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8/29/08

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND JON BON JOVI NO-SHOWS DURING CLOSE OF DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

Despite heavy predictions and then vehement denials, Bruce Springsteen was a notable no-show last night (August 28th) as Sen. Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party's Nomination for the presidency at Denver's Invesco Field. Throughout the night, Springsteen's 1984 blue-collar anthem "Born In The U.S.A." was pumped over the stadium's P.A. system.

John Bon Jovi was also rumored to appear and perform acoustically before Obama's acceptance speech, but also did not appear. The Asbury Park Press reported that Bon Jovi will throw a fund-raiser for Obama on September 5th at his New Jersey home.

Among the performers appearing last night at Invesco Field were Sheryl Crow, who performed her hits "A Change Would Do You Good," and "Everyday Is A Winding Road" -- which included a bit of Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now"; Stevie Wonder and a cappella group Take 6 performed Wonder's unreleased 1995 song "Fear Can't Put Dreams To Sleep," Wonder and his band then performed the Obama campaign song, his 1970 hit "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)," after dedicating it to the Obamas; Michael McDonald performed "America, The Beautiful."

• It should be John Lennon's 1971 social call to arms "Power To The People" was blasted over the Invesco Field P.A. The song, like most of Lennon's anti-war and socially conscious material was deemed a government threat to former President Richard Nixon's re-election in 1972. At the time, the lyrics to "Power To The People" were deemed inflammatory and subversive by the G.O.P. and included as part of Lennon's FBI file.

BRITISH WHO FAN RESCUES ROGER DALTREY'S MISSING PASSPORT

Roger Daltrey was in luck earlier this month when a Who found his passport while shopping at a local Budgens supermarket in Kent, England. According to virginmedia.com, Who fan Lisa Gillespie spotted the passport which Daltrey had inadvertently dropped, and called Britain's Virgin Radio, which made the incident a minor news story.

Gillespie told London's The Express, "If I could get a message to him, I would say that I didn't mean to cause such a stir. I just wanted to get the passport back to him so he could go on tour in America. I contacted Virgin Radio because I know (DJ Christian O'Connell) is friends with Roger from some charity work they did together and he's not the easiest person to contact. I couldn't just call (information) and ask for Roger Daltrey!"

• The radio producers thought they were the victims of a hoax or a practical joke until the well worn, globe trotting passport belonging to Roger Harry Daltrey, was delivered to their studio.
• DJ Christian O'Connell joked: "We still don't know why he was in Budgens, but we do know that Roger Harry Daltrey will be a pensioner and get a (free) bus pass next year -- let's hope he doesn't lose that as well."
• Roger Daltrey has kept busy while the Who has been off the road by performing several benefits for his patron charity the Teenage Cancer Trust, sitting in with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, as well playing a few special events with Pete Townshend and Who. Daltrey says that at this stage of the game, he physically needs to sing as often as he can: "If I ever stopped singing, I wouldn't be able to do this, so I just make sure I just keep singing, keep the voice in. You've got to keep doing it, especially singing like the way I sing. I could do some serious damage if I stop, so I've just gotta keep going."
• The Who kicks off their 10-date North American mini-tour on October 21st in Auburn Hills, Michigan at the Palace Of Auburn Hills.

ARE THE EAGLES EXTENDING NORTH AMERICAN TOUR?

The Eagles may be extending a leg of their upcoming North American tour. The band will kick off their next set of dates on September 6th at Tulsa's BOK Center, but Pollstar.com has just listed the band as returning there on November 11th after a six week layoff. No other additional dates have been announced yet.

Don Henley told The New Brunswick Business Journal that despite having numerous home comforts on the road, the Eagles tours are still strenuous, explaining, "Touring has always been mentally and physically draining, regardless of how it's done. That's just the nature of the beast. No matter how glamorous and exciting it may look from the outside, it's hard, grueling work and it takes its toll. Still, it beats the hell out of a 9 to 5 gig."

• He shed some light on how he and the fellow Eagles -- Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmitt -- gear up each night for the band's shows: "Soundcheck normally begins at 4 p.m. Dinner for band and crew begins at 5 p.m. We all have our own, personal rituals that we do in our dressing rooms before every show. Timothy and Joe do voice exercises. I ride my stationary bike for half an hour and do a little more stretching. Glenn often takes a nap or watches a sporting event on TV to relax... Most shows begin at 8:15 p.m. because we like to wait until all the audience members have found their seats."
• Henley says that the group's core audience has expanded to include three generations. He thinks younger generations come to the Eagles' concerts partly out of love for their songs, but also out of desperation for the lack of good new music: "We think that music is so bad nowadays that young people are curious about what came before, and they come to see what all the fuss was about. And they've grown up with a lot of our songs, because their parents -- and even their grandparents, in some instances -- played these songs to death in their homes while they were growing up. We love to see kids come to the shows."

JOHN OATES RELEASES SECOND SOLO ALBUM NEXT MONTH

John Oates will release his second solo album called 1000 Miles Of Life on September 23rd. The set will feature guest appearances by Blues Traveler's John Popper, Bela Fleck, the Blind Boys Of Alabama, Steve Cropper, Bonnie and Bekka Bramlett, among others. The new set was co-produced by Oates with Jed Leiber, who is the son of legendary songwriter Jerry Leiber.

Oates said that the new batch of songs was directly inspired by his family life: "It was a wake-up call for me. After 30-plus years devoting myself to my art and craft, I needed to make a musical statement that someday I could look back on and realize, at that moment of time, I did exactly what I wanted to do. I've never written songs like this. I was on this inspirational roll. There was an urgency to it. I realized that I had no more time in my life for rehearsals... and I took that energy into the studio."

• Amazon.com will have an exclusive digital version of 1000 Miles Of Life starting on September 9th up until September 23rd, when it becomes available at all digital and retail outlets.
• Oates released his debut solo album, called, Phunk Shui, in 2002.
• John Oates will be appearing on Monday (September 1st) in Snowmass, Colorado at Jazz Aspen Snowmass at Snowmass Town Park.

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

Paul McCartney is gearing up for his concert next month in Israel, and posted a message to fans on his official website paulmccartney.com, about the upcoming show in Tel Aviv, saying, "I've heard so many great things about Tel Aviv and Israel, but hearing is one thing and experiencing it for yourself is another. We are planning to have a great time and a great evening. We can't wait to get out there and rock."

Paul McCartney's Israeli debut is set for September 25th at Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park. He is reportedly earning $4.3 million for the two-and-a-half hour concert.

• It's been revealed over the past week that the alleged 1965 ban on the Beatles performing in Israel has been proven to be untrue. According to several sources, the long-believed ban due to cultural issues by the Israeli government back in the 1960's was down to a case of rivaling promoters, rather than a judgment on the morals of the "Fab Four" by Holy Land leaders.
• Yossi Sarid, the son of Israel's Education Ministry's director Yaakov Sarid -- who was said to be responsible for the ban -- has spoken out and also claimed that the allegation is untrue, telling Time magazine that the story is "a Zionist urban legend... It's a nice story, in this case much nicer than the truth."

In McCartney-related News:

• The New York Post reports that Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell were recently dinning at Nick & Toni's in East Hampton, New York which is a favorite restaurant of McCartney's. The chef played a trick on McCartney by bringing a small piece of meat as an appetizer for the couple. According to a patron, McCartney, who is a staunch vegetarian, was a good sport and joked to the waiter, "You can tell the chef to stick it... but don't tell him I said that."
• McCartney's live debut of his experimental studio act, called the Fireman, has trumped France's First Lady Carla Bruni's star performance on BBC's Later... With Jools Holland. Timesonline.co.uk reported that Bruni had hoped her September 16th slot on the show to have been star attraction on the program's season debut. A source who has heard the new Fireman material said, "It sounds like Arcade Fire meets Led Zeppelin."
• "The Fireman," has been the moniker used for McCartney's experimental musical projects over the past 15 years with DJ/producer Youth.

In Beatles-related news:

John Lennon's son Sean Lennon has teamed up with George Harrison's son Dhani (pronounced: Danny) Harrison, in donating a guitar for auction for the Mercy Corps charity. The Epiphone Les Paul Jr. copy features drawings and designs by Lennon and has an estimated value of $4,000. The auction closed on September 4th at 12:14 p.m. EST. To view the guitar, go to charitybuzz.com.

• The Mercy Corps is an international humanitarian aid and development charitable organization that focuses on emergency relief services, and economic development and assistance to people in 106 countries.

FULL ALBUMS FROM FOO FIGHTERS, CHILI PEPPERS HEADED TO 'ROCK BAND'

Full albums from Foo Fighters, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others will arrive as playable downloads for Rock Band 2, according to RollingStone.com. The downloads will begin arriving in the months following the video game's September release, with Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape, the Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik and Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking reportedly among the titles making the list. Publisher MTV Games decided to add more full records to the game's second edition after downloads of Judas Priest's Screaming for Vengeance and Pixies' Doolittle were successful after the first Rock Band's release.

• Rock Band 2 will arrive on Xbox 360 on September 14th, and will be available for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Wii systems later this year.
• A total of 84 tracks will come with the game itself, including a new song from Guns N' Roses, plus tunes from Pearl Jam, Metallica, the Allman Brothers, Paramore, Modest Mouse, Nirvana, the Who, Jimmy Eat World, Bon Jovi and many more.
• The game will include the first and so far only video game appearances of songs by AC/DC and Bob Dylan, who have contributed "Let There Be Rock" and "Tangled Up in Blue" respectively.

FLASHBACK: JOHN LENNON PERFORMS FIRST FULL LENGTH SOLO CONCERT

It was 36 years ago tomorrow (August 30th, 1972) that John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed their only publicly announced, full-length concerts, at New York City's Madison Square Garden. The two shows, known as the One To One concerts, included an afternoon matinee and an evening performance, and benefited the Willowbrook House, with the proceeds from the concerts going to help establish new accommodations for the mentally handicapped inhabitants of the former Willowbrook institution in Long Island, New York.

The shows also included performances by Sha-Na-Na, Stevie Wonder, and Roberta Flack. John and Yoko closed both shows with a full concert set, featuring songs by each of them, backed by their then-band the Elephants Memory. Lennon, decked out in iconic army fatigues, cowboy boots, and blue-tinted granny-glasses, played both guitar and electric piano. Ono contributed some keyboard work as well. The set featured mostly material from John and Yoko's early '70s solo albums, as well as material their joint album Some Time In New York City. The couple was introduced by Geraldo Rivera, who organized the benefit.

• The songs performed by John Lennon and Yoko Ono: "Power To The People (intro)," "New York City," "It's So Hard," "Move On Fast (Yoko)," "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World," "Sisters O' Sisters (Yoko)," "Well, Well, Well," "Born In A Prison (Yoko)," "Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)," "Mother," "We're All Water (Yoko)," "Come Together," "Imagine," "Open Your Box (Yoko)," "Cold Turkey," "Don't Worry Kyoko (Yoko)," "Hound Dog," and "Give Peace A Chance."
• Roberta Flack had the unenviable task of opening for John and Yoko. Despite the constant crowd chants for Lennon, she enjoyed playing the two shows: "Everybody was happy because John was there. I heard rumors that, I don't know how true they were, that Yoko wasn't that happy to be there."
• Mark Lapidos, the founder of the Fest for Beatles Fans, previously known as Beatlefest, was at both the One To One concert, as well as George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh the previous year, and says that with all due respect, Harrison's all-star show blew Lennon's out of the water: "The quality of music at Bangladesh was unmatched. The quality of the Elephants Memory Band backing John was fun, it was nice -- (but) it wasn't the same."
• Joe Raiola, the senior editor of MAD magazine and the writer-director of the annual John Lennon tribute in New York City, caught one of the two shows and said that at the time nobody had any patience for Ono's music: "That concert was a benefit for the Willowbrook school, and of course it was a John and Yoko show. And I'm being honest here, I don't know what Yoko would say, but people kind of sat through her stuff. They really didn't want to see her -- they wanted to see John. It was a package deal and they wanted to be a team. It really wasn't until Double Fantasy that they achieved that. If they toured with Double Fantasy, I think the response to Yoko would have been considerably different."
• Raiola says that Lennon seemed comfortable onstage and even cracked a few jokes: "His humor came through, because he cracked several jokes. I remember that. I remember before 'Come Together' he said something like, and I'm paraphrasing, '(We'll) go back in the past just once, here's a song that I did when I was in the Rolling Stones.'"
• Yoko Ono says that the negative reviews that she and Lennon garnered after the show still leave a bad taste in her mouth: "Afterwards there was such a bad review, written by somebody whose band that he liked, or something was not invited -- we felt terrible about the reviews. And John said, 'Usually they don't really rip you when you did (sic) a charity show.' He felt very bad because -- especially bad because it wasn't with the Beatles and he wanted to sort of show the world that he can do it. So it was actually bad. It's a bad memory in that sense."
• Material from the two concerts has made its way out to the public over the years. Select performances from the show's evening performance were broadcast later that year on an ABC In Concert special, featuring highlights from all of the show's acts. A syndicated edition of the King Biscuit Flower Hour also included several of Lennon's songs from the evening concert.
• In February 1986, Ono released the posthumous album John Lennon Live In New York City, which featured all of Lennon's songs, mixing performances from both the afternoon and evening shows. A video version also included two of Ono's tracks.
• To promote the album, Ono released a clip of Lennon's afternoon performance of "Come Together," which received substantial airplay on MTV.
• 1998's John Lennon Anthology featured three songs from the evening show: "It's So Hard, "Woman Is The Nigger Of The World," and "Come Together," in which Lennon shouts during the chorus, "Stop the war!"
• Phil Spector supervised the original mix of the live tapes, but aside from the 1972 TV special and radio broadcast, none of his original mixes have been released.

FLASHBACK: BOB DYLAN & THE BAND PLAY THE ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL

It was 38 years ago Sunday (August 31st, 1969) that Bob Dylan made his first full-length concert appearance in three years at the Isle Of Wight Festival. Dylan's hour-long set with the Band closed the three-day festival, which also featured the Who, Richie Havens, the Moody Blues, Joe Cocker, and a solo set by the Band.

After very little rehearsal, Dylan and the Band took the stage in front of a crowd of an estimated 200,000 people -- including John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In front of a battery of microphones, a bearded Dylan, clad in a white suit and playing a large Gibson hollow-bodied acoustic guitar, gave an hour-long, spirited performance of 16 songs, spanning his then eight-year career.

• Among the songs performed during Dylan and The Band's set were: "She Belongs To Me," "I Threw It All Away," "Maggie's Farm," "It Ain't Me Babe," "Minstrel Boy," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Lay Lady Lay," "To Ramona," "Highway 61 Revisited," "Like A Rolling Stone," "Mighty Quinn," and "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35."
• The Band's drummer Levon Helm recalled the show to author Clinton Heylin for his Dylan biography Behind The Shades, saying, "I would've like to have gotten carried away. Bob had an extra list of songs with eight or ten different titles with question marks by them... But it seemed like the festival was three days old by then; and so, if everybody else is ready to go home, let's all go."
• Columbia Records recorded the shows on a portable eight-track machine, and four of the songs, "She Belongs To Me," "Minstrel Boy," "Like A Rolling Stone," and "The Mighty Quinn," were included on Dylan's 1970 Self Portrait album.
• Over the years, the concert has been widely bootlegged from several sources, including the sound from local film crews, crude recordings from audience members, and even a low-generation dub from the Columbia master tape. The concert has long been rumored to be included in an upcoming edition of Dylan's ongoing Bootleg Series collections.
• Dylan has gone on record as saying that when he found out about the Woodstock festival taking place near his Saugerties, New York home earlier that month, he snapped up the offer to play the Isle Of Wight Festival to get as far away from the Woodstock crowds that would be looking for him at home.
• Bob Dylan performs tomorrow night (August 30th) in Snowmass, Colorado at Jazz Aspen Snowmass, Snowmass Town Park.

FLASHBACK: THE BEATLES PERFORM FINAL OFFICIAL CONCERT

It was 42 years ago today (August 29th, 1966), that the Beatles performed their last official concert in San Francisco at Candlestick Park. The tour, which had already hit Germany, Japan and the Philippines, was dogged by controversy -- protests greeted the group in Tokyo prior to their performance at the Budokan Arena, which until then had been reserved strictly for the martial arts. And in the Philippines, the group fled the country after being accused of snubbing the infamous President and First Lady Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, after they politely declined to attend an official state luncheon.

By the time the group landed in the U.S. to kick off the tour on August 12th, a furor was brewing over John Lennon's remarks about religion made months before in a British interview, which had been reprinted out of context in a teen magazine, saying: "Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink... Jesus was alright, but his disciples were thick and ordinary... We're more popular than Jesus now." Lennon's statements, which were ignored in Britain, ignited protests, including record burnings all over the "bible belt" and southern U.S. states.

The Beatles held a press conference on August 11th in Chicago, the night before they were due to perform, with Lennon trying to explain exactly what he meant in the interview. In lieu of an actual apology this quelled the Beatle bonfires, but the controversy cast a shadow over the tour which proved to be lackluster, both in the Beatles' performances and ticket sales.

Beatlefan magazine's executive editor Al Sussman says that it was clear that by the summer of '66 "Beatlemania" was on the wane: "There were rumors at the time that the tour might be cancelled. And indeed a number of the shows including Shea Stadium were not sellouts, and that upper deck was pretty empty."

On August 29th, 1966 at 8 p.m. the Beatles took the stage on the second base line at Candlestick Park, and ran through their 33-minute show, performing 11 songs: Chuck Berry's "Rock And Roll Music," "She's A Woman," "If I Needed Someone," "Day Tripper," "Baby's In Black," "I Feel Fine," "Yesterday," "I Wanna Be Your Man," "Nowhere Man," "Paperback Writer," and Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" -- their first performance of the song in nearly a year.

Paul McCartney, knowing that the show was to be the Beatles' last, captured the show on a portable tape recorder, the tape from which has eventually made the rounds of bootleg collectors. Rather than end with "I'm Down," which was their usual set-closer for the tour, McCartney surprised the rest of the group by launching into their original set closer, Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally," as a nod to the music that originally inspired them.

Afterward, George Harrison broke into a few notes of "In My Life" from the group's 1965 Rubber Soul album. The group then turned their backs on the 25,000 screaming fans and posed for a camera set on an automatic timer, to symbolically cap off their performing career. They were then whisked out of the stadium by armored van.

• Beatlefan's Al Sussman says that in hindsight it was obvious that the tour would be their last: "They knew. That's why they recorded the last show. Because it had gotten so awful... They were really looking toward it as the last tour anyway, but especially after the Christ thing they said, 'We're done.'"
• George Harrison talked about the final concert in The Beatles Anthology, saying, "We'd done about 1,400 live shows and I certainly felt that was it. I was thinking, 'This is going to be such a relief -- not having to go through that madness anymore'... It was a unanimous decision."
• Although the Beatles performed in public one more time, with keyboardist Billy Preston on January 30th, 1969 on the London rooftop of their Apple headquarters, during the finale of their Let It Be movie, the group's Candlestick Park performance was their last officially advertised and ticketed concert.

FAST FORWARD:

Upon returning to London on August 31st, 1966, the Beatles all went their separate ways, with John Lennon heading to Spain to star in the film How I Won The War, and George Harrison going to India to study the sitar. McCartney and Ringo Starr stayed based in London for the first month or so, with McCartney composing the score for the movie The Family Way and Starr tending to his growing family.

During the Beatles' group hiatus, McCartney slicked his hair back and grew a mustache so that he could drive through Europe anonymously. He eventually met up with Lennon and manager Brian Epstein in Paris. He also realized a life long dream by going on Safari in Africa. Starr traveled to Almeria, Spain for a long visit with Lennon on the set of How I Won The War.

• On November 24th, 1966 all four Beatles regrouped at Abbey Road Studios to begin recording "Strawberry Fields Forever," which was the first track recorded for the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, even though it was removed from the project early on and released as a single.

METALLICA DRUMMER SAYS 'ST. ANGER' LED TO 'DEATH MAGNETIC'

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich says in a new interview with heavy rock website The Quietus that the band's controversial 2003 album, St. Anger, "had to happen" in order for the group to make its upcoming CD, Death Magnetic. When asked what he thinks of the album and its primitive production now, Ulrich replied, "I'm so beyond 'good' and 'bad'...I know a lot of people don't think it's a good album, I appreciate that and I respect it. I know a lot of people find it very difficult. What I am 100 percent sure of, is that if it wasn't for St. Anger, Death Magnetic wouldn't sound the way it does. St. Anger had to happen: if you can't find anything musically to appreciate, which I respect, at least respect St. Anger's existence."

• Ulrich told us that the band was surprised by the hostile reaction to St. Anger by many fans: "It threw us a little bit sure, 'cause the whole thing was to just keep it as raw as possible. And I'd like to think that we accomplished that (laughs), to the point of obviously a little too raw for some people, and that's okay. I mean, it is what it is. I have not regret one about it. I'm proud of it, proud that we had the balls to see it through, but the new record is nothing like that."\
• Ulrich also told The Quietus that "if it wasn't for us completely reinventing the (songwriting) process" on St. Anger, "there would be no Death Magnetic. (frontman) James Hetfield would be in Nashville playing country music, I'd be off producing films and (guitarist) Kirk Hammett would be on tour with (guitar player) Joe Satriani."
• Death Magnetic arrives worldwide on September 12th.
• Some fans have complained online about the sound quality of the CD's first single, "The Day That Never Comes," which surfaced last week at iTunes, the band's own website and other outlets.
• In the same interview, Ulrich says that he quit using cocaine after being inspired by Oasis guitarist Noel Gallagher. Ulrich recounted, "A couple of years ago I was like, 'You know? Enough of this. I don't need it'...I was very impressed with Noel Gallagher. As you know, I'm an Oasis fanatic, and Noel was like, 'You know what? No more cocaine!' (Gallagher quit in 1998) and I thought, 'If he can do it, everybody else can do it.'"

8/28/08

PAUL McCARTNEY TO EARN $4.3 MILLION FOR ISRAELI CONCERT

Paul McCartney will earn $4.3 million for his September 25th Israeli debut at Tel Aviv's Hayarkon Park. Ynet News reported that the show's promoters, who have been victims of last-minute cancellations by other acts, are withholding the transfer of funds until moments before McCartney's concert begins. According to the agreement, "the money would be deposited in the trust of a New York firm's account and transferred to the singer just 30 minutes before the show... McCartney's agents, the trust company and the ticket box office were all signatory to the agreement."

• A source close to the concert said of the unusual transaction, "On the one hand, the singer will be sure that the money is at his disposal and that there won't be a problem with the payment and on the other hand, the organizers in Israel will insure their money in case the singer does not arrive for one reason or another."
• Tickets for McCartney's Tel Aviv show are on sale now and run from $285 to $1,440.

August 28th -- On This Day In Beatles History:

1964: The Beatles appear on the cover of LIFE magazine. That night they perform in New York at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. Afterwards in their suite at Manhattan's Delmonico Hotel, Bob Dylan turns them on to marijuana for the first time.

1965: The Beatles perform in San Diego, California at Balboa Stadium.

1966: The Beatles perform in Los Angeles, California at Dodgers Stadium.

1968: The band begins recording John Lennon's "Dear Prudence" at London's Trident Studios. The session lasts from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 the following morning.

1969: Linda McCartney gives birth to Paul's first child, daughter Mary McCartney. The following year, McCartney officially adopts Linda's seven-year-old daughter, Heather See, from her previous marriage.

MAN WHO LEAKED GUNS N' ROSES TRACKS ARRESTED

A 27-year-old blogger named Kevin Cogill was arrested on Wednesday (August 27th) at his Los Angeles home on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws for leaking nine Guns N' Roses songs online, according to the Los Angeles Times. Cogill, who used the name Skwerl, was accused of posting the songs at a website called Antiquiet in June, where they were available for public access. The site crashed from the amount of traffic it received once word of the leaked tracks got out. Cogill admitted to federal agents that he posted the songs and was expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Wednesday afternoon.

• Cogill operates Antiquiet himself and used to work in the distribution department of Universal Music, which owns Guns N' Roses' catalog.
• It is not yet known how Cogill obtained the tracks, which are taken from the yet-to-be-released Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy. He told Rolling Stone that he received them from an "anonymous online source," and took them down after being contacted by "a really cool guy from the G N'R camp that was a middleman between someone who was very angry and me."
• Cogill was also visited at his office by two FBI agents who questioned him about the leak.
• Kathy Leodler, director of investigations for the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA) Western region office, told the Times, "The arrest of Kevin Cogill is great for the recording industry related to our online investigations. We are very pleased with the FBI's interest and the U.S. attorney's office's aggressiveness in pursuing this investigation. We think we'll see more and more of these pre-release cases."

