Watch out, October: September’s coming for your Rocktober title with the RockTember festival.
The two-day event takes place September 8-9 in Hinckley, Minnesota, and features headliners Bret Michaels and Queensrÿche.
The bill also includes KIX, Orianthi and Lita Ford. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit RockTember.net.
Michaels, meanwhile, released a new solo song called “Back in the Day” in January. Last year, he and Poison joined Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts on the Stadium Tour.
Producer Steve Albini is not a fan of Steely Dan and he let everyone know about it. Albini, who has worked with artists like Nirvana, PJ Harvey and The Pixies, went off on a Twitter rant about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band, writing, “I will always be the kind of punk that sh*ts on Steely Dan.” He added, “Christ the amount of human effort wasted to sound like an SNL band warm up.”
Albini then seemed to shoot down fan arguments about why Steely Dan was so great. “’They spent three weeks on the guitar solo…’ Three weeks of watching guitar players give it their all while doing bumps and hitting the talkback, ‘More *Egyptian* but keep it in the pocket…,'” he wrote.
As for the argument “Their engineer invented a machine to play the bass drum,” he shot back, “Did he now. And yet it sounds like this.”
He then described two types of perfectionists, offering, “One will prepare, revise and rehearse carefully, with intent, honing an idea to a keen edge, ready to cut the cloth of execution. The other makes other people responsible by saying, ‘do it again,’ until by chance they are satisfied, then take credit.”
He added, “There’s some video where they talk about every song on an album, and each one begins with the not-bald one saying, ‘this song is based on my deep love of the blues, just a very bluesy blues. Deep blues.’ Then lays his jazz dork hands on the f***ing electric piano…”
And if all of that wasn’t enough, at one point he described Steely Dan as “Music made for the sole purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out a little.”
King Charles III’s coronation is happening May 6, and now the government is offering up some suggestions for songs to play at street parties celebrating the occasion.
The United Kingdom’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport has released a coronation playlist of 27 songs, including tracks from The Beatles, David Bowie, Queen and Kate Bush. According to a spokesperson, the playlist had been chosen to “celebrate British and Commonwealth artists ahead of the upcoming Coronation.”
Songs making the playlist include The Beatles’ “Come Together,” Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” Bowie’s “Last Dance,” Madness’ “Our House,” Queen’s “We Are The Champions,” Tom Jones’ “Green Green Grass of Home,” ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky,” Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart’s “People Get Ready” and The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me.” The complete list can be found at Spotify.com.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Foo Fighters, Living Colour, The Beach Boys and Sheryl Crow are just a few of the artists set to play Sea.Hear.Now festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
The two-day fest, which takes place September 16 and 17 at North Beach and Bradley Park, will be headlined by The Killers on Saturday and Foo Fighters Sunday, with Crow and Living Colour both booked for Saturday, and The Beach Boys on Sunday’s bill.
Other artists confirmed for this year’s festival include Greta Van Fleet, Weezer, The Breeders and NathanielRateliff and the Night Sweats.
The festival will once again incorporate surf and art into the experience. The North Beach Rumble surf contest will return, featuring the best surfers from the East Coast. The art portion will go down at Stoke Henge, located just off the boardwalk, and feature returning artist Pork Chop with his jellyfish and surfboard arch. Transparent Gallery in Bradley Park will also display artwork from participating festival musicians.
Presale tickets go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, with a general sale date to follow if there are tickets left. Ticket info and the full lineup can be found at seahearnowfestival.com.
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters have been on the outs for years, and based on a recent tweet by Gilmour’s wife, we won’t be seeing a reunion happening anytime soon. Polly Samson, who’s responsible for writing several post-Waters Floyd songs, took to social media to respond to a recent interview Waters gave in which he criticized Pink Floyd for releasing a Ukrainian protest song.
In an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, Waters discusses his take on Ukraine, Israel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He called it “really, really sad” that his former bandmates recorded the song “Hey Hey Rise Up” with Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk, calling it “lacking in humanity.”
