Take 5: Garth Brooks, Scott Weiland, Queen

By Edna Gundersen, Steve Jones, Brian Mansfield, Elysa Gardner and Korina Lopez, USA TODAY

USA TODAY's music staff offers a weekend tip sheet of sound recommendations spanning the media landscape:

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  By Mark J. Terrill,, AP

  Garth Brooks performs for a charity concert in in 2008 in Los Angeles.

By Mark J. Terrill,, AP

Garth Brooks performs for a charity concert in in 2008 in Los Angeles.

TICKETS

Grab a seat while you can for Garth Brooks

Other than the occasional multi-night arena stands he does every few years, Garth Brooks' shows at the Wynn Las Vegas' 1,500-seat Encore Theater have been the only way to see the country music superstar. Those concerts, which began in December 2009, offer a great way to get an intimate perspective on one of the top-selling artists in pop music history. Brooks performs not only the songs that framed his career but the ones that shaped his life during a one-man show that has nearly as much storytelling as it does music. Tickets ($225, $253 with service charge and tax) for August, September, October and November weekend dates go on sale Saturday at 1 p.m. E.T./10 a.m. P.T. through Ticketmaster.com or by calling 877-65-GARTH. ? Brian Mansfield

TICKETS

Foo Fighters tickets go on sale

Heads up, Foo fans: The first batch of tickets for the Foo Fighters' fall arena tour go on sale Friday. The leg kicks off Sept. 14 in St. Paul and runs through Sept. 26 in East Rutherford, N.J., with tickets available for shows in Kansas City, St. Louis, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Shows in St. Paul and Columbus, Ohio, go on sale June 4. A pair of newly announced Canadian dates, Aug. 9 in Toronto and Aug. 10 in Montreal, go on sale Friday and Saturday, respectively. The tour comes hot on the heels of the rock band's widely praised chart-topping seventh album, Wasting Light. For details and updates, check tour.foofighters.com. ? Edna Gundersen

REISSUES

Vintage Queen albums get deluxe treatment

As part of the year-long celebration of Queen's 40th anniversary, the London band's entire 15-album studio catalog is being reissued by Hollywood Records in a series of deluxe editions. The first five ?Queen (1973), Queen II (1974), Sheer Heart Attack (1974), A Night at the Opera (1975) and A Day at the Races (1976) ? are out this week. Each album will be released in a new two-CD edition with the first containing the updated, remastered original LP, and the second packed with rare bonus tracks. ? Steve Jones

CONTESTS

Take to the stage as Elvis

So you want to be a rock 'n' roll star ? or perhaps play one on stage? Good news: The jukebox musical Million Dollar Quartet is launching "Do You Have What It Takes?" ? a contest to find musician/singer/actors who can fill the roles of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins in the Broadway, Chicago or touring production of the show, inspired by the 1956 jam session and album of the same name. Contenders can go to MillionDollarQuartetLive.com/casting and submit video files of themselves cranking out one of the tunes on the original cast recording. (A list is available on the site.) Period costumes are "encouraged." Both submissions and voting will be accepted through July 1, with a grand-prize winner announced July 5. That lucky someone will receive roundtrip airfare to New York to audition for the show, in addition to hotel accommodations, tickets to the musical and other prizes. ? Elysa Gardner

BOOKS

Scott Weiland writes about rock, drugs love

For aging rockers, writing memoirs seems to have become a rite of passage. Keith Richards, Steven Tyler and countless others have done it. Now Scott Weiland puts his tumultuous life to paper. In the '90s, Weiland gained as much fame for his struggle with heroin addiction as being the flame-haired frontman of Stone Temple Pilots. In his new autobiography with David Ritz, Not Dead & Not for Sale: The Earthling Papers (Scribner, $24), Weiland, 43, leaves no stones unturned. He chronicles his struggles with addiction, bipolar disorder, his doomed marriage to model Mary Forsberg, even the loss of his younger brother, Michael, who died of an overdose in 2007. ? Korina Lopez

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