Beirut / Rogue Wave / Okkervil River / Fleet Foxes / Kinski / Mates of State / Sera Cahoone / Crudo (featuring Mike Patton & Dan The Automator) / Battles / Destroyer / Dyme Def / The Blakes / Pela / Jamie Lidell / The Cops / Dengue Fever / Siberian / Say Hi / White Rabbits / David Bazan / The Little Ones / “Awesome” / Dead Confederate / The Heavenly States / 65daysofstatic / Grand Archives / Vince Mira with the Roy Kay Trio / Joshua Morrison / Throw Me The Statue / J. Tillman / The Shaky Hands / Thao Nguyen with the Get Down Stay Down / Matt Costa / The Cave Singers

For those complaining about the lack of decent east side festivals, the Jersey located All Points West Festival, will undoubtedly quench the thirst for good live music. The Jersey fest is at its first edition and It’s already managed to gather some big names, as its headliners, including Radiohead and Jack Johnson (the man is everywhere). Radiohead are set to play two consecutive nights (Friday, Saturday), marking “the first time that a cutting-edge band will headline multiple nights of a major U.S. music festival,” while Jack J. will headline on Saturday night. Hope he can sober up the crowd.

The APW will be held during a really long weekend, between 8-10 August and will be organized by the fine people that brought you the Coachella festivals all these years. Apart from Radiohead and Sunday headliner Jack Johnson, we’ve got Animal Collective, Cat Power, the New Pornographers, Girl Talk, the Roots, Underworld, the Go! Team, Metric, CSS, Andrew Bird, Black Kids, Chromeo, Amadou & Mariam, Rogue Wave, Mates of State, Juana Molina, the Black Angels, Jason Isbell, Neil Halstead, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Youssou N’Dour, Kings of Leon, the Felice Brothers, Sia, Duffy, Little Brother, Nicole Atkins, Michael Franti & Spearhead, K’Naan, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Alberta Cross, the Virgins, Forro in the Dark and Your Vegas all making the trip.

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Former fab four Ringo will launch his 31-date, All-Starr Band tour at Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, Ont., on June 19-20. We’re very glad to see that he’s feeling great and he has such big plans!Last month he confirmed to Sun Media during a teleconference interview that he will be returning to Canada to prepare and launch his new tour. Also, Rolling Stones announced the 2008 lineup, which will be just fantastic!

It includes Colin Hay (Men at Work), Edgar Winter, Hamish Stuart (Average White Band), Billy Squier and the Dream Weaver himself, Gary Wright. Since 1989, Starr has toured with a big number of great musicians, and earlier this month, Starr was a presenter on the Grammys with the Eurythmics and Dave Stewart .

“I love playing,” Starr told Sun Media back in January. “A long, long time ago my mother said, ‘You’re always happy when you’re playing.’ And people say that today. I love to play. It’s just a thing that I’m blessed with.”

The boys from California are thinking about global warming as they get ready to start their North American tour. Through their own non-profit organization, Music For Relief, they are doing efforts to help reduce the carbon emissions and bring attention to environmental concerns as they go from place to place.They are giving away $1 from each ticket sold to Music For Relief for a tree-planting program, as well as promoting things such as recycling, utilizing renewable energy certificates and offering incentives for carpools and hybrid or electric vehicles. For this tour, they are going to use bio-diesel fuel, locally grown organic foods and recyclable or reusable serving products.

Another great here is that people from their official fan base is also involved, having voted to make a generous donation to fund the planting of 100,000 new trees, and just a year ago, the band members donated a half million dollars toward reforestation. A great initiative, which hopefuly will inspire more bands and spectators also. Here are the tour dates:

02/12 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center Omaha
02/13 - St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
02/15 - Columbus, OH - Nationwide Arena
02/16 - Detroit, MI - Joe Louis Arena
02/18 - Manchester, NH - Verizon Wireless Arena
02/19 - Baltimore, MD - 1st Mariner Arena
02/21 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden Arena
02/22 - Montreal, Quebec - Bell Centre
02/23 - London, Ontario - The John Labatt Centre
02/25 - Lexington, KY - Rupp Arena
02/26 - Nashville, TN - Sommet Center
02/29 - Oklahoma City, OK - Ford Center
03/01 - Albuquerque, NM - Tingley Coliseum at New Mexico State Fair
03/02 - El Paso, TX - UTEP Don Haskins Center
03/04 - Los Angeles, CA - Staples Center
03/06-7 - Las Vegas, NV - The Joint
03/08 - West Valley City, UT - The E Center
03/10 - Sacramento, CA - ARCO Arena

Great news gringos, earlier this week sources from within [tag]Radiohead[/tag] itself, have confirmed a number of US tour dates, at the beginning of May. As earlier reported, Radiohead’s North American tour will be performed in two shifts, one before their eagerly awaited European tour and the other after. The tour, part of Live Nation, will promote environmental protection and other eco related activities. The first city to kick off the venture is West Palm Beach, Florida on May 5, after which a short series of gigs will be performed thorough out the southern part of US, with more dates and venues to be announced in the future. After the jump you can check out Radiohead, current, full tour dates, including North American and European stops.

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In case you have no idea whatsoever what Ozzfest is, here’s a quick reminder for you (although you don’t deserve it! how can you not know what Ozzfest is ?!). Ozzfest is an annual tour of the United States (and in some years, Europe) featuring performances by some of the greatest singers out there. We’re talking about metal and hardcore stuff here; hard rock at its best!So, just as with 2007, a shortened tour is expected, with enough bands to fill the limited days which still remained in the tour. Here’s a list of some of the bands which could perform this year:

Unfortunately, it’s still unclear whether Ozzy will play with Black Sabbath or not. We would be sooo please to see the band in another run! But it seems that chances are pretty slim, and he will probably perform alone. Entrance may or may not be free, that is still unknown.

The ozz man said that “as far as I know” when quizzed over his headlining the summer roadshow. Regarding Sabbath he simply stated, “I’m the last person to be told anything. I’d love to do another [Black] Sabbath album. There are a bunch of things written. But the problem I’m having is it’s got to be at least on the same level as when we departed. If it’s not, then what’s the point in doing it?”
Ozzfest 2007 featured the following criterion:

01. Tickets/Entrance was free
02. Ozzy Osbourne headlined (…and debuted new music from Black Rain)
03. It was a 25-date haul that kicked off in LA on July 7

Multiple Grammy-winning and current hip-hop kingpin Kanye West is bringing out the big guns for this tour, by inviting a whole bunch of great singers. This comes after West captured four rap Grammy Awards, but lost other four in categories he had been nominated.

As a matter of fact, he lost the rap collaboration award to Barbadian bombshell, Rihanna. But they are going together on a tour, along with N.E.R.D. and Lupe Fiasco. Fiasco is West’s protege and current bad boy superstar new kid on the block.

Well this just makes me wonder what impact will the awaited releases of Eminem and Dr. Dre have? The boys have played, it’s time for the really big guns to come out. What’s that? It’s the sounds of a music battle announced!

Anyway, there are currently nine North American tour stops planned. More dates are expected to be added in the coming month. The tour will start in Los Angeles on April 21.