Pat Benatar and husband Neil Giraldo have announced a new set of spring dates that will have them playing venues on the East Coast.
The eight-show run will kick off April 12 in Port Chester, New York, and wrap April 29 in Hollywood, Florida, with tickets set to go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. local time.
The new shows add to the pair’s already busy 2023. They kick off the year with an appearance at the annual Love Rocks Benefit in New York March 9 and will later spend part of their summer opening for Pink on her Summer Carnival stadium tour. Those shows kick off July 31 at Boston’s Fenway Park.
For a complete list of Pat Benatar/Neil Giraldo dates, check out benatargiraldo.com.
The late Warren Zevon is one of the 14 artists in the running for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction this year. It’s his first nomination, and for many fans and folks in the industry, the wait has been way too long.
“Warren Zevon is an artist we have heard about a lot,” the Rock Hall’s Jason Hanley tells ABC Audio. “Many bands have come out and asked us why isn’t he in.”
Zevon, who passed away in 2003, may not be as well known as some of this year’s other nominees, but he’s certainly made a big impact on his fellow artists. “Warren was not one of those guys the critics didn’t like. I mean, people loved his music at the time,” Hanley shares. He “influenced so many other artists and songwriters over the years.”
“I think it’s great, this is the first time he’s been nominated on the ballot, and I think a lot of fans have been asking for that,” Hanley offers. “I think you might see a lot of people, particularly voters … who are music historians, scholars and other inductees, are really gonna respect the work Warren Zevon has done over the years. So I think, he’s got a real chance to see a lot of votes.”
Watch out, October: September’s coming for your Rocktober title with the RockTember festival.
The two-day event takes place September 8-9 in Hinckley, Minnesota, and features headliners Bret Michaels and Queensrÿche.
The bill also includes KIX, Orianthi and Lita Ford. For the full lineup and all ticket info, visit RockTember.net.
Michaels, meanwhile, released a new solo song called “Back in the Day” in January. Last year, he and Poison joined Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts on the Stadium Tour.
Producer Steve Albini is not a fan of Steely Dan and he let everyone know about it. Albini, who has worked with artists like Nirvana, PJ Harvey and The Pixies, went off on a Twitter rant about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame band, writing, “I will always be the kind of punk that sh*ts on Steely Dan.” He added, “Christ the amount of human effort wasted to sound like an SNL band warm up.”
Albini then seemed to shoot down fan arguments about why Steely Dan was so great. “’They spent three weeks on the guitar solo…’ Three weeks of watching guitar players give it their all while doing bumps and hitting the talkback, ‘More *Egyptian* but keep it in the pocket…,'” he wrote.
As for the argument “Their engineer invented a machine to play the bass drum,” he shot back, “Did he now. And yet it sounds like this.”
He then described two types of perfectionists, offering, “One will prepare, revise and rehearse carefully, with intent, honing an idea to a keen edge, ready to cut the cloth of execution. The other makes other people responsible by saying, ‘do it again,’ until by chance they are satisfied, then take credit.”
He added, “There’s some video where they talk about every song on an album, and each one begins with the not-bald one saying, ‘this song is based on my deep love of the blues, just a very bluesy blues. Deep blues.’ Then lays his jazz dork hands on the f***ing electric piano…”
And if all of that wasn’t enough, at one point he described Steely Dan as “Music made for the sole purpose of letting the wedding band stretch out a little.”
King Charles III’s coronation is happening May 6, and now the government is offering up some suggestions for songs to play at street parties celebrating the occasion.
The United Kingdom’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport has released a coronation playlist of 27 songs, including tracks from The Beatles, David Bowie, Queen and Kate Bush. According to a spokesperson, the playlist had been chosen to “celebrate British and Commonwealth artists ahead of the upcoming Coronation.”
