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February 28, 2008
Rush To Release Snakes & Arrows Live
One of my favorite rock groups of all time, Rush, will be releasing a new live CD in early April. The material for this new CD was captured during "Part 1" of the Snakes & Arrows tour while they performed at the Ahoy Rotterdam arena in The Netherlands last October.
The new live album is scheduled for release on April 8, which is just three days before "Part 2" of the Snakes & Arrows tour gets underway with a first-ever performance in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Rock radio listeners can also expect to start hearing the live version of the Snakes & Arrows Track "Workin’ Them Angels" beginning on March 10 when the single is released to rock radio stations nation-wide.
I’ve taken a little heat in the past about my lack of interest in live albums and I confess that I have not changed my ways. However, since Rush — as alluded to earlier — is perhaps my favorite rock group of all time, it’s nice to hear that they are coming out with a new CD. I’m quite happy with my studio version, but more power to all the Rush fans who are eager to get their hands on the live version.
I should also point out that my lack of interest in live albums does not reflect on my feelings with regard to attending a live performance. Listening to a live CD and being present at a live performance are vastly different experiences and I might grab the chance to go see Rush live when they pass through my neck of the woods this summer.
Rush is scheduled to be on the road at least into the end of July, which will complete an ambitious tour schedule that will take them to some cities that they have not visited for ten or more years.
Led Zeppelin Asked To Perform For Charity
It seems as if the poor lads from Led Zeppelin will have no peace until they form up once again to share their legendary sound from the live stage. Now they are being asked to take part in a series of shows at various locations on planet Earth for charity.
World Peace One, a non-profit world peace organization has asked 
Led Zeppelin to perform at a series of concert events around the world. The group has reportedly asked Irish rockers U2 and self-adopted Brit Madonna to join the fun as well.
According to the World Peace One website, their vision is stated to be "ending war and establishing lasting peace for the entire human race." That would sound pretty good to any sane human being and would have to get my vote as human kind’s most impressive accomplishment, considering the insatiable desire our species seems to have to exterminate one another.
By the way, the group hopes to bring peace to the planet within 10 years — a lofty goal to say the least.
The World Peace One concert series is set to kick off on May 17 in Istanbul, Turkey and then travel on to such places as London, Johannesburg and Miami, the United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Colombia, India with additional dates a possibility.
As almost everyone knows by know, Robert Plant appears to be the man holding the cards with regard to any further Zeppelin shows and he has stated that he’s a bit tied up until September due to his commitment to tour with Alison Krauss.
At this point it appears that the chances of Led Zeppelin embarking on a world tour as part of the World Peace One effort are quite slim. Anything is possible, I suppose, but I’d be quite surprised to hear that Led Zeppelin will be involved.
February 27, 2008
Van Halen Postponements Spark Barroom Fight Rumor
Was a barroom dust up the between members of Van Halen over another altercation involving newly-minted VH bassist Wolfgang Van Halen the reason for the recent postponements of two VH shows in Virginia and Georgia?
That is the rumor that is making the rounds and was reported recently on TicketNews. The fact that young Wolfgang is a wee bit too young to be present in a barroom during "business" hours does cast doubt on this rumor, but since we all know celebrity has its privileges, I would be the last one to say that it is impossible.
A Charlottesville, Virginia bar called Rapture is the setting for the rumored fracas and there are said to be to unsubstantiated reports from that area that place the group inside the bar at some point.
Postponing a show for a reason such as this might be expected to result in a situation that resembles the current one, with no official reason for the postponements provided by the band or their representatives thus far.
I must admit I was expecting this rumor to be centered around a fight between someone in the group and some anonymous bar patron. I was a bit surprised to hear that the alleged fight took place within the group! Quite the juicy rumor, this one.
Perhaps the real reason for these postponements will be made known at some point in the future.
Grace Potter And The Nocturnals Treat Fans To New Rock With Classic Sound
I was intrigued when I stumbled upon a recent New York Times story entitled "The Sound of the ’70s From a Singer in Her 20s" for reasons that should be obvious and perhaps a reason or two that is not.
Classic rock fans don’t get to hear a lot of new classic rock, since it is, well, classic. Some classic groups like Rush and Aerosmith are still working and coming out with new music these days and classic rock fans like myself appreciate that.
It is also kind of nice to discover a group of younger artists who have banded together to create new music that sounds like it may have been conceived of back on the 1970’s. When I learned that this group hails from the neighboring state of Vermont, I knew I had to give them a closer look and I really like what I saw, and more importantly, what I heard.
Grace Potter and Nocturnals is the name these four rockers have chosen for themselves and they appear to be making a very good impression on rock fans, including myself.