QUICK TAKES

• Rolling Stone reported that the Doors and Santana have settled their suit against the Wolfgang's Vault website for streaming their unreleased concerts and selling copywrited merchandise. The website mainly trades in the archive of the late concert promoter Bill Graham, who kept numerous pieces of memorabilia from his historic venues, such as San Francisco's the Fillmore and Winterland, and New York City's the Fillmore East.
• Graham recorded most of the shows on multitrack tape and filmed many of them as well. In 2006, the Doors, Santana, the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin sued the site's owner Sagan for copyright infringement.
• The Dead and Zeppelin have yet to come to an agreement with Sagan, who is still streaming live concerts by them and Santana. For more information log on to wolfgangsvault.com.
• The third Cabo Wabo Cantina opened for three private parties this week in Fresno, California, according to fresnobee.com. Although Sammy Hagar, who created the franchise, will not be on hand for the public opening tomorrow night (August 29th), his son Aaron Hagar will perform. Sammy is said to be planning a stop at the new Cabo Wabo soon, with representatives saying that his ex-Van Halen bandmate Michael Anthony is set to appear at the establishment sometime next week.
• The two other Cabo Wabo restaurant and bars are in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
• Oscar Winning director Ang Lee best known for such dramas as Brokeback Mountain and The Ice Storm, will direct the upcoming film Taking Woodstock. Rolling Stone reported that the movie is based on a true story of interior designer Elliot Tiber, who allowed the legendary concert's organizers the use of his Catskills, New York hotel to help plan the 1969 three-day festival. Taking Woodstock is set for release in June 2009.
• Mick Jagger's ex-wife Bianca Jagger has lost a $295,000 platinum-and-aquamarine ring over the weekend. AFP reported that Jagger was in Salzburg, Austria attending an annual music festival.
• A police representative said that Jagger believed she lost the ring in the street, adding, "Ms. Jagger expressly said she had lost the ring and that this wasn't a theft."
• Mick and Bianca Jagger were married from 1971 to 1980.

GENESIS BOXES UP ITS CATALOG

Genesis will be out with a comprehensive boxed set on November 11th, called Genesis: 1970-1975. The seven-CD/six-DVD collection will feature studio albums with original frontman Peter Gabriel, along with rare material and footage. According to Billboard.com, the set will feature the albums Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Also included with each disc is an accompanying DVD with film footage from the '70s, as well as recent interviews with the band. Some of the previously unreleased material will show up on the rarities disc, which features a demo of "Going Out To Get You," three tracks from the BBC show Nightride and the seven-inch single "Happy the Man." There are also four unreleased songs in the collection that were recorded in 1970 for a documentary about painter Mick Jackson.

• Genesis toured last year with Phil Collins on vocals for the first time since 1992.

JOHN MELLENCAMP SAYS LATEST ALBUM REFLECTS THE DARK ISSUES OF AMERICAN LIFE

John Mellencamp says that his latest album, Life, Death, Love And Freedom, harkens back to the honesty of the classic American folk music. Mellencamp commented on the brutal honesty and darkness reflected in the album's songs, telling Rolling Stone, "If you listen to Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, those were traditional topics in American folk songs -- the songs are about the parts of life that most people don't really want to discuss. Which doesn't necessarily work for pop music that record companies really want to put (it) out. I made this album for me."

He's adamant that after 30 years in the business his opinion is the only one that matters to him: "I'm trying to live up to what a guy my age should be doing. I'm trying not to look silly. You know, it's like people say, 'Hey, you're a rock star, man.' And I don't see myself that way anymore. I'm just, like, a journeyman electrician or something."

• Mellencamp makes no apology for making music that isn't as immediately accessible or radio-friendly as his classic hits. He says that he recognized that some fans were upset that he allowed Chevy to use his 2007 song "Freedom's Road" for their TV spots: "I don't think people like the idea that I did that. But you know what? I've done so many things in my career people didn't like. If I thought it was the end of the line every time I did something' that people didn't like, hell, I'd been done with Johnny Cougar."
• T-Bone Burnett, who produced Life, Death Love, And Freedom, says that he walked away from the sessions a bigger fan then ever of Mellencamp as both an artist and a man: "I love John Mellencamp, he is a powerful musician, and he rocks like crazy, I have to say. He's a really great singer -- we did the thing live. He's a great storyteller, he's a great songwriter, he's a terrific painter. Y'know, he's made a beautiful life for himself up there in the woods of Indiana (laughs). He's never left. Now he's a little like the madman up in the woods."
• T-Bone Burnett recently produced Robert Plant and Alison Krauss' Grammy Award-winning album Raising Sand.
• John Mellencamp will next appear at Farm Aid on September 20th in Mansfield, Massachusetts at the Comcast Center. Among the other musicians appearing on the bill are Arlo Guthrie, Dave Matthews, Jakob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kenny Chesney, Neil Young, Steve Earle, the Pretenders, and Willie Nelson.

AC/DC'S 'TRAIN' LEAVES THE STATION

AC/DC's new "Train" left the station at midnight on Thursday (August 28th) as "Rock 'n' Roll Train," the first single from the band's new album, made its world premiere at iHeartMusic.com, shortly after being sent to radio stations around the country. The group's new CD, Black Ice, is its first in eight years and will arrive on October 21st, to be followed by a world tour that tentatively kicks off on Halloween in Chicago. "Rock 'n' Roll Train" is classic AC/DC from start to finish, with bluesy riffs, a rock-solid tempo and a scorching solo from Angus Young.

• Young told us a while back that you never know when or where a song will come from: "You know, you might have an old riff thing that you've had kicking about -- over the years, you know, you might play it -- and then one day, you know, somebody goes, 'Hey, you know that riff you had four years ago?' And you go, 'Yeah?' And they go, 'What was that again?' And you play it."
• Black Ice will sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and acdc.com. All three plan multiple promotional campaigns aimed at the group's millions of fans.
• AC/DC was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. The band has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide, including 69 million in the U.S. alone.
• No Bull: The Director's Cut, a chronicle of the band's famed July 1996 concert at the Plaza De Toros De Las Ventas in Madrid, Spain, will be released on DVD and Blu-ray September 9th.

SHERYL CROW SWINGS BY DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION TODAY

Sheryl Crow will stop by the Democratic National Convention today (Thursday, August 28th) to perform at Invesco Field at Mile High in Denver. She'll help close out the event on the same night Barack Obama accepts the Democratic presidential nomination. Crow is expected to play three songs at around 5:30 p.m., and the performance will air live on TV. She'll then head over to her already-scheduled concert at the Les Schwab Amphitheater in Bend, Oregon.

• Crow has been very active in the campaign so far. She performed in Denver last weekend and has offered to give away digital copies of her album to anyone who gets three people to register to vote. Crow recently told Extra, "I like to think of myself as an artist and a songwriter and I feel like my voice is better utilized if I'm encouraging people to exercise their right and their freedom to vote safely in this country. To please get registered and make their voice heard rather than endorse a candidate."

DAVE MASON SAYS ROCK HALL INDUCTION WITH TRAFFIC STILL A BAD MEMORY

Dave Mason says that over four years after being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Traffic, the way the night played out for him still leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Mason told azcentral.com that the 2004 Rock Hall induction ended with him not joining his bandmates on stage, recalling, "Steve (Winwood) was basically dictating that I play bass and we do it exactly like we did the record, which is like, 'Excuse me?' Why would we do it exactly the same, when part of being Traffic was that we were a jam band? We would stretch out and change. I said, 'Why don't we just get up there and have me and you play electric guitar?' From the point of view of an audience, how cool would it have been for us all to have been up there doing it? So it was kind of weird."

Mason says that Winwood and Traffic co-founder Jim Capaldi's need to recreate the way the track was recorded was ridiculous: "They were somewhat insistent that, 'Well, we have to do it like the record.' But I think, you know, my point is clearly shown when they finished the whole show with my song 'Feelin' Alright.' I mean, there was a guitar-fest going on up there that was crazy (laughs), and, you know, and Steve's on piano, and Jim (Capaldi) is on congas, and Jackson (Browne) sang a verse. And that's the spirit it should have all been done in."

• Mason is back out on the road and prepping his first new album in 20 years. He says that he's performing all his classic hits on the current tour -- including "Only You Know And I Know," "We Just Disagree," Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy," as well as the band's "Feelin' Alright" -- although he doesn't necessarily think of it as a Traffic standard anymore: "Of course, I do 'Feelin' Alright,' I just don't think of that one as a Traffic song. It's been covered by so many people and Joe Cocker's version is really the most well-known, so I kind of forget that it was originally on the second Traffic album."
• Dave Mason co-formed Traffic in 1967 with Winwood, Capaldi, and Chris Wood. Mason left after the band's first album, 1967's Mr. Fantasy and left after it's release. Mason rejoined halfway through their second album, 1968's Traffic, after which the band temporarily broke up and reformed the next year without Mason.
• Dave Mason tour dates (subject to change):
  August 28 - Tucson, AZ - Fox Tucson Theatre
  August 29 - Indio, CA - Fantasy Springs Resort Casino
  August 30 - San Diego, CA - Anthology
  September 11 - Maryland Heights, MO - Harrah's St. Louis Casino & Hotel VooDoo Lounge
  September 12 - Palatine, IL - Durty Nellie's
  September 13 - Keosauqua, IA - State Line Rally
  September 19 - Cary, NC - Koka Booth Amphitheatre At Regency Park
  October 5 - Glen Ellen, CA - B.R. Cohn Winery
  October 8 - Milwaukee, WI - Northern Lights Theater
  October 10 - Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
  October 14 - Austin, TX - Antone's
  October 16 - The Woodlands, TX - Dosey Doe
  October 17 - New Orleans, LA - Harrah's New Orleans Theatre
  October 18 - Natchez, MS - Great Mississippi River Balloon Race
  November 7 - Las Vegas, NV - Santa Fe Station Hotel & Casino
  November 11, 12 - Exeter, CA - Orange Blossom Junction
  November 20 - Stuart, FL - Lyric Theatre
  November 28 - Champion, PA - Seven Springs
  November 29 - Collingswood, NJ - Scottish Rite Auditorium
  November 30 - Uncasville, CT - Wolf Den
  December 1 - New York, NY - B.B. King's Blues Club
  December 3 - Ridgefield, CT - Ridgefield Playhouse
  December 4 - Foxboro, MA - Showcase Live!
  December 5 - Great Barrington, MA - Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
  December 6 - Atlantic City, NJ - House Of Blues

PEARL JAM GUITARIST PLANS SOLO GIG IN NEW YORK

Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard will play an intimate solo set at a small New York venue called the Living Room on September 14th, according to Gigwise.com. The concert, titled "Walk The Line," will feature Gossard opening for country singer Vince Mira and will celebrate a 13,000-mile walk by Don Stevenson to benefit the Huntington's Disease Society For America (HDSA). Tickets range in price from $30 to $1,500 for VIP treatment.

• Pearl Jam went out on a North American tour earlier this summer which included a headlining performance at Tennessee's Bonnaroo festival.
• Lead singer Eddie Vedder embarked on his own run of solo dates this month which finished up last week.
• Pearl Jam is said to be working on material for its ninth studio album, although more details about the project have yet to surface.

MOTLEY CRUE ISSUES UNCENSORED NEW CLIP

Motley Crue has issued an "uncensored" version of its new video for the song "Mutherf***er of the Year," according to Blabbermouth.net. The clip has appeared on YouTube and other outlets, while the song is taken from the band's recently released ninth studio album, Saints of Los Angeles. The CD, the Crue's first all-new offering in eight years, has sold 207,000 copies since its release in late June.

• Motley Crue is currently wrapping up its first-ever festival-style tour, Crue Fest, which stops in Toronto on Thursday (August 28th) and finishes on Sunday (August 31st) in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania.
• The tour's lineup also features Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Trapt and Crue bassist Nikki Sixx's side project, Sixx: A.M.

8/27/08

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND JON BON JOVI RUMORED TO PERFORM AT CLOSE OF DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION

Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi are rumored to be performing tomorrow night (August 28th) at Denver's Invesco Field directly before and after Sen. Barack Obama accepts the Democratic Presidential nomination. According to The Rocky Mountain News, Jon Bon Jovi will perform prior to Obama's speech, with Springsteen following him with an acoustic set.

A source close to Springsteen denied the rumors, and told The Washington Post that Springsteen will definitely not be on hand for Thursday's event, saying, "He's definitely not performing nor attending and has never planned to do so."

• Earlier this year, Springsteen posted a long public endorsement of Obama on his official website (brucespringsteen.net) saying in part, "After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken. I believe that Senator Obama is the best candidate to lead that project and to lead us into the 21st Century with a renewed sense of moral purpose and of ourselves as Americans."
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will close out their Magic tour on Saturday (August 30th) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Harley Davidson Anniversary at the Roadhouse at the Lakefront.

JACKSON BROWNE SPEAKS OUT ON LAWSUIT AGAINST JOHN McCAIN AND THE G.O.P.

Jackson Browne has broken his silence over his lawsuit against Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Party for their use of his 1977 song "Running On Empty" in a campaign commercial without Browne's approval.

Browne says that he believes that once the suit goes to trial, he'll be victorious in his battle to protect his work: "It's pretty open and shut. They can't use your music without your permission. And it's pretty hard to imagine a senator -- or anybody -- in a political campaign not knowing that. They took my music and it's my property and it's what I make my living doing. So, it's pretty cut and dry. You know, if somebody takes your song -- like, I've had to sue used car dealers, you know?"

• Browne's suit hopes to prohibit McCain from using any of his compositions as campaign songs, as well as seeking unspecified damages. There has been no court date announced for the case.
• Jackson Browne kicks off his 15-city U.S. tour on September 15th in Washington, D.C. Browne is touring behind his recently released collection Jackson Browne Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2 and his upcoming studio album Time The Conqueror, which is due out on September 23rd.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD TO RELEASE NEW ALBUM NEXT YEAR

Lynyrd Skynyrd has been hard at work on a new album, which is expected out early next year. The group has been working with Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 and is close to wrapping up writing for the set. The guys plan to enter the studio this fall and finish recording by the end of the year.

Group member Rickey Medlocke told Billboard.com, "We've been doing quite a bit of writing with John 5." He added, "While everybody thought, 'My god, you are going to write with this guy? How is that ever going to work?' But this guy came in and is really multi-talented in all genres."

• Some of the new track titles include "Floyd" and the uptempo "Bang, Bang."
• Skynyrd performs in West Bend, Wisconsin tonight (Wednesday, August 26th).

DON HENLEY CITES ELECTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH AS BABY BOOMERS' BIGGEST BLUNDER

Don Henley says that for the most part, the baby boomer generation failed to put its idealism into constructive practice, and cites electing President George W. Bush among its greatest blunders. When asked by The New Brunswick Business Journal to list his generation's greatest achievements and greatest blunders, Henley answered, "Being a boomer myself, I can say with some insight that my generation, as a whole, didn't follow through on achieving or living some of the ideals it espoused in the 1960's. We ended up becoming the first 'Me Generation.' At some point, we abandoned 'Us' in favor of 'Me.' (It's) gotten even worse with subsequent generations. It's totally out of control now, which, in my opinion, indicates a continuing cycle of bad parenting -- bad and getting worse."

He went on to throw partial blame for the blunders of both his and his children's generation on the current administration: "We have allowed our so-called leaders to place politics above science, especially in terms of the environment... Speaking strictly as a citizen of the U.S., I think our biggest mistake was electing George W. Bush as President. I'm not sure that colossal blunder can be laid solely at the feet of the Baby Boom Generation, but we certainly played a large part in it."

• Although Henley has been politically outspoken against the Bush administration, he says that the Eagles try to keep their comments non-partisan on the stage: "We have found over the years that a concert is not necessarily the forum for one's political opinions. We do most of that work now separate and apart from our concert tours."
• The Eagles kick off their next series of dates on September 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the BOK Center. The band will be on the road through the end of the month.

ROGER WATERS AND NICK MASON ACCEPT SWEDEN'S POLAR MUSIC PRIZE ON BEHALF OF PINK FLOYD

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters and Nick Mason were on hand on yesterday (August 26th) in Stockholm to accept 2008 Polar Music Prize from Sweden's King Carl XVI (16) Gustaf. The Associated Press reported that Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt honored Pink Floyd, saying that the band's work was "a monumental contribution ... and captured the mood and spirit of a whole generation in their reflections and attitudes."

Pink Floyd and fellow honoree American soprano Renee Fleming were respectively awarded $157,700 at the ceremony, which was held in the Stockholm Concert Hall. Mason said that he wished that the other half of Pink Floyd -- David Gilmour and Rick Wright -- could have been there to share in the honor. Waters thanked his 96 year-old mother, saying, "If there is any humanity and empathy in my work, which I think there is, I would rather owe it to her."

• Billboard reported that at a press conference prior to the ceremony, Waters commented on the fact that Floyd has never won a Grammy and said of the Polar Music Prize, "It's very important to me. We seem to be a bit thin on prizes."
• Mason said, "It's not that I feel we need or deserve an award. But it makes you feel like you are a part of history." He added that all four members of Pink Floyd would share the prize money and decide to which charity they will donate the money.
• When asked about a future Floyd reunion, Waters admitted, "Personally, I'd love to do some shows with the original band."
• Waters says that he actually enjoyed Pink Floyd's 2005 Live 8 reunion as much as the fans: "Live 8, I really enjoyed it. It was great to have the opportunity to get back on stage with Nick (Mason) and Rick (Wright) and Dave (Gilmour). It went really well. It felt really good. I thought the songs sounded great. And if we get an opportunity to do something like that in the future, I'm up for it."
• The Polar Music Prize was founded in 1989 by ABBA manager Stig Anderson, and salutes the best in the worlds of pop and classical music. Previous Polar Music Prize winners include, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Isaac Stern, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Burt Bacharach, B.B. King, Led Zeppelin, and Robert Moog, and Quincy Jones, among others.

OZZY OSBOURNE'S SON MAKING DOCUMENTARY ABOUT DAD

Ozzy Osbourne is the subject of a new documentary being made by his son Jack, who told RollingStone.com that he's "trying to paint a realistic picture of who my father is." Jack added that he thinks the family's hugely successful reality series, The Osbournes, "tarnished the public's perception of my dad as a bit of a senile, funny, bumbling guy. Yeah, my dad can be that guy, but it's not him. I think that almost discredited who he is as an artist. My dad's not an idiot -- he's nothing short of a genius, in my opinion. He does have huge flaws, and we're trying to really paint an honest picture of that."

• Ozzy himself told us that The Osbournes presented a more or less accurate picture of him at that time: "When we were doing that show, all I was was being myself, you know. And people would come up to me and say the weirdest things, like, 'You remind me so much of my old man Al. I'd go, 'Oh,' I'd feel like saying, 'How much dope did he smoke today, you know?'"
• Jack began shooting the film last January. It features interviews with Ozzy's family and friends, all the principal members of Black Sabbath, plus various members of his solo band.
• Jack Osbourne said he hopes to preview some of the film at next year's Ozzfest, which will once again be a "destination festival" in Dallas and perhaps some other cities.
• Ozzy Osbourne co-headlined the one-day Ozzfest with Metallica earlier this month. He is currently working on a new album and his only scheduled live date is October 11th in Las Vegas.

BOZ SCAGGS ADDS FIVE-NIGHT NYC STAND TO FALL TOUR

Boz Scaggs has just added a five-night stand at New York City's Blue Note for his upcoming fall tour. Scaggs kicks off his 20-date tour on Tuesday (September 2nd) in Regina, Saskatoon and wraps up his trek on November 20th in Annapolis, Maryland.

The latest addition to Scaggs' band is Toto keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, who's joining Scaggs on tour while Toto's on hiatus: "A new musician I'm really excited about playing with, a fellow named Greg Phillinganes who is something of a Ferrari of a musician -- who I've wanted to work with for many years -- who I'm getting together with as an arranger. And he's playing keyboards. So, there will be constant revamping and rearranging of a number of things, and we're adding a number of things to the repertoire."

• Phillinganes was discovered back in the mid-1970s by Stevie Wonder and was part of Wonder's touring band Wonderlove from 1976 to 1981. Phillinganes was also the primary keyboardist on Michael Jackson's albums Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad. Throughout the 1980's Phillinganes worked primarily with Eric Clapton, and since 2004 has recorded and toured as part of Toto.
• Boz Scaggs tour dates (subject to change):
  September 2 - Regina, SK - Casino Regina Show Lounge
  September 6 - Bethlehem, PA - Zoellner Arts Center
  September 9 - Beverly, MA - North Shore Music Theatre
  September 10 - Morristown, NJ - The Community Theatre At Mayo Center For The Performing Arts
  September 12 - Mount Pleasant, MI - Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort
  September 13 - Milwaukee, WI - Northern Lights Theater
  September 14 - Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
  October 11 - Cerritos, CA - Cerritos Center For The Performing Arts
  October 12 - Phoenix, AZ - Desert Ridge
  October 12 - Phoenix, AZ - JW Marriott At Desert Ridge
  October 30, 31 - Seattle, WA - Dimitriou's Jazz Alley
  November 1, 2 - Seattle, WA - Dimitriou's Jazz Alley
  November 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 - New York, NY - Blue Note
  November 20 - Annapolis, MD - Rams Head On Stage

LED ZEPPELIN, JIMI HENDRIX, AND DOORS HITS FEATURED IN NEW MULTIMEDIA ARENA SHOW

Legendary hits by Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Janis Joplin, Deep Purple, and the Doors are featured in the Flashback -- The Classic Rock Experience tour, which kicks off tonight (August 27th) in Mobile, Alabama at the Mobile Civic Center. Billboard reported that the 50-date tour, featuring the Mystic Orchestra, includes four musicians and singers along with an 11-piece string and horn section.

Among the classic rock hits performed during the 30-song set are the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Purple Haze," Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven," Pink Floyd's "Money," and the Doors' "Light My Fire."

• Flashback producer Rick Bowen explained, "I don't think there's ever been a large-scale arena event produced like this. I tried to pick artists that were either not going to be able to tour, or were touring very little. In a lot of ways the Trans-Siberian Orchestra plowed the ground for us, because we combine rock music and orchestra music together... We've just taken it to the classic rock platform and tried to play the very best of the music in the era of the late '60s and early '70s."
• The Flashback - The Classic Rock Experience tour will play to 6,000- to 25,000-seat arenas, with the shows featuring "six truckloads of LED lighting, lasers, pyrotechnics and 30-foot inflated zeppelin that will hang in the center of arenas." The show will feature seven video screens showing archival footage of most of the bands whose music is being performed.
• For more information and tour dates, log on to flashbacktour.com.

NEW GUNS N' ROSES BOOK DETAILS WILD SEX PARTIES

A new book about the rise and career of Guns N' Roses details some of the wild sex parties that the band allegedly held in its heyday. According to the New York Post, rock journalist Stephen Davis' new tome, Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N' Roses, features lead singer Axl Rose recalling some of the band's more debauched bashes, explaining, "There was a lot of indoor and outdoor sex...People would show up at all hours and we'd talk the girls into climbing into our loft, and somebody would hit the light and go, 'All right!...Get naked or leave!'"

It's not clear whether Davis got his information from Rose firsthand, or if his book was even authorized, which is one reason why Guns guitarist Slash ended up writing his own memoir last year: "At some point I decided, maybe I should sort of set the record straight at least on my end, you know. I'm getting sick of answering questions about it and I'm sick of being misquoted and this, that and the other. And that's sort of what fueled the fire behind the book."

• Watch You Bleed hit bookstores shelves on Tuesday (August 26th).
• Slash published his self-titled memoir last fall.
• Slash's current band, Velvet Revolver, is still looking for a lead singer to replace Scott Weiland.
• The new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, has yet to surface despite speculation that an exclusive release through either Wal-Mart, Best Buy or both could be imminent.

IT'S 'APOCALYPSE' NOW FOR METALLICA

Metallica has posted another new song from its upcoming album, Death Magnetic, at the band's official website. Titled "My Apocalypse," the track closes the CD and is a fast thrash metal anthem in the style of vintage Metallica numbers such as "Battery" and "Damage Inc." The tune is the second new one to be heard from the album, following the release last week of the first official single, "The Day That Never Comes." Death Magnetic arrives worldwide on Friday, September 12th.

• A number of fans complained online about the sound quality of the streams for "The Day That Never Comes," with a member of the band's website staff posting a message stating that the problem would be corrected.
• Death Magnetic will come in a variety of digital and physical configurations, ranging from a straight download to a deluxe "coffin box" edition.
• Metallica will play two low-dough shows in Europe to celebrate the CD's release, in Berlin on September 12th and London on the 15th. Tickets for both are priced under $20 and open to fan club members only.
• The band will kick off its first indoor North American tour on October 21st in Glendale, Arizona, with shows booked through the end of January.

'JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE' BOWS TO JUDAS PRIEST

Judas Priest will perform a free five-song mini-concert outdoors in Los Angeles next Tuesday (September 2nd), as the band tapes its first-ever late night U.S. television performance for ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live. According to a press release, the event will begin at 6:15 p.m. PT and fans over the age of 16 can get free tickets at 1iota.com. Segments from the group's set will be broadcast on the Kimmel show, which utilizes its own outdoor stage.

• The veteran heavy metal act is supporting the recently released Nostradamus, the band's 16th studio album and first concept record.
• Nostradamus is the second album Priest has recorded since singer Rob Halford returned to the line-up in 2004 after a 12-year hiatus.

8/26/08

THREE OUT OF FOUR LED ZEPPELIN MEMBERS WORKING ON NEW MUSIC

Drummer Jason Bonham told a Detroit radio station's morning show on Friday (August 22nd) that he, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones have been "jamming" together recently and even working on some new music. According to Blabbermouth.net, Bonham told WCSX, "I've been over (to England) a couple of times. I've been working with Jimmy and John Paul and trying to do just do some new material and some writing. I don't know what it will be, but it will be something...At the moment, all I know is I have the great pleasure to go and jam with the two guys and start work on some material."

• Although Bonham had no idea where the material might end up, he said that recording with Zeppelin is "something I've always wanted to do," but added that "lots of politics (would need to) get ironed out" before anything like that took place.
• Bonham, son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, took his father's place behind the drum kit for just the second time in his career last December at Zeppelin's December reunion show in London.
• There's been no official word of any further Zeppelin activity since the December concert, despite intense speculation, largely because of singer Robert Plant's commitment to touring behind Raising Sand, his album with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss.
• Bonham, a native of England who now lives in Florida, also revealed that he was giving up his current job with Foreigner at the end of the month.

PETE TOWNSHEND'S ESTRANGED WIFE SELLING LONDON FAMILY HOME FOR $10.1 MILLION

Pete Townshend's estranged wife, Karen Townshend, is selling the family's London home for $10.1 million dollars, according to timesonline.co.uk. The Georgian townhouse in Twickenham was built in 1721 and once belonged to poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, who lived in the home 1851 to 1853. The Townshends purchased the property in 1985 for $1.3 million. Pete turned a small detached house at the edge of the property's 150-foot walled garden into his private studio.

Karen recalled their time living in the house, saying, "It was a perfect family home. When we lived here, Pete was an editor at Faber & Faber. We were just as likely to have (poet) Ted Hughes or (novelist) William Golding round for supper as stage any wild events. And, do you know, I prefer the company of poets. They are more interesting than rock stars."

• She added that with the couple's two daughters Emma and Arminta in their thirties and living on their own, along with their 18-year-old son Joseph having just left for his freshman year in college, the house seems far too big.
• Karen said, "My cherished memories are having family events here. Joseph's birthday parties, when he was a little boy. The girls' 21st-birthday lunches. Great big family days when my four brothers and sisters would all be here with us."
• When asked if Pete was "wistful" about the house being put on the market, she smiled and answered, "He just lets me get on with what I want to do with it."
• Pete and Karen Townshend became a couple in 1964. They were married in 1968. Pete is now romantically involved with musician Rachel Fuller, whom he met in 1996 when she was brought on as an orchestrator for his Lifehouse Chronicles project.
• The Townshends, who officially split in 1994, have never formally divorced despite both being in respective long-term relationships.
• Pete Townshend and Rachel Fuller now live in nearby Richmond in Ron Wood's old house, called "The Wick."
• The Who kick off their 10-date North American tour on October 21st in Auburn Hills, Michigan at the Palace Of Auburn Hills.

HISTORIAN CLAIMS THAT THE BEATLES WERE NEVER BANNED FROM PLAYING ISRAEL

An Israeli music historian says that the tale of the Beatles being banned from Israel in 1965 is untrue. Historian Yoav Kutner tells Israeli Web site Ha'aretz.com, "It never happened that way. The concert was canceled because of a dispute between music promoters Giora Godik and Yaakov Uri. In 1962, Godik received an offer from the mother of the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein that they come to Israel. But (Godik) preferred to bring singer Cliff Richard, who was much more famous at the time."

• Kutner went on to say, "When Uri bought the rights to hold the concert two years later, Godik was angry that he blew the opportunity and went to the Knesset's Finance Committee to persuade them to bar the promoters from taking out foreign currency... It wasn't meant to be."
• Earlier this year, the Israeli ambassador to Britain made gestures of reconciliation over the misunderstanding to the surviving Beatles and their widows. In honor of the goodwill extended by Israel, Paul McCartney will perform on September 25th in Tel Aviv.
• Paul McCartney is expected to announce dates for an extended world tour in the coming months. Over the past year he's given several one-off concerts in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, London, Liverpool, Kiev, and Quebec.

JOHNNY VAN ZANT WANTS TO COMPLETE HIS BROTHER'S UNFINISHED LYNYRD SKYNYRD TRACK

Lynyrd Skynyrd front man Johnny Van Zant says that the band is considering finishing a song written by his late brother Ronnie Van Zant that was among the last songs taped prior to the band's tragic 1977 plane crash.

Johnny told Sun Media that track "Cottonmouth Country," which was discovered earlier this year, was left unfinished during the recording of band's Street Survivors album, explaining, "We're looking at that, it was kind of a cool thing. Ronnie and the band were cutting Street Survivors and it was the second or third verse and he stopped it and that was it. So it was kind of cool to find that one."

• Gary Rossington said that the band considered adding "Cottonmouth Country" as a bonus track. There's been no release date set for the upcoming Lynyrd Skynyrd album.
• On October 17th, 1977 only three days after the release of Street Survivors, Lynyrd Skynyrd's chartered plane crashed in Mississippi, killing the band's lead singer, Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, his sister, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines, and three others.
• 1977's Street Survivors included such Skynyrd classics as "What's Your Name" and "That Smell."
• Ronnie Van Zant's youngest brother Johnny reformed the band with the surviving members in 1987, and continues to tour with co-founders Gary Rossington and Billy Powell.
• Gary Rossington says that he's both proud and amazed at Skynyrd's longevity: "My mind's blown that we've been around this long and still doing it, and we're God-blessed in that way. You know, a lot of groups don't have this longevity and stuff, and it's just great to be here doing it. I don't know -- it's hard to talk about, because it's not relatable, you know? There's only a few people or a few bands that have been around this long."
• Lynyrd Skynyrd tour dates (subject to change):
  August 27 - West Bend, WI - Washington County Fair
  August 30 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center (with Kid Rock)
  August 31 - Hartford, CT - New England Dodge Music Center (with Kid Rock)
  September 1 - Canfield, OH - Mahoning County Fairgrounds
  September 11 - Danville, VA - Carrington Pavilion
  September 12 - Boone, NC - The Holmes Center
  September 13 - Elizabeth City, NC - United States Coast Guard
  September 14 - Hilton Head, SC - Honey Horn Plantation
  September 19 - Big Flats, NY - The Summer Stage At Tag's
  September 20 - Pittsburgh, PA - PNC Park At North Shore
  September 21 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Theatre

DARYL HALL SAYS THE GOLDEN AGE OF POP HAS LONG PASSED

Daryl Hall says that the golden age of pop has long passed. He spoke candidly about the state of the music business, telling BBC News, "Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990. In the post-golden age, I think we have gone from a non-ironic time to an ironic time."

Hall has been collaborating with various like-minded artists, including KT Tunstall and Rob Thomas, on his online music show Live From Daryl's House. He says that popular music has steadily become more unreal to him: "I think we're evolving past irony into parody. I see a lot of artists... singing in funny voices, and singing like they're stupid. Singing in a deliberately fey and dumb and childish way. And I find it to be a disturbing trend."

• Hall says that after years of working exclusively with John Oates, the duo enjoys working on other projects as well: "I work with John occasionally and we like to do special events. We like to keep it interesting. We're past the point where we're going to be slogging around together constantly and we want to make it count when we work together."
• Hall was asked if with all of Hall & Oates' classic hits, he ever gets bored singing the same songs year after year: "I can't say there's one song -- there's actually a lot of them that way. If I don't feel a song, I drop it, 'cause we have so many songs to choose from. We're a very improvisational band, you know? We take the songs and then use them as jumping off points, so I never get tired of playing these songs. Every time I sing 'Sara Smile,' I look at it a slightly different way and I make up things spontaneously. After singing the basic verses, I just go off on something else, and that never is the same night after night, and it happens to be how I'm feeling right then -- how I'm feeling about the song, how I'm feeling about what I'm singing about--and it constantly changes."
• Daryl Hall and John Oates will next perform on September 6th in Phoenix, Arizona at the U.S. Airways Center.
• For more information on Hall's online music show, log on to livefromdarylshouse.com.

FOO FIGHTERS, METALLICA, SYSTEM OF A DOWN SONGS LEAD 'ROCK REVOLUTION'

Rock Revolution, a third entry in the hugely successful music-based video game field, will arrive from Konami on October 14th for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. According to PSXExtreme, the game will feature songs from Metallica, Foo Fighters, System of a Down, Motley Crue, Blink-182, Korn, Linkin Park, Three Days Grace and over 30 more for a total of 41 songs. Rock Revolution will feature guitar and drum peripherals and allow players to create their own tracks, test out individual instruments and compete with other players.

• Rock Revolution will compete for consumers' attention this fall with Guitar Hero; World Tour and Rock Band 2, the latest entries in the two enormously popular video game franchises.
• The complete track listing for Rock Revolution is:
  "All My Life" - Foo Fighters
  "All the Small Things" - Blink-182
  "Am I Evil?" - Metallica
  "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" - Jet
  "Bad Reputation" - Joan Jett
  "Blitzkrieg Bop" - Ramones
  "Chop Suey!" - System of a Down
  "Cum on Feel the Noize" - Quiet Riot
  "Dance, Dance" - Fall Out Boy
  "Detroit Rock City" - Kiss
  "Diary of Jane" - Breaking Benjamin
  "Dirty Little Secret" - All-American Rejects
  "Dr. Feelgood" - Motley Crue
  "The End of Heartache" - Killswitch Engage
  "Falling Away from Me" - Korn
  "Given Up" - Linkin Park
  "Heading Out to the Highway" - Judas Priest
  "Highway Star" - Deep Purple
  "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" - Megadeth
  "Joker and the Thief" - Wolfmother
  "Kiss Me Deadly" - Lita Ford
  "Last Resort" - Papa Roach
  "Magic Man" - Heart
  "No One Like You" - Scorpions
  "Our Truth" - Lacuna Coil
  "Pain" - Three Days Grace
  "Paralyzer" - Finger Eleven
  "Pull Me Under" - Dream Theater
  "Round and Round" - Ratt
  "Run to the Hills" - Iron Maiden
  "Sk8er Boi" - Avril Lavigne
  "Somebody Told Me" - The Killers
  "Spoonman" - Soundgarden
  "The Spirit of Radio" - Rush
  "Still of the Night" - Whitesnake
  "Stone Cold Crazy" - Queen
  "Walk" - Pantera
  "We're Not Gonna Take It" - Twisted Sister
  "White Room" - Cream
  "Won't Get Fooled Again" - The Who
  "Youth Gone Wild" - Skid Row

SHERYL CROW AND DAVE MATTHEWS BACK BARACK OBAMA AT CONVENTION

Sheryl Crow voiced her support for Barack Obama at the kick-off to the Democratic convention Sunday (August 24th) at the Red Rocks Amphitheater outside Denver. According to the Associated Press, she dedicated the song "Strong Enough" to the presidential hopeful, switching the lyrics to "Are you strong enough to be my man, or my president?" She told the crowd, "What I'm hearing from Senator Obama is a lot like what we heard from Robert Kennedy. No matter what campaign ad we see or how it's spun, hope is important. It's what this country was based on." Crow also spoke out about how John McCain's campaign has referred to Obama as a celebrity. She said, "That tag that Senator Obama's been given is a campaign ploy, obviously, by the Republican party," said Crow. "I don't see him hanging out. I have yet to see him at any celebrity events."

• Dave Matthews and Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles also performed at the event. Matthews wasn't as outspoken, but Nettles talked about environmentalism, saying, "This is the first time that a political convention of any sort has been surrounded with the awareness of environmental issues. So that feels like it's on the cutting edge."
• Crow recently announced that she would give away a free digital copy of her album to the first 50,000 people who register three friends to vote.

8/25/08

PAUL McCARTNEY'S ISRAELI DEBUT CONFIRMED FOR SEPTEMBER

Paul McCartney's concert in Israel will go ahead as planned, with a date set for September 25th in Tel Aviv.

Haaretz.com reported that details for the open air show have yet to be finalized, but that it will take place in Tel Aviv at Hayarkon Park. McCartney's manager, Barry Marshall, approved the venue despite the fact that it fell short of the 250,000 seats that is said to be McCartney's standard requirement.

• A source close to the concert told Israel's Ynet News that "the process of closing the contract (with) McCartney's managers was one of the most difficult ever for Israeli producers seeking to book an international performer."
• McCartney's decision to perform in Israel comes after the nation finally lifted its 43-year ban on the Beatles performing in the country, for fear that they would corrupt the morals of the Israeli youth.
• Earlier this year, Israel lifted the ban and sent apologies to McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as to John Lennon and George Harrison's respective widows, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison.

In other McCartney news:

Maccareport.com posted that on September 16th, Paul McCartney will perform live on Britain's TV talk show Later With Jools Holland.

McCartney will perform as his ambient music alter-ego "The Fireman," which has been the moniker used for his experimental musical projects over the past 15 years with DJ/producer Youth.

RAY MANZAREK AND ROBBIE KRIEGER TO PAY $5 MILLION TO JOHN DENSMORE AND JIM MORRISON ESTATE IN LEGAL BATTLE OVER DOORS NAME

Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger will pay $5 million to John Densmore and the estate of Jim Morrison, as the seven year legal battle between group members winds down. Rolling Stone reported that the battle between Densmore and the Morrison estate began in 2003 when they sued Manzarek and Krieger for touring under the name the Doors Of The 21st Century, citing that it "improperly invoked the Doors' name and images."

Densmore claims to have no problem with his former bandmates from performing the Doors music, but has asked them to not use the Doors name or imagery in promoting their new band, which is now called Riders On The Storm after the Doors' 1971 song.

The Associated Press reported that Manzarek and Krieger's initial tour as the Doors Of The 21st Century grossed $8 million and netted $3.2 million, which went to the new band's company called Doors Touring, Inc., with none of the profits going to Densmore and/or the Morrison estate.

• In 2005 Manzarek and Krieger were ordered to pay Densmore and the Morrison estate a combined $3.2 million plus $2 million in legal costs. Although an appeals court upheld the $3.2 million award, it is considering an appeal from Manzarek and Krieger who claim the figure for legal costs being "excessive."
• Densmore has frequently vetoed the band from using their music in film and commercials, including TV spots for Apple and one for Cadillac which reportedly would've earned the band $15 million. Densmore claims that he's respecting Morrison's wishes.
• The Morrison estate is run by the families of Morrison and his late wife Pamela Courson.
• Robbie Krieger says that for all the drama constantly surrounding the Doors in the 1960's, there were never any ego problems within the band itself: "Jim was, like, the focal point of the band, and that was fine with us, you know? And I think the very fact that it was fine with us is why we all got along, you know, so well, in the Doors. It was really like the perfect group, you know, as far as working together and stuff -- there was no ego problems, you know, and petty jealousies, and stuff like that, that a lot of groups go through."
• Riders On The Storm featuring Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger will next perform on September 17th at Cleveland's House Of Blues. After that, they'll play on September 19th in Mount Clemens, Michigan at the Emerald Theatre.
• Former Fuel lead singer Brett Scallions has replaced the band's longtime frontman Ian Astbury of the Cure.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN CONTINUES TO THRILL FANS WITH CROWD REQUESTS AND RARITIES

As Bruce Springsteen winds down his year-long tour with E Street Band this week, he has continued to reach deep into his back catalogue while taking nightly requests from the audience.

For the first time in his career, Springsteen has been collecting fan requests during each show, many of which are written on poster board in decorative, eye-catching designs.

At last night's (August 24th) concert in Kansas City, Missouri -- which is the second-to-last show of the tour -- Springsteen blew fans away by opening with "Ricky Wants A Man Of Her Own." The July 1979 outtake from The River sessions was eventually released on his 1998 box set Tracks -- but until last night, it had never been performed live.

Other rarities included the rarely performed "Cynthia," a Born In The U.S.A. outtake that was also eventually released on Tracks; a cover of the Rolling Stones' take on the Valentinos' "It's All Over Now"; a solo acoustic rendition of his 2005 song "Devils And Dust"; and a cover of the Drifters' "Save The Last Dance For Me."

Springsteen closed the 29-song concert with John Fogerty's "Rockin' All Over The World."

• Among the numerous cover versions that Springsteen has recently dug up from the band's old repertoire are the Bobby Fuller Four's "I Fought The Law"; the Crystals' "Then He Kissed Me," performed as "Then She Kissed Me" as it was sung at many mid-'70's E Street Band shows; the Dovells' "You Can't Sit Down"; Johnny Rivers' "Mountain Of Love"; alternating Bo Diddley's "Mona" and Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away" as the intro to his own "She's The One," as well as performing "Mona" separately; Johnny Cash's "I Walk The Line" in a medley with his own "I'm On Fire"; Elvis Presley's "Good Rockin' Tonight"; John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom"; Them's "Gloria"; Gary U.S. Bonds' "Quarter To Three"; the Swingin' Medallions' "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)"; and others.
• On August 18th at his show in Richmond, Virginia, Springsteen thrilled die-hard fans by performing his classic rocker "Crush On You" from The River for the first time since December 16th, 1980.
• Other fan requests performed over the past few weeks include such rarities as "Drive All Night"; "Streets Of Fire"; "Rendezvous"; "Loose Ends"; "For You," both solo on the piano and with the full band; "Growin' Up"; "I'm Goin' Down"; "Held Up Without A Gun"; and "Part Man, Part Monkey."
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will close out their Magic tour on Saturday (August 30th) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Harley Davidson Anniversary at the Roadhouse at the Lakefront.
• There are rumors of Springsteen and the band performing a stadium-closing show at New York City's soon-to-be-leveled Yankees Stadium, as well as playing the halftime show at the 2009 Super Bowl. Springsteen's reps have made no comment on any future E Street Band dates beyond Saturday's tour closer.

THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND TO CELEBRATE 40 YEARS

The Allman Brothers Band is gearing up for its 40th anniversary next year and hoping to celebrate it with a special run of shows at New York's Beacon Theatre. Also in the works are new compilation sets and some archival projects. As for the concert, Gregg Allman says to expect a "big one." He told Billboard.com, "We're trying to get all the people we know that we've played with to come and sit in and play. We've got confirmation on a bunch of 'em now." Although he wouldn't reveal who will join them in concert, Allman did say it would include people they've played with in the past.

• The Allmans typically do an annual multi-night run at the Beacon Theatre. Earlier this year, the group had to cancel 15 shows at the Beacon so Allman could recover from Hepatitis C. He's feeling much better these days, saying, "It's really hell, but it worked. I don't have all my strength back yet, but I'm getting totally back up on my feet again. And the shows have been wonderful."
• The Allmans perform in Hershey, Pennsylvania tonight (Monday, August 25th) and wrap up the tour October 11th in Atlanta.
• The group is also eyeing a new album. Some new songs have already been written, but Allman notes that they probably won't get into the studio until next year.

AC/DC OFFERS SNEAK PEEK AT NEW 'TRAIN'

AC/DC has posted a 30-second sample of its new single, "Rock 'n' Roll Train," at the band's MySpace page. The track, from the group's upcoming album Black Ice, will arrive at radio stations nationwide on Thursday (August 28th). According to Billboard.com, which got an advance listen to the album, Black Ice is a "15-track extravaganza that frequently echoes the down-and-dirty rock 'n' roll of its iconic 1980 album Back in Black."

• Black Ice is due out on October 20th worldwide. The album will be sold exclusively through Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, as well as ACDC.com.
• Songs on the record include "Skies on Fire," "War Machine," "Wheels," "Decibel," "She Likes Rock 'n' Roll" and the title track.
• Black Ice was produced by Brendan O'Brien, best known for his work with Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots.
• The band will kick off its first tour in seven years in late October.

STYX ANNOUNCE ADDITIONAL FALL TOUR DATES

Styx has announced a handful of stops to its current U.S. tour, with new dates booked for Kahului, Hawaii; Saratoga and Newport Beach, California; Laughlin, Nevada; Jacksonville, Orlando, Saint Petersburg, and Pompano Beach, Florida.

• Styx tour dates (subject to change):
  August 26 - Syracuse, NY - New York State Fair at Mohegan Sun Grandstand (with Boston)
  August 28 - Rockford, IL - On The Waterfront Festival Grounds
  August 29 - Clear Lake, IA - Surf Ballroom
  August 30 - Waterloo, IA - Riverfront Stadium
  August 31 - Lincoln, NE - Nebraska State Fair at Open Air Auditorium
  September 4 - Effingham, IL - The Rosebud Theatre
  September 5 - Hutchinson, KS - Kansas State Fair at the Kansas State Fair Grandstand (with Kansas)
  September 6 - Garden City, KS - Finney County Fair
  September 12 - Hot Springs, AR - H.O.G. State Rally
  September 13 - Cape Girardeau, MO - Southeast Missouri District Fair
  September 17 - Saratoga, CA - The Mountain Winery
  September 19 - Laughlin, NV - Harrah's Rio Vista Amphitheatre
  September 20 - Newport Beach, CA - Taste Of Newport
  September 25 - Montgomery, AL - Montgomery Performing Arts Centre
  September 26 - Huntsville, AL - Big Spring Jam Big Spring Park
  September 27 - Biloxi, MS - Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Biloxi
  September 28 - Orlando, FL - WMMO Downtown Concert Series
  October 2, 3, 4 - Niagara Falls, ON - Fallsview Casino Resort
  October 9 - Honolulu, HI - Neal S. Blaisdell Concert Hall
  October 10 - Kahului, HI - Maui Arts & Cultural Center
  October 11 - Waikoloa, HI - Hilton Waikoloa
  November 13 - Jacksonville, FL - Florida Theatre
  November 14 - Saint Petersburg, FL - Vinoy Park
  November 15 - Pompano Beach, FL - Club Cinema

In 2006 Styx released their live album One With Everything, which featured the band being backed by Cleveland's Contemporary Youth Orchestra (CYO). The CYO features 115 teenage musicians and a 56-member choir.

• One With Everything included such Styx classics as "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)," "Too Much Time On My Hands," and "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)," along with a cover of the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus," among other songs.
• Tommy Shaw says that the band is happy to be judged solely on their live shows and albums, rather than the production values of their 1980's videos for MTV: "We were just such fish out of water, some people more talented than others, and the video budgets were just insane to us -- you know, you could make albums for what some of these videos cost. As fun as it was to see yourself on television, every time it came time to do a video, it was a kind of a time of confusion for everyone, because you're trying to figure out how to be in the television business, and you really don't know anything about it."

VELVET REVOLVER BASSIST SAYS LENNY KRAVITZ 'WOULD BE GREAT' AS SINGER

Velvet Revolver bassist Duff McKagan said he thinks the idea of Lenny Kravitz fronting the band is a good one even though it's not going to happen. McKagan told the Tacoma News-Tribune, "You know, I could almost see that workin.' I think that would be killer. That guy's a true musician. I've known that guy for 20 years. That would be great. But I'm not sure if Lenny knows about it. We didn't know about it. We'll find a guy." Rumors of Kravitz joining the band first surfaced in the British tabloids a few weeks ago, but were quickly shot down by Kravitz himself.

• Velvet Revolver has been looking for a vocalist to replace Scott Weiland, who was dismissed from the group in April.
• Names that have surfaced in various online rumors include former MTV VJ Steve Isaacs, ex-Spacehog singer Royston Langdon, ex-Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach and even former Soundgarden and Audioslave vocalist Chris Cornell.

·         McKagan is currently doing some shows with his side band, Loaded, and plans to release an album from the group later this year.

CHRIS CORNELL SETS RELEASE DATE FOR NEW ALBUM

Former Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell has set October 14th as the release date for his third solo album, titled Scream. The set was produced by pop and urban mastermind Timbaland, a choice that has proven controversial among fans of Cornell's earlier heavy rock projects. But the singer told us that he was always in control of his own record: "A lot of people were concerned about, like, am I gonna do what, for example, Timbaland tells me to do, if he wants to tell me to do something, that kind of thing. We didn't really have that relationship, it wasn't that type of a process. It was more, he would bring in a beat, an idea, I would write to it and sing it, and we would move on kind of to the next thing."

