"Tonight on CNN - conflict in Iraq, the Fed drops interest rates again, and Peter Frampton has a new album."

Chances are, MTV's TRL won't be calling the 53-year-old rock guitarist anytime soon, so Frampton's looking at different ways to reach both older and younger fans.

"We're doing local ads on CNN," he says. "That's where you'll see (ads for CDs) like Fleetwood Mac. We're advertising on Headline News and ESPN. Where's our audience gone? They're watching CNN; they're watching ESPN.

We're going to start with my top 12 markets and we're going to blitz them."

He also plans to visit classic rock radio stations.

"Classic rock stations are playing new stuff, so while I'm touring I'm going to go to as many radio stations as I can in the major cities and secondary cities. If they'll play it, it's a place to have it heard. I'll do a Frampton special, go in, do an interview in there for an hour, maybe do some acoustic, whatever. And then you get like a Frampton weekend in that particular market, which is really nice. A lot of people are going for it."

There is the young jam-band crowd that wants to hear extended guitar solos and blues-infused rock songs. And, says Frampton, "We want to muscle into that area."

When the jam band moe. played the Taft Theatre in September 2002, Frampton sat in on guitar. Garvey recently interviewed Frampton for the jam-band publication Relix magazine, and the two have talked about doing more playing together.

"I love them (moe.), 'cause they play music. I love the jam bands, and they (moe.) are good."

Larry Nager