The Guns N’ Roses icon and his solo band, Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators, are set to perform on the ABC talk show this Wednesday, February 2. Additionally, Slash is listed separately as one of the episode’s guests to be interviewed by host Jimmy Kimmel.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.
Slash and the Conspirators are scheduled to drop a new album called 4, featuring the single “The River Is Rising,” on February 11. The group will launch a U.S. tour in support of the record February 8 in Portland.
In a recent tweet, the “Under the Bridge” outfit shared a mysterious video featuring a clip of what might possibly be a new song. They didn’t offer any further info in the tweet, but bassist Flea shared the same clip on his Instagram alongside the caption, “Been nurturing the feral animal for quite a while, it’s about time to set her free.”
The Peppers have been working on a new album, their first since guitarist John Frusciante rejoined the band at the end of 2019. Last October, drummer Chad Smith told Rolling Stonethat the record was “almost done.”
This summer, RHCP will embark on a world headlining tour, beginning in Europe in June before hitting the U.S. in July.
On Sunday, January 30, U2 frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge posted a video of them delivering a new acoustic performance of their band’s classic 1983 song “Sunday Bloody Sunday” that features a new final verse.
The debut of the updated version of the tune coincides with the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” massacre — which served as the inspiration for the song — where British Army soldiers shot and killed 13 civil-rights protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland.
The black-and-white video, which was shot at one of the U2 members’ homes in Dublin, was posted on the group’s official YouTube channel along with the caption “30 January 2022 – With love, Bono & Edge.”
The newly written closing verse features the following lyrics: “Here at the murder scene/ The virus of fiction, reality TV/ Why so many mothers cry/ Religion is the enemy of the Holy Spirit guide/ And the battle just begun/ Where is the victory Jesus won.”
Here are the original lyrics of the song’s final verse: “And it’s true we are immune/ When fact is fiction and TV reality/ And today the millions cry/ We eat and drink while tomorrow they die/ The real battle just begun/ To claim the victory Jesus won.”
“Sunday Bloody Sunday” was originally featured on U2’s third studio album, War.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell in 2012; Lester Cohen/WireImage
Joni Mitchell has joined her old friend and fellow Canadian artist Neil Young in removing her music from Spotify because the streaming service continues to host The Joe Rogan Experience. Many in the medical community have claimed that Rogan‘s podcast spreads harmful misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines.
In an online message, Mitchell writes, “I’ve decided to remove all my music from Spotify. Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives. I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.”
Joni also posted a link to an open letter that was signed by hundreds of scientists and medical professionals asking Spotify to “immediately establish a clear and public policy to moderate misinformation on its platform,” after a recent episode of the podcast aired that they allege included harmful untruths regarding COVID-19.
That same letter prompted Young to demand that his music be removed from Spotify if the service didn’t stop hosting Rogan’s extremely popular podcast. Spotify granted Neil’s request, rather cut ties with Rogan.
Following Young’s decision to leave Spotify, many artists expressed support for him, while quite a few others criticized him, suggesting that Neil’s actions were anti-free speech, and that Rogan had a right to express his opinions about the pandemic and vaccines.
In response to his detractors, Young maintained in an online note, “I support free speech. I have never been in favor of censorship. Private companies have the right to choose what they profit from, just as I can choose not to have my music support a platform that disseminates harmful information.”
He added, “I am happy and proud to stand in solidarity with the front-line health care workers who risk their lives every day to help others.”
Last week, U2‘s Bono made headlines by saying on a podcast that he feels “embarrassed” and “cringe” at the sound of his voice on the radio. But now he’s clarified that it’s not that he doesn’t like his voice — he just doesn’t like how it sounds on the band’s early records.
Speaking to Variety, Bono explains, “I’m used to those songs live. I love the recordings, as far as [the band] is concerned. But when I hear my voice, I just hear the fragility of it.”
He continues, “Live, when it happens, the songs are singing you. It’s the most incredible, miraculous thing. And something like ‘Pride (In the Name of Love),’ which I find particularly excruciating when I hear it [on record]…I sing that on stage and I sing it for everybody. Something is going on there that I have very little to do with.”
However, guitarist Edge disagrees, telling Variety, “I love Bono’s singing on those early records. The vulnerability is part of it.”
Bono and Edge also discuss the fact that they’re shortlisted for an Oscar nomination for “Your Song Saved My Life,” which they wrote for the animated film Sing 2. Their competition includes tracks by Billie Eilish, Van Morrison and Beyonce, which Edge says are “maybe the best array of original songs in the last five years.”
“Whoever wins I think will be a worthy winner — and I hope it’s us. But it’s going to be hard to even get nominated, I think,” notes the guitarist. But Bono insists, “We want to win! We don’t want to come in second. All those people who appreciate songwriting, and the truth behind it, the truth behind the tale, I hope they’re gonna show up for us.”
Two days before his death — September 16, 1970 — Jimi Hendrix showed up unannounced at famed London jazz club Ronnie Scott’s and got onstage with Eric Burdon and War. Now we’re able to hear that performance — his last one ever — in a new documentary called Ronnie‘s.
The doc tells the history of saxophonist Ronnie Scott and his club, which opened in 1959 and became one of the most famous musical venues in London. The film features previously unseen and unheard performances by music icons like Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillespie, as well as rockers like Van Morrison.
The audio from a bootleg tape of the Hendrix performance, as well as interviews with the people who were there that night, are also included. As War guitarist Howard E. Scott relates in a clip from the film, that night at Ronnie’s, the band has started playing a blues cover called “Mother Earth” when he saw Jimi coming towards the stage, guitar in hand.
