The 10 Wildest Led Zeppelin Legends, Fact-Checked (Rolling Stone)

Please follow the link to read Rolling Stone's 10 Wildest Led Zeppelin Legends, Fact-Checked. Good stuff!

The Dirty Guv’nahs: Somewhere Beneath These Southern Skies (Relix)

Please follow the link to read Relix Magazines' review of Knoxville's own The Dirty Guv'nahs' Somewhere Beneath These Southern Skies. 

30th Anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Texas Flood’ to Be Released

Please follow the link to read more about the 30th anniversary edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan's Texas Flood.

Rolling Stones Kick Off 50th Anniversary Concerts with Star-Studded London Show

Please follow the link to read Jeff Giles' review of the Stones' first 50th anniversary show from Sunday night.

36 YEARS AGO: THE BAND STAGE LEGENDARY FAREWELL CONCERT ‘THE LAST WALTZ’

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/the-band-stage-legendary-farewell-concert-the-last-waltz/

On the turntable this Sunday...The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a double concept album recorded and released in 1974 by the British rock band Genesis. It was their sixth studio album and the last album by the group to feature the involvement of lead singer Peter Gabriel.

Grateful Dead Release Winterland Show

http://www.relix.com/news/2012/11/23/grateful-dead-release-winterland-show-today

Andre 3000 on playing Jimi Hendrix

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/andre-3000-on-playing-hendrix-what-would-jimi-want-people-to-know/

AC/DC’s Complete Catalog Now Available on iTunes

Please follow the link to read Jeff Giles' article on AC/DC's catalog now being available on iTunes!

Warren Haynes and Grace Potter For "Gimme Shelter"

Warren Haynes joined Grace Potter & the Nocturnals for a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” over the weekend at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. 

30 Years Ago: Led Zeppelin’s ‘Coda’ Album Released

Please follow the link to read more about the 30th anniversary of Led Zeppelin's B-side compilation, Coda. 

Led Zeppelin-Black Dog

Led Zeppelin's Celebration Day is finally here. Just in case you were on the fence about purchasing a copy, follow the link to see their performance of Black Dog...

On the turntable this Sunday...One of These Nights

One of These Nights is the fourth studio album by the Eagles, released in 1975. The record's title song became the group's second #1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, in July of that year.

The album contained three Top 10 singles, "One of These Nights", "Lyin' Eyes", and "Take It To The Limit". Those singles reached #1, #2, and #4 respectively. The album became the band's first album to top the charts.

The album also sold 4 million copies and won the band its first Grammy for "Lyin' Eyes". "Take It To The Limit" became the band's first gold single and the album was nominated for album of the year. The album also features the live concert staple and ballad "After The Thrill Is Gone". One of These Nights is the last Eagles album to feature Bernie Leadon. Leadon would leave the band after the One Of These Nights Tour. The seventh track, "Visions", is the only Eagles song on which Don Felder sang lead vocals. The album would become the band's breakthrough album, transforming them to international superstars and establishing them as America's number one band. The band would go on a worldwide tour to promote the album; Fleetwood Mac opened for the band during the tour.

Beatles Vinyl "Pop-Up Shops" Coming To NYC and LA (Relix)

Please follow the link to read more...

Jim James Shares Song from Forthcoming Solo Album (Relix)

Please follow the link to listen to a track from Jim James' first solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God.

The Rolling Stones-Crossfire Hurricane

I'm really looking forward to this documentary by Brett Morgen on The Rolling Stones that will air for us "Yanks" on HBO Thursday November 15 @ 9pm.

Bring on the swagger!

http://www.rollingstones.com/crossfire-hurricane/

The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

Picture an ugly truck maybe still painted camouflage to be concealed during a Frank Zappa film or maybe catching on fire and becoming a lyric in Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water and you would have
The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio conceived back in 1968.

