Classic Rock 93.9

Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has shared his thoughts on the band’s new albums, Unlimited Love and Return of the Dream Canteen.

During an interview with Brazil’s 5 Notas, Klinghoffer says, “It’s tough, only because I honestly think we were doing cooler music.”

“I would love for it to have been finished,” he adds.

Klinghoffer joined RHCP in 2009, and played on 2011’s I’m With You and 2016’s The Getaway albums. He parted ways with the group when longtime on-again, off-again guitarist John Frusciante rejoined in late 2019. Presumably the material Klinghoffer is referring to was in the works prior to Frusciante’s return.

“I never want to sound negative about anyone doing music,” Klinghoffer says. “But … I was shocked when I heard [RHCP’s] new record.”

On a personal level, though, Klinghoffer says he “still [has] an enormous love” for Frusciante.

“He’s one of my musicians, one of my favorite writers,” Klinghoffer says.

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Jethro Tull’s new album, RökFlöte, is set to drop later this month, and they are sharing yet another new track with fans.

The band just released the new song “Hammer On Hammer,” which was inspired by the Norse god Thor. The accompanying video features images of Thor battling his mortal enemy, the sea serpent Jormungand, along with images of current wars and future destruction.

This is the third track Jethro Tull has released from the album, following “Ginnungagap” and “The Navigator.”

RökFlöte, the follow-up to 2022’s The Zealot Gene, is set to drop April 21. The album is being released in a variety of formats, including two limited deluxe editions featuring bonus material, an in-depth interview with Ian Anderson and more. All formats are now available for preorder.

And RökFlöte will be celebrated on April 17 with a special premiere in Dolby Atmos immersive audio. The event will take place at Dolby Studios in London, and Anderson will be in attendance, along with Bruce Soord, who mixed the spatial audio version of the album.

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Stevie Nicks’ tour continues to be affected by illness. After postponing several shows due to COVID-19 within the band, the singer has now canceled some of those dates and postponed another. 

Citing “ongoing illness within the band,” Stevie has canceled three shows: her Oklahoma City concert, which was originally postponed to April 11; her New Orleans concert, which had been postponed to April 15; and her April 5 concert in Birmingham, Alabama.

Meanwhile, Stevie’s concert with Billy Joel at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, that was supposed to take place Saturday, April 8, has now been postponed, although fans will have to hold on to their tickets for quite a while. The new show is now going to happen March 9, 2024. 

Fans will get refunds for all the canceled shows. Tickets for the Texas show will be honored on the new date.

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Gov’t Mule is ready to share some new music this summer. The band just announced they’ll drop their 12th studio album, Peace…Like A River, on June 16.

“Peace…Like A River is very ambitious from a musical arrangement standpoint in the way that a lot of the songs take twists and turns that is not common in today’s pop music world,” guitarist Warren Haynes shares. “At the same time, it’s very much a song record and covers a lot of ground, stylistically speaking. Song for song maybe my favorite one.” 

The band has shared the first single from the record, “Dreaming Out Loud,” featuring Ivan Neville and Ruthie Foster. It incorporates inspirational quotes from leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Robert and John Kennedy, and the late civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

In addition to Neville and Foster, the 12-track record features guest appearances by ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons, actor Billy Bob Thornton and Celisse.

Peace…Like A River is available for preorder now. A special deluxe edition, coming out only on CD, will feature a special EP, Time Of The Signs, with four new, unreleased tracks and an alternate version of the album track “The River Only Flows One Way,” featuring Haynes on lead vocals.

Here’s the track list for Peace…Like A River:

“Same As It Ever Was”
“Shake Our Way Out” (ft. Billy F. Gibbons)
“Made My Peace”
“Peace I Need”
“Your Only Friend”
“Dreaming Out Loud” (ft. Ivan Neville and Ruthie Foster)
“Head Full Of Thunder”
“The River Only Flows One Way” (ft. Billy Bob Thornton)
“After The Storm”
“Just Across The River” (ft. Celisse)
“Long Time Coming”
“Gone Too Long”

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Keegan-Michael Key‘s roster of voices includes a litany of Key & Peele characters, as well Toad in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie. That list also apparently includes an impression of Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis.

During an appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Tuesday, Key revealed that he used to sing in a band while in college, and the group’s repertoire included a rendition of the Peppers hit “Under the Bridge.”

“I had the ripped jeans and the combat boots and the flannel shirt that you had to tie around your waist for absolutely no reason,” Key said of his very ’90s style at the time. “I used to do my darnedest to sound like Anthony Kiedis while I was singing the song.”

Key then launched into the chorus of “Under the Bridge” while Tonight Show house band The Roots played along.

Along with “Under the Bridge,” Key shared that his band performed a ska version of Bob Dylan‘s Jimi Hendrix-popularized “All Along the Watchtower.”