• Timbaland has previously produced albums by Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Ashlee Simpson and many others, in addition to his own projects.
• Cornell is currently previewing three tracks from Scream, called "Long Gone," "Watch Out" and "Ground Zero," at his MySpace page.
• The vocalist just finished a stint on Linkin Park's Projekt Revolution tour, which wrapped on Sunday (August 24th) in Texas. He next performs at the House of Blues in San Diego on Friday (August 29th).
• Cornell's previous solo album, Carry On, was released in the spring of 2007. He officially left Audioslave earlier that year.

FLASHBACK: ELTON JOHN MAKES HIS AMERICAN LIVE DEBUT

It was 38 years ago tonight (August 25th, 1970) that Elton John made his U.S. concert debut. Elton was promoting his self-titled second album and was booked into L.A.'s famed Troubadour club for a five-night stand. Elton was brought on stage by Neil Diamond, who said in his introduction, "I know the album and I love the album and I have no idea what these people are about to do. I want to take my seat and enjoy this with you."

A bearded Elton John took to the stage wearing bell-bottomed jeans and a red shirt with the words "Rock And Roll" spelled out in white letters. Together with bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, Elton wowed the industry-heavy crowd with an hour-long set that began with "Your Song" and included future classics like "Border Song," "Country Comfort," "Take Me To The Pilot," as well as cover versions of the Beatles' "Get Back" and the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women."

The next day the Hollywood Reporter wrote about Elton's performance, saying, "He had hardly opened his mouth when it was apparent that he is going to be a very, very big star."

• Elton John says that from a very early age, his only objective was to work in some facet of the music business: "I honestly feel I couldn't have asked for a better life. I mean, I wanted to be involved in music -- whether it was working in a record store, whether it was working in a publisher's (office), whether it was writing... I didn't ever envisage being a singer, that happened by accident, but I just love what I do. As I've grown older, I love to play live much more. I feel much more comfortable with my own self, so being onstage is much more comfortable to me. I don't have to hide behind big glasses and costumes anymore."

FIVE FAST FACTS ABOUT ELTON JOHN:

1. Real Name - Reginald Kenneth Dwight, though he has legally changed his name to Elton Hercules John. He chose the middle name "Hercules" for himself, not after the hero of mythology, but after the horse named Hercules on the 1960s British sitcom titled Steptoe And Son.
2. In 1979, Elton was the first Western rock star to perform in Israel and the USSR.
3. Elton was knighted in 1998 by Queen Elizabeth for his contribution to music and fund-raising for AIDS charities.
4. Elton has played the piano since he was four years old. At the age of 11, he entered the Royal Academy of Music, but quit just before graduation to pursue a rock career.

8/22/08

JIMMY PAGE AND LEONA LEWIS TO PERFORM 'WHOLE LOTTA LOVE' TO CLOSE OLYMPIC GAMES ON SUNDAY

The details have been revealed regarding Jimmy Page's team up with R&B pop singer Leona Lewis on Sunday night (August 24th) during the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

British session bassist Guy Pratt, best known for playing in Pink Floyd during their post-Roger Waters era, had posted on Tuesday (August 19th) on his website (guypratt.ricardopadua.com): "You may also be interested to know that when Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis perform 'Whole Lotta Love' at the end of the Olympics, that's me playing bass on it."

The post has since been removed, according to the Led Zeppelin fan site lemonsqueezings.blogspot.com.

• The 2008 Olympics airs on Sunday night (August 24th) on NBC affiliates. Check your local listings for stations and times.

STING CREDITS BAND MATURITY FOR SUCCESS OF POLICE REUNION TOUR

Sting says that the Police's newfound group maturity was the secret to their recently completed reunion tour, which wrapped on August 7th at New York's Madison Square Garden. He told Rolling Stone, "It's been difficult, but we've actually navigated this thing together as mature males. That's been the major success... It's important to have closure, as the Americans say. Now I have that wonderfully liberating feeling of not having a f***ing clue what I'm doing next."

Although the band seemed to instantly lock into their long dormant chemistry from the tour's kick-off in May 2007, Stewart Copeland admits that actually took a while to kick in: "At the beginning, we were crap. Each one of us had our own opinion of what was wrong, which could be summed up as 'the other two guys.'"

• Copeland recalls that after a tense fight during the band's Australian leg, Sting eventually broke the ice by mooning Copeland while traveling in another car. Copeland says that Sting's sense of humor put it all into perspective, recalling "At that moment, I realized that I had no further argument. I was defeated by Sting's superior logic!"
• Andy Summers is more emotional about the tour's end, explaining, "(The tour) is like a drug: It's very hard to give up. It's a poignant end. There's a sadness that accompanies it."
• Summers says that he was never happy with the way the Police were marketed back in the 1980s, and didn't feel it accurately portrayed what the band was really about: "I always felt somewhat disappointed by the way we were represented in posters and album covers and stuff. I never thought they were hip enough. They were always, for me, too commercial and too pop. I would have gone much darker and stranger if I had my way. So, I always felt, like, a dissonance between that -- but of course, it worked."
• The Police will release a live CD/DVD set from the tour, called The Police: Certifiable, on October 7th, which will be available only at Best Buy retail stores.
• The show was shot and recorded during the band's stop in Buenos Aries. Copeland's son, filmmaker Jordan Copeland, has directed a tour documentary called Better Than Therapy, which will also be included on the DVD.
• Sting will perform on September 18th and 19th in Boston at Symphony Hall. Later this fall he'll head Down Under for a string of solo dates that will also hit Dubai, Singapore, Japan and China.

QUICK TAKES

• Elton John is providing the music for a new CGI adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, called Gnomeo And Juliet. Buzzsugar.com reported that the computer animated feature will focus on a gnome named "Gnomeo" and will feature well known songs of John's as well as newly-written tunes for the project.
• Lyricist Tim Rice, and actors James McAvoy and Emily Blunt are attached to the project, which is being produced by John and partner David Furnish. No release date has been announced.
• BBC.co.uk reported that the melody of Bob Marley's posthumous classic "Buffalo Soldier" may have plagiarized "The Tra La La Song," which was the theme to the late '60s children's show, The Banana Splits.
• A spokesman for the Bob Marley Foundation in Jamaica said that Marley would have probably been unaware of the NBC TV show which premiered in 1968, explaining, "(Buffalo Soldier)" is Jamaican style straight up... it's reggae -- it's got the 'one drop beat' of the bass guitar and drums. The 'wo yo yo' is just Bob Marley being creative, it is Jamaican slang, an exclamation, a joyful noise the Jamaicans make when they laugh at a joke."
• "Buffalo Soldier" was recorded by Marley during his final recording sessions in 1980, and was eventually released on his posthumous 1983 album, Confrontation.
• Don Henley made a long distance trek back to his hometown of Linden, Texas on August 3rd to catch country legend Merle Haggard's show at the Music City Texas Theater.CMT.com reported that the show was promoted by Richard Bowden, who was Henley's bandmate in his pre-Eagles band Shiloh.
• According to The Dallas Morning News, "(Henley) spent Saturday night in Canada, caught a flight in Boston early Sunday morning, flew to Dallas and then drove 150 miles to Linden."
• Henley told the press that he didn't mind the long trip to catch the show saying, "That's how much I wanted to see Merle Haggard."
• The Eagles kick off their next series of dates on September 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the BOK Center.

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

• Paul McCartney is rumored to be marrying girlfriend Nancy Shevell in April, according to showbizspy.com. The couple reportedly received the blessings of their families after returning home last week from their cross-country trek across America. McCartney and Shevell were recently spotted jewelry shopping at high-end London jewelers S.J. Phillips.
• A spokesperson for McCartney said simply, "It is nonsense to say they are getting married."
• Earlier this year, McCartney divorced his wife of six years, Heather Mills. Shevell has yet to finalize her divorce from U.S. lawyer Bruce Blakeman.
• Whatgoeson.com reported that a dangerous email scam has been making the rounds with the subject line "The Beatles - Back Together Again." Computer forensics experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have stated that clicking on the fake link installs a malicious software onto your computer.

On This Day In Beatles History - August 22nd:

1962: The Beatles are filmed professionally for the first time performing "Some Other Guy" at Liverpool's Cavern Club for Granada TV. Audio from that day also exists featuring the band playing "Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey." The next day (August 23rd, 1962) John Lennon marries first wife Cynthia Powell.

1964: The Beatles perform in Vancouver at the Empire Stadium.

1965: The Beatles perform two shows at the Portland Coliseum. Between shows they meet Carl Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys who flew up to see the show and hang out with the band.

1966: After only two weeks on the market, the Beatles' Revolver is certified gold for sales of 500,000 units.

1967: The Beatles record eight takes of "Your Mother Should Know" at London's Chappell Recording Studios.

1968: At London's Abbey Road Studios, the Beatles record five takes of "Back In The U.S.S.R" with Paul McCartney filling in for Ringo Starr, who had temporarily quit the band.

1969: The Beatles take part in their final photo session with photographer Ethan Russell at John Lennon's home, Tittenhurst Park. Shots from this session were used on both sides of the band's U.S. compilation album Hey Jude. It is widely believed that August 22nd, 1969 was the last time all four Beatles were together at once.

SHERYL CROW INSPIRES VOTERS WITH FREE MUSIC

Sheryl Crow is doing her own get out the vote campaign by offering up free music to new voters. According to the Associated Press, Crow will give away a free digital copy of her latest album, Detours, to the first 50,000 people who register three friends to vote. She hopes the move will help people "wake up and emotionally engage in issues."

• The 46-year-old singer was one of the founding artists of Rock the Vote and says the album's songs are a good fit for the campaign because they deal with such topics as adoption, the war in Iraq, the environment and Hurricane Katrina. She's also offering a free download of her song, "Gasoline," to anyone who logs onto the Rock the Vote website. Crow explained, "It's about the issues that everyone's talking about, but there's a lot of hope. At this moment in my life, writing about anything else would be uninteresting and impossible because I feel such urgency."

SLASH TO SIT FOR Q&A SESSION AT GUITAR CENTER

Slash will take part in Guitar Center Sessions: An Evening of Dialogue and Insight with Slash on Wednesday, September 3rd at the Guitar Center in Northridge, California. The free event is open to the public and will feature the legendary hard rock axeman discussing guitar techniques, his Gibson signature guitars, songwriting tips, touring and music business advice, and insider insight from his days with Guns N' Roses.

• Slash will also sign copies of a recently published book called Reckless Road: Guns N' Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction.
• Though esteemed as a rock guitar god, Slash also had a smooth jazz hit with the instrumental "Obsession Confession." The tune was from the soundtrack for a little-seen Quentin Tarantino film called Curdled, from 1996.
• The Guitar Center event begins at 6 p.m. PT and the center is located at 19510 Nordhoff Street in Northridge.

JACK WHITE COMMENTS ON DOING 'BOND' THEME

White Stripes and Raconteurs singer/guitarist Jack White has spoken about his collaboration with Alicia Keys on "Another Way To Die," the theme song for the upcoming James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. In a statement sent out by his publicist, White said, "After a couple of years of wanting to collaborate with Alicia Keys, it took James Bond himself to finally make it happen. Alicia put some electric energy into her breath that cemented itself into the magnetic tape. Very inspiring to watch. It gave me a new voice, and I wasn't myself anymore...we joined our voices and screamed and moaned about these characters in the film and their isolation, having no one to trust, not even themselves...We wanted to push soul into those tapes, and join the family of Barry, Bassey, Connery and Craig."

• John Barry composed the music for 12 of the first 15 James Bond movies, while Shirley Bassey sang perhaps the series' most famous theme song, for the movie Goldfinger. Sean Connery was the first cinematic Bond while Daniel Craig is the latest.
• Jack White wrote, produced and performed "Another Way To Die" himself, with Keys contributing vocals. It is the first duet theme song in Bond movie history.
• White and the Raconteurs kick off a series of European festival dates on Friday (August 23rd). A North American tour begins on September 16th in Portland, Oregon.
• Quantum of Solace, Daniel Craig's second outing as Agent 007, arrives in theatres on November 14th.

GARY GLITTER RETURNS TO BRITAIN

Convicted pedophile Gary Glitter has returned to his native Britain three days after being released from Vietnamese jail. Glitter served nearly three years for committing obscene acts with two girls aged 11 and 12.

AFP reported that Glitter, who's now 64, had been booked on a flight to London via Bangkok, but had refused to board the connecting flight to Britain complaining of an earache. He spent 24 hours in an airport transit lounge before agreeing to fly to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, Chinese authorities refused to let Glitter into the country and sent him back to Thailand -- who also would not let him in.

Glitter, who's real name is Paul Francis Gadd, has reportedly been contacting countries in and around Asia to grant him permission to enter, rather than return to the UK. Although there are no charges pending against Glitter in Britain, he would be forced to sign a sex offenders register and possibly risk not being able to leave the UK.

• His legal problems began in 1997 when a computer he brought in to a British repair shop was found to have child pornography on the machine's hard drive. In 1999 Glitter was sentenced to four months in prison on child pornography charges, and was released after serving half of his sentence.
• Glitter, who was part of Britain's early '70s glam rock movement, was known for his cartoon-esque 1950's costumes, including an oversized pompadour wig. He's best known for his 1972 hit "Rock And Roll Part II" which has become a fixture at U.S. sporting events. Glitter is said to be considering a return to music, and writing an autobiography which he feels would help exonerate him.

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND ESTABLISHES FOUNDATION IN MEMORY OF BANDMATE

The Dave Matthews Band has established a memorial fund in honor of DMB saxophonist LeRoi Moore, who passed away on Tuesday (August 19th) at the age of 46. According to FMQB.com, fans can go to davematthewsband.com for more information on the "Charlottesville Area Community Foundation for the LeRoi Moore Memorial Fund" and make a donation to charities that "reflect both Moore's spirit and passion."

• Moore died Tuesday afternoon at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center of complications from an accident he suffered on an all-terrain vehicle in June. The exact cause of death was not made public.
• Moore suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs in the June 30th accident, which happened on his farm in Charlottesville, Virginia. He had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin physical rehabilitation.

8/21/08

RON WOOD'S WIFE LEAVES HIM AFTER HE REMAINS LINKED TO 18-YEAR-OLD GIRLFRIEND

Ron Wood's wife of 23 years, Jo Wood, has left him and is planning to move to the U.S. while Wood completes his most recent stint in rehab.

Earlier this summer, Wood fell off the wagon and during his latest drinking binge, left his family and moved into his Irish mansion with 18-year-old Russian waitress Ekaterina (Eka) Ivanova after meeting her at the premiere of the Rolling Stones' latest concert film, Shine A Light. Although Wood is currently sober, he allegedly is still romantically linked with Ivanova.

A source close to the Woods told thesun.co.uk, "Ronnie is making good progress in his battle with booze. His family hoped his fling with Eka happened because he fell off the wagon. Sadly for them, he has genuinely fallen head over heels for her. He's like a lovesick puppy and can't shake off his teenage-like infatuation. Jo's moving to the U.S. to piece her life back together. Being away from memories of Ron will do her good."

• While in the U.S. Jo Wood will be promoting the work of her brother, painter Paul Karslake, including his remake of the Da Vinci's The Last Supper featuring such rock icons as Wood, Mick Jagger, and Jimi Hendrix, among others.
• Ron Wood, who last entered rehab during the band's mammoth 2005 to 2007 A Bigger Bang tour, reportedly was drinking two bottles of vodka a day prior to checking himself in to a Surrey, UK facility.

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

• Paul McCartney has asked girlfriend Nancy Shevell to accompany him on tour later this year, according to Britain's Daily Express. An unnamed source close to McCartney said, "Paul is excited about going on tour. Initially, he wanted to go it alone with just his band and road crew... but now he wants Nancy to be with him all the way. He says he had the time of his life on the road trip... I think it really sealed things for him."
• McCartney and Shevell recently completed a cross country trek across America's Route 66, and flew back to London together to welcome McCartney's sixth grandchild.
• There have been no McCartney tour dates announced
• An audio recording and tape machine from the Beatles' August 17th, 1966 Toronto concert is up for auction through Maestro Auctions. The tape features the Beatles' entire performance at Maple Leaf Gardens, and includes songs by their opening acts; the Remains, Bobby Hebb, and the Cyrkle, the Ronettes.
• The minimum bid is $10,000 with the auction ending on August 29th. For more information, log on to mastronet.com
• A new film on John Lennon's early life is now in pre-production, called Nowhere Boy, according to telegragh.co.uk.
• The film sheds light upon Lennon's tumultuous pre-teen years, first living with his parents before being raised by his aunt Mimi Smith. The film is based on Lennon's half-sister Julia Baird's book, Imagine This: Growing Up With My Brother John Lennon. Shooting is expected to begin late this year
• George Harrison's son Dhani (pronounced: Danny) Harrison and his band the newno2 (The New Number Two) will perform five free concerts every Tuesday next month in Los Angeles' Key Club on the Sunset Strip.
• Harrison and the band have just released their first full-length album, called You Are Here
• The first major art exhibition in the past 40 years of original Beatles bassist Stu Sutcliffe kicks off today (August 21st) in Liverpool. Metro.co.uk reported that the exhibition featuring Sutcliffe's paintings from the late-1950's and early '60s will run through January 31st, 2009, at the Victoria Gallery & Museum at the University Of Liverpool.
• Stu Sutcliffe was in the Beatles between May and December 1960. Although he was an amateur bassist at best, he was considered on his way to a successful career as a painter at the time of his death. Several archival recordings of Sutcliffe playing with the group can be found on 1995's The Beatles Anthology 1. Sutcliffe is often credited for naming the band.
• His short stint in the group, along with his personal relationship with John Lennon, was dramatized in the 1979 made-for-TV film The Birth Of The Beatles and the 1994 feature, Backbeat.
• Stu Sutcliffe died on April 10th, 1962 in Hamburg, Germany, at the age of 21 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

FORMER GUNS N' ROSES DRUMMER PLEADS NOT GUILTY TO DRUG CHARGES

Former Guns N' Roses drummer Steven Adler tearfully pleaded not guilty to drug charges on Wednesday morning (August 20th) in Los Angeles Superior Court, according to the Associated Press. Adler was ordered by a judge to stay for at least another month at the Pasadena Recovery Center in Pasadena, California, where he is once again undergoing rehab. Adler was arrested last month after causing a disturbance and refusing to leave a private residence in Los Angeles. He was released on bail and is currently awaiting a preliminary hearing on a felony count of drug possession and a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of drugs.

• Adler, Guns N' Roses' original drummer in the late '80s and early '90s before being kicked out for his drug use, recently finished a stint on the second season of VH1's Celebrity Rehab, which premieres in October.
• He was slated to appear in a follow-up series called Sober Living until his arrest last month.
• The 43-year-old Adler's current treatment is said to be under the supervision of Dr. Drew Pinsky, star of Celebrity Rehab.
• Adler suffered two strokes in 1996 as a result of his drug use, impairing his speech.

CROSBY, STILLS, & NASH RECALL CLASSIC DEBUT ALBUM

Crosby, Stills, & Nash spoke candidly to Rolling Stone about their 1969 self-titled debut and gave some unique insight into some of the album's key songs.

Graham Nash, who had joined the duo the previous year after leaving the Hollies, remembered the album sessions as marking the group's closest period both artistically and personally: We were in love with each other at the time we recorded that album. We were new friends discovering new parts about each other and we had songs. And we had the ability to translate those songs into records that was astounding and we knew it."

• Nash recalls realizing upon the album's completion that they had broken important new ground musically, explaining, "When we walked out of the studio with that two-track under our arm, we knew what it was going to do. We knew that it was going to be a hit. We knew that we had nailed something that wasn't really that popular kind of then. It was all Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and stuff and here comes this little acoustic record."

CSN on the songs from 1969's Crosby, Stills, & Nash:

"Guinnevere"

• David Crosby: "It's about three women that I loved. One of whom was Christine Hinton, the girl who got killed who was my girlfriend, and one of whom was Joni Mitchell and the other one is somebody that I can't tell. It might be my best song."
  Graham Nash: "Crosby sent me a tape of 'Guinnevere' in 1968 and it was one of the things that (made me) really realize that this man was a profound thinker and a great musician... 'Guinnevere' and 'Deja Vu' were on the same tape and it was then that I realized that Crosby was something special. And we've had a great time singing that song 'cause we never do it the same way twice."

"Long Time Gone"

• Crosby: "I wrote that right after they assassinated Bobby Kennedy. It was a result of losing him, of losing John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I started to feel overwhelmed. It seemed as if it was ballot by bullet. It seemed as if it didn't matter how good a person we could find to put up as an inspiration and a leader for the good, that somehow the other side would triumph by simply gunning them down."

"Wooden Ships"

• Crosby: "That was written by Paul Kanter and Stephen Stills and myself on my boat in Florida. It's one of my most favorite Crosby, Stills & Nash songs. I really love what it says, I really love how unusual it is and I really love the harmonies. It's definitely a science fiction song, no question."

"Marrakesh Express"

• Nash: "In 1966 I was visiting Morocco on vacation to Marrakesh and getting on a train and having a first-class ticket and then realizing that the first-class compartment was completely... boring... So I decide I'm going to go and see what the rest of the train is like. And the rest of the train was fascinating. Just like the song says, there were ducks and pigs and chickens all over the place and people lighting fires. It's literally the song as it is -- what happened to me."

"Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"

• Stephen Stills: "When I wrote it I used cardboard shirt-blocking, you know those things from the cleaner's -- 'cause they were harder to lose than pieces of paper and they didn't crumple up. I could line them up on music stands and they'd stand up."
  Nash: "Probably one of my favorite Crosby, Stills & Nash songs... Stephen's the only one that plays on the 'Suite.'"

"You Don't Have To Cry"

• Nash: "That was the first song we ever sang together. It was in Joni Mitchell's living room."
  Stills: "No, it was at Cass Elliot's dining room table. In the corner in a stucco room, near the kitchen and the pool."
  Crosby: "Nope, sorry."
  Stills: "I would've never sung for the first time with you guys in front of Joni Mitchell... she was too intimidating."
  Crosby: "You did."
  Stills: "We've been fighting about this for 40 years -- actually since our last tour especially."

Crosby, Stills & Nash was released on May 29th, 1969 and peaked at Number Six on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart.

• Although CSN's music and career choices have been analyzed and second-guessed by fans and journalists alike, Graham Nash says he's been fortunate to have never taken himself that seriously: "You just can't spend too much time thinking in those terms, you know, about how significant you are. You're not, you know? This is not brain surgery or astrophysics or Mozart -- this is a very simple form of music that moves a great many people, and I'm glad to be a part of it."
• Stephen Stills kicks off a European tour on October 1st in Rome.
• David Crosby and Graham Nash kick off their upcoming tour on October 4th in Wilmington, Delaware at the Grand Opera House.

DAVE MATTHEWS PAYS TRIBUTE TO FALLEN BANDMATE

The Dave Matthews Band performed on Tuesday night (August 19th) at the Staples Center in Los Angeles despite the news that saxophonist LeRoi Moore, absent from the group's current tour after suffering an injury in June, had died earlier that day. According to People, Matthews paid tribute to his late bandmate one song into the show, saying, "We all had some bad news today. Our good friend LeRoi Moore passed on and gave his ghost up today and we will miss him forever." The audience shouted Moore's name out as the band resumed playing, with Matthews later adding, "It's easier to leave than be left."

• The 46-year-old Moore died Tuesday afternoon at Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center of complications from an accident he suffered on an all-terrain vehicle in June. The exact cause of death was not made public.
• Moore suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs in the June 30th accident, which happened on his farm in Charlottesville, Virginia. He had recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin physical rehabilitation.

VELVET REVOLVER SETTLES PLAGIARISM SUIT

Velvet Revolver has agreed to pay a share of all royalties from its song "Dirty Little Thing" to musician Tony Newton after a plagiarism suit was brought against the group. According to Blabbermouth.net, the band will play Newton 20 percent of all royalties earned on the song since its release in 2004 on Velvet Revolver's debut album, Contraband. The claim, brought by Newton's publishing company, alleged that the melody and main guitar riff from "Dirty Little Thing" made it an "unmistakable" copy of "Cyber Babe," a song from the 1999 record Real World from Newton's band at the time, Dirty Deeds.

