Classic Rock 93.9

Ringo Starr has shared a new song, “February Sky,” the first single off his upcoming EP, Crooked Boy.

Crooked Boy features four original tracks, written and produced by Linda Perry. Perry previously worked with Ringo on two of his earlier EPs, writing “Coming Undone” for Change the World and “Everyone and Everything” for EP3.

“Linda made me a great EP – she produced it in her studio and then sent me the tracks and I added the drumming and my vocals,” Ringo shares. “’February Sky’ is great – very moody – but since Linda wrote these specifically for me – it of course has to have a positive peace & love element.”

You can listen to “February Sky” now via digital outlets and on YouTube.

Crooked Boy is being released on limited-edition marble vinyl for Record Store Day on April 20. That will be followed by a digital release on April 26, with the black vinyl and CD versions dropping May 31.

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Iron Maiden‘s Bruce Dickinson is launching an international tour in support of his new solo album, The Mandrake Project. The outing, which includes dates in Mexico, Brazil and Europe, will bring Dickinson’s famed vocals into more intimate theater-type venues, as opposed to the arenas he normally plays with Maiden.

“The main part of the show is the music and the musicians, ’cause it’s real,” Dickinson tells ABC Audio of the theater experience. “It’s real human beings, flesh and blush. You can touch them. Not only can you touch them, you can smell them!”

Before the tour begins in earnest, Dickinson will play one-off warmup shows in Los Angeles and Santa Ana, California, on April 12 and April 15, respectively. As for a full U.S. tour, Dickinson’s certainly down for that.

“Obviously a certain amount of it depends on how well the album is received, how well it goes down, whether people go, ‘Oh my God, we gotta go and see this,'” Dickinson says. “If they do, which I hope they do, then I’ll be more than happy to bring it to the U.S. and Canada and all of the above.”

If and when a U.S. tour happens, it won’t be until at least 2025, as Dickinson’s schedule is full for 2024. After the solo shows wrap up in July, Maiden will launch a tour of Australia, New Zealand and Japan in September, followed by a U.S. run kicking off in October.

“I know what Maiden are doing [in 2025], which is all sort of top secret at the moment,” Dickinson says. “But what Maiden are doing gives me a lot of space to go and plan something.” 

The Mandrake Project is out now.

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On This Day, April 12, 1976… 

Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band released the album ‘Live’ Bullet, recorded at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan. 

Now considered one of the greatest live albums of all time, it helped Seger break through to a national audience, while the live version of “Turn the Page” became a rock radio staple. In addition to “Turn the Page,” several songs from the record actually became hit singles, including “Nutbush City Limits” and “Lookin’ Back.” 

The album was certified five-times Platinum by the RIAA, and in 2012 it ranked at 10 on Rolling Stone’s poll of the all-time favorite live albums.

Seger went on to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2012.

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Paul McCartney and the Eagles were among the many artists who celebrated the late Jimmy Buffett at Keep the Party Going: A Tribute to Jimmy Buffett in Los Angeles on Thursday, with fan-shot footage on YouTube showing McCartney sharing tales of his friendship with the singer. 

“I had the great pleasure of knowing Jimmy,” McCartney told the audience at the Hollywood Bowl. “And like everyone else on the bill tonight has said, this is one great man. He was generous, he was funny, he’d done just about everything in his life.”

McCartney talked of the time Buffett got a custom left-handed guitar made for him, and also reminisced about singing with him the week before he died. He then performed one of the songs they’d played, The Beatles classic “Let It Be,” backed by the Eagles.

According to a post to Buffett’s Instagram Story,  the night also included Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl on drums with Zac Brown Band and Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band for a cover of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl.” ZBB also debuted a new song appropriate for the occasion, “Pirates and Parrots.” The Eagles performed “Take it to the Limit” and “In The City,” while Don Henley performed his tune “Boys of Summer.” Sheryl Crow performed Buffett’s ”Fins.”

The Coral Reefer Band also performed several of Buffett’s classics, including “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” “Why Don’t We Get Drunk” and “Volcano” with Eagles’ Timothy B. Schmit.

The night ended with an encore featuring all of the night’s performers – including Jackson Browne, Brandi Carlile, Kenny Chesney and Eric Church – returning to the stage for Buffett’s signature tune, “Margaritaville.”

Buffett passed away September 1 after a four-year battle with a rare and aggressive form of skin cancer. He was 76.

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Blue Öyster Cult just released the new album Ghost Stories, featuring a collection of “lost gems” recorded between 1978 and 1983, and guitarist/vocalist Eric Bloom is explaining why these tunes never made it to an album in the first place.  

“You know, when you’re writing songs for a record, sometimes you work at it, you work at it, you work at it, never quite gets to where you want it to be recorded,” he tells ABC Audio. “That happens a lot on records.”

To get these tunes to where they needed to be for this album they were transferred from reel-to-reel analog tape to digital audio by the band’s original audio engineer, George Geranios, with producers Steve Schenck and Richie Castellano using artificial intelligence to complete the songs.

Despite the tunes being recorded so long ago, Bloom says he didn’t really forget about them — but at least one, “Don’t Come Running To Me,” gave him what he called an “oh yeah moment.”

“I’m listening to that, and I’m going, you know, I remember that. I said, ‘How did I ever sing that high?’ Which kind of blew me away cause I could never sing that now,” he says.

When Ghost Stories was announced, the label described it as “a fitting finale” to BOC’s recording legacy, but Bloom doesn’t believe that necessarily means it’s their last album ever.

“I can’t say we’ll never record again,” he says. “I mean, look at the example of KISS. You know, they’ve been saying final tour for about 20 years. So, I’ll, I’ll put it on the same level as that.”

