Classic Rock News

Looks like the legal battle between Phil Collins and his third wife, Orianne Cevey, is over for now: Page Six reports that a judge has dismissed Orianne’s $20 million lawsuit against the superstar singer.

On Friday morning, Judge Alan Fine tossed the case, noting that Orianne had violated court orders 10 different times, and writing, “I’m done with this…I feel comfortable that enough is enough.”

Orianne, the mother of Phil’s two youngest children, was suing him for half the proceeds from the sale of his Miami mansion, which he sold last year for $40 million. She claimed that he’d promised to split the proceeds if she moved back in with him.

But Phil’s lawyer told Page Six, “Before she filed this case, Orianne…threatened to make disparaging remarks about Phil Collins unless he caved in to her demands for 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale.” 

The lawyer noted, “Phil Collins has steadfastly maintained that Orianne’s lawsuit claiming an interest in his home was baseless because he never made [such] an agreement with her.”

Phil and Orianne were married from 1999 to 2007. She was legally married to another man from 2008 to 2017, but reunited with Phil in 2015 because, she claimed, he said he’d give her half the proceeds from the house if she moved back in with him — which he denied. 

But then in 2020, while she was still living with Phil, she secretly married another man she’d selected from a male escort site, court papers said. Phil sued to eject the couple from the mansion so he could sell it.

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Stone Temple Pilots have announced a vinyl reissue of the band’s 1992 debut album, Core, in honor of its 30th anniversary.

The four-LP package is due out September 23, ahead of the exact Core anniversary on September 29. Along with the original album, the reissue includes a collection of bonus demos, as well as live recordings from a July 1993 concert.

Neither the demos nor the live tracks have previously been available on vinyl.

Core introduced the world to STP and frontman Scott Weiland with singles including “Plush,” “Creep” and “Sex Type Thing.” The album’s been certified eight-times Platinum by the RIAA and was previously reissued in 2017 to celebrate its 25th anniversary.

STP followed Core with the equally successful Purple and released three more albums before breaking up in 2003. They reunited in 2008 before Weiland was fired in 2013 and replaced by Linkin Park‘s Chester Bennington. Weiland died in 2015, and Bennington passed in 2017.

The current singer in STP is Jeff Gut, who has released two albums with the band.

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An official music video for The Rolling Stones‘ 1967 U.K. single “We Love You” got its premiere Friday on the ABKCO label’s YouTube channel.

The visual is a restored 4K version of a promotional film that was directed by Peter Whitehead, the filmmaker who directed the 1965 Rolling Stones documentary Charlie Is My Darling Ireland 1965.

The clip features references to the legal troubles The Rolling Stones were experiencing at the time, particularly the February ’67 arrest of Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Jagger’s then-girlfriend, singer/actress Marianne Faithfull, on drug-related charges at Richards’ Redlands residence in Sussex.

During the incident, Faithfull had just come out of a bath and covered herself with an animal fur when the police arrested her. The video includes scenes of a mock trial where Richards portrays a judge who’s wearing a wig made out of rolled-up tabloid newspapers, and Faithfull approaches the bench and presents Keith with an animal fur as evidence.

The film also includes a glimpse at a newspaper headline reporting that Stones guitarist Brian Jones had also been arrested for drug possession in a separate incident. The video is made up mainly of scenes of The Stones working on music in a studio, but it also features footage of the band being mobbed by fans while performing.

“We Love You” was recorded during the summer of 1967 at London’s Olympic Studios and featured guest backing vocals by The Beatles‘ John Lennon and Paul McCartney, as well as piano by lauded session musician Nicky Hopkins. The single reached #8 on the U.K. chart. In the U.S., “We Love You” initially appeared as the B-side of the single “Dandelion,” which peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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The fifth and final installment of Aerosmith‘s five-week archival streaming concert series, 50 Years Live!: From the Aerosmith Vaults, premieres Friday at 3 p.m. ET on the band’s official YouTube channel.

The flick captures the Rock & Roll Hall of Famers performing at Mexico City’s Arena Ciudad de Mexico on October 27, 2016, during their Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble Tour.

The show features a rendition of Aerosmith’s chart-topping 1998 power ballad “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” as well as such classics as “Walk This Way,” “Dream On,” “Sweet Emotion,” “Love in an Elevator,” “Cryin'” and “Rag Doll.” The band also played some select covers, including The Beatles‘ “Come Together” and Rufus Thomas‘ “Walking the Dog.”

