In his native U.K., Elton John scored three number-one hits in 2021. He wasn’t as lucky in the U.S., but he’s kicking off 2022 with his first stateside top 10 in 24 years.
After its release in August of 2021, Elton’s duet with Dua Lipa, “Cold Heart (Pnau Remix),” has jumped from number 20 to number seven on the Billboard Hot 100. The last time Elton was in the top 10 on this chart was back in 1998, with “Something About the Way You Look Tonight/Candle in the Wind 1997.”
“Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)” features snippets of four Elton songs — “Sacrifice,” “Rocket Man,” “Kiss the Bride” and “Where’s the Shoorah?” — all mixed together by the Australian dance music act Pnau. It appears on his album The Lockdown Sessions.
The Scorpionswill release the the title track of their upcoming studio album, Rock Believer, as an advance single this Thursday, January 13, at 10 a.m. ET.
The veteran German hard rockers have debuted a snippet of the song at their TikTok and Facebook pages. In addition, if you pre-save the single, you can unlock a clip from the upcoming “Rock Believer” music video, which will premiere Tuesday, January 18, on YouTube.
The Scorpions also will be hosting a special after-party and Q&A event following the video’s premiere that will accessible to subscribers to the YouTube Premium service. You can submit questions for the band members now in the comments section of this Facebook post.
The “Rock Believer” single’s cover art was designed by longtime Beatles associate Klaus Voormann, who famously created the cover of the Fab Four’s classic 1966 album, Revolver, as well as playing bass on solo recordings by John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
You can get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Rock Believer album by watching a multiple part docuseries that’s being posted at the band’s YouTube channel.
Rock Believer will be released on February 25, and can be pre-ordered now.
Steve Miller Band, Stone Temple Pilots and The Smashing Pumpkins are part of the lineup for the 2022 BeachLife Festival, taking place May 13-15 in Redondo Beach, California.
Miller and his group will headline the event’s third and final day, while The Smashing Pumpkins will top the bill on day two, May 14. STP also will be performing on May 14, as will Matisyahu, Sugar Ray, Everclear frontman Art Alexakis and Michael Franti & Spearhead.
Weezer and 311 will headline the festival’s first day, which also will boast performances by Black Pumas, Cold War Kids and more.
The May 15 bill also includes Sheryl Crow, UB40 Featuring Ali Campbell, The Allman Betts Band, Ozomatli and others.
Tickets are on sale now. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit BeachLifeFestival.com.
Your week is about to get spookier, courtesy of Foo Fighters.
Dave Grohl and company are set to premiere the first official trailer for their upcoming horror-comedy film Studio 666 this Tuesday — or, should we say, Foos-day — January 11. The clip will follow the previously released 43-second “sneak peek” teaser, which dropped last month.
Studio 666, which was first announced this past November, follows the Foos as they enter a creepy mansion to record a new album, and are soon beset by evil and supernatural forces. While the movie is, of course, fictional, it was filmed at the same house where Foo Fighters recorded their 2021 album, Medicine at Midnight, which Grohl repeatedly said was haunted.
Along with the six Foo members, the Studio 666 cast also includes Whitney Cummings, Leslie Grossman, Will Forte and Jenna Ortega. The film premieres in theaters February 25.
After launching a six-show Las Vegas residency at The STRAT Theater this past fall, Sammy Hagar has announced six new dates at the venue, scheduled for February 9, 11 and 12, and March 23, 25 and 26.
The “Sammy Hagar and Friends” shows will feature the Red Rocker performing a rotating set of classic songs from throughout his long career, plus select covers, with his current band The Circle — founding Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, acclaimed rock drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson of Sammy’s longtime backing group, The Wabos.
Like Hagar’s 2021 residency, this year’s concerts also may see some surprise guests joining Sammy and the band on stage. Artists who made special appearances last year included The Grateful Dead‘s Bob Weir, Rick Springfield and Ratt‘s Stephen Pearcy.
