Classic Rock 93.9

Former Blue Öyster Cult drummer Albert Bouchard has premiered a new video for his own version of his old band’s 1983 tune “Shadow of California,” which appears on his 2021 solo album, Imaginos 2 — Bombs over Germany (minus zero and counting).

The clip, which you can watch on YouTube, features footage of Bouchard singing and playing guitar, interspersed with scenes of him driving a car through city streets at night.

Imaginos 2 — Bombs over Germany is the sequel to Bouchard’s 2020 solo effort Re Imaginos, a reworked version of Blue Öyster Cult’s 1988 concept album Imaginos.

Imaginos 2 is the second installment of a planned trilogy of albums from Bouchard featuring songs based on the writings and poems of late Blue Öyster Cult manager, producer and songwriter Sandy Pearlman about an alien conspiracy that comes to fruition during the late 1800s and early 1900s through the actions of an evil character named Imaginos.

The album features guest contributions from longtime Blue Öyster Cult members Eric Bloom and Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, and the group’s former bassist Joe Bouchard — Albert’s brother — as well as current BÖC multi-instrumentalist Richie Castellano and Dictators guitarist Ross the Boss.

Imaginos 2 can be ordered now on CD and vinyl at DekoEntertainment.com, and limited-edition bundles are also available.

In other news, Bouchard will be rejoining Blue Öyster Cult for a trio of special 50th anniversary shows taking place September 21-23 at Sony Hall in New York City. Each night will feature a full performance of a different album.

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Journey‘s first studio album in 11 years, Freedom, was released last month.

The 15-track collection includes songs that sound like they could have come from various periods in Journey’s history, and features a mix of power ballads, hard-rocking tunes, sensitive love songs and even a funk-influenced track.

Guitarist Neal Schon oversaw Freedom‘s recording with drummer Narada Michael Walden, who co-produced the album with Schon and collaborated with Neal in the studio on most of the basic tracks.

Schon tells ABC Audio that some of his favorite songs on Freedom are the ones that rock the hardest, including “Come Away with Me,” “All Day and All Night,” “Holdin On” and the heavy funk-rock tune “Let It Rain.”

“[T]hose four tracks there, I felt they were some of the louder ones that I wrote,” Neal says. “And once I got into that vibe with Narada, when we were recording guitar and drum tracks, I felt like I wanted to come with more of it, because it’s actually what we could use in our live show.”

Journey has incorporated two of those songs into their concert sets this summer, with “Let It Rain” being played at the band’s last eight concerts, while “Come Away with Me” got its live debut at the group’s most recent performance, on August 8 in Canandaigua, New York.

Speaking about “Let It Rain,” Schon says, “[T]hat’s my Cajun soup deluxe of probably [Jimi] Hendrix and Prince and Chaka Khan and a little bit of Sly [Stone influences]…those R&B and funk roots that I don’t get to explore a lot in the Journey realm.”

Journey has four more confirmed shows on its 2022 tour schedule, all taking place in September. Visit JourneyMusic.com to check out the band’s full schedule.

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Metallica has unveiled a new signature skateboard deck.

Created in collaboration with English company Lovenskate, the deck features artwork inspired by the cover of the 1992 documentary A Year and a Half in the Life of Metallica, which details the making of the metal legends’ iconic 1991 Black Album and its accompanying tour.

You can order yours now via Metallica.com.

If you’re a skateboarder who’s also a Stranger Things fan, you may want to pick up a Metallica Hellfire Club shirt, which was created in collaboration with the Netflix sci-fi series after it featured “Master of Puppets” in its season 4 finale.

Metallica played a pair of U.S. stadium dates earlier this month and will return to the stage in September to play the Global Citizen Festival in New York City.

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Netflix announced that the sequel to the Oscar-nominated 2019 hit whodunnit Knives Out will premiere on December 23.

The streaming service made the announcement Monday about the upcoming film, titled Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, and debuted a new teaser interview with writer-director Rian Johnson, who reveals that the movie’s title was inspired by a 1968 Beatles song.

