Freddie Mercury will soon receive another prestigious honor. The late Queen frontman will be posthumously inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame later this year.
“Inductees and Artist Ambassadors inspire courage, character, and service for the betterment of our country and humanity,” Grammy member Maki Hsieh, president and CEO of the Asian Hall of Fame and CEO of the organization’s founder, the Robert Chin Foundation, shares.
Mercury was born in Zanzibar, but both his parents were Asian, from the Parsi community of western India.
The Asian Hall of Fame Class of 2023 will be celebrated at a fundraiser taking place at the Biltmore in Los Angeles on October 21. Tickets for the gala are on sale now.
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready is putting together a one-off supergroup for an upcoming benefit show.
Mike McCready and The Casual Acquaintances will feature Beck, St. Vincent, Keanu Reeves‘ band Dogstar, Tenacious D‘s Jack Black, Dave Matthew Band bassist Stefan Lessard, Cindy Blackman Santana and Fred Armisen.
The event, dubbed Best Night of Your Life, will be hosted by Will Ferrell and will support the organization Cancer for College, which provides college scholarships to cancer survivors. It’ll take place October 21 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
Along with the performance by McCready and company, Best Night of Your Life will feature comedians Jon Stewart, Hasan Minhaj, Jo Koy, Patti Harrison, Roy Wood Jr. and Rory Scovel, as well as actors and SmartLess podcast hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett. Additionally, Maya Rudolph will perform with her Prince cover band Princess.
The music of Gregg Allman and Dickey Betts will once again be celebrated with the 2023 Allman Betts Family Revival, a 16-date tour kicking off in November.
The trek will feature performances by Gregg’s son Devon Allman, Dickey’s son Duane Betts and The Allman Betts Band featuring Tal Wilkenfeld on bass. Anders Osborne, and North Mississippi Allstars’ Luther and Cody Dickinson are also part of the lineup, with special guests in select cities. The tour will also feature visuals from The Brotherhood of Light, known for their previous work with the Allman Brothers.
The tour, which will feature two full sets of Allman and Betts music, kicks off November 25 in St. Louis, Missouri, stopping in cities like Nashville, Boston, New York and Charleston before wrapping December 17 in Austin, Texas.
This is the seventh year of the Revival tour. It was started by Devon in 2017 as a one-off concert in San Francisco, marking what would have been his father’s 70th birthday. It has now been rebranded to reflect the celebration of Gregg, who passed away in 2017, and Dickey.
Tickets for all shows go on sale Friday, August 11. A full list of artists and ticket information can be found at allmanbettsfamilyrevival.com.
Stone Temple Pilots and Collective Soul are playing the Green Bay Packers’ Kickoff Weekend festival.
The free event will be held September 23 outside of the Packers’ famed Lambeau Field stadium. It celebrates the team’s opening home game of the 2023 NFL season, taking place September 24.
While STP isn’t from Green Bay, or anywhere in Wisconsin, they may be looking for a new football team after the Chargers left their hometown of San Diego for Los Angeles. Collective Soul, meanwhile, hail from Georgia, home of the Atlanta Falcons.
Nikki Sixx may be busy on tour with Mötley Crüe, but it sounds like the rocker’s finding some time to pursue one of his other creative interests: writing.
“Started on my 5th book. If things go smoothly we should be able to release it next year,” Sixx shared on Facebook, adding, “If it connects it will be my 5th time on the New York Times best seller list….”
Those bestsellers Sixx is referring to include the 2001 Crüe memoir, The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Band, as well as 2007’s The Heroin Diaries, 2011’s This Is Gonna Hurt and 2021’s The First 21.
“It’s an honor to write books. I’ll keep you in the loop……,” he adds, before noting, “Thank you for always supporting my addiction to words.”
The book is one of many projects Sixx is working on. In the caption, he also mentioned another book, “an animated show that includes music” and “new Motley,” referring to the rumored new music that’s on the way. He shares, “Creative times ahead- SOBRIETY ROCKS.”
In the meantime, Mötley Crüe is currently on their stadium tour with Def Leppard. Theyplay Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday, August 8. A complete list of dates can be found at motley.com.
Steely Dan has announced the latest album in their vinyl reissue program, which will likely excite fans.
The band’s classic Aja will be reissued on vinyl September 29, the first time the album has been released on vinyl in more than 40 years. The reissue is remastered from an analog tape copy of the album and will be released on 180-gram black vinyl, along with a premium 45 RPM version on Ultra High-Quality vinyl.
