On the turntable this Sunday...Little Creatures

Little Creatures is the sixth album by Talking Heads, released in 1985. The album examined themes of Americana and incorporated elements of country music, with many songs featuring the steel guitar. It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll and is the band's biggest-selling studio album, with over two million copies sold in the US.

The cover art was created by outsider artist Howard Finster, and was selected as album cover of the year by Rolling Stone magazine.

In 2005, it was re-released and remastered by Warner Music Group on their Warner Bros./Sire Records/Rhino Records labels in DualDisc format, with three bonus tracks on the CD side (early versions of "Road To Nowhere" and "And She Was" and an extended mix of "Television Man"). The DVD-Audio side includes both stereo and 5.1 surround high resolution (96 kHz/24bit) mixes, as well as a Dolby Digital version and the videos of "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere." In Europe, it was released as a CD+DVDA two disc set rather than a single DualDisc. The reissue was produced by Andy Zax with Talking Heads.

Red Bull Creation: Superhuman Happiness Experiments with a Brand New Instrument

Please follow the link to read more at Relix.

Lindsey Buckingham to Guest On New Nine Inch Nails Album

Please follow the link to read more at Ultimate Classic Rock. 

An Evening with Oteil and Kofi Burbridge, Roosevelt Collier and Jeff Sipe

Otetil Burbridge, Kofi Burbridge, Jeff Sipe, and Roosevelt Collier will are coming together for a special superjam at the Grey Eagle in Asheville, NC on Thursday, July 18th. 

Tickets to the all ages show are now on sale for $12 in advance, $15 on the day of the show. 

Doors open at 8pm and the music starts at 9pm.

Top Ten Def Leppard Songs (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Please follow the link to read Ultimate Classic Rock's list of the top 10 Def Leppard songs.

John Paul Jones is Writing an Opera, No Led Zeppelin Reunion in 2014 (Jambands.com)

Please follow the link to read more about John Paul Jones' opera and the status for a Led Zeppelin reunion in 2014....

Neil Young to Headline Farm Aid 2013

Please follow the link to read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.

On the turntable this Sunday...Wings Over America

Wings Over America is a live album by the band Wings, released in December 1976 on MPL Communications (in the US, it was released by MPL Communications and Capitol). In its initial release, it was a triple album and included a poster of the band, which reached number 8 in the UK charts and peaked at number 1 in the US. The cover was designed by Hipgnosis, and features a painting of an airliner about to open its cabin door.  The album was a collection of recordings gathered from Wings' Wings Over America part of their world tour. A re-master was released in May 2013.

Originally, Wings Over America was to be a two-record set of highlight performances, but this was rethought due to the success of a bootleg called Wings from the Wings, released as a triple record set, on red, white, and blue vinyl, recorded on 23 June 1976 at The Forum, in California. This caused McCartney to redo the official release as a three-record set which was compiled from all recorded shows of the band's America leg of their world tour that spring, of which, McCartney listened to all of the tapes and selected 5 of the best performances of the whole 28-song set list. McCartney chose and mixed the final set of recordings after 6 weeks of listening during October–November 1976, after having spent September and October repeatedly performing. Numerous songs, however, were taken from the 23 June 1976 show. "Soily" was recorded on 7 June 1976 at McNichols Sports Arena in Denver. Some recordings, however, received studio overdubs. Wings' drummer, Joe English, said that the "overdubs were necessary because of people singing out of tune".

Wings Over America was another success for Wings, reaching number 1 in the US in early 1977 (the last in a 5-album stretch of consecutive number 1 albums for Wings) and number 8 in the UK. For the five Beatles songs included, McCartney elected to reverse the songwriting credit to McCartney–Lennon. Neither former-songwriting partner John Lennon nor his wife Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it." The album came out just a few months after the end of the tour, selling 4 million copies in the US alone. With each disc of the album counted as one unit of sales, this would make sales of 12 million discs. The album was the first triple album by a group to reach number 1, and was a critical success. The album was repressed a month later, in January 1977. "Maybe I'm Amazed" was released as a single, on 4 February 1977, peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US, and at number 28 on the UK chart. There are two related items to the album: the TV documentary Wings Over the World and the Seattle show that was filmed and released as the film Rockshow. Both of which, however, were released 3 years and 4 years, respectively, after the album.

