Local favorites, Band Of Humans, will be doing a live 16 track digital recording March 13th at Jonathans in Westerly RI. If you've never had the opportunity to see them live, then this would be the place as Jonathan's is a great sounding room with a very intimate atmosphere.

It looks like Lenny Kravitz, The Black Crowes and Everlast will do a shed tour starting in late April. Dates for the innovative triple bill may be released this week. The tour is being produced by SFX, so the routing will undoubtedly be shed heavy.

Promoters and fans alike will be eagerly awaiting the Elton John / Tina Turner package expected during the second half of ’99. No dates or details have been announced, but you can bet the two superstars will have big plans for ringing in the new century. Maybe they’ll reprise their "Tommy" rolls as the Pinball Wizard and the Acid Queen or team up for a raucous rendition of "Proud Mary." OK, maybe not, but it would be cool to see them onstage together.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the Big Easy is gonna be jumping with a mind-blowing array of artists. Hootie & The Blowfish, Ray Charles, Santana, Cassandra Wilson, Willie Nelson, Widespread Panic, Fats Domino, Los Lobos, and literally hundreds more will play during the April 23rd - May 2nd event. This will be Hootie’s first appearance at the fest and other newcomers include the Isley Brothers and Dave Brubeck. Of course, a bevy of New Orleans-based favorites will perform and all sorts of special touches have been added. The Dew Drop Inn Revisited show with Aaron Neville, Irma Thomas, Wardell Quezergue and others will pay homage to the late R&B great Johnny Adams.

Tony Bennett will undergo eye surgery later this month to repair a retinal hole in the macular portion of his right eye. The condition leads to a gradual reduction in vision if left untreated. The 72-year-old crooner will need two to four weeks to recuperate and won’t be able to travel by air during that time. Bennett will, however, honor his concert commitments through mid-March.

The Smashing Pumpkins have spent the past few weeks in their Chicago studio recording the first batch of all-new material since the release of last year’s Adore album, according to a spokesperson for the band. The trio - leader/singer Billy Corgan, bassist D’Arcy Wretzky and guitarist James Iha - have been recording a batch of new songs penned by Corgan, said the source, who requested anonymity. The songs are not earmarked for a specific release, although the music could end up on either a new studio album or an unspecified soundtrack, the source said. The Los Angeles Times and music video channel MTV both recently reported that ex-Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin has re-joined the group. However, the source said the rumors of Chamberlin’s return are "not true at this point." Chamberlin, an original member of the group, was kicked out of the Pumpkins two-and-a-half years ago following the fatal July 1996 drug overdose of touring keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin. The drummer was arrested for heroin possession in connection with Melvoin’s death and shortly thereafter fired from the Pumpkins. After entering a guilty plea on the possession charge, he was ordered to attend a drug-rehabilitation facility.

Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor says he’s come up with a new sound: "Tom Waits on a bayou filtered through a funk blender and slowed down." Reznor told USA Today that his new sound is the result of spending two years trying to "reinvent myself." "I didn’t have a plan, unlike the rigid set of rules I followed in The Downward Spiral [1994]," Reznor said. "I let my subconscious go in an unpredictable direction. It’s been a good learning experience." Reznor said Nine Inch Nails have finished 20 songs and recorded demos for 25 more for their long-awaited album The Fragile, which may wind up a double album. The industrial-rock icon was quoted in Friday’s edition of the newspaper as saying that by the time all the songs are sorted out and sequenced, it could make "a pretty monumental statement in terms of where I’m at." And that statement could be made on a double album with one instrumental and one vocal disc, according to the USA Today report.

An all-star group of musicians made up of R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Public Enemy’s Chuck D and the Indigo Girls will fly south to Havana this month to spend a week working on music with local artists. An initial four-day period of group songwriting will build toward a climactic concert at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana on March 28, during which the artists will perform the best of their new creations. If all goes according to plan, the magic will happen again March 21-29. Also slated for the trip - the latest edition of a cultural exchange project called Music Bridges Around the World - are singer/songwriter Me’Shell Ndegeocello, former Police bandmates Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, country star Kris Kristofferson and Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood.