Classic Rock
AC/DC Confirm Band Lineup and Unveil Apparent Album Title
AC/DC are definitely back. The legendary band has confirmed long-running rumors about its reunited classic lineup, while also revealing the apparent title to its upcoming album. On Wednesday (September 30th), AC/DC shared a new graphic, which seemingly unveils the title of their new album as PWR/UP. Moreover, the artwork, which could very well be the album cover, clearly shows and lists a band lineup of Angus Young (lead guitar), Brian Johnson (lead vocals), Cliff Williams (bass guitar), Phil Rudd (drums), and Stevie Young (rhythm guitar). The image, posted across the band’s social media pages, is captioned, “ARE YOU READY? #PWRUP.” The new post follows one from earlier in the week that showed a neon light in the shape of the lightning bolt from the band’s logo flickering on, as if to say ...
R.I.P. Mark Stone, Original Van Halen Bassist Dies
Mark Stone (far left) with Alex and Eddie Van Halen, via Van Halen: The Early Years documentary Mark Stone, the original bassist for Van Halen, has died after a battle with cancer. His death was confirmed by his brother Brad, who posted the sad news via Instagram, and by Van Halen News Desk, which reported that Stone had recently been in hospice care. While Stone was a founding member of Van Halen, his tenure in the band was short-lived. He was a member of the band from their formation in 1972, alongside brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen, and eventually David Lee Roth. Initially, the group called itself Genesis, but changed that to Mammoth upon learning that there was another band named Genesis. In 1974, the band changed its name to Van Halen, but also parted ways with Stone that same year...
Queen’s Brian May Reveals He Nearly Died From “Stomach Explosion”
Queen guitarist Brian May is lucky to be alive following a series of harrowing medical episodes. Back in the Spring, May, 73, tore the gluteus maximus muscle in his buttocks during what he described as a “moment of over-enthusiastic gardening.” While “Brian May Tears His Ass Muscle While Gardening” makes for a funny headline, the incident ultimately spurred on much more serious ailments that nearly cost May his life. While getting an MRI for his gluteus maximus tear, doctors discovered that May was also suffering from a severely compressed sciatic nerve, which made it feel like “someone was putting a screwdriver in my back.” A short time later, he suffered a heart attack. His issues didn’t end there, though. In a new interview with The London Times, May revealed that he underwent ...
Patty Smyth on Her First New Album in 28 Years: “I Wanted to Talk About Some Real Shit”
Kyle Meredith With… Patty Smyth Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Patty Smyth joins Kyle Meredith to discuss It’s About Time, her first new album in 28 years. The “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough” singer explains how her new material finally became poignant enough to record, the lost unsupervised freedom that kids of the past had growing up, music as the great unifier, and how she sings about the rewards of a longstanding marriage to husband John McEnroe. Smyth also tells us why she’s recorded a famous Tom Waits song twice, and the new batch of songs that she’s already working on, including some possible lost tracks from her ’80s band Scandal. Kyle Meredith With… is an intervi...
R.I.P. Roy Head, 1960s Rocker Famous for “Treat Her Right” Dead at 79
Roy Head, the 1960s rocker best known for the smash hit “Treat Her Right”, has died at 79. According to the Montgomery County Police Recorder, the cause was heart attack “Treat Her Right” was a sensation upon its release in 1965, reaching number two on the Billboard Hot 100, while boasting sales that would have made it number one at just about any other time — except that The Beatles had recently released “Yesterday”. The song has been a pop culture mainstay ever since, appearing over the opening credits of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and popping up in the 1991 film The Commitments. Head was born in Three Rivers, TX, on January 9th, 1941. His father was a sharecropper, and his love of music came from listening to Black sharecroppers singing in the field...
Neil Young Details Archives Vol. 2 Box Set
Neil Young has officially detailed his long-awaited Archives Vol. 2 box set. Arriving just in time for the holiday season on November 20th, the collection contains 10 discs chock-full of recordings from 1972 through 1976. According to a post on his Neil Young Archives website, twelve of these tracks have never been released in any format. There are also 50 alternate, previously unreleased versions of Young originals. The first four discs are taken from the period of 1972 and 1973. Disc 1, titled Everybody’s Alone, boasts the most goodies, as it features four never-before-released tracks: “Letter From ‘Nam”, “Come Along and Say You Will”, “Goodbye Christmas on the Shore”, and “Sweet Joni”. Disc 3, Tonight’s the Night, also contains a recently unearthed cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Raised ...
