Classic Rock 93.9

Queen recently released the box set Queen 1, dedicated to their self-titled debut album, and in the latest installment of their Queen The Greatest video series, they are giving fans a little insight into the making of the record.

Guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor share what it was like when they got into the studio for the first time, with Taylor noting, “it was tough in the beginning,” because they could only get studio time during odd hours when it was free. 

Despite the difficulties, which also included different producers and pressures to sound a certain way because of the studio, May notes, “I think us as a band, we came through.”

But when the album came out in 1973, critics were indifferent, with Taylor calling it a “tsunami of nothing.” 

“Tell you what helped, we looked at some of the reviews for the Led Zeppelin albums that had been out at that time, some of which were appallingly bad,” May shares. “And we thought, well, if they can run these people down, we shouldn’t be too worried about being run down ourselves.”

The audience also helped, with May noting, “once we had that first album out we had an audience that understood us and were really behind us …That really gives you the energy you need.”

With the new box set, Queen was able to use modern technology to right some of the wrongs they felt happened during the recording.

“Essentially with the Queen 1 box set we’ve made the actual album sound the way we wanted it to sound,” Taylor notes. “The overall sound of it is better … I think we’ve greatly improved it.”

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The Grateful Dead is ringing in November by once again launching 30 Days of Dead.

The month-long campaign offers fans an unreleased live Dead track from the vault every day throughout November, with each download selected by Dead archivist and producer David Lemieux.

“The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed,” reads a post on Instagram, “but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.”

The songs, posted to dead.net, will be taken from a past Dead show, and fans can win prizes if they correctly guess the date and venue of the concert where the song came from. The daily prize is a 2025 Grateful Dead wall calendar, but there’s also a grand prize, a copy of one of the limited, numbered, Friend of the Devils: April 78 box sets.

30 Days of the Dead kicked off on Friday, with a performance of the songs “Space” and “The Wheel,” which, according to the website, were from Bobby Weir and Jerry Garcia’s respective 1972 solo albums, and never actually recorded in the studio by the Grateful Dead.

More info can be found at dead.net.

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Tears for Fears are returning to Las Vegas next year.

The band recently wrapped a three-night stand at the BleauLive Theater inside Fontainebleau Las Vegas, and they’ve now announced plans to return to the venue with four new shows in 2025.

The new concerts are set for Jan. 31, Feb. 1, Feb. 5 and Feb. 7, with a ticket presale launching Monday at 10 a.m. and tickets going on sale to the general public starting Nov. 9 at 10 a.m.

The news comes just a week after Tears for Fears released the first-ever live album, Songs For A Nervous Planet, featuring live recordings of their classics like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” “Sowing the Seeds of Love,” “Shout” and “Head Over Heels,” taken from their 2022 The Tipping Point Tour.

In addition, the album includes four new studio tracks: “Emily Said,” “Say Goodbye To Mum And Dad,” “Astronaut” and “The Girl That I Call Home.”

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Thin Lizzy is back with their first new album in over four decades.

The rockers announced plans to release the new album, Acoustic Sessions, featuring reimagined versions of tracks from their first three albums, including the first-ever acoustic version of their classic “Whiskey In The Jar.”

The album combines guitar work from founding member Eric Bell, and the original drum takes of Brian Downey, with previously unheard vocal recordings from Thin Lizzy’s late co-founder and frontman Phil Lynott.

According to the description, the album presents the songs “in an intimate, stripped-down format that is sure to captivate both long time fans and a new generation of listeners.” 

This will be Thin Lizzy’s first album since 1983’s Thunder and Lightning. Lynott passed away in January 1986 at the age of 34.

So far no release date has been announced for Acoustic Sessions but it is available for preorder now. Here is the track list for Acoustic Sessions:
“Mama Nature Said”
“A Song For While I’m Away”
“Eire”
“Slow Blues – E.B” (Eric Bell)
“Dublin”
“Whiskey In The Jar”
“Here I Go Again”
“Shades Of A Blue Orphanage”
“Remembering Pt. 2”

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Talking Heads have shared a previously unreleased track from their upcoming box set celebrating the band’s debut album, Talking Heads: 77.

The latest is “Pulled Up (Alternate Pop Version),” a new take on the album’s closing track.

Talking Heads: 77 (Super Deluxe Edition), dropping Nov. 8, will be made up of four LPs, one of which is a remaster of the original album. There’s also an LP of unreleased demos and outtakes, along with the two-LP live album, Live at CBGB, New York, NY, Oct. 10, 1977. 

The set also includes four 7-inch singles, an 80-page hardcover book with never-before-seen photos and liner notes written by the members of Talking Heads — David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison — and recording engineer Ed Stasium.

In addition to the super deluxe edition, the reissue will be in a variety of other formats, including digitally, on two-LP standard black vinyl and as a three-CD/Blu-ray set, with the Blu-ray featuring new high-quality mixes of the album.

