If your board game time needs a heavier soundtrack, then Iron Maiden is here for you.
The metal legends have dropped a new song called “Stratego,” a track off their upcoming album Senjutsu. While there aren’t specific mentions of flags, bombs or spies, the tune does include lyrics such as “Teach me the art of war” and “Spills of a crying nation upon my soul.”
Senjutsu, Iron Maiden’s 17th studio album and its first since 2015’s The Book of Souls, is due out September 3, and can be pre-ordered now. It also includes the previously released single “The Writing on the Wall.”
Neil Young has announced that he’s decided not to perform at the Farm Aid 2021 festival scheduled for September 25 at Xfinity Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut, citing his concerns over the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In a message posted on NeilYoungArchives.com, the 75-year-old rock legend writes, “Lots is going on in our world right now. I find myself wondering whether [Farm Aid] will be safe for everyone with the Covid pandemic surging…I don’t want to let anybody down, but still can’t shake the feeling that it might not be safe for everyone. I worry about audiences coming together in these times.”
He continues, “All you people who can’t go to a concert because you still don’t feel safe, I stand with you. I don’t want you to see me playing and think it’s safe now. I don’t want to play until you feel safe, and it is indeed…safe.”
Young adds, “My soul tells me it would be wrong to risk having anyone die because they wanted to hear music and be with friends… Since we know vaccinated people can catch and spread Covid, I worry about the children who could become infected after [Farm Aid], just by being with someone, maybe a parent, who caught the virus at [Farm Aid] and didn’t know it.”
Neil, who traditionally co-headlines the annual event with fellow Farm Aid board members Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, notes, “While I respect Willie, John and Dave’s decisions to stick with it and play, I am not of the same mind. It is a tough call.”
Other artists on the 2021 Farm Aid bill include Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, Margo Price, Sturgill Simpson, Bettye LaVette and Jamey Johnson. The concert is sold out.
Foghat is commemorating the 20th anniversary of 9/11 by offering free tickets to all police officers, firefighters and emergency medical service workers who’d like to attend the band’s concert this September 11 at the Paramount theater in Huntington, New York.
The offer is good for both active and retired workers, and tickets can be reserved by visiting Foghat.biz. The free passes can be picked up at the “Will Call” window at the venue. ID will be required.
Foghat’s 2021 tour schedule runs through a November 27 show in Hiawassee, Georgia, and the band also has a few 2022 dates on the books. Visit Foghat.com for more information.
Meanwhile, the “Slow Ride” rockers released a new live album and concert video last month called 8 Days on the Road in celebration of the group’s 50th anniversary. The collection, which is available as a two-CD/DVD package and digitally, documents a November 2019 performance at the Daryl Hall-owned Daryl’s House club in Pawling, New York.
The reissue, which will be available in multiple formats and configurations, will arrive on October 22, and will feature nine previously tracks from that period. One of the unheard tracks, a rollicking rock tune “Living in the Heart of Love,” has been released as an advance digital single.
All versions of the Tattoo You reissue will feature a newly remastered version of the original 11-track albums, which includes such hits and gems as “Start Me Up,” “Waiting on a Friend,” “Hang Fire,” “Little T&A” and “Neighbours.”
The Super Deluxe edition will be available as either a four-CD or five-LP vinyl set. It includes the nine unreleased tracks gathered on one CD or two-LP under the title Lost & Found: Rarities, plus a two-disc live collection dubbed Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982, featuring a 26-song performance by The Stones at the famed London venue.
Lost & Found also features covers of the 1963 Jimmy Reed song “Shame, Shame, Shame” and Dobie Gray‘s soulful hit 1973 ballad “Drift Away,” as well as a reggae-flavored rendition of “Star Me Up.” The tracks have been enhanced with newly added vocals and guitars.
Still Life: Wembley Stadium 1982 was recorded in June of that year during the Tattoo You tour, and features performances of various Stones classics, select covers like Eddie Cochran‘s “Twenty Flight Rock” and The Big Bopper‘s “Chantilly Lace”; and several songs from Tattoo You.
The box sets also come with a 124-page book featuring hundreds of 200 rare photos, interviews and more.