Wings Over America was issued as a double-compact disc in 1984 on Columbia. The album was first released in the UK on compact disc on 26 May 1987 by Parlophone. The album, along with McCartney's Ram and Tug of War albums, was reissued in the US on compact disc on 18 January 1988. The album was issued by EMI two more times on CD, in 1989 and on 19 February 1990.  A 1999 reissue of the album by Toshiba-EMI in Japan reinstated the three-disc format from the original LP issue, and is the only edition of the album to do this. Up to this point, the Japanese CD edition was the only one that was re-mastered. On 14 April 2008, the album was released as a digital download on both iTunes and Amazon. It was removed for some time off of digital music sites in 2010 and 2011, but as of August 2011 it is available for sale on iTunes. The album was reissued on 27 May 2013 as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. Rockshow was also reissued, this time on DVD and Blu-ray, with its audio remixed into 5.1, on 10 June 2013.

‘The Sopranos’ Star James Gandolfini Dies – Steven Van Zandt, Journey + More React on Twitter

Please follow the link to read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.

David Coverdale Hopes To End Fight With Robert Plant

Please follow the link to read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.

Warren Haynes to Play Jerry Garcia’s Wolf Guitar on His Symphony Tour

Please follow the link to read more.  

John Mellencamp Opens Up About His Black Eye (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Please follow the link to read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.

String Cheese Incident to Host Hulaween with STS9 and Big Gigantic

The String Cheese Incident recently announced their plans to host Hulaween with STS9 and Big Gigantic.  Please follow the link to read more. 

Tom Petty Closes Out Bonnaroo 2013

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Bonnaroo 2013 Recap (Spin)

Read more here:

http://m.spin.com/articles/bonnaroo-2013-the-10-best-things-saturday/

For day three recap, please follow the link. 

On the turntable this Sunday...Some Girls

Some Girls is the 14th British and 16th American studio album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1978 on Rolling Stones Records, catalog COC 39108. It peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200, and became one of the band's biggest-selling albums in the United States, and has been certified by the RIAA as having six million copies sold as of 2000. It was a major critical success, with many reviewers calling it a classic return to form, and their best album since 1972's Exile on Main St.

With the advent of punk rock, The Rolling Stones, among many of their musical contemporaries, were being targeted by some in the movement as cultural dinosaurs, compromising their standing. Mick Jagger felt invigorated by the provocations and was determined to answer them lyrically. It helped, however, that almost all the punks had, openly or not, idolized the Stones in the 1960s and were heavily influenced by the band's rebellious records from that era.

At least as important for the band's re-invigoration was the addition of Ronnie Wood to the line-up, as Some Girls was the first album recorded with him as a full member. His guitar playing style meshed with, and was similar to, that of Keith Richards. Wood's slide guitar playing would become one of the band's hallmarks, and his unconventional uses of the instrument are prominent on Some Girls. In addition, Jagger, who had learned to play guitar over the previous decade, contributed a third guitar part to many songs. This gave songs like "Respectable" a three-guitar line-up.

Jagger is generally regarded as the principal creative force behind Some Girls. Richards spent much of 1977 under threat of imprisonment (see below), but he was present at all of the "Some Girls" recording sessions. Jagger claimed in a 1995 interview to have written a great number of the album's songs (though when the amount was pointed out to him he denied that the record was mostly his own), including its signature song, "Miss You". In addition to punk, Jagger claims to have been influenced by dance music, most notably disco, during the recording of Some Girls, and cites New York City as a major inspiration for the album, an explanation for his lyrical preoccupation with the city throughout.

The inspiration for the record was really based in New York and the ways of the town. I think that gave it an extra spur and hardness. And then, of course, there was the punk thing that had started in 1976. Punk and disco were going on at the same time, so it was quite an interesting period. New York and London, too. Paris—there was punk there. Lots of dance music. Paris and New York had all this Latin dance music, which was really quite wonderful. Much more interesting than the stuff that came afterward.