• Newton, who is currently the bassist and chief songwriter for U.K. act Voodoo Six, said, "A couple of years back, a mate of mine in L.A. called me to say he'd heard what he thought was my song on the radio, and that he had been a bit shocked when he realized it was Velvet Revolver. When I checked it out myself, I genuinely couldn't believe it, because it wasn't as if it was close... it was basically the same riff."
• Newton added that he was "as surprised as anyone" when he heard back from his publisher, Universal Music, about the settlement.
• Velvet Revolver will pay Newton his share of the royalties from all commercial uses of the song worldwide, including digital and physical sales, live performances and video plays, which means you probably won't be hearing the song much at future Velvet Revolver concerts.
• Voodoo Six issued its debut album, First Hit For Free, last March.

8/20/08

DAVE MATTHEWS BAND SAXOPHONIST LEROI MOORE DEAD AT 46

Dave Matthews Band saxophonist LeRoi Moore died Tuesday (August 19th) at a Los Angeles hospital at the age of 46, the Associated Press reports. The exact cause of death is unknown, but was related to complications from critical injuries Moore sustained in a June 30th all-terrain vehicle crash on his farm in Charlottesville, Virginia. Moore, who suffered a punctured lung and broken ribs in the accident, recently returned to his Los Angeles home to begin physical rehabilitation but complications forced him back into the hospital.

Moore's accident prevented him from joining Dave Matthews Band on their current tour, which coincidentally was scheduled to play Los Angeles Tuesday and Wednesday (August 20th). In a message posted on their website, LeRoi's former bandmates said they were "deeply saddened" at news of his death.

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY, ROBERT PLANT!!!

Happy Birthday to Robert Plant who turns 60 years old today (August 20th).

Although Plant has enjoyed a successful solo career since 1982, he will always be best known for his years fronting Led Zeppelin and co-writing the majority of the band's songs with Jimmy Page.

Despite last December's Zeppelin reunion in London featuring himself, Page, John Paul Jones, and Jason Bonham filling in for his late dad John Bonham, Plant has been the lone hold-out in committing to any future performances. Several of the industries' top promoters have essentially offered the band a blank check should they commit to any number of road dates.

Coincidentally, just as the Zeppelin reunion rumors first began to catch fire last year, Plant enjoyed the biggest success of his solo career with his collaboration with Alison Krauss on their joint album Raising Sand, which hit Number Two on The Billboard 200 album charts. Plant and Krauss' cover of the Everly Brothers' "Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)" scored the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals.

• Raising Sand producer T-Bone Burnett was sure that the duo would click immediately: "I know Alison's adventurous, and I didn't know Robert until we started working together. But, I've certainly followed him and I knew that he was adventurous, and I knew they were both interested in the history of music. So I suspected we could find common ground pretty easily."
• After 40 years in the business, Plant says that up and coming musicians should stay as independent as possible: "Stay away from a major label. You know, you've got to be able to deal with people who are telling the truth. You can't be in a position where, if things aren't happening for you within four weeks, you're history and you're left dangling forever. I know quite a few artists of my era who are in that position now, who just can't get away."
• Although Led Zeppelin guards its catalogue against use in commercials, in 2004 they allowed their song "Rock And Roll" to be used by Cadillac, and more recently let NBC use their song "Bring It Home" to be used in Olympic TV spots. Plant says that he actually doesn't mind the use of their material on TV, providing it's done with taste: "I think that's appropriate. I don't know how people view it, but as far as a young generation goes, if you hear that music in as many possible places as you can outside of the normal home for it, then it can only be a good thing."
• Robert Plant & Alison Krauss tour dates (subject to change):
  September 23 - Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
  September 24 - St. Louis, MO - Fox Theatre
  September 26 - Houston, TX - Mitchell Pavilion
  September 27 - Austin, TX - Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park
  September 30 - Portland, OR - Theatre of the Clouds
  October 1 - Seattle, WA - WaMu Theatre
  October 3 - San Francisco, CA - Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival at Speedway Meadow
  October 4 - Kelseyville, CA - Konocti Harbor
  October 5 - Saratoga, CA - Mountain Winery

PETER FRAMPTON ADDS EAST COAST FALL DATES

Peter Frampton has extended his current tour into October, adding seven additional East Coast North American dates. Newly added stops include Belleville, Ontario; Foxboro, Massachusetts; West Palm Beach, Florida and other dates.

Frampton's concert set lists still draw heavily on his 1976 multi-platinum double album Frampton Comes Alive! -- as well as spotlighting Frampton's most recent album, the Grammy-Award winning instrumental set, Fingerprints.

• Frampton says that putting together a two-hour show that keeps the crowd interested and moving is almost an art form: "Certain numbers just don't lend themselves to live. And I've always been able to really balance and build a show. We don't come out and just scream at you from the word 'go' until the end. It's always a build. And it goes up and down in the middle. Certain numbers just don't lend themselves to stage. And some I haven't tried."
• Peter Frampton tour dates (subject to change):
  August 29 - Indianapolis, IN - Rib America Festival at Military Park
  August 30 - Milwaukee, WI - Harley Davidson Anniversary at Summerfest Grounds
  August 31 - Nashville, TN - Riverfront Park
  September 3 - Dallas, TX - House Of Blues
  September 5 - Bossier City, LA - Horseshoe Casino
  September 6 - Robinsonville, MS - Bluesville At Horseshoe Casino
  September 7 - Elizabeth, IN - Caesars Indiana
  September 9 - Easton, PA - State Theatre Center For The Arts
  September 11 - Belleville, ON - Empire Theatre
  September 12 - Foxboro, MA - Showcase Live!
  September 13 - Lakewood, NJ - GPU Energy Park
  October 22 - Knoxville, TN - Tennessee Theatre
  October 24 - Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
  October 25 - West Palm Beach, FL - Kravis Center
  October 26 - Melbourne, FL - King Center For Performing Arts
• Frampton's recent shows have included a cover of Jr. Walker & The All Star's "Shotgun," his hit version of Stevie Wonder's "Signed Sealed Delivered," the Beatles' "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," which was featured on his 2003 album Now, his instrumental version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" which was included on his recent instrumental album Fingerprints, and the longtime Humble Pie closer, Ashford & Simpson's "I Don't Need No Doctor."
• Peter Frampton's last album, Fingerprints, won the 2007 Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Album.

JOHN LENNON'S MURDERER SAYS THAT HE'S CHANGED SINCE BEING IN PRISON

John Lennon's murderer, Mark David Chapman, says that he's ashamed of murdering the former Beatle in 1980, and that he's changed over the past 28 years in prison.

Last week, Chapman was turned down for parole for the fifth time since 2002. The Associated Press reported that the transcript for last week's parole hearing was made public, in which Chapman, who's now 53, said in part, "I recognized that that 25-year-old man -- I don't think he really appreciated the life that he was taking, that this was a human being. I feel now at 53 I have grown into a deeper understanding of what a human life is. I have changed a lot."

Chapman shed light on his state of mind during the days he stalked Lennon and eventually shot him to death. He recalled that he had hoped the murder would give him a sense of identity and notoriety: "I would be something other than a nobody, and that was my reasoning at the time."

• Mark David Chapman, is serving a 25 years-to-life sentence for Lennon's murder. He is housed in protective custody at Attica Correctional Facility, which is about 30 miles east of Buffalo, New York. He works as a law clerk and in the prison's kitchen.
• Since 1992 Chapman has been receiving conjugal visits with his wife Gloria Abe, through a state program called "family reunion" which allows prisoners to spend up to 44 hours at a time in an unsupervised home setting on prison property.

NEIL YOUNG ANNOUNCES NORTH AMERICAN TOUR

Neil Young has announced a 19-date North American tour to kick off on October 14th in Saint Paul, Minnesota at the Xcel Energy Center, and wrap up on December 15th at New York's Madison Square Garden.

Reuters reported that the opening acts for the tour will be Death Cab For Cutie, who'll play the first portion of the tour from opening night in Minneapolis until November 29th in Halifax, Nova Scotia, when Wilco will then replace them as the tour's opener.

• Neil Young North American tour dates (subject to change):
  October 14 - Saint Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
  October 16 - Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
  October 18 - Regina, SK - Brandt Centre
  October 19 - Calgary, AB - Pengrowth Saddledome
  October 21 - Everett, WA - Comcast Arena At Everett Events Center
  October 22 - Vancouver, BC - General Motors Place
  October 29 - San Diego, CA - Cox Arena
  October 30 - Inglewood, CA - The Forum
  November 1 - Reno, NV - Reno Events Center
  November 4 - Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center
  November 5 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center Omaha
  November 29 - Halifax, NS - Halifax Metro Centre
  December 1 - Montreal, QC - Bell Centre
  December 2 - Ottawa, ON - Scotiabank Place
  December 4 - Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre
  December 7 - Auburn Hills, MI - The Palace Of Auburn Hills
  December 9 - Rosemont, IL - Allstate Arena
  December 12 - Philadelphia, PA - The Wachovia Spectrum
  December 15 - New York, NY - Madison Square Garden Arena

Young wraps up his European tour on Saturday (August 23rd) in Coburg, Germany. On September 20th, Young will appear with Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, and others in Mansfield, Massachusetts for the annual Farm Aid benefit.

• Neil Young has yet to announce the dates and lineup for his upcoming Bridge School Benefit show, which is usually held in late October in Northern, California.

METALLICA FRONTMAN'S LAWYER CALLS FENCE FLAP 'ABSURD'

Metallica frontman James Hetfield's attorney has spoken on behalf of his client about a fence that Hetfield erected on his Marin County, California property that has angered local bikers, hikers and horse riders, who claim it blocks access to a fire road that has been open for decades. Lawyer Howard King told San Francisco's KGO-TV, "There was a fence there for decades. Hikers breached and broke a smaller gate countless times. For Mr. Hetfield to be vilified in this borders on the absurd. He has done the county a favor by agreeing to preserve hundreds of acres of open space, not to walk through, but to look at."

• People using the road claim that the previous owners of the property, which stretches for several hundred yards, had allowed them to pass through for years. Hetfield's lawyer disputed that claim.
• Hetfield bought the property in 1999 with plans to construct a house and studio. So far only the studio has been built.
• The contractor hired to put up the fence said that the singer and guitarist was concerned about vandalism and damage on his property.
• The Deputy Director of Parks told KGO, "Hetfield has the right to close off his property. We believe he had an issue with people having parties and making campfires." But he added that negotiations were underway with Hetfield to come to some sort of compromise arrangement.

8/19/08

PHIL COLLINS PAID EX-WIFE NEARLY $50 MILLION IN DIVORCE SETTLEMENT

It's been revealed that Phil Collins has paid former wife Orianne Cevey $46 million in a divorce settlement. Telegraph.co.uk reported that the amount of the settlement was made public after the accounts for his personal management company, Philip Collins Ltd. were released.

Collins and Cevey, who is 35, were married for seven years and had been a couple for 12 years. They have two children, Nicolas, age eight, and Matthew, age four. In 2006, the couple purchased race car driver Jackie Stewart's mansion in Bugnins, Switzerland, near Geneva, for $37 million. Cevey and the couple's children remain in the house, with Collins living nearby.

It is estimated that over the course of his three divorces, Collins has paid out nearly $80 million in settlements -- roughly a third of his wealth -- over the past 30 years.

• In 1994, after allegedly notifying second wife Jill Tavelman that he wanted a divorce, Collins ended up paying her $31 million. The couple had one child together named Lily.
• Collins has two children, Simon and Joelyi, from his first marriage to Andrea Bertorelli, which ended in 1979.
• Phil Collins spreads out his time between New York, a holiday home in Norfolk, Britain, and Switzerland. He says that he's able to maintain a level of anonymity in Switzerland that he enjoys: "The village is very protective. They kind of, they don't like outsiders coming in and bothering their neighbors. Not that people do. I mean, the Swiss are naturally, it tends to be a place that they leave you to your own devices."
• Phil Collins has recently been linked romantically to TV anchorwoman Dana Tyler, from CBS-TV's New York affiliate WCBS-TV.

NEW U2 SONGS LEAK ONLINE

Four of U2's new songs have reportedly been leaked online. According to British tabloid The Sun, a fan passing by frontman Bono's home in the south of France heard the music blasting, then recorded the tracks and uploaded them on YouTube. Possible song titles include the title track, "No Line on the Horizon," "Moment of Surrender," "For Your Love," and "Sexy Boots," which could be the first single. The set is expected to be released this November.

Meanwhile, Bono has supposedly been told to hit the gym. According to the New York Post, he's been putting on a little extra weight and has been asked to sneak in some additional exercise before U2 does promotion for the new album.

• The new set comes on the heels of U2's 2004 release, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.

JIMMY PAGE SAID TO BE TEAMING UP WITH LEONA LEWIS TO CLOSE 2008 OLYMPICS

Jimmy Page is slated to close out the 2008 Olympics on August 24th with a performance with R&B pop singer Leona Lewis, according to gigwise.com. It's still unknown if between Page and Lewis will be performing a newly-written collaboration or a song from one of their respective catalogues. Their Olympic performance marks the first time that the pair has ever performed together.

Jimmy Page and his Led Zeppelin bandmates must have a soft spot for the Summer Games, because they allowed NBC to use their song "Bring It Home" from their Led Zeppelin II album in TV spots promoting the Olympics. Rolling Stone reported that the tune is being used as a tie in with the U.S. motto "Bring It Home" in reference to the gold medal.

• The use of the Zeppelin track marks the first time that the band has authorized the use of one of their songs for a commercial since 2004, when the band allowed Cadillac to licensed "Rock And Roll" from the band's Led Zeppelin IV album.

BILLY GIBBONS SAYS EVEN INFLATED TICKET PRICES CAN'T KEEP ZZ TOP FANS AWAY

ZZ Top credits their hardcore fans for the sold out success of their current double-bill tour with country stars Brooks & Dunn.

Billy Gibbons says that with inflation and the current state of the economy, bands need to work extra hard to put people in the seats: "It's a good value. Y'know when you're spending money to go see a show these days, what do you get out of it? And the bands that are fortunate to have a die-hard throng of fans is the luck to be able to be able to deliver a good show, because these ticket prices anyplace but up."

Gibbons says that the band's next album will be produced by Rick Rubin, who's scored critical success with Johnny Cash's final albums, and Neil Diamond's most recent sets: "I got a text from Rick Rubin. And all I can say at this point is that this is a new venture between the two of us. I've known Rick for 20 years, and we've waited for this opportunity for a double decade. I just feel very comfortable working within the framework that he envisions. He's had some remarkable success in the dramatic return of the popularity for Johnny Cash, for instance. That was just a great runaway success story."

• There's been no release date set for the Rubin-produced ZZ Top album. The band's last studio release was 2003's Mescalero. ZZ Top recently released a concert DVD, called Live From Texas 2007.
• Billboard reported that Gibbons has teamed up with the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister for version of Chuck Berry's "Run, Rudolph, Run" which will be featured on the upcoming Metal Christmas compilation.
• On August 26th, ZZ Top will celebrate the 25th anniversary of their 1983 album Eliminator with a special CD/DVD combo release.
• ZZ Top will next perform on Thursday (August 21st) in Altoona, Iowa at Prairie Meadows Casino.

MAN INJURED DURING STEELY DAN CONCERT

A man was injured at a Steely Dan concert on Saturday night (August 16th) in Chicago. The Associated Press reported that during the band's show at the Chicago Theatre, a man attempted to slide down a stairway railing and instead fell two floors, hitting two concert-goers before landing in the venue's basement.

Police arrived on the scene and took the man to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where he was admitted in stable condition. The man's name has not been released.

• Steely Dan tour dates (subject to change):
  August 20 - Houston, TX - Verizon Wireless Theater
  August 21 - Grand Prairie, TX - Nokia Theatre At Grand Prairie
  August 24 - Saratoga, CA - The Mountain Winery
  August 26, 27 - Santa Rosa, CA - Wells Fargo Center For The Arts

AC/DC OFFICIALLY ON 'ICE'

It's been all but confirmed for weeks, but AC/DC has finally announced that its new album is titled Black Ice and will be released on October 20th internationally and October 21st in North America. The 15-song collection, the group's first set of all-new material since 2000's Stiff Upper Lip, will be sold exclusively through Wal-Mart and Sam's Club at a special price of $11.88. The CD will also be available through both retailers' websites, as well as the band's official site, acdc.com.

• The first single from Black Ice, "Rock 'N' Roll Train," will debut on August 28th.
• Other tracks on the record include "Skies on Fire," "War Machine," "Wheels," "Decibel," "She Likes Rock 'n' Roll" and the title track.
• Black Ice was produced by Brendan O'Brien, best known for his work with Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots.
• The band will kick off its first tour in seven years in late October, possibly on Halloween in Chicago.
• AC/DC's label, Columbia Records, told Billboard.com it is planning "multiple activities for fans" before the album's release date.

ANNIE LENNOX UNDERGOES SPINAL SURGERY, ALBUM RELEASE DELAYED

Singer/activist Annie Lennox is recovering from spinal surgery following a nerve injury she sustained while attending last week's International AIDS Conference in Mexico. Although the surgery went as planned, her forthcoming retrospective album, The Annie Lennox Collection, has been pushed back to Spring 2009.

• This is the second time the release date has changed. It was originally due out on September 16th and then changed to September 23rd.
• The 14-track set, issued via Arista Records, includes some of her greatest hits, including, "Why" and "No More 'I Love You's'," among others. A great influence on today's artists, the blues-inspired rock singer mused about her own greatest musical influences: "I used to listen to Tama/Motown Records, but I'd hear this music and it was just so incredible. I mean, "Tracks of My Tears," "Dock of the Bay," The Supremes, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin...so many of these artists from Motown just blew me away."
• In related news, her longtime musical partner, Dave Stewart, has suddenly cancelled his 17-date North American tour. Although it's possible that he did so to help her during her recuperation, that possibility has not been confirmed.

DAVE STEWART CANCELS U.S. TOUR

Dave Stewart has suddenly cancelled his 17-date North American tour in support of his new album The Dave Stewart Songbook, Volume One.

Yesterday (August 18th), Stewart posted a note on his official website (davestewart.com) saying, "Unfortunately, I have cancelled my tour dates due to unforeseen circumstances. In lieu of the larger tour, my band and I will be performing at venues in select cities. The new dates and venues will be announced at a later date. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused anyone. Dave Stewart."

• Stewart's tour was set to begin on August 28th in Kettering, Ohio, and wrap on September 21st in Washington, D.C.
• Pollstar.com reported that ticket holders should check with point of purchase for refunds.
• On The Dave Stewart Songbook, Volume One, Stewart reprises such Eurhythmics classics as "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)," "Here Comes The Rain Again," and "Missionary Man"-- along with other songs he wrote and co-wrote, including "Old Habits Die Hard" with Mick Jagger, and "Don't Come Around Here No More" with Tom Petty, "American Prayer" with Bono, among many others.
• In related news, Dave Stewart's former musical partner, Annie Lennox, has successfully undergone spinal surgery to release an impinged nerve that was damaged while she attended last week's International AIDS Conference in Mexico.

GLEN CAMPBELL HOPES TO TURN 1980 JOHN LENNON SONG INTO A STANDARD

Glen Campbell hopes to turn one of John Lennon's final songs into the wedding standard the late Beatle had hoped it would become.

On his new album, Meet Glen Campbell, Campbell covers Lennon's 1980 composition "Grow Old With Me" which Lennon had demoed shortly before his murder on December 8th, 1980. Lennon's rough piano demo was included on the 1983 posthumous release Milk And Honey, but Lennon had originally intended the ballad to feature a fuller production, including orchestration. Ono has said that Lennon wanted it to become a "wedding standard."

Campbell only heard the song shortly before recording it and was floored by the rarely-heard Lennon gem: ["I just said 'Wow! Wow! Wow!' It brought chill-bumps on my arms, y'know, and on my belly and chest (laughs). It was just fabulous, man! (Sings) 'Grow old along with me, two branches on one tree...' -- Just a fabulous song. It probably will be a standard."] SOUNDCUE (:16 OC: . . . be a standard)

• Lennon and wife Yoko Ono had composed companion pieces for the Milk And Honey album, which was originally to be released in 1981 as the couple's follow-up to their 1980 album Double Fantasy.
• Lennon's "Grow Old With Me" was directly inspired by poet Robert Browning's piece "Rabbi ben Ezra" and his demo appears on Milk And Honey. Ono's demo of her song "Let Me Count The Ways" was based on Browning's wife Elizabeth Barrett-Browning's poem "How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)"
• In 1994, "Grow Old With Me" was one of the songs that Ono gave the surviving Beatles to work on for The Beatles Anthology. The group instead utilized Lennon's demos for "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" for the project.
• For 1998's John Lennon Anthology, Beatles producer George Martin added orchestration over Lennon's 1980 demo.

Meet Glen Campbell also features Campbell's take on such modern tunes as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Walls," U2's "All I Want Is You," Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)," Jackson Browne's "These Days" and the Velvet Underground's "Jesus," among others.

• Glen Campbell tour dates (subject to change):
  August 16 - Havelock, ON - Havelock Country Jamboree - Festival Grounds
  August 19 - West Hollywood, CA - Troubadour
  August 21 - Santa Ynez, CA - Chumash Casino
  September 26 - Bowling Green, KY - Capitol Arts Center
  September 27 - Metropolis, IL - Harrah's Metropolis Casino

GARY GLITTER LEAVES PRISON, WANTS TO RETURN TO MUSIC

Gary Glitter is expected to be released from a southern Vietnam prison today (Tuesday, August 19th), after serving time for child sexual molestation. He's being deported to Britain, and according to AFP, the former glam rocker plans to return to music and "pursue his unfinished work." His lawyer, Le Thanh Kinh, said, "The first thing that he will do when he returns home is to focus on his health, since he is fairly old," adding that the 64-year-old singer has a "little hearing problem." Glitter recently said he hopes to move to Singapore or Hong Kong to record new music.

8/18/08

DAVID GILMOUR HOPES BARACK OBAMA WINS THE PRESIDENCY

David Gilmour is the latest musician to publicly endorse Sen. Barack Obama's bid for the presidency.

Although Gilmour is a British citizen and is unable to vote in the election, he feels that Obama possesses the quality to change the face of modern times: "I'm sure and I'm hoping that Barack Obama will win -- I sure hope he does. I hope that he fulfills his promise, y'know, because I'm not really a Republican-type person. He's got all the moves, hasn't he? We will see, I mean, these things are the only things that you can find out with the benefit of history."

• Gilmour's endorsement follows similar nods by Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Roger Daltrey, and Bruce Springsteen.

On September 17th, Gilmour will release his live album Live In Gdansk. The set was recorded during the final show of his 2006 summer tour in support of his solo album Islands, at the shipyards in Gdansk, Poland. The concert was the only stop of the tour to feature an orchestra, and features the string section of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra.

Gilmour says that prepping for the orchestral show was surprisingly easy: "It's slightly not representative of all the shows on the tour, because that was the only show we had an orchestra on. As we had been invited to play at this 26th anniversary celebration for (Poland's) solidarity, and the guy who had done the orchestral arrangements on the album was Polish. And he said let's do it with an orchestra, 'cause he reckoned that he could get an orchestra out there, rehearse them for me, and I wouldn't have to do very much, and we could just get up and off it would go. And so it did."

• Among the Pink Floyd classics featured on Gilmour's Live In Gdansk album are: "Breathe (In The Air), "Time," "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," "Astronomy Domine," "Fat Old Sun," "Echoes," "Wish You Were Here," "Comfortably Numb," among other Floyd and solo songs.

THE WHO'S HOMETOWN SUBURB NAMED UK'S ROCK CAPITOL

The Who's hometown, the London suburb Shepherd's Bush, was named the rock and roll capital of Britain by guitarrockstar.co.uk. Each UK city was rated against each other, judging the ratio of rock star against the city or town's population. Shepherd's Bush topped other well known music hubs such as Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Birmingham by rating with one star for every 1,222 locals.

Apart from being the birthplace of the Who's Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle; Shepherd's Bush was home to such future icons as the Clash's Paul Simonon, the Sex Pistols' Glen Matlock, Paul Cook and Steve Jones, and John Weider of the Animals.

• Keith Moon was the only member of the Who to not come from Shepherd's Bush, having been raised in Wembley.

In other Who news:

The Who are auctioning off a chance to be their roadie for the day to benefit a Santa Monica, California charity.

Thewho.com posted that an eBay auction will run through August 24th to benefit the K9 Connection. The program "brings the magic of dogs and kids together. At-risk 12-to-18-year-old kids train homeless shelter dogs in basic obedience, assisting the dogs to develop the skills to become adoptable. (Along the way) students also learn important lessons of personal accountability and responsibility throughout the (training)."

• For more information on how to become a Who roadie for a day -- as well as to bid on the other K9 auctions, log on to eBay with the key words: K9 Connection Charity Auction and Roger Daltrey.
• The Who kicks off their 10-date North American mini-tour on October 21st in Auburn Hills, Michigan at the Palace Of Auburn Hills.

