Classic Rock News

The Alan Parsons Project is set to release a new box set of their fifth studio album, The Turn of a Friendly Card. 

The limited edition set, dropping February 24, will feature three CDs and one Blue-ray, with the album remastered and remixed by Alan from the original master tapes. It will also include 42 bonus tracks, culled from Eric Woolfson’s songwriting diaries, and studio session outtakes, as well as four promotional videos.

Plus it includes an illustrated book with new essays and photos, recollections from Alan and Sally Woolfson, and a reproduction poster. Fans can preorder it here.

The Turn of a Friendly Card was originally released in 1980 and spawned two hits, “Games People Play” and “Time.” A deluxe anniversary edition of the album was previously released in 2015.

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Patti Smith and New Order‘s Bernard Sumner will perform during the 2023 Tibet House US Benefit Concert, taking place March 1 at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

The annual event, which will return to an in-person celebration in 2023 after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to go virtual the past two years, raises money for Tibet House US, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987 that works to preserve Tibetan culture.

Other artists on the lineup include Laurie Anderson, Gogol Bordello, Allison Russell and artistic director Philip Glass.

For more info, visit the Tibet House US website, THUS.org.

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Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott‘s picks Demi Lovato‘s Holy Fvck as his favorite rock album of the year.

Speaking with Classic Rock magazine, the “Pour Some Sugar on Me” singer says that Holy Fvck “rocks harder than anything else I’ve heard this year,” adding that the record’s “riffs are fantastic” and Lovato’s vocals are “off the f***ing charts!”

Holy Fvck, which was released in August, finds Lovato exploring more of a rock, guitar-driven direction compared to the pop star’s previous releases. It includes features by Yungblud, Royal & the Serpent and Dead Sara; longtime Alice Cooper guitarist Nita Strauss joined Lovato’s live band last summer.

Def Leppard released their own album this year, May’s Diamond Star Halos. Elliott and company also co-headlined the massive Stadium Tour with Mötley Crüe, and they’ll continue to share the road together on a world outing in 2023.

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The stars were out in London Monday to celebrate the premiere of the new Disney+ Abbey Road documentary, If These Walls Could Sing. 

Yahoo reports Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, accompanied by wives Nancy Shevell and Barbara Bach, attended the London premiere, along with Elton John and David Furnish, Stella McCartney, Spice Girls member Melanie Chisholm, Twiggy and more.

If These Walls Could Sing is directed by McCartney’s daughter Mary McCartney and is described as the “first feature-length documentary” on London’s Abbey Road studios. Many of the Beatles’ classic albums were recorded at the studio, including Abbey Road, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, offering fans “exclusive access to these famously private studios.” In addition to interviews with Paul, Ringo and Elton, the film features Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, Oasis’ Liam Gallagher and more.

If These Walls Could Sing is set to premiere on Disney+ Friday, December 16.

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Leonard Cohen died back in 2016, but now his family is in a battle over his estate. The New York Post reports Cohen’s daughter, Lorca, and son, Adam, have spent over a year trying to remove attorney Robert Kory as a trustee of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust. Cohen himself appointed Kory as trustee, overseeing the singer’s vast archives of music, poetry, novels and more, said to be valued at over $48 million. 

According to the court papers, Cohen’s adult children claim the singer “came to appreciate in his waning days that he had made a grave error by allowing Kory to insinuate himself into Leonard’s affairs and take control over virtually every aspect of Leonard’s finances and legacy.” The Cohen kids insist Kory isn’t keeping them in the loop about ways he’s trying to make money from the estate. They are also unhappy Kory hired his son to archive Cohen’s vast personal documents. 

A lawyer hired by Adam also claims they have proof documents from 2005 giving Kory control of Cohen’s legacy were forged in order to “fleece the estate of millions of dollars and steal the Hall of Famer’s legacy from his own children.” Lawyer Adam Streisand insists there are two versions of the documents, and the “one and only true version” gives the singer’s children and Anjani Thomas, Cohen’s former lover who happens to be Kory’s ex-wife, control of the Trust. They claim when Cohen died the original was “swapped out,” designating Kory as trustee.