You can pre-order the reissue now. Here’s the track list of the four-CD version:
CD 1: Tattoo You (2021 Remaster)
“Start Me Up”
“Hang Fire”
“Slave”
“Little T&A”
“Black Limousine”
“Neighbours”
“Worried About You”
“Tops”
“Heaven”
“No Use in Crying”
“Waiting on a Friend”
CD 2: Lost & Found: Rarities
“Living in the Heart of Love”
“Fiji Jim”
“Troubles a’ Comin”
“Shame Shame Shame”
“Drift Away”
“It’s a Lie”
“Come to the Ball”
“Fast Talking Slow Walking”
“Start Me Up” (Early Version)
CD 3: Still Life (Wembley Stadium Concert 1982)
“Under My Thumb”
“When the Whip Comes Down”
“Let’s Spend the Night Together”
“Shattered”
“Neighbours”
“Black Limousine”
“Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)”
“Twenty Flight Rock”
“Going to a Go Go”
“Chantilly Lace”
“Let Me Go”
“Time Is on My Side”
“Beast of Burden”
“Let It Bleed”
CD 4: Still Life (Wembley Stadium Concert 1982)
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want”
Band Introductions
“Little T&A”
“Tumbling Dice”
“She’s So Cold”
“Hang Fire”
“Miss You”
“Honky Tonk Women”
“Brown Sugar”
“Start Me Up”
“Jumpin’ Jack Flash”
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”
Police guitarist Andy Summers‘ first fiction book, Fretted and Moaning: Short Stories, a collection of 45 short tales that all in some way involve a guitar, was published today.
The stories, which are filled with dark humor, ironic twists and whimsy, involve a wide range of characters and scenarios set in various locations and time periods.
Summers tells ABC Audio that featuring a guitar in every tale “was a way for me simply to present myself yet again to the public as a writer, but not…go so far out that [readers] go, ‘We don’t know this guy at all.'”
He adds, “So I’d include a guitar in each story somehow, but it wasn’t really about the guitar. It was about the characters, the way their lives would revolve and be involved maybe somewhat around the instrument.”
While many of the stories focus on rock musicians, Fretted and Moaning also includes tales about country singers, 1930s jazz musicians, gangsters, painters and even cowboys and Indians.
In many of the tales, things don’t end well for the main character.
“The idea is that they’re sort of dark comic tales,” Andy explains. “Most of them have got a tragic ending, you know…[T]hat’s my English sense of irony.”
As for how much of the book is based in reality, Summers notes, “Some of [the stories] are really made up completely. [With others,] someone might [tell me] an anecdote and I go, ‘Oh, let me see if I could…really broaden that out into a thing.”
Three hardcover versions of Fretted and Moaning are available now at AndySummersBook.com — a standard “Classic” edition, a signed “Signature” version and the “Ultimate” edition. Copies of the “Ultimate” version are signed and numbered by Summers and are packaged with a limited photo print.
Last month, Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood told The Times of London that he and Mick Jagger had been working on tracks that will be featured on an upcoming reissue of the band’s 1981 album, Tattoo You, and now it appears that details of that release will be announced on Thursday.
The Rolling Stones have posted a somewhat cryptic message on their socialmediasites that features a poster with cartoonish drawings labeled with various songs titles from the album, along with a note that reads, “‘Tattoo You’ 2021 Flash Sale…August 19th, 2PM BST/9AM EST…RSVP Now!…Get Ready to Be ReInked.”
The message is captioned, “Which would you get? Thursday 2pm BST/9am EST,” and includes a link to a webpage that let’s fans sign up for The Stones’ mailing list “to be the first for all future news & updates!” and asks for a first name and an email address.
So, judging by the posts, it looks like The Rolling Stones plan to announce official information about a 40th anniversary Tattoo You reissue at 9 a.m. ET tomorrow.
Tattoo You was released on August 24, 1981, and featured such hits as “Start Me Up,” “Waiting on a Friend” and “Hang Fire.” It spent nine straight weeks at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart, and went on to sell over 4 million copies in the U.S.
A new illustrated biographical book about the late Jimi Hendrix geared toward young readers aged 7 to 11 will be published on October 19.
Song for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix is a 56-page book that’s described as “a lyrical account” of Hendrix’s life.
Written by author Charles R. Smith Jr., the book tells Hendrix’s story through a series of rhythmic verses, and is enhanced by the psychedelic artwork of TIME art director Edel Rodriguez. Song for Jimi includes sections focusing on Hendrix’s turbulent childhood, his historic performances at the Monterey Pop and Woodstock festival, and more, while looking at the influential musician’s struggles as he forged an uncompromising path through his life.
“I wanted to celebrate a unique individual who inspired me,” writes Smith, who became a passionate fan of Hendrix while he attending art school. As the school’s youngest and only Black student, Smith says he felt a kinship with Jimi as an outsider. The author is hoping the book inspires other young creative people, and also helps introduce Hendrix’s music to new fans.
You can pre-orderSong for Jimi: The Story of Guitar Legend Jimi Hendrix now.
