• Grunge pioneers Green River gave the adoring crowd exactly what they were looking for last night at the Sub Pop 20th Anniversary Party at Seattle’s Marymoor Park. The reunited sextet played classics such as Swallow My Pride and P.C.C. as well as a cover of the Dead Boys’ Ain’t Nothin’ To Do. According to Billboard’s report from the festie all of the musician’s eyes were focused squarely on Comets On Fire, who turned in a passionate performance. Here’s a clip from Green River’s set:

• It looks like we’re all gonna have to wait a little longer for the rumored Led Zeppelin reunion tour after Robert Plant and Alison Krauss announced a number of fall tour dates for their Raising Sand revue. Their soon-to-be-completed summer tour rolls into Cleveland tomorrow night for a date at the Time Warner Cable Amphitheater at Tower City.

• In the surest sign yet that GNR’s Chinese Democracy may actually reach stores this fall, MTV has announced that September’s Rock Band sequel video game will include a new single from the album, Shackler’s Revenge. Other songs making the cut include the Grateful Dead’s Alabama Getaway, Beck’s E-Pro and Bob Dylan’s Tangled Up In Blue.

It’s been a bit of a hectic week for me as the real job has been getting in the way. I’ve been so out of touch that Google Reader is telling me I have over a 1,000 stories that I still need to get to. Luckily, I’ve got a few choice links to share with you this beautiful afternoon. Let’s take a look at what’s goin’ on…

• After his debacle at Bonnaroo, Kanye West is now Lollapalooza’s problem
• Pete Doherty played a five hour solo acoustic set in London
• Cover Lay Down gives us - Covered In Folk: Bob Marley
  
• People Playing Songs I Love features The Flaming Lips’ Do You Realize?
• MGMT blames Phish imitators for ruining jambands
• List Time: 11 Best My Morning Jacket songs
• The Village Voice visited the new Woodstock museum

Finally, is everyone in the country about to get a free can of Dr. Pepper? Yesterday, news surfaced about a newly leaked version of the perpetually delayed GnR album Chinese Democracy. Rolling Stone-who heard all nine tracks, including three new ones-was quite impressed with they heard. Bring it on!

I’m only 34 years old but there are certain occasions where I feel very old. Last month, my wife and I went ice skating in Central Park. As the young whipper-snappers zipped around the ice and bounced back from falling with a smile and a shake (all as I lay there holding my throbbing knee and aching back), I felt old. When I can’t stay up till midnight on a Friday night, I feel old. And when I look at the Billboard music chart, I really feel old.

This week’s Top 5 songs are:

1. Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
2. Lil Wayne Featuring Static Major - Lollipop
3. Jordin Sparks Duet with Chris Brown - No Air
4. Usher Featuring Young Jeezy - Love In This Club
5. Mariah Carey - Touch My Body

I have to confess - I haven’t heard any of those songs once. And other than Mariah Carey; I couldn’t pick any of the artists out of a lineup. I don’t watch American Idol. I gave up on MTV 10 years ago and I never listen to the radio. So I guess it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the top songs in the country are foreign to me.

Read on to find out who topped the charts 20 years ago…

The writers over at Pitchfork usually play it really cool, but you can almost hear Amy Phillips orgasm as she lays out the lineup for the first All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New York. ATP New York, which will be held at Kutshers Country Club in Monticello on September 19-21, features My Bloody Valentine, Mogwai, Low, The Drones and Fuck Buttons among an assorted cast of indie bands.

But what really set Phillips into convulsions was the news that the Meat Puppets (Meat Puppets II), Built To Spill (Perfect From Now On), Thurston Moore (Psychic Hearts) and Tortoise (Millions Now Living Will Never Die) will each play one of their classic albums from start to finish. It doesn’t get better than that for P4K.

As great as the hipster bloggerati thinks the music will be, we’re impressed with the setup of this festival. Concertgoers can choose to stay in a reasonably priced room on site at Kutshers. For instance, you can book a room with a double bed and a single bed for $450. That’s just $150 per person if you split it with two of your buddies. Plus you get to roam the expansive grounds, which are straight out of a scene in Dirty Dancing. No wonder Amy Phillips got so excited.

Let’s see what else is happening this week:

• The Weight fills us in on the story behind ZZ Top’s curious name
• A final delay?: Guns N’ Roses negotiates the release of Chinese Democracy
• Musicians pay tribute to Danny Federici tonight at the Stone Pony
• Austin’s Stubb’s BBQ, Asheville’s The Orange Peel and NYC’s Bowery Ballroom head Rolling Stone’s list of the best rock clubs in America
• Can I Kick It?: Rock The Bells gets A Tribe Called Quest to reunite
• moe. releases Warts & All Volume 6, and announces a new archival series
• Layla’s Classic Rock lists 10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About U2

Finally, we’ve found detailed reports from two of the most anticipated tours of the Spring. The Raconteurs came, saw and owned the crowd in Seattle last night according to the folks at Reverb. Meanwhile, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss kicked off the Raising Sand tour with a chill-inducing set on Saturday night.