Johnson explains that he came up with the title “Glass Onion” while searching for a phrase that the film’s main character, the flamboyant detective Benoit Blanc, might use to describe the murder he’s investigating.

“I’m always fishing for something fun that Blanc can grab onto as an overwrought metaphor that he can beat to death,” Rian maintians. “This is all in plain sight from the very start. So, the idea of glass came to me, something that’s clear.”

He continues, “I’ll be very honest. I literally got out my iPhone and searched my music library with the word glass. ‘There’s got to be some good glass songs.’ I was like, ‘Oh, is it a glass fortress? Is it a glass castle? Is it a glass man?’ The first thing that came up, because I’m a huge Beatles fan, is ‘Glass Onion.'”

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will feature Daniel Craig reprising his role as Blanc, who travels to Greece to solve a case with a whole new set of colorful suspects.

While the original Knives Out also starred Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Don Johnson and Christopher Plummer, the follow-up features another impressive cast, including Edward Norton, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monáe, Leslie Odom Jr., Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista.

Norton plays a tech billionaire who invites a group of friends to his island getaway — where one of them ends up murdered.

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Jerry Allison, the longtime drummer and last surviving original member of the late Buddy Holly‘s backing group The Crickets, died Monday at the age of 82.

Allison’s death was announced in a post on Holly’s official Facebook page.

“Our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Jerry ‘JI’ Allison, drummer in The Crickets, one of Buddy’s very closest friends, and the inspiration to drummers for decades since, who passed away today,” the note read.

The message continues, “JI was a musician ahead of his time, and undoubtedly his energy, ideas and exceptional skill contributed to both The Crickets, and rock n’ roll itself, becoming such a success. Buddy is often heralded as the original singer-songwriter, but JI, too, wrote and inspired so many of the songs that would go on to be eternal classics.”

Holly formed The Crickets in early 1957 with Allison, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar and Joe B. Mauldin on bass. Allison is credited with co-writing two of Holly’s most enduring tunes, “That’ll Be the Day” and “Peggy Sue,” which peaked at #1 and #3, respectively, on the Billboard pop singles chart.

After Holly’s February 1959 death in the tragic plane crash that also took the lives of The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, Allison played with various lineups of The Crickets for decades.

Allison also co-wrote the song “More than I Can Say,” which The Crickets recorded after Holly’s death in 1959, and later became a hit for Bobby Vee in 1961 and Leo Sayer in 1980.

Allison also became an in-demand session musician who lent his talents to recordings by The Everly Brothers, Vee, Johnny Burnette, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Rivers, Paul McCartney, Waylon Jennings, Nanci Griffith and many others.

Allison was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of The Crickets in 2012. Holly had been inducted separately in 1986.

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“Hold Me Closer,” Elton John‘s new collaboration with pop superstar Britney Spears, won’t be released until this Friday, but we now have our first taste of the track.

On TikTok, Elton posted a 14-second snippet of the song, which features Britney’s voice singing the chorus of Elton’s 1972 hit “Tiny Dancer” — “Hold me closer tiny dancer/ Count the headlines on the highway” — paired with Elton’s original vocal over a dance beat, with some “woo-hoos” in the middle.

The song has a vibe similar to Elton’s 2021 hit “Cold Heart,” which featured his original vocals from his 1989 song “Sacrifice,” paired with Dua Lipa singing the chorus of his 1972 hit “Rocket Man” and part of his 1983 single “Kiss the Bride.”

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Eddie Vedder has announced a new pair of solo concerts, taking place October 5 in Paso Robles, California, and October 7 in Las Vegas.

As with his solo tour earlier this year, the Pearl Jam frontman will be joined by his backing band The Earthlings, which features Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, ex-RHCP guitarist and current PJ touring member Josh Klinghoffer, longtime Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, guitarist and producer Andrew Watt and folk singer-songwriter Glenn Hansard.

Notably, the shows take place on the same nights as dates on Jane’s Addiction’s upcoming tour with The Smashing Pumpkins. That seemingly confirms that original bassist Eric Avery is back in Jane’s in place of Chaney after the band teased his return last week.