“Jimi lit into a guitar solo, I mean, me and Jimi were just cuttin’ the place up, we were tearin’ it up, just me and him, back and forth, back and forth…great night,” Scott recalls. “The next night, we got word that after the set, Jimi had died. It was a terrible, terrible thought right then, that I was the last guitarist to play with him.”
You can watch an excerpt from the movie that includes the audio at Rolling Stone. Ronnie’s opens in select theaters and on-demand on February 11.
The Beatles & friends with the Maharishi in India, 1968; Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Beatles and India, a documentary which examines how Indian music and culture shaped the band’s music, will start streaming February 15 on BritBox.
The documentary features recordings, pictures and interviews to detail both George Harrison‘s lifelong devotion to Indian music, which he discovered in 1965, and its effect on The Beatles’ subsequent recordings. It also explores the Beatles’ role in popularizing Indian culture and Transcendental Meditation, following their 1968 journey to Rishikesh, India to study with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The documentary was named Best Film: Audience Choice and Best Music at the 2021 UK Asian Film Festival.
An accompanying soundtrack, called The Beatles and India: Songs Inspired by the Film, features 19 Beatles songs recorded by Indian artists, including Anoushka Shankar, the daughter of Harrison’s musical mentor Ravi Shankar.
Many of the songs included on the soundtrack — “Dear Prudence,” “Sexy Sadie,” “Mother Nature’s Son,” “Back in the USSR” and “I Will” among them — were written while the Beatles were in India and later ended up on their 1968 self-titled album, aka The White Album.
Founding INXS guitarist Tim Farriss has lost a lawsuit he brought against the owners and operators of a boat he chartered in January 2015 on which he severed a finger on his left hand when it became caught in a chain as he attempted to drop the craft’s anchor.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a six-day hearing was held in front of the Australian state of New South Wales’ Supreme Court this past August and September, during which the 64-year-old rocker’s legal team argued that the owners of the Omega Clipper and a boat charter company were liable for damages of 622,000 Australian dollars, or about $434,000.
They claimed that Farriss hadn’t received sufficient instructions on how to operate the anchor, that the equipment should have been in better working order, and that there was inadequate signage warning of potential risks.
Farriss’ lawyer noted that although the musician’s finger was reattached surgically, it “is in a state now where he cannot play guitar.” His attorney also noted that since the accident, Tim has been “unsurprisingly depressed” because he isn’t able to compose music as he once did, or work on a farm that he’d owned that’s been subsequently sold.
However, the judge found inconsistencies in Farriss’ explanation of how the accident occurred, and deemed that there was insufficient proof that the gear wasn’t in proper working order.
Farriss was ordered to pay the defendants’ legal costs. A member of his council said the musician was “very disappointed” with the ruling and was considering his options regarding further legal action.
INXS has been inactive since 2012, when they announced their retirement from touring.
There have been a number of attempts to produce a biopic about Keith Moon over the last couple of decades, but it seems that an official film about the late Who drummer finally is moving forward.
In an exclusive report, Variety reveals that surviving Who members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are serving as executive producers on the project, called The Real Me, which is expected to be shot in the U.K. this summer.
The movie will be directed by Paul Whittington, whose credits include several episodes of The Crown, while the script will be penned by screenwriter Jeff Pope, known for his work on Stan & Ollie and the Oscar-nominated Philomena. Longtime Who manager Bill Curbishley is one of the film’s producers.
The Real Me — whose title is taken from a song on the band’s 1973 album Quadrophenia — is expected to begin shooting in June; work on assembling the cast began a few months ago.
Considered one of the greatest all-time rock drummers, Moon was also an infamous partier and prankster who battled alcohol and drug addiction. He died of a drug overdose in 1978 at age 32. Daltrey has been talking about making a movie about Moon since the early 2000s.
The Dirty Knobs, the band fronted by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, will release their second studio album, External Combustion, on March 4.
The album, a follow-up to 2020’s Wreckless Abandon, can be pre-ordered now, and will be available on CD, via digital formats, and as a vinyl LP pressed on standard black vinyl or limited-edition green translucent vinyl.
The 11-track collection features guest appearances by Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople fame and acclaimed alt-country artist Margo Price on the respective songs “Dirty Job” and “State of Mind.” In addition, Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench plays piano on a tune titled “Lightning Boogie.”
Campbell wrote most of the songs on External Combustion during the past year, although two tunes date back to the 1990s, and were recently rediscovered in Mike’s vault of unreleased tracks.
The album’s lead track, “Wicked Mind,” has been released as an advance digital single, and a companion music video has premiered on Campbell’s official YouTube channel.
The amusing clip begins with Mike in a coffin that an alluring yet sinister woman is preparing to bury. Before she gets the chance, Campbell wakes up and flees his captor, making his way to a bar where his fellow Dirty Knobs are playing. He joins the band onstage, but the woman has followed him into the watering hole, where she proceeds to do a threatening dance in front of the stage. Mike then flees the bar with the woman in pursuit. Watch the full video to find out Campbell’s fate.
After multiple delays because of COVID-19, Campbell and The Dirty Knobs finally will hit the road on a U.S. tour launching March 9 in Tampa, Florida. Visit TheDirtyKnobs.com for the band’s full schedule.
Here’s the full External Combustion track list:
“Wicked Mind”
“Brigitte Bardot”
“Cheap Talk”
“External Combustion”
“Dirty Job” — featuring Ian Hunter
“State of Mind” — featuring Margo Price
“Lightning Boogie”
“Rat City”
“In This Lifetime”
“It Is Written”
“Electric Gypsy”