For the first time since 1968's Beggars Banquet, the core band — now Jagger, Richards, Wood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman — would be the only musicians on a Rolling Stones album, with few extra contributors. Ian McLagan, Wood's bandmate from The Faces, played keyboards, harmonica player Sugar Blue contributed to several songs, in addition to saxophonist Mel Collins and Simon Kirke, who played percussion (the three jokingly credited as "1 Moroccan, 1 Jew, 1 WASP"). Jagger's guitar contributions caused the band's road manager, Ian Stewart, to be absent from many of the sessions as he felt piano would be superfluous, making this a rare Rolling Stones album on which he did not appear. An alternate story has Stewart pointedly boycotting most of the sessions, claiming the band was sounding like "bloody Status Quo!"

A serious concern was the issue of Keith Richards and his highly-publicized heroin possession bust in Toronto, Ontario in early 1977, resulting in a very real possibility that he might be sent to jail for years. However, due to the judgment that Richards was very separate from the usual theft and anti-social culture that is associated with heroin use, he was sentenced very lightly. He was ordered to perform a charity show for The Canadian National Institute for the Blind. As a commemoration of his second lease on life following the end of his heroin addiction, Keith reverted his surname to "Richards" with an "s" for Some Girls, after fifteen years without it.

The sessions for Some Girls began in October 1977, breaking before Christmas and starting up again after New Year's before finishing in March 1978. Under their new British recording contract with EMI (remaining with Warner Music in North America only), they were able to record at EMI's Pathé Marconi Studios in Paris, a venue at which they would record frequently for the next several years. The Rolling Stones ended up recording about fifty new songs, several of which would turn up in altered forms on Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. These sessions have also served as a prime source for many bootleg compilations over the years. Engineer for the sessions was Chris Kimsey, whose approach to recording breathed life into the somewhat dense sounding recordings like Goats Head Soup and It's Only Rock 'n' Roll albums. Kimsey's direct method of recording, together with the entrance of the then state-of-the-art Mesa/Boogie Mark I amps instead of the Ampeg SVT line of amps, yielded a bright, direct and aggressive guitar sound. In fact, there have been few Stones sessions as widely bootlegged as these.

There was some controversy surrounded the lyrics to the title song, an extended musing on women of various nationalities and races. The line "Black girls just wanna get fucked all night" drew strong protests from various groups, including Jesse Jackson's PUSH. Jagger famously replied, "I've always said, you can't take a joke, it's too fucking bad," although he was reportedly more conciliatory to Jackson in private, as he claimed the song was intended as a parody of racist attitudes. Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris would have the final say on the controversy with a mock-editorial on the show's Weekend Update segment: After giving the impression that he was going to openly criticize the Stones, he quoted a sanitized version of the "Black girls just..." line, then stated "I have one thing to say to you, Mr. Mick Jagger... where are these women?!?"

35 Years Ago: The Rolling Stones’ ‘Some Girls’ Album Released

The Rolling Stones released Some Girls 35 years ago this week...read more at Ultimate Classic Rock.

Widespread Panic, Avett Brothers and More Highlight Second Day of Mountain Jam

Please follow the link to read more at jambands.com

Bonnaroo 2013: 10 Must-See Acts (Rolling Stone)

Please follow the link to see Rolling Stone magazine's list of the top 10 acts to see at this year's Bonnaroo.

Journey Announce Summer 2013 Tour Dates (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Journey is hitting the road this summer...please follow the link to see if the band is coming to a venue near you.

Widespread Panic and Guests, The Avett Brothers and White Denim at Mountain Jam (A Relix Gallery)

Please follow the link to see the Dino Perrucci gallery of photos taken at Mountain Jam on Friday night...

Doors Drummer John Densmore Comments on Ray Manzarek’s Death

Please follow the link to read John Densmore's comments on Ray Manzarek's death.

On the turntable this Sunday...L.A. Woman

L.A. Woman is the sixth studio album by The Doors, and the last recorded with lead singer Jim Morrison, who died in July 1971, less than 3 months after the album’s release. Its style is arguably the most blues rock-oriented of the band's catalog.

