Link-O-Rama …

Bookies bet on disaster-prone Brit Awards – National Post / Reuters

Cocaine sales fueled rap mogul’s revenue, says prosecutor – Philadelphia Inquirer

“Diva-like” demands, including having a new award created just for him, blamed on keeping Michael Jackson out of the Grammys – The Sydney Morning Herald

Bowzer leads fight to prevent music gorup identity thefts – WISH TV

Catching up with Mavis Staples – Brisbane Times

BBC Radio 1 host / DJ Grooverider sentenced to 4 years in prison for bringing pot into Dubai – The Times Online U.K.

Dates, Dates & More Dates …

Iron Maiden is at the top of the update news today as the legendary heavy metal band nails down U.S. dates for May. Markets include Los angeles, Phoenix, Houston, San Francisco and San Antonio.

Yet more new dates for Celine Dion as the singer adds dates for South Africa, China, Australia, Italy, France and Monaco.

And a new shipment of Kate Nash dates was waiting on our loading dock this morning. April and May is the time span and cities include Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Minneapolis.

During the last couple of hours we also updated the schedules for Jonny Lang, Keb’ Mo’, Kanye West, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Gordon Lightfoot, Dizzee Rascal, Earth, Wind & Fire, Johnny Winter, Martin Sexton, Matthew Good, moe., Outlaws and The Proclaimers.

And that’s the status at the halfway point as we move into the afternoon in tour date heaven. Check out the latest concert data in Your Latest Update, coming up around 3 pm (PST), from Pollstar.com!

This Day In Music History … (from Associated Press)

In 1965, the Supremes’ “Stop! In the Name of Love” was released. It would become their fourth number-one hit.

In 1974, singer-actress Cher filed for separation from her husband, Sonny Bono. Married for 10 years, the couple had a number-one hit in 1965 with “I Got You Babe” and hit number two on the charts the following year with “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down).” “The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour” ran on CBS TV from 1971 to ’75.

In 1982, rock singer Pat Benatar married her guitarist and musical director, Neil Giraldo, in Hawaii.

In 1989, Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing” became only the second single to be certified double-platinum in the U.S. – meaning it had sold two million copies. Since the double-platinum category was created in 1984, only one other single, “We Are the World,” had reached that plateau. The phenomenal sales of “Wild Thing” showed that rap had moved out of the urban ghettos into the pop music mainstream.

In 1996, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg (now Snoop Dogg) and his ex-bodyguard were acquitted of murder in a 1993 drive-by shooting in a Los Angeles park. Prosecutors alleged that the bodyguard, McKinley Lee, had shot 25-year-old Philip Woldemariam from a Jeep driven by the rapper, whose real name is Calvin Broadus. The two claimed self-defence because Woldemariam was reaching for a gun.

In 1998, Bob McBride, former lead singer of the Canadian jazz-rock band Lighthouse, died in a Toronto hospital after years of illness and drug abuse. He was 51. McBride became one of the country’s biggest rock stars in the early 1970s as the front man for Lighthouse, which had hits such as “One Fine Morning” and “Sunny Days.” The band fired him in 1973 after his first of many suicide attempts.

In 2003, 100 people were killed and 200 were injured in an inferno at The Station nightclub in Providence, Rhode Island. Pyrotechnics ignited highly flammable foam around the club’s stage. Thick smoke quickly spread through the wooden building, trapping patrons as they tried to flee. The heavy metal band Great White was playing at the time. The band’s guitarist, Ty Longley, was among those killed the fire. The band maintained it received permission to set off the fireworks, the club owners insisted permission was never given.