Classic Rock 93.9

As Metallica gears up to celebrate its 40th anniversary, a new book will examine the impact the band and its music have had on our culture.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book, written by Ben Apatoff after years of exhaustive research, features chapters dedicated to each band member and each album. It’ll also cover touring, fashion, books, film, influences, fandom, history and more.

“I wanted it to be more than a fact book, and not just something people could look up on the Internet,” says Apatoff.

The book covers Metallica through 2021, and is the first one written with access to the band’s box set materials. Unpublished photos, new transcriptions of video interviews and magazine quotes that were previously unavailable online round out the tome.

The book’s foreword was written by Laina Dawes, the author of the 2013 memoir What Are You Doing Here? A Black Woman’s Life and Liberation in Heavy Metal.

Metallica: The $24.95 Book will be released in August, but you can pre-order it now.  We’re sure you can figure out how much it costs.

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The 2020 edition of the Farm Aid was a virtual event because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this year’s installment of the festival, which supports family-run and independent farms in the U.S., will return to being a live, in-person extravaganza.

Farm Aid 2021 is scheduled for September 25 in Hartford, Connecticut, at Xfinity Theatre, the same venue where the 2018 festival was held. As usual, the event will be headlined by Farm Aid board members Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews and Willie Nelson, with Matthews playing as a duo with his longtime collaborator, Tim Reynolds.

This year’s lineup also features Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Bettye LaVette, Jamey Johnson, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and more. Tickets for the festival go on sale to the public this Friday, July 23, at 10 a.m. ET. A limited number of pre-sale tickets can be purchased now at FarmAid.org/Festival.

“The experience of the past 18 months has reminded us how much we need each other,” says Willie Nelson, Farm Aid’s president and co-founder. “I’m so glad that music is bringing us all back together at Farm Aid 2021 to celebrate family farmers. When we combine music, family farmers and good food, we have the power to grow the kind of agriculture that strengthens all of us.”

The festival will feature local and organic foods produced at family farms, and will offer various agricultural-themed activities and forums presented by farmers and artists.

In addition, a silent auction featuring rare and signed memorabilia, including guitars and prints, will be held to raise money for Farm Aid. The sale will run from September 25 to October 8 at FarmAid.org/auction.

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For a guy who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lung cancer earlier this year, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood is extremely busy. He received a clean bill of health in March, and he’s got his hands in several different projects.

Wood tells The Times of London, “Me and Mick [Jagger] have done nine new tracks for the re-release of Tattoo You.”  Wood adds that Jagger, who underwent heart surgery in 2019, is “fighting fit,” and says, “We both can’t wait to get working again.”

Tattoo You will mark its 40th anniversary on August 24; the reissue has yet to be officially announced.

On top of that, Wood says, “Me, Rod [Stewart] and Kenney [Jones] have been recording some new Faces music.”  He’s also putting the finishing touches on Mr. Luck — A Tribute to Jimmy Reed: Live at the Royal Albert Hall, a live album originally recorded in 2013 that will be released September 3.

As Ronnie puts it, “I’ve had a front-row seat on some amazing rock ‘n’ roll projects these past couple of weeks. I’m making every day count. Not wasting a moment.”

In August, two life-size fiberglass lions that Wood, a respected painter, has been decorating over the past couple of months will go on display in London. They’ll be auctioned in November for the charity Tusk, which supports animal conservation in Africa.

Wood adds, “I go through art phases when music is secondary, but right now I really want to get out there and play.”

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Journey‘s classic seventh studio album, Escape, was released 40 years ago this past week.

The chart-topping record was Journey’s first album to feature keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who left The Babys to join the band, replacing founding member Gregg Rolie.

Cain immediately began collaborating with Journey’s main songwriters, frontman Steve Perry and guitarist Neal Schon, and wound up co-writing all of Escape‘s 10 tracks.

“They wanted me to help change their sound,” Cain tells ABC Audio. “They wanted me to help take Journey to the next place.”

Cain says he developed a synergy with Perry and Schon in the studio that reminded him of the chemistry The Beatles had.

“We knew our roles,” Jonathan notes. “We knew when to step in, when to kick back.”

