In some of the saddest news to come our way since the demise of Sarah Records, yet another of the finest labels around has folded. VELVEL RECORDS has ceased all North American operations due to lack of capital. In the past few years, Velvel had committed themselves to a wide array of UK releases and reissues to American shores -- principally, back catalogue titles from Pulp and Marillion, not to mention new offerings from the Candyskins, ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, and former Strangler Hugh Cornwell.

Bigmouth is reporting that OASIS have headed to the south of France to begin work on their next album, in an attempt to avoid the crowds of journalists and fans that hounded them during the recording of "Be Here Now". The next album is targeted for an early 2000 release, and the band will not be performing live this year.

Details of this summer's TIBET FREEDOM CONCERTS will be made public this Friday, April 16. The concerts will be held June 12-13 in Chicago, Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Sydney. We'll let you know the lineup of bands as soon as it's all made public.

Radiohead's documentary, "Meeting People Is Easy", premiered last night in Los Angeles and will be playing again this weekend. You can catch it at midnight at the Sunset 5 on Friday and Saturday.

There's an interesting auction going on this week at Interactive Collector (http://www.icollector.com) It's called HITS UNDER THE HAMMER, and it's a charity auction of autographed/hand-written lyrics to benefit the Nordoff-Robbins Trust. Among the auctioned items, which are available for bids online, are the original working lyric sheets of "Wake Up Boo!", a lawn chair with the lyrics of "Sit Down" scrawled across it by Tim Booth, as well as lyric sheets from Supergrass, The Cure, and many others.

Just as the SUPER FURRY ANIMALS are beginning to promote their second album ("Radiator") in the States, there's already word of a third. Creation is confirming today that the brand new Super Furries single, "Northern Lites," will be released in the UK on May 10. No word yet from Flydaddy on a tentative US release. Be sure to catch the Super Furries on tour in the States (frequently with the OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL, which is a bit of a double bonus.) See our TOURS page for details.

The Chicago date for KULA SHAKER has been officially postponed. No word yet on whether the San Francisco date of April 21st is on hold as well.

Ooh.. crank up the rumour mill, 'cause we need to talk about the STONE ROSES. The lives of these four musicians have turned into quite a soap opera of late. Here's what we know thus far:

Two weeks ago, former Roses bassist MANI (currently of PRIMAL SCREAM) spends a few days on the road with a Roses cover band as their touring DJ. Talking to fans at the shows, Mani mentions that the Seahorses are splitting and hints around to a future project involving some, if not all, of the original 4 members of the Roses.

More news on the upcoming releases front: BEN FOLDS FIVE are set to release their new album, "The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner" in the states on April 27. The first single, "Army" will hit radio a couple weeks before that. We've got Ben Folds Five tour dates for April up in Tours. Also, the first proper album from THE BETA BAND is said to be nearly complete. Clocking in at just under two hours, the album is likely to come out in a double-disc format sometime later this year.

THE CHARLATANS appear to be nearly ready to start releasing new material. The next single is said to be entitled, "The Blonde Waltz", and a late March or early April release date seems likely. The new album, tentatively titled, "New Start" may be out as soon as this May. Also, ECHO AND THE BUNNYMEN are set to release their new album in the U.K. on April 6, preceded by a single called "Rust".