Classic Rock 93.9

Welcome to 2022…we’ve got new Guns N’ Roses music. Or we will, anyway.

In an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Slash reveals that there’s “new Guns material coming out as we speak.”

The guitar icon notes, “We’ll probably keep putting it out until the entire record’s worth of stuff is done and then put it out solid,” adding, “It’s cool. I’m enjoying working on the stuff and having a good time doing it.”

Last year, GN’R released two new singles: “Absurd” and “Hard Skool.” The tracks marked the first new tunes from the “Welcome to Jungle” rockers since Slash and bassist Duff McKagan rejoined frontman Axl Rose in the band in 2016.

The most recent Guns N’ Roses album is, of course, Chinese Democracy, which was finally released in 2008 after nearly a decade in development hell. Rose is the only original GN’R member featured on that record.

Slash, meanwhile, is set to drop a new album called 4 with his solo band Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators on February 11.

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Cobra Kai co-creator Jon Hurwitz is hoping to add a bit of “Thunder” to the titular dojo’s “Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy” motto.

As Hurwitz tells Entertainment Weekly, he’s been trying to use the AC/DC classic “Thunderstruck” in the Karate Kid sequel series for some time now. In fact, “Thunderstruck” was specifically written into a script for a montage season in the recently premiered fourth season of the show.

“We’ve written ‘Thunderstruck’ into the script several times over the years,” Hurwitz shares. “We’ve never been able to afford it in that moment or to make that choice [to spend the money on it] right now.”

“Our fantasy is having the kind of music budget that would allow for us to have nonstop AC/DC and Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses,” he adds.

While viewers have yet to hear “Thunderstruck” soundtrack any epic Cobra Kai karate showdowns, the show does feature a lot of Karate Kid-era appropriate rock music, including Mötley Crüe, Poison and Ratt.

“[Music supervisor] Michelle Johnson has done an amazing job, she’s been phenomenal in understanding the tone of the show,” says Hurwitz. “She’ll pitch us many, many songs or send music to our editors and we’ll narrow it down. There’s nothing we love more than finding the right song for a montage.”

Cobra Kai season 4 also featured a wink to metalheads in an episode when a neighbor of the character Stingray yells at him for “blaring s***ty Metallica all night.” Stingray, who’s played by Richard Jewell star Paul Walter Hauser, then replies, “That was actually Exodus‘ Bonded by Blood, but it’s not your fault, you don’t know the genre.”

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The Eagles have more than doubled the number of scheduled U.S. concerts for their Hotel California 2022 Tour, adding 12 new shows in a variety of major cities in March, April and May.

The new dates run from a March 17 concert in Cleveland through a May 25 performance in Salt Lake City, and also include shows in Chicago. Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Nashville and the New York City suburb of Belmont, New York.

Tickets for the newly announced dates will go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. local time, and a limited number of VIP packages will be available that same day. There also will be opportunities to purchase pre-sale tickets; visit Eagles.com/events and Ticketmaster.com for more info.

The Eagles already had 10 other U.S. concerts lined up, spanning from a February 19 performance in Savannah, Georgia, through a May 19-20 stand in Austin, Texas.

As previously announced, the Hotel California trek features the current Eagles lineup performing the band’s classic 1976 album of the same name in its entirety, as well as other memorable tunes by the group, accompanied by an orchestra and a choir.

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Foo Fighters are kicking off 2022 by setting a new Billboard chart record.

Dave Grohl and company now have a total of 14 top-10 hits on the Rock & Alternative Airplay ranking, which measures radio airplay across rock and alternative formatted stations. That breaks what was previously a three-way tie for the most top-10s on the 12-year-old chart with Twenty One Pilots and Cage the Elephant, who both have 13.

The Foos earned the record thanks to their song “Love Dies Young,” the fourth and current single off the band’s 2021 album, Medicine at Midnight. Each of the record’s previous three singles —  “Shame Shame,” “Waiting on a War” and “Making a Fire” — also hit the top 10 on Rock & Alternative Airplay.

