Run-DMC is set to headline a live,...

Run-DMC is set to headline a live, pay-per-view television concert on June 18, with Silk, Onyx, Redman and Boss also on the bill. The event is being billed as “Russell Simmons’ Phat Jam”--Simmons is the founder of Def Jam Records and producer of TV’s “Def Comedy Jam” series--and will originate from an as-yet-undisclosed New York location. . . .

Polygram is planning a four-CD Velvet Underground box set, tentatively due in October, with the set including album cuts, rarities and even cleaned-up tracks from bootleg recordings. Also, Sire plans to release a live album of the reunited Velvets, scheduled to be recorded June 15-17 in Paris. . . .

Pearl Jam members Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament celebrated the completion of the band’s second album by flying to Las Vegas for a Grateful Dead/Sting concert last weekend. It was reportedly Vedder’s first-ever Dead show. . . . Trent Reznor is heading into the home stretch of recording the next Nine Inch Nails album, though given his deliberate work habits it could still be a while. Producer Flood is coming to L.A. from England next month to work on the project in Reznor’s studio at the notorious “Sharon Tate” house. . . .

Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Chevy Chase and Grover Washington are among those tentatively set to appear June 6 at Club Tatou in Beverly Hills in a tribute to keyboard player Richard Tee, who discovered he had prostate cancer while performing on Paul Simon’s “Rhythm of the Saints” tour in 1991. For information about the event, call (213) 739-3901. . . .

Warner Bros. Records has set a June 15 release for Neil Young’s “Unplugged” album and video. . . . Rhino Records is at work on box sets of Otis Redding and the Turtles, as well as anthologies of New Orleans key-ticklers Dr. John and the late Professor Longhair. Rhino is also releasing an album of previously unissued sessions by late guitar hero Randy Rhoads with the band Quiet Riot. . . .

Two new cuts are already completed as bonus tracks on Aretha Franklin’s hits package that’s due at the end of August from Arista. Hit-hungry Franklin is working with some hot producers--the teams of Clivilles & Cole and L.A. Reid & Babyface--and there may be a third cut, a collaboration with Prince Be of P.M. Dawn. . . . Speaking of L.A. Reid & Babyface, they’re also working on the next TLC album, which could be ready for a fall release. Babyface also has his own solo album, scheduled for late July, to worry about.*

Among those purchasing works at “The Biggest,” the current Santa Monica exhibit of art by folk, self-taught and institutionalized artists, were John Hiatt (just having finished his upcoming album) and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe. . . . Here are some early jingle bells, as Aaron Neville recorded a Christmas album recently in New Orleans and the Beach Boys are making plans for a seasonal TV special, with a possible album as well. . . .

Roxette singer Marie Fredriksson gave birth last week to a baby girl, named Inya Josephine Bolyos, shortly after completing the video for the band’s new single, “Almost Real,” featured in the “Super Mario Bros.” movie. . . .

Priority Records, best known as the home of such rap acts as N.W.A. and now Ice-T, is making a second attempt to move into the rock world following a failed Priority Rocks division last year. The label has signed L.A. industrial-rock act Engines of Aggression. . . .

The rumored Debbie Harry-R.E.M. collaboration has taken place, with the former Blondie singer adding vocals to the Georgia band’s already-done version of “Last Date,” the old Floyd Cramer instrumental hit. . . . George Thorogood’s new album, “Killer’s Bluze,” is due July 13, with the title track reportedly about getting inside the mind of a killer. . . .

Low in age but off the scale in cutes, 6-year-old “Full House” twin stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have an album due in September from the BMG/Zoom kids label. The video from one song, “No One Tells the President,” features a sax-playing Bill Clinton impersonator.

Country singer Rodney Crowell and Beausoleil fiddler Michael Doucet guested on a new album by the Hackberry Ramblers, a Louisiana Cajun-swing band that made its first recordings in 1933. The group is currently looking for a label to release the album.