Talking Heads: 77 (Super Deluxe Edition) is available for preorder now.

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On This Day, Nov. 1, 1969 …

The Beatles topped the Billboard 200 album chart with Abbey Road. The album spent 11 weeks at #1 and a total of 490 weeks on the chart.

Abbey Road was the last album The Beatles recorded, although Let It Be was the last album they finished and released before their 1970 breakup. It featured the iconic cover of the band walking across the street in single file.

The album featured such classic Beatles tunes as “Here Comes the Sun,” “Come Together,” “Something” and “Octopus’ Garden.”

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Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band spent Halloween night rocking Montreal, Quebec, but only acknowledged the festive day with one musical moment.

Taking the stage to scary-sounding music, Bruce and the band launched into a cover of Ray Parker Jr.‘s 1984 #1 hit “Ghostbusters,” much to the delight of the crowd, who shouted the call-and-response “Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!” part at the top of their lungs.

But after that moment of levity, the first portion of the show was downbeat, with Bruce next launching into the deep cut “Seeds,” then devoting a good chunk of the first set to songs inspired by serious topics like death, disillusionment and loss, such as “Lonesome Day,” “Atlantic City,” “Youngstown,” “Ghosts” and “Letter to You.”

At one point, Bruce made mention of the importance of the upcoming U.S presidential election, then performed “Long Walk Home,” which he described as “a prayer for my country.”

The mood eventually turned more upbeat, with “Wrecking Ball,” “She’s the One,” “The Rising” and “Badlands,” before Bruce ended the show with a nonstop string of classics like “Thunder Road,” “Born to Run,” “Dancing in the Dark” and “Rosalita” and a rave-up version of “Twist and Shout.” 

As always on this particular tour, he ended with the wistful acoustic number “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” And while Bruce and the band didn’t wear Halloween costumes, many fans did, including a few dressed like Bruce circa Born in the U.S.A., with white tees, jeans and red ballcaps tucked into their back pockets.

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Metallica‘s Lars Ulrich has announced a new signature drum kit with the company TAMA.

The kit celebrates the 40th anniversary of the relationship between Ulrich and TAMA, which began in 1984 thanks to a recommendation from Rush‘s Neil Peart.

The anniversary model is a replica of Ulrich’s current setup on Metallica’s M72 tour supporting their latest album, 2023’s 72 Seasons. Fittingly, only 72 sets will be sold.

For more info, visit TAMA.com.

You can see Ulrich play his TAMA drums when the M72 tour returns to the U.S. in April 2025.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 

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Warren Haynes’ new solo album, Million Voices Whisper, is out now, and it’s his first solo record in more than 10 years.

The Gov’t Mule frontman tells ABC Audio that one of the reasons he decided to make another solo record after all this time was because he’d been writing so much since the pandemic, noting that most of the songs on the album “were written in the past two or three years.”

“Usually if I write a handful of songs that seem to work together but don’t seem like Gov’t Mule songs, I start getting an indication that it’s time to make a solo record,” he shares. 

Haynes says that making a solo record isn’t all that different from making one with Gov’t Mule, in that he uses the same approach, “which is us side by side in the studio, looking at each other while we’re recording live, as live as possible.”

He adds, “The biggest difference would be the musicians themselves and the way everybody is interpreting the songs.”

Million Voices Whisper features already released singles “Life As We Know It” and “Day of Reckoning,” featuring Lukas Nelson and Jamey Johnson. And there’s also a very special track, “Real Real Love,” featuring Derek Trucks, which is a song that was originally started by the late Allman Brothers Band leader Gregg Allman, but never finished. 

“I wanted it to be as if he were there and I wanted to write the music the way he would approach it, even down to the vocal melody and the way I chose to sing it,” he says of his approach to finishing the tune. “It came about really quickly and easily, and Gregg’s presence was there for sure.” 

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In honor of Halloween, Paul McCartney is talking spooky encounters — and apparently he hasn’t had any, at least in his everyday life. 

“My dreams are very supernatural, I can go anywhere there. But not in real life,” he shares in a Q&A on his website. “I’ve never actually seen a ghost or a spirit, and I’m not a great believer in all that.”

Sir Paul says having kids kept him from being a true believer, noting, “when they’d say, ‘Dad, I’m scared of ghosts,’ I’d say, ‘There’s no such thing.’ You do a lot of that as a parent.” 

“So, I don’t believe in it,” he adds. “I think the human mind is susceptible to getting a bit worked up and overexcited, and often these things have a rational explanation in the end.” 

McCartney is currently on his Got Back tour and has a break for Halloween, but he’ll be on stage Friday, playing a show in Bogotá, Colombia. A complete list of dates can be found at paulmccartney.com.

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