In addition to breaking Billboard records, Foo Fighters’ 2022 — or, as one might call it, 202Foo — includes returning to the road in continued support of Medicine at Midnight, as well as the premiere of Studio 666, a new horror-comedy film starring all of the band members.

In related news, it was just announced that the Foos will appear on the upcoming Jim Henson Company series Fraggle Rock: Rock to the Rock, set to premiere January 21 on Apple TV+.

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Sammy Hagar was awarded the title of Honorary Ambassador of Mexico’s Los Cabos municipality on Wednesday at a ceremony held in the town of San Jose del Cabo, not far from where the Red Rocker’s Cabo Wabo Cantina venue is located.

During the event, Hagar was presented with the municipality’s first Medal of Honor, which was created to recognize people who have made extraordinary contributions to the development and promotion of Los Cabos and Mexico’s economic growth.

Hagar is a longtime resident of Los Cabos, and his Cabo Wabo Cantina, where he usually stages his star-studded annual birthday bash, has brought many tourists to the area. In addition, Sammy’s hugely successful Cabo Wabo Tequila and Santo Tequila liquor brands also have helped boost the local economy.

“Being honored for anything in Los Cabos is the same for me as being honored in my hometown, because I feel this is my hometown and has been since the early ’80s,” Hagar said at the ceremony. “I will treasure this award [and]…will continue to do my part in bringing this, one of the most beautiful places in the world, to the rest of the world, as your new ambassador of tourism.”

Sammy was joined by his wife, Kari, at the event, which also was attended by various local politicians and officials, including Los Cabos’ municipal president, Oscar Leggs Castro.

Castro said at the ceremony, “Mr. Hagar has long been the unofficial ambassador to Los Cabos and through this designation we look forward to strengthening our tourism brand by leveraging his national and global appeal to promote Los Cabos throughout the world.”

After the ceremony, Hagar treated select local fans to a performance at Cabo Wabo Cantina.

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Toni Cornell has shared a new cover of the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah.”

The rendition arrives nearly five years after Cornell first performed the song at 12 years old on ABC’s Good Morning America in 2017 as a tribute to her father, Chris Cornell, and Linkin Park‘s Chester Bennington, both of whom died earlier that year.

“Hallelujah revisited,” Toni, now 17, wrote alongside a video of her new cover, which she posted to her Instagram.

Last month, Toni appeared on NBC’s The Tonight Show to perform a cover of “Nothing Compares 2 U.” Her father’s version of the Prince-penned track is posthumously nominated for Best Rock Performance at this year’s Grammys.

 

 

 

 

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The popular Disgraceland podcast, which showcases stories combining music with true crime, has announced that its upcoming ninth season will feature episodes focusing on the late Tom Petty, Sublime, the Eagles,  and late Beatles guitarist George Harrison, among other stars.

Information about the new season was revealed in an audio trailer, an accompanying press release, and a video preview posted by host Jake Brennan on the podcast’s Instagram page.

The Petty episode, which debuts in January 18, will include details of the rocker’s secret heroin habit and an arson fire that destroyed his Encino, California, home.

The show about Sublime premieres on January 25, and will include a gross story about how the band took revenge on a Denny’s after being treated poorly at the restaurant.

Two Disgraceland episodes will focus on the Eagles, premiering on February 8 and 15. Topics covered on those programs will include the band members’ former heavy cocaine use and other excesses, according to the trailer.

The last episode of season nine, which premieres on March 29, will focus on Harrison and the 1999 home invasion by a deranged knife-wielding fan that almost cost the Beatles legend his life.

Disgraceland‘s new season will kick off on January 11 with a podcast about Taylor Swift and her problems with stalkers.

Other artists featured on upcoming Disgraceland episodes include Motown legends The Temptations, late jazz greats Miles Davis and Billie Holiday, the late country icon Hank Williams, and the late rapper Juice WRLD.

