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• In the Studio: All-American Rejects
• James Brown Auction Nets $800K
• Liz Phair Adds Guyville Dates
• Classic Rock Photos at Morrison Hotel
• Rock List: Weekend Rock List
• Spears Cedes Full Kid Custody to K-Fed
• Former Guns n’ Roses Members Make Headlines
• Random Notes: The Week in Rock
• Single Minded: Foo Fighters, Sesame Street
• China Cites Bjork in Banning Musicians
• Metallica Reveals “Death Magnetic” Cover
• Heavy Metal Monk Worships God of Thunder
• News Ticker: Trey Anastasio, Karen O

Top stories from the last three days:

• Exclusive: Hendrix Comes to Guitar Hero
• Peter Travers Reviews “The Dark Knight”
• Billy Joel Brings Mayer, Mellencamp to Shea
• Report: Eminem Back in the Studio
• Gallery: True Norwegian Black Metal
• Strokes Drummer’s Side Project Due in Fall
• Wayne Coyne: “The Who Gave Me No Choice”
• Rush Play “The Colbert Report”
• In the Studio: T-Pain
• Ray Davies Writing Musical
• VH1 Rock Honors: Exclusive Photos
• Charts: Lil Wayne, Beck
• Rolling Stones’ Ron Wood Enters Rehab
• Breaking: My Brightest Diamond
• Natasha Bedingfield Mulls John Mayer Collabo
• Bret Michaels Returning for “Rock of Love 3″
• Melissa Etheridge on Family, Politics
• Mellencamp Announces Farm Aid Details
• Nas: “Let Me Say What’s On My Mind”
• Death Magnetic Will Be On Guitar Hero
• Feist Counts With Monsters on Sesame Street
• The Police to Put Out Reunion CD/DVD

Scroll down for full news stories, commentary and much more in Rock Daily.

• Rolling Stone was all over VH1’s Rock Honors, where Pearl Jam, Foo Fighters, the Flaming Lips, Tenacious D and Incubus pay tribute to the Who. We also talked to Eddie Vedder about the Who’s impact and rocked the red carpet.

• Guitar Hero and Rock Band slugged it out for your attention. After Rock Band 2 fired the first salvo by grabbing a new Guns n’ Roses song and a massive track list, Guitar Hero responded with Death Magnetic and Jimi Hendrix. Oh, and Wii wants to get involved.
• We caught a pair of baseball-related shows: Billy Joel and friends said goodbye to Shea Stadium and Bon Jovi celebrated All-Star Week in NYC with a Central Park performance. And we assume a bunch of Seattle Mariners fans went to the Sub Pop 20th Anniversary.
• Both Eminem and Britney Spears are back in the studio, working on their new albums. Only one of the two gave up custody of their kids, though.

[Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage]

After performing her 1993 album Exile in Guyville in its entirety in San Francisco, Chicago and New York, Liz Phair has added three more Guyville 15th anniversary shows: August 27th at Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia, August 28th at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC and August 29th at Boston’s Paradise. Ticket info is available at Phair’s Website. For Rock Daily’s report from the first Guyville full-album show, click here.

Timberlake tapped into his athletic and feminine sides as he hosted the 2008 ESPY Awards in Los Angeles on July 16, 2008. Plus, Linkin Park kicked off the Projekt Revolution tour in Masachusetts, 50 Cent gently suggested some rival rappers die and Bret Michaels weathered the weather at Rocklahoma. It’s all in our weekly photo round-up.

• Random Notes: Eddie Vedder, Justin Timberlake, 50 Cent and the Week in Rock

[Photo: Winter/Getty]

To be fair, JR, we’ve seen you leave this comment a few times, but you’ve finally won our hearts.

The subject: Metallica’s Death Magnetic coming to Guitar Hero the day of its release.