Released in September 1977, Aja was Steely Dan’s sixth studio album. The record peaked at #3 on the album charts, becoming the band’s highest-charting album. It featured such hit singles as “Peg,” “Deacon Blues” and “Josie” and was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys. It was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003 and added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2010.
This is the fourth Steely Dan record to get a vinyl reissue. The reissue program, which Donald Fagen has overseen, started with their 1972 debut, Can’t Buy A Thrill, reissued in November 2022. It was then followed by 1973’s Countdown to Ecstasy, which dropped in May, and 1974’s Pretzel Logic, which dropped that July.
The program plans to reissue three more albums — 1975’s Katy Lied, 1976’s The Royal Scam and 1980’s Gaucho —over the next year.
Next up, Steely Dan is set to open for the Eagles on their Long Goodbye Tour. It kicks off September 7 at New York’s Madison Square Garden. A complete list of dates can be found at steelydan.com.
Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are among the nominees for the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards.
All three will compete in the Best Rock category: Foos for “The Teacher,” RHCP for “Tippa My Tongue” and Metallica for “Lux Æterna.” Other nominees in the category include Linkin Park’s “Lost,” Måneskin‘s “The Loneliest” and Muse‘s “You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween.”
In addition to multiple past VMA wins, Foo Fighters was honored with the Global Icon Award in 2021, while RHCP has also earned multiple VMA honors, including the Global Icon Award in 2022 and the Video Vanguard Award in 2000. Metallica has won two previous VMAs.
The 2023 MTV VMAs take place September 12 at the Prudential Center in New Jersey. For the full list of nominees and to vote for your favorites, visit Vote.MTV.com.
Sinéad O’Connor was laid to rest in Ireland Tuesday, August 8, in a private ceremony attended by fellow musicians like Bob Geldof and U2’s Bono and TheEdge, as well as Irish president Michael D. Higgins, The Independent reports.
Fans lined the streets of Bray, County Wicklow, to pay their respects to the singer outside her former home, Montebello, which she lived in for 15 years. Fans also left notes, flowers and candles outside the home in tribute to the singer.
Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, an Islamic scholar and chief imam at the Islamic Centre of Ireland, led the private ceremony, calling the singer “a voice that moved a generation of young people” and adding she “could reduce listeners to tears by her otherworldly resonance.”
Following the service, the hearse with O’Connor’s flower-covered casket drove through the streets as fans threw more flowers and applauded as it passed. It was led by a Volkswagen van, covered in both a pride and Rastafarian flag, that played Sinead’s music.
“The outpouring of grief and appreciation of the life and work of Sinéad O’Connor demonstrates the profound impact which she had on the Irish people,” Higgins said of the singer. “The unique contribution of Sinead involved the experience of a great vulnerability combined with a superb, exceptional level of creativity that she chose to deliver through her voice, her music and her songs.”
O’Connor passed away in July at the age of 56. So far, no cause of death has been revealed.
U2 found themselves atop the Billboard Hot 100 for the second time with “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” the second single off their first #1 album, The Joshua Tree. The track spent two weeks in the #1 position.
The Irish rockers had previously topped the chart with the album’s first single, “With Or Without You,” which spent three weeks at #1.
“I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” went on to become one of the band’s most iconic tracks, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1988: Record of the Year and Song of the Year. It has also landed on several best-of lists, including Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
In other U2 facts…August 8 also happens to be U2 guitarist The Edge’s birthday. He turns 62 this year.
The official Beatles fan magazine, The Beatles Book Monthly, is celebrating the 60th anniversary of its debut by making a selection of prints from the magazine’s vast library available for purchase for the first time.
The Beatles Book Monthly was launched in August 1963 by publisher Sean O’Mahony and gave fans the latest news on the band. The first edition featured bios on Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, along with manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin. Subsequent issues chronicled the band’s rise to superstardom and gave fans the inside scoop on their favorite group.
In total there were 77 issues of the mag, which sold about 330,000 copies each month. The final edition was published December 1, 1969, although that magazine was later revived in May 1976 and again in October 1982. Thanks to photographer Leslie Bryce getting unprecedented access to the band, the mag featured loads of photos; over 6,000 of them went on to become part of The Beatles Book Photo Library.
Fans can now get their hands on prints of some of those photos from the library, including a “Hard Day’s Night” photo of Lennon, a shot of McCartney onstage during the band’s last British tour, a smiling shot of Ringo and a shot of Harrison during the Rubber Soul recording sessions.
The prints are available for purchase at bbplstore.com and range in price from $78 to $143, depending on the size.