Van Morrison Announces Anti-Lockdown Song Series
The coronavirus death toll is currently 947,000, and Europe is in the midst of its second wave of the pandemic. And yet somehow there are still people like Van Morrison who believe it’s all a hoax and insist on putting more people’s lives in danger. In a statement last month, the Northern Irish songwriter dismissed socially distanced concerts as “pseudo-science”, and called on fellow musicians to join him in demanding a return to “full capacity audiences.” Now, to further drive his ill-informed point home, Van Morrison has announced a series of anti-lockdown protest songs. As the BBC reports, the “Brown Eyed Girl” musician plans to release three different singles in the near future. All of them bear cringe-worthy titles — the kind that Trump or one of those embarrassing Target Flash Mob an...
50 Years Ago, Black Sabbath Deliver the Magnificent Paranoid
The “sophomore slump” has spelt the beginning of the end for quite a few rock acts over the years. But looking back, one of the cases in which the exact opposite occurred was when Black Sabbath delivered one of the greatest metal albums of all time, Paranoid. The Birmingham, UK-based band – singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler, and drummer Bill Ward – had already caught the attention of rock fans with their detuned and doomy self-titled debut (released in February 1970 in the UK, and June in the United States). And they wasted no time capitalizing on the buzz – issuing Paranoid in the UK on September of that year. (It would arrive in the States in January 1971.) While Sabbath amazingly knocked out the recording of their debut album in a single day, they would t...
R.I.P. Lee Kerslake, Drummer for Ozzy Osbourne and Uriah Heep Dies at 73
Lee Kerslake, drummer on Ozzy Osbourne’s classic solo albums and longtime member of Uriah Heep, passed away Saturday (September 19th) at the age of 73. The veteran musician died after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. The drummer’s death was reported by Ken Hensley, a fellow former member of Uriah Heep. “It’s with the heaviest of hearts that I share with you that Lee Kerslake, my friend of 55 years and the best drummer I ever played with, lost his battle with cancer at 03:30 this morning,” wrote Hensley. “He died peacefully, praise The Lord, but he will be terribly missed.” He continued, “I know many of you were praying for him not to suffer and I thank you for that and, now that Lee is at peace, our thoughts and prayers should turn to his wife Sue who will need all the support she ca...
Neil Young Releases The Times EP: Stream
Neil Young has released his new live acoustic EP The Times. To ensure the best audio experience possible (as Young is wont to do), it’s only available to stream on the Neil Young Archives website or Amazon Music HD. Sign up for AMHD here or listen via the embedded player below. The seven-track collection captures the “Porch Episode” of Young’s Fireside Sessions series from back in July. That performance introduced fans to the updated version of “Lookin’ for a Leader 2020”, which reworks the lyrics to specifically target Trump and the current US political climate in 2020. The EP takes its name from another featured track: a cover of Bob Dylan’s classic “The Times They Are A-Changin’”. The Times is rounded out by five cuts from various stages in Young’s catalog, all of which are particularly...
Joe Bouchard on How “Don’t Fear the Reaper” Made It Into Stephen King’s The Stand
Kyle Meredith With… Joe Bouchard Listen via Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Play | Stitcher | Radio Public | RSS Former Blue Öyster Cult bassist Joe Bouchard speaks with Kyle Meredith about his new solo album, Strange Legends, which finds the songwriter embodying several strange characters. Bouchard discusses the lost art of the rock instrumental, covering The Kinks, and his ability to make happy songs sound dark. He also discusses “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as an anthem for the apocalypse, its use in Stephen King’s The Stand, and the Cowbell Edition of this new LP. Kyle Meredith With… is an interview series in which WFPK’s Kyle Meredith speaks to a wide breadth of musicians. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Meredith digs...
Hans Zimmer Covered Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse” with a 32-Person Choir Over FaceTime
We’re one week past D-Day (that’s Dune-trailer day, of course) and everyone is still buzzing about Hans Zimmer’s epic arrangement of Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse”. Now Variety has the lowdown on how it all came together, with FaceTime, a socially-distanced 32-person choir, pandemic recording pods, and more. This behind-the-scenes tale began at Zimmer’s Remote Control studio in Santa Monica, CA. The 32-person ensemble was led by Edie Lehmann Boddicker, who had previously assisted Zimmer on The Lion King. At 63 years old, the legendary composer himself opted to minimize his human interaction, instead FaceTming in from his home studio, giving direction and offering suggestions. Boddicker described the quarantine choir as a “who’s-who” of Los Angeles session musicians, a...
