Music News
Gus Stewart/RedfernsA second posthumous solo album from Ramones frontman Joey Ramone will be released on May 15, Rolling Stone reports. Ya Know? will feature unreleased 17 tunes that the singer recorded as demos, both for The Ramones and after the pioneering punk-rock group's 1996 breakup. The tracks were finished by a number of producers, including longtime Ramones collaborator Ed Stasium and ex-Plasmatics bassist Jean Beauvoir.
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IMotorhead.comMotörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister doesn’t want you to buy the band’s new box set. Kilmister recently posted a message on the band’s official website to protest against the release of a 15-disc box set, The Complete Early Years, which features the band’s early recordings and carries the hefty price tag of $600. “Unfortunately greed once again rears its yapping head," wrote Kilmister. “I would advise against [buying] it even for the most rabid completists!”
Kilmister added that
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DeenCastronovo.netJourney drummer Deen Castronovo agreed to a plea deal on Thursday in connection with his arrest last month in Oregon following an apparently violent dispute with his former girlfriend. According to StatesmanJournal.com, the agreement calls for the rocker to attend anger-management classes and do 80 hours of community service.
Castronovo was arrested on January 20 at a home in West Salem after a local resident reported to police that a man and woman were fighting
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Photo: Ash NewellA trio of rock luminaries from Middle America, Styx, REO Speedwagon and Ted Nugent, will team up for a major U.S. tour in the coming months. The trek, aptly dubbed the Midwest Rock 'n Roll Express, is scheduled to make 30 stops across the country during the late spring and early summer. The tour will get under way on May 1 in Hidalgo, Texas, and currently is mapped out through a July 7 concert in Gilford, New Hampshire.
"Forget all those TV shows with glee clubs singing rock songs," Styx guitarist James "JY" Young said in a statement. "It's time for mega-platinum
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The Osbourne FamilyCondolences go out to Ozzy Osbourne and his family, who lost one of their beloved dogs on Tuesday. Ozzy's son Jack revealed in a Twitter post that their English bulldog, Lola, had passed away.
"Lola, you were the best friend anyone could ever have," he wrote. "I will love you and miss you always. RIP."
The pooch appeared frequently on the MTV reality show The Osbournes, and Ozzy's wife, Sharon, offered a humorous profile of Lola on her
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CarnegieStones.comMore stars have been added to the impressive lineup of musicians who will perform at the Rolling Stones tribute concert scheduled for March 13 at New York City's famed Carnegie Hall. Jackson Browne, Ian Hunter, John Sebastian of Lovin' Spoonful fame and New York Dolls singer David Johansen are the latest luminaries to join the event's bill. Among the previously announced artists who will appear at the show are Art Garfunkel, Ronnie
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Dana Nalbandian/WireImagePearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard is auctioning off his electric mandolin to benefit the Seattle Goodwill. The instrument has a few smalls cracks, some wiring issues and apparently doesn't work when hooked up to an amp. In spite of all this, the listing describes it as "a museum quality piece of rock 'n' roll history." Fans can bid on Gossard’s mandolin on eBay.com from now until the auction ends on Thursday
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Facebook.com/TheBeatlesNow, instead of saying "hello" and "goodbye" on your mobile phone, you can have the Beatles do it for you. For the first time ever, Beatles ringtones are now available -- you can buy them exclusively on iTunes. Twenty-seven of the band's classics have been turned into ringtones, including "Hello Goodbye," "From Me to You," "Let It Be" and -- especially for those calls you make to apologize to your significant other for being a jerk -- "We Can Work It Out."
Here's the full list of Beatles ringtones available:
1. "Love Me Do"
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Photo: LeAnn MuellerChickenfoot is getting ready to hit the road this spring for the Different Devil Tour 2012, which will take the supergroup across North America during May and June. As frontman Sammy Hagar revealed recently to ABC News Radio, the trek will kick off on May 4 and 5 with a two-night stand at Harrah's Hotel & Casino in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Hard-rockers Black Stone Cherry will open for the 'Foot at its upcoming shows, which are scheduled through a June 10 concert at Los Angeles' Greek Theater. The outing will include
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MickJagger.comMick Jagger, Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks joined other notable musicians Tuesday night at the White House for a celebration of the blues. President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama hosted the concert in the East Room in recognition of Black History Month.
Obama joked at the start of the event that as president, he can't take a walk or go for a drive. However, he continued, "There are other nights where B.B. King and Mick Jagger come over to your house to play for a concert.
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EMI MusicJudging by comments guitarist Ronnie Wood made recently, The Rolling Stones may be close to finalizing plans for a 2012 tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary as a band. In a new interview with Radio Times, Wood revealed that he and his band mates are "all ready to go" on the much-speculated-about outing.
"[It's just] a matter of tying up loose ends," the rocker told the magazine.
Wood also confirmed that The Stones got together to jam in London in December. "It
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Robert Cianflone/Getty ImagesGuns N' Roses fans in Pennsylvania and Florida just got some good news. On Monday, the band announced that it's added two more dates to its series of intimate shows. Guns N' Roses now will play at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia this Monday and at the House of Blues in Orlando, Florida, on March 3.
Fans can purchase pre-sale tickets for the show in Philadelphia right now, before they're made available to the general public on Wednesday. For the Orlando gig, ticket pre-sales begin Wednesday at 10 a.m. ET, while tickets will be made available to the general public on Thursday.
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TeenageCancerTrust.orgPaul McCartney will headline the second night of the 2012 Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concerts, which will take place from March 28 through April 3 at London's Royal Albert Hall. To kick off this year's edition of the annual fundraising series, The Who's Roger Daltrey will perform on a bill that also will feature former
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Columbia RecordsAs the March 7 release of Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball approaches, the Boss has begun treating fans to a preview of his upcoming album a little bit at a time. Springsteen is allowing one song from the record to be streamed on a different website each weekday for 24 hours from midnight to midnight ET through March 2.