You can hear Key in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, now in theaters, and Kiedis on a U.S. tour with the Peppers through May.

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The new Ben Affleck/Matt Damon movie, Air, hits theaters Friday, April 5, and it comes with a soundtrack packed with classic ’80s tunes. The album features songs from Bruce Springsteen, Dire Straits, The Clash, REO Speedwagon, Squeeze, The Alan Parsons Project, Cyndi Lauper, Big Country and more.

The film, which is directed by Affleck and also stars Viola Davis and Jason Bateman, tells the story of Nike’s partnership with a then-rookie NBA star Michael Jordan, which resulted in the hugely successful Air Jordan brand. 

The soundtrack will be released digitally on Friday, with a CD version coming June 2. Those will be followed by a cassette release June 23 and a vinyl September 15. All are available for preorder now.

Here’s the soundtrack for Air (Amazon Original Motion Picture Soundtrack):

“Money for Nothing” – Dire Straits
“Blister in the Sun” – Violent Femmes
“Ain’t Nobody” – Chaka Khan
“Sister Christian” – Night Ranger
“All I Need is a Miracle” – Mike + The Mechanics
“Born in the U.S.A.” – Bruce Springsteen
“Sirius” – The Alan Parsons Project
“Rock the Casbah” – The Clash
“My Adidas” – Run-D.M.C.
“In a Big Country” – Big Country
“Tempted” – Squeeze
“Time After Time” – Cyndi Lauper
“Can’t Fight This Feeling” – REO Speedwagon

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On This Day, April 5, 1980…

R.E.M. played their first-ever show at a friend’s birthday party at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Athens, Georgia, although at the time they were unnamed. The band – vocalist Michael Stipe, bassist Mike Mills, guitarist Peter Buck, and drummer Bill Berry – performed a set filled with originals, and covers of 1960s and 1970s tracks.

The band became a huge local success, and eventually recorded their first single, “Radio Free Europe” in 1981, which became a hit. They recorded their debut EP Chronic Town in October of 1981, and it was released on I.R.S. records in August of 1982, with their debut album Murmur dropping in 1983. 

R.E.M. went on to release 15 studio albums, seeing a huge commercial success with 1991’s Out of Time, featuring the hit “Losing My Religion,” and 1992’s Automatic for the People, which featured such classics as “Man on the Moon” and “Everybody Hurts.” 

R.E.M. was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 in their first year of eligibility. They officially disbanded in September, 2011.

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Metallica has shared new lyric videos for the song “72 Seasons” in eight different languages.

In addition to English, the clips are available in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese, German, Italian and Korean. You can watch them all streaming now via Metallica’s YouTube.

“72 Seasons” is the title track off Metallica’s upcoming album. Other released 72 Seasons songs “Lux Æterna,” “Screaming Suicide” and “If Darkness Had a Son” also got similarly multilingual lyric videos.

The album 72 Seasons drops Friday, April 14.

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Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop are among the many headliners booked for the 57th edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival, which runs from June 30 to July 15 on the shores of Lake Geneva, Switzerland.

Dylan is set to headline July 1, with his Rough and Rowdy Ways show, named after his 2020 album, while Iggy will headline July 6, with openers Generation Sex featuring Billy Idol, Steve Jones, Tony James, and Paul Cook.

Other performers confirmed for the two-week festival include Lionel Richie, Nile Rodgers & Chic, Buddy Guy and Joe Bonamassa, Mavis Staples and Norah Jones, Seal and more.

A public sale is set to kick off Thursday, April 6 at noon local time. A complete schedule of artists can be found at montreuxjazzfestival.com.

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The Beatles have influenced a lot over the years, including hairstyles, clothes and other musicians. And apparently that also includes comics.

A new exhibit at the Liverpool Beatles Museum, curated by former Spider-Man editor Tim Quinn, examines that influence on comics, including a variety of artwork featuring the legendary band from several world-famous cartoonists.

“The exhibition all started after I came across a comic which referenced the Beatles. Back in 1963, I was cutting these comics out and sticking them in a scrapbook as each Beatles reference came out,” Quinn tells the Liverpool Echo. “I then realized that the Beatles, as their fame grew, were just about everywhere in newspapers and magazines, and that somebody needed to compile this. I’ve been preparing for this exhibition for 60 years!”

The exhibit, which is now open to the public, plans to continuously add new artwork. In addition to Quinn, it will be curated by Roag Best, who is the brother of former Beatles drummer Pete Best. 

Best shares, “We know about the movies, we know about the records, we know about all these different aspects, but we felt that the Beatles in comics had been overlooked.”

He adds, “After sitting with Tim and discussing the exhibition, it seemed like a no brainer that we should do something to represent the Beatles in comics.”

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