Basically the band was tired of being constrained to recording in a studio under ordinary working day schedules. So they wanted to be able to record on location...thus they needed a mobile studio they could roll right up anywhere. It just so happened that Mick Jagger bought his country home, Stargroves, and now with the mobile unit right outside his home they could play inside. Who wants all that equipment cluttering up the inside of a 16th century country home?!
In fact the studio became so popular the Stone's rented it out to bands like The Who,Led Zeppelin,Deep Purple and many more.

Here's some more background at a great blog resource for Classic UK Recording Studios by Phil Burn's and here's the The Rolling Stones Mobile article.

Mike Smith-The Showbiz Kids

Friends

John Entwistle & Pete Townshend, 1968 [Photographed by Barrie Wentzell]

This is a blog post by Pete Townshend on the unfortunate 10 year anniversary of John Entwistle's death. I know my timeliness is a bit off ,but I didn't read it back in June. I feel its a brief but intimate glimpse into two individual's friendship and their time spent on earth together. It just struck me as very touching the day I read it and I wanted to pass it along. Read it as though they aren't two famous musicians but just two guys that were friends in some anonymous band. Link to The Who.com and Pete's blog entry

Mike Smith-Showbiz Kids



June 22, 2012
JOHN ENTWISTLE

John Entwistle. It’s ten years since his shocking death in Las Vegas. I have to say that this is not a particularly special time for me because I remember John every day. There is always something to trigger a fond memory. What does make the time just after John’s death in 2002 worth remembering and processing were the massive changes that happened because – suddenly – he was gone, and we had a tour to do, or perhaps not to do. Musically I knew everything would be different on stage. Not better, just different.

Let me speak first then about John the musician.

John’s sound was harmonically rich and filled an enormous part of the audio spectrum. There really is no one who can do what he did. Other bass players can copy his sound, and try to emulate his fingering, but at the heart of John’s playing was a contradiction. His laid back character disguised a powerful musical ego, supported by immense musical talent. His playing was complex and fast, but there are few players alive who could combine such speed and eloquence on the bass with such good taste musically speaking. Like Keith Moon, he really is irreplaceable. His sound can be emulated, and I sometimes hear players who can approach John’s musicianship, but John really was unique, a complete one-off, an innovator who never stopped experimenting.

As a person, as an old friend from my school days, I think my side of the street is reasonably clean. I always felt a strong sense of loving friendship from John, and I think I will cling on to that memory even though Queenie, his late mother, once got angry with me for being angry with John about the way he died and told me that John had never loved me at all. In fact a couple of times John had actually told me he loved me. We were usually alone, and he might have been a bit drunk, but sometimes when we’re drunk we tell the truth. I accept that sometimes we stretch it, so I reserve the right to stretch it and believe that John was not stretching it.

When we speak about loving someone, there is always something unsaid. We love people we do not like. We like people we can never love. We might even marry or go into business with someone we neither like nor love and have a wonderful life or career with them. This is especially true for bands. It isn’t always easy to know what is the truth, and of course – if Queenie is to be believed – feelings between two friends can be intense but not necessarily equal. For me, with John, the situation is clear cut. There are no difficulties, no blurred images. I loved John, I liked him, I respected him, and I miss him. I don’t think he ever put a foot wrong in our relationship. He never said or did anything that I can look back on and fan embers of even the smallest resentment towards him.

On stage with the Who I often look across and expect to see John standing there scratching the side of his nose and take a resigned deep breath in that characteristically thoughtful way that often presaged a funny story or a blistering bass passage. There has always been talk about how loud we all were, and in particular how John’s massive sound caused problems for us on stage. John was louder than most bass players, there is no question of that. If there were problems it was because both John and Keith competed with Roger for the role of vocalist. I don’t mean that they wanted to be the singer, but rather that they performed like members of an anarchic choir, a street corner singing group, rather than accompanists.

