Alice in Chains singer/frontman was found dead at his home in Seattle late Friday, April 19, where his body was decomposed from four days earlier. Staley was just 34 years old. Staley's death has been attributed to an overdose or natural causes but nothing is definite until lab tests come back from analysis.

Staley and his bandmate Jerry Cantrell fromed the metal band in 1987. The band burst upon the Seattle grunge scene in 1990 with their first album Facelift. Their fame, though, came with the follow-up album Dirt in 1992. During this whole time Staley battled with drugs on a day to day basis. Staley once claimed that his pain was self-inflicted and that he alone must deal with it. The band released thier last album in '96 a MTV Unplugged set. Staley and his band sounded like no other metal or grunge band of their era. Staley's southern gothic vocal stylings have since been ripped off to death by shameless bands like Godsmack and Creed. MTV predictably has made this tragic event nothing more than just a blurb in a news brief and have deciced to play TRL instead of any kind of tribute. But the fans are what counts and they know Staley influenced many a metal band and that the pain in his songs was not posing like so many other bands often do. He shared his story through his songs so others could learn from it and thats all one can really ask of any artist.
Rest in peace, Layne.

The other Pumpkin members meanwhile also have projects in the works. James Iha has written an article for SPIN magazine and is also forming a band with other ex-Pumpkin Melissa Auf Der Maur (Melissa took over as bassist for the Machina tour when D'arcy left after recording the Machina album). Thier band known as The Virgins have not entered the studio yet and they are just tinkering with ideas. Melissa is also preparing her solo album. As for D'arcy......hmm whatever did happen to D'arcy?

  Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Out of the ashes of his seminal alt-country band, Uncle Tepulo, band member Jeff Tweedy formed Wilco, and after releasing two albums of roots and 70s a.m. rock/pop, A.M. & Being There collaborated with England's Billy Bragg on Mermaid Ave. I and II. In 1999 Wilco showed us that their talent went beyond roots rock as they took a more Brian Wilson approach on Summerteeth. Wilco was more and more becoming an important player in indie rock. But I don't think that anyone could have foreseen the masterpeice that is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I went into listening to this album at 1:00 a.m. in the morning with headphones and an assumption that all the praises for this album were fan delusions. But even if I didn't like the album it has already achieved classic status. Warner Bros. (the band's former label) dropped Wilco after hearing it saying that it had no value. The band then released the songs via free MP3s on their site further building the lost album's mythic status. But all the hype aside, when the album was over I couldn't deny its greatness. That an album could be this good in the year 2002 is almost unbelievable. There is really too much to praise. The lyrics are classic "I assasin down the Ave.", "Jesus don't cry/you can rely on me honey". The most telling sign that Tweedy is perhaps sick of the record business is revealed in the line "I miss the innocence I've known/ playing KISS covers/ beautiful and stoned". All the tracks are acoustic in tone and usually end in a droning feedback of tweeks and blips of white noise. At the end of the album, those noises climax in their own 3-minute symphony.

The album in content and circumstance has become Tweedy's statement on the record business itself. If they could turn down this then who knows what other classic albums have never seen the light of day. Just thank god that this one made it and through Nonesuch records, itself a division of Warner Bros., so in the end they paid for the album twice. How's that for just desserts.

Gomez: In Our Gun

Gomez introduced themselves to us in 1998 with Bring It On. In that album they combined roots music with rock, rock with techno and then made all of it into pop. Gomez defied every genre. They were sort of like a large computer that assimilated all musical knowledge and spat out the result. Their second album in '99, Liquid Skin, delved even more into their roots music wall of sound. Now in 2002 they unleash In Our Gun. But this latest effort clearly lacks the same drive and ambition of the earlier albums. The first two albums sounded like a band that was on top of their craft and feared no competition. This one sounds tired and trite. The first song "Shot Shot" is good enough with its quirky lyrics and roots music stylings mixed with techno bleeps. The title track runs too long at halfway through and shows signs early on that this album suffers from repetition at a point when you wish that the songs would sound different. But they don't and therein lies the problem. On the whole it's a better album then say Nickleback's new travesty but on the other hand Nickleback sounds no less daring. Gomez seems to have dropped their blues swagger that made them sound like an experimental Dave Matthews Band and gone in favor of Warp records bleeps. Those bleeps in the hands of a band like Autechre sound like genius but when in Gomez's court they just don't cut it. Maybe Gomez should become recluses for about a year and hide up in the mountains away from civilization so they can come back and thrill us with thier own Songs From The Big Pink but until then we are left with an ok but mediocre album. Fans will buy it no matter what I say but if you are new to Gomez you should stick with the first two. Gomez seems to be suffering from the same thing Clinic is: sameness.

U.K. techno-folkie Beth Orton's new album DayBreaker will be out in late July with such guests as Ryan Adams & The Chemical Brothers. Former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr plays on several tracks also. Orton plans a tour of the U.S. in support of the new album in May & June of this year.

Speaking of Ryan Adams, the alt-country star who constantly covers Strokes' tunes in his live sets, apparently has fans who want him to release an entire album of Strokes' covers. Why God Why? What retard thought it would be cool to hear country twang vocals over The Strokes excellent New York rock?

80s pop legends U2 are working on new songs for a Fall release this year. Some tracks are leftovers from 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind. Why don't these blokes quit? They are slowly becoming the Stones of the 80s era and quite frankly their last album was barely listenable.

RELEASE DATES:

MAY 5
Tom Waits: Alice
Tom Waits: Blood Money
Lauryn Hill: MTV Unplugged
Belle & Sebastian: Story-Telling

14
Weezer: Maladroit

21
The Breeders: Title TK