Eddie Vedder is covering the Tom Petty & The Hearbreakers song “Room at the Top” for the upcoming Apple TV+ series Bad Monkey.
The track will premiere on Friday, but you can hear a clip now via the Pearl Jam frontman’s Facebook.
You may recall that Vedder previously performed “Room at the Top” during the in memoriam segment of the 2018 Oscars. He’s also performed it during his solo shows.
Bad Monkey, starring Vince Vaughn, premieres Aug. 14. It’ll mark the second show of 2024 to spawn a Vedder cover — he previously put his spin on The English Beat‘s “Save It for Later” for the third season of The Bear.
Paul McCartney and Wings recently released the live album One Hand Clapping, 50 years after they recorded it, and now fans are going to get some insight into the making of the record with a new documentary.
Paul McCartney and Wings – One Hand Clapping will be released in theaters beginning Sept. 26, featuring footage and interviews with the band, as well as contributions from the creative team behind the album.
The doc will also include the previously unreleased Backyard Sessions, with footage showing McCartney performing tracks from his catalog on acoustic guitar, as well as an intro by McCartney and Polaroid photos from the recording session.
“It’s so great to look back on that period and see the little live show we did,” McCartney shares. “We made a pretty good noise actually! It was a great time for the band, we started to have success with Wings, which had been a long time coming.”
One Hand Clapping was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in August 1974 as a video documentary and possible live album, although it never officially came out until its recent June release. The album includes live recordings of such Wings hits as “Live and Let Die,” “Band on the Run,” “Jet” and “My Love,” as well as Paul’s solo song “Maybe I’m Amazed” and reworked versions of Beatles songs like “Let It Be,” “Lady Madonna” and “The Long and Winding Road.”
Traffic’s Dave Mason is ready to share his story in the upcoming memoir Only You Know and I Know, but it may not have happened if it wasn’t for his fans and his wife.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer tells ABC Audio he was “badgered” into writing the book, noting that for a long time fans have been telling him he should write one.
“And frankly, if it was up to me, you know, left to my own devices, I probably would never have done it since I’m (a) pretty private person,” he shares. “And then, of course, my wife got on my back, which was, that was the end of that.”
Mason writes about all the artists he’s worked with over the years, including his Traffic bandmates, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton, but he notes that the book is about more than the music.
“For the most part, I tried to write about a personal journey, a life’s story,” he says. “It just happens to have some major sort of highlights that … normally most people would never get to do.”
The book also contains essays from several of Mason’s friends and colleagues, and he says he was open to include whatever anybody wanted to write about him.
“Write whatever you want is how I left it with everybody,” he says. “If they want to say well it was great, and this was great, but he’s a real a******, I mean, it would have been fine. It would of just lent a little more salt and pepper to the narrative.”
In his 1985 solo hit “Lucky In Love,” Mick Jagger sang that he was “a bettin’ fool/ a gamblin’ man.” Well, an actual person who fits that description has now changed his name … to Mick Jagger.
According to the U.K.’s ITV, the 62-year-old man says he ruined his life gambling and has now changed his name to Mick Jagger in an effort to escape his past. The recovering gambling addict started betting on horse races at age 12 and subsequently went through hundreds of thousands of dollars. His family disowned him and he was forced to live on the streets.
“I’ve had plenty of low points when I’ve thought it would just be better to end it all,” Mick told ITV News Anglia. “I’ve had flats. I’ve had jobs. I’ve lost them through gambling. I spent more time in the betting shop than I did at work. I never paid my rent or my bills because I always gambled it away.”
The good news is that five years ago Mick connected with a local homelessness charity. He now lives at the charity’s home base and works in its garden, and he hasn’t gambled in 18 months.
“I’m a new person. Just because we suffer with addiction we’re not bad people,” he tells ITV News Anglia.
No word on what the real Mick Jagger thinks about this — perhaps he has “Mixed Emotions.”
Rod Stewart was set to perform at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace Wednesday, Aug. 7, in what was to have been a residency-ending performance of his show Rod Stewart: The Hits. Earlier on Wednesday, he announced that the final show wouldn’t actually be his final show after all and he would be returning to the Colosseum in 2025. But now, the point is moot — because Wednesday’s show has been canceled.
The concert, the 200th show of Rod’s current residency, is off because Rod is sick. He wrote on Instagram, “I’m desperately sorry to miss this 200th show celebration. Many people can work with strep throat but obviously not me. I’m absolutely gutted.”
“I’ve been looking forward to this concert for so long,” he continued. “My deepest regrets for any inconvenience this has caused. Thankfully we’ll now be returning in 2025 and I hope to see you all there.”
It’s not clear if the tickets for this show will be good for the new residency, The Encore Shows, which starts in March. According to a press release, this will be a somewhat different show, with new production and different songs.
Neil Young recently announced the release of Archives Vol. III (1976-1987), a massive box set that includes 15 previously unreleased songs among its 198 tracks. Ahead of the package’s release on Sept. 16, you can now stream one of those never-before-heard songs.
The website of the U.K. magazine MOJO has premiered “Winter Winds,” which Young recorded at his Broken Arrow Ranch in Half Moon Bay, California, as part of the sessions that resulted in the 1980 LP Hawks & Doves. The country-rock tune features fiddle and pedal steel, similar to those released on the second side of the album. The song will be officially released on Aug. 9.
As previously reported, the deluxe edition of Archives III includes 22 discs: 17 CDs and five Blu-rays. It includes 198 musical tracks, with 121 previously unreleased versions of songs, including live and studio recordings, and new mixes or edits, plus the 15 previously unreleased songs.
The Blu-rays feature 11 films, four of which have never been released before.
