• “Chinese Democracy” May Have Leaked
• George Michael Opens U.S. Tour
• Lil Wayne Sells One Million in Debut Week
• Video: Hendrix’s Wah-Wah Pedal at Bonnaroo
• Breaking Artist: Fleet Foxes
• Tom Petty Mines Deep Cuts in NYC
• Tom Waits Spins Yarns in Phoenix
• On Tour: Tegan & Sara, Toadies
• Amazon Offering Variably Priced MP3s
• Kid Rock Loves Illegal Downloading
• The Top 10: Dance Shows, “Rock Band”
• McDonald’s Launches Big Mac Song Contest
• Mysterious Smiths Rarities Album Hits Web
• R. Kelly “Employee” Threatened Witness
• Charts: Lil Wayne, My Morning Jacket
• News Ticker: Weezer, Nine Inch Nails

Top stories from the last three days:

• Photos: Backstage at Bonnaroo
• Coldplay Showcase Viva at London Free Gig
• Backstage at Bonnaroo With Gogol Bordello
• Rolling Stones Deny Live Nation Deal
• Video: Mary J. Blige On “Live From Abbey Road”
• New Music Report: Coldplay
• Trailer for Liz Phair’s “Guyville” Doc
• The Coldplay Video Guide
• Lollapalooza Schedule Released
• Beatles “LOVE” Documentary Debuts
• Sigur Ros Brings NYC Audience to Tears
• Bob Dylan Art Exhibit Opens in London
• Video: Bonnaroo Wrap-Up With Pearl Jam
• Metallica Title New Album
• Exclusive: Behind Weezer’s Video
• What Might Have Become of Tupac
• Iron Maiden Go “Back in Time” in NYC
• Sirius/XM Merger Inches Closer to Approval
• Bonnaroo 2008: Total Coverage

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

Tegan and Sara line up an autumn tour, Conor Oberst drops the Bright Eyes moniker for a summer jaunt and Toadies add more dates to their reunion spree. Full itineraries for all three treks are after the jump.
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As the inexorable march towards Chinese Democracy stomps along, the dangling carrots of periodic leaks and hints have made the decade-plus dry spell all the more tantalizing. But today’s latest batch of tunes — which are purported to be, finally, the real thing — really may signal the end of the wait. [UPDATE: Not shockingly, the site may already be down]. With all the curious “free Dr. Pepper” talk a few months back reeking sweetly of a publicity stunt to come, the timing doesn’t feel all that off for tunes to really start making it through the cracks.

Today’s leak features nine tracks, and besides the six which have already made the rounds (including a stunning version of “Madagascar,” complete with a chorus of Axls singing on top of each other), a trio of thus far unheard and unnamed songs offer further suggestions as to what may be around the corner. (more…)

Over on the Breaking blog, this week’s featured Breaking Artist is Fleet Foxes, a group of harmony-happy indie rockers from Seattle. Click below to find out what video game inspired some of the group’s songs and for a live performance of “White Winter Hymnal” from this year’s Sasquatch festival.

• Breaking Artist: Fleet Foxes

One of the more unusual visitors to this year’s Bonnaroo festival was Jimi Hendrix’s wah-wah pedal, which was purchased for $15,000 and brought to the event to raise awareness for restoring New Orleans. Click above to watch Jack Johnson try to absorb the power of the pedal by rubbing it on his face.

[Video: Pete Maiden]

Thom Yorke Gets ‘Nude’
Last month, Radiohead stopped accepting fan-generated remixes of their song “Nude” at radioheadremix.com. Of the 2,254 submissions, the top 10 fan favorites are posted on the home page, but the most inventive tracks are buried deep in the site, from a classical-string-quartet version (number 57) to a horn-heavy reggae-dub experiment (771). Our favorite comes from Adrian Holovaty (40), who takes Thom Yorke’s haunted croon and adds jazzy guitar strumming for a cyborgian take on Gilberto Gil. The result is strangely beautiful — and something Radiohead will never do. (more…)

In an interesting interview with the BBC, Kid Rock explained why most of his music isn’t available on iTunes. “The internet was an opportunity for everyone to be treated fairly, for the consumer to get a fair price, for the artist to be paid fairly, for the record companies to make some money,” Rock said. “[But iTunes is] an old system, where iTunes takes the money, the record company takes the money, and they don’t give it to the artists.” Rock went on to explain that he doesn’t mind people downloading his albums illegally as long as they buy tickets to his concerts. “I was telling kids: download it illegally, I don’t care. I want you to hear my music so I can play live. But I think they should steal everything. You know how much money the oil companies have? If you need some gas, just go fill your tank off and drive off, they’re not going to miss it.” Rock added, though, that he doesn’t participate in that philosophy. “I don’t steal things. I’m rich.”

According to court documents dating before the R. Kelly child pornography trial, an “employee” of Kelly’s allegedly threatened to kill the key witness in the prosecution’s case if she “snitched” against the singer by testifying in his trial. No charges were ever filed against the Kelly associate, and key witness Lisa Van Patten testified for the prosecution in the case that found Kelly not guilty of all charges. Van Patten also testified before the trial that another associate of Kelly’s offered her $100,000 for the infamous sex tape.