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The battle over who owns the rights to The Guess Who‘s name and music has taken a sudden and extreme turn. 

The founding members of the band, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, sued original members Jim Kale and Garry Peterson in October, accusing them of misleading fans into thinking the founding members are part of the current lineup that’s on tour. Peterson is the only original member still touring with the group under the name The Guess Who.

According to Rolling Stone, in an effort to put an end to Kale and Peterson’s version of The Guess Who, Cummings — who wrote the band’s classic hits like “American Woman” and “These Eyes” and owns the publishing for them — has canceled the performing rights agreements for the songs. That means no band, including the current incarnation of The Guess Who, is allowed to play those songs live.

Here’s how it works: By canceling those agreements, concert venues can no longer host any acts who are performing Cummings’ songs. If they do, Cummings’ publishing company could sue them. The move has already resulted in several The Guess Who concerts in Florida being canceled.

But the move will likely wind up costing Cummings money, too, because it will prevent him from collecting royalties when the songs — or any covers of those songs — are played on radio, TV shows and more.

“I’m willing to do anything to stop the fake band; they’re taking [Bachman and my] life story and pretending it’s theirs,” Cummings tells Rolling Stone. “Yes, I’m going to lose some money, but we’re going to find out what’s worth what. I will not have this fake band going on any longer.”

He adds, “I’m going to lose some money, but … the name is worthless without those songs.”

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Joe Elliott wants fans to know that what they see at a Def Leppard concert is all live.

“You want people to hear it and go, ‘My God, they’re tight,’ but you can tell there’s a difference between the live and the record,” he tells Stereogum in a new interview.

While Elliott said he doesn’t “normally comment on this kind of stuff,” he wanted to set the record straight after W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes and Testament’s Chuck Willy had claimed the band used backing tracks in concert. 

“I’m flattered because their standards must be very different to ours,” Elliott says. “For anybody that thinks we use backing tracks, it must mean that when they hear us, they can’t believe how good it is for real.”

He adds, “The fact is that if you rehearse the way we do and you’re as talented as the band are as musicians, then maybe you would believe it. I’d be happy to invite any of those guys to come stand side stage with a pair of headphones on so they could actually hear what’s coming out of the stage.”

Elliott does acknowledge the use some effects, like keyboards and drum loops, the latter of which he says is used by “thousands of other drummers to enhance a sound.” 

“But backing tracks or playing along to a backing track — we’ve never done that, never,” he insists. “We’ve never mimed to the vocals, or we’ve never had multiples of stuff on tape. It’s literally live.”

Finally Elliott notes, “So, sorry Chuck and Chris Holmes, but you’ve got that one completely wrong. But thanks for thinking that we need them. We don’t. We’re that good.”

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Queen’s Brian May is set to join French new age performer Jean-Michel Jarre for a special concert to kick off this year’s STARMUS Festival.

The one-off show, Bridge from the Future, will take place May 12 at Incheba Bratislava, Slovakia, under the backdrop of the SNP (UFO) Bridge. The concert is free to attend and will also stream on Jarre’s YouTube channel.

The concert will kick off the seventh edition of STARMUS Festival, which is described as “the globe’s preeminent gathering uniting science, art, and music.” May, who in addition to a being a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is an astrophysicist, is one of the co-founders of the festival, along with astrophysicist Garik Israelian.

“We’re thrilled that STARMUS VII will kick off with such a unique and spectacular show,” May shares. “And in this concert, Jean-Michel Jarre will set the tone for the spirit of this conference, specifically aimed towards addressing our planet’s current problems.”

The STARMUS Festival will take place May 12-17. More info can be found at starmus.com.

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While Billy Idol is getting ready to release a 40th anniversary deluxe expanded edition of Rebel Yell on April 26, it seems when it comes to music he isn’t stuck in the past.

In an interview with the Calgary Herald, Idol revealed he has a new album coming out later this year, which will be his first in almost a decade; his last album was 2014’s Kings & Queens of the Underground.

“We don’t just do old stuff. We’ve got an album coming out in October, which I think is going to be a kicka** record,” he shares. “I really enjoyed making that. So we’re just as fired up about what we’re doing today as we ever were, and I can see the same on the faces in the audience.”

Idol will kick off a set of U.S. dates on May 3 in West Palm Beach, Florida, and will launch a Canadian tour on July 30 in Vancouver. When asked if this will be the end of his touring career, Idol shut down the thought.

“No, of course not. Not right now and hopefully, I never stop,” he said. “I’m just thinking I’ll rock til I drop. That’s kind of my ethos.” 

A complete list of Billy Idol tour dates can be found at billyidol.net.

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Jethro Tull’s first live album, Bursting Out, is getting reissued with a whole host of extras for fans. 

Originally released in September 1978 as a double album, Bursting Out was recorded during the band’s Heavy Horses European tour, featuring performances from shows that took place in May and June of that year.

The reissue, Bursting Out (The Inflated Edition), will be released as an expanded three-CD/three-DVD set, remixed by Steven Wilson. It will feature previously unreleased performances, a CD of an edited version of a 1978 Madison Square Garden show, previously released in 2009, and a DVD of the full MSG show, with over 50 minutes of video that was previously broadcast on the BBC and Radio 1.

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson says the album “serves as a fine testimony for the many wonderful shows we did in the 70s before general touring fatigue and burn-out began a year or so later,” adding, “Enjoy vintage Tull at its ’70s best!”

Bursting Out (The Inflated Edition) will be released June 21. It is available for preorder now.

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