Steps will be in LA from 30 April – 5 May, recording an upcoming special for Nickelodeon. They will perform Stomp, Tragedy, One For Sorrow, Buzz, Here and Now, and It’s The Way You Make Me Feel.

They will then return to the UK to promote the forthcoming single and to record some of the extra tracks for the greatest hits album – tentative release date 24 September.

After this they are due to hit Africa to do some more promotion! No rest for them is there?

We now believe that Buzz is due for release in the US on 24 July – not too long to wait now!

After all this they are back in tour rehearsals, with the tour due to kick off in November. As always, this might just be the only date booked officially at this moment. If it is 40 dates either it is gonna move into 2002 or start earlier.

Thanks to Gordan we’ve found that more remixes have been made for the forthcoming single:

You’ll Be Sorry – QT3’s Mix
You’ll Be Sorry – Mini Mix

These along with the already confirmed mixes from Sleaze Sisters & The Almighty brings the remix count to up about six. It is believed there are a whopping seven remixes for You’ll Be Sorry and an additional four or so for Here & Now.

Here’s a reminder that Claire will be on a Question Of Pop which starts tomorrow (Saturday) on BBC1 at 6.30pm!

Here is the tour schedule for Steps’ trip in Japan:

Wednesday 25 April

Steps will be on a show in Waratte Litomo
Steps will also be performing LIVE on a show in Mecha Mecha Lketeru

Thursday 26 April

Steps will be on Japanese radio station Yokohama FM ‘popnation’ and promoting their single Its The Way You Make Me Feel as its also Asia Regional Promotion Day

Friday 27 April

Its STEPS night in Nagoya on JMAX radio.
Steps will also be interviewed on ZipFM radio.

Saturday 28 April

Steps will be interviewed on Osaka radio (FM802)
Later on they will be in an HMV store, probably signing their new single for fans.
STEPS night at the Grand Caffe!

Sunday 29 April

Steps will be promoting Its The Way You Make Me Feel all over Osaka.

Here is some news on Steps’ UK releases, now who said they don’t sell much eh? ;o)

Better Best Forgotten was the 51st best-selling single of 1999!
Loves Got A Hold On My Heart was the 62nd best-selling single of 1999!
Heartbeat/Tragedy was the 19th best-selling single of 1999 and 30th best-selling single of the 20th Century!
Deeper Shade Of Blue was the 37th best-selling single of 2000 by June 2000!
Step One was the 16th bestseller of 1999 and 19th bestseller of the last millennium!
Steptacular was the 7th best-selling album of 1999!
Buzz went PLATINUM after its first week on sale!

We’ve had news in today that Jive Records is contemplating missing out Holland on any promotional tours or trips. We’ve been told that Jive might be abandoning plans to release any sort of single or album in Holland due to limited success on Dutch Radio and Music Television. It seems that Jive are contemplating in bringing the Steps success back to the US where they are hoping that they will break the market on the second time of asking. Not that Holland will be totally forgotten. If and when Steps gain more worldwide success they will be back in Holland to re-establish themselves, by then Steps will be one of the biggest pop acts on the global scale. We’ll keep an eye on further developments on this news story.

Here’s an interesting story from Eric in Indonesia. Here and Now was on the radio last night… but not Steps singing it! I dunno who sings it, but sure it’s sung in Chinese Mandarin with the exact music to the Steps version. According to Eric this has been done before there, as a Honeyz song was released by another group before the Honeyz did so.