Bryan Adams [ tickets ] is scheduled to play three low key shows in Scotland in January. The dates are: Jan. 19 and 20 at the Edinburgh Playhouse and Jan. 21 at the Dundee Caird Hall.

'NSync has entered into a partnership with Microsoft's MSN Internet portal. According to Inside, Internet access is "one of the few technology businesses [Microsoft] has failed to dominate," and the article suggests that the partnership could rank with Michael Jordan-Nike.

Also from Inside:

And then there's Senator Orrin Hatch, the somber Utah Republican who holes up in the recording studio when Congress isn't in session. Hatch has composed eight albums of inspirational Christian pop tunes, and Gladys Knight, John Schneider and Donny Osmond have recorded his songs.

Delbert McClinton [ tickets ] will host the 2001 Delbert McClinton & Friends Sandy Beaches Cruise VII. The cruise--which leaves Port Manatee, Fla., on Jan. 2 and returns on Jan. 7--features Junior Brown, Asleep at the Wheel and Michael McDonald, among others.

It's a testament to the power of the word "cruise" that it can make even a Delbert McClinton show sound cheesy.

Two members of the boy band Five appeared in a Dublin court on Thursday morning (12/21) after being arrested in conjunction with a fight at the city’s Palace Bar.

Ritchie Neville and Jason "J" Brown were charged with public disorder and breaching the peace. Brown was also charged with assault. They have been remanded on bail until Jan. 10, at which time they shall return to court. The group’s gigs at the Dublin Point on Dec. 21 and 22 are scheduled to go ahead as planned.

The estate of the late singer-songwriter Jeff Buckley has taken action to have Napster ban users who trade his previously unreleased songs, MTV.com reported. Buckley's estate said that its primary concern was that those songs were not up to Buckley's standards, and that Buckley made it clear that he did not want such work available to the public.

According to the article, "If possible, Buckley's estate simply would have banned unreleased tracks from appearing on Napster, [the estate's management] said, but Napster's current policy allows only for copyright-infringing users to be banned."

They Might Be Giants [ tickets ] was the most downloaded artist on Emusic in 2000. We mention this because for years the band has been putting free songs on its Dial-A-Song telephone service (which we assume is still around, though we're not positive), which has probably served the band well re: being prepared for the online music revolution.

Jazz bassist Milt Hinton died on Tuesday (12/19) at age 90. According to the New York Times, Hinton was "the dean of American bass players" and "[one] of the first great bass soloists in jazz."

From the Seattle Weekly's Top 20 albums list:

6. RYAN ADAMS, Heartbreaker (Bloodshot) We loved him in Whiskeytown, but on his own, he's somehow even more amazing. Adams shares a birth date with the man that started it all, Gram Parsons, and the cracked vocals, wonderfully strummed guitar lines, and longed-for lyrics on this collection of alt-country ballads and rockin' stompers assert that something truly cosmic occurs whenever someone enters the universe on November 5. (L.L.)

We mention this mainly because our own birthday is Nov. 5.