Classic Rock
Joni Mitchell Named 2021 Kennedy Center Honoree
Joni Mitchell will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors. Presented by the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the annual accolade recognizes lifetime performing arts achievements in American culture. Along with Mitchell, this year’s class of honorees includes actress Bette Midler, Motown founder Berry Gordy, Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels, and opera singer Justino Díaz. The Kennedy Center honorees are chosen on the recommendation of a committee that includes officials and past award recipients. Mitchell and her peers will formally receive their honors during an in-person ceremony held at the Kennedy Center on December 5th, which will later air on CBS. Advertisement Related Video Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie,...
Guns N’ Roses Have an Official Line of Bongs and Smoking Accessories
Axl Rose has hit some pretty amazing high notes during his career, but now Guns N’ Roses are offering up a new kind of high. The legendary band has its own line of bongs and smoking accessories. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers have partnered with Famous Brandz for a collection that includes two bongs, a couple of grinders, and two hand pipes. The two glass bongs feature artwork from the band’s iconic debut album, Appetite for Destruction. The “Band 12-Inch Water Pipe” has a hexagonal shape at the bottom showing each of the skeletal images of the band members, while the “Appetite for Destruction 10-Inch Dab Rig” shows the group shot of the skeletons at the base, with the words “Guns N’ Roses Was Here” in the middle. Advertisement Related Video A description of the GN’R line from Famous B...
Eric Clapton Won’t Perform for “Discriminated” Audiences Where Vaccination Is Required
Eric Clapton had a brilliant run in the 1960s and ‘70s, but ever since that anti-immigrant screed in 1976, the famed guitarist has become less notable for the movement of his fingers and more infamous for the farts coming out of his mouth. In his latest gaseous expulsion, Mr. Slowbrainhand once again came to the defense of anti-vaxxers, saying he won’t play in front of “discriminated” audiences that have been fully inoculated against COVID-19. The pronouncement came after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that, by the end of September, “We are planning to make full [COVID-19] vaccination the condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather.” He’s talking about a kind of vaccine passport, which doesn’t sound so bad if you’re a person who trusts the scienti...
Slash and Epiphone Launch New Collection of Electric and Acoustic Guitars
Slash and Epiphone have launched a new collection of electric and acoustic guitars, continuing the Guns N’ Roses guitarist’s ongoing partnership with Gibson Brands. Epiphone’s Slash Collection follows last year’s Gibson collection, but offers the guitars at a more accessible price point. Epiphone prides itself as being known as “the leading accessible guitar brand For Every Stage,” and the new axes are ideal for beginners or seasoned vets. The new line introduces two electric guitars and five variants: the Epiphone Slash Les Paul Standard (finished in Appetite Burst, November Burst, Anaconda Burst, and Vermillion Burst) and the Slash “Victoria” Les Paul Standard Goldtop in Gold. The acoustic Epiphone Slash J-45 (in Vermillion Burst and November Burst) rounds out the Epiphone collection. Al...
18 Most Commonly Misheard Song Lyrics
For 46 years now, Bruce Springsteen fans have disagreed over whether the opening lyric to 1975’s “Thunder Road” is “The screen door slams/ Mary’s dress sways” or “The screen door slams/ Mary’s dress waves.” On Springsteen’s official website and songbook, the word is “waves,” but as many have pointed out over the years, this doesn’t make much sense. (“Sways” rhymes better with “plays” than “waves,” and dresses don’t “wave in the wind,” they “sway in the wind.”) Either way, up until this point, the official record has mostly indicated that the dress waves. It would take nothing short of a thunderstorm to shake up the Springsteen status quo. Enter the Internet. After the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman tweeted a picture of an empty “Springsteen on Broadway” stage with the caption “The screen ...
Elvis Costello & The Imposters Announce 2021 Fall Tour
Elvis Costello & The Imposters are headed back on the road for a 2021 fall US tour. Entitled “Hello Again,” the trek takes place in October and November. The 20-date tour kicks off in Memphis, Tennessee at Graceland on October 10th. It will make stops in cities like New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles before wrapping up at Fox Theater in Oakland, California on November 14th. Tickets will go on sale at Ticketmaster on Friday, July 23rd at 10:00 a.m. local time, and look on the secondary market here for deals once they sell out. Check out the full tour schedule below. Advertisement Related Video Costello released his most recent album, the excellent Hey Clockface, in November before closing out last year with “Farewell, OK 2020.” On September 10th, Costello will release Spanish Mo...
