For several weeks Phish has dedicated its Web site to teasing fans about the location of its three-day Halloween festival, at last craftily revealing its venue to be the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, Calif. The three-day festival, the first of that length in Phish history, has been dubbed Festival 8 and will run Oct. 30 – Nov. 1 on the same grounds where the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals occur each year.

Only last week, The Beastie Boys’ Adam “MCA” Yauch announced his cancer diagnosis via a heartfelt video on beastieboys.com. With longtime group member Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz sitting by his side, Yauch addressed the situation with humor and honesty, apologizing to fans that the hip-hop trio would bepushing back their upcoming record release date and cancelling a series of concerts.

The follow-up to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s Raising Sand album is still in the formative stages, but Krauss is already certain the second disc will not be a carbon copy of the duo’s Grammy winning debut.

In an exclusive interview, Eddie Van Halen tells Rolling Stone’s Rock Daily blog that he hopes to “feel 18 again” after undergoing extensive surgery to relieve mounting pain in his left hand.

Nickelback fans got an unexpected treat at a show on this week, when former Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley joined the group on-stage for an impromptu jam.

San Francisco promoter Boots Hughston hopes to break the Guinness World Record for largest guitar ensemble by asking 3,000 guitar players to simultaneously play Jimi Hendrix’s "Purple Haze" at West Fest, a free concert to be held Oct. 25 in Golden Gate Park to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock festival.

The recently reunited members of Jane’s Addiction were forced to scrap their forthcoming Australian tour after drummer Stephen Perkins was sidelined with an infection in his elbow.

Jack White is offering some strong incentives for fans to sign up for his new subscription service, The Vault.

Last week, Coldplay became the first band to sell more than 1 million full digital albums in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan data.

Van Halen’s done it. Metallica and Aerosmith have done it. Hell, even the Beatles are doing it. But don’t expect Led Zeppelin to follow in those footsteps and lend their music to a video game anytime soon.