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

Paul McCartney has become a grandfather for the sixth time, according to Britain's The Mirror. McCartney's daughter, photographer Mary McCartney, gave birth to a son named Sam on August 11th. The child is her first with boyfriend, filmmaker Simon Aboud. Mary has two other sons, Arthur, age eight, and Elliot age five, with her ex-husband TV producer ex-husband Alistair Donald.

• McCartney's daughter designer Stella McCartney has three children with her husband Alashdair Willis -- Miller, Bailey-Linda, and Beckett -- who are all under three years old.
• Neither of Paul and Linda McCartney's other children, Heather and James, are married or have children.

Chips Chipperfield, one of the main producers of The Beatles Anthology, died on August 12th from an heart attack at the age of 65 in Ireland, according to musicweek.com.

• A message paying tribute to Chipperfield was posted on the group's official website thebeatles.com, saying, "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Chips Chipperfield, who has sadly passed away. Chips was the Grammy award winning producer of The Beatles Anthology, and a long serving member of the Apple Corps family. Warm, wise and kind, he was loved and respected by all those who worked with him. His youthful spirit and enthusiasm for life will continue to be an inspiration to all those who knew him. He will be dearly missed by all of us."
• The Beatles Anthology won the 1996 Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video, which Chipperfield shared with the DVD's other producers, Bob Smeaton, Geoff Wonfor, the late Neil Aspinall and the Beatles.
• In addition to working with Paul McCartney on such solo video projects as 1989's Put It There, and 1991's Liverpool Oratorio, Chipperfield worked on projects for Tina Turner, the Pet Shop Boys, and on the VH1 series Classic Albums.

In celebration of their new John Lennon-inspired ice cream "Imagine Whirled Peace," Ben & Jerry's have launched a special website in which fans can post their own peace messages.

• Earlier this year, Ben & Jerry's announced a joint effort with the Lennon Estate and Peace One Day in hopes of raising global awareness of the United Nation's Day of Global Ceasefire and Non-Violence on September 21st. To upload a message, log on to benandjerrys.com/imagine.

On This Day In Beatles History:

1962: Ringo Starr performs his first official dates as a Beatle at Hulme Hall in Cheshire and the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

1964: The Beatles fly to San Francisco to begin their first full-scale North American tour.

1967: The Rolling Stones release their single "We Love You" featuring backing vocals by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

GUNS N' ROSES ALBUM GOING THROUGH WAL-MART?

Sources have told Billboard.com that the new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, may be released through an exclusive deal with a "big box" retail chain like Wal-Mart or Best Buy. Another source said that negotiations are underway for just such a release, with talks going on with conventional record companies for distribution as well. Guns N' Roses is managed by Front Line Management, whose head, Irving Azoff, successfully engineered the release of the latest Eagles album, Long Road Out of Eden, through Wal-Mart. Another long-awaited new album, AC/DC's Black Ice, is coming out this fall exclusively through Wal-Mart.

• There is still no official release date for Chinese Democracy, which has been 14 years in the making. Representatives for Guns N' Roses, its label, Best Buy and Wal-Mart had no comment.
• An alleged new song from the disc, called "Shackler's Revenge," leaked online last week. The track is set to be included on the soundtrack of the upcoming video game Rock Band 2.
• Nine other tunes from Chinese Democracy, all allegedly finished recordings, were leaked online last June.

AC/DC OFFERING BRITISH FANS CHANCE TO SEE PRIVATE GIG

AC/DC will offer British fans a special chance to see the band perform a one-off dress rehearsal in the U.S. just before the group kicks off its upcoming North American tour. Fans must show up at next weekend's (August 22nd to 24th) Reading and Leeds festivals in the U.K. dressed as AC/DC guitarist Angus Young and have their photo taken in front of a giant billboard at the concert site. The pictures will be uploaded to acdcrocks.com, where the best "Angus" will win a trip for two to the States to see the band perform privately.

• The legendary rockers are slated to begin an 18-month world tour in October, with the trek reportedly kicking off on Halloween in Chicago.
• AC/DC will hit the road in support of Black Ice, its first new album since 2000's Stiff Upper Lip.
• The first single from the set, "Rock 'n' Roll Train," is expected to surface at the end of this month.
• Black Ice will arrive on October 21st and be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, whose stores will also host their own special AC/DC display areas.

FLASHBACK: PAUL McCARTNEY & WINGS' 'LIVE AND LET DIE' PEAKS ON THE CHARTS

It was 35 years ago this week (August 18th, 1973) that Wings' theme to the James Bond movie Live And Let Die peaked at Number Two on the charts. The song, which followed the recent Number One success of the band's "My Love," was kept from the top spot by Diana Ross' "Touch Me In The Morning," and the Stories' "Brother Louie."

McCartney came about writing "Live And Let Die" through former Beatles producer George Martin, who was the film's musical director and pitched the project to him. McCartney spent a day reading the Ian Fleming novel, and then went about composing the song with help from his wife Linda, who contributed the reggae-tinged middle portion.

• Wings drummer Denny Seiwell recalls the speed in which the song was recorded: "'Live And Let Die' was pretty amazing, because we did that track in and out of the studio, with a live 40-piece orchestra, overdubs, mix in three hours at Air London at George Martin's studio. So that was pretty impressive."
• Although "Live And Let Die" stalled at Number Two on the Billboard charts, it went on to hit Number One on both the Cash Box and Record World singles charts.
• Over the years "Live And Let Die" has become a McCartney concert favorite, with its explosions and pyrotechnics that seem to grow with each tour.
• The song was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song from A Motion Picture, but lost to "The Way We Were."

MUSIC INDUSTRY PIONEER JERRY WEXLER DEAD AT 91

Legendary music pioneer Jerry Wexler died on Friday (August 15th) at his home in Siesta Key, Florida of congestive heart failure at age 91, according to Billboard.

Wexler is best known for his years as one of the heads of Atlantic Records, along with partners Herb Abramson and Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, and played a pivotal role in the careers of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Solomon Burke, Otis Redding, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, Roberta Flack, and many others.

Solomon Burke paid tribute to Wexler, telling The Associated Press, "He loved black music, R&B music and rhythm and blues was his foundation. He had a feeling for it, he had the knack to keep it going in his heart and recognize the talent that he felt was real. Jerry Wexler didn't change the sound of America, he put the sound to the public. He open the doors and windows to the radio stations... and made everybody listen."

Jim Henke, vice president and chief curator for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame told The Associated Press, "(Wexler) played a major role in bringing black music to the masses, and in the evolution of rhythm and blues to soul music. Beyond that, he really developed the role of the record producer. Jerry did a lot more than just turn on a tape recorder. He left his stamp on a lot of great music. He had a commercial ear as well as a critical ear."

Throughout his 50-plus year career, Wexler produced or co-produced such seminal tracks as Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and "Chain Of Fools"; Wilson Pickett's "In The Midnight Hour"; Percy Sledge's "When A Man Loves A Woman"; Dusty Springfield's "Son Of A Preacher Man"; and Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody," among others.

Wexler is directly responsible for bringing the Stax-Volt label into the mainstream, and helping develop the Muscle Shoals' FAME studio sound into becoming a driving force in R&B and rock radio.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

• Wexler started his career in 1947 at BMI writing continuity copy to plug the organization's songs for radio stations. That same year he joined the staff of Billboard and coined the phrase "Rhythm & Blues" to replace the term "race records" for music made by black artists.
• In 1951 Wexler joined Atlantic as a partner and began establishing hits with R&B legends Ruth Brown, Joe Turner, the Drifters, and Ray Charles -- including producing such classics as "I've Got A Woman," among others.
• In the 1960's Wexler signed a distribution deal with the Memphis-based Satellite Records, which soon became known as Stax Records, and launched the careers of Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. and the MG's, among many others.
• As a producer, Wexler developed his sound in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where he produced Aretha Franklin's 1967 album I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, and Dusty Springfield's 1969 album Dusty In Memphis.
• Wexler was the point man for Atlantic in launching such subsidiary labels as the Rolling Stones' Rolling Stones Records, Led Zeppelin's Swan Song Records, and Capricorn Records, which catered to numerous Southern rock acts as the Allman Brothers Band, Elvin Bishop, and the Marshall Tucker Band.
• Wexler left Atlantic in 1975 and in 1977 became VP of A&R for Warner Bros. Records. He continued to producing records into the 1970's and '80s, including Kim Carnes' Sailin'; Bob Dylan's Christian albums Slow Train Coming and Saved; Dire Straits' Communique; as well as early sessions for George Michael.
• Funeral details have yet to be announced. Wexler is survived by his wife, novelist Jean Arnold, and his children Paul and Lisa.

MOTLEY CRUE DRUMMER DATING 'ROCK OF LOVE' CAST-OFF?

Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee is allegedly dating Rock of Love 2 loser Daisy De La Hoya, according to E! Online. Although a rep for De La Hoya claimed that the two were "just friends," sources said that there was more going on than holding hands. De La Hoya recently competed on the second season of Rock of Love for the affections of Poison frontman Bret Michaels, but was eliminated before the end of the contest. She also makes an appearance on Lee's "T***y-Cam" video, which plays at the beginning of every Motley Crue concert.

• Although some reports indicated that Lee and ex-wife Pamela Anderson were spending time together again, Anderson is said to be dating a man from the United Arab Emirates who is a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family. Anderson recently announced that she is partnering with the royal family to build a vegan-and-eco-friendly hotel in the region.
• Meanwhile, Motley Crue has issued a video for the song "Motherf***er of the Year." The track is taken from the band's recently released album, Saints of Los Angeles. The Crue is out supporting the disc on its Crue Fest tour, which stops on Tuesday (August 19th) in Cincinnati.

OASIS MAKES BOX SET OF NEW ALBUM AVAILABLE

Oasis has made a box set edition of its new album, Dig Out Your Soul, available for pre-order at the band's official web site. The $99 package includes the original CD, a bonus CD featuring nine extra tracks, a DVD containing footage of the making of the album and first video, along with the video itself, plus all the music from the two CDs on four heavyweight 12-inch vinyl discs, and a 24-page hardback book containing exclusive artwork, all packed in an embossed hardcase box. The limited edition set is available only to fans in the U.S. and Canada.

• Dig Out Your Soul, the British band's seventh studio album, arrives in stores on October 7th.

8/15/08

JACKSON BROWNE FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST JOHN McCAIN AND G.O.P. FOR USING 'RUNNING ON EMPTY' IN CAMPAIGN AD

Jackson Browne has filed a lawsuit against Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Party for using his 1977 song "Running On Empty" in a campaign commercial for McCain without Browne's approval. Rolling Stone reported that the TV spot mocks Sen. Barack Obama for suggesting that Americans could try to conserve gas through tire inflation.

Browne's attorney, Lawrence Iser, stated that aside from the illegal use of the song, the implication that Browne -- whose liberal political leanings are public knowledge -- supports McCain is entirely misleading, explaining, "In light of Jackson Browne's lifelong commitment to Democratic ideals and political candidates, the misappropriation of Jackson Browne's endorsement is entirely reprehensible, and I have no doubt that a jury will agree."

Jackson Browne's suit hopes to prohibit McCain from using any of his compositions as campaign songs, as well as seeking unspecified damages.

• In September 1984 Jackson Browne's close friend Bruce Springsteen faced a similar situation when President Ronald Reagan attempted to co-opt Springsteen's blue collar ethic and song "Born In The U.S.A" during his bid for reelection.
• Springsteen never filed suit, but showed where he stood politically during his September 21st show in Pittsburgh when he mocked Reagan by asking the crowd the rhetorical question of what Reagan's favorite album of his was -- before saying that it probably wasn't Nebraska and launching into the album's "Johnny 99" which shed light on the despair and eventual violence of an auto plant worker who can't keep up his mortgage after his auto plant was outsourced.

BEATLES NEWS ROUNDUP

• Paul McCartney and girlfriend Nancy Shevell returned to London after completing their month-long U.S. cross country trek along the historic Route 66. The couple were bombarded with paparazzi while strolling in McCartney's London neighborhood to a local restaurant for lunch.
• TMZ.com featured footage of a polite, yet angered McCartney admonishing the press for hounding them, yelling "you are harassing me" before posing to placate the mob. McCartney attempted to be a good sport by putting his arm around an elderly gentleman to give the press a comical shot. At one point McCartney exclaimed, "... I ask you now to leave us alone and give us a life."
• The Associated Press reported that Milwaukee's Waukesha County Historical Society Museum will present the Coming Together Through The Art Of John Lennon art exhibition starting today (August 15th). The exhibit will feature 27 pen and pencil drawings along with five lithographs and serigraphs by Lennon dating from the 1960's to 1978.
• The show features the acquisitions of a private collector whose collection of Lennon artwork is said to be the third-largest. Lennon's widow Yoko Ono currently holds the largest collection of around 1,700 pieces.
• The collector has also loaned the museum a microphone that Lennon used during the sessions for his 1971 Imagine album, which is valued at $600,000. Coming Together Through The Art Of John Lennon runs through September 1st.
• Ringo Starr's granddaughter Tatia Starkey is now a fledgling bassist and was photographed in concert with her band Belakiss in mailonsunday.co.uk. Tatia, who is now 22, goes under the stage name Veronica Avant, is the daughter of Starr's eldest son and Who drummer Zak Starkey.
• Belakiss, who is still searching for a record deal, features Ruari Meehan, who is the son of the Tony Meehan, the original drummer of the legendary British band the Shadows.
• The It Was Forty Years Ago Today tour saluting Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band and the music of the Beatles, kicks off tonight (August 15th) in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania at the Seven Springs Resort.
• Among the artists participating in the 10-date tour are Todd Rundgren, Lou Gramm, Wings' Denny Laine, Christopher Cross, and American Idol's Bo Bice.
• Theviewnewspapers.com reports that Elise Ray, who was on the 2000 U.S. women's Olympic team competing in Sydney, is now one of the Cirque du Soleil performers in The Beatles LOVE which is running in Las Vegas at The Mirage.

STEVE MILLER CALLS 2008 A 'HOT' TOURING YEAR, ADDS FALL DATES

Steve Miller wraps up his joint tour with Joe Cocker on Sunday (August 17th) in Murphys, California, and has just announced a series of single bill dates for October and November.

Miller says that over the past decade he's watched how the Steve Miller Band's audiences have steadily grown with every tour, telling Rolling Stone, "In 2000, we averaged 10,300 people per show, now we're back to 15,000 a night. This tour is hot -- this has been a hot year out of the clear blue sky."

He went on to say that he's fully comfortable performing all the hits that people love him for: "On the road, there's nothing I play that I don't enjoy playing and that we don't play with total commitment. We give the people the sh** they want to hear."

• Steve Miller Band tour dates (subject to change):
  August 15 - Concord, CA - Sleep Train Pavilion At Concord (with Joe Cocker)
  August 16 - Reno, NV - Reno Events Center (with Joe Cocker)
  August 17 - Murphys, CA - Ironstone Vineyards (with Joe Cocker)
  October 22 - Clemson, SC - Littlejohn Coliseum
  October 25 - Saint Augustine, FL - St. Augustine Amphitheatre
  October 26 - Wilmington, NC - Buck Hardee Field
  October 30 - Rockford, IL - Rockford MetroCentre
  October 31 - Omaha, NE - Omaha Civic Auditorium
  November 2 - Casper, WY - Casper Events Center
  November 12 - Reading, PA - Sovereign Center
  November 13 - Youngstown, OH - Chevrolet Centre
  November 14 - Huntington, WV - Big Sandy Superstore Arena
  November 15 - Columbus, OH - Nationwide Arena
• Steve Miller says that touring these days is down to almost an exact science: "It's so easy now because we don't have to travel with trucks and buses and 45 guys. Now we can get regional providers to give us our stuff, so it's, now we're down to a group of 12 people. We can go anywhere we want to, we're not limited by having to drive to the next place, the old way of touring. It's turned out to just be really a lot of fun."
• In April Miller released the deluxe DVD Steve Miller Band Live From Chicago. The disc was shot at Chicago's Ravinia Theater in High Definition, utilizing over 30 cameras.

FLASHBACK: THE BEATLES BEGIN FIRST HAMBURG RESIDENCY

It was 48 years ago Sunday (August 17th, 1960) that the Beatles began their first stint in Hamburg, Germany. At that time the group consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison -- all on guitars -- along with Lennon's art college buddy Stuart Sutcliffe on bass and drummer Pete Best, who had joined the group only five days earlier.

The Beatles racked up over 200 hours of stage time at the Indra Club during their initial 48-date booking. It was while performing in Hamburg that the group, who were barely professional upon arrival, grew into a tight rock and roll ensemble by sometimes playing as much as 10 hours a night.

Best recalled the scene of the Beatles' opening night in Hamburg on August 17th, 1960 at the legendary Indra Club: "We got some crowd in -- but compared to the crowd that we built it up to before it closed, that happened very quickly. But on that opening night, I'd turn around and say it was a quiet night. But once word was out... once they'd actually seen us, people kept flocking in."

Harrison, who was only 17 years old when the band played in Germany, recalled in The Beatles Anthology that, "Hamburg was really our apprenticeship. We had to learn millions of songs, because we'd be on for hours -- we'd make stuff up. Saturday would start at three or four in the afternoon and go until five or six in the morning. We'd have breakfast when we finished."

• After their initial residency was over at the Indra, the group began playing at the bigger Kaiserkeller Club, which is where they became close with fellow Liverpool drummer Ringo Starr, who was then alternating nightly sets with the Beatles' main competition, Rory Storm & the Hurricanes.
• Eventually, after continually sitting in with fellow British performer Tony Sheridan at a rival club called the Top Ten, word got back to the Kaiserkeller's owner who, according to legend, had the underage Harrison deported. McCartney and Best were also deported a week later for allegedly setting fire to their meager living quarters behind a movie screen at a local theatre. Lennon returned home to Liverpool shortly thereafter, with Sutcliffe staying behind with photographer girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr (pronounced KERR-shirr).
• John Lennon's first wife, Cynthia Lennon, went to art school with Lennon and Sutcliffe and says that their personalities balanced each other out perfectly: "What John gave Stu was the ability to laugh at himself and have humor, because he was such a serious student. And what Stuart gave John was a kind of... he was inspirational. John had no faith in his abilities to do anything serious -- or complete anything. And Stuart was constantly supporting him."
• After their ill-fated first Hamburg stint, the band regrouped in Liverpool with McCartney eventually taking over bass duties from Sutcliffe. The Beatles returned to Germany to headline Hamburg's Top Ten Club on April 1st, 1961. On June 22nd, 1961 they backed Tony Sheridan in what was their first professional recording session.
• Best says that the Beatles' greatest nights were during their original stand in Hamburg during the fall of 1960. He revealed that the group's original bassist, Sutcliffe, while hardly a virtuoso, wasn't the incompetent player history has portrayed him as: "I've always turned around and I'll always defend his corner, because what you have is a situation where someone has said many years ago -- the same as I've been stigmatized over the years -- someone turned around and said 'Stu wasn't a good bass player' and it's lived with him ever since. He's no longer here to defend his corner so I will. There were better bass players and there were worse bass players, OK? But what Stu gave on stage was that he played with 200 percent and he played with his heart and he played with his feelings."
• Although no movies of the Beatles' time in Hamburg exists, a number of photographers, including Kirchherr, documented their extended stays in Germany over the two years the band performed there. For the most complete visual documentation of the band in Hamburg, log on to beatlesource.com/savage/index.html.

FLASHBACK: THE BEATLES ROCK SHEA STADIUM

It was 43 years ago today (August 15th, 1965) that the Beatles played their legendary concert at Shea Stadium in New York City. The show was the first on their 1965 U.S. summer tour, and it was also the first-ever open air stadium rock concert.

The group flew into New York on August 13th and a day later taped a five-song performance for The Ed Sullivan Show to be broadcast the following month. Sullivan returned the favor by introducing the group the next night at Shea, in front of a sell-out crowd of 55,600 fans.

The Beatles, who performed on a makeshift stage near where second base would normally be, earned a whopping $160,000 for their 30-minute set -- which was a record payout at that time.

• The New York Police Department was worried that fans attending the shows would jam the tunnels in and out of Manhattan, so the Beatles were escorted from the Warwick Hotel to the Manhattan East River Heliport and flown by helicopter to the roof of the World's Fair building in Flushing Meadows Park, not far from Shea Stadium.
• Next, the group jumped in a Wells Fargo armored van and were driven to the stadium. The van driver gave each of the Beatles a Wells Fargo "agent badge," which they all wore at the evening's concert.
• Unlike today's stadium events, no seats were set up on the field for safety reasons. Throughout the concert -- which also featured legendary New York DJ Murray The K and opening acts the King Curtis Band, Cannibal & the Headhunters, Brenda Holloway, and Sounds Incorporated -- fans were constantly stopped from making mad dashes towards the stage.
• Ringo Starr recalled the concert in The Beatles Anthology, saying, "What I remember most about the concert was that we were so far away from the audience... And screaming had become the thing to do... Everybody screamed. If you look at the footage, you can see how we reacted to the place. It was very big and very strange."
• John Lennon recalled the show in 1970, saying, "At Shea Stadium, I saw the top of the mountain."
• Singer Bobby Vinton and the Rolling Stones briefly visited with the Beatles before they hit the stage. Vinton remembers hanging out with the Stones as they made their way to the concert: "Well, I remember I went to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium when they were here. I still saw the poster, I think it was like five dollars to see the Beatles at Shea Stadium. I went with Mick Jagger and the Stones, and they didn't quite... they weren't there yet, you know? They were just comin', and I remember walkin' in New York to Shea Stadium and a couple of guys noticed Mick Jagger and they start punchin' him. And, I mean, these guys in New York are kinda rough, and I said, 'Oh yeah, those bad guys from England.' (laughs)."
• Eric Carmen says that although primitive by today's big budget concert productions, the Beatles' performances during their touring years were defined by the quality of the material they performed: "You know, pacing was probably never a problem for the Beatles. Because first of all, all those songs were just terrific. They were playing for a half an hour. So, I mean if you listen to an old Beatle tape of a concert, it's 30 minutes of 'Twist And Shout' and 'I Saw Her Standing There,' and 'Ticket To Ride." And how bad can it be?"
• The Beatles' setlist for their 1965 Shea Stadium concert was: "Twist And Shout," "She's A Woman," "I Feel Fine," "Dizzy Miss Lizzy," their most recent Number One hit "Ticket To Ride," "Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby," "Can't Buy Me Love," "Baby's In Black," "Act Naturally," "A Hard Day's Night," "Help!" and "I'm Down."
• The show was filmed and eventually aired on U.S. TV in December 1966 as The Beatles At Shea Stadium. Although most of the footage from the show is featured in the group's Anthology series, nearly all of the behind-the-scenes footage from that day remains unreleased. The Beatles returned to Shea the next year, on August 23rd, 1966, to a less-than-capacity crowd, with as many as 15,000 seats going unsold.
• Both Paul McCartney's and Ringo Starr's future wives -- the late Linda McCartney and Barbara Bach -- were present at the concert. McCartney said during The Beatles' Anthology that, "Linda was also there -- but as she was a real music fan she was quite (annoyed) with everyone screaming. I think she enjoyed the experience, but she genuinely wanted to hear the show. That wasn't the deal though. Not then."
• In addition to the Beatles, other artists who have performed at Shea Stadium include the Rolling Stones, the Who, Eric Clapton, Elton John, the Police, the Clash, Simon & Garfunkel, Grand Funk Railroad, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jethro Tull, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and Bob Dylan.
• On July 18th of this year, McCartney joined Billy Joel onstage during the final concert at Shea before the stadium is leveled. McCartney -- playing the same Hofner violin bass that he did during the Beatles' 1965 and '66 shows -- performed "I Saw Her Standing There" and then took over piano duties from Joel for "Let It Be" -- marking it as the final song to be played in concert at Shea Stadium.
• Billy Joel paid tribute to the Beatles numerous times over his two-night stint dubbed, "The Last Play At Shea," including wearing Ringo Starr's Wells Fargo agent badge that he had worn during their 1965 show.

REMEMBERING ELVIS PRESLEY

Tomorrow (August 16th) marks the 31st anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley. Presley died of a heart attack on August 16th, 1977 at his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. He was 42 years old.

The city of Memphis is currently winding down its annual Elvis Week, which features various Elvis-themed concerts, celebrations, charity benefits, guest lectures, as well as a special mass in honor of "The King." Late tonight, thousands of fans are expected to show for a candlelight vigil at Presley's grave at his Graceland estate, which will be webcast live over the Internet.

IN ELVIS NEWS:

The New York Daily News reports that Presley's daughter Lisa Marie Presley is expecting boy and girl fraternal twins. Lisa Marie is said to be planning to name her son Jesse after her father's stillborn twin brother, and will name the girl Gladys Love, after Presley's mother.

