Former President Barack Obama has unveiled the 2022 edition of his annual summer playlist.
Among the songs by veteran artists that made in onto the 44-track list are Obama pal Bruce Springsteen‘s “Dancing in the Dark,” Joe Cocker‘s “Feelin’ Alright” and Dr. John‘s “More Than You Know.
“Every year, I get excited to share my summer playlist because I learn about so many new artists from your replies,” Obama says in a post on his social media sites. “It’s an example of how music really can bring us all together.”
The eclectic playlist also includes songs by Prince, Jack White, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Miles Davis, Beyoncé, Lyle Lovett, The Spinners, Drake with Rihanna, Nina Simone, Dave Brubeck, Fatboy Slim, Kendrick Lamar, Kacey Musgraves, Harry Styles and Maren Morris.
Slash is bringing his shredding chops to the advertising world.
The Guns N’ Roses rocker is featured in a new Capital One commercial in which the spokesperson declares that working with the bank is the “easiest decision in the history of decisions,” even easier than, say, letting Slash join your band.
Cut to Slash jamming the GN’R classic “Sweet Child o’ Mine” for a stunned young band holding auditions for a guitarist.
The commercial follows a similar Capital One ad that features a kid picking NBA legend Charles Barkley to be on their pickup basketball team.
Meanwhile, you can hear “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” as well as several other GN’R tunes, in the new MCU movie Thor: Love and Thunder.
Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC News.
Details have been unveiled about the 2022 Farm Aid festival, which will take place on Saturday, September 24 in Raleigh, North Carolina.
As usual, the event will be headlined by Farm Aid board members John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson and Dave Matthews, who’ll be playing with his longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds.
Co-founding Farm Aid board member Neil Young, who missed the 2021 concert because of COVID-19-related concerns, is also skipping this year’s festival.
“I don’t think it is safe in the pandemic,” he wrote in a post on his official website. “I miss it very much.”
Other performers confirmed for the 2022 Farm Aid event include Sheryl Crow, Chris Stapleton, Nathaniel Rateliff and The Night Sweats, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real and Margo Price.
Farm Aid 2022 will take place at Coastal Credit Union Music Park at Walnut Creek. This year’s festival will showcase how farmers are working to alleviate climate change.
“Farmers in North Carolina, across the Southeast, and all over the country are growing solutions to our toughest challenges, including climate change,” says Farm Aid President Willie Nelson. “We’re bringing Farm Aid here to highlight their hard work and celebrate the ways we can all join farmers to help.”
Tickets go on sale to the general public this Saturday, July 30 at 10 a.m. ET via LiveNation.com, while a limited amount of pre-sale tickets will be available starting this Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET. at FarmAid.org/Festival. In addition, a Live Nation pre-sale will begin Thursday, July 28 at 10 a.m. ET.
Farm Aid 2022 will be viewable at FarmAid.org and Farm Aid’s YouTube channel as well as live on the Circle network and on its social media sites.
Myles and Layne Ulrich, the sons of Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, have released their debut single with their band Taipei Houston.
The track is called “As the Sun Sets” and is available now via digital outlets. You can also watch its accompanying video streaming now on YouTube.
The Ulrich brothers first announced Taipei Houston last year. The Royal Blood-esque duo features Layne on vocals and bass and Myles on drums. Myles also plays guitar.
Taipei Houston will be playing a number of festivals over the next few months, including Lollapalooza, Reading & Leeds and Austin City Limits. They’ll also be playing a run of West Coast dates, opening for The Melvins.
Along with the Ulrichs, James Hetfield‘s son Castor plays in a band called Bastardane, while Robert Trujillo‘s kid Tye is the bassist in the group OTTTO.
After a mysterious tease earlier this week, Green Day has indeed announced an intimate Lollapalooza aftershow.
The punk rockers will play Chicago’s Metro concert hall this Friday, July 29. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, July 27 at 11 a.m. CT.
The 1,100-capacity Metro is a much smaller venue than the one Green Day played when they last hit the Windy City: A little place called Wrigley Field. Billie Joe Armstrong and company headlined stadiums across the U.S. last summer on their Hella Mega tour with Fall Out Boy and Weezer.
Lollapalooza takes place July 28-31 in Chicago’s Grant Park, with Green Day scheduled to headline the final day. The lineup also includes Metallica, Machine Gun Kelly, Måneskin, Porno for Pyros, Glass Animals, Turnstile and Wallows.
Elton John, Foo Fighters and Red Hot Chili Peppers are among the nominees for the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards.
Elton and the Foos both received two nods.
Elton’s hit collaboration with British pop star Dua Lipa, “Cold Heart (PNAU Remix),” is up for Song of the Year and Best Collaboration honors.
Dave Grohl and company, meanwhile, have been nominated in the Best Rock category for their Jason Sudeikis-starring “Love Dies Young” clip, and also will compete for the Best Longform Video prize for their horror-comedy movie Studio 666.
