RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE Begins Countdown To...What?

Launch Radio Networks reports: RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE has launched two online countdowns at RATM82407.com, with one clock counting down to Monday, June 11, and the other to August 24. Sources have told Launch that if you go to the site and change the system clock on your own computer to a date after June 11, the site displays an announcement for a RAGE concert on August 24 at the Alpine Valley Music Theater in East Troy, Wisconsin. According to the site, tickets for the show will go on sale next Saturday, June 16, at 10:00 a.m.

While the Alpine Valley website has listed a RAGE concert at the venue on August 24, there has been no official confirmation of that show until now, and there is no word yet on whether it will be part of a full-fledged tour. Following the band's first performance in seven years at the Coachella Festival in April, its only other confirmed gigs are four dates on the Rock The Bells tour, in late July in New York City and in mid-August in California.

There's also been speculation that August 24 will see the release of a live album taped at Coachella or new studio material from the band, or simply an official announcement that the band is RAGE reuniting permanently.

RAGE guitarist Tom Morello recently told Launch that the initial impetus to reactivate the band was not financial but political. "People never stopped offering RAGE shows throughout the whole seven years while the band was gone," he said. "But we got together, and taking a look at the dire times that we live in and, you know, RAGE was certainly the most outspoken political voice in rock music throughout the Nineties, I mean, I think it's long overdue that RAGE comes back and has a say."

Meanwhile, Morello is keeping busy on the road as his political folk alter ago THE NIGHTWATCHMAN, with dates scheduled through this month and July.