Classic Rock News

The second Record Store Day “Drop” event of 2021 takes place Saturday, June 17. Among the limited-edition vinyl discs you’ll find exclusively independent record stores this time around are offerings from The Rolling Stones, John Fogerty, Pearl Jam and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

The Rolling Stones are putting out a reissue of their classic 1971 two-LP compilation Hot Rocks, pressed on yellow vinyl and featuring expanded original artwork.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young are releasing an LP titled Déjà Vu Alternates that features alternate versions of the songs from the group’s classic 1970 debut album, Déjà Vu. Those tracks also appear on the recently released deluxe Déjà Vu reissue.

Fogerty’s release is a four-song EP featuring selections from his 1973 debut solo album, The Blue Ridge Rangers.  The project was a collection of country and traditional cover tunes that he issued under the fictional band name The Blue Ridge Rangers.

A 12-inch vinyl version and cassette single of Pearl Jam’s “Alive” are both being released to mark the song’s 30th anniversary. The cassette single features the single version of “Alive,” plus the songs “Wash” and a cover of The Beatles‘ “I’ve Got a Feeling.”

The July 17 installment of Record Store Day 2021 also includes exclusive releases from The Allman Brothers Band, Yes‘ Jon Anderson, Canned Heat, The Clash, The Cure, The Kinks‘ Dave Davies, Dio, Bob Dylan, Foo Fighters, Sammy Hagar & The Circle, Hot Tuna, Badfinger‘s Joey Molland, Queen + Adam Lambert, Ramones, Lou Reed, Small Faces and War.

Check out the entire list of releases and participating independent record stores at RecordStoreDay.com.

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An archival performance video and album capturing a live in-studio session by Bob Marley and the Wailers, recorded and filmed in October 1973 at the Capitol Records Tower in Los Angeles, will be released in multiple formats on September 3.

Bob Marley and The Wailers: The Capitol Session ’73 can be pre-ordered now, and will be available as a DVD/CD package, a standalone CD, a two-LP colored-vinyl set and digitally.

Famed producer Denny Cordell set up a four-camera shoot filming the band playing 12 songs, with most of the material coming from the group’s two most recent albums — 1973’s Burnin’ and 1972’s Catch a Fire. Among the classic tunes Marley and The Wailers performed were “Stir It Up,” “Get Up Stand Up” and “Kinky Reggae.”

The footage from the session was considered lost for many years, but over the last two decades the film was fully unearthed at various storage units, and now has been restored and remastered.

At the time of the October ’73 session, Marley and his group had started to establish themselves in the U.S. They had been touring as Sly and the Family Stone‘s opening act, but had been fired from the trek and so decided to make their way to LA, where the session took place.

In advance of The Capitol Session ’73‘s release, a video of Marley and the Wailers performing “Stir It Up” has debuted on Marley’s official YouTube channel and the audio has been made available via streaming services.

The two-LP set will be available on green marble vinyl and, exclusively from TheSoundofVinyl.us, on Rasta swirl vinyl — that is, red, yellow and green.

Here’s the release’s full track list:

“You Can’t Blame the Youth”
“Slave Driver”
“Burnin’ and Lootin'”
“Rastaman Chant”
“Duppy Conqueror”
“Midnight Raver”
“Put It On”
“Stop that Train”
“Kinky Reggae”
“Stir It Up”
“No More Trouble”
“Get Up Stand Up”

DVD bonus tracks:
“Duppy Conqueror”
“Rastaman Chant”

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Veteran rock drummer Jason Bonham, who lately has been playing with the Sammy Hagar-fronted group The Circle, has announced dates for a fall 2021 U.S. tour with his own outfit Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, which pays tribute to his late father John Bonham‘s famous band.

The MMXXI Tour currently features 29 confirmed shows, kicking off October 15 in Stateline, Nevada, and plotted out through a November 26 concert in Hollywood, Florida. Tickets for all of the dates went on sale to the general public today.

A look at Bonham’s itinerary explains why he won’t be joining Hagar and the other members of The Circle — bassist Michael Anthony and guitarist Vic Johnson — at four of Sammy’s six recently announced Las Vegas residency shows at The Strat. The “Sammy Hagar & Friends” performances are scheduled for October 29-30, November 5-6 and November 12-13, but Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening has gigs on the four November dates.

Meanwhile, Bonham has posted a message about his upcoming Led Zeppelin tribute tour on his Facebook page that reads, “We go deep real deep. Never a short set and always have surprises my love for Zep is only over shadowed by my love for my father.”

To check out JBLZE’s full schedule and purchase tickets, visit JasonBonham.net.

Prior to the trek, Bonham will be playing 10 concerts with Hagar & The Circle during July, August and September.

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Elvis Costello has enlisted some of the biggest artists from the Latin music world to create a Spanish-language reimagining his 1978 sophomore studio effort, This Year’s Model.

The new album, titled Spanish Model, will be released on September 10, and features all of the songs from This Year’s Model plus select other tunes from that record’s sessions, with the various Latin artists singing the songs’ lyrics in Spanish over the original music played by Costello and his band The Attractions.