“Thanks for convincing me to go out and buy Rock Band instead. I just heard an update for the upcoming Guitar Hero: Metallica version… It’s going to cost $2,100. After the first level you end up stealing Dave Mustaine’s songs and claim that you wrote them. Level 4 you make the Black Album and gain a huge fan base that you will later abandon and try and gouge but we’ll get to that later. Level 5 you do an album with a Symphonic Orchastra. Level 6 your bass player leaves you ’cause he realizes what wusses you are. Level 8 you begin your quest to take kids and your fans to court for downloading your music. Level 9 you put out a shit album St Anger. Level 10 you are found in a corner sulking. Level 11 you put out a documentary film that makes your entire band seem extremely lame. The Last level is the best. … You charge outrageous prices for an album ’cause you know you’re only going to sell 10 of them. I can’t wait to get this game! Better start saving now…”

After watching Cameron Crowe’s classic Singles for the millionth time this week, seeing Matt Dillon rock out with Pearl Jam as Citizen Dick inspired us to dedicate this week’s Rock List to fictional bands. Let us know your favorites, and on Monday we’ll compile the list of greatest. And no, Milli Vanilli doesn’t count. Here are some suggestions:

Spinal Tap (This Is Spinal Tap)
The Rutles (All You Need Is Cash)
Citizen Dick (Singles)
Everyone Gets Laid (PCU)
Stillwater (Almost Famous)

A pair of former Guns n’ Roses members made news today for completely different reasons. Guitarist Izzy Stradlin released his new solo album Concrete to iTunes. The 10-track album features Izzy’s former Gn’R bandmate and current Velvet Revolver member Duff McKagan on the title track. On the flip side, Roses’ drummer Steven Adler was arrested early this morning for possession of narcotics, being under the influence and having an outstanding warrant. Adler was arrested at 4 AM this morning after police received a call about a man creating a disturbance. The drummer was jailed on $45,000 bail. Adler, ironically enough, recently completed filming the second season of VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, and was reportedly planning to star in a spin-off show called Sober Living. That show would have required Adler to live in a house with other recovering addicts as they attempted to resurrect their careers without drugs or alcohol. The second season of Celebrity Rehab won’t air until October, so maybe we should have prefaced this post with “Spoiler Alert.”

[Photo: Lupin/Redferns/Retna]

Gregorian chanting, he’s not: Behold, in the video above, 62-year-old Capuchin monk Cesare Bonizzi, a Rip Van Winkle-looking friar who — when he’s not worshipping God — is worshipping the gods of heavy metal in his native Italy. We’re pretty sure Fratello Metallo (or Brother Metal, as he’s called in Italy) is only a monk in appearance, as his new album Mysteries features songs about sex, alcohol, tobacco, God and other debauchery you’d find on a Sepultura album. Bonizzi reportedly got the metal itch after seeing Metallica in concert 15 years ago (Why he was at the concert, we have no idea.) Since then, he’s headlined metal festivals throughout Europe and has released 18 albums. Despite his day job, Brother Metal’s music “isn’t aimed at saving souls,” but “converting people to live life to the fullest.”

Various Artists, Sesame St. Songs [Covers]
Proof that even Barenaked Ladies and Steven Tyler were children once.

Foo Fighters, “Bargain” [Who Cover]
Strange twists abound: Foo Fighters start a cover of the Who’s “Bargain,” then Dave Grohl cedes the mike to… Supergrass’s Gaz Coombes. We haven’t got a thing against Supergrass, but on a long list of likely surprise guest vocalists, Gaz ranks somewhere below Side of Ham.

Diplo & Santogold, Top Ranking [Mixtape]
If, for some inconceivable reason, you don’t have the Santogold record yet, this mixtape of dubs and re-workings (including a re-imagining of “Guns of Brixton”) should pacify you until you come to your senses.

Danity Kane, “Damaged” [Mr. Gaspar Remix]
Elevator pitch: Re-Making the Band, in which Diddy auditions a team of remixers to help breathe life into previous seasons’ victories. May Mr. Gaspar be at the top of that list.

Harry Belafonte, “Jump in the Line” [John Bourke Bmore Remix]
Once again, it’s Baltimore for the win — hyper-caffeinated remix of this Harry Belafonte standard creates brave new genre: apocalypso.

