It’s not uncommon for David Lee Roth to share somewhat bizarre videos of himself dancing to other people’s music, but in his latest clip he’s showcasing one of his own songs.
The rocker has posted a new video of what appears to be him singing along to Van Halen’s “Panama,” although the caption notes it’s the solo version of the tune he recorded with his Roth Band.
“Panama” was the third single off Van Halen’s hit album 1984 and was a top-20 hit.
Roth released his new version of “Panama” back in September 2022. It was one of several Van Halen tracks he rerecorded on his own. Others include “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love,” “Dance the Night Away,” “Unchained,” “You Really Got Me,” “Everybody Wants Some!!,” “Atomic Punk” and “Jump.”
Lenny Kravitz shared a sweet throwback photo on Instagram to wish his daughter, actress Zoë Kravitz, a happy birthday.
Zoë turned 36 on Sunday, and her rocker dad posted a black-and-white photo of them cuddling together on a bed when she was younger.
“Happy birthday Zoë…. Thank you for teaching me what true love and joy is,” Lenny, who is shirtless in the photo, shared in the caption. “I couldn’t be more proud of you. I love you.”
Zoë is Lenny’s only child. Her mother is his ex-wife, actress Lisa Bonet, who he was married to from 1987 to 1993.
Aerosmith’s Joey Kramer will no longer be helping people get caffeinated.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame drummer announced the closing of his Rockin’ & Roastin’ Coffee brand on the company’s website, noting that no orders will be filled passed Nov. 30.
“To all of Rockin’ & Roastin’s loyal subscribers and my coffee loving fans along the way – It is with deep deep sadness that we have had to make the decision to close the business of Rockin & Roastin’ Coffee,” read Kramer’s message. “After the years of working to recover from the devastation to our business from the impact of Covid, significant increases in the cost of doing business and the tragic, painful loss of my wife, Linda, there just is no realistic alternative but to close our proverbial doors.”
Linda passed away in June 2022 at age 55.
Kramer launched Rockin’ & Roastin’ Coffee in 2013, sharing on the company’s website that he was motivated to start his own coffee line after drinking lots of bad coffee on the road. He described his coffee as “some of the finest, purest kick-a** coffee on the planet, sure to please the palate of any ‘coffee-sseur.’”
Rockers Led Zeppelin were celebrated as Kennedy Center Honorees at a ceremony held in Washington, D.C.
Jack Black handled the intro, calling the band — made up of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and the late Jason Bonham — “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band of all time.”
The tribute also featured several performances, including “Stairway to Heaven” by Heart‘s Ann and Nancy Wilson, with John Bonham’s son, Jason Bonham, behind the drum kit.
The night also featured performances of “Rock and Roll” by Foo Fighters, “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” and “Ramble On” by Kid Rock and “Whole Lotta Love” by Lenny Kravitz.
AC/DC is ready to bring their Power Up tour to the U.S. and Canada.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have just announced a set of North American tour dates, which will be the first time they’ve toured the States in nine years.
The 13-date stadium tour will kick off April 10 in Minneapolis, with stops in Arlington, Pasadena, Las Vegas, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Vancouver, Chicago and more before wrapping May 28 in Cleveland.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday. A complete list of dates can be found at acdc.com.
AC/DC — Angus Young on lead guitar, vocalist Brian Johnson, rhythm guitarist Stevie Young, drummer Matt Laug and Chris Chaney on bass —launched their Power Up tour in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in May. It was their first tour since releasing their most recent album, Power Up, in 2020, as they were unable to support it on the road due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The last time they played the U.S. was at the Power Trip festival in Indio, California, in October 2023, although the last time they toured the U.S. was in 2015.
Beatles ’64, a documentary capturing The Beatles‘ 14-day trip to America in February of that year, is streaming now on Disney+. While there have been several docs about this particular chapter of Beatles history, this one has plenty of new stuff for fans to enjoy.
“A big goal for us with this film is to try to bring something new to a beloved story that has been oft-told,” producer Margaret Bodde [BOW-dee] told ABC Audio.
Among those new things: 17 minutes of never-before-seen footage shot fly-on-the-wall style by Albert and David Maysles, who followed the band over those 14 days. That footage “has so many intimate moments with the band, and also really intimate and revealing moments [with fans],” says Bodde.
Plus, the audio from The Beatles’ live performances during that time has all been restored. “For the first time, you can hear how great the band is. They have so much energy. They’re such great musicians,” she adds.
Martin Scorsese is a producer on the film and, according to director David Tedeschi [tuh DESK ee], the film legend was “beyond happy” to interview Ringo Starr on camera, as he shows off some of the memorabilia he has from that time period.
