Classic Rock News

On This Day, April 27, 1952…

Paul Daniel Frehley, better known as KISS guitarist and co-founder Ace Frehley, was born in the Bronx, New York.

Frehley co-founded KISS with Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss in New York City in 1973. They released their self-titled debut in 1974 and began to gain a following thanks to their live shows, which included face paint, wild stage outfits and plenty of pyrotechnics. Frehley’s costumed stage persona with the band was The Spaceman.

Their breakthrough came after the release of 1975’s Alive!, a double live album that featured live recordings from their first three records. It peaked at #9 on the Billboard chart and sold over 9 million copies worldwide.

KISS went on to become one of the bestselling bands of all time, and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014.

Frehley passed away Oct. 18, 2025, at the age of 74.

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While Bruce Springsteen has been very vocal about his opposition to President Donald Trump and his administration, especially on his current Land of Hope and Dreams American tour, he told fans at his concert Sunday in Austin, Texas, that he does not wish him any harm.

Fan-shot video posted to social media reveals that during the show, Springsteen spoke out against the incident at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in Washington, D.C., Saturday night.

“We begin tonight with a prayer for our men and women in service overseas, we pray for their safe return,” Springsteen told the crowd. “We also send out a prayer of thanks that our president, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured at last night’s incident at the press correspondents’ dinner.”

“We can disagree. We can be critical of those in power, and we can peacefully fight for our beliefs,” he said. “But there is no place in any way, shape, or form for political violence of any kind in our beloved United States.”

Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band next bring their Land of Hope and Dreams American tour to Chicago on Wednesday. The tour runs through May 27 in Washington, D.C. A complete list of dates can be found at BruceSpringsteen.net.

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Foo Fighters made their debut on Saturday Night Live UK over the weekend.

Dave Grohl and company performed two songs off their brand-new album, Your Favorite Toy: “Child Actor” and “Caught in the Echo.”

The show featured the return of guitarist Pat Smear to the live Foo Fighters lineup. He’d missed performances earlier in 2026 after he was injured in what the band called a “bizarre gardening accident.”

SNL UK, the British spinoff of the long-running NBC sketch show, is available to watch in the U.S. on Peacock.

Foo Fighters have performed on the U.S. SNL nine times as the official musical guest. They also appeared as a special guest of Mick Jagger for an episode in 2012.

Foo Fighters will play a one-off show in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Tuesday, followed by headlining sets at the Welcome to Rockville and BottleRock Napa festivals in May. They’ll launch a full North American stadium tour in August.

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David Lee Roth made his third trip to the desert this weekend.

After joining Teddy Swims to perform Van Halen’s “Jump” for both weekends of Coachella, on Saturday Roth once again joined Swims for the song, this time during Swims’ Stagecoach Festival performance.

Like Coachella, Stagecoach took place at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.

Prior to the performance, Swims told Good Morning America that Roth has been “so generous” to him.

“He’s like, ‘man, I’ll follow you on tour and get up there every night if you want,’” Swims said. “He’s the freakin’ man. Van Halen’s my favorite band. He’s the best singer of all time.”

As for how they became friends, Swims says Roth was rehearsing near him a few weeks ago, and he got to hang with him.

“He was so gracious to share his rum and cokes with me and talk to me about all his crazy stories and I asked if he wanted to come play with me,” he explained. “He’s the coolest guy in the world. And on and off stage he’s always, like, on. He’s really, what you see on stage is what you get, like all the time, 24 hours a day. He’s a real rock star.”

Roth is currently on his Don’t Love Me, Rent Me tour, which hits Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

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Lindsey Buckingham is giving fans a little insight into what inspires him to continue to create new music. The rocker broached the subject in a video posted to Instagram, captioned, “Remember, you always have choices.”

“The thing about new music or about continuing to make any music at all is that you are again presented with a choice,” he says. “Do you follow your instincts? Do you following your gut? Do follow your vision? Do you take risks? Or do you find yourself somewhat caught in repeating formulas or concepts of yourself that have been defined externally for you?”

Buckingham goes on to mention an unnamed artist who told him, “I just don’t get excited about making my albums anymore. I don’t get excited about writing,” to which Buckingham told him, without judgement, “Well, you know, you have taken that road of fulfilling expectations that are foisted on you to some degree.”

“I had the luxury to be in a hugely successful band that could have swallowed me alive,” he says, referring to Fleetwood Mac. “But I somehow was able to use the opportunity from that to reject some of what that was about on a commercial level, on a monetary level, even on an artistic level.”

He compared the decision to making a Steven Spielberg film versus an indie film, noting an artist is more likely to grow with an indie film.

“I’m just saying, if you’re going to follow the commerce, you’re not necessarily going to find the religion in what you do,” he concludes. “And so when I contemplate the idea of continuing to write new music and to make new albums, it’s in pursuit of and because of the religion, for sure.”

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Grateful Dead’s 1970 album Workingman’s Dead has gotten a high fidelity upgrade.