“I’m thrilled to be returning to The STRAT for my Las Vegas residency,” says Hagar in a statement. “We have created the ultimate concert party in a theater that captures the beach vibes of my annual birthday parties in Cabo San Lucas with a new show every night. It’s a blast and I can’t wait to continue with my bandmates, special guests and Redheads in 2022.”
Tickets for the 2022 shows go on sale to the general public this Wednesday, January 12, at 10 a.m. PT.
Members of Hagar’s fan club can purchase pre-sale tickets starting today at 10 a.m. PT, while members of The STRAT resort’s True Rewards program can buy tickets beginning Tuesday, January 11, at 10 a.m. PT.
Limited VIP packages also will be available that include early entry to the theater to watch Hagar’s soundcheck, a signed laminate, a bottle of Sammy’s Beach Bar Rum, “Sammy Hagar and Friends” merch and more.
Starting in 2013, Rod Stewart has been on a songwriting roll that has seen him release multiple albums full of original songs, including his latest one, 2021’s The Tears of Hercules. But Rod says he’s now ready to put his own pen down for a bit and go back to covering classic tunes.
Asked if he spent lockdown writing more songs for a follow-up to The Tears of Hercules, Rod — who turns 77 today — tells ABC Audio, “No, no, no, I think I’m gonna give it a rest now, ’cause I made, I didn’t realize, four albums in eight years! You know…that’s a lot of songs. I don’t wanna, you know, flood the market with my songs.”
Instead, Rod says he’s working on not one but two albums that will see him singing other people’s songs.
“I’m making a big band album at the moment of all the great songs from the ’40s to follow on from The Great American Songbook,” he says, referring to his successful string of standards albums. “And I’m also going to put a country album together and make it duets with all female duettees.”
Asked if he could reveal which women might be joining him for those duets, Rod laughs and says, “Not yet, it’s much too early — but they’re all lined up!”
The Tears of Hercules features the single “One More Time.” Rod is scheduled to kick off an Australian tour in March, proceeded by two shows in Florida next month. He’ll return to Las Vegas in May for his ongoing residency at Caesars Palace. His 2022 schedule also includes a late-summer North American tour with Cheap Trick and a fall U.K. trek. Of course, all these plans might be upended by COVID, so stay tuned.
After being postponed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Elton John‘s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour finally gets going again with a 2022 U.S. leg that kicks off January 19 in New Orleans.
Elton’s longtime guitarist and music director Davey Johnstone tells ABC Audio that he’ll be heading to New Orleans this Friday to start rehearsing with the rest of the band, albeit without Elton himself.
“I rehearse the band before Elton comes anywhere near, ’cause he hates to rehearse,” Johnstone reveals. “He is very impatient. There’s no way he can do rehearsal.”
Davey says that for the first few days of rehearsal, he employs a good friend, singer/pianist Adam Chester, to serve as a “surrogate Elton.”
“[Adam] plays great piano, and he loves to come in and sing Elton songs and play piano,” Johnstone explains. “[T]hen Elton will come in for a few hours. And then on the 19th, we do our first show, and off we go.”
Since Elton’s tour was put on hold in 2020, the pop-rock legend has released a new studio album, The Lockdown Sessions, which features collaborations with an eclectic variety of music stars.
Asked if any of these guest artists might show up to perform at select tour dates, Johnstone offers, cryptically, “I can’t really tell you right now, but there might be something that will happen that is a bit different, that you wouldn’t expect. It’s not quite a guest, but almost.”
As for whether he has any say about which songs are included in the set, Davey notes, “[Elton and I] very much collaborate on what the set’s gonna be. But obviously, as the singer and the star of the show, final cut is his call.”
Michael Lang, co-organizer of the 1969 Woodstock festival and its subsequent anniversary events Woodstock ’94 and Woodstock ’99, died on Saturday, January 8, at age 77, Variety reports.
Family spokesperson Michael Pagnotta revealed to the publication that Lang passed away at a New York City hospital from a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
In 1969, Lang teamed up with songwriter and music producer Artie Kornfeld and financial investors Joel Rosenman and John Roberts to co-create the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held August 15-18 in Bethel, New York.