“It was very exciting. … You can’t quite believe that this is Ringo’s drum kit and this is what he played on [The Ed Sullivan Show],” Tedeschi says.
Tedeschi’s other favorite moments in the film include a scene where George Harrison confuses a reporter by naming “White Christmas” as his favorite “rock” song, and footage of a fan who brought a monkey to greet the band in Miami.
Tedeschi notes, “It gave me a real sense of the chaos … as George said [in the film], they were normal, and everybody around them went crazy.”
In the U.K. it’s a big deal for a song to land at #1 for Christmas, and a new campaign is trying to make that happen for the classic ELO tune “Mr. Blue Sky.”
According to the Official Charts site, the “Mr. Blue Sky” Christmas #1 campaign was started on social media by Jon Morter, who was behind a successful 2009 campaign to get Rage Against the Machine to #1 for Christmas. The new campaign was sparked by a desire to help promote the Bluesky social media app over Elon Musk’s X, formerly known as Twitter.
“It certainly became apparent after I’d made the suggestion that many [users] on the Bluesky app want to make it happen to help promote the new place [now that] many are going away from X/Twitter,” Morter tells the site. “If nothing else it will be a lot of fun to see if Bluesky users can have an impact on the annual Christmas #1 race.”
The campaign will also serve as a way to celebrate the band, now dubbed Jeff Lynne’s ELO,performing at theupcoming British Summertime Hyde Park festival. The concert is happening July 13 and has already been announced as their final show.
Roger Daltrey seems mighty impressed by a youth band’s cover of The Who‘s classic tune “Baba O’Riley.”
The Central Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame, a nonprofit focusing on youth music education, just shared video on TikTok of Daltrey singing the praises of the Central Pennsylvania Youth All-Star Band, who covered the tune in a video posted a little over a year ago.
“I have just seen the most amazing video of the Central Pennsylvania All-Star Band playing ‘Baba O’Riley,’ and I’m gonna tell you I am really impressed,” Daltrey says in the TikTok clip. “The way it’s filmed is really good, but the music you’re playing and the characters in it are all, every one of you, your personalities are coming out, you’re singing from the heart and it shows.” He adds, “It’s wonderful … and I loved it.”
The Central Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame posted the “Baba O’Riley” video back in August 2023, and it has since been viewed over 50,000 times. Based on the video’s recent comments, Daltrey’s video has attracted a new group of fans to the clip.
L-R: Eric Bloom and Buck Dharma of Blue Oyster Cult/photo credit: Daniel Knighton/Getty Images
Blue Öyster Cult’s classic tune “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” was the subject of a now legendary Saturday Night Livesketch in 2000, which featured Will Ferrell on the cowbell and host Christopher Walken as producer Bruce Dickinson, who keeps demanding “more cowbell” during the recording session. Well, BOC guitarist Buck Dharma is now sharing how it affected the band and their live show.
“It’s been a 25-year journey with the cowbell and riding that horse,” Dharma tells Vulture in a new interview devoted to the sketch. “I can’t complain about any of the history and what’s happened. It’s all good.”
Dharma says when he watched the sketch for the first time he felt relief.
“Relief that it was funny and relief that it wasn’t too cruel on the band,” he says. “SNL had done some rather cruel things about Neil Diamond and other artists over the years, so I was happy it was actually hilarious. While it poked fun at Blue Öyster Cult, it wasn’t mean-spirited at all.”
And believe it or not, the sketch resulted in the band adding, you guessed it, more cowbell to their live shows.
“For 20-odd years, we didn’t use a live cowbell for our shows and never considered it,” he says. “We had to play the cowbell because there was just no getting away from it.”
He adds, “I’m grateful that as significant as the sketch is – because after 25 years, it still is – it didn’t kill the song, its original intent, or its original mood. … So I’m glad the sketch didn’t kill the song and didn’t make it one big joke.”
The Dio greatest hits compilation The Very Beast of Dio Vol. 2 is being reissued on vinyl.
The two-LP set, which has been out of print for nearly 10 years, is due out Jan 31. It will also be available on CD.
The Very Beast of Dio Vol. 2 was originally released in 2012 and includes selections from the final four Dio albums — 1996’s Angry Machines, 2000’s Magica, 2002’s Killing the Dragon and 2004’s Master of the Moon — as well as a song called “Metal Will Never Die,” which was frontman Ronnie James Dio‘s final recorded track before his death in 2010.
Vol. 1, which spans the first six Dio albums, was released in 2000.