• At the beginning of Elvis Week, 198 limited edition Elvis and Priscilla Presley Barbie dolls were made available for purchase. The dolls feature exact replicas of the couple's outfits as worn at their famous Las Vegas wedding ceremony on May 1st, 1967.
• Last week, Presley's mid-1970s "peacock" jumpsuit has been sold to an undisclosed bidder for $300,000. The jumpsuit was featured on Presley's 1974 album Promised Land.
• Out now is the definitive box set chronicling Presley's 1968 Comeback Special. The four-disc collection, The Complete '68 Comeback Special: 40th Anniversary Edition, features the original 1968 soundtrack album plus bonus tracks, along with Presley's complete performances of the two sit-down and stand-up shows on two separate CDs. A fourth disc includes Presley's rehearsals for the special.

ELVIS HISTORY:

Elvis Presley was signed to Sun Records in 1954 and recorded pivotal singles for the label, including "That's All Right," "Good Rockin' Tonight," and "Mystery Train." His Sun contract was sold to RCA Records in 1955 for $35,000. Although Presley never performed professionally anywhere but in the United States, he went on to become the most successful recording artist of all time, selling over one billion albums globally.

Presley scored 18 Number One Hits, including "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," "Love Me Tender," "It's Now Or Never," "Are You Lonesome Tonight," and his final Number One "Suspicious Minds" in 1969. Despite all his success in rock and roll, all three of Presley's Grammys were awarded for his gospel recordings.

Presley fans are currently up in arms over a recent change in Billboard policy which has demoted "The King's" ranking on the Billboard charts from being Number Three in the list of top acts of the rock era with 17 Number One hits, down to Number 14 -- with only seven chart toppers. In the trade's new series of charts commemorating the past 50 years of Billboard's weekly Hot 100 singles chart, the rock era has been pushed forward to start with the Hot 100's first appearance on August 4th, 1958 -- which excludes Presley's 10 Number One hits that predated the Hot 100's launch.

• Presley starred in 31 movies between 1956 and 1973. Most of them were musical comedies like Blue Hawaii (1961), Viva Las Vegas (1964) with Ann Margaret, and Clambake (1967), yet several of his films, such as King Creole (1958) with Walter Matthau, Flaming Star (1960), Charro (1969), and Change of Habit (1969) with Mary Tyler Moore, were dramatic pieces that proved Presley to be a serious actor with true talent.
• Presley also released two concert films. That's The Way It Is chronicled the rehearsals and opening week of his July 1970 Las Vegas stint, while 1972's Elvis On Tour featured footage from Presley's U.S. Tour.
• According to friends and associates, Presley was approached to co-star with Barbra Streisand in her 1976 re-make of A Star Is Born, yet turned the role down when he was refused top billing over Streisand.
• He also starred in several incredibly successful TV specials including 1968's Singer Presents Elvis -- more commonly known as "The '68 Comeback Special" -- which spurred a triumphant resurgence in his career, and Elvis: Aloha, From Hawaii which featured him live in concert and was broadcast worldwide in 1973.

ELVIS REMEMBERED:

• Elvis Presley's lead guitarist James Burton says that going back to performing live in 1969 gave Presley a new lease on life: "When he called me and asked me to put the band together, he said, 'I've done nothin' but movies for nine years and I don't wanna do any more movies, I wanna go out and play live. I wanna get my audience in front of me and I wanna go out and be there for the fans.' He loved the excitement from the fans, of people that loved him. It was just him, what he loves."
• Lindsey Buckingham credits hearing Presley in 1956 as the motivating factor that lead him to becoming a musician: "Like many people my age, y'know, I was quite young, I was always interested in music, and I was listening to what we all would refer to as our 'parent's music.' So, when my older brother brought home (the single of) 'Heartbreak Hotel' -- it's not a unique story, but it was just a mind-blowing revelation in terms of this kind of explosive spirit that just kind of washed over that whole generation."
• Rocker George Thorogood still claims Presley as one of his greatest influences: "Elvis Presley is probably the Babe Ruth of the whole thing. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, invented rock 'n' roll. Elvis exposed us to it, there's no doubt about that, he brought it into our living rooms, he brought it on TV. He was the guy that really, you know, woke us up. Wow. Here was the, not arguably, one of the great natural performers of all time. And great singing as well. He was so great, people didn't know what to think of him."
• Pete Townshend says that the enormity of pressures surrounding Presley are what ultimately lead to his death at such a young age: "That's a terrible tragedy when you think what a decent kind of guy he seemed to be when you read the stuff. You know he came to pieces at the end. And it's easy to blame Vegas, but it wasn't about Vegas, it was just about the load."
• Presley biographer Peter Guralnick feels that in the end, Presley will always be known first and foremost as a musical force: "As to the reasons for the continuing fascination with Elvis, I think to some extent you've got to understand that there's been a proliferation of media in the years of his lifetime and since his death. I mean, Elvis grew up with television, or at least television grew up with Elvis's rise to fame. But I think the thing that will continue Elvis -- long after the media attention has faded, long after this kind of frenzy of fame is gone -- the thing that will continue people's interest in him is his music."

ELVIS TRIVIA:

• Elvis' twin brother Jesse Garon died at birth (Elvis was delivered 35 minutes later).
• Elvis's hair color was originally blonde.
• Has more multi platinum album sales than any other performer, with 12 albums selling over 2 million copies.
• His autopsy detected 10 different drugs in his bloodstream.
• Elvis only met the Beatles once, on August 27th, 1965, at his home in Los Angeles.
• Elvis' nickname for both his mother Gladys and wife Priscilla was the same -- "Satnin'."
• Elvis: Aloha from Hawaii attracted more viewers than Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon.
• At the time of his death, he was reading The Scientific Search For The Face Of Jesus by Frank O. Adams.
• He was inducted into both the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and the Country Music Hall Of Fame.
• He died with only about one million dollars in his bank account.
• Elvis was a distant cousin of former President Jimmy Carter.
• Elvis' 1977 country hit, "Way Down," was the Number One song on the Billboard Country Singles chart the week of his death.
• Following his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1960, Presley weighed 170 pounds. He weighed 260 pounds at the time of his death in 1977.
• Highway 51 South, which runs past the gates of Graceland, was renamed Elvis Presley Boulevard in 1971, while he was still alive.

BRET MICHAELS STILL NOT OVER AMBRE LAKE

Poison frontman Bret Michaels is not yet over Ambre Lake, the Season Two winner on his VH1 reality series, Rock of Love. Michaels told People he still loves her, adding, "I'm not really over her yet. We still hang. She was just out with me a couple days ago and we were having a great time. She's really got it. I think she's great." The pair broke up earlier this year due to conflicting work schedules. Michaels first linked up with Season One winner Jessica Rickleff. But they split shortly after the reality show wrapped.

Michaels will hit the dating scene again during the upcoming season of Rock of Love, which will be filmed this year while Michaels is on the road. The singer said, "The reason for destruction of all my relationships is that I'm passionate about being on the road and making music. I have great relationships. But the women I date don't realize that I spend between 6 and 8 months of my life on the road -- touring or traveling or seeing family with my daughters." When asked whether he'll ever get married, Michaels said, "I don't know. I never really thought about it."

• Michaels is currently on tour and will perform in Cincinnati tomorrow (Saturday, August 16th).

PHIL SPECTOR'S LAWYERS ASK FOR INDEFINITE STAY OF RETRIAL

Phil Spector's lawyers have asked the judge presiding over the case to grant an indefinite stay of the retrial so that they can appeal the case on double jeopardy grounds, according to The Associated Press.

Spector's attorneys Dennis Riordan and Doron Weinberg are seeking an assurance from the prosecution that they won't ask jurors to convict Spector on the lesser offenses of voluntary or involuntary manslaughter. His first trial for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson ended in a deadlocked jury on the single charge of second degree murder, after superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler ruled "the lesser charges did not apply and could not be argued to the jury."

• At the pretrial hearing held yesterday (August 14th) in Los Angeles Superior Court, Spector's defense team argued against the inclusion of testimony from six women who -- prior to Clarkson's death -- claim that Spector threatened them with gun

NIKKI SIXX'S EX-WIFE'S POSSESSIONS HEAD TO EBAY

Personal items formally owned by Nikki Sixx's ex-wife Donna D'Errico are headed to eBay. According to People.com, the former Playboy playmate and Baywatch star gave a friend many of the mementos from her nine-year marriage to the Motley Crue bassist, including her wedding dress, a bracelet and a personalized key ring, among other items. Her pal has put the stuff up for online auction, with part of the proceeds going towards to Donna's Corner, a charity D'Errico started to help women get through divorce.

D'Errico wrote on her MySpace page, "As many of you may know from experience, when you are married for a long time and it ends badly it feels good to clean house and get rid of reminders of times with that person and start over again. Almost everything was a reminder in some way or another. Plus, there was a lot of stuff left behind by that person." She adds "Seeing these things getting listed on eBay in support of that has really touched me. I am so grateful."

• Sixx and D'Errico got divorced in 2006.
• A new video from Sixx's project, Sixx A.M. has been posted online. The accompanying clip to the song "Life is Beautiful" can be found on Sixx A.M.'s MySpace page.
• Sixx is currently on the Cruefest summer tour, which wraps August 31st in Pittsburgh. He's doing double duty playing for his own Sixx A.M. and Motley Crue, but was initially reluctant to juggle the two: "I went to the guys in the band and said 'I don't want to do this.' And they said 'Dude, if that's what the promoters want, and it's good for our festival, you're helping our festival, just like, you know, we want Buckcherry and Papa Roach and Trapt, Sixx: A.M. is, is a really important band right now for fans that never got to see it live.' So I bucked, I didn't want it, I fought against it, I struggled with it."

8/14/08

BILLY JOEL HELPS ANNOUNCE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME ANNEX IN NEW YORK CITY

Billy Joel joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in Manhattan yesterday (August 13th) to announce the upcoming New York City annex to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Museum, which will open in November and remain in the city for two years.

The Associated Press reported that along with Joel and Mayor Bloomberg, Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and music mogul Clive Davis were also on hand for the announcement of the 25,000 square foot annex, to be located at 76 Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho district.

The annex will house such items as Bruce Springsteen's 1957 Chevy, one of John Lennon's pianos, Elvis Presley's motorcycle jacket, and a handwritten poem by Jim Morrison. There will also be multiple exhibits, including "New York Rocks," which spotlights such key New York rock landmarks as CBGB's, Studio 54, and the Chelsea Hotel, as well as such artifacts as Billy Joel's work notebook used during the creation of his 1977 album The Stranger.

• Another exhibit, called "Moments To Movements,'' will present artifacts from memorable moments in rock history, such as a white Vox electric guitar from the Beatles, the necklace Jimi Hendrix wore at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival, and handwritten lyrics to the Grateful Dead's "U.S. Blues."
• The annex will also feature the "Immersive Theatre" which will show footage of seminal rock performers including Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Who, Patti Smith, and others.
• Todd Mesek, the vice president for marketing and communications for the Rock Hall told bloomberg.com that the annex hopes to raise awareness and funds for Cleveland's museum: "We're reaching out to other markets to extend our mission to collect, preserve and interpret the historic significance of rock and roll music. It's part of a larger strategy that includes the redesign of the Cleveland museum and returning the inductions there.''
• The Rock Hall is following the lead of other legendary museums with successful outposts such as New York City's Guggenheim and the Louvre Museum in Paris. Another Rock Hall annex is being prepared for the Las Vegas strip, with others -- including a possible outpost in the Middle East -- being considered.
• The new annex will coincide with the upcoming refurbishing of the Rock Hall and the preparation for the 2009 induction ceremony, which will take place in Cleveland at the Hall rather than in New York City.
• Tickets to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum annex can be purchased in advance through rockannex.com starting in October.

U2 ALBUM TITLE 'ON THE HORIZON'?

U2's upcoming album may be titled No Line on the Horizon, according to a report in U.K. newspaper The Sunday Mirror. The paper reported that U2's record company, Universal Music, has registered the web site NoLineontheHorizon.com. The report also indicated that the new record will be released worldwide on Friday, November 14th, while tentative song titles include "Love is All We Have Left," "One Bird," "Moment of Surrender" and "If I Could Live My Life Again," which could possibly be the first single and video.

• Not a single bit of this information has been confirmed by the label or U2's management.
• U2 has been working on the new CD for most of the past year with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who have been involved in some of the group's most popular and acclaimed efforts.
• U2 manager Paul McGuinness caused some controversy this past spring when he derided Radiohead's efforts to sell their latest album, In Rainbows, as a pay-what-you-want download. McGuinness' comments earned him a public rebuke from U2 frontman Bono in the pages of NME.
• The band's first concert home video, Live at Red Rocks, will be issued on DVD for the first time on September 30th, in conjunction with the release of a remastered version of the band's accompanying live album, 1983's Under A Blood Red Sky.

PAUL McCARTNEY AND NANCY SHEVELL SPOTTED IN THE SOUTHWEST

Paul McCartney and girlfriend Nancy Shevell's cross country trip along Route 66 rolls on, with the latest reports finding the couple in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

In writer David Hoekstra's blog in the Chicago Sun-Times, he posted that McCartney and Shevell were spotted on Saturday night (August 8th) at the 87th Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial at Red Rock Park in Gallup, New Mexico.

Hoekstra spoke with ceremonial announcer Sammy Chioda, who said that the couple requested no V.I.P. treatment and sat amongst the 6,000 spectators. When asked at what point he was sure that it was McCartney he was seeing in the crowd, Chioda said, "I took lyrics from his first and second solo album and quickly incorporated those into what the ceremonial means. I used 'Maybe I'm Amazed' (from the McCartney album) and 'Smile Away' from the Ram album, like 'Maybe you will be amazed or won't be amazed but you will walk away smiling away...' When I said that he looked up at me. Then he gave me a thumbs up and then the finger across the lip, not to say anything. I never said 'We have Paul McCartney in the audience' or anything like that."

• McCartney and Shevell have also been spotted in Flagstaff, Arizona, and Tucumcari and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
• According to several sources, during the couple's recent stop in Amarillo, Texas, a couple introduced McCartney to their four-month-old son named Jude after the Beatles' 1968 chart-topper "Hey Jude." McCartney pulled a harmonica out of his pocket and serenaded the boy.
• McCartney and Shevell started their private road trek in New York and are said to be heading to Santa Monica, California to close out their cross country run.

In other McCartney news:

Paul McCartney has canceled his plans to perform in Tel Aviv, Israel next month, according to haaretz.com. Although McCartney had sent staffers to scout the city's Hayarkon Park and Ramat Gan Stadium, all plans for McCartney's first concert in the Holy Land are now on ice, with no reason for the cancellation given.

In other Beatles-related news:

Original Beatles drummer Pete Best is heading back out on the road in support of his first album of original songs, called Hayman's Green. The album, which Best co-wrote with members of his Pete Best Band, is named after his childhood home in Liverpool, which housed the legendary Casbah Club. Hayman's Green will be released on September 26th.

• The Pete Best Band tour dates (subject to change):
  September 12 - Saint Catherines, ON - Hernder Estate Winery
  September 13 - Nyack, NY - Riverspace
  September 14 - Maynard, MA - Maynard Public Library
  September 14 - Taunton, MA - Steve's Backstage Pass
  September 17 - New York, NY - Virgin Megastore
  September 18 - Syracuse, NY - Meghan MacMurphy's
  September 19 - Erie, PA - Roadhouse Theater
  September 20 - Hamilton, ON - Studio Theatre
  September 21 - Bucyrus, OH - Crawford County Fairgrounds
  September 23 - Goshen, IN - Constant Spring
  September 24 - Chicago, IL - The Heartland Cafe
  September 25 - Des Moines, IA - House Of Bricks
  September 26 - Lincoln, NE - State Theatre
  September 27 - What Cheer, IA - Gatton Amphitheater
  October 4 - Benton, IL Topsfield Fair - TBA
  October 7 - Topsfield, MA - Topsfield Fairgrounds
  October 9 - Wichita Falls, TX - The Iron Horse Pub
  October 11 - Houston, TX - Dan Electro's Guitar Bar
  October 12 - Bordentown, NJ - Record Collector
  October 14 - New York, NY - The Cutting Room
  October 16 - Wilmington, DE - Kelly's Logan House
  October 17 - Edgewood, MD - Club 66
  October 18 - Williamsville, NY - Club Infinity

The Pete Best Band performs many of the pre-Beatles repertoire, including "Roll Over Beethoven," "Memphis, Tennessee," "My Bonnie," "What I'd Say," "Please Mr. Postman," "Searchin'," and "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" -- as well as early Beatle tunes such as "Love Me Do," "P.S. I Love You," and "I Saw Her Standing There."

Best was asked if it's true that, over his two year stint with the band, he actually performed more shows with the Beatles than his replacement, Ringo Starr: "That's right, yeah. All the, I suppose you could turn around and say the three trips out to Germany when we were playing six, seven hours a night, (for) six, seven nights a week, all the shows in Liverpool, all the afternoon shows, all the all-nighters when we were playing two, three times a day, you know into the night as well. So when you clock all those up it comes to about a thousand or just a thousand."

• Best was the Beatles' drummer from August 17th, 1960 until August 15th, 1962, when he was replaced by Starr. He claims that he hasn't spoken to any of the Beatles since the night before he was fired.
• In 2005 Best released his Best Of The Beatles DVD, which features Best's first hand recollections of the Beatles' formative days in Liverpool and Hamburg.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAVID CROSBY!!!

Happy birthday to David Crosby, who turns 67 today (August 14th). Crosby, whose father was Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby, grew up in affluent towns in and around Los Angeles, and later Santa Barbara, California. He first attained fame as part of the Byrds, which he co-founded with Roger McGuinn, Gene Clark, Chris Hillman, and Michael Clarke in 1964.

The next year, the Byrds went on to score two Number Ones with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and an electric beat arrangement of Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn."

By 1967, Crosby, who was always an excellent harmonist, had developed a unique modular guitar tuning style, and began submitting seminal '60s work to the band's sessions, including "What's Happening?!?!," "Everybody Has Been Burned," "Draft Morning," and the 1967 psychedelic classic "Lady Friend." Due to the growing mature nature of his songs and differing musical attitudes with McGuinn and Hillman, Crosby was fired from the Byrds.

In his 1988 autobiography, Long Time Gone, Crosby recalled being dumped by the band, remembering that, "(They said), 'You're real difficult to work with. We don't dig your songs and we think we'll do better without you.'"

In 1968, Crosby joined forces with the Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills and the Hollies' Graham Nash to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash. It was on their self-titled 1969 debut that Crosby was finally able to shine on Woodstock-era anthems such as "Long Time Gone," "Wooden Ships," and "Guinevere."

• The group's 1970 follow up album, Deja Vu, added Neil Young to the lineup and included such Crosby classics as the album's title track and "Almost Cut My Hair." During the group's frequent sabbaticals, Crosby and Nash continued to work together, most often working as a duo.
• Crosby says that his bond with Nash goes way beyond just music: "There's a kinship there. I have tremendous respect and love for him, and he must love me, otherwise he would've tossed me aside long ago. And you can hear it in how we work with each other, what we do with our voices. It's sort of like a pair of aerobatic, y'know stunt flyers, flying formation and doing stunts together."
• By the early '80s, Crosby had hit rock bottom due to cocaine and heroin addictions. In 1985 he served nine months in Texas State Prison for weapons and drug charge violations, and finally became sober.
• In late 1994, on the eve of undergoing a liver transplant operation, he learned that his 30-year-old biological son, keyboardist James Raymond, who was given up for adoption at birth, had tried to make contact with him. The father and son met the next year, and eventually formed a trio with guitarist Jeff Pevar, called CPR.
• Crosby has been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame twice, with the Byrds in 1991, and with Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1997.
• In 2000, Crosby revealed that he was the sperm donor for rocker Melissa Etheridge and then-partner Julie Cypher's child.
• In 2004, Crosby was arrested in New York City for weapons, and marijuana possession. Later that year, he plead guilty and paid a $5,000 fine. Although Crosby had been thought to be completely clean after sobering up in the mid-'80s, he admitted that he sometimes used marijuana to curb the constant pain that resulted from his liver transplant.
• Crosby, a father of three who has cheated death on numerous occasions, said that he's grown to enjoy every day he's still alive: "It's a funny thing happens. When you come close to dying, and you don't, each day becomes this precious jewel, this commodity that it's so valuable to you. And you wind up really being excited with it, and really wantin' to do something with every minute of every day. You have what the French call a 'raison d'etre,' a reason for being."
• David Crosby and Graham Nash kick off their upcoming tour on October 4th in Wilmington, Delaware at the Grand Opera House.

RICK SPRINGFIELD LAMBASTES JOHN LENNON'S KILLER IN NEW SONG

Rick Springfield has written an angry open letter to John Lennon's assassin, Mark David Chapman, in the song "3 Warning Shots" from his new album Venus In Overdrive.

The song begins with the official statement from the early hours of December 9th, 1980 by the emergency room doctor from New York's Roosevelt Hospital announcing Lennon's death over an homage to the Beatles' "I Am The Walrus." Springfield then opens with the lines "Dear disillusioned boy/who taught you to destroy everything that's beautiful, everything that shines/you're the monster underneath your bed."

Springfield was asked if nearly 28 years after Lennon's murder, he still carries the same emotions as he describes in "3 Warning Shots": "I mean our memories, they still carry the original weight, we just file them further and further back in our minds. Y'know, if I go there, it's still as painful to me as when it happened, it's just that I've filed it back so that I can get on with my life. And so something like Lennon's death, y'know, I just have to bring it forward again, and you relive it."

• Earlier this week, Chapman was denied parole for the fifth time. He is now 53 years old and serving a 25-years-to-life sentence at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility.
• Venus In Overdrive is Springfield's highest charting album in 23 years, debuting on The Billboard 200 album charts at Number 28.
• Rick Springfield kicks off his summer dates tour dates tonight (August 14th) in Tulsa, Oklahoma at Osage Million Dollar Elm Casino.

NEW TINA TURNER COLLECTION TO INCLUDE NEW SONGS, HITS, AND LIVE TRACKS

To tie in with her first tour in eight years, Tina Turner will release a new compilation called Tina! on September 30th. The 18-track CD and digital collection features Turner's biggest hits, rare live recordings, and two newly recorded tracks.

Among the hits included on the set are "What's Love Got To Do With It," "Private Dancer," "Better Be Good To Me," "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," "Proud Mary" (1993 version), "Nutbush City Limits," and "River Deep, Mountain High,"

• Tina! includes four live cuts, including previously released covers of Ann Peebles' "I Can't Stand The Rain," which was recorded live in 1986 at the Amsterdam Arena, and Robert Palmer's "Addicted To Love," from Turner's performance at London's Camden Palace.
• The two previously unreleased live tracks are "The Best," from Turner's 2000 Wembley Arena show and her cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," from her 1996 return to the Amsterdam Arena.
• Turner kicks off her 22-date comeback tour on October 1st in Kansas City, Missouri at the Sprint Center.

'UB40: GREATEST HITS' DUE IN SEPTEMBER

The best-known tunes by English reggae-pop band UB40 will be featured on the new Virgin/EMI release UB40: Greatest Hits, due September 30th. The CD features 21 hits from the band's 25-year chart career.

• Included in the collection are the band's 1983 version of Neil Diamond's "Red Red Wine," as well as their reggae versions of Al Green's "Here I Am (Come and Take Me)," Elvis Presley's "(I Can't Help) Falling In Love With You," and the Temptations' "The Way You Do The Things You Do."
• Also featured on the album are two songs with the Pretenders' lead singer Chrissie Hynde.
• After meeting each other on a welfare line in the West Midlands area of England, UB40 -- named for a dole (or unemployment) form -- was born in 1978. In 1980, the Pretenders asked them to open their shows, and the group released their first CD, Signing Off, the same year, creating a sensation in the U.K.

8/13/08

JOHN LENNON'S KILLER DENIED PAROLE FOR THE FIFTH TIME

John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman was denied parole for the fifth time yesterday (August 12th).

CNN.com reported that the New York State Division of Parole issued a statement saying that Chapman's parole request was denied "due to concern for the public safety and welfare." Chapman is now 53 years old and serving a 25-years-to-life sentence for murdering Lennon in front of his New York City apartment on December 8th, 1980.

Chapman, who has been turned down for parole in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006, is serving his time at the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility.

Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, who had previously written the parole board stating that she and Lennon's two sons Julian and Sean Lennon would never be safe should Chapman be released, now claims that it would be Chapman who would face danger if paroled, telling The New York Daily News, "It's dangerous for him to come out. Not only for us, but for himself. (It's) not so much because of punishment. There are so many people out there who dislike him. It's safer for him to stay in jail."