Rhino High Fidelity has just released limited-edition audiophile editions of the album on reel-to-reel and vinyl. The vinyl reissue, cut from the original master tapes, is limited to 5,000 copies pressed on 180-gram vinyl, while the reel-to-reel, which was duplicated in real time from the original flat analog master tape, is limited to only 300 copies. 

But that’s not all. A Dolby Atmos mix of the album, created by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart in 2023, is now available on Blu-ray for the first time. According to the press release, Hart’s mix “expands the sonic depth of the original recording while preserving its essential character.”

All formats are available now.

Released June 14, 1970, Workingman’s Dead was the Grateful Dead’s fourth studio album and was considered a breakthrough for the band. It featured future Dead classics like “Uncle John’s Band,” “Casey Jones” and “High Time.”

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Ringo Starr has released a new video for the title track of his just-released new album, Long Long Road, his second with producer T Bone Burnett.

The song features vocals from Sheryl Crow and Daniel Tashian. The video, directed by Ringo’s stepdaughter, Francesca Gregorini, follows the two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Famer as he drives through scenes from his life, sharing some personal and previously unseen images with the public.

“We’re talking about this Long Long Road I’ve been on – and I’ve been thinking about the road I’ve taken,” Ringo says. “I could have taken another path but I took this one and ended up here, still on this Long Long Road. I loved making this record with T Bone and I hope you enjoy listening to it.”

Ringo and his All Starr Band — Toto’s Steve Lukather, Men At Work’s Colin Hay, Warren Ham, Hamish Stuart, Gregg Bissonette and Buck Johnson — are getting ready to hit the road again. Their next show is May 28 in Temecula, California, with dates confirmed through June 14 in Los Angeles. A complete schedule can be found at RingoStarr.com.

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Tedeschi Trucks Band took time out of their latest show to pay tribute to late Traffic co-founder Dave Mason, who passed away April 19 at the age of 79.

The group was headlining their Sun, Sand and Soul Festival 2026 in Miramar Beach, Florida, on Thursday when they decided to cover Traffic’s “Feelin’ Alright?,” which was written by Mason.

“I’m just going to have to dedicate this one to an amazing musician, an amazing songwriter, who just passed recently who was a dear friend of ours, for Dave Mason,” Susan Tedeschi told the crowd, as shown in fan-shot footage posted to YouTube. “This is one of his songs. Just gonna send it out to him, up there in heaven, jamming with all the cool guys.”

Tedeschi Trucks Band have performed the tune in the past, with Susan and Derek Trucks most recently performing it in November with Teddy Swims as part of Joe Cocker’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

“Feelin’ Alright?” appeared on Traffic’s 1968 sophomore album. The song has gone on to be covered by a variety of artists, most notably Cocker, who left off the question mark in the title and made it a hit.

Also paying tribute to Mason is Mick Fleetwood, who posted a carousel of photos of them together, including one of Mason during his brief tenure with Fleetwood Mac. He also wrote of his friendship with Mason, ending the post with, “I love the friend I have lost,” before sending his love to Mason’s wife, Winifred Wilson.

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Foo Fighters have premiered the video for “Window,” a track off their brand-new album, Your Favorite Toy.

The clip stars English actor Craig Parkinson as the window cleaner for a high-rise building, inadvertently giving him a view into the lives of the residents, including one who’s watching the “Everlong” video on a TV.

The “Window” video is now streaming on YouTube.

Your Favorite Toy is out now. It’s the follow-up to 2023’s But Here We Are and is the first Foo Fighters album to feature new drummer Ilan Rubin.

Foo Fighters will play a one-off show in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on April 28, followed by headlining sets at the Welcome to Rockville and BottleRock Napa festivals in May. They’ll launch a full North American stadium tour in August.

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Sharon Osbourne says that a settlement has been reached over Black Sabbath’s early recordings when their band name was Earth.

In 2025, news surfaced that the label Big Bear Recordings, founded by early Sabbath manager Jim Simpson, was set to release an album of Earth recordings. Sharon, the widow and manager of late Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne, later posted a statement along with emails to Simpson saying that the band members agreed that they did not want the Earth recordings to be released.

In the latest episode of The Osbournes Podcast, Sharon says, “We settled with Jim Simpson and the band now have their demos back.”

“All four of them own it, which is where it should be,” Sharon adds, presumably referring to the Sabbath members. “All of that stuff should be theirs.”

As for what will happen with the recordings, Sharon says, “We’re gonna talk about what everybody wants to do with it, and we’ll go from there.”

“Thank you to Jim, he did the right thing,” Sharon continues. “At the end of the day he did the right thing for the band.”

Elsewhere in the podcast, Sharon says that tickets for the return of Ozzfest, which is expected to happen in 2027, are set to go on sale in November.

The long-running festival was last held on New Year’s Eve 2018, which marked Ozzy’s final full-live performance before the 2025 Back to the Beginning concert, during which he performed solo and reunited with Sabbath. Ozzy died just over two weeks after Back to the Beginning at age 76.

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