Hurley might be one of my least favorite Weezer albums, but Rivers Cuomo and the boys sure have a knack for holding our attention during the promo blitz: First, they teamed up with Ryan Adams for a new song, and now a tour featuring sets dedicated to Weezer’s best two albums, their self-titled debut (“Blue Album”) and Pinkerton, has been confirmed by the band’s label. Here’s the official statement from Epitaph:

This winter (November/December), Weezer will launch a multi-city U.S. tour, dubbed by fans as the “Blinkerton Tour.” The band will play two shows in each market-on the first night Weezer will play the Blue Album in its entirety, and the second night they will play Pinkerton in its entirety.

Earlier this summer, the prospect of hearing Weezer’s latest post-Pinkerton effort, Hurley, became a lot more interesting as Rivers Cuomo revealed that he teamed up with Ryan Adams for one of the record’s new cuts. “I showed [Adams] three very different ideas for songs so he could choose one he liked and we could work on that,” Cuomo told Spinner’s Dan Reilly in August, “but his response was ‘You have to realize man, it’s all the same song. It’s all one song.’” Said “one song” became “Run Away,” the best jam off Weezer’s new album, featuring Adams himself playing guitar on the track he helped write.

Wanna hear the tune (and entire new Weezer LP)? Hurley is streaming in full on MySpace while “Run Away” is spinning solo below:

Well, this is interesting timing… 19 years after Perry Farrell’s Lollapalooza began, this year’s run of the Chicago festival wrapped today with performances by the newly reunited Soundgarden, Arcade Fire, and a host of other top acts. To cap off the festivities worldwide, however, Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, and friends unveiled their to-be-released greatest hits (Telephantasm)/Guitar Hero cut “Black Rain” on Seattle’s 107.7 The End (via Rock it Out! Blog) tonight, a song recorded during the Badmotorfinger sessions in the year of Lolla’s birth (‘91).

Meanwhile, another 90s modern rock-related band stormed the interwebs with an actual new tune: “Memories” off Weezer’s forthcoming 8th album, Hurley (yep, it’s named after Jorge Garcia’s Lost character), is streaming, as well. Though I’m more interested to hear what Rivers Cuomo dreamed up with Ryan Adams, this 3-minte power-pop ditty will suffice for now. Hear the new Weezer song and “new”/retro Soundgarden jam here:

Okay, let’s pull a few notable news bits from the queue…

• Before we get things started, LA Weekly deserve a Scooby Snack for sniffing out the secret identity of the highest bidder at Radiohead’s Haiti Benefit on Sunday night: Dangerbird Records co-founder Peter Walker.
• In as fast as you could say “Daft Punk leak rumor debunked!” a brand new song/leak has surfaced. Let the retraction countdown begin…
• Orenda Fink has not only written an endearingly heartfelt post on her experiences in Haiti, she is also offering her debut album, Invisible Ones, as a free download in exchange for a requested donation to a Haiti relief charity. Read/download/donate thataway.
• Rivers Cuomo and the rest of Weezer returned to the stage for the first time following last month’s tour bus crash that left the frontman with cracked ribs and other injuries. Watch Rivers and Paramore’s Hayley Williams sing Weezer’s Blue Album classic  “Say It Ain’t So” here.

CNN reports that Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo was taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Amsterdam, NY today following a tour bus accident on the New York State Thruway. Assistant Sarah Kim and Cuomo, who complained of rib pain, were the only passengers hospitalized. Cuomo’s wife, Kyoko Ito, and daughter, Mia, were also on the bus, but neither sustained injuries.

Based on the driver’s description of the incident, it sounds like winter weather was the culprit. Here’s CNN:

The driver said the back end of the bus slid on ice, then went into the median and hit some reflective posts before crossing back over the highway, going over the guardrail and landing in a ditch.

Cuomo and company were en route from Toronto to Boston, MA for a show tomorrow night at Boston University.

**Update: Karl Koch, a close friend, roadie, and webmaster for Weezer, has posted a very descriptive account of the accident and Rivers Cuomo’s current condition. Cuomo is still in the hospital, “as he cracked 3 ribs and sustained some mostly minor but very painful internal damage, as well as hurting his lower leg somehow.” Also, remaining dates from the December Raditude Tour have been officially cancelled.

Click here for more info from Koch. We’ll update this post with any new information, but in the meantime, here’s wishing Rivers a speedy recovery.

I’ve honestly had nightmares about being blasted on Carrie Brownstein’s NPR blog, so I did feel for Rivers Cuomo when the former Sleater-Kinney guitarist/singer called Weezer the “ultimate novelty band” and asserted that they must hate their fans and/or have a “contempt for music.” Ouch. In an interview with Jam! Showbiz, Cuomo reacts to the haters claiming he’s a hater, but then drops a dream collaboration list that will likely make for some prime blog bait (for said haters).

“The thing that pisses me off is when critics say that it’s all a big joke,” Cuomo said. “When they say I’m intentionally making fun of certain kinds of music, or I’m making fun of my fans, or I hate my fans, or I hate music. I hear these kinds of things all the time, and it’s so frustrating for me because I put so much work into the records. No one would put that much effort into a joke!”

Rivers goes on to insist that “Beverly Hills” is not satire, but a “completely sincere” exploration of his “craving for celebrity,” that his Katy Perry collaboration is no big deal, and that he does, in fact, have a list of people he wants to work with (on his computer). On said .doc?

“Some of the names you might know are Fred Durst, Lady Gaga, The Killers, Karen O, Brian Wilson…”

Now that we’ve had a piece of Lil Wayne cake, grieved over his imminent prison sentence, and jammed out to the No Ceilings mixtape, I thought Weezy would perhaps take a day off from headlines, but it’s mo’ money mo’ problems for Mr. Carter this morning: BBC reports that Wayne and Birdman are being sued by Thomas Marasciullo over the alleged use of his “Italian-style spoken word recordings” without permission. Stugots! In a funny twist, Marasciullo claims he discovered the alleged copyright infringement after overhearing a ringtone of “Respect” that his daughter was trying to buy. For more details go here.

Rivers Cuomo’s blog bait machine has been running on all cylinders of late: a Lil Wayne collaboration, Rainn Wilson bromance, writing songs with Katy Perry, just to name a few. Well, here are today’s Weezer bits:

Before we get to our usual bits, here’s what the music news beast will be chewing on for most of today.

Paul McCartney announced the “Good Evening Europe Tour 2009” on his official site, which kicks off in Hamburg, Germany (where the Beatles cut their teeth 49 years ago) this December. “This is my chance to bring our current show home to where it all began,” McCartney says. “Starting in Hamburg, ending in London and rocking everywhere in between. I’m very much looking forward to ending the year on a high.” For more info and exact tour dates go here.

Rivers Cuomo and company may be friendly with the likes of Lil Wayne and Jermaine Dupri nowadays, but regretfully emo band the Get Up Kids couldn’t even score a dinner chat while they were touring buddies in 2001. “They never said anything to us for that entire tour,” singer Matt Pryor told Spinner. “They’re the only band I’ve toured with for a month that I’ve never spoken to. They’re jackasses.”

Rivers has since graduated from Harvard, befriended Dwight from “The Office,” and he’s got no problem with the All-American Rejects apparently, so perhaps he’s matured since their awkward tour estrangement.

Either way, I doubt the “jackasses” slight will hold as much weight as, say, a Trent Reznor diss, but if the dude from Harvey Danger gets to go after the big boys, so too can the Get Up Kids, I say.