thank you so much, Keith! you're The Man!

What happened to the dresses, looks like she's going rock star on us...

The very worst that can be said about Acoustic Extravaganza is that it is a stop-gap between Eye to the Telescope, which was actually released in the U.K. in late 2005, and whatever comes next. Recorded after a relentless touring schedule, the tracks here were done in a small, remote Scottish studio with her band. The set includes acoustic versions of ""Universe & U,"" and ""Miniature Disasters"" from the album, a few cuts, such as ""Girl & the Ghost,"" ""Throw Me a Rope,"" and ""One Day,"" which were employed as B-sides for singles. There's also a fine, no, nearly stunning cover of Beck's ""Golden Age,"" which could have been recorded for a Ronnie Lane solo album. The rest, such as the countrified ""Ashes"" with its bold lyrics, the bluesy ballad ""Boo Hoo,"" the pastoral folk-country of ""Gone to the Dogs,"" and the minor key, shimmering snapshot ""Change"" are all first-rate. The relaxed feel of the album is, in its way, a different side of the coin from Eye to the Telescope. Without all the production and gloss, Tunstall is still smooth, and tough at the same time. The DVD that comes along with this set contains a documentary on the making of the album — this one — videos for ""Gone to the Dogs,"" ""Throw Me a Rope,"" and a little ditty called the ""Wee Bastard Pedal."" There are also a slew of photos and outtakes. In other words, this is not a simple capitalistic attempt to part you from your hard-earned cash, but more the artist reaching out to fans she didn't even know she had a year ago, and offering something intimate, gentle, fun, and worthy to make the wait easier. Remember: she's as eager to keep you as you are restless for the next installment. If anything, this little "in process" package reveals the fact that — in the over-saturated American pop culture market — Eye to the Telescope was no fluke. Tunstall's the real artifact.

Where are you getting these dates? Colorado is the only one listed on Pollstar.

Ummm....what happened to "Dirty Water"? I was really looking forward to hearing that song again after she played it live in the Spring of '06. "Hollywood Hill" is nowhere to be found either, unless the names of either of those songs were changed.

I saw KT perform Little Favours and Hold On at an Artists' Den taping in NYC last Monday night. They were okay but I didn't think either are as good as Dirty Water, that is strange she left it off the new album (I wasn't a big fan of Hollywood Hill myself). She had the backup singers when I saw her, but they were totally superfluous IMO.

You can hear a performance of Hold On about 15 minutes into this BBC interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bruce/

Even though KT Tunstall's latest effort, "Drastic Fantastic," was released only last year, the Scottish singer/songwriter tells Billboard.com she's already reworking the material for her upcoming stateside tour in a fashion that could influence the direction of next studio effort.

"Basically, the kind of new setup, which we've never done before, is inspired from the film we did for the deluxe version of 'Drastic Fantastic,'" Tunstall says. "I'm friends with Alex James, the bassist from Blur, and he lives in this beautiful farm land in Oxfordshire and we went there and recorded a campfire set.

"So we had all of these microphones hidden in our clothes and recorded this by a fire," she continues. "We just loved playing that way, and we thought it would be a great twist of, after having done a kind of electric rock-based album, to then go back to where it started with the kind of acoustic thing."

Tunstall's next American leg, which is billed as "The Campfire Tour," begins May 3 in San Diego. She says the show will feature all acoustic instruments -- double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, mandolin and guitars.

While Tunstall plans on touring through the fall before hitting the studio next winter, she's already thinking about a more folk/blues approach for her next album. She expects to play at least one new song, the Bob Dylan-influenced "Turn Into You," on the upcoming tour, but has reservations about giving her fans too much unreleased material.

"There are a couple of new songs I'd like to play, but I have to say while I love the Internet, the one thing I moan about is you can't really test-drive songs anymore," Tunstall says. "Because as soon as you play it, it's up there, and I don't really want it to be up on the Internet when it's not finished.

"So you get kind of nervous about playing new stuff," she says. "Also, I want the new album to be a surprise and not for everyone to know the songs already. So it's kind of juggling with that as well and making sure that if you're going to give songs away, you know that's going to happen."

Liberator Music, the jointly owned company between Nick Dunshea and Michael Gudinski's Liberation Music, will soon release the SoundStage series of DVDs.

The SoundStage catalogue will make available classic music performances from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Rob Thomas, Sheryl Crow, Heart, John Mayer, Billy Idol, Tori Amos, KT Tunstall, Dashboard Confessional, REO Speedwagon, Chris Isaak, America, Cyndi Lauper, Counting Crows, Lucinda Williams, John Hiatt, Alanis Morissette, Dan Fogelberg and Joss Stone. There are many more in the series.

"The Soundstage series brings to us a huge range of phenomenal artists to enrich our existing music repertoire; I'm very excited to present this great range of DVD's. The first titles should be ready in July and with the schedule I've seen we will have 2-3 titles per month for the next few years," Liberators Nick Dunshea said in a statement.