For me, this group is about getting back to basics. Nothing about their performances strike me as excessively flashy or over-produced — think opposite of Britney Spears. This group is all about good old-fashioned rock and roll and that’s exactly what they sound like.
The clip below was chosen from a number of them that were readily available, but being the well-known sound snob that I am, I chose it for its quality and the fact that I kind of like the "session" feel it has to it.
I’m also a sucker for a great snare drum sound and this is one of the better ones I have heard recently. (If someone happens to know the specifics of that snare, I’d like to know. Feel free to post a comment or drop me a line.)
Listening to lead singer Grace Potter reminds me a bit of Edie Brickell who enjoyed a hit or two back in the 1980’s when she was playing under the banner of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians. The New York Times story compared her to a grittier Patty Griffin, but when I heard her for the first time I knew she reminded me of another singer I had not heard for a while. I was finally able to dredge up the memory of Brickell’s sound from my memory.
This contemporary group could easily be confused with one from the 1970’s and may even make one wonder whether they actually are from that era and somehow managed to transport themselves a few decades ahead in time.
Classic rock fans are strongly encouraged to check this group out.
Check out the full New York Times story here.
Eddie Money Takes A Walk On The Country Side
If you listened to rock radio during the 1980’s you probably know that Eddie Money hits such as "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets To Paradise" were staples of the rock airwaves for a while.
These days Money has decided that he would rather take on the role of country crooner or at least give it a shot and see what happens.
After being convinced by Big 7 Records co-founder Dennis Sanfillipo to try exploring the country side of his musical abilities, Money has begun work on a new album which will include countrified remakes of at least two of his better-known hits.
Some of Sanfillipo’s comments with regard to the new album indicate that country music fans are ready to embrace Money. "I knew Eddie was really well-known, but the way the country people have ingratiated him to the community is really incredible," Sanfillipo said recently.
The first single planned from the new album, which will be called The Other Side of Money, will be a new version of "Give Me Some Water" which was recorded in Nashville with a little help from Vince Gill who provides backing vocals. The new single is expected to be released this coming weekend.
February 23, 2008
Van Halen Postpones Two Shows In The South
So far there is no reason being given for the cancellation of Friday night’s show in Charlottesville, Virginia and the the one that was to follow in Duluth, Georgia.
There is word that the Charlottesville show will be rescheduled for a date in May or June and that tickets for both shows will be honored on the new dates. Official word is expected from organizers soon on the new dates.
Van Halen’s next show is scheduled for March 3 in Dallas, Texas, which should provide enough recovery time for someone in the group who may be suffering with the flu or something like that, but that is just a guess on my part. It is not known if the actual reason for the postponements will be revealed in the future.
In other Van Halen news, it was announced recently that the group has accepted an invitation from golf legend Tiger Woods to perform at his Tiger Jam XI — an event to benefit the Tiger Woods Foundation and other Las Vegas charities.
The event is scheduled for April 19 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Journey Takes To The Stage With New Lead Singer
Newly-hired Journey frontman, Arnel Pineda took to the stage with his new band mates for the first time a few nights ago at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival in Viña del Mar, Chile.
In the video of the performance below, you can see how he took on the legendary Journey ballad "Faithfully."
Personally, I think he holds his own quite well onstage with the group. He’s not quite the shoe-in for the Steve Perry role that Stave Augeri was, but there’s a definite similarity in his style and voice and I think he’ll do quite will in his new role.
Roger Fisher Open To Heart Reunion
Original Heart guitarist Roger Fisher sounds these days like he would welcome a reunion with the Wilson sisters, as well as the other original members of the group.
Heart recently released a new live version of the group’s first album, Dreamboat Annie, which I reviewed here back in October. In that review, I reveal my disappointment that resulted from a performance from the group’s current drummer that fell far short of my expectations for a recreation of an album as brilliant as Dreamboat Annie.
Learning recently that original guitarist Roger Fisher appears to be open to the notion of playing with Ann and Nancy Wilson again and hearing him say that original bass player Steve Fossen original guitar, keyboard player and vocalist Howard Lesse and original drummer Michael DeRosier are still all "active players" makes the idea of a Heart reunion of all original players quite tantalizing.
I did discover, however, that researching the original players led to a somewhat complicated scenario when one considers original drummer, which was he point I was most critical about when talking about the version of Heart that is together today.
I discovered that there were at least three different drummers on the original album. According to Wikipedia, a drummer by the name of Dave Wilson played on "Magic Man," while another guy named Kat Hendrikse played on "Crazy on You," as well as a number of other songs. Then there’s Duris Maxwell who played drums on "How Deep It Goes." This leaves the drummer Heart settled on as their permanent drummer at that time, Michael DeRosier, playing on only two songs, "White Lightning & Wine" and "Sing Child."