Last night in New York, the Morrison Hotel Gallery opened its doors to showcase the first morsel of Sony BMG’s legendary archives. The newly released photographs, mostly taken by unsung music photographer Don Hunstein, reveal intimate details from Columbia Records’ 30th Street Studio recordings. Tony Bennett, in front of his own fulsome smile, noted, “These are pictures of a great time in music — the Fifties and Sixties. It was horrible that they tore down the 30th Street Studio, with all the history, all the talent that happened there.” Through the collection however, 30th Street lives on in images like Billie Holiday singing with a half-burned, unfiltered cigarette and Bob Dylan curiously plucking at a Fender bass. Rock photographers Mick Rock and Bob Gruen perused photos of the Brubeck crew snapping their fingers the first time they ever heard “Time Out,” while Paul Ellington stood before an image of his grandfather, cross-armed and looking aimless the year he won three Grammys. The real focus of the room, however, was Aretha Franklin. People seemed to gravitate toward the evocative portrait of the then-18-year-old Lady Soul gazing meditatively beyond the slanting mike before her. “It’s not who she is, it’s about the expression in her eyes,” Gruen said. “In these pictures, you can hear Bennett laugh; you can hear Dylan sigh. These pictures have feeling. That’s why they’re so good.”

• Photo Gallery: Dylan, Franklin and More at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio

[Photograph by Don Hunstein]

Yesterday, Metallica unveiled the remarkably subtle cover art for its forthcoming album, Death Magnetic. We see shards of metal arranged in a curious pattern, as if by some natural force, creating a shape that looks almost like a coffin — but what does it symbolize? As always, Metallica keeps us guessing.

In an interview with Norwegian television this week, frontman James Hetfield pontificated on the dense similes the album’s title is built upon. “It started out as kind of a tribute to people that have fallen in our business, like Layne Staley. Some people are drawn towards [death], just like a magnet, and other people are afraid of it and push away.”

Rock Daily will take the rest of the day off to turn on the black light and really think about that one, though we have to admit that this cover is not nearly as badass as Kill ‘Em All or Master of Puppets but is head and shoulders above Load and Reload.

Britney Spears has finally settled her custody dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline after agreeing to give K-Fed full custody of her two sons in exchange for visitation rights. While Federline was not seeking full custody — in fact, he insisted that Spears be involved in the active parenting of the children — he nevertheless was “delighted” with the final deal. Under terms of the agreement, Spears’ visitation rights could “increase over time.” People may question why Spears would so easily give up her pursuit of custody after the two-year-long court battle, but the pop star has a lot on her plate, including a summer spent recording her new album that might detract from her ability to properly parent.

China has banned all overseas performers that “threaten national sovereignty” following a performance by Bjork in Shanghai earlier this year. At that concert, the Icelandic singer led the crowd in a chant of “Tibet, Tibet!” after performing her song “Declare Independence.” The ban will also fall on artists who “threaten national unity”, “whip up ethnic hatred”, “violate religious policy or cultural norms” or “advocate obscenity or feudalism and superstition.” Plus, all performances must be approved beforehand, right down to what encores will be played. The move was made as China’s Ministry of Culture gears up for this year’s Olympic Games, which is expected to attract protesters and unruly crowds that don’t need to be exacerbated by musicians.

• Trey Anastasio will debut a new orchestral piece called “Time Turns Elastic” at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium of September 27. The piece is reportedly reminiscent of the guitarist’s work with Phish.
• The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O will perform with her side project Native Korean Rock at a pair of Brooklyn concerts on July 21st. “Expect high drama, high stakes in two intimate performances,” says O.
• Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Anton Newcombe was briefly arrested in London after allegedly stabbing his own band’s guitarist in the stomach. Newcombe was released after the guitarist wouldn’t “substantiate any allegation.”
• Yusuf Islam, a.k.a. Cat Stevens, was awarded “substantial” libel damages and an apology from a newspaper that falsely claimed the singer wouldn’t talk to women at an awards show because they weren’t wearing a veil.