Following the departure of their record producer Paul A. Rothchild (who, contrary to popular myth, loved "Riders on the Storm" but dismissed the group's differing style on "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail music") around November 1970, the band fell in to a state of depression and Jim Morrison was obviously bored with Sunset Sound, the studio in which their first two albums were recorded. Bruce Botnick, their engineer, suggested they record at the Doors' workshop. He and the band began production on the album at The Doors Workshop in Los Angeles. Most of the tracks were recorded live, except for a few overdubbed keyboard parts by Ray Manzarek. Morrison recorded his singing in the studio's bathroom to get a fuller sound. Elvis Presley's bass player Jerry Scheff was brought in to play bass on the album, and rhythm guitarist Marc Benno was brought in so that Robbie Krieger could focus on playing lead guitar during live takes.

Botnick later produced and mixed a new 5.1 Surround version of the album, which was released on DVD-Audio on December 19, 2000. It was produced from the original eight-track analog 1" master tapes.

Early LP editions of the album were uniquely packaged: the album's cover was die-cut to remove a near-rectangular piece of it, with a sheet of transparent plastic on which the cover photo of the Doors was printed, glued in place in its stead. Later pressings featured a conventional cover without the die-cut hole and plastic window, and with the group photo printed on the cover itself.

Kiss Lineup Changes: A Complete Guide

Check out the complete guide to the KISS lineup changes courtesy of Jeff Giles at Ultimate Classic Rock. 

Widespread Panic and John Fogerty Confirmed for Interlocken, Furthur to Play Workingman’s Dead

Please follow the link to read more at Jambands.com

Sam Hatmaker-Free Concert TONIGHT-Market Square, Knoxville, TN

Sam Hatmaker is a friend of The Showbiz Kids and an extremely talented 14-year-old singer/songwriter from Knoxville, TN.  Some of her influences include Loretta Lynn, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, and Kenny Rogers, just to name a few.

Please join Sam Hatmaker tonight for a free concert on Market Square, hosted by the City of Knoxville Special Events.  The concert will begin at 7:00 PM and Sam will be backed by some of Knoxville's finest musicians including Paul Jones, Josh Molen, Kirk Wynn, Clint Mullican, and Chris Robbins.

We will see you there!!

-Will Fisher, The Showbiz Kids

Paul McCartney Reveals Future Archive Collection Plans (Ultimate Classic Rock)

Now that you have had a chance to enjoy the deluxe reissue of Wings Over America, find out what Sir Paul's plans to release next at Ultimate Classic Rock. 

John Fogerty Shares His Differences with the Grateful Dead (Relix)

Please follow the link to read more about John Fogerty's recent interview in the Guardian where he shares his thoughts on the Grateful Dead.

Elvis Costello’s Album With the Roots Coming in September (UCR)

Please follow the link to read more about Elvis Costello's album with The Roots, coming in September.

Warren Haynes Joins Joe Bonamassa in NYC

Please follow the link to check out great Warren Haynes joining the great Joe Bonamassa onstage during his recent shows at the Beacon Theater in NYC.  Good stuff!

On the turntable this Sunday...American Beauty

American Beauty is the sixth album by the rock band the Grateful Dead. It was recorded between August and September 1970 and originally released in November 1970 by Warner Bros. Records. The album continued the folk rock and country music explored on Workingman's Dead and prominently features the lyrics of Robert Hunter.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

The band began recording American Beauty only a few months after the release of Workingman's Dead, and without their regular sound crew, which was out on the road as part of the Medicine Ball Caravan tour (which the Dead were originally scheduled to join), and this led to staff engineer Stephen Barncard replacing Bob Matthews as producer—"a move that irks Matthews to this day." Barncard mused that "I had heard bad stories about engineers' interactions with the Dead but what I found were a bunch of hardworking guys."

