Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their third album, Damn the Torpedoes.
The record became their first top 10 album, peaking at #2. It featured the band’s first top 20 singles, “Don’t Do Me Like That,” which peaked at #10 and “Refugee,” which peaked at #15. Two other songs, “Here Comes My Girl” and “Even the Losers,” went on to become Petty classics.
The album’s title is a reference to an apocryphal quote by Admiral David Farragut, who, during a Civil War battle in 1864, allegedly said, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
Pearl Jam‘s sophomore album, Vs., is now 30 years old.
Released on October 19, 1993, Vs. was the follow-up to PJ’s hit 1991 debut, Ten. While Ten was initially released to little fanfare, Vs. arrived in a post-Nevermind world. With the grunge explosion in full force, which helped Ten reach #2 on the Billboard 200 in 1992, Pearl Jam had become a household name alongside Nirvana, leading to increased hype and expectation around Vs.
Upon its release, Vs. gave Pearl Jam their first #1 album on the Billboard 200 and set a new record for first-week album sales that stood for five years. It spawned the singles “Daughter,” “Go,” “Animal” and “Dissident,” as well as the fan favorite cut “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” Today, it’s certified seven-times Platinum by the RIAA.
While it was recorded and titled ahead of time, the era of Vs. was also defined by the battle of Pearl Jam vs. Ticketmaster. The ticketing giant’s implementation of service fees — which, as Taylor Swift fans can tell you, persists today — upset the group, who had made an effort to keep ticket prices low.
In 1994, guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament testified before Congress in protest of Ticketmaster’s practices, and the band as a whole began a boycott of the company. The summer 1994 tour was canceled, and Pearl Jam endeavored to only play non-Ticketmaster venues. The boycott lasted until 1998.
Pearl Jam followed Vs. with 1994’s Vitalogy, their last with drummer Dave Abbruzzese. Their most recent album, their 11th studio effort, is 2020’s Gigaton.
On October 17 in Sydney, Australia, the surviving members of INXS reunited for the first time since 2017 — and were surprised with a special award commemorating four billion global streams of their hit-packed catalog — a number that sax player Kirk Pengilly says is almost too big for him to comprehend.
“We thought we were just getting together with the record company and some media … so it was a big surprise,” Kirk told ABC Audio after the ceremony. “But it’s just hard to even fathom that — y’know, that’s half the world’s population!”
Kirk called the reunion “really lovely,” adding, “Hopefully we can do it a little more often!” And there’s plenty going on in INXS land that might lead to that.
Kirk loves the book because it’s from “the people that mattered: our fans.” He notes, “Reading through it is quite emotional … [to see] just how much we meant to so many of the fans.”
“I sort of forgot how much we did connect with our fans on a face-to-face level,” notes Kirk. As for why they were so chummy with their fans — handing out VIP passes and tickets and hanging with them for hours — Kirk laughs, “We’re Australian!”
But also, he says, “I think we spent so much time together, we ran out of things to talk about — so meeting fans was fun! New blood! New conversations!”
The new animated short film Peter & The Wolf reimagines Sergei Prokofiev’s classic symphony as a contemporary tale following 12-year-old Peter, who’s grieving the loss of a parent.
The film features music and narration by composer Gavin Friday and illustrations by U2’s Bono, based on their 2003 project for the Irish Hospice Foundation.
Friday, who spearheaded the project’s transition to the screen, is a longtime friend of Bono’s and was quite familiar with his artistic talent, but says it wasn’t easy to turn the rocker’s drawings into what fans will see in the film.
“The biggest challenge was how do you animate these drawings because they’re quite freeform and expressive,” Friday tells ABC Audio.
Bono briefly appears in the film to help that transition, with the film’s co-director Elliot Dear explaining it was their goal to stick to the rocker’s mostly monochromatic look.
He shares, “We’ve kind of taken as much as we can from Bono’s lead on that stuff to try and maintain some fidelity to the original artwork.”
When it came to his narrator duties, Friday says he tried to imagine what the movie would’ve been like if TimBurton directed it.
“It went all black and white in my head and it went sort of semi gothic,” he says. “In a fun way, almost like kids like to be sort of scared, but not totally scared. So that was the sentiment.”
On screen, Gavin’s narrator is a not-so-scary fly given the nickname Gavin Flyday.
“He’s the fly on the wall,” co-director Stephen McNally explains, with Friday adding, “We all found it quite tongue in cheek that this tiny little creature with wings has a deep and dark voice.”
Peter & the Wolf premieres Thursday, October 19, on Max.
Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still have an interest in his old band. In fact, the rocker attended the group’s final live performance at London’s O2 Arena in March 2022, and he is now explaining why he decided to attend.