Billed as “3 Days of Peace, Love and Music,” the festival became one of the iconic events of the “Flower Power” era, featuring performances by many of the biggest rock acts of the day, including Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, The Who, Janis Joplin, Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker and many others.
For many years, Michael served as Joe Cocker’s manager, and he also managed several other acts.
Lang also helped organize the 25th anniversary Woodstock festival, Woodstock ’94, which was held August 12-14 on a farm near of Saugerties, New York. That event featured a mix of artists who’d played the 1969 fest and contemporary acts from various genres.
Five years later, Lang co-produced the ill-fated Woodstock ’99 festival, which was held July 22-25 on a former Air Force base in Rome, New York. The event has been portrayed as the antithesis of the 1969 Woodstock, and has become known for the many reported incidences of violence, alleged sexual assaults, fires and other vandalism by some of the attendees.
Lang also attempted to organize a 50th anniversary Woodstock festival that initially was scheduled to take place in August 2019 in Watkins Glen, New York. A huge, star-studded lineup with major artists from various genres was confirmed, but the festival, called Woodstock 50, was thrown into limbo when the company providing financial backing pulled out. Michael and his fellow organizers tried to find a new financial backer and a new site for the fest, but the event eventually was canceled.
Lang is survived by his wife, Tamara, and five children.
A message paying homage to Michael has been posted on the official Woodstock socialmediapages that notes, “He was a producer, father, environmentalist, friend, husband and most of all, one-of-a-kind dreamer whose mark on the world is undeniable.”
Last April, KISS launched a new series of official live bootlegs dubbed KISS — Off the Soundboard, and now the Rock & Roll (All Nite) Hall of Famers have announced plans for the second installment of the series.
The new album, titled Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach, is due out on March 11 and will feature a recording from a concert that took place on July 25, 2004, at the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre.
The show featured KISS’ current lineup — singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, singer/bassist Gene Simmons, drummer Eric Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer — playing career-spanning 20-song set that included such classics as “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Lick It Up,” “Christine Sixteen” and “Shout It Out Loud.”
Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach will be available on digital as a two-CD set, and as a three-LP collection pressed on standard black vinyl or limited-edition 180-gram opaque-green vinyl. You can pre-order the album now exclusively at KISS’ official online store. Special bundles also are available featuring the colored-vinyl set, along with a t-shirt, trading cards and guitar picks.
Here’s the Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach CD track list:
Disc 1
“Love Gun”
“Deuce”
“Makin’ Love”
“Lick It Up”
“Christine Sixteen”
“Tears Are Falling”
“She”
“Got to Choose”
“I Love It Loud”
“I Want You”
Disc 2
“Psycho Circus”
“King of the Night Time World”
“War Machine”
“100,000 Years”
“Unholy”
“Shout It Out Loud”
“I Was Made for Lovin’ You”
“Detroit Rock City”
“God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You II”
“Rock and Roll All Nite”
Toy (Toy: Box), the new box set focusing on David Bowie‘s previously unreleased 2000 album Toy, hit stores today, one day before what would’ve been the late rock legend’s 75th birthday.
As previously reported, Toy features versions of various songs that Bowie first recorded from 1964 to 1971, redone at 2000 sessions with members of his touring band at the time.
Toy (Toy: Box) is available now as a three-CD set, a six-disc 10-inch vinyl collection, and digitally. The package will include the originally planned album — which first got its release in November 2021 as part of David’s Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) box set — alternative mixes of the Toy tracks and tunes intended as B-sides, and stripped-down, mostly acoustic mixes of the songs.
In conjunction with the arrival of Toy (Toy: Box), a lyric video for an alternate version of “Shadow Man,” a rarity that Bowie first recorded in late 1970, has debuted at Bowie’s YouTube channel. The newly released version is referred as an “Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix,” and is one of a series of 13 Toy tracks appearing on the box set that were given that treatment.
Meanwhile, as previously announced, former Bowie touring band member Mark Plati, who produced Toy and played on the original recordings, will take part in an interview about the project at the Bowie 75 pop-up store in New York City this Saturday. Visit Bowie75.com for more details about the various events taking place to commemorate David’s milestone birthday.