Both Workingman's Dead and American Beauty were innovative at the time for their fusion of bluegrass, rock and roll, folk and, especially, country music. Compared to Workingman's Dead, American Beauty had even less lead guitar work from Jerry Garcia, who instead filled the void with pedal steel guitar passages on both albums. It was during the recording of this album that Garcia would first collaborate with mandolinist David Grisman. "I just bumped into Jerry at a baseball game in Fairfax, and he said, 'Hey, you wanna play on this record we're doing?'" commented Grisman.  Phil Lesh, in his autobiography, commented "the magnetism of the scene at Wally Heider's recording studio made it a lot easier for me to deal with Dad's loss and my new responsibilities. Some of the best musicians around were hanging there during that period; with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane, the Dead, Santana, Crosby, Nash, and Neil Young working there, the studio became jammer heaven. Thank the Lord for music; it's a healing force beyond words to describe."

"Truckin'" and "Ripple" were released as singles, and the songs "Box of Rain", "Sugar Magnolia", and "Friend of the Devil" also received radio play. In his book on Garcia, Blair Jackson noted that "if you liked rock'n'roll in 1970 but didn't like the Dead, you were out of luck, because they were inescapable that summer and fall." American Beauty peaked at No. 30 on Billboard's Pop Albums chart (North America), while the single, "Truckin'", peaked at No. 64 on the Pop Singles chart and achieved considerable FM rock radio airplay. It was the final album with Mickey Hart until his return to the band four years later in 1975.

The title wording on the front cover is an ambigram; it can also be read as "American Reality". The artwork was produced by Mouse-Kelley Studios.

Andy Zwerling of Rolling Stone felt that the album was a continuation of Workingman's Dead, though there was more care and contentment in the singing, as well as the instrument playing being rich. Robert Christgau also compared the album favorably to Workingman's Dead, feeling it was "sweeter vocally and more direct instrumentally".

Jason Ankeny in Allmusic feels that the album is the Dead's "studio masterpiece", and in comparing it to Workingman's Dead, it is "more representative of the group as a collective unit".  In 2003, the album was ranked number 258 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The American National Association of Recording Merchandisers placed the album at number 20 in its 2007 list of "definitive 200 albums".

In 1991, Rolling Stone ranked American Beauty's album cover as the 57th best of all time.

Track listing

1."Box of Rain" (Robert Hunter and Phil Lesh) – 5:18

2."Friend of the Devil" (John Dawson, Jerry Garcia, and Hunter) – 3:24

3."Sugar Magnolia" (Hunter and Bob Weir) – 3:19

4."Operator" (Ron McKernan) – 2:25

5."Candyman" (Garcia and Hunter) – 6:14

6."Ripple" (Garcia and Hunter) – 4:09

7."Brokedown Palace" (Garcia and Hunter) – 4:09

8."Till the Morning Comes" (Garcia and Hunter) – 3:08

9."Attics of My Life" (Garcia and Hunter) – 5:12

10."Truckin'" (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, and Weir) – 5:03

The 2003 Rhino reissue, on HDCD, added the following tracks:

11."Truckin'" (Single Edit) (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, and Weir) – 3:17

12."Friend of the Devil" (Live – May 15, 1970 at Fillmore East in New York City) (Dawson, Garcia, and Hunter) – 4:21

13."Candyman" (Live – April 15, 1970 at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco) (Garcia and Hunter) – 5:18

14."Till the Morning Comes" (Live – October 4, 1970 at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco) (Garcia and Hunter) – 3:20

15."Attics of My Life" (Live – June 6, 1970 at Fillmore West in San Francisco) (Garcia and Hunter) – 6:31

16."Truckin'" (Live – December 26, 1970 at Legion Stadium in Wilmington, Los Angeles, California) (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh, and Weir) – 10:10

17."Ripple" (Single Version) (Garcia and Hunter) – 3:02

18.American Beauty radio promo – 1:11

The final two tracks are unlisted. The "American Beauty Promo" is a radio commercial promoting the release of this album.

Read more at Wikipedia

Vampire Weekend, Passion Pit, Kendrick Lamar, Local Natives, Major Lazer, The Gaslight Anthem, Deer Tick and More Confirmed for September Boston Calling

Vampire Weekend, Local Natives, Deer Tick, and Passion Pit are just a few of the artists confirmed for the second Boston Calling festival in September.  Please follow the link to read more about the upcoming festival .