Iggy Pop performed the track “Punkrocker,” a song he released with the Swedish band Teddybears back in 2006, live for the first time Saturday during his set at the Project Pabst festival in Portland, Oregon.
As for why a song nearly 20 years old is getting its live debut now, “Punkrocker” has seen a resurgence thanks to its use in the new Superman movie.
Following the film’s premiere earlier in July, Pop toldThe Hollywood Reporter, “I always thought [‘Punkrocker’] had soul.”
“Superman is the best friend you could have,” the Godfather of Punk added.
Dusty Hill, longtime bassist for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band ZZ Top, passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, Texas. He was 72.
Born Joe Michael Hill in Dallas, Texas, Dusty and drummer Frank Beard joined guitarist Billy F Gibbons in ZZ Top shortly after they were formed in 1968, with the band releasing their debut album, ZZ Top’s First Album, in 1971.
The band went on to release 15 albums over the course of their career, selling an estimated 50 million records.
ZZ Top’s most commercially successful album is 1984’s Eliminator, which peaked at #9 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold over 11 million copies in the U.S. The album included four hit singles: “Legs,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharped Dressed Man” and “TV Dinners.”
Hill was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with ZZ Top in 2015.
The Ozzy Osbourne best-of compilation The Essential Ozzy Osbourne has jumped into the top 10 on the Billboard 200 following the metal icon’s death on July 22.
The set, which debuted and peaked at #81 on the Billboard 200 upon its initial release in 2003, launches to #7 on the latest edition of the chart. It moved 44,000 equivalent album units during the tracking week for July 18-24.
The Essential Ozzy Osbourne includes a number of the Prince of Darkness’ biggest solo hits, such as “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.”
In other Ozzy news, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler penned a tribute to his late bandmate in an essay for the U.K.’s The Sunday Times.
“To me, Ozzy wasn’t the Prince of Darkness — if anything he was the Prince of Laughter,” Butler writes. “He’d do anything for a laugh, a born entertainer.”
Ozzy had just performed alongside Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward on July 5 as part of the Back to the Beginning concert, which was previously announced as the final performance by the original Black Sabbath lineup. It was also promoted as Ozzy’s last-ever live show.
The lineup for the upcoming Bad Company tribute album has been revealed.
Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company, dropping Oct. 24, will have artists covering the group’s biggest hits, including “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Bad Company” and “Shooting Star,” along with a cover of Free’s top-five hit, “All Right Now.”
Artists contributing to the record include Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Slash featuring Myles Kennedyand The Conspirators, The Pretty Reckless, HARDY, Halestorm,The Struts, and more.
Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke also appear on the album. Rodgers collaborates with Halestorm on “Shooting Star,” and with Blackberry Smoke’s on “Run With the Pack.” Meanwhile both Rodgers and Kirke join Elliott and Collen on “Seagull.”
“I’ve loved Bad Company since the very beginning, a phenomenal combination of two of my favorite bands, Free and Mott The Hoople, what’s not to love?!” says Elliott. “What a privilege it is for myself and Phil to cover one of my favorite Bad Co songs WITH Paul & Simon! Wow!”
The first track released from the record is The Struts’ cover of “Rock & Roll Fantasy,” which was previously released as a 7-inch vinyl for Record Store Day in April. It is available now via digital outlets.
Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company will be released on CD, digitally and on limited edition silver colored vinyl. All formats are available for preorder now.
The album’s release comes ahead of the band’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, happening Nov. 8 at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It will stream live on Disney+ and a highlights special will air on ABC at a later date.
Here is the track list for Can’t Get Enough: The Music of Bad Company:
“Ready For Love” – HARDY “Shooting Star” – Halestorm (feat. Paul Rodgers) “Feel Like Makin’ Love” – Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators “Run with the Pack” – Blackberry Smoke (feat. Paul Rodgers & Brann Dailor) “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy”– The Struts “Bad Company” – Charley Crockett “Rock Steady” – Dirty Honey “Burnin’ Sky” – Black Stone Cherry “Seagull” – Joe Elliott and Phil Collen of Def Leppard (feat. Paul Rodgers & Simon Kirke) “All Right Now” – The Pretty Reckless
Billy Joel is the subject of a new two-part documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, and the film’s directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin didn’t have to hold back when interviewing the rocker for the film.
Lacy tells ABC Audio that from the beginning she asked Joel if there were “any sensitivities” she should be aware of, and he simply told her to “tell the truth.”
“Nothing was off-limits,” she says.
Part two of the documentary debuted Friday on HBO, and Levin says it’s “a little bit of a different animal” than part one, which was somewhat of an origin story.
“It’s a much more personal story,” she says, noting it delves into his time with wife Christie Brinkley, but also touches on his family and his Jewish heritage, explaining, that’s “probably the most important aspect” of the film.
The doc also features artists like Bruce Springsteen, Sting and others talking about Billy and his career.
