This week in reunions... the Hole saga drags on

* So, in case you haven't been paying attention, Courtney Love said she was getting Hole back together, which surprised her old bandmates. One of them, guitarist Eric Erlandson, claimed he and Hole made an agreement when they broke up 7 years ago that neither of them could tour or record as Hole without the other. Well, Love has taken to Twitter and claims that a) that's not true, and b) Erlandson was stealing from her. And yes, if you're keeping track, this is the 325th person Love has accused of helping to take all her money in the late '90s.

* Alice in Chains' new album comes out in about a month, and apparently Elton John is playing piano on the title track, "Black Gives Way to Blue," a tribute to Layne Staley. The first single off the album, "A Looking In View," is #27 this week on the rock charts and #38 on the alternative charts.

* The Butthole Surfers have been playing sporadic reunion dates of late, and now they're doing a full-fledged tour, September 24 - October 31. This is the late-'80s lineup reunited, but I'm assuming they still play "Pepper."

Rock Band and the future of music

As album sales keep falling and the growth of downloadable singles through iTunes and others peters out, is Rock Band the future of music? It seems like a lot of acts are jumping on the bandwagon.

I'm completely addicted to Rock Band and its sequel, Rock Band 2, but I long ago played through all the songs on the discs. Thankfully, there's downloadable content (and there are Pepsi giveaways to get free downloadable content). Just this week, the Rock Band folks made available tracks by Blur, Eve 6, Blind Melon, and the Foo Fighters. Third Eye Blind just re-recorded six of their hits for the Rock Band store, and Pearl Jam will make their new album Backspacer available to download and play on September 20, the same day as the album release.

What do you think? I've certainly spent more money this year on Rock Band tracks than actual recorded music. Have you?

No more Radiohead albums

Radiohead aren't going to be making any more albums anytime soon, though they will still be releasing music, Thom Yorke says. Albums are a "drag," apparently.

The first fruit of this new attitude is an orchestral dirge dedicated to Harry Patch, the last British World War I veteran, who died a couple of weeks ago. Hear it here.

This week in reunions... Tonic!

* Tonic very quietly put out a greatest hits set last month. There aren't any unreleased songs on it, but there are a couple of live and acoustic tracks. The band, which reunited a couple of months ago, is touring a bit this summer and working on new material.

* Not sure how long this Blink-182 reunion is going to last, given that Tom DeLonge spent the days before the tour starts working on the third Angels and Airwaves album. He says it sounds like Pink Floyd's The Wall and will include a film. Oh, boy...

* This has little to do with the semi-ongoing Stone Temple Pilots reunion, but I've been on vacation (sorry about the length between posts), and while waiting out a rain delay at a Kansas City Royals game a couple of weeks ago, the guy on the PA put on a mix CD containing tracks from both of Scott Weiland's solo albums. Now that's a super-fan.