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WILCO RELEASES ALBUM DATE AND TRACKLISTING

Wilcoworld.net has released the tracklisting for the band's new album, which is due mid-may.

1. Either Way
2. You Are My Face
3. Impossible Germany
4. Sky Blue Sky
5. Side with the Seeds
6. Shake it Off
7. Please Be Patient With Me
8. Hate it Here
9. Leave Me (Like You Found Me)
10. Walken
11. What Light
12. On and On and On

A story from the U.K.'s Uncut is here.

'AMERICAN IDOL': BOYS WON'T BE GIRLS

Tuesday's episode was trimmed from two hours to 90 minutes, which meant 30 fewer minutes of uneventful music. It also meant more time listening to the judges bicker and pick at each other. Paula even zinged her fraternal twin, Randy.

This was supposed to be the episode where the men redeemed themselves from last week, when the ladies shamed and overshadowed them. "I need to be less crappy," said Sundance Head in an Algonquin Roundtable session with Ryan Seacrest at the show's beginning. He was "crappy-less," but not enough to assure anyone he's a bona-fide pop star. The roll call:

FRIENDS SAY FAREWELL TO KIRK RUNDSTROM

The Wichita Eagle covered Monday's service  for Kirk Rundstrom at the Orpheum Theater in Wichita. Read about it here. The Web site has also posted an audio gallery and an on-line condolence book.

JAMES DEWEES JOINS MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE (PART TIME)

According to PunkNews.org, hometown KC boy James Dewees, formerly of the Get Up Kids and Coalesce and now the ringleader of Reggie & the Full Effect, is moonlighting as a part-time keyboard player for My Chemical Romance, which launched its Black Parade tour on Feb. 22. That tour stops in Topeka on Friday. Dewees did the same thing a couple of years ago for the pop-punk band New Found Glory.

| Timothy Finn, The Star

CONCERT REVIEW: CHRISTINA AGUILERA

Above: Christina Aguilera performs "Hurt" in December 2006.

A dozen gorgeous female vocalists graced the stage in Kemper Arena Saturday evening.

The five women of Danity Kane delighted the audience of approximately 14,000.  And the six fetching members of the Pussycat Dolls demonstrated remarkable dancing prowess.  But their efforts were rendered superfluous after a stunning 90-minute performance by headliner Christina Aguilera.

CONCERT REVIEW: LORETTA LYNN

Above: Loretta Lynn and Jack White ("he's a rock 'n' roller") perform on Letterman in  May 2006.

Loretta Lynn needs no introductions. She needs no pomp and pageantry either. But Thursday night at the VooDoo Lounge, the matriarch of country music arrived on stage looking as regal as a queen. Despite her fashion -- a rhinestoned ball gown the color of a tropical sea; her long hair arranged atop her head like a crown -- she put on no airs or made no bones about who she still is. As she sang in her second number: "If you're lookin' at me, you're lookin' at country."

Her one-hour set followed a 30-minute warmup by her six-man band and her twin singing daughters, Peggy and Patsy (the Lynns).

For about half of her set, Lynn, 72, took a seat in an armchair placed like a throne at center stage. It was there as a precaution, she said, so she wouldn't have to stand for the entire show and risk another accident.

DAMIEN RICE IS COMING?

Above: Damien Rice and "Elephant."

According to his Web site, he'll be here May 13 (a Sunday) at the Uptown Theater, and tickets will go on sale Monday, Feb. 26. However, Ticketmaster isn't ready to confirm that. Neither is the Uptown Theater nor Pollstar. We'll keep watching.

BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY FOR SPLIT LIP RAYFIELD

Above: Split Lip whips up its usual outlaw frenzy at Wakarusa a couple or three years ago.

I just came home from seeing Loretta Lynn at a casino, and I'm drinking a beer and listening to "Fort Worth Blues."

Steve Earle wrote that song after his dear buddy Townes Van Zandt died from the hard life he'd put himself through. The first verse goes:

In Fort Worth all the neon's burnin' bright

Pretty lights green and blue

They'd shut down all the honky-tonks tonight

And say a prayer or two, if they only knew ...

Kirk Rundstrom died Thursday, leaving two young children without a daddy, and many thousand fans without one of their favorite bands.

The casino Thursday night was filled with lots of true-blue country fans, and lots of them were drinking and smoking and laughing and singing-along and having a good time. That's what made me think of the first verse to "Fort Worth Blues": If they only knew ...

'AMERICAN IDOL': LOSERS WALK

I was out watching a real American Idol on Thursday: Loretta Lynn (review coming shortly). So I missed (I mean I didn't see) last night's verdicts. I've seen the results, though, and a few things seem apparent:

Rule 1: Americans don't really  like to look at other other people's bare feet. Au revoir, Paul Kim.

SPLIT LIP'S KIRK RUNDSTROM DIES

Split Lip Rayfield "Old #6"

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Kirk Rundstrom, singer, songwriter and guitarist of the punk-bluegrass band Split Lip Rayfield, died Thursday morning in Wichita. He was 38. He had been fighting the effects of esophageal cancer since February 2006.

Split Lip Rayfield formed in 1996. Its music is old-time country and bluegrass played at the speed of hardcore punk. The band released seven full-length CDs, including two live albums and a recent anthology.

In June 2006, doctors told Rundstrom that four months of grueling chemotherapy and radiation had virtually no effect. His cancer had spread and was inoperable and terminal. Rundstrom then stopped chemotherapy treatments and began a regimen of acupuncture, Vitamin C therapy and other holistic treatments. He also started playing music again.

“It was awesome but also quite painful,” he told The Star in August. “Nothing comes easy, even when it comes to playing guitar and singing.”