New episodes of Disgraceland will be available exclusively on Amazon Music starting January 11, and then across all other podcast platforms on January 18. Visit DisgracelandPod.com for more information.

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John Mayer has been forced to drop out of Playing in the Sand, a three-day destination festival in Mexico’s Riviera Cancun that he was scheduled to do with Dead & Company beginning this Friday.

On Instagram, Dead & Company said that just before he was set to leave for Mexico, John tested positive for COVID-19 and so is unable to travel and perform.  “In these unprecedented times, fans should expect many rare and different tunes,” the group said in a statement.

Dead & Company’s Bob Weir added, “We came down here to have fun. Unfortunately some of our brothers cannot make it but fun is what we’re going to have.”   The festival will continue with “special guests and sit ins,” the statement continued.

Another installment of Playing in the Sand is scheduled for January 13-16. It’s not clear if John will perform during that weekend.

Meanwhile, John is scheduled to kick off his solo tour in support of his latest album, Sob Rock, on February 17 in Albany, NY.

 

 

 

 

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Founding Faces guitarist Ronnie Wood and drummer Kenney Jones both recently revealed that they and singer Rod Stewart had been working on songs for a new album by the band.  Now Stewart also has commented about the project.

“It’s very, very worthy,” Stewart tells ABC Audio about how the new material stands up to classic Faces tunes.

Reflecting on his former band’s music, Rod adds, “When you dig out tracks that [are], like, 40 years old or whatever, you suddenly realize, wow, we were good and we did have a different sound, chaotic as it may have been.”

As for the status of the record, Stewart says, “We’re working on it.” He notes that depending on whether his planned 2022 Australian tour takes place, “we’ll have two or three months to work on it. And it’s gonna be good.”

Wood, who joined The Rolling Stones after the Faces’ 1975 breakup, wrapped up a U.S. Stones trek in November, although it’s not been announced if the band will hit the road again in 2022. Stewart, who released a new solo album called The Tears of Hercules in November, is scheduled to launch his Australian tour in March. However, ongoing issues with COVID-19 could derail those plans.

Meanwhile, in a recent interview with Uncut, Jones shared some more details about the Faces reunion project.  According to BANG Showbiz, he told the magazine that the album will feature a “mixture of old and new” material.

“What we’ve decided to do is work on some of the original stuff that we didn’t use,” Kenney explained. “Ronnie and I, in particular, have been working on lots of the old stuff together and we’ve rerecorded a couple of those songs with more of a modern feel.”

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This Saturday, January 8, marks what would’ve been David Bowie‘s 75th birthday, and to mark the milestone, several special releases and events are planned in the coming days.

Most of the events will take place at one or both of the Bowie 75 commemorative pop-up stores that opened in New York City and London this past October.

On Thursday, January 6, the two shops will host the premiere of a new Sony 360 Reality Audio mix of David’s final studio album, 2016’s ★ — aka Blackstar — which was supervised by frequent Bowie studio collaborator Tony Visconti.

Also on January 6, a special livestream event beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Bowie’s YouTube channel will feature songs from David’s A Reality Tour presented in 360 Reality Audio.

Friday, January 7, will see the previously announced release of the TOY (TOY:BOX) box set focusing on Bowie’s previously unreleased 2000 TOY album. An exclusive, limited-edition cassette version of TOY will be sold at the New York and London Bowie 75 stores, as will vinyl and CD editions of the box set.

On January 8, David’s birthday, the New York Bowie 75 store will feature a special Q&A with one-time Bowie band member and TOY producer Mark Plati at 5 p.m. ET.

On Sunday, January 9, the New York and London shops will host screenings of the Selections from A Reality Tour concert film in HD with a SONY 360 Reality Audio soundtrack.

Then, on Friday, January 14, at the New York Bowie 75 store, sax player Donny McCaslin, who collaborated with David on Blackstar, will take part in an interview event that begins at 6 p.m. ET.

Visit Bowie75.com for more details about the events and releases.

Bowie died of cancer in January 2016 at age 69.

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