Reflecting on Escape‘s musical diversity, Cain notes, “It’s a menagerie of pop and rock…[A]ll the influences…kind of stewed together. And the critics really kind of dismissed it…but it had a way of selling, and kept selling.”

That menagerie included Journey’s first three top-10 hits — “Open Arms”, “Who’s Crying Now” and “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which peaked at #2, #4 and #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.

Cain says he’d written most of “Open Arms” before joining Journey, and then enlisted Perry to help finish the lyrics.

Jonathan recalls that when he presented the pop ballad to the band, “they looked at us like we were Martians,” but “when [Steve] sang it, it was extraordinary.”

Then there was “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which while it wasn’t Escape‘s biggest chart hit, it’s become Journey’s signature song.

Cain says he remembers musing with Perry about Journey one day having a transcendent anthem like The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” and with “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “40 years later, I think we have one. What a blessing.”

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Mick Jagger has eight children who range in age from 50 to four years old, and his current girlfriend has now given us a glimpse of the Rolling Stones front man with his youngest.

Ballet dancer Melanie Hamrick, Mick’s girlfriend, shared a photo on Instagram of herself along with Mick and little Devereaux.  Hamrick, 34, is kissing Mick, 77 on the cheek while Devereaux peeps out from behind his dad’s leg.  The photo, posted on Sunday, evidently was taken around the time of Hamrick’s birthday.

Mick’s children include Karis, his daughter with Marsha Hunt; Jade, who he shares with Bianca Jagger; Georgia, Lizzie, James and Gabriel, who he shares with Jerry Hall, and Lucas, who he shares with his ex Luciana Morad.

Some of the kids seem pretty close: Georgia, 29, posted some photos of herself with Luca, 22, in L.A. just last month.

 

 

 

 

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Green Day is doing a surprise show Tuesday night in Tulsa, OK.  The sold-out show, which starts at 9:15pm, will take place at Tulsa’s legendary venue, Cain’s Ballroom.

While the show was first announced earlier on Monday, the band noted on its socials, “Due to the recent spike in the Delta variant, and because it’s indoors, we’ve been asked to do this as a fully vaccinated show. ID & proof of vaccination will be required for entry for ALL attendees. No exceptions.” 

In the comments, some fans expressed displeasure at this requirement.  On the event page, the band also noted that the date of attendees’ last injection must be “not later than July 6, no exceptions at all.”

The Hella Mega tour, featuring Green Day, Fall Out Boy and Weezer, officially gets underway July 24 at Globe Life Field in Dallas, TX.  No word if Green Day plans to do any other surprise shows ahead of the tour.

 

 

 

 

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What did a year with no live gigs do to the fortunes of rock’s biggest stars?  Well, they definitely took a hit, but the lucky few who managed to get some live dates in before the pandemic shut things down did well, as did sales and streaming of new releases and catalog reissues.

Among veteran artists, The Eagles were tops. They came in fourth on Billboard‘s ranking of the highest-paid musicians of 2020 in the U.S.,  behind pop superstars Taylor Swift, Post Malone and Celine Dion.  That’s because they were lucky enough to have played 10 shows before the pandemic hit, netting them about $11 million. The rest of their $16.3 million paycheck came from streaming radio and sales and streaming of recordings.

Queen rank number seven with earnings of $13.2 million, thanks to royalties from record sales, publishing and massive streaming numbers.  In fact, their on-demand audio streams outranked every other veteran act on the list.

The Beatles ranked number eight with $12.9 million thanks to physical sales of their albums — most of which were pricey vinyl reissues — plus an impressive 1.8 billion streams, which Billboard says is rare for a rock band.

Just out of the top 10, AC/DC came in at #13 with $10.1 million, thanks to sales of its 2020 album Power Up, its back catalog and nearly 1.5 billion streams

Here’s how some other veteran acts ranked in terms of their U.S. paychecks:

18. Metallica, $9 million
20. Pink Floyd, $8.8 million
29. Fleetwood Mac, $6.6 million (thanks to that viral “Dreams” TikTok video)
33. KISS, $6 million
34. Rolling Stones, $5.96 million
39. Billy Joel, $5.49 million
40. Aerosmith, $5.35 million

Globally, though, Queen soar to number one in the rankings.

