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In what looks like the first big heavyweight arena tour of the year, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys and Missy Elliott are joining forces for what promises to be a sizzling, sassy bill. Beyoncé and Keys will co-headline the monthlong springtime trek. According to a schedule provided by Keys’ representatives, the tour starts in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on March 12 and wraps up on April 18 in Oakland, California. Label representatives said some of the dates could change. Talk of the three pop stars getting together has been circulating for the past few weeks. For Alicia and Beyoncé, it’ll be the first… Read more »

Evanescence lead singer Amy Lee has told Australia’s UndercoverNews website that former Cold guitarist Terry Balsamo is now a permanent member of Evanescence. Balsamo stepped in as a temporary replacement late last year for founding axeman Ben Moody, who abruptly departed in the middle of a European tour last October. Lee said that Balsamo and her band “just clicked” the more they played together. “[It is] better than I ever expected…Terry’s an insane guitar player with awesome stage presence. He has a good personality and he’s down to earth and on top of all that stuff, he’s a great writer… Read more »

A near-death experience on his ATV bike has convinced Ozzy Osbourne to take a break from the road. In light of the serious injuries he suffered in last month’s accident, the Prince of F–ing Darkness has decided to scrap a 20-date British tour to give himself more time to recover. “I am deeply disappointed, but it’s out of my control,” the 55-year-old heavy metal icon said in a statement released through his London-based publicist. “Right now I need to concentrate on my recovery and unfortunately this is something I cannot rush.” Osbourne suffered several broken ribs, a fractured collarbone and… Read more »

Rick Van Santen, a co-president of Goldenvoice, a Los Angeles concert promotion company that ushered punk rock from the fringes of the music scene to a wide audience, died last Sunday at his home in Ventura County of flu-related complications, his Goldenvoice partner Paul Tollett said. He was 41. In the 1980s, a time when major promoters shunned punk because of its reputation as a violent subculture, Goldenvoice presented acts in large, established rooms with quality sound, such as the Hollywood Palladium and the Palace (now the Avalon). “There cannot be any L.A. band since the early ’80s that was… Read more »

German media giant Bertelsmann named a new chairman Wednesday to take over for Gerd Schulte-Hillen, who announced his resignation last month after a clash over corporate strategy with the company chief executive. Dieter Vogel, Schulte-Hillen’s former deputy, will start Jan. 1 in the new position, a company statement said. Schulte-Hillen, a 63-year-old company veteran, agreed to step down as supervisory board chairman after he and CEO Gunter Thielen developed “different views on the strategic direction of Bertelsmann,” according to the Guetersloh-based company. Bertelsmann and Sony Corp. are merging their music businesses, bringing together the world’s No. 2 and No. 5… Read more »

Metallica and Godsmack are gearing up for a 2004 North American arena tour which could stretch as far as 80 dates, Billboard.com has learned. The trek will begin March 2 in Phoenix; other confirmed dates include March 8 in San Francisco and March 28 in Seattle. The first batch of ticket on-sales will begin Saturday (Dec. 20) via Ticketmaster. Metallica has already committed to the Big Day Out tour of Australia and New Zealand after the first of the year, plus European festival dates beginning in late May and stretching into July. The group is touring in support of its… Read more »

Ozzy Osbourne fractured several bones including a neck vertebra in an all-terrain vehicle accident but the injuries are “not a major problem,” a doctor said Tuesday. Osbourne, 55, was “stable and comfortable” after emergency surgery that restored the flow to a blood vessel damaged in Monday’s accident, said Dr. Dick Jack, the medical director at Wexham Park Hospital in Slough, west of London. “When he was admitted, he had a fractured left collarbone, he had some damage to the blood vessel that is underneath it, he had eight fractured ribs on the left side and, in addition to that, an… Read more »

U.S. shock rocker Marilyn Manson is the target of a criminal inquiry in Switzerland, after a religious group made a formal complaint about his stage act. Zurich District Prosecutor Michael Scherrer told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the artist was under investigation for allegedly breaching Swiss law protecting religion as well as making incitements to violence during a concert in the city in February 2001. Manson – whose real name is Brian Warner – and his band members take their first names from pop culture icons and their surnames from famous serial killers. He also uses the sobriquet “Antichrist… Read more »

The Prince of Darkness is opening up about his dark past. In a candid interview appearing Monday in London’s Daily Mirror, Ozzy Osbourne revealed that he was molested as an 11-year-old schoolboy while growing up in the working-class city of Birmingham, England. “I was sexually abused when I was a kid,” the heavy-metal icon told the Mirror. “Two boys used to wait for me to come after school. Then they would f-k around with me. They didn’t f-k me, but they messed around with me. “They would force me to drop my pants and all that s-t. They felt me… Read more »

What do you get when you put a couple of pop-punk guys together with a few near-legendary dudes from New York’s underground hardcore scene? You get Hazen Street, a hard-edged but catchy, two-singer-fronted band that has become the first act to be signed to Benji and Joel Madden’s D.C. Flag imprint. The signing of Hazen Street is neither a leg up to a buddy band nor an attempt to cash in on a current trend. For the brothers who call Good Charlotte their day job, putting out the new supergroup’s debut is a chance to show some love to the… Read more »