Classic Rock News

E Street Band guitarist Stevie Van Zandt is the subject of a new documentary, Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple, which will have its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in New York on Saturday, before premiering on Max June 22. 

After over 50 years in music, you’d think he’d be comfortable in the spotlight, but Van Zandt tells ABC Audio he initially wasn’t keen on the idea of seeing his life on film.

“I really am quite grateful and honored that somebody would care enough about my life to want to make a movie about it,” he shares. “But at the same time, you know, I’m always going to be a little bit uncomfortable about being the center of attention.”

Bill Teck, the film’s director, says Van Zandt was so uncomfortable that it took decades to get him to agree to the project.

“He wasn’t even in the movie at the beginning,” Teck says. “He wanted me to do [it] with file footage and podcasts, and finally we convinced him to sit.”

After the premiere Van Zandt heads back to Europe to resume the Bruce Springsteen summer tour, which was postponed for three shows after The Boss suffered vocal issues.

“He’s great,” Van Zandt says of Springsteen’s health, noting that since the three postponed shows have been moved to 2025, “we may have another summer added to the tour, which is wonderful.” 

And fans who catch the shows now will see a looser set than they did with the first leg.

“Bruce is going back to picking out signs out of the audience, you know, taking requests,” Van Zandt says, although he notes, “we usually do a wide range of emotions throughout the show and that will remain the same.” 

The tour returns to North America in August. A complete list of dates can be found at brucespringsteen.net.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The ticket reselling platform StubHub is out with its annual list of the summer’s most in-demand tours, with The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen making the cut this year.

The list is based on the global concert sales on StubHub and Viagogo as of June 3 for events taking place from Memorial Day through Labor Day.

While Taylor Swift tops the list year, The Stones’ Hackney Diamonds tour, which kicked off in April, lands at #3, right behind Coldplay at #2. This is The Stones’ first time on the in-demand list since 2019, when they were #1. 

Meanwhile, Springsteen’s tour with The E Street Band, which returns to the U.S. in August, ranks at #7, after landing at #6 in 2023. Foo Fighters are also on the list this year at #8.

As for the concerts that people from other countries are traveling to the U.S. to see this summer, The Stones once again land at #3, with Billy Joel, Metallica, Foo Fighters and The Killers also making the top 10.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

David Byrne and Devo’s contribution to the new compilation album Noise For Now Vol. 2, raising money to benefit abortion access and reproductive rights, has been released.

The track, “Empire,” was one of two songs Byrne recorded with Devo for the 1997 album Feelings, although it never made the record.

Byrne says the tune “is an ironic capitalist fascist anthem and, at the time, I thought our version was just too mean and caustic for release.”

“Well, times change, and it certainly resonates now in ways it maybe didn’t then,” he shares. “It was a joy to work with the Devo guys, they knew exactly what the song is about.”

Devo’s Gerald Casale adds, “We were on board working with the dark satire of David Byrne’s ‘Empire’ over 30 years ago. The song was prescient and we got it. Now it can be heard!” 

Put out by the nonprofit organization Noise for Now, the album also features songs from Courtney Barnett, The War On Drugs, Faye Webster and Big Freedia. It will be released digitally and on limited-edition vinyl on June 21 to coincide with the second anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Proceeds will benefit independent abortion providers in the country, with 90% of all money raised going directly to reproductive health, rights and justice organizations.

Noise For Now Vol. 2 is available for preorder now.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Dave Grohl and Flea are among the artists featured in an upcoming documentary about the band Butthole Surfers.

The film, titled The Hole Truth and Nothing Butt, follows the “Pepper” outfit’s career, delving into their history of infamously chaotic live shows, which featured nudity, drugs and firearms, as well as their influence on alternative bands to come.

“The first phone call that I had talking to Kurt [Cobain], I was happy to find that he was also a Butthole Surfers fan,” Grohl says in the doc’s trailer. “If you listen to, like, early Nirvana stuff I think that sort of chaos came from his love of the Butthole Surfers.”

Also in the trailer, which you can watch on YouTube, are Sonic Youth‘s Thurston Moore, Ice-T, Henry Rollins and the late Steve Albini, as well as the Butthole Surfers members.

Butthole Surfers last performed in 2017. In an interview published in March by The Guardian, guitarist Paul Leary shared that the band’s received “six-figure offers to play live,” but they’ve turned them down.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Skid Row is giving fans a taste of their live show with the release of their first-ever live album and concert film, Skid Row – Live in London, dropping Sept. 20.

The album features a recording of the hard rockers’ Oct. 24, 2022, show at the 02 Forum Kentish Town, with performances of such classic Skid Row tracks as “18 and Life” and “I Remember You,” along with newer tunes like “Time Bomb” and “Tear It Down.”

“London has always been a home away from home for us,” bassist Rachel Bolan shares. “We are very excited to finally capture a live show on video for the rest of the world to see.”

The first single from the release is the live performance of “Slave to the Grind,” the title track of the band’s sophomore album. You can listen to it now via digital outlets. 

Skid Row – Live in London will be released in a variety of formats, including CD/DVD, two-LP black vinyl and digitally. It is available for preorder now.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Pete Townshend’s solo live performances will be chronicled in a new box set coming this summer.

