Last week we wrote about the fact that several homegrown Bay Area rappers, including E-40 and Too Short, were oddly absent from the Rock the Bells lineup at Shoreline over the weekend, despite the fact that they performed at the festival’s San Bernadino show a week earlier. It appeared to be a simple scheduling issue, but E-40 thinks it’s more of a conspiracy—as in, an attempt by the City of Mountain View to keep him out of the Rock the Bells lineup—and presumably any show at Shoreline—for the last few years.

“For some reason, the city of Mountain View won’t let E-40 and Too Short perform. They can’t even give us an excuse or nothin’, they can’t say nothin’,” E-40 told Fuse TV in an interview. “They don’t even know why they won’t let us perform…They don’t want us performing on our own soil, man.”

Mountain View city officials said in a statement they have no control over who plays Rock the Bells, and that scheduling decisions are made entirely by festival organizers. Organizers from Guerilla Union and Live Nation, who jointly produced last weekend’s event, confirmed in an email that all scheduling for the show was done on the basis of availability.

The question then, of course, is why E-40 thought he was available when everyone else thought that he wasn’t—and where his notion that Mountain View had deep-sixed him from the Shoreline show came from in the first place. E-40’s publicist initially said he would look into the matter, but did not return a request for comment.

The Vallejo rapper and Mountain View may still make nice in the near future—RTB organizers have left open the possibility that he’ll perform at Shoreline next year.

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For five years running now, Rock the Bells has been the South Bay’s biggest rap show. It’s also the strangest megatour of the 21st century; since its debut in 2004, it’s reinvented itself almost every year, and this one is no exception.

With the return of headliner Nas (making his sixth RTB appearance), Common, Curren$y, Immortal Technique, Murs and other festival favorites, there’s a string of continuity, but the addition of acts like J. Cole and 2Chainz, and a whole new set-up for the tour, has led to some controversy, or just plain confusion. Here are answers to some key questions about the ever-evolving hip-hop festival as it returns to Shoreline this weekend.

Is Rock the Bells getting bigger or smaller?

Both, sort of. Rock the Bells has a convoluted history of shapeshifting: after starting out as two SoCal festival dates (summer and fall) in 2004, it went to a single day in 2005, then blew up into a hybrid festival and multi-city club tour in 2006. The next year had three festivals, 15 single-stage shows and 5 two-stage shows across the country. In 2008, organizers took Rock the Bells international in what was probably its biggest year, with 16 festival dates. The next year, it contracted a little, and 2010 saw only 4 dates. Last year had three, and this year also boasts three shows, but all three are two-day festivals. So a much smaller number of cities will be seeing Rock the Bells than in its heyday, but those select cities will have their bells rocked for twice as long. So it all depends on if you’re lucky enough to be near one or not, which brings us to…

Why Mountain View?

The festival started in San Bernadino, so it’s no surprise that Rock the Bells launched there this year. A second date, in New Jersey, was clearly meant to shore up that East Coast presence the festival established five years ago with its much-hyped storming of New York City (the reunion of Rage Against the Machine as headliners didn’t hurt). Mountain View’s Shoreline may seem like a strange third choice for a festival that established itself in Chicago, Detroit and Boston. But in fact, NorCal has been a huge part of the festival’s success since 2006—first in Concord, then SF, and, since 2008, at Shoreline. Organizers from Guerilla Union and Live Nation, who co-produced the festival this year, indicated the tour will have a home in this area in the future, as well. “The Bay Area music scene has always had a thriving and diverse hip hop community. Be it music from The Team to Souls of Mischief or Del The Funky Homosapien to 2 Pac and Keak Da Sneak, various sub-genres of hip hop are represented well in this market,” they wrote in response to my inquiry. “This is evident in the success that Rock The Bells has had in the past and what we see doing in the future now that we are holding this event as a two-day festival.”

It’s been nearly three decades since original lead singer David Lee Roth recorded with Van Halen. But despite years of turmoil, breakups, reunions and more breakups and reunions, Diamond Dave is back in the studio with his old bandmates. They’ll be taking their tour in support of the record to HP Pavilion in San Jose on June 5, the band announced last night.

Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen initially hired Roth to be the vocalist for their band back in 1974, under the kind of circumstances that didn’t exactly suggest a lasting partnership—apparently Roth owned the P.A. and the Van Halens decided they’d rather let him join than pay for it. Within five years, they were on the charts with “Runnin’ With the Devil,” and by their appropriately named 1984 album 1984 they were one of the biggest bands of all time, with hits like “Hot For Teacher,” Panama” and, of course, “Jump.”

But Eddie Van Halen, by this point maybe the most acclaimed guitarist of his generation, never saw eye-to-eye with Roth. Their meltdowns finally pushed Roth to jump into a briefly successful solo career, while Van Halen found success again with new lead singer Sammy Hagar. But the situation with Hagar got equally toxic, especially after he found out that his band was secretly recording with Roth again in 1996. He quit, but alas, Roth and Van Halen couldn’t keep it together, and fans were more than a little bummed to see the band wind up with yet another lead singer, Gary Cherone of Extreme. Soon they were sinking into a sea of half-assed hagar reunions, and years of complete radio silence.

By 2007, however, Eddie Van Halen got himself into rehab after admitting many of the band’s problems were caused by his own substance abuse, and he and Roth reconciled. Most people expected their 2007 U.S. tour to blow up in their face, but it didn’t. Not only has the reunion stuck this time around, but their new album “A Different Kind of Truth” (to be released Feb. 7) has them working together on new songs for the first time in decades.

The band announced their 2012 tour last night at a performance in New York City, at the tiny Café Wha, that apparently proved them to be in top form. They’ll head out on Feb. 18 and tour until the end of June, with a show at HP Pavilion June 5 and one at Oracle Arena in Oakland on June 3.

Tickets go on sale January 14, just four days after the release of their first single from the new album, “Tattoo.”

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