Over on my side of the stage, when Keith was alive, my musical relationship with John was straightforward. I accompanied him. I accompanied (or rather provided a solid rhythmic backbone) for Keith. I hope I accompanied Roger sometimes. It was only when suddenly, ten years ago, John was gone, that I realised that I had inherited a new job on stage with the Who: to play decorative passages, to fill the gaps, to make long sequences of so-called ‘solos’ musically interesting – because that is what John had done for years, so I had never had to bother. So despite the fact that Pino Palladino is one of my favourite musicians on the planet, and I don’t want John’s sound to return so that I am re-graded again to a mere rhythm guitar player who gets to play an occasional lead line, when I am on stage playing Who music, and Roger is with me, I am always aware of how different our ‘band’ is today. It sounds different, and it feels different. Not better or worse, but very different. We just happen to play the same songs.

Some people are utterly without peer. When they are gone they leave an immense vacuum. So it is with John: When he died he left a void that can only be filled with good memories, affectionate recollections, and some healthy and critical review of his occasionally crazy behaviour and extraordinary sense of humour. We met at school, but although we were only twelve years old, John was almost a man by then, while I would remain a little boy for many years to come; we’ve all known such friendships in our school days. I sometimes say that when we met I was eleven years old because that’s how it felt; John was like a fifteen or sixteen year old to me. What is extraordinary is that John took me under his wing so kindly when we first met, and was always a supporter of mine even when I goofed. He was never patronising. I never felt he had to work at it, his support came naturally, and didn’t seem to be a part of any agenda. By the way, Queenie was always kind to me too when I was a teenager.

I could go on for pages and pages. But I’m not the only one to be in a position to speak for John. He was the one of us who stayed closest to our most obsessively loyal fans, propping up the bar before and after shows, and enjoying their affection and interest. I’m sure there a hundred stories out there. It would be good to hear some of them.

Phish Discuss Their Break-Up (Relix)

Please follow the link to read about a recent interview where the members of Phish discuss their break-up back in 2004.  

On the turntable this Sunday...Tattoo You

Tattoo You is the 16th British and 18th American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981. The follow-up to Emotional Rescue, it proved to be a big critical and commercial success. A very popular album upon release, it is the last Rolling Stones album to reach the top position of the US charts, concluding a string of #1's dating back to 1971's Sticky Fingers.

Tattoo You is an album primarily composed of outtakes from previous recording sessions, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and overdubs. Along with two new songs, the Rolling Stones put together this collection in order to have a new album to promote for their worldwide American Tour 1981/European Tour 1982 beginning that September.

Guitarist Keith Richards commented in 1993;

"The thing with Tattoo You wasn't that we'd stopped writing new stuff, it was a question of time. We'd agreed we were going to go out on the road and we wanted to tour behind a record. There was no time to make a whole new album and make the start of the tour."

The album's producer, Chris Kimsey, who had been associated with The Stones dating back to Sticky Fingers said Tattoo You, "...came about because Mick and Keith were going through a period of not getting on. There was a need to have an album out, and I told everyone I could make an album from what I knew was still there." He began sifting through the band's vaults: "I spent three months going through like the last four, five albums finding stuff that had been either forgotten about or at the time rejected. And then I presented it to the band and I said, 'Hey, look guys, you've got all this great stuff sitting in the can and it's great material, do something with it.'

Many of the songs consisted at this point of instrumental backing tracks for which vocals had not been recorded. Jagger said in a 1995 interview, "It wasn't all outtakes; some of it was old songs... I had to write lyrics and melodies. A lot of them didn't have anything, which is why they weren't used at the time - because they weren't complete. They were just bits, or they were from early takes".  Despite the eclectic nature of the album, the Rolling Stones were able to divide Tattoo You into two distinct halves: a rock and roll side backed with one focusing on ballads.

The earliest songs used for Tattoo You are "Tops" and "Waiting on a Friend". The backing tracks for both songs were cut in late 1972 during the Goats Head Soup sessions and feature Mick Taylor, not Ronnie Wood, on guitar; Taylor later demanded and received a share of the album's royalties.

The album opens with "Start Me Up," originally rehearsed under the working title "Never Stop" and as a reggae-influenced number in 1975 during the Black and Blue sessions, and the balance of it was recorded during these particular sessions and during the 1978 Pathe Marconi sessions for Some Girls where the more rock-infused track was recorded. Also dating from these sessions are the backing tracks for "Slave" and "Worried About You". They feature Billy Preston on keyboards and Ollie E. Brown on percussion. Wayne Perkins plays the lead guitar on "Worried About You".

"Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and "Black Limousine" were worked on during the 1978 Pathe Marconi recording sessions for Some Girls.

The basic tracks for "No Use in Crying", "Little T&A", "Start Me Up", and re-recordings of "Black Limousine" and "Hang Fire" came from the Emotional Rescue sessions.

"Neighbours" and "Heaven" were recorded during sessions in October–November 1980, after the release of Emotional Rescue. "Heaven" has an unusual lineup, consisting of only Charlie Watts on drums, Bill Wyman on synthesizer and bass, Mick Jagger on guitar, and producer Chris Kimsey on piano.

Many of the vocal parts for the songs on Tattoo You were overdubbed during sessions in October–November 1980 and April–June 1981. Mick Jagger was the only member of the band present at some of these sessions. Other overdubs, such as Sonny Rollins's saxophone parts on "Slave" and "Waiting on a Friend", were also added at these sessions. Most of the album was mixed at this time as well.

"Start Me Up" was released in August 1981, just a week before Tattoo You, to a very strong response, reaching the top 10 in both the US and UK. Widely considered one of their most infectious songs, it was enough to carry Tattoo You to #1 for nine weeks in the US, while reaching #2 in the UK with solid sales. It has been certified 4x platinum in the US alone. The critical reaction was positive, many feeling that Tattoo You was an improvement over Emotional Rescue and a high-quality release. "Waiting on a Friend" and "Hang Fire" became Top 20 US hits as well.

"Start Me Up" would prove to be The Rolling Stones' last single to reach as high as #2 in the US, while Tattoo You is their last American #1 album to date.

The album title was originally planned to be simply "Tattoo". Jagger claims to this day that even he has no clue how the "You" became attached to the title. The title caused friction between Jagger and Richards, with Richards suspecting that Jagger had changed the title without seeking his input.

There were several videos directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for this album including:

"Start Me Up", "Hang Fire" and "Worried About You": Consisting of a standard band performance setting, miming to a backing tape.

"Neighbours": An homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window, it features the band playing in one apartment of an apartment building with various happenings seen in the windows of the other apartments: A working-class couple relaxing and making love, a t'ai chi practitioner exercising, and most notoriously, a man putting bloody body parts in a suitcase. This video was heavily censored when presented on television.

"Waiting on a Friend": Filmed on location in New York City's East Village, it consists of Keith walking down the street, meeting Jagger, who is sitting on the front steps of a house (the same house used on the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti) with several other men, one of whom is the late reggae musician Peter Tosh, who also shakes Keith's hand. They then proceed down the street and enter a bar where the rest of the band is waiting. The video also features Wood, rather than Mick Taylor on guitar (similar to the videos for "Hot Stuff" and "Worried About You" in which Harvey Mandel and Wayne Perkins respectively actually played). The bar in the video was co-owned by Wood during that time.

In the 1995 Rolling Stone interview during which editor Jann Wenner called Tattoo You the Stones' "most underrated album," Jagger said, "I think it's excellent. But all the things I usually like, it doesn’t have. It doesn’t have any unity of purpose or place or time."

Reviews for Tattoo You were largely positive, proclaiming the album a return to form and ranking among the Rolling Stones' finest works. Debra Rae Cohen commented in Rolling Stone, "Just when we might finally have lost patience, the new record dances (not prances), rocks (not jives) onto the scene, and the Rolling Stones are back again, with a matter-of-fact acceptance of their continued existence – and eventual mortality..."

Though Robert Christgau gave the album a good review, however, when criticizing "Start Me Up" in his Pazz and Jop essay in 1981, said, "...its central conceit--Mick as sex machine, complete with pushbutton--explains why the album it starts up never transcends hand-tooled excellence except when Sonny Rollins, uncredited, invades the Stones' space. Though it's as good in its way as "Street Fighting Man," how much you care about it depends entirely on how much you care about the Stones' technical difficulties."

