Bassist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett have resigned from Grammy Award-winning rock band Wolfmother due to “longstanding frictions,” according to a statement issued by Universal Music Australia today. The decision was reached after the band headlined Australia’s Splendour in the Grass festival this past weekend. (See footage of the band's final performance together below.)

“Following that show Chris Ross decided to announce that he was leaving the band due to irreconcilable personal and musical differences,” says a press release. “Myles Heskett has also decided to leave the band rather than continuing as part of a changed lineup. The pair has been working together on songs for some time and they plan to focus their energies on that new project in the future.”

Singer/guitarist/principal songwriter Andrew Stockdale is now seeking new musicians to continue on with Wolfmother, which experienced enormous success in 2006 and 2007 after the release of their self-titled debut album. Wolfmother sold 1.3 million copies and won the Sydney-based band a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Following a hiatus during the second half of ’07, the band reunited to cook up some new material, and began roadtesting the new songs in April.

“Andrew Stockdale, Myles Heskett, and Chris Ross will make no public statements at this time except to say that they are each really looking forward to making their new music over the years ahead,” reads the press release. “In the meantime they simply ask all Wolfmother fans to please understand that in spite of their best efforts over a long period of time, they just could not find a harmonious way to work together and that has lead to the decisions announced today.”

Stockdale’s frustration with his bandmates hasn’t gone unnoted in the press. During Gibson’s 2007 interview with Stockdale, he griped of the band’s first rehearsal together back in 2000, saying, “Myles turned up four hours late. The other guy—who’s not even in the band anymore—is like looking at Internet porn for three hours, and Chris is looking for beers in the fridge or something. We tried to get rehearsals going every now and again, but nothing ever happened.”

Eventually Stockdale went off alone to write all the songs for the Wolfmother debut. The writing process for the second album has gone similarly. Of the newer demos, Stockdale has said, “All the stuff I just kind of did by myself. That’s me playing drums, and guitars, and bass.” ―Ellen Mallernee

It looks like Rage Against the Machine reunited just in time. After causing havoc at the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago over the weekend, the agit-rock heroes have now set their sights on the upcoming Republican National Convention, which takes place September 1-4 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The band just announced an additional tour date at Minneapolis’ Target Center September 3 and if history is any indication, things will most likely spill over into the streets at some point. Rage played a free show at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles in 2000 that ended in chaos when police attempted to break up the crowd with heavy doses of tear gas and pepper spray.

Guitarist Tom Morello has already announced that he will be performing at a union rally September 1 at St. Paul’s Harriet Island, along with fellow singer-songwriter and muckraker Steve Earle.

Rage singer Zack de la Rocha was forced to stop the band’s Lollapalooza set three times to ask surging fans to settle down.

It should be an eventful week. —Aidin Vaziri

American Idol winner David Cook has announced he is recording his major label debut with Green Day’s Grammy-winning American Idiot producer Rob Cavallo, who has also sat behind the boards with the likes of My Chemical Romance, Kid Rock, and the Goo Goo Dolls. Who knows? This could be the most rocking outing from a winner of the Fox singing competition, and that includes Taylor Hicks. 

Cook told the folks at EW.com, “I think (Cavallo’s) a great producer with the kind of sound that I want. And in talking to him, he’s just a good guy. Like the song selection I had on the show, Rob just fit.” 

The aspiring spiky-haired rocker’s album, which he is working on during breaks on the American Idols Live! Tour, is due in the fall. Cook is said to be co-writing most of the material, along with contributions by Our Lady Peace’s Raine Maida, Chantal Kreviazuk and Collective Soul’s Ed Roland. ―Aidin Vaziri

Iggy and the Stooges were forced to borrow gear for their show at Toronto’s Massey Hall, according to their manager Eric Fischer, after the band’s equipment along with the truck containing it was stolen outside the Embassy Suites hotel in Montreal on Monday.

The group has set up a Web site in the hopes of tracking down the missing items along with the 15-foot yellow Penske rental truck (Michigan plates AC46493), which they say was taken sometime between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. on Monday.

“From guitars to duct tape, everything’s gone,” Fischer told the Detroit News.

Included on the list is bassist Mike Watt’s Red Gibson EB-3; a volcano black Reverend Flying V guitar; two black road cases containing Marshall vintage amplifiers; several Marshall 4-by-12 cabinets; a Gretsch silver sparkle Catalina drum kit and drum heads, a green clamshell suitcase containing Yamaha drum pedals and Zildjian cymbals, along with two Boss chromatic tuners, a Crybaby wah, tuner pedals, and lots of other items that help the veteran Detroit band rock out so tremendously hard.

Watt has posted some pictures of the stolen gear on his Web site. If you happen to see anything familiar while perusing the local pawnshop, contact Fischer at nycentral13@gmail.com. — Aidin Vaziri 

In “blast from the past news,” veteran singer-songwriter Janis Ian has penned one of the more remarkable autobiographies of recent years. Titled Society’s Child, after the controversial song that kickstarted her career in the mid ’60s, the book chronicles an extraordinary life ready-made for a Hollywood film treatment. Ian’s richly rendered portraits of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin―both of whom she befriended as they were at the cusp of fame―are especially revealing, as is her front-row seat in the entire ’60s music phenomenon.