It has been a while since I had heard some of those names. Probably as far back as the late 1970’s when I originally bought the album. I also began to wonder who true to the original recordings Michael DeRosier was after joining the band as their permanent drummer. This of course, led me to YouTube, where I discovered a bunch of Heart videos from the 1970’s featuring whom I presume is Michael DeRosier on drums.
Since both "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man" were two big hits from Dreamboat Annie and are also my favorite songs from the album, those were to two I was most critical of when I critiqued current drummer Ben Smith’s performance, and to him I have to offer a partial apology since it appears that DeRosier was not quite true to the original recordings of those songs either, and this may simply be attributable to each performer’s preference and what he thinks sounds best. Obviously, I am heavily biased in favor of the original recordings.
At any rate, what this all boils down to is that I much prefer the work that was laid down on the original tracks by Dave Wilson and and Kat Hendriske when compared to how both Michael DeRosier and Ben Smith approached them, although comparing the work that DeRosier did on subsequent albums with the group places me firmly in his corner if he is to be compared to how Smith currently performs Heart’s material today.
The best quality recording I was able to locate on YouTube was from a performance the group did for what appears to be a German TV program sometime during the late 70’s. All the instruments are obviously off the original recording as it is identical. There’s also the fact that the drums are not mic’d up and you can actually hear them a bit at the end of the performance as their sound bleeds though to the vocal mics or the mic being used by the host. Since there are some vocal "ad libs" by Ann Wilson during the performance, it suggests that the vocal mics (or at least hers) are live during the performance and mixed with the insturmental work from the original recording.
With all that said, I still think it would be great to see the original Heart form up for some kind of reunion. For me, it would be the only way to actually see "Heart" perform again. Call me a "Heart purist" if you must but when it comes to the work I respect as much as what was originally done on Dreamboat Annie, there is no compromising.
Since I’ve probably taken this to a level that far surpasses any interest that someone other than a die hard Heart fan would have in all this information, let me just say that you can check out the performance below if you want to know how a fussy old Heart fan like myself wants to hear "Magic Man" performed.
Thanks to Heartlinker for the pointer to Roger Fisher’s site.
February 21, 2008
Classic Rockers You Should Know, Part 1: Kim Mitchell
This is the first in a series that I plan to do with the hope of introducing some lesser-known classic rock artists to people who may have never heard of them. These certainly are not unknown artists, but I feel that they never really got the attention I believe they deserved from the music industry here in the U.S.
First up is Canadian rocker Kim Mitchell, who I was first introduced to back in the 1980’s when he was fronting a band called Max Webster. The group managed to get some U.S. radio airplay with their song "Battle Scar," which featured the guys from Rush as guest musicians. Any small measure of popularity Max Webster enjoyed here in the U.S. around that time was likely due to that association with Rush.
Kim Mitchell launched his solo career after Max Webster broke up around 1981 and was awarded with at least three Juno Awards for his work between 1983 and 1990.
In 2004 he switched gears and decided to give radio a try and stepped in as the afternoon drive time DJ on Toronto’s Q107, although he never gave up playing music as evidenced by the release of Ain’t Life Amazing last year, his eighth studio album.
Personally, I’ve got just about all of Kim Mitchell’s music going back to the Max Webster days and I still believe the work he did with Max Webster and that he continues to do today does not attract the attention it deserves — at least hear in the U.S.
Due to the obvious restrictions involved when placing music on the web, I’ve decided the best way is probably to use the vast collection of content on YouTube to give readers a taste of the classic rockers that I believe more people should know about.
The YouTube content I choose for this series will depend heavily on the quality of the sound. I’m a notorious sound quality snob and could not bring myself to use fan-filmed footage of some concert that’s accompanied by sound that suggests to me that the event was actually recorded inside a cave somewhere. Despite how good the video quality might be.
The video below is of the professionally-produced variety like you might find on VH1 or MTV and is from Kim Mitchell’s 1989 album, Rockland.
February 19, 2008
Bon Jovi Documentary In The Works
After 25 years rocking fans the world over, the realization that they have skimped a bit on recording the group’s history has prompted Bon Jovi to take action in order to correct the situation.
Bon Jovi has recently hired renowned documentary director Barbara 
Kopple to begin work on a new film that will document the group’s history and include footage of the band from the past as well as new footage that will be captured during the group’s tour that just got underway with the opening show in Omaha last night.
The group’s frontman, Jon Bon Jovi, was recently quoted as saying "I’m guilty of never having had enough film footage or photographs, simply because I kept the doors shut."
Although Jon Bon Jovi and perhaps others in the group may value their privacy more than some other celebrities, they now appear willing to give fans a little bit longer look behind closed doors by way of this new film which tells a story that they want their fans to hear.
There is no word yet on when the documentary will be completed and released to the public.