If that’s too much for you, there’s also a separate 17-CD limited-edition Archives Vol. III box set, as well as a double vinyl LP, Takes, which has 16 tracks, featuring one song each from 16 of the 17 CDs.
Archives Vol. III sets are available for preorder at the Greedy Hand Store at Neil Young Archives. Those who preorder the set will get a CD with the songs from the Takes vinyl included. The 17-CD set will also be available at music retailers.
Playing concerts isn’t the only thing Flea does naked.
During an episode of the Where Everybody Knows YourName podcast, hosted by Cheers costars Woody Harrelson and Ted Danson, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist recalls the time he and Harrelson went snowboarding together without wearing any clothes.
“I have footage of Woody Harrelson and I snowboarding stark naked down a big, snowy mountain,” Flea shares.
“It’s actually great footage!” Harrelson adds.
Apparently, Flea and Harrelson take snowboarding trips together quite frequently. Flea also tells a story of a time he and Harrelson were racing when the bassist almost hit a woman on the mountain. He says he offered her a sincere apology, though she didn’t accept.
“She takes her ski pole and sticks it in my face,” Flea recalls. “At this point I’m like, ‘Well, look, I’m f****** sorry, but get your f****** pole out of my face.'”
“Woody comes up and he just sees her pole in my face, and he comes to my defense like a good friend,” he continues. “Then she goes, ‘My husband’s gonna come down here and he’s gonna show you what for.’ And that’s when [Harrelson’s] like, ‘Bring the f****** husband!'”
We can only assume that all of this inspired the RHCP song “Snow (Hey Oh).”
Sammy Hagar has talked at length about his failed attempts to get in contact with his former bandmate Alex Van Halen. Now he thinks he may know why the drummer is ghosting him.
Speaking to theLas Vegas Review-Journal, Hagar, who’s currently out on his Best of Both Worlds Tour, says, “I reached out to Alex a dozen times, before this tour was announced, and got no response. I mean, I’ve asked him to meet me under any conditions, any circumstances, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It’s not like, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ It’s like, no answer. Zero.”
According to Hagar, he wants to offer Alex a spotlight during the tour to “just play a couple of songs” or, if he wants to, “be the drummer the whole night” — or, he laughs, “be the executive producer. What do you want to do?”
But Sammy is now floating the idea that Alex is ignoring him because he’s going to put out his autobiography, called Brothers, this fall.
“I’m sure when he made his book deal, they said, ‘You cannot talk to Dave [Lee Roth], and you cannot talk to Hagar,” says the Red Rocker. “I guarantee you, that that was part of the deal.”
Still, Sammy is soldiering on with his current lineup: Joe Satriani on guitar, Jason Bonham on drums, Van Halen‘s Michael Anthony on bass and keyboardist Rai Thistlethwayte.
“The idea of putting together guys who maybe have not played together before — Joe and Mike and I have not played together with Jason before — is a revelation,” says Hagar.
Fans at Woodstock; Owen Franken/Corbis via Getty Images
Fifty-five years ago — Aug. 15, 1969, to Aug. 17, 1969 — the original Woodstock festival took place in Bethel, New York. And while many revere it as the ultimate “peace and love” musical experience, some of those who were there don’t remember it that fondly.
Joan Baez, who headlined the first night of the festival, told the San Diego Union-Tribune, “It was a rare, historic moment, but it’s been over-glorified. People say to me, ‘Oh, man, you played at Woodstock and you had everything — the music, the political scene, the community.’ And I tell them: ‘Yeah, we had the rain and the mud!’”
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart told the Union-Tribune, “I recall the people who played really well at Woodstock — Carlos Santana, Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix — were over-the-top great. But we just didn’t play well. It was a missed opportunity.”
The Who‘s guitarist Pete Townshend didn’t buy into the scene. He told the Union-Tribune, “The dream and ideology of rock ‘n roll was rooted in the idea that … the ‘Woodstock generation,’ were super-luminaries, but I’ve never agreed with that. I always thought that was the biggest crock of s*** America has ever come up with.”
Billy Joel attended Woodstock as a fan, but left after a day and a half. “I hated it,” he said. “I think a lot of that ‘community spirit’ was based on the fact that everybody was so wasted … it was all muddy, and you couldn’t go to the bathroom unless you stood up and went right where you were.”
The Jefferson Airplane‘s Grace Slick confirms that, recalling, “I’m amazed I was able to be on the side of the stage for 12 hours before we played — without having to take a pee. There were no bathrooms.”
Live Nation Las Vegas/Caesars Entertainment/Denise Truscello
After announcing that he was going to end his 13-year Las Vegas residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace with his 200th show on Aug. 7, Rod Stewart has changed his mind.
Speaking about ending the residency earlier this year, Rod told ABC Audio that he “can’t imagine not going back [to Vegas] again” — and that’s exactly what he’s doing, in 2025. He’s announced Rod Stewart: The Encore Shows, which will begin in March. There are 12 shows scheduled, taking place in March, May and June.
These new performances will evidently be different from his residency, which was called The Hits. It will include the hits, but also, according to a press release, “surprises from the songbook, swing … deep cuts, and stunning new production elements.”
This would seem to indicate that Rod plans to incorporate some material from his most recent album, Swing Fever, a collaboration with former Squeeze keyboardist and band leader Jools Holland.
Fan club presale tickets go on sale Aug. 8 at 10 a.m. PT, and so will Citi cardmember tickets via citientertainment.com. Other presales start on Aug. 9, and tickets go on sale to the general public Aug. 12 at 10 a.m. PT via ticketmaster.com/rodstewartvegas.