As previously reported, the five-part series has been offering a new archival “official bootleg” concert film featuring never-before-seen footage debuting weekly on the band’s YouTube channel. Each flick captures Aerosmith during a different decade.

Meanwhile, Aerosmith is set to begin its 50th anniversary tour next month. The band’s schedule kicks off with a September 4 concert in Bangor, Maine, followed by a September 8 show at Boston’s Fenway Park and two eight-date Las Vegas residencies at the Dolby Live at Park MGM venue. The Vegas engagements run from September 14 to October 5 and November 19 to December 11.

A few weeks back, Aerosmith launched a contest at Tunespeak.com offering fans who watch the 50 Years Live! concert films each week a chance to win two tickets to the band’s Fenway Park show. Those who enter will also have the opportunity to win an Aerosmith T-shirt.

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When Elton John decided he wanted to follow up his global hit “Cold Heart,” featuring Dua Lipa, with something similar, he tapped his friend, producer Andrew Watt — who produced Elton’s 2021 album The Lockdown Sessions — to create it. The result, “Hold Me Closer,” is “a celebration,” Watt tells Variety.

Watt says he and Elton decided to do a dance remix of “Tiny Dancer,” so the producer was provided with the original audio material from the 1972 classic. He called in his fellow producer Cirkut to work on the track, which Elton loved. But then, Watt says, Elton came up with the idea to throw another one of his songs in there.

According to Watt, he and Elton were in Toronto when Elton’s husband and manager, David Furnish, started showing Elton some new merchandise based on the imagery of his 1992 album The One. 

Watt says, “We’re staring at this hoodie while sitting on the couch, and it hits Elton: What about ‘The One'” — the album’s top-10 title track — “for the verses? He starts singing it, but he’s singing it a little different…We took the vocal from that and tweaked it. ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘The One’ are 20-something years apart, but they worked together unbelievably.”

Then Elton decided that he wanted another artist on the track and thought Britney would be perfect.

“The fact that it came together and she wanted to do it and how she sounded on the record — you couldn’t have made it up,” raves Watt. “It’s amazing. It’s a moment in time.”

Noting that “everyone is on edge these days,” Watt says, “This song is just a celebration. It hopefully keeps the summer going for another couple of months…you can just leave everything off to the side and enjoy.”

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KISS‘ 10th studio album, Creatures of the Night, was released 40 years ago this October. To commemorate the milestone, the rock legends will reissue the record on November 18 in multiple formats and configurations.

Among the available versions of the Creatures of the Night 40 reissue is a Super Deluxe box set featuring five CDs, a Blu-ray audio disc, a bevy of collectible items and an 80-page hardcover book.

The first CD features a remastered version of the original album. Disc two and three boast various demos, outtakes and other rarities, most of which are previously unreleased. The fourth and fifth CDs include previously unreleased live performances recorded in 1982 and ’83, as well as bonus sound effects from the Creatures of the Night tour.

The Blu-ray offers up the first Dolby Atmos and 5.1 surround mixes of Creatures of the Night, as well as the remastered stereo mix.

The box set’s memorabilia include posters, photos, an iron-on, stickers, trading cards, a replica tour program, guitar picks and buttons.

Creatures of the Night peaked at #45 on the Billboard 200, and included one minor chart hit, “I Love It Loud.” It was KISS’ last studio album to feature Ace Frehley as a full credited member of the group, although he didn’t play on the record. His replacement, Vinnie Vincent, played guitar on most tracks, although he wasn’t initially credited. Vincent also co-wrote three songs.

Creatures also features two songs that Gene Simmons co-wrote with Bryan Adams — “Rock and Roll Hell” and “War Machine.”

The Creatures of the Night reissue, which can be preordered now, will be available as a two-CD set, a three-LP colored-vinyl package, a single CD, a black-vinyl LP and digitally.

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Blondie‘s expansive new box set, Blondie: Against the Odds 1974-1982, which focuses on the influential New Wave band’s original heyday, hit stores today.

The retrospective, which is available in multiple formats and configurations, contains remastered versions of Blondie’s first six studio albums, as well as a variety of outtakes, demos, remixes, home recordings and other rarities.

“It’s a great collection,” founding Blondie drummer Clem Burke tells ABC Audio. “The first six albums have been remastered at Abbey Road, which we were happy about, ’cause we weren’t really satisfied with the way they were remastered the first time around…[T]his time we kind of took control of everything and…really kind of made it representative of the history of the band.”