R.I.P. Martin Kahan, Music Video Director (KISS, Rush, Mötley Crüe) Dead at 74
Martin Kahan, a prolific music video director, has died at age 74. He passed away this past Sunday (July 18th) in Lakewood, New Jersey, following a battle with cancer. Kahan directed numerous videos for hard rock acts in the 1980s. If you watched MTV during that era, you surely caught Kahan’s work. Some of his best known clips include KISS sans-makeup (“Lick It Up”, “All Hell’s Breakin Loose”), Mötley Crüe (“Too Young to Fall in Love”), Scorpions (“I’m Leaving You”), and Bon Jovi (“In and Out of Love,” “She Don’t Know Me”). Videos for Ian Hunter (the VMA-nomiated “All of the Good Ones Are Taken”), Loverboy (“Queen of the Broken Hearts”), and Michael Bolton (“Fool’s Game”) also garnered rotation on MTV. Advertisement Related Video Kahan got a break early in his career when he shot three vid...
Faces’ Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, and Kenney Jones Working on New Music
One of the great what-ifs in rock history may get a belated answer, as Faces, the British outfit that launched the careers of Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, and Kenney Jones, are reuniting to make new music. Faces formed out of the wreckage of Small Faces in 1969, when frontman Steve Marriot departed to form Humble Pie. The remaining members recruited Stewart and Wood from the Jeff Beck Group, dropping the ‘Small’ in the process without realizing how big they’d become. One of the most reliable touring draws of the early 1970s, Faces eventually buckled under the weight of their own success, especially Stewart’s skyrocketing solo career. In the aftermath of their breakup, guitarist Wood joined The Rolling Stones, drummer Jones linked up with The Who, and the more they all achieved separately, the...
Bruce Springsteen Settles Debate Over “Thunder Road” Lyric After 46 Years
For nearly half a century, Bruce Springsteen fans have seemingly confused by a particular line in his classic song “Thunder Road.” In the opening lines of 1975’s Born to Run, The Boss sings, “The screen door slams, Mary’s dress waves/ Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays.” Or, so we thought. Those specific lyrics were included in the album’s liner notes, and on every official lyric sheet since its release. But it’s not exactly a perfect rhyme, and debate has sprung up in the intervening decades over whether Springsteen actually means to sing “sways” instead of “waves.” After all, does a dress really wave when the person wearing it dances? Advertisement Related Video Well, it turns out Springsteen had the last word on the matter this week, handed down by his longtime...
Two Former Sex Pistols Sue John Lydon over Music Licensing in Danny Boyle Miniseries
Two former Sex Pistols — guitarist Steve Jones and drummer Paul Cook — are suing John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon for blocking the licensing of the group’s music for Danny Boyle’s Sex Pistols miniseries. Pistol is a six-episode limited series that’s been adapted from Jones’ 2017 memoir Lonely Boy: Tales From a Sex Pistol. It’s been causing tension among the onetime bandmates ever since it was announced, and while legal action isn’t a surprise, the direction of it is. In April, it was Lydon who threatened to sue, called the decision not to hire him as a consultant “disrespectful.” His attempts to curmudgeon his way into a check didn’t work, and he’s now trying to grind the production to a halt by refusing to grant permission for the group’s songs. As The Associated Press reports, J...
The Doors Guitarist Robby Krieger Announces Memoir Set the Night on Fire
The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger has announced his first-ever memoir. It’s called Set the Night on Fire: Living, Dying, and Playing Guitar with The Doors and it’s due out October 12th via Little, Brown and Company. The Doors need no introduction, and in a perfect world neither would Krieger. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, has been hailed by Rolling Stone as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and is still collaborating with artists like Miley Cyrus and Alice in Chains to this day. And yet, Krieger is notoriously tight-lipped and shy when it comes to discussing his noteworthy career — which makes this memoir all the more exciting. Over roughly 320 pages with some help from writer Jeff Alulis, the legendary musician has finally opened up about The Doors...
Unreleased George Harrison Song “Cosmic Empire” Unveiled: Stream
Last November marked 50 years since George Harrison released his landmark 1970 solo album All Things Must Pass, and to commemorate the milestone, Capitol and UMe will be putting out the album’s special 50th anniversary edition later this summer. As a new preview, they’ve now shared the previously unreleased Harrison song “Cosmic Empire.” Fans have been aware of “Cosmic Empire” for some time, and while the track has occasionally appeared on bootlegs, it’s never sounded this polished. The two-minute sketch is a solo acoustic number, with an irresistible guitar riff and a catchy main theme. “I’m waiting in the queue down at the Cosmic Empire,” Harrison sings. “I wanna a front row pew down at the Cosmic Empire/ An omnipresent view down at the Cosmic Empire.” Check out the animated ly...