“The thing about musicians is, whether the critics got him or not, musicians got him,” Lacey says. “It means a lot when you hear Bruce Springsteen say the critics missed a lot of the best of Billy ’cause they just didn’t know how to pigeonhole him, but his melodies are actually better than mine.”
The two parts cover quite a bit of Billy’s life and career, and Levin says she and Lacy hope viewers will “come away with a really complete and satisfying experience of understanding an artist that is a lot more than his top line hits.”
She adds, “I think that you will be really surprised about what a complex and emotionally available artist you find in the film in a way that Billy has never been seen before.”
Billy Joel: And So It Goes is now streaming on HBO Max.
Billy Joel is not an artist who often gets political. But in the second part of his HBO documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, he has some very strong words for President Donald Trump regarding the comments he made after 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While Billy says in the film that he “never liked getting political onstage,” he did just that after Trump responded to the rally of white nationalists by giving a speech in which he said there were “some very fine people on both sides.”
Not long after the speech, Joel came out onstage at Madison Square Garden with a yellow Star of David on his jacket as a way of protest. He explained in the film, “I had to do something. I was angry.”
“Here they are marching through an American city saying, ‘Jews will not replace us.’ We fought a war to defeat these people!” he says. “And then when Trump comes out and says, ‘There were very fine people on both sides,’ he should’ve come out and said, ‘Those are bad people.’ There is no qualifying it. The Nazis are not good people. Period!”
Joel, whose father’s family escaped Nazi Germany, adds that while he didn’t want to “get up on a soapbox,” the star was his way of doing something. He said that he wore it “basically to say, no matter what, I will always be a Jew.”
Part two of Billy Joel: And So it Goes premieres Friday on HBO. Part one and two will also stream on HBO Max.
Yungblud plans to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne by covering the Black Sabbath song “Changes” at every one of his shows.
The “Fleabag” rocker performed the Vol. 4 ballad at the Back to the Beginning concert on July 5, which marked the final show by the original Sabbath lineup, as well as Ozzy’s last performance ever. Just over two weeks later, on July 22, Ozzy’s family announced that he’d passed away at age 76.
“To sing this song for you at an event surrounded by legends inspired by you to a crowd that loved you was truly my life’s greatest honor,” Yungblud writes in an Instagram post. “I vow to play this song every night for the rest of my life.”
Yungblud adds that Ozzy was “my hero in every regard” and hopes he’s “up there [having] a drink with Randy,” referring to Ozzy’s late guitar player Randy Rhoads.
“For the prince of darkness you sure brought all the light to the world,” the post concludes. “I love you Ozzy.”
John Forgerty continues to preview his upcoming album of rerecorded Credence Clearwater Revival classics, Legacy: the Creedence Clearwater Revival years, which drops Aug. 22.
The rocker has now released his new take on “Travelin’ Band.” Fogerty said rerecording it “was like climbing a mountain,” adding, “I had to work myself up to hit that level again. I’d sing until I didn’t have anything left.”
Legacy: the Creedence Clearwater Revival years, produced by Fogerty and his son Shane Fogerty, comes two years after Fogerty fully regained the rights to his CCR catalog. The album also features new takes on CCR classics like “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” “Proud Mary,” “Fortunate Son” and “Bad Moon Rising.”
The rocker is backed on the album by both of his sons, Shane and Tyler Fogerty.
Much like time, Beavis and Butt-Head also march on, as the iconic metal-loving duo is back for another go-round. Fittingly, Beavis’ favorite band Metallica soundtracks the new trailer for the series’ return.
The trailer begins with an animated Metallica performing their song “For Whom the Bell Tolls” as Beavis and Butt-Head fly into the stadium in a helicopter filled with gold.
“Beavis and Butthead, we love you guys!” James Hetfield exclaims from the stage.
“How much to buy Metallica?” Beavis asks, to which Hetfield replies, “One gold bar ought to be enough!” Cut to Hetfield getting hit in the head with said gold bar.
New episodes of Beavis and Butt-Head will air on Comedy Central starting on Sept. 3.
A guitar that was previously owned by Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page is going up for auction in September and is expected to bring in a pretty penny.
The U.K. publication The Standard reports that the guitar up for grabs was originally part of a collaboration between New Music Express magazine and the band over 50 years ago. Back then, the mag ran a sweepstakes with the grand prize being a 1957 Gretsch Chet Atkins 6120 electric guitar that Page purchased in Nashville for about $270.
In order to enter to sweepstakes, competitors had to match six guitars with their superstar owners; a man named Charles Reid from North London won.
Reid sold the guitar in 1990 to a man named Phil O’Donoghue for under $3,000. Following O’Donoghue’s death earlier this year, the family decided to put it up for auction.
The auction is now scheduled to take place Sept. 9 in England; the guitar is estimated to sell for somewhere between $40,000 and $70,000.
Whoever purchases the guitar will also get original copies of New Music Express, along with receipts and correspondence.