Costello collaborated on the project with Latin Grammy Producer of the Year winner Sebastian Krys, who remixed the This Year’s Model tracks from the original master recordings.

“Part of the fun of this project is its unexpected nature,” Elvis says. “Although, I think people in my audience that have been paying attention are pretty much used to surprises by now.”

Colombian rock star Juanes‘ rendition of the Costello classic “Pump It Up” has been released as an advance digital single from Spanish Model, and a companion music video has debuted at Costello’s official YouTube channel.

“‘Pump It Up’ is such an iconic and signature song from Elvis’ amazing repertoire, that it was a real honor to have the chance to sing with the original 1978 recording and be a part of that propulsive energy,” says Juanes.

Other artists who have contributed to the album include Luis Fonsi, Sebastián Yatra and Cami.

Spanish Model will be available on CD, digitally and as a 180-gram vinyl LP. A newly remastered version of This Year’s Model also will be issued on September 10. In addition, a limited-edition two-LP set pairing the remastered original album with Spanish Model will be available exclusively via ElvisCostello.com, uDiscoverMusic.com and the Sound of Vinyl website.

Here’s the Spanish Model track list:

“No Action” — Nina Diaz
“(Yo No Quiero Ir a) Chelsea” (“[I Don’t Want to Go to] Chelsea”) — Raquel Sofía y Fuego
“Yo Te Vi” (“The Beat”) — Draco Rosa
“Pump It Up” — Juanes
“Detonantes” (“Little Triggers”) — La Marisoul
“Tu Eres Para Mi” (“You Belong to Me”) — Luis Fonsi
“Hand in Hand” — Francisca Valenzuela y Luis Humberto Navejas
“La Chica de Hoy” (“This Year’s Girl”) — Cami
“Mentira” (“Lip Service”) — Pablo López
“Viviendo en el Paraiso” (“Living in Paradise”) — Jesse & Joy
“Lipstick Vogue” — Morat
“La Turba” (“Night Rally”) — Jorge Drexler
“Llorar” (“Big Tears”) — Sebastián Yatra
“Radio Radio” — Fito Páez
“Crawling to the U.S.A.” — Gian Marco y Nicole Zignago
“Se Esta Perdiendo la Inocencia” (“Running Out of Angels”) — Vega

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Jethro Tull has unveiled plans to release a new studio album titled The Zealot Gene in early 2022. It’s part of a new label deal the veteran U.K. prog-rockers signed with InsideOut Music and Sony Music.

The project will apparently be the first studio effort that frontman Ian Anderson will release under the Jethro Tull name since 2003’s The Jethro Tull Christmas Album.

Anderson says about his new record deal, “After 54 years in the world of music recording, it is with great pleasure that I now sign Jethro Tull to a record company which reminds me, in many ways, of [our former record label] Chrysalis.”

“Here are real music guys with a passion for the best and most creative in rock music,” he adds. “We look forward to a long and fruitful relationship and more releases to come.”

InsideOut Music executive Thomas Waber notes, “Adding Jethro Tull to the roster is an incredible honor for us. The band are true innovators of the genre and we are looking forward to working with them on their new album.”

The current Jethro Tull lineup also features bassist David Goodier, keyboardist and accordionist John O’Hara, drummer Scott Hammond and guitarist Joe Parrish. Goodier and O’Hara joined the band in 2007, Hammond in 2017 and Parrish in 2020.

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This Saturday, July 17, marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Journey‘s seventh studio album, Escape, which is the band’s only album ever to top the Billboard 200.

Escape is packed with memorable tunes, including four top-20 hits — “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Open Arms,” “Who’s Crying Now” and “Still They Ride” — and the classic-rock-radio staple “Stone in Love.”

Escape has just been certified Diamond for amassing 10 million sales or album equivalent units in the U.S. It becomes Journey’s second album to achieve the milestone, following the group’s 1988 Greatest Hits compilation.

Speaking with ABC Audio, founding guitarist Neal Schon gushes, “To have a greatest-hits Diamond is incredible, but to have one of your [studio] albums become a Diamond, it’s like beyond incredible to all of us.”

Reflecting on what made Escape a special album, Schon notes, “I felt definitely it was the most diversified record musically we had ever made, with many different types of music on it.”

The album was Journey’s first to feature keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who replaced founding member Gregg Rolie. Cain immediately made his presence felt, co-writing all 10 of Escape‘s tracks.

Schon, who co-wrote eight of Escape‘s tunes, notes, “[Jonathan] bought something that the band needed to move on and move forward, and better the songwriting in a different creative way.”

Of course, “Don’t Stop Believin'” has become Journey’s best-known song, although it only peaked at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, while “Open Arms” and “Who’s Crying Now” reached #2 and #4, respectively.

Schon recalls that when “Don’t Stop Believin'” was finished, he “said to everybody in the studio, ‘I think this song has something special. I think this song is going to be one of our biggest songs ever.'”

Here’s Escape‘s full track list:

“Don’t Stop Believin'”
“Stone in Love”
“Who’s Crying Now”
“Keep On Runnin'”
“Still They Ride”
“Escape”
“Lay It Down”
“Dead or Alive”
“Mother, Father”
“Open Arms”

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Hulu’s new six-part documentary series McCartney 3,2,1, which features Paul McCartney examining his musical journey with acclaimed music producer Rick Rubin, premieres Friday, July 16.