• There were 50 letters and a petition featuring 1,000 signatures submitted to the parole board objecting to Chapman's release. There were three letters submitted appealing for Chapman's parole.
• Chapman, who had been living in Hawaii at the time of the murder, stalked Lennon for days in New York City, and even briefly met Lennon's then-five-year-old son Sean outside the apartment building the day he gunned Lennon down.
• Chapman's stalking and murder of John Lennon was the subject of two independent films released last year, The Killing Of John Lennon and Chapter 27.
• Chapter 27 gets its name from a supposedly "missing" chapter from J.D. Salinger's novel A Catcher In The Rye, which Chapman was obsessed with in the months before the murder. (The book as published contains 27 chapters, and the author has not implied that there was ever an extra chapter.) In an early 1990s interview while in jail, Chapman reportedly admitted to fantasizing about writing a 27th chapter of the book in Lennon's blood.

·         For the past 16 years, Chapman has been receiving conjugal visits with his wife Gloria Abe, through a state program called "family reunion" which allows prisoners to spend up to 44 hours at a time in an unsupervised home setting on prison property.

ORIGINAL BEATLES CONTRACT EXPECTED TO FETCH $475,000 AT AUCTION

Former Beatles manager Brian Epstein's personal copy of the group's first management contract is expected to sell for around $475,000 at an auction next month in London, BBC News reports. The 1962 document was signed by all four musicians, as well as George Harrison and Paul McCartney's fathers, as George and Paul were under 21 at the time and needed parental consent. Ringo Starr signed under his real name, Richard Starkey. Epstein didn't sign the contract himself until eight months later, after he'd fulfilled his promise to get the group a recording deal.

The contract states that Epstein was entitled to 25 percent of the Beatles' earnings, provided they made 200 pounds per week. His duties included all publicity for the group as well as advising them on clothing, makeup, and "construction of the artists' acts."

• Other items up for bid in the September 4th auction include a grand piano used in the recording of The White Album and Hey Jude, which is expected to sell for close to $760,000. The lyrics to "Sexy Sadie," hand-engraved onto a piece of wood by John Lennon while in India in 1968, are expected to fetch a little over $100,000.

STEVE WINWOOD MAY TEAM UP WITH ERIC CLAPTON AGAIN

Steve Winwood says that he may team up once again with Eric Clapton -- if the aging rock stars can get a little rest. He tells the Edmonton Sun, "We've both got a busy schedule in the summer. Since we're both getting on (in years) now, we've decided we need a bit of rest after that. So we'll take a breather and perhaps think of doing something after that."

The former Blind Faith bandmates played three sold-out shows together at New York's Madison Square Garden in February, and then Clapton appeared on "Dirty City," the first single from Winwood's recent album, "Nine Lives."

• Winwood's busy schedule includes opening for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' current summer tour. He plays a one-hour set with his band, then joins Petty and company later in the show.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S SON TO BEGIN BOSTON COLLEGE IN SEPTEMBER

Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa's 18-year-old son Evan Springsteen will begin attending Boston College over Labor Day weekend, according to the Boston Herald.

An unnamed source at the school said, "He's a super-nice kid, very bright, humble, and a serious-minded student... His parents seem to be very involved, too. They seem to be very down to earth people."

When the Springsteens visited the school earlier this year, they sought out no V.I.P. treatment, and instead waited their turn with the other families of prospective freshmen seeking admission.

• The paper explained that Springsteen will be closing out his tour with the E Street Band on August 30th, so Evan will most likely move in on the following Sunday or Monday, with classes starting on Tuesday, September 2nd.
• All three Springsteen kids -- including Evan's younger sister Jessica and kid brother Sam -- have recently appeared onstage with the other kids of the E Street Band during a few of the band's encores.
• Patti Scialfa was asked if her and Bruce's kids were used to having parents whose "office" is out on the road: "Yeah, of course. We've been touring since they were young, and when they were born they were always out on the road, now they have a pretty big life of their own and school -- so they don't like to leave school now. And sometimes I can drag them out on a weekend. They don't want to be on the road right now. In the summer they like the road, 'cause they can bring a friend and they're free. But usually they miss a lot of schoolwork and they don't like that. And then they have their own lives and their own friends. So, we're home every three days."
• Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will next perform on Friday (August 15th) in Jacksonville, Florida at the Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena.

ZZ TOP BACK ON THE ROAD, KEEPING IT FRESH

ZZ Top are on the road again, this time with country stars Brooks & Dunn. The trek runs through mid-September, after which the Texas trio is planning a theater tour this fall. ZZ Top are also working on a new album, their first for American Recordings and producer Rick Rubin. Since the mid-1990s, ZZ Top had been with RCA Records, which issued their most recent album, Mescalero, in 2003.

• ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on incorporating rarities into their live show: "We covered most of the bases, we pulled out a couple of things. That'll probably remain as part of the presentation. The middle section of the arranged set list has three wildcard slots, and we take turns who's gonna call the first one. So we have to know the catalogue, 165 songs deep, of ZZ Top compositions. It keeps us on our toes, but that's what we enjoy. We still love playing."
• The band is also planning a theater tour this fall, and will celebrate the 25th anniversary its career-defining 1983 album, Eliminator, as a special CD/DVD combo release on August 26.

8/12/08

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN AND E STREET BAND RUMORED FOR SUPER BOWL XLIII

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band are said to have already committed to perform at Super Bowl XLIII (43) on February 1st in Tampa, Florida. The New York Post reported that a "spy" claimed that, "Little Stevie (Van Zandt) has already rented out the Hard Rock Cafe for a party." Representatives for Springsteen haven't commented yet on the rumors.

• Spl-messages.net reported that Van Zandt is currently is auctioning off "Meet & Greet" passes to the final eight stops of the E Street Band tour to benefit his Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. For more information, go to ebay.com and search the username RockandRollForeverFoundation to find the auction lots.

THE WHO TO DONATE ALL PROCEEDS FROM UPCOMING DETROIT CONCERT TO LOCAL CHARITIES

The Who will donate their entire earnings from their October 21st show at Michigan's Palace of Auburn Hills to benefit Detroit area charities. The Auburn Hills concert is the band's opening night show of their nine-city mini tour.

Roger Daltrey posted a message on the band's official website thewho.com and touched upon the band's longtime connection to Detroit, recalling, "The first (sic) gig we ever played in the U.S. was in Detroit and we have always had an affinity with this part of the country. Pete (Townshend) and I are very aware of the problems people are having in Michigan and feel we should give something back for all the support we have had over the last 40 years."

The Who have partnered with local radio station WCSX-FM in selecting Gleaners Food Bank and Focus: HOPE as beneficiaries of the evening's proceeds.

• Daltrey says that over the past few Who tours, the band has found a way to help out worthy causes at each one of the shows: "We have a charitable element, yes. What we do on tour, we actually film every show and we record every show, and we bootleg ourselves. Every time that someone wants to buy a copy of the show that they went to see, or a DVD, all the profit from that, that is basically given to charity. And it stopped the bootlegging."
• There's been no announcement as to when or if the band's upcoming fall leg will be made immediately available this year. Beginning in 2002, the Who have made CDs of their unmixed soundboard tapes available for purchase soon after each show.
• The Who's first Detroit concert took place on November 22nd, 1967 at Southfield High School. Earlier that year, the band played their second U.S. show in Ann Arbor, Michigan on June 14th, 1967 at the Fifth Dimension Club.
• The Who North American tour dates (subject to change):
  October 21 - Auburn Hills, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills
  October 22 - Hamilton, ON - Copps Coliseum
  October 24 - Boston, MA - TD Banknorth Garden
  October 26 - Philadelphia, PA - Wachovia Center
  October 28 - Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun Arena
  October 29 - East Rutherford, NJ - Izod Center,
  October 31 - Atlantic City, NJ - The Borgata Hotel & Casino
  November 8, 9 - Los Angeles, CA - Nokia Theatre

ZZ TOP ADD FALL LEG TO U.S. TOUR

ZZ Top have tacked an additional 19 fall dates to their current tour, including stops in Nashville, St. Louis, Kansas City, Wichita, Cleveland, Columbus, Milwaukee, and Portland, among other cities.

Dusty Hill says that he Billy Gibbons, and Frank Beard don't face the same type of problems on the road that other veteran acts do, because they've managed to stay close throughout the years: "(We) have a lot in common. I mean, I think it has something to do with being a three-piece group -- you know, you got two other guys to deal with, that's it -- and what they're going through, you're going through."

• ZZ Top tour dates (subject to change):
  ZZ Top/Brooks & Dunn co-headlining tour
  August 14 - Louisville, KY - Kentucky State Fair - Freedom Hall
  August 15 - Springfield, IL - Illinois State Fair - Illinois State Fair Grandstand
  August 16 - Omaha, NE - Qwest Center Omaha
  August 17 - Oklahoma City, OK - Ford Center
  August 23 - Clarkston, MI - DTE Energy Music Theatre
  August 24 - Toronto, ON -The Molson Amphitheatre
  August 25 - Syracuse, NY - New York State Fair - Mohegan Sun Grandstand
  August 26 - Allentown, PA - The Great Allentown Fair
  August 29 - Milwaukee, WI - Harley Davidson Anniversary - Summerfest Grounds
  August 31 - Fort Leonard Wood, MO - Fort Leonard Wood (ZZ Top only)
  September 5 - Charlotte, NC -Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
  September 6 - Raleigh, NC - Time Warner Cable Music Pavilion
  September 7 - Charlottesville, VA - John Paul Jones Arena
  September 9 - York, PA - York Fair Grandstand (ZZ Top only)
  September 12 - Burgettstown, PA - Post-Gazette Pavilion
  September 13 - Tinley Park, IL - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre
  ZZ Top
  September 26 - Wichita, KS - Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center
  September 27 - Fort Smith, AR - Fort Smith Convention Center
  September 28 - Bixby, OK - Spirit Bank Event Center
  September 30 - Saint Louis, MO - Fabulous Fox The
  October 1 - Kansas City, - Midland Theatre
  October 3 - Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
  October 4 - Huntington, WV - Keith-Albee Theatre
  October 5 - Cleveland, OH - Allen Theatre
  October 10 - Columbus, OH - Palace Theatre
  October 11 - Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre
  October 12 - Milwaukee, WI - Riverside Theatre
  October 17 - Minneapolis, MN - The Orpheum Theatre
  October 18 - Grand Forks, ND - Chester Fritz Auditorium
  October 19 - Sioux Falls, SD - Washington Pavilion/Arts & Science
  October 22 - Portland, OR - Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
  October 23 - Pullman, WA - Beasley Performing Arts Coliseum
  October 25 - Pomona, CA - Love Ride at Fairplex (with the Foo Fighters)
  October 30 - Colorado Springs, CO - Pikes Peak Center
  October 31 - Denver, CO - Paramount Theatre
  November 1 - Amarillo, TX - Amarillo Civic Center
• ZZ Top has a new studio album in the works, for producer Rick Rubin's American Recordings imprint through Columbia Records.
• ZZ Top recently released a concert DVD, called Live From Texas 2007.

U2 ISSUING 'RED ROCKS' ON DVD

U2's first concert home video, Live at Red Rocks, will be issued on DVD for the first time on September 30th, in conjunction with the release of a remastered version of the band's accompanying live album, 1983's Under A Blood Red Sky. The DVD will include five previously unreleased songs, a director's commentary track, a digitally restored picture and a 5.1. digital surround sound mix. A deluxe packaging of both the DVD and CD will be available in addition to single disc versions of both. An LP version of Under A Blood Red Sky on heavy quality vinyl will also be released.

• Live at Red Rocks was filmed at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado on June 5th,1983, while Under A Blood Red Sky consists of live recordings from three shows on the band's War tour through Europe and America.
• The full track listing for Live at Red Rocks is: "Out Of Control," "Twilight," "An Cat Dubh/Into The Heart," "Surrender," "Two Hearts Beat As One," "Seconds," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Cry/The Electric Co.," "October," "New Year's Day," "I Threw A Brick Through A Window," "A Day Without Me," "Gloria," "Party Girl," "11 O'Clock Tick Tock," "I Will Follow" and "40."
• U2 is currently working on its next studio album, which is tentatively due for release later this year.

PHIL SPECTOR PROSECUTORS ASK GUN THREAT EVIDENCE TO BE ALLOWED

Prosecutors on Monday (August 11) asked a judge to reconsider rulings from Phil Spector's first murder trial excluding evidence of a half-dozen times the famed record producer allegedly threatened people with guns. They say the incidents would show "common design or plan" by Spector, who will soon be retried for allegedly murdering actress Lana Clarkson at his Southern California home in February 2003. The six incidents involving both women and men took place over more than three decades, from 1972 to 2003. Two from the 1970s resulted in gun-related convictions against Spector, for which he received probation.

• The 68-year-old Spector's first murder trial ended in a hung jury. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for Thursday (August 14), with jury questioning to begin October 14.

ALLMAN BROTHERS SUE RECORD LABEL OVER UNPAID ROYALTIES

On Monday (August 11th), the Allman Brothers sued Universal Music Group for more than $12 million over what the band says are unpaid royalties. The band's lawsuit, which was filed in New York City, claims the record label failed to pay royalties from repackaged compact discs and digital sales, such as iTunes and ring tones. The Allman Brothers band were signed to Capricorn Records during the 1970s. During that time, the group most of its biggest hits, including "Jessica," "Rambling Man," and "Midnight Rider." Capricorn Records was later absorbed by Universal Music Group.

• UMG has yet to issue a response to the lawsuit.

QUICK TAKES

• Out on DVD is the Rolling Stones' Martin Scorsese-directed concert film Shine A Light. The movie was filmed and recorded on October 29th and November 1st, 2006 at New York City's Beacon Theatre.
• Bonus footage on the Shine A Light DVD includes four songs that were not originally included in the theatrical release: "Undercover Of The Night," "Paint It Black," "Little T&A," and "I'm Free." The DVD also features a behind-the-scenes featurette.
• The George Harrison tribute garden which was unveiled earlier this year at Britain's Chelsea Flower Show can now be visited online. The garden, which was designed by Yvonne Innes, wife of Harrison's close friend, Rutles cofounder Neil Innes, was created in collaboration with Harrison's widow Olivia Harrison, and sponsored by the Harrison's The Material World Charitable Foundation.
• Olivia Harrison said of the garden, "George himself was an immensely talented and passionate gardener. As George dedicated his autobiography 'to gardeners everywhere' we do the same along with love and gratitude to George for the music, gardens and thoughtful legacy he left behind."
• The website chronicles the design and building of the garden through pictures and video. It can be accessed at georgeharrison.com/garden.
• Bryan Ferry will be named a BMI Icon on October 7th at U.S. performing right organization's annual London Awards ceremony. Ferry, who is best known for his work with Roxy Music, joins the long list of BMI Icons, including Peter Gabriel, Ray Davies, Van Morrison, the Bee Gees, the late Isaac Hayes, Dolly Parton, James Brown, Willie Nelson, Daryl Hall and John Oates, Paul Simon, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Steve Winwood, and more.
• The invitation-only gala will recognize the U.K., European and Jamaican songwriters and publishers of the past year's most-played BMI songs on American radio and television.

FLASHBACK: AUGUST 12th IN BEATLES HISTORY

Tuesday, August 12th, is the anniversary of several landmark events in Beatles history.

On August 12th, 1960 drummer Pete Best auditioned for the Beatles in his mother's Liverpool nightclub called the Casbah. Best was asked to join the group, which then included original bassist Stuart Sutcliffe, to begin a two month residency in Hamburg, Germany. Two years later, on August 16th, 1962, Best was fired from the group and replaced by Ringo Starr.

• Pete Best was asked if following the audition, he knew immediately that he had the job as the Beatles' drummer: "No. Not at that stage, because at the end of the day, yeah, I'd agreed to go to Hamburg, but the audition was there. I've always queried the fact of the audition. Because in those days people jumped ship from band-to-band so the audition factor was very much a case of like, 'You're making me audition?' But the type of material they were playing, I was playing with my own band as well. So when they turned around and said, 'Do you know this one?' -- it's like, okay, bash that one off, 'Do you know this one?' -- bash that one off."

On August 12th, 1964 the group's first movie, A Hard Day's Night, opened in 500 U.S. theaters. The movie cost just under $220,000 to make and became the surprise hit of the summer, grossing more than $13 million worldwide.

• In addition to the title song, the soundtrack included such Beatles classics as "Can't Buy Me Love," "And I Love Her," "I Should Have Known Better," and "If I Fell." A Hard Day's Night was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly For The Screen and Best Score, but lost in both categories.

On August 12th, 1966 the Beatles opened the first show of their final U.S. tour, at the Chicago Amphitheatre. The group, who had previously performed dates in Germany, Japan and the Philippines, began the U.S. tour amid controversy. John Lennon was forced to apologize the day before (August 11th) for statements he had made earlier in the year about the state of Christianity. The quote, "The Beatles are more popular than Jesus," was taken out of context and published in a teen magazine called Datebook, which lead to numerous "Beatle boycotts" and bonfires of the group's albums throughout many southern states.

8/11/08

AC/DC WANTS FANS FOR VIDEO SHOOT

AC/DC is looking for 150 fans to appear in the video shoot for the band's new single, "Rock 'n' Roll Train." The only catch is that you'll have to be in the U.K. to participate, since the shoot takes place in London on August 16th. Anyone who will be there, or who thinks they can make it in time, can fill out an entry form to try and win a spot in the clip at acdcrocks.com/ukcasting. "Rock 'n' Roll Train" is taken from the band's upcoming album, Black Ice, its first new collection of material since 2000's Stiff Upper Lip.

• Black Ice will arrive on October 21st and be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart, whose stores will also host their own special AC/DC display areas.
• The legendary rockers are slated to begin an 18-month world tour in October, with the trek reportedly kicking off on Halloween in Chicago.
• The 1977 AC/DC song "Let There Be Rock" will be featured in the new Rock Band 2 video game, due out in September. This will mark the band's first and so far only contribution to a video game soundtrack.

PAUL McCARTNEY AND NANCY SHEVELL SPOTTED CAMPING IN MISSOURI

Paul McCartney's cross-country road trip with girlfriend Nancy Shevell continues, with the couple being spotted camping at Missouri's Bennett Springs State Park over the weekend.

A fellow camper told monstersandcritics.com, "They didn't seem to have a care in the world as they laughed and joked with each other."

Another source told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper that after McCartney and Shevell spent the night in a tent, they were seen heading off for a hike: "It was nearly 85 degrees but the heat didn't slow them down at all. They were like two teenagers on a first date -- it was really sweet. They were seen tucking into sandwiches. Paul even had a cheeky bottle of stout which he had packed away."

• Last the week the couple ran into some trouble when McCartney's 1989 Ford Bronco was nearly towed after being parked illegally at the Joliet Area Historical Museum in Illinois.
• Prior to that, a handful of fans had their photo taken with McCartney by Shevell in Springfield, Illinois, while stopping to use the restroom at a local Circle K convenience store.
• During the couple's trek, they've also been spotted having dinner in Oklahoma City.

In other McCartney news:

Paul McCartney has teamed up with Yusuf Islam, the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, on a new track of Islam's called Boots & Sand. An update on yusufislam.com reported that the song deals with the 2004 controversy of Islam being refused entry to the U.S. when his name was confused with a man on the "no fly" list.

The song also features Dolly Parton, Alison Krauss, and former Hollies guitarist Terry Sylvester. No release date has been announced.

• On May 25th, 2005, McCartney and Islam performed together in Dusseldorf, Germany for the Adopt-A-Minefield benefit.

WARNER MUSIC GROUP WANTS MORE CASH FROM 'ROCK BAND' AND 'GUITAR HERO'

Record labels may soon try to seek more money from music-based video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band. According to the New York Post, Warner Music Group wants to start asking game companies for additional money for song licenses.

The company's chief executive, Edgar Bronfman, compared the situation to the launch of MTV and the iPod, saying, "The amount being paid to the music industry, even though their games are entirely dependent on the content we own and control, is far too small." He added, "The industry as a whole needs to take a very different look at this business and participate more fully and in a much more partnership way. If that does not become the case, as far as Warner Music Group is concerned, we will not license to those games."

• Rock Band 2 is expected out in October.
• Sales of Guitar Hero III have reached more than eight million, while Rock Band has sold more than 2.5 million. Rock Band has also sold more than 18 million additional song downloads at $1.99 each.
• Aerosmith recently released its own branded edition of Guitar Hero.

THE ROLLING STONES' 'SATISFACTION' BRINGS MAN OUT OF 10-WEEK COMA

A 60-year-old UK man who fell into a 10-week coma after contracting severe anemia regained consciousness -- after his wife blasted the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" on his headphones, according to telegraph.co.uk.

While unconscious, retired baker Sam Carter from Stoke in Staffordshire had spent three days listening to the local Stoke station Signal 2, before his wife began playing his favorite songs -- including the Stones classic, which was the first single Carter ever bought.

Carter, who had only been given a 30 percent chance of survival, recalled, "I can't remember much from being in a coma, but I do remember that when that song came on it took me right back to when I was a youngster. I could remember how excited I was to get it down at the record shop. I suddenly had a burst of energy and knew I had a lot more life left in me and that's when I woke up -- to the sound of the first song I ever bought."

• He went on to say, "I would love to thank Mick (Jagger) and the rest of the Stones personally. I feel they really did help wake me from my coma."
• Carter's wife Eva added: "I couldn't believe it when he started opening his eyes and looked at me. It was like we had been given another chance."

In other Rolling Stones news:

Mick Jagger took the stage on Saturday night (August 9th) at Basil's Bar on the Caribbean island of Mustique, according to sundaymirror.co.uk

Jagger, who owns a house on the island, performed for 100 VIPs including Prince William and girlfriend Kate Middleton. Jagger was said to perform a handful of Rolling Stones classics, including "Brown Sugar."

OASIS PAYS TRIBUTE TO JOHN LENNON

Oasis' forthcoming album, Dig Out Your Soul, includes a track that pays tribute to John Lennon. The self-professed Beatles fans have recorded a ballad called "I'm Outta Time" that features a soundbite from an interview with Lennon, according to Rollingstone.com's Rock Daily blog. The song is being considered as a single.

• According to Rock Daily, a source told British paper The Sun, "Liam has so much passion for the subject. He's obsessed. That's why the song is so brilliant and poignant."

8/8/08

THE POLICE WRAP UP REUNION TOUR IN NEW YORK CITY

The Police wrapped up their reunion tour last night (August 7th) at New York's Madison Square Garden. According to the band, it was the last time they will ever take the stage together as a group.

The show was the band's 155th concert since kicking off the tour in May 2007, and was a benefit for New York public television stations Thirteen/WNET and WLIW-21.

The Police began their set with a cover of Cream's 1967 classic "Sunshine Of Your Love." According to fan reports, the NYPD's drum section from the police marching band joined the group for "Message In A Bottle," and Sting's and Andy Summers' children joined the band onstage to dance along to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." The Police closed the show with "Next To You," which was the first track on their 1978 debut album Outlandos d'Amour.

Sting, who had grown a grizzled grey beard during the current leg of the tour, including the majority of last night's show, appeared for the encores clean-shaven and shirtless.

Instead of the tour's usual opening act, Elvis Costello and the Imposters, the B-52's opened the show.

Stewart Copeland says that although he enjoyed reuniting with Sting and Andy Summers for their first extended dates since 1984, he never felt the need for closure after their mid-'80s split: "Andy often talks about how he felt the sense of incompletion, but I never felt that way... And when we broke up the first time it was amicably and my intention was that it was to be a break. We all got new lives, new careers, so it all went rather well. And for us to come back 20 years later, it was kind of better than if we had done it then. We wouldn't have gotten nearly the buzz out of it that we're getting this time around. And we're getting a big buzz out of it this time around. Even Sting's impressed. I mean, we're all really surprised by what happened."

• The Police kicked off their reunion on February 11th, 2007 at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, and the next morning announced their first tour in 23 years at a press conference at L.A.'s Whisky A Go-Go.
• The world tour officially began on May 27th, 2007 and played several North American legs as well as taking in such countries as Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Argentina, New Zealand, Brazil, and Macau.
• The band will release a live CD/DVD set from the tour, called The Police: Certifiable, on October 7th, which will be available only at Best Buy. The concert was shot and recorded during the band's stop in Buenos Aries last December. Copeland's son, filmmaker Jordan Copeland, has directed a tour documentary called Better Than Therapy, which will also be included on the DVD.
• Sting will perform on September 18th and 19th in Boston at Symphony Hall. Later this fall he'll head Down Under for a string of solo dates that will also hit Dubai, Singapore, Japan and China.

PAUL RODGERS AND BAD COMPANY