With their month-long U.S. winter tour now in the books, Chicago's Wilco [ tickets ] has lined up additional American dates for the spring.

In addition, Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy is scheduled to play solo shows Friday and Saturday (3/4-5) at his hometown's Vic Theatre. Friday's show will be a benefit for the Children's Memorial Foundation Kawasaki Research Fund.

Wilco's spring tour--which will follow an upcoming European jaunt--opens with April 20 and 21 appearances during the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and ends April 30 at Southern California's Coachella.

"A Ghost is Born," Wilco's latest album, hit stores last June. The band co-produced the set with Jim O'Rourke, who engineered the group's previous release, 2002's gold-certified "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot."

Joining Wilco's touring band this year are keyboardist/guitarist Pat Sansone (The Autumn Defense) and guitarist Nels Cline.

In related news, Tweedy and Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig--author of the 2004 book "Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity"--will discuss file sharing, free culture and the arts during an April 7 discussion at the New York Public Library. Steven Johnson, author of "Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate," will moderate. Tickets go on sale March 17 via Smarttix.com, according to Wilco's official website.