“People always ask what I remember most about that,” she said, in a recent interview. “What I remember most is how colorful it was. The British Invasion brought all that Renaissance-style clothing―the types of clothes Brian Jones and the Stones were wearing. There was also an incredibly heady atmosphere of cross-fertilization between all the different genres. A bill at the Fillmore East might include the Doors, B.B. King, Taj Mahal, and me. You could see all different types of music and all different types of writers and performers interacting. It made for an incredible bloom of astonishing music." — Russell Hall

To commemorate the band’s 40th anniversary, Fantasy Records is giving Creedence Clearwater Revival an especially ambitious reissue treatment. On September 30, the group’s first six albums will be re-released in remastered and expanded form.

 Bonus tracks will include an array of B-sides, previously unreleased studio and live material, and even a “summit” between the band and Booker T and the MGs.

The reissues will be housed in Digi-Paks that recreate each original album in meticulous detail. Each of the albums―Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bayou Country, Green River, Willy & the Poor Boys, Cosmo’s Factory, and Pendulum―was originally released between 1968 and 1970, a spectacularly prolific period for John Fogerty and his bandmates.

Liner notes scribe Ben Fong-Torres writes, “[CCR] redefined rock and roll. They showed, in the most entertaining way possible, how the music could embrace―and was, in fact, founded on―elements of R&B and the blues, country, folk, and jazz, as well as a world of other musical forms. Creedence were pioneers in the fusion of rock and country. They were roots before ‘roots’ took hold as a music genre.” ―Russell Hall

Some belated spring cleaning recently resulted in a serendipitous moment in the household of the late Frank Zappa. Specifically, while rummaging through some long-unopened drawers, Zappa’s widow Gail Zappa stumbled onto the perfect cover shot for the just-released archival collection, One Shot Deal. Available at www.zappa.com, One Shot Deal features mostly guitar-heavy instrumental tracks―recorded live and in the studio―that Zappa cut with a variety of bands between 1972 and 1981. The CD is part of the Zappa Family Trust’s mission to celebrate and protect Zappa’s recorded legacy. — Russell Hall

Metallica has revealed via their website that the band’s forthcoming album will be released on September 12. Industry protocol dictates that stateside release dates fall on Tuesdays, but as was the case with the group’s last album, 2003’s St. Anger, the provocatively titled Death Magnetic will hit stores on a Friday. (Presumably a Friday release date helps preclude piracy.) Produced by Rick Rubin, the Warner Brothers album will be preceded by a handful of live performances to take place in August, mostly as part of festivals. The band's website also indicates that the first single will be “The Day That Never Comes,” for which the group has already shot an ambitious video. ―Russell Hall

• Hope for another one-off Led Zeppelin show, or full-blown reunion tour, took another knife to the back with various news outlets reporting that talks surrounding the band's suppossed gig at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, England are now completely "dead in the water." The hopes of many were raised this past February when it was revealed that Zep rep Harvey Goldsmith was discussing the possibility of staging another Zeppelin concert at the Welsh stadium. Officials for the stadium, however, now say that any plans for a show are on hold—at least for now. "It would be great if they would, but as far as we know that is dead in the water," said stadium manager Gerry Toms.

• A few rare performances by the Clash are getting ready to hit store shelves in the form of a new CD and DVD, including the band's legendary 1982 performance at New York's Shea Stadium. The CD will be released on October 15, and includes the band's complete 15-song set at the venerable stadium, which is set to close for good later this year. The DVD will be released a week earlier on October 6, and includes 20 classic Clash performances from around the world, including London 1979, Manchester 1977, the Tommorow Show 1981, Tokyo 1982, Shea Stadium 1982, and the US Festival 1983. For more information, click here.

• A tour bus carrying memebers of Disturbed's crew was involved in an accident on I-95 in Florence County, South Carolina yesterday when a tire blew out, sending the bus off the highway and down an embankment before coming to an abrupt stop. An unidentified member of the band's crew was take to a local hospital for treatment of undisclosed injuries. According to various news reports, none of the other seven crew members on the bus were injured, and none of the band's members were among its passengers. The band was on its way to the next stop on its current tour in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and no dates have been cancelled as a result of the accident.—Gabriel J. Hernandez

A slew of top draws blow into the Windy City this weekend as Perry Farrell's Lollapalooza music festival invades Chicago's Grant Park for its annual three-day visit. With one of the most diverse line-ups in the festival's long history, Lollapalooza organizers are hoping the broad bill attracts the usual 80,000-plus that perenially congregate on the shores of Lake Michigan for a weekend of unexpected surprises and mind-boggling afterparties.

This year's festival should deliver some interesting—and much anticipated—sets, including Kanye West's hopefully redeeming set in front of the nation's festival heads, Radiohead's expected epic performance, and Nine Inch Nails' likely melting of the Bud Light stage on Sunday night.

In between, expect powerful performances from a nicely mixed bag of artists that includes the likes of Blues Traveler, the Black Keys, Stephen Malkmus, the Raconteurs, Bloc Party, the Kills, Bang Camaro, Lupe Fiasco, Rage Against the Machine, Wilco, Dierks Bentley, Toadies, G. Love & Special Sauce, Mark Ronson, Love and Rockets, White Lies, and the Whigs.

Of course, all of this is in addition to the usual Lollapalooza festival fare that includes the "Kidz" stage and multiple performances from the students of Peter Green's School of Rock, and loads of other up and coming acts sure to find a place on someone's musical palette.

Rolling Stone is following the weekend's events from all angles on their Rock "N" Roll Diary page, which includes a blog, playlists, and both photo and video galleries. —Gabriel J. Hernandez