It’s every songwriter’s dream to get a tune into a McDonald’s ad, and Ronald McDonald is all about granting wishes. The fast food behemoth and MySpace are presenting the “Big Mac Chant Off,” which will welcome songs from amateur tunesmiths competing for placement in a Big Mac commercial. The catch, however, is that you need to incorporate the lyric/slogan “Two all beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.” Singer Christina Milian has already submitted a track, as have other MySpace artists. You can even add Milian’s Big Mac Chant to your own MySpace profile, letting all your friends knowing “I want my Mickey D’s” to the tune of Toni Basil’s “Mickey.” To get involved, head over to the Big Mac Chant Off page and download the audio kit. Submissions close July 6th, at which point semi-finalists will be selected by McDonald’s judges (we hope this involves the Grimace), with the winner being picked by online voting. The winning song will then be featured in a McDonald’s commercial to be aired incessantly toward the end of July.

George Michael began his first North American tour in 17 years on Tuesday at the San Diego Sports Arena, standing onstage just as we last saw him: stylishly unshaven, in black suit and shades, swaying his hips while singing to ecstatic fans (from 1996’s “Fastlove”), “Got to get up to get down!”

The show was heavy with anxious, funky riffs and smoove R&B pop, and without special effects beyond a trio of massive, curving video screens that unfolded across the stage like a tongue toward his crowd. They sparkled with cascading blue-and-red stars for the opening acoustic guitar riff and Michael wailing: “So here I am!” from “Waiting (Reprise).” For the next two hours (plus a 20-minute intermission), Michael performed hits and new songs from his just-released retrospective album, Twenty-Five.

• Photo Gallery: George Michael’s San Diego Tour Kick-Off

Among the new songs was “Feeling Good,” which began as a soulful a cappella lament before shifting into a brassy rumble as the big screens behind him filled up with images of Dita Von Tease stripping down to her glittery pasties as she stepped into a giant champagne glass. Most fans were on their feet the entire concert, and Michael thanked those “people whose knowledge of me doesn’t end with ‘Faith.’ You are the people I’m playing for.” (For everyone else, “Faith” baby-tees were on sale for $40 in the lobby.) (more…)

Sure, the new season of So You Think You Can Dance is delightfully wacky and everybody loves Dancing With the Stars, but the return of MTV’s America’s Best Dance Crew really gets Rolling Stone’s legwarmers buzzing. Click below for more on the Top 10’s favorites, including the some great tribal photos and the fantastic just-completed NBA playoffs.

• Top 10: What Rules on TV, the Web, Books and Beyond

[Photo: Jamie Horton/Fox]

“The world is not my home,” Tom Waits sang on the opening night of his highly anticipated U.S. tour. “I’m just passing through.” One place Waits has always made his own is the stage, so no surprise that last night’s looked like a junkyard at midnight: nebulously lit and hung in mist.

Flanked by a menacing installation of horn speakers crackling out old-time phonograph music and surrounded by a graveyard of cigar-box banjoes, bullhorns and ramshackle guitars, Waits’ sextet took the stage at Phoenix’s Orpheum Theatre around 8:30 and powered into a lurching medley of “Lucinda” and “Aint Goin Down to the Well.” Set against his own towering silhouette, Waits was a drawn sketch of twisted limbs: heaving and panting like a stalled locomotive. Clutching the microphone with both hands as if it were the only thing keeping him up, he stomped his workman’s boots so hard the floorboards coughed up thick clouds of dust into the spotlight around his legs. (more…)

Last year, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker complained that Apple “destroyed the music business in terms of pricing” by sticking to its guns on the 99-cents-per-song model. But now entertainment execs might be landing some payback, in the form of Amazon MP3. This week, the online-shopping powerhouse’s DRM-free download store announced two ongoing discount promotions, called “Daily Deals” and “Friday Five,” and both feature big names at basement prices. But the trade-off for labels sick of iTunes pricing is that some tracks at Amazon MP3 cost more than the standard 89-99 cents (a seven-minute track from Coldplay’s Viva la Vida is going for $1.94).

Amazon MP3’s “Daily Deals” offers popular titles at a hefty discount, while “Friday Five” unloads five classic albums for $5 weekly from Friday to Sunday. (more…)

Early on in Tom Petty’s sold-out Madison Square Garden gig last night he uttered words rarely heard at his shows: “You probably don’t know this next one.” The band then launched into the super obscure 1999 Europe-only B side “Sweet William.” The bluesy, organ-heavy number was a clear indication this wasn’t going to be the typical nothing-but-the-hits Petty show he’s done on recent tours. With no new album to support, Petty was free to drag out the gems.

This doesn’t mean he avoided his massive arsenal of hits. The show began with a 1-2-3-4-5 punch of “You Wreck Me,” “Last Dance With Mary Jane,” “I Won’t Back Down,” “Even The Losers” and “Free Fallin’.” Nearly anyone else would save a song like the latter — which is so tailor made for arenas even the beer guys and ushers were singing along — but Petty has such a huge stable of war horses he could bust it out early with no problem. Rarities soon followed, such as the Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” which featured a few Heartbreakers subbing in for Petty’s absent bandmates and the Full Moon Fever track “A Face in the Crowd.” (more…)

The Big News: There was Lil Wayne, and then there were 199 other albums. Light years behind Tha Carter III at number two was rapper Plies‘ Definition of Real, which sold 215,000 copies. Third place went to Now! 28, last week’s champ Disturbed and their Indestructible fell to four and Usher’s Here I Stand claimed fifth. Tha Carter III wasn’t the only album to go platinum, however, as Mariah Carey’s E=MC² and Robert Plant and Alison Krauss‘ Raising Sand both crossed the million sales threshold last week, while the Eagles‘ Long Road Out of Eden passed three million in sales.

Debuts: Outside the big rap debuts, a trio of rookies claimed the 7-8-9 spots, as N.E.R.D.’s Seeing Sounds, Alanis Morissette’s Flavors of Entanglement and My Morning Jacket’s Evil Urges all cracked the top 10. (more…)