“Me going was a rite of passage, really,” he told Mojo. “I’d been part of the creation of Genesis so I wanted to be there at the end.”
While Gabriel was on hand to see the show, he didn’t join his former bandmates onstage. As for what he thought of the performance, he noted, “Phil (Collins) wasn’t in as great a shape as he used to be, but they did a great job.”
A very special Night Ranger concert is coming to AXS TV.
The special, 40 Years And A Night with Contemporary Youth Orchestra, is set to air Saturday, October 21, at 8 p.m. ET, with an extended 90-minute version airing Saturday, November 18, at 9 p.m. ET.
The special captures the band’s November 9, 2022, performance at Key Bank State Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, where they were backed by the Contemporary Youth Orchestra, made up of musicians ages 12 to 18 from over 40 schools in the state.
“It was a dream come true to have Night Ranger music accompanied by an entire symphonic band … including our own!” Jack Blades shares. “Although now, we’re spoiled, and we want to carry the orchestra with us everywhere we go!!”
Brad Gillis adds, “I can check this one off my bucket list. Having the CYO backing us for this show was just amazing and it really took Night Ranger to another level.”
An album of the concert, also called 40 Years and a Night with Contemporary Youth Orchestra, is set to drop Friday, October 20, on CD, vinyl, DVD, Blu-ray and digitally. It is available for preorder now.
Bruce Springsteen’s Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University is expanding and the rocker is getting a building named after him.
School officials announced they’re building a new 30,000-square-foot building on the university’s West Long Branch, New Jersey, campus, which will house the Archives and the Center for American Music. It will also feature exhibition galleries and a 230-seat theater.
“I think a building with your name on it is a tricky thing,” Springsteen said during a ceremony Wednesday, October 18, according to the Asbury Park Press. “Because I’m still alive … I could get arrested for shooting tequilas on a public park. That’s something that could happen.” The latter comment is a reference to his 2020 DWI arrest in Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
He added, “All I can say is I will do my best to do nothing for the rest of my life to embarrass a building.”
The building is expected to feature exhibits on Springsteen, with the archives giving fans the ability to listen to archival interviews, watch rare footage and more. There are also plans for concerts, teacher workshops, lectures, film series and more.
Monmouth University is currently in the process of raising the $45 million needed to build the new structure, with a planned opening for spring 2026.
After playing shows on the West Coast this summer, guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, best known for his work with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, has announced a new set of fall tour dates.
Baxter, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020 as a member of the Doobies, will kick off the new dates with a two-night stand in New York City November 7 and 8. The tour wraps November 19 in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. You can find details on JeffSkunkBaxter.com.
The tour is in support of Baxter’s first solo album, 2022’s Speed of Heat, which features contributions by his old Steely Dan/Doobie Brothers pal Michael McDonald, plus country star Clint Black and blues guitarist Jonny Lang.
“We plan on performing virtually all the songs from Speed of Heat, along with a few surprises,” Baxter says. “The tours have gone extremely well, and it has been way too much fun and gratifying to perform these songs for a live audience, especially with a band as outstanding and amazing as the one I have the privilege of touring with me. The response has been incredible and just makes me want to keep on doing it!”
Elton John isn’t going on tour anymore, but that doesn’t mean he can’t perform live.
Nashville’s WKRN-TV reports that on October 14, Elton played at a “top secret” private birthday party in Music City at the Twelve Thirty Club, which happens to be owned by Justin Timberlake. Justin and his wife, Jessica Biel, were there, but the party was for the wife of a local bigwig, identified by Nashville’s WSMV-TV as Jimmy Liautaud, founder of the Jimmy John’s sandwich chain.
WSMV-TV adds that Elton played a 12-song set, including “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocketman.”
Elton and Justin have known each other for quite some time: Justin actually played a young Elton in the Rocket Man’s video for the 2001 song “This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore.” It’s not clear if Justin had anything to do with booking Elton for the party.
Stewart Copeland is revisiting his debut solo album.
The former Police drummer is set to release a new deluxe edition of Klark Kent on November 17, featuring a newly remastered version of the full album, all of the non-album singles plus two previously unreleased studio recordings.
One of those non-album singles, “Too Kool to Kalypso,” is out now. The song was originally released as a seven-inch single.
Klark Kent will be released in a variety of formats including digitally and as a two-LP and two-CD set. The CD and digital versions will also include a bonus of 12 previously unreleased demos.
Klark Kent was the first solo project released by any member of The Police. Copeland launched the project in 1978 as a series of singles before finally releasing the album in 1980. It includes the song “Don’t Care,” which Copeland had originally planned to record with The Police. It went on to be a Top 50 hit in the U.K.