The Chili Peppers also received a nod in the Best Rock category, for their “Black Summer” video.
Scoring the most MTV VMA nominations were rappers Kendrick Lamar, Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow, who each tallied seven nods. You can check out the full list of nominees at MTV.com.
The 2022 MTV VMAs take place August 28. Voting is now open at Vote.MTV.com.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell has been busy this year touring with his own band The Dirty Knobs, whose second album, External Combustion, was released in March.
Since Tom Petty‘s unexpected death at age 67 in October 2017, Campbell hasn’t played with most of his Heartbreakers band mates, but would he consider eventually doing a reunion project or tour with the guys? In a recent interview with ABC Audio, the 72-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer admitted that he had mixed feelings about that.
“I go back and forth. I’m not really feeling it right now,” Campbell said. “I’m still grieving, and I still feel uncomfortable with the idea of getting all the guys in a room…and starting a song and Tom’s not there. I don’t know if I want to feel that grief at this moment.”
Mike also noted that he was busy with The Dirty Knobs now and he “wouldn’t want to distract from [that].”
Campbell added that he wouldn’t absolutely say “no” to some kind of reunion, “but right now it doesn’t look like it.”
He continued, “I don’t want to mess with the past…I’m really proud of our legacy, and I don’t want to cheapen it by going out with some…homogenized version of what it was. And without Tom, I don’t care who’s singing, it wouldn’t be the same.”
Campbell also pointed out that The Dirty Knobs have been honoring Petty by playing several of Tom’s songs at their concerts this year.
“[T]hat’s where I get that out of my system,” he maintained.
The Dirty Knobs’ upcoming 2022 tour schedule includes a bunch of headlining shows, some festivals, four gigs opening for Gov’t Mule in early October, and seven concerts in October and November supporting The Who.
As The Rolling Stones prepare to wind down their current European tour leg next week comes word that some members of the rock legends’ touring band will team up for a series of special shows in late August in New York City paying tribute to late drummer Charlie Watts.
The concerts, dubbed “Celebrating Charlie Watts,” will take place at New York’s famed Blue Note Jazz Club on August 29, 30 and 31, with performances scheduled at 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET.
The shows will feature Stones touring bassist Darryl Jones, backing singer Bernard Fowler and sax player Tim Ries, along with accomplished jazz guitarist David Gilmore, keyboardist Gary Versace and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts.
In addition, famed jazz trumpet player Gary Brecker will perform with the collective on August 29, while acclaimed jazz bassist John Patitucci will be on hand for the shows on August 30 and 31.
Tickets for the concerts can be purchased at TicketWeb.com.
The Rolling Stones have three dates left on the current leg of their SIXTY tour — July 27 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany; July 31 in Stockholm, Sweden; and August 3 in Berlin.
Before Stranger Things, there was another pop culture phenomenon that helped introduce rock and alternative music to younger audiences. We’re, of course, talking about Twilight.
The soundtracks for the hit vampire romance franchise, which helped launch the careers of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, became an unlikely haven for alternative artists in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The first film’s soundtrack, released in 2008, featured Muse, Linkin Park, Paramore and Perry Farrell as well as the Collective Soul song “Tremble for My Beloved.”
Speaking with ABC Audio, Collective Soul frontman Ed Roland said he and his bandmates had “no concept” at the time of what Twilight was or what it would become.
“We started hearing about it, it wasn’t a book that I read,” Roland recalls. “I saw the movie, of course.”
While many of the songs on the Twilight soundtrack had been recently released or were recorded specifically for the film, “Tremble for My Beloved” was nine years old at that point, having originally appeared on Collective Soul’s 1999 album, Dosage. That Twilight was able to give “Tremble for My Beloved” a second life nearly a decade later, Roland thinks, was a “blessing.”
“It was really cool that…you could something that’s dated 10 years back but still could relate to teenagers at that time, and someone thought it cool enough to put in the movie,” Roland says.
Collective Soul will release a new album, Vibrating, on August 12. It includes the single “All Our Pieces.”
Eddie Vedder‘s Ohana Encore, the companion weekend to the Pearl Jam frontman’s Ohana Festival, has been canceled.
No official announcement was made, but the Ohana website no longer lists the Encore event. Additionally, the festival’s FAQ section states that those who purchased tickets to Ohana Encore will be automatically refunded.
According to Spin.com, ticketholders received an email saying that Ohana Encore was canceled due to “circumstances beyond our control.”
Ohana Encore was set to take place October 8-9 in Dana Point, California, with performances by Vedder, The Black Keys, Alanis Morissette and HAIM. Ohana Festival, meanwhile, will be held in Dana Point from September 30 to October 2 with headliners Vedder, Jack White, Stevie Nicks and Pink.
Meanwhile, Pearl Jam has been dealing with a host of cancellations as Vedder recovers from vocal issues stemming from a Paris performance besieged by the European heat wave.