Pete Townshend Live > In Concert 1985-2001, dropping July 26, will feature newly remastered versions of Pete’s live solo recordings, seven of which have been long out of print. The concerts were previously only available through Pete’s Eel Pie website. 

Shows featured on the release include Deep End Live at Brixton Academy in London recorded in 1985 and featuring Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour on guitar, plus shows recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1993, San Francisco’s The Filmore in 1996, London’s Shepherds Bush Empire in 1998 and the La Jolla Playhouse in La Jolla, California, in 2001. There’s also a recording of two nights at London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, the only time Pete ever attempted a full Life House show.

Pete Townshend Live > In Concert 1985-2001 will be released digitally and as a 14-CD box set, with all the music newly remastered by Jon Astley. It’s the first time all these live albums have been available in one place. The set includes new art by Townshend collaborator Richard Evans, along with a 28-page hard cover book with a foreword by Pete and notes by Who archivist Matt Kent, along with rare photos and memorabilia.

Pete Townshend Live > In Concert 1985-2001 is available for preorder now.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A new video has just been released featuring never-before-seen footage of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The video is for a new ultimate mix of “You Are Here” from Lennon’s 1973 album, Mind Games. The clip includes footage filmed during John’s first major art show, You Are Here (To Yoko From John Lennon, With Love), which happened in July 1968 at Robert Fraser Gallery in London.

“It consisted of a bare gallery and a big white canvas that was round and it just had my writing on it: ‘you are here’ and I dedicated it to Yoko,” Lennon said of the exhibit, which also featured a variety of charity collection boxes. “I wrote to a lot of charities telling them about the exhibition. I had a lot of nice letters and a lot of charity boxes back. There are no hidden secrets. My art is in fact displaying these boxes for charity.”

The new mix of “You Are Here” will be featured on the newly expanded Mind Games – Ultimate Collection, set to drop July 12. It was produced by Sean Ono Lennon, who oversaw the project, and with the blessing of his mom, Yoko. It will include six different listening experiences, featuring unreleased outtakes, stripped down mixes, instrumentals, demos, rehearsals and even what’s described as “studio chatter.” 

Mind Games – The Ultimate Collection is available for preorder now.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Jon Bon Jovi revealed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Wednesday that he was witness to a historic recording session in New. York. 

The rocker was talking about his job as the gofer at New York’s Power Station recording studio when he was somewhere between 18 and 20 years old, revealing that he saw two huge stars recording what would become an iconic song. 

“It was literally the biggest recording studio in the world at the time,” Jon said. “One day I looked through the control room door and I watched David Bowie and Freddie Mercury sing ‘Under Pressure.’ I saw them sing that vocal.”

He also shared a funny encounter he had with The Rolling Stones.

“My band was getting out of this cab and literally The Rolling Stones were getting out of a limousine behind us and a paparazzi jumped out the garbage can … start taking pictures of The Stones,” he said. “The guy yelled Mick, Mick, Mick give us a picture with The Stones,” and he grabbed me and my little band and said, ‘This is my band The Frogs.'” 

Jon added, “I would pay anything to get that photograph 45 years later.”

Of course Jon went on to have a pretty successful career in his own right. Bon Jovi‘s new album, FOREVER, drops Friday.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Before his death in February, MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer had been working on the proto-punk’s first new, original album in over 50 years. Now, the details of that record have been announced.

Heavy Lifting is due out Oct. 18. It includes guest spots from Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello, Slash, Rise Against‘s Tim McIlrath, Alice in Chains‘ William DuVall and Living Colour‘s Vernon Reid.

Additionally, drummer Dennis Thompson, who was part of MC5’s classic Kick Out the Jams lineup, also plays on Heavy Lifting. Thompson passed away in May, just three months after Kramer’s death.

You can listen to the first Heavy Lifting, “Boys Who Play with Matches,” now via digital outlets.

After several nominations, MC5 is among the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductees. They’ll be enshrined with the Musical Excellence Award.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

When KISS played their final show in New York back in December, they introduced the public to their KISS avatars, which got mixed reactions from the public. Well, KISS’ Paul Stanley wants fans to know that the final product will look much different. 

In an interview on The Allison Hagendorf Show, Stanley was asked what fans can expect when the show finally debuts in 2027. He replied, “Not what you saw.”

“It was a double-edged sword because we were showing people the avatars in their infancy,” he says about debuting an early prototype at the concert. “And they look, and will look, nothing like that. They will be mind-bogglingly realistic.”

As for the avatar show itself, Stanley says fans shouldn’t expect it to be a replica of a KISS concert.

“We wanna create something that’s a go-to and a must-see for everybody. KISS fans will love it, but other people who could care less about KISS will wanna see it,” he says. “It’s going to be mind-boggling. It’s KISS and Cirque du Soleil and everything you can imagine on steroids. But it will really cross that bridge of what’s real and what’s not, and combine the two. … It will be incredible.”

He adds, “The idea that we’re gonna simulate a live show, leave that to somebody else. We have no desire to do that. We wanna create KISS, which is something that breaks the rules, not lives within ’em.”

So far KISS has not announced any exact dates for the show.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.