Tickets to the Vedder concerts go on sale this Friday, August 26, at 10 a.m. local time via the Ticketmaster Verified Fan platform. You can register for a chance at tickets now through Tuesday, August 23, at 5 p.m. PT.

Members of Pearl Jam’s Ten Club will also have access to a presale. For all ticket info, visit PearlJam.com.

The new shows will follow Vedder’s headlining solo performance at his Ohana Festival, taking place September 30 to October 2 in Dana Point, California. The Ohana lineup also includes Jack White, Stevie Nicks, Pink, St. Vincent and Brittany Howard.

Vedder will be supporting his new solo album, Earthling, which was released in February.

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Before he shredded Metallica‘s “Master of Puppets” in the Upside Down, Joseph Quinn was rocking to Nirvana.

The actor, who plays the Dungeons & Dragons-loving metalhead Eddie Munson in the latest season of Stranger Things, tells Metal Hammer that the “Smells Like Teen Spirit” outfit was his “first proper band obsession.”

“I was obsessed with Kurt Cobain and had all of his posters in my wall,” Quinn reveals. “It’s kind of cliché, but it’s true.”

Quinn also names Jimi Hendrix as one of his “guitar heroes,” sharing, “I was always very enamored with him.”

When it came to preparing to play Eddie, though, Quinn turned to the heavy stuff.

“I listened to Master of Reality by Black Sabbath over and over,” Quinn says. “Master of Puppets, as well, Slayer … all that kind of stuff. That was my way into that whole world, really. Black Sabbath were my guys, and Led Zeppelin, too, but I guess they’re less metal.”

Quinn’s performance of Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” in the season 4 finale of Stranger Things led to renewed interest in the 1986 thrash classic, which made its first appearance on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart following the episode’s premiere. The season also made a resurgent hit out of Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill,” which has run up all the way to the top five on the Hot 100.

Stranger Things season 4 is streaming now on Netflix.

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The 1990 Gretsch White Falcon guitar featured in the video for Foo Fighters‘ “Monkey Wrench” video is going up for auction.

While frontman Dave Grohl plays the guitar in the video, the instrument originally belonged to guitarist Pat Smear, who used it on the 1997 Foos album The Colour and the Shape.

The guitar will be sold by the U.K. auction house Gardiner Houlgate on September 7. It’s expected to fetch between 15,000 and 30,000 British pounds, which is between about $17,700 and $35,400.

The person with the winning bid will also receive a number of photographs, including one of Drew Barrymore holding the guitar.

The “Monkey Wrench” video currently has over 40 million views on YouTube. It’s notably the first Foos video to feature late drummer Taylor Hawkins.

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Robert Plant has long insisted he has no interest in reuniting with Led Zeppelin. In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, he again addressed the issue when it was suggested fans of his old band would love to hear him sing with the group once more.

“Going back to the font to get some kind of massive applause — it doesn’t really satisfy my need to be stimulated,” said Robert, who currently is touring the U.S. as a duo with acclaimed folk/bluegrass artist Alison Krauss in support of their 2021 album Raise the Roof.

When the interviewer asked if his reluctance to revisit his past glories “make you feel like an outlier among your classic-rock peers,” Robert responded, “I know there are people from my generation who don’t want to stay home, and so they go out and play. If they’re enjoying it and doing what they need to do to pass the days, then that’s their business, really.”

Meanwhile, Plant celebrated his 74th birthday on Saturday, August 20. To mark the occasion, he got a surprise visit from his son Logan and Logan’s two children while performing with Krauss in Stateline, Nevada.

As seen in fan-shot video posted on YouTube, Logan and his kids wheeled out a birthday cake and some golden balloons as Robert chatted to the audience between songs during the show.

“This is my family,” Robert told the crowd. “They’ve come all the way from England to give me … a chocolate microphone.” He then blew out the candles, before Logan led the audience in a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday.”

Plant and Krauss’ tour continues Tuesday in Napa, California, and is scheduled to wrap up on September 12 in New York City.

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