Dean Ween spent the last few years looking for an adequate backup guitar without much success. The master luthiers over at the Fender Custom Shop came up with a solution by offering to replicate the red frankenstein stratocaster the Ween guitarist has been playing forever. Deaner recently sent the axe to the custom shop, where the guitar makers took the guitar apart to photograph and weigh each of the components. Check out this page for a detailed set of photos.

Here’s a batch of links to keep you busy this morning:

• The Dolans plan to renovate MSG instead of building a new one
• Axl Rose hires two of the best managers in the biz to guide his career
• Vampire Weekend’s Chris Baio considers the backlash a compliment
• Tomorrow marks the beginning of the monthlong, three-program tribute to Paul Simon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music
• British ska legends The Specials talk to the BBC about a reunion
• Stephen Malkmus doesn’t think the Jicks are a classic jam band
• As always Uncle Neddy keeps us updated on the shows of the week
• Andrew Bird describes his songwriting process in a blog on NYTimes.com

And we couldn’t end this column without taking Jim Harrington of the Costa County Times to task. Harrington put together a list of his 10 favorite concert films, and put the Beastie Boys’ Awesome I F*ckin Shot That ahead of The Last Waltz. The Beasties’ film certainly offers a fresh look at the live music experience, but putting it ahead of Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece?

Leave a comment below if you think I’m way off base…

Axl Rose entered the studio to record Chinese Democracy in 1994, and fourteen years later we don’t even have a release date. It turns out the good people at Dr. Pepper are as frustrated as we are by the lack of any new Guns N’ Roses material. They’ve upped the ante by announcing that they will give a free can to everyone in America if Rose releases Chinese Democracy anytime in 2008.

The best part of the offer is that Rose’s sworn enemies, Buckethead and Slash, are the only people in the country excluded from the deal.

Now this is totally a publicity stunt we can get behind. Especially after Dr. Pepper’s last debacle involving trapping a shitty band in a bubble on the Hudson River. Axl showed he has a sense of humor by responding on GnR’s website:

We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr Pepper with our album “Chinese Democracy,” as for us, this came totally out of the blue. If there is any involvement with this promotion by our record company or others, we are unaware of such at this time. And as some of Buckethead’s performances are on our album, I’ll share my Dr Pepper with him.

What a guy! Great, now would you just fucking finish the album already.

Let me start by thanking Ace for handing me the keys to this incredible site we’ve put our blood, sweat and tears into building. If it wasn’t for the illustrious Mr. Cowboy, I’d probably still be dreaming about being a writer instead of actually doing it. Of course he used to beat me over the head with his old Phish XL-IIs whenever I’d miss a deadline, so I won’t miss that part so much.

Over the next few months we’ll be debuting new writers, columns and innovative ways to bring you content. The changes will take place slowly but surely, so stay tuned.

Now that we’re past the formalities, here’s a batch of links to start the week:

• Amy Winehouse dominated last night’s Grammy Awards
• Now you can stream music torrents on Mininova
• A Malibu woman credits Axl Rose with saving her home
• Beana Bern saw Steve Earle in Amsterdam, and shares her photos and views with Runaway Dinosaur
• Rush’s Geddy Lee will serve as a celebrity judge for a culinary competition in Canada
• Neil Young feels music has lost its power to change the world
• Update: John McCain drops John Mellencamp’s songs from his campaign playlist
• As always Neddy delivers a list of the NYC shows of the week

Finally, we were both amused and freaked out to learn that Traveling Wilburys erotic fan fiction exists. You need to read some of this shit to believe it. Read on for an excerpt…

So just how awesome is Microsoft founder Bill Gates? This guy can apparently pick up a phone and get Slash to play some Guns ‘N Roses licks any time, anywhere.

That’s what happened during Gates’ last-ever keynote address at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Check out the video, four minutes into it. Ya know, I’m betting Gates can also have you killed, or at least waterboarded.

Lost in the Slash freakout is the fact that the girl before him rocks that shit.

• Related video: ‘Slash’ bothers a housewife on MTV’s The State

We’re sure this one’s making the rounds virally, but our main man Coach just alerted us to a spectacular piece of video. You may have seen Sweet Child O’ Mine through the years covered by Texas, Sheryl Crow, Most Precious Blood, Akasha featuring Neneh Cherry, Schmoof, Flat Pack, Luna, Chester the Pup, Dead Tongues, DJ Dex & A, or The Aluminium Group (or none of those except Crow, more likely), but never have you seen it covered like this. Unfortunately this clip’s only one minute long — it’s an advertisement for something called Channel V — but it’ll surely rock your shit with sitars and yelping Indians. Just awesome stuff.

• Alright, let’s do the fookin’ real version — from The Ritz in 1988

Soundchecks are a touring band’s chance to work out new material, get comfortable with a stage and, sometimes, let loose with each other (non-sexually). This week’s B List kicks off a two-part series in which we’ll feature the best soundcheck videos on YouTube. Some are hilarious, some rock, and others are simply…bizarre.

The first 10 videos follow after the jump, so read on for little-seen footage of Marley in Canada, Steve Vai showing off, Randy Rhoads rockin’ out, Mastodon, Macca, Axl Rose and more. Go on…