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What did a year with no live gigs do to the fortunes of rock’s biggest stars?  Well, they definitely took a hit, but the lucky few who managed to get some live dates in before the pandemic shut things down did well. Streaming of new releases and catalog reissues also helped.

Billie Eilish is the highest-ranking rock act on Billboard‘s list of the highest-paid musicians of 2020, thanks to three pre-pandemic concerts she performed.  However, she made the bulk of her $14.7 million in streaming and publishing, as well as physical album sales.

Queen came in at number seven with earnings of $13.2 million, thanks to some 2020 tour dates, plus royalties from record sales, publishing and massive streaming numbers.  In fact, their on-demand audio streams outranked every other veteran act on the list.  Globally, Queen soared to number one in the rankings.

Just out of the top 10, AC/DC came in at #13 with $10.1 million, thanks to sales of its 2020 album Power Up, its back catalog and nearly 1.5 billion streams.  Metallica came in at #18 with $9 million, mostly thanks to the sales of their August 2020 live album S&M2 and their digitally remastered catalog.

Also in Billboard‘s Top 40: The Lumineers, who managed to play 20 shows in 2020 and earned $6.8 million; Tool, coming in with $6.17 million thanks to nine shows they did in 2020 prior to the pandemic; KISS with $6 million thanks to their 20 live dates, and Aerosmith, who earned $5.35 million thanks to streaming and the shows they played as part of their Las Vegas residency before COVID cut them off.

The list shows just how much rock bands depend on touring revenue; as Billboard notes, the top earners collectively took home $387 million in 2020. By comparison, in 2019, the top earners raked in $969 million.

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Elton John has played his legendary hits countless times, but he admits that he’s gotten a bit rusty since the pandemic forced him off the road.

In a special 300th episode of his long-running Apple Radio show Elton John’s Rocket Hour, Elton interviews singer-songwriter Yola. While discussing the prospect of returning to live concerts, Elton admits, “Last Saturday I had to do a charity show on my own, just me and the piano. I hadn’t sung for over a year. In the afternoon, I was sitting at my piano at home, which I never play, and I was rehearsing songs.”

“I [was thinking], ‘Even though I[‘ve] played these songs thousands of times, if I go there tonight and I f**k this up, I will look so stupid,” he continues. “So I was quiet, we had house guests, and I was trying to be as quiet as a mouse and I was trying to rehearse stuff.”

“I’m thinking, “God, if they could hear me now,'” he laughs. “They’re thinking, ‘How many times has he sung that? Why is he rehearsing?’ [But] if you haven’t done it for a long time, you got to do it, right?”

Elton is set to resume actual live concerts September 1 in Berlin, Germany. The North American leg of his Farewell Tour arrives in the U.S. in January of 2022.

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The Ohana Festival, founded by Eddie Vedder in 2015, is scheduled to take place September 24-26, but it’s proven to be so popular that a second weekend has been added.

The Ohana Festival encore weekend will be October 1-2, once again at Doheny State Beach in Dana Point, CA. Pearl Jam, which was already headlining one night of the original festival, will headline both nights of the encore, and those will be the band’s only additional concert dates for 2021.  Additionally, Eddie Vedder is headlining one night of the original festival solo.

The acts who’ll perform on the encore weekend include Beck, Brandi Carlile, Sleater-Kinney, White Reaper and NHC — aka Navarro Hawkins Cheney, comprised of Jane’s Addiction members Dave Navarro and Chris Cheney, along with Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Those three musicians played together under the name Ground Control on the January 8 David Bowie tribute livestream A Bowie Celebration: Just for One Day! Slipknot‘s Corey Taylor joined them on vocals.

Tickets for the encore weekend go on sale Friday, July 23 at 10 a.m. PT at OhanaFest.com.  The first weekend in sold out.

A portion of the proceeds from the festival will benefit the San Onofre Parks Foundation and the Doheny State Beach Foundation.

 

 

 

 

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