But Kory insists he didn’t do anything wrong, and does all he can to keep Lorca and Adam in the loop on Trust matters. He describes the confusion over the documents as “a scrivener’s error.”

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Pollstar is out with its list of the Top Tours of 2022, and while Bad Bunny’s tour lands at number one on both the worldwide and North American tours lists, artists like Elton John, Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe, Paul McCartney and more are also on them. 

Elton’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour lands at number two on both lists, bringing in over $201 million in North America alone. Elton also earned the number one spot on the year-end Artist Power Index, described by the mag as “the world’s most accurate index for an artist’s popularity.” Elton also held the top spot on that list back in February when it was first introduced. 

Other artists to land in the Top 10 on the worldwide tours list include Def Leppard/Mötley Crüe at six, Red Hot Chili Peppers at seven and The Rolling Stones at 10. For just North America, Def Leppard/Mötley Crüe land at three, Red Hot Chili Peppers at nine and Paul McCartney at 10.

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Iggy Pop has announced a batch of U.S. tour dates in support of his upcoming album, Every Loser.

The four-show outing includes stops in Los Angeles on April 20 and 27, San Francisco on April 22 and Las Vegas on April 29. For the performances, the Godfather of Punk will be accompanied by a band dubbed The Losers, featuring Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan and Every Loser producer Andrew Watt on guitar.

For ticket info, visit IggyPop.com.

Every Loser will be released January 6, and includes the previously released singles “Frenzy” and “Strung Out Johnny.” Smith and McKagan both play on the record, as do Blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Jane’s Addiction‘s Dave Navarro and Eric Avery, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, ex-RHCP guitarist Josh Klinghoffer and late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins.

Watt and Smith also toured together when they played in Eddie Vedder‘s solo band, The Earthlings.

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A new docuseries on soft rock is set to hit Paramount+ in the new year. According to Variety, Sometimes When We Touch: The Reign, Ruin and Resurrection of Soft Rock will debut in the U.S. and Canada on January 3.

The three-part series will feature interviews from a whole host of artists, including Sheryl Crow, The Police’s Stewart Copeland, Run DMC’s Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Richard Marx, Earth, Wind & Fire‘s Verdine White and The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, as well as actual soft rockers like Kenny Loggins, Toni Tennille, Rupert Holmes and Air Supply.

The series will delve into the popularity of the music, some of which has been deemed “yacht rock” in recent years and has gained in popularity. It will focus on such artists as Loggins, Air Supply, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Christopher Cross, the Carpenters, Lionel Richie, Captain & Tennille and more, and will feature new and archival interviews, as well as concert clips. It promises to celebrate “the impact of soft rock while acknowledging the cringey excesses that sometimes led it astray.”

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Julian Lennon is sharing his thoughts on the 2019 film Yesterday: he has mixed feelings, especially when it comes to how his father, John Lennon, is depicted in it.

The film stars Hamish Patel as a struggling musician who wakes up after an accident to a world that has never heard of the Beatles and begins to pass off the band’s tunes as his own, making him a huge superstar.

During an appearance on Kevin Nealon’s web series Hiking with Kevin, Julian shared that he “loved” the movie, “until they put that weird bit of an impression of what Dad would look like in his 70s and 80s or whatever, up on a Scottish or Irish island,” referring to the plot twist where Patel’s character finds out in this new world Lennon is still alive and goes to find him.

Julian says the twist “kind of threw the whole film off for me,” explaining, “I didn’t get—it wasn’t necessary for me, I don’t think. And it was just weird.”

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KISS is still on their End of the Road farewell tour and are making another trip to the United Kingdom, which they claim will be their last.

Pollstar reports the band — Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer — just announced their last ever U.K. dates, kicking off June 3 at Plymouth Argyle’s Home Park Stadium, with stops in Birmingham, Newcastle, London and Manchester, before wrapping things up July 8 at OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. 

They also previously announced they will headline England’s Download Festival, which takes place June 12 to 14, and also features Iron Maiden and System of a Down.

A ticket presale for the new U.K. dates is happening Tuesday at 10 a.m., followed by a general sale Friday at 10 a.m.

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