Classic Rock News

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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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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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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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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If you’re upset at having to pay 50 bucks for a Taylor Swift tour t-shirt, this’ll make you feel better: Some of Elton John‘s tour merchandise is going for more than $2,000 a pop.

For the current U.K. leg of his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, Elton has teamed up with the upscale department store chain Selfridges for a special collection of merchandise. The items include regular stuff like t-shirts, mugs and socks, but those fans with deeper pockets can purchase a $300 candle shaped like a platform boot, a $400 Elton teddy bear, a $2300 suitcase, a $2500 polka-dot jacket, a $2200 clutch purse and a $2100 silk bathrobe.

Other Elton-branded items include boxer shorts, rugs, ceramic vases and plates, eyewear, and a yellow Snoopy figurine wearing Elton-style glasses that’ll set you back $425.

You can order all these items online from Selfridges if you’re not in the U.K. for the tour.  Elton’s currently in the middle of a string of shows at London’s O2 Arena which runs through April 17.

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Another day, another Gibson signature Kirk Hammett guitar.

After launching the 1959 Les Paul Standard — based on his beloved “Greeny” guitar — last week, the Metallica shredder is now putting out a recreation of his 1979 Gibson Flying V.

Only 200 of the Flying Vs were made, each of which will set you back $14,999 — a relative bargain compared to the $19,999 Les Paul.

For more info, visit Gibson.com.

If you have thoughts on Hammett’s Flying V, or anything Metallica-related, there’s a chance at least one band member knows about them. In an interview with Metal Hammer, Lars Ulrich shares that he does indeed read online comments.

“If you decide to go down into the comment sections, at least for me, you have to prepare yourself for not taking any of it overly personally,” Ulrich says. “You have to kind of remove yourself from it. But I’d like to challenge anybody in a band to say they don’t look at comments.”

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 

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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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Patti Smith does not want your hair. That’s the message she’s shared with fans after someone claiming to be her rep reached out to fans asking for them to send her a piece of their hair. 

“This is the stupidest thing ever,” she shares in a video posted to Instagram. “If somebody calls you, emails you, or any of the other ways people communicate supposedly on my behalf asking for something, like perhaps your hair so that they can make me … say, [a] wig, it’s obviously [not me].” 

She also assures fans “if I want something, I’ll ask for it myself,” insisting she doesn’t wear wigs.

“I don’t have anything against [wigs], I just don’t wear them,” she adds. 

In the caption to her post she wishes her fans a happy spring, writing, “take care of yourselves and find ways to be happy and productive. As for me, my hair is ancient but fine.”

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Melissa Etheridge’s daughter Bailey and Sammy Hagar’s son Andrew are among the celebrity offspring featured in the upcoming Paramount+ docuseries Family Legacy. 

The show, originally announced last December as an MTV project, features the children of famous musicians “reliving some of entertainment’s most iconic moments and giving viewers an intimate look at their favorite artists.” 

A new trailer for the series is out now, in which Bailey is heard describing herself as “the OG lesbian baby.”  Bailey’s mom is Etheridge’s ex Julie Cypher, and her biological father is the late Rock & Roll Hall of Famer David Crosby, who was the former couple’s sperm donor.

Family Legacy premieres April 25 and also features the children of the late Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, Brandy, Boyz II Men and more.

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