Songs making the playlist include The Beatles’ “Come Together,” Bush’s “Running Up That Hill,” Bowie’s “Last Dance,” Madness’ “Our House,” Queen’s “We Are The Champions,” Tom Jones’ “Green Green Grass of Home,” ELO’s “Mr. Blue Sky,” Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart’s “People Get Ready” and The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me.” The complete list can be found at Spotify.com.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
Foo Fighters, Living Colour, The Beach Boys and Sheryl Crow are just a few of the artists set to play Sea.Hear.Now festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey.
The two-day fest, which takes place September 16 and 17 at North Beach and Bradley Park, will be headlined by The Killers on Saturday and Foo Fighters Sunday, with Crow and Living Colour both booked for Saturday, and The Beach Boys on Sunday’s bill.
Other artists confirmed for this year’s festival include Greta Van Fleet, Weezer, The Breeders and NathanielRateliff and the Night Sweats.
The festival will once again incorporate surf and art into the experience. The North Beach Rumble surf contest will return, featuring the best surfers from the East Coast. The art portion will go down at Stoke Henge, located just off the boardwalk, and feature returning artist Pork Chop with his jellyfish and surfboard arch. Transparent Gallery in Bradley Park will also display artwork from participating festival musicians.
Presale tickets go on sale Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, with a general sale date to follow if there are tickets left. Ticket info and the full lineup can be found at seahearnowfestival.com.
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters have been on the outs for years, and based on a recent tweet by Gilmour’s wife, we won’t be seeing a reunion happening anytime soon. Polly Samson, who’s responsible for writing several post-Waters Floyd songs, took to social media to respond to a recent interview Waters gave in which he criticized Pink Floyd for releasing a Ukrainian protest song.
In an interview with the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, Waters discusses his take on Ukraine, Israel and Russian President Vladimir Putin. He called it “really, really sad” that his former bandmates recorded the song “Hey Hey Rise Up” with Ukrainian musician Andrij Chlywnjuk, calling it “lacking in humanity.”
That article prompted Samson to respond, “Sadly @rogerwaters you are antisemitic to your rotten core. Also a Putin apologist and a lying, thieving, hypocritical, tax-avoiding, lip-synching, misogynistic, sick-with-envy, megalomaniac. Enough of your nonsense.” Gilmour then re-tweeted the post, “writing Every word demonstrably true.”
Waters later responded to the tweet, writing, “Roger Waters is aware of the incendiary and wildly inaccurate comments made about him on Twitter by Polly Samson which he refutes entirely. He is currently taking advice as to his position.”
Dubbed They Only Come Out at Night, the stream will capture Dave Mustaine and company’s performance at the famed Budokan venue on February 27.
The live broadcast premieres at 4 a.m. ET, but for those metalheads who aren’t morning people, the show will air three more times throughout the day at 2 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET. It’ll also be available on-demand for two days following the premiere.
Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” hit number one on the U.S. singles chart, his first and only number one as a solo artist. It spent three weeks at the top of the chart and also topped the Adult Contemporary charts for two weeks.
The tune was his second single from Simon’s fourth studio album, Still Crazy After All These Years, and featured background vocals by Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson and Phoebe Snow.
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” went on to be certified gold by the RIAA for sales of over one million copies.
Bono will be in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, but not for a concert. The U2 frontman is set to be a guest of first lady Jill Biden in her viewing box for President Joe Biden’s State of the Union. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff will join them in the box, as well.
Bono is being recognized for his work fighting HIV/AIDS and extreme poverty, especially the role he played in building public and bipartisan support for the President George W. Bush-era PEPFAR, or President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which was championed by then-Sen. Biden.
Bono is one of many special guests who’ll be sitting in the box with the first lady and the second gentleman. Others include Row Vaughn and Rodney Wells, the mother and stepfather of Tyre Nichols, the 29-year-old unarmed Black man who was severely beaten by police officers during an alleged traffic stop in Memphis and later died; Paul Pelosi, Speaker Emerita of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, who was violently attacked in their California home last year; and Brandon Tsay, who disarmed the shooter responsible for the mass shooting at the Monterey Park Lunar New Year celebrations.