That article prompted Samson to respond, “Sadly @rogerwaters you are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.” Gilmour then re-tweeted the post, “writing Every word demonstrably true.”
Waters later responded to the tweet, writing, “Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely. He is currently taking advice as to his position.”
Dubbed They Only Come Out at Night, the stream will capture Dave Mustaine and company’s performance at the famed Budokan venue on February 27.
The live broadcast premieres at 4 a.m. ET, but for those metalheads who aren’t morning people, the show will air three more times throughout the day at 2 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. It’ll also be available on-demand for two days following the premiere.
Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” hit number one on the U.S. singles chart, his first and only number one as a solo artist. It spent three weeks at the top of the chart and also topped the Adult Contemporary charts for two weeks.
The tune was his second single from Simon’s fourth studio album, Still Crazy After All These Years, and featured background vocals by Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson and Phoebe Snow.
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” went on to be certified gold by the RIAA for sales of over one million copies.
Bono will be in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, but not for a concert. The U2 frontman is set to be a guest of first lady Jill Biden in her viewing box for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join them in the box, as well.
Bono is being recognized for his work fighting HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty, especially the role he played in building public and bipartisan support for the President George W. Bush-era PEPFAR, or President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was championed by then-Sen. Biden.
Bono is one of many special guests who’ll be sitting in the box with the first lady and the second gentleman. Others include Row Vaughn and Rodney Wells, the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old unarmed Black man who was severely beaten by police officers during an alleged traffic stop in Memphis and later died; Paul Pelosi, Speaker Emerita of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was violently attacked in their California home last year; and Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the shooter responsible for the mass shooting at the Monterey Park Lunar New Year celebrations.
When it comes to the sin of helping to invent punk rock, Iggy Pop still ain’t got time to make no apology.
The highly influential StoogesRaw Power album turns 50 Wednesday. Released on February 7, 1973, Raw Power didn’t exactly set the charts on fire at first, but proved to be instrumental in pioneering the burgeoning punk scene.
Raw Power was the third Stooges album, following 1969’s self-titled debut and 1970’s Fun House, but was the first to be credited to Iggy & the Stooges. Along with Pop on lead vocals, the record featured guitarist James Williamson, and brothers Ron and Scott Asheton on bass and drums, respectively. It was co-produced and mixed by David Bowie.
Having built a reputation for wild stage antics, Iggy’s energy is felt throughout Raw Power, beginning with the album opener “Search and Destroy,” in which Pop memorably yelps, “Look out, honey, ’cause I’m using technology” and “I’m the world’s forgotten boy.”
By 1974, the Stooges had broken up, but their impact had been made. The sound and ferocity of Raw Power paved the way for the explosion of punk rock in the mid-’70s, and Iggy is now known as the Godfather of Punk.
Following the demise of the Stooges, Pop went solo, and memorably reunited with Bowie for the 1977 albums Lust for Life and The Idiot.
Eventually, Iggy reunited with the Asheton brothers in 2003 and they released a new album, The Weirdness, in 2007. Following Ron Asheton’s death in 2009, the Stooges were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. Williamson rejoined for one final album, 2013’s Ready to Die. Scott Asheton died in 2014.
A remastered edition of Raw Power was released last week in honor of its 50th anniversary.
Girl From the North Country, the Broadway musical featuring songs from Bob Dylan’s catalog, is coming to the big screen.
Varietyreports that Woody Harrelson, Olivia Coleman and Chloe Bailey have been cast in the movie adaptation of the musical, which follows a group of Midwestern travelers during the Depression who cross paths at a guest house.
Conor McPherson, who wrote the stage show, is set to write and direct the film with Dylan’s blessing. “To be associated with Conor is one of the highlights of my professional life,” Dylan said in a statement. “It goes without saying the man is a genius for putting this thing together and I’m thrilled to be a part of the experience. My songs couldn’t be in better hands.”
After an original run in London, Girl From the North Country opened off Broadway in 2018, then moved to Broadway in March 2020 before being shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It reopened in October 2021 and closed for good in June of that year.