A new book featuring candid photos taken by Go-Go’s drummer Gina Schock during her 40-year music career will be published on October 26, just days before the band is inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
In Made in Hollywood: All Access with the Go-Go’s, Schock takes fans through a photographic journey through the all-female groups history, using a treasure trove of personal pics, as well as images of posters, memorabilia and more from the band’s archives.
The book also features essays from all five Go-Go’s members — Gina, singer Belinda Carlisle, guitarist Jane Wiedlin, guitarist/keyboardist Charlotte Caffey and bassist Kathy Valentine — as well as from such famous fans as The B-52s‘ Kate Pierson, Jodie Foster, Eurythmics‘ Dave Stewart, MTV VJ Martha Quinn, and Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens.
“I truly had no idea that I was to become the Go-Go’s archivist,” Schock notes. “I’ve always loved photography, so taking photos of the band was a natural process. When you check out this book, I hope you feel like you were right there with me over the last forty years. From Baltimore to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, what a trip this has been.”
Made in Hollywood also features a foreword penned by Valentine, who notes that as the Go-Go’s drummer, Schock “gives the songs identifiable hooks — instantly recognizable, the heartbeat and life-force of a track.”
The Go-Go’s will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on October 30 in Cleveland, along with Todd Rundgren, Carole King, Tina Turner, Foo Fighters, JAY-Z and others.
The band also has lined up a series of West Coast concerts in late December 2021 and early January 2022.
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger‘s younger brother, veteran singer/songwriter Chris Jagger, will release a new studio album called Mixing Up the Medicine on September 10, and also will publish a memoir titled Talking to Myself the same day.
Mick has contributed some backing vocals to Chris’ album, which features several songs that the younger Jagger wrote with his frequent collaborator Charlie Hart, a multi-instrumentalist who also has played with late Faces bassist Ronnie Lane and Wreckless Eric.
Mixing Up the Medicine, which you can pre-order now, also features three songs with lyrics taken from poems by an obscure 19th-century poet named Thomas Beddoes that Chris set to music.
Among the other musicians featured on the album are one-time Who touring percussionist Jody Linscott and drummer Dylan Howe, son of Yes guitarist Steve Howe.
Chris has already released a few tunes from Mixing Up the Medicine as advance digital tracks, including “Talking to Myself,” a song inspired by his autobiography.
In the book, Chris delves in to his life story, including his childhood with older brother Mick, the siblings’ mutual appreciation of the blues, his own musical adventures and his travels around the world.
Talking to Myself will be the first autobiography from a member of the Jagger family, but Chris says that while he was working on it, he encouraged Mick to write his own.
“I said to [Mick], ‘I’ve almost finished my book, now let’s do yours’ and he laughed,” Chris reveals. “He’d do a fantastic book.”
Reflecting on his experience writing the memoir, Chris notes that “writing can be quite prosaic and descriptive. It doesn’t have to be all poetry. I have even included some recipes in [my book] too.”
Carlos Santana has announced details of his new album, Blessings and Miracles, which is set to be released on October 15.
The star-studded track list features the album’s first single, “Move,” which re-teams Santana with his “Smooth” collaborator Rob Thomas. “Move” is out today.
The album’s second single, a track called “She’s Fire,” was written by Diane Warren and features rapper G-Eazy.
Blessings and Miracles also features collaborations with Steve Winwood, Kirk Hammett, country star Chris Stapleton, pop star Ally Brooke and more.
“The title of this album comes from my belief that we’re born with heavenly powers that allows us to create blessings and miracles,” Santana says in a statement. “The world programs you to be unworthy of those gifts, but we have to utilize light, spirit and soul — they’re indestructible and immutable. Those are the three main elements on this album.”
On August 25, Santana resumes his Las Vegas residency and on September 11, he’ll kick off his Blessings and Miracles tour at the Borgata Spa & Resort in Atlantic City, NJ.
You can pre-orderBlessings and Miracles now. Here is the track list:
“Ghost of Future Pull”/”New Light”
“Santana Celebration”
“Rumbalero” (featuring Salvador Santana & Asdru Sierra)
“Joy” (Carlos Santana & Chris Stapleton)
“Move” (Carlos Santana, Rob Thomas, Zac Barnett & American Authors)
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” (featuring Steve Winwood)
“Break” (featuring Ally Brooke)
“She’s Fire” (Diane Warren, G-Eazy & Carlos Santana)
“Peace Power” (featuring Corey Glover)
“America for Sale” (featuring Kirk Hammett & Marc Osegueda)
“Breathing Underwater” (featuring Stella Santana, Avi Snow, MVCA)
“Mother Yes”
“Song for Cindy”
“Angel Choir” (featuring Gayle Moran Corea)/ “All Together” (featuring Chick Corea)
“Ghost of Future Pull II”