Burke says a cool highlight of Against the Odds is a collection of demos recorded in 1974 and ’75 that includes an early version of Blondie’s chart-topping hit “Heart of Glass” titled “Once I Had a Love.”

Clem points out that besides “Once I Had a Love,” “the rest of the demos…have never really seen the light of day in an official Blondie recording moving forward, so it’s good that they’re on there.”

The box set also comes with a book that includes new interviews with Burke, singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, as well as with the four main former members who played with the band between 1974 and 1982.

“[I]t’s great that everyone, all original seven members of Blondie, as it were, participated in the interviews,” Burke says.

Meanwhile, Burke explains that the box set’s title partly relates to “the fact that it’s kind of unbelievable that we’re still here and doing shows, and the amount of success that we’ve had over the years…with the music being the legacy of the band.”



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Apple Corps and Universal Music have confirmed The Beatles‘ 1966 album Revolver is next in line to to get a remix and bonus-filled box set, according to Variety.

An official announcement is not expected to come until sometime in September, along with details on the deluxe package’s contents and release date. As with previous Beatles box sets, the Revolver collection reportedly will include remixes by George Martin‘s son, Giles Martin.

There was wide speculation that Revolver — considered by many to be the band’s best work — would be the next to get the deluxe treatment, following 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and continuing chronologically with 1968’s The Beatles — a.k.a. The White Album — 1969’s Abbey Road and 1970’s Let It Be.

However, producing remixes of the tracks on Revolver could prove to be a tricky task, since The Beatles’ pre-1967 albums were recorded with two-track tape machines that combined multiple instruments or vocals onto a single track, making the separation of those elements technically challenging.

Also, unlike later Fab Four projects, not many outtakes from Revolver have been made available via bootlegs, leaving fans to wonder what bonus tracks might be included.

“You know, we have to look into what technology we can do to make things de-mixed and all this kind of stuff, which I’m looking into. So I’m looking for the technology to do it with,” Giles told Variety in 2021. about how he might approach remixing pre-Sgt. Pepper Beatles material. “I think we’re getting there with technology. I think we are. I’m not doing it at the moment, though, I can tell you that much. But hopefully. So, yeah — watch this space.”

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Elton John and Britney Spears‘ highly anticipated duet, “Hold Me Closer,” arrived at the stroke of midnight on Friday.

Similar to “Cold Heart,” Elton’s 2021 duet with Dua Lipa, “Hold Me Closer” mashes up several past Elton hits: 1992’s “The One” and 1972’s “Tiny Dancer,” with the “woo hoos” from 1976’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” — his number-one duet with Kiki Dee — thrown in for good measure.

The two first met in 2014 at Elton John’s annual Oscar viewing party.  In 2015, Britney tweeted about how much she loves “Tiny Dancer,” which sparked the idea of some kind of collaboration. The track finally came together this summer: Elton reached out to Britney directly, she said yes and the rest is pop music history.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have had the chance to work with Britney Spears; She truly is an icon, one of the all-time great pop stars and she sounds amazing on this record,” Elton says in a statement. “I love her dearly and am delighted with what we’ve created together.”

Britney adds, ““I was so honored when the incredible Sir Elton John asked me to join him on one his most iconic songs. We are so excited for the fans to hear it! Thank you, Elton, for having me! I am so grateful that I got the opportunity to work with you and your legendary mind.”

This is the first new music Britney’s released since 2016’s Glory. While she did put out three tracks in 2020, they were all songs that were recorded for the original Glory album but didn’t make the final cut. They were included on the deluxe reissue version.

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Slash has announced a new book diving into the many guitars he’s played over the years.

The 300-page tome, simply titled The Collection: Slash, includes photographs and illustrations of Slash’s personal guitars, accompanied by interviews with the Guns N’ Roses shredder himself.

The Collection: Slash is the debut release from Gibson Publishing, a newly launched division of the Gibson guitar company.

“It’s been a blast working with Gibson to create a platform for me to talk about my favorite thing: guitars,” Slash says. “This book is a great exposé of all the great guitars I’ve collected over many years.”

The Collection: Slash will be released in a variety of formats, including the signed $999 Custom Edition, which includes, among other things, an Axe Heaven Appetite Les Paul miniature guitar and an “exclusive Slash bandana.”

Preorders are open now via Gibson.com.

While you wait for your copy to arrive, you can watch Slash chat guitars in a new episode of Gibson’s The Collection series. The hourlong video is streaming now on YouTube.

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