[Photo: Getty]

A lot full of items from James Brown’s South Carolina home went to auction yesterday at Christie’s, under protest from the soul singer’s children and business managers. Among the 350-odd items that sold were Brown’s medical bracelet, which was bought for $32,500 by Letterman musician Paul Shaffer, and an autographed Snoop Dogg picture that’s signed “2 Uncle James Brown.” That item got a winning bid of $875. Brown’s famed Hammond organ only sold for $10,000, while the Godfather of Soul’s embossed black cape got a winning bid of $47,500. The house cleaning continued with a $40,000 sale of Brown’s pink leather couches from the home. Also going was his stereo system, clothing and framed photographs. The auction reportedly took in a total of $800,000 (short of the projected two million Christie’s was anticipating), with the money expected to be used to pay Brown’s outstanding tax bills.

When the All-American Rejects hit New York this week to open a pair of Bon Jovi shows at Madison Square Garden, it was the Oklahoma quartet’s first gigs at the famed venue but their eighth with the New Jersey rockers. “We count every one,” singer-bassist Tyson Ritter joked. “Touring with Bon Jovi is a lot like touring with a circus,” he says. “It takes two days to set up a circus before it can perform.”

Though their own show hasn’t hit big-top levels just yet, Ritter, guitarists Nick Wheeler and Mike Kennerty and drummer Chris Gaylor added some flare of their own by debuting a new track on this tour, their first major outing since entering a recording studio in February to record the follow-up to 2005’s double-platinum Move Along. Ritter describes the track, called “Mona Lisa,” as “an acoustic song that we’ve turned into a full-band production of an acoustic song,” adding the Rejects intend to record it live in the studio — a first for the band.

Another first for the band is their upcoming “Body By Milk” ad, which features the lanky members of the All-American Rejects touting milk as “one drink we won’t reject” (see it for the first time in next week’s issue of Rolling Stone). But national campaigns aside, the band’s focus remains their upcoming third LP, expected this November.

The still-untitled record is “a year and a half of writing reflecting on the last three years of our lives,” Wheeler says. “We don’t like to be the band that squeezes in writing between things just to hurry up and get the album out.” Though the band has already recorded 10 tracks, they haven’t stopped thinking of new ideas — including a possible collaboration with Southern folk-pop sisters the Pierces on the tentatively titled “Another Heart Calls,” which Ritter calls “our little ‘Time After Time,’ with a lot more energy.” Other contenders for the album include the quirky “Give You Hell” and the piano-driven “Fallin’ Apart” with what Ritter describes as “T. Rex women on the chorus.”

The album was recorded at Barefoot Studios in Hollywood, home base for producer Eric Valentine (Maroon 5, Queens of the Stone Age), who got the band accustomed to working 12-hour days. “It was great because we could all live at this house right between the Roxy and the Whiskey, right behind Sunset Boulevard. That was the most Hollywood rock star thing,” jokes Wheeler, “without Hollywood rock stars in the house.”

[Photo: Buckner/Getty]

Over on the Travers Take, Peter Travers delivers his weekly video review. This time around, the focus is the much buzzed-about Batman entry The Dark Knight, featuring the final performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Click below for Travers’ full take on one of the summer’s most hotly-anticipated titles.

• Peter Travers Video Review: The Dark Knight

When Rock Daily caught up with Wayne Coyne backstage at the taping of VH1 Rock Honors: The Who (airing tonight), the Flaming Lips frontman told a story about riding to a Who show on the back of his older brother’s motorcycle and being utterly blown away. “I already believed in rock & roll,” he explains, “but seeing the Who really made me feel it. I knew I had to become a musician after that. What the Who did was they gave me no choice — which is what you want. It’s like falling in love, and it’s not up to me anymore.” Eddie Vedder expressed a similar sentiment when RS chatted with him at Saturday’s big Who tribute show: “These guys changed my whole world. It’s a big part of why I get to do what I do.”