Patty Rose, in Musician, said, "The feel of the album... is more one of rediscovered youth, of axes to play, not grind, of the latest cope, not dope. After Emotional Rescue, it seems the Stones couldn't make it anymore with the theme of life getting harder and harder. The old themes are not invalidated by the new, but rather taken for granted, like knowing how to tie one's bootlace. The Stones have shed yet another layer of self-consciousness and their shiny vinyl new skin tingles with an open, early-decade kind of excitement."

In 1989, it was ranked #34 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 211 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The cover of the album was designed by artist Peter Corriston, who won a Grammy Award in the category of best album package for the design. The photography was done by Hubert Kretzschmar and illustration by Christian Piper.

In 1994, Tattoo You was remastered and reissued by Virgin Records, and again in 2009 by Universal Music. It was released on SHM-SACD in 2011 by Universal Music Japan.

Track listing:

All songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, except where noted.

Side one 

No. Title Length 

1. "Start Me Up"   3:31

2. "Hang Fire"   2:20

3. "Slave" (Remastered CD version is longer... 6:34) 4:59

4. "Little T&A"   3:23

5. "Black Limousine" (Jagger/Richards/Ronnie Wood) 3:32

6. "Neighbours"   3:31

Side two 

No. Title Length 

7. "Worried About You"   5:16

8. "Tops"   3:45

9. "Heaven"   4:21

10. "No Use in Crying" (Jagger/Richards/Wood) 3:24

11. "Waiting on a Friend"   4:34

The Rolling Stones

Mick Jagger – lead and backing vocals, electric guitar on "Heaven", harmonica on "Black Limousine"

Keith Richards – electric guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals and bass guitar on "Little T&A"

Ronnie Wood – electric guitar, backing vocals, bass guitar on "Hang Fire"

Charlie Watts – drums

Bill Wyman – bass guitar, synthesizer on "Heaven"

Mick Taylor – electric guitar on "Tops" and "Waiting on a Friend" (1972)

Additional personnel

Nicky Hopkins – piano on "Tops", "No Use in Crying" and "Waiting on a Friend"

Ian Stewart – piano on "Hang Fire", "Little T&A" and "Black Limousine"

Billy Preston – piano and organ on "Slave" and "Worried About You" (1975)

Wayne Perkins – electric lead guitar on "Worried About You" (1975)

Ollie Brown – percussion on "Slave" and "Worried About You" (1975)

Pete Townshend – backing vocals on "Slave" (1975)

Sonny Rollins – saxophone on "Slave", "Neighbours" and "Waiting on a Friend"

Jimmy Miller – percussion on "Tops" and "Waiting on a Friend" (1972)

Kasper Winding – tambourine on "Waiting on a Friend"

Chris Kimsey – piano on "Heaven"

Barry Sage - handclaps on "Start Me Up"

Rolling Stones, ‘One More Shot’ – Song Review (UCR)

One month after the Rolling Stones treated fans to their first new song in seven years, another unreleased track, 'One More Shot,' is now available online.  

Both songs will appear on the Stones' upcoming greatest-hits compilation, Grrr!

Rush to Release Super Deluxe Version of ’2112′ Album

Rush has announced their plans to re-release their 1976 album 2112 in several different formats.  For more details, please follow the link. 

Jimmy Page Remastering Led Zeppelin Catalog

Please follow the link to read more about Jimmy Page remastering Led Zeppelin's entire catalog for a series of box set releases...

Gary Clark Jr: Blak And Blu (Relix Review)

Check out the recent review of Gary Clark Jr's excellent debut, Blak and Blu in Relix magazine. 

Election Day

No matter your political views or who you are supporting in this year's election, be sure to exercise your right and freedom to vote today!!!  

Enjoy the video 'Election Day' from Arcadia as you go to the polls...

ALO Cover The Who, Grateful Dead, Warren Zevon For Halloween

Please follow the link to read the jambands.com article on ALO's Halloween setlist which included covers of  The Who, Grateful Dead, and Warren Zevon.