Today.com debuted a preview segment from the series featuring the Beatles legend explaining to Rubin how he came up with the name “Sgt. Pepper” used in the title of the Fab Four’s groundbreaking 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“I was on a plane with our roadie, and we were eating, and he said, ‘Could you pass the salt and pepper?’ And I thought he said ‘Sgt. Pepper,'” McCartney recalls in the clip. “So we had a laugh about that, but then the more I thought about it, [I thought,] ‘Sgt. Pepper? That’s kind of a cool character.'”

Meanwhile, another clip from the series that was posted on Hulu’s official YouTube channel shows McCartney and Rubin listening to the basic tracks from the 1966 Beatles tune “And Your Bird Can Sing,” and shows the producer animatedly gushing about how the band members were “cooking” on the track.

As previously reported, McCartney 3,2,1 features in-depth and intimate conversations between Sir Paul and Rubin about the music icon’s music, from the first songs he wrote as a teenager through his work with The Beatles, his 1970s group Wings, and his solo career.

In conjunction with discussing the writing and recording of his songs, McCartney also will talk about his influences, the personal relationships that helped inspire the tunes, and more.

All six episodes of McCartney 3,2,1 will be available for viewing on July 16. The series was directed by Zachary Heinzerling, who also directed the Academy Award-nominated 2013 documentary Cutie and the Boxer.

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Coming across a YouTube post of her own isolated backup vocals on Foo Fighters’ classic “Everlong” has sent Veruca Salt‘s Louise Post down a rabbit hole — leading her to reminisce about the recording of the song, which Dave Grohl wrote about their then-romance.

Posting a snippet of that isolated recording on Instagram, Post wrote, “I sang these back-ups over the phone at 2am after being woken up from a deep sleep in Chicago by [Dave Grohl] who was tracking the vocals for ‘Everlong’ in LA.”

“He wanted me to sing the doo-doo’s, which were inspired by our song ‘Shimmer Like a Girl,” she continues. “While I was at it, I wrote a harmony for the chorus and sang that too.”

“The whispered section of this song was originally the dream I was having when the phone rang. It was a dream about us,” she adds poetically. “He later removed it and replaced with his own whispers, one which was a love letter to me.”

“Maybe I’ll tell the full story…eventually…if I feel like it,” she concludes. “But I just came across this post and thought I would share for anyone who is interested.”

While Grohl’s relationship with the “Seether” rocker didn’t end well — Post claimed onstage in 1997 during a show in Australia that Grohl had cheated on her with Winona Ryder — she said several years ago that she and the drummer are now “friends.”

 

 

 

 

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Iron Maiden released their first new music in six years on Thursday, a song titled “The Writing on the Wall,” and unveiled the track via an animated mini-movie that answers the question, “What if Mad Max was crossed with Bible stories, The Matrix and Lord of the Rings...but it was also a cartoon?”

The video is based on a concept from Iron Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson, who teamed with two former Pixar executives and the London animation studio BlinkInk to make his vision a reality.

The six-minute-plus film is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where devastated and dying people, as well as fat-cat businessmen and dictators, are slowly making their way towards a fortress — while being watched by a mysterious hooded figure and his magical motorcycle gang.

Inside the fortress, thousands are dancing around a pit of green fire to music played by an evil, multi-armed clown deejay.  The entity in charge is drawing his life essence from a man and a woman who are imprisoned in fluid-filled tubes.

The hooded figure blasts his way into the fortress and then dramatically falls backwards into the pit. He’s reborn as an armor-clad version of Iron Maiden’s beloved mascot, Eddie, who, along with his motorcycle gang, starts kicking butt, destroying the fortress and killing the bad guys in various gruesome ways.

Eddie frees the imprisoned man and woman and they ride off into the sunset in an old-fashioned convertible.

“I had a pretty clear idea of the concept to accompany the song…I’m very proud of the way the video turned out,” says Dickinson in a statement.

“I thought we could make something very special together,” he says of his collaborators. “I think we did and hope our fans will agree.”

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Metallica is continuing to roll out content connected to “The Unforgiven” this week in the run-up to the release of the upcoming 30th anniversary box set celebrating the band’s 1991 self-titled album, also known as The Black Album.

Available to watch online now is a live performance of the song recorded at Aggie Memorial Stadium in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on August 27, 1992. What makes the performance stand out is that it took place a few weeks after frontman James Hetfield‘s infamous onstage pyrotechnic accident in Montreal, during which he suffered second- and third-degree burns on his hand and arm. 

As a result, the Las Cruces show featured guitar tech John Marshall playing rhythm guitar, while Hetfield simply stands and sings, with both of his arms and his left hand swathed in bandages.

The video is included on the Wherever I May Roam DVD, which is part of the deluxe Black Album box set, due out September 10. The 1991 album’s official 30th anniversary takes place on August 12. In addition to the box set, the iconic album is being celebrated with a 53-track tribute compilation dubbed The Metallica Blacklist.

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