For complete coverage of VH1 Rock Honors, check out rocknrolldiary.com. Also look for Rolling Stone correspondent Jenny Eliscu on VH1’s broadcast 9 PM ET tonight.

The Smashing Pumpkins add a few more 20th anniversary shows, James make sure everyone gets “Laid” and Hanson continue to make The Walk. The complete set of dates is after the jump.

Smashing Pumpkins
August 8 - Davenport, IA @ Adler Theatre
August 9 - Hammond, IN @ The Venue
August 12 - Louisville, KY @ Palace Theatre
August 15 - Charlotte, NC @ Ovens Auditorium
August 20 - Clearwater, FL @ Ruth Eckerd Hall

James
September 15 - Boston, MA @ Paradise
September 16 - Philadelphia, PA @ Trocadero
September 18 - Washington, DC @ 9.30 Club
September 19 - New York, NY @ Radio City Music Hall
September 20 - Asbury Park, NJ @ Stone Pony
September 22 - Montreal, QB @ Club Soda
September 23 - Toronto, ON @ Phoenix
September 25 - Chicago, IL @ Vic Theatre
September 26 - Milwaukee, WI @ Turner
September 27 - Minneapolis, MN @ Fine Line
September 29 - Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre
October 1 - San Francisco, CA @ The Regency
October 2 - Los Angeles, CA @ El Rey
October 3 - San Diego, CA @ House of Blues
October 5 - Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues

Hanson
September 7 - Portland, OR @ Aladdin Theater
September 8 - Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
September 10 - Vancouver, BC @ Commodore Ballroom
September 12 - Calgary, ALB @ MacEwan Hall
September 13 - Edmonton, ALB @ Edmonton Event Centre
September 19 - Oklahoma City, OK @ Oklahoma State Fair
September 21 - Dallas, TX @ House of Blues
September 23 - St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant
September 24 - Kansas City, MO @ Uptown Theater
September 26 - Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue
September 27 - Milwaukee, WI @ The Rave
September 29 - Cleveland, OH @ House of Blues
September 30 - Columbus, OH @ Newport Music Hall
October 1 - Knoxville, TN @ Bijou Theatre
October 3 - Nashville, TN @ Wildhorse Saloon
October 4 - Louisville, KY @ Coyotes
October 6 - Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse
October 7 - Birmingham, AL @ Workplay Theatre
October 9 - Orlando, FL @ House of Blues
October 10 - Charlotte, NC @ Amos’ Southend
October 12 - State College, PA @ The State Theatre
October 13 - Homestead, PA @ Carnegie Library Music Hall
October 15 - Baltimore, MD @ Rams Head Live
October 16 - Providence, RI @ Lupo’s
October 18, 19 - Foxborough, MA @ Showcase Live
October 20 - New York, NY @ Nokia Theatre Times Square
October 22 - Hartford, CT @ Webster Theatre
October 23 - Atlantic City, NJ @ House of Blues
October 25 - Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Chance
October 26 - Lancaster, PA @ Chameleon Club
October 28 - Falls Church, VA @ State Theatre
October 29 - Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Hall
October 30 - Asbury Park, NJ @ Paramount Theatre
November 1 - Montclair, NJ @ Wellmont Theatre
November 3, 4 - Chicago, IL @ House of Blues

[Photo: Getty]

Rolling Stone’s Jason Gay recently caught up with Billy Ray Cyrus, father of both Miley Cyrus and “Achy Breaky Heart,” about his new gig as the host of Nashville Star on NBC. Cyrus discussed his daughter, his new show and how Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive director David Lynch encouraged him pursue an acting career. “I was a fan of his, and I thought, ‘Man, if I could just get in Mulholland Drive.’ There was an audition for Gene the pool man, and when [Lynch] hires me, he says, ‘Cyrus, you could be an actor if you want to be.’” Click below for the rest of the interview with Cyrus.

• Quick and Dirty With Billy Ray Cyrus

[Photo: Burns/Getty]