On the turntable this Sunday...Green River

Green River is the third studio album by American rock and roll band Creedence Clearwater Revival, released in August 1969 after their second release Bayou Country which was released in January of the same year. In 2003, the album was ranked number 95 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.  It features two of the band's best-known songs, "Bad Moon Rising" and the title track. The album was remastered and reissued on 180 Gram Vinyl by Analogue Productions in 2006.

In January 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival released their second studio album Bayou Country and released their breakout single "Proud Mary" b/w "Born on the Bayou", which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Prior to recording their new album in March, Creedence conducted a test session at the recently-built Wally Heider Studios where they recorded three instrumental test tracks (two of which, "Broken Spoke Shuffle" and "Glory Be", are included in the 2008 remastered CD). The recordings for Green River lasted until June. While completing the forthcoming album the band issued two singles: "Bad Moon Rising" b/w "Lodi" and "Green River" b/w "Commotion", in April and July. Both reached #2 on the Billboard charts.

In an interview Fogerty gave to Rolling Stone in 2012, Fogerty states, "certainly in a song like "Green River" – which you may think would fit seamlessly into the Bayou vibe, but it's actually about the Green River, as I named it – it was actually called Putah Creek by Winters, California. It wasn't called Green River, but in my mind I always sort of called it Green River. All those little anecdotes are part of my childhood, those are things that happened to me actually, I just wrote about them and the audience shifted at the time and place."

Rolling Stone called it "a great album" with the reviewer further stating "they are now creating the most vivid American rock since Music from Big Pink". Allmusic gave the album 5 stars (out of 5) with Stephen Thomas Erlewine stating: "If anything, CCR's third album Green River represents the full flower of their classic sound initially essayed on its predecessor, Bayou Country."

The song "Lodi" describes the plight of a down-and-out musician whose career has landed him playing a gig in the small town of Lodi (pronounced "low-die"), a small agricultural city in the Central Valley about 70 miles from John Fogerty's hometown of Berkeley. After playing in local bars, he finds himself stranded and unable to raise bus or train fare to leave. Fogerty later said he had never actually visited Lodi before writing this song, and simply picked it for the song because it had "the coolest sounding name." However, the song unquestionably references the town's reputation as an uninteresting farm settlement, although the narrator does not mention any specific complaints about Lodi. The song's chorus, "Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again," has been the theme of several city events in Lodi.

Track listing:

All songs written by J.C. Fogerty, except where noted.

Side one

1."Green River" – 2:36

2."Commotion" – 2:44

3."Tombstone Shadow" – 3:39

4."Wrote a Song for Everyone" – 4:57

Side two

1."Bad Moon Rising" – 2:21

2."Lodi" – 3:13

3."Cross-Tie Walker" – 3:20

4."Sinister Purpose" – 3:23

5."The Night Time Is the Right Time" (Napoleon "Nappy" Brown, Ozzie Cadena, Lew Herman) – 3:09

Note: All tracks recorded mid-1969, except for † recorded March 1969

40th Anniversary Edition CD bonus tracks10."Broken Spoke Shuffle" – 2:39

11."Glory Be" – 2:48

12."Bad Moon Rising" (Live in Berlin, Germany, 9/16/71) – 2:07

13."Green River/Suzie Q" (Live in Stockholm, Sweden, 9/21/71) – 4:28

14."Lodi" (Live in Hamburg, Germany, 9/17/71) – 3:19

Widespread Panic: Wood

Please follow the link to read Amy Jacques recent review of Widespread Panic's Wood release.

STS9-Thriller

STS9 debuted covers of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and The Cure’s “The Walk” on Saturday night's show at the Fox Theatre in Hot'lanta. Enjoy! 

Levon Helm Documentary Coming to Movie Theaters in 2013 (Rolling Stone)

The documentary, Ain't in It for My Health: A Film About Levon Helm will be released in movie theaters sometime next year.  Follow the link to read more...