The preview began on Monday, with the tune "Easy Money" being made available at the Backstreets.com fan site. On Tuesday, "Shackled and Drawn" made its online debut at
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MickJagger.comJust a reminder that The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger will be giving his first ever performance at the White House as part of a star-studded blues music celebration taking place in conjunction with Black History Month. President Barack Obama will be on hand for the event, dubbed "In Performance at the White House: Red, White and Blues," which also will feature blues greats B.B. King and Buddy Guy, as well as guitar icon Jeff Beck and Allman Brothers Band members Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks.
Booker
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Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty ImagesBob Seger leads the list of 2012 inductees for the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which also includes Gordon Lightfoot, Jim Steinman, the team of Tom Jones & Harvey Schmidt and Don Schlitz.
Seger obviously needs no introduction, while Canadian folk-rock icon Lightfoot is best known for his hits "If You Could Read My Mind," "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and "Sundown." Steinman's achievements, meanwhile include writing all the songs on Meat Loaf's classic album Bat out of Hell,
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PETER MUHLY/AFP/Getty ImagesQueen's Brian May and Roger Taylor have officially confirmed that they will indeed be joining forces with ex-American Idol finalist Adam Lambert again for a special one-off concert performance this summer. On July 7, the legendary rockers and the up-and-coming singer will headline the second day of the touring Sonisphere Festival's stop at Knebworth Park in Stevenage, England. The set will be a homecoming of sorts for May and Taylor,
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Facebook.com/EltonJohnIf you're an Elton John fan who's been saving all your ticket stubs from his concerts over the years, the folks who run his archives want you to get in touch.
A request has been put out on Elton's official website for ticket stubs -- not the actual stubs, but scans of them. Specifically, the archive is looking for hi-res scans of ticket stubs from any of Elton's concerts, anywhere in the world, but particularly ones from the 1970s. Since John has performed more than 3,000 concerts
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Photo: Rob ShanahanEarlier this month, Yes announced that it had hired Glass Hammer singer John Davison to replace frontman Benoit David on the prog-rock group's upcoming tour dates because David hadn't recovered from an illness that had forced the band to cancel the last three shows of its 2011 European trek. Well, the move is now a permanent one.
In a recent interview with Noise11.com, bassist Chris Squire declared that David had "officially left Yes." This information
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L. Cohen/WireImageThe Beach Boys have released a full-length video for the recently updated version of their classic 1968 hit "Do It Again." The clip features all of the band members who will participate in the group's 50th anniversary reunion tour -- Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Al Jardine, David Marks and Bruce Johnston. The video includes scenes of The Beach Boys recording the song in the studio interspersed with footage of young women and men enjoying various surfside activities, as well as various Southern Californian landmarks.
The track
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Photo: LeAnn MuellerVan Halen launched its North American tour in support of the new album, A Different Kind of Truth, on Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky. The band's former singer Sammy Hagar, meanwhile, has been quoted in the media recently making negative remarks about the record, the first Van Halen studio effort since 1984 to feature original frontman David Lee Roth.
Hagar had more critical things to say about his old band's new music last week at a Las Vegas press event celebrating the mainland U.S. debut of his new Sammy's Beach Bar Rum.
"I think it's great that they
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Photo: Joseph GuayElton John was forced to cancel two performances of his "Million Dollar Piano" show at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas after he came down with a case of food poisoning on Friday. The illness caused him to miss concerts that night and on Saturday. Refunds will be available to all ticket holders.
A statement from the pop star's management offered an apology "to all the ticket buyers who were disappointed over this unavoidable cancellation." The message also insisted that "various online rumors that Elton
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Leni Sinclair/Svengirly.comMichael Davis, longtime bass player for the Detroit heavy-rock band The MC5, died from liver failure at age 68 on Friday in Chico, California, the Detroit Free Press reports. The musician had been diagnosed with hepatitis C in 2005 and often wrote on his blog about his struggles with the disease which he attributed to years of substance abuse.
The MC5 often are cited as a major influence by many heavy metal and punk rock artists, and are perhaps best known for their 1969 debut album, Kick
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Photo: Jane RicheyJourney guitarist Neal Schon has teamed up with his band's original drummer, Steve Smith, to record a new solo album. The first single from the as-yet-untitled effort, "The Calling," is now available as a free download at the veteran rocker's official website, SchonMusic.com.
No release date has been announced for the project, which also will feature a guest appearance by keyboardist Jan Hammer who has recorded several collaborative albums with Schon over the years.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio
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Photo: Elde StewartCrosby, Stills & Nash have lined up their first U.S. tour dates for 2012. The iconic folk-rock trio will play four West Coast shows in early spring, kicking off April 17 in Friant, California, and running through an April 22 stop in San Luis Obispo, California. CSN will precede the stateside performances with a previously announced visit to New Zealand and Australia in late March and early April.
Here are all of Crosby, Stills & Nash's confirmed U.S. dates:
4/17 -- Friant, CA, Table Mountain Casino
4/18 -- Rancho
Photo: Danny ClinchBruce Springsteen's new studio effort, Wrecking Ball, hits stores on March 7. The album finds the Boss turning a critical eye toward the economic and spiritual struggles common people face today in the U.S.
"This is as direct a record as I ever made," Springsteen explained to Rolling Stone. "That's with the possible exception of [his acclaimed 1980 acoustic release] Nebraska, which this record has a lot in common with."
The New Jersey
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SoundCityMovie.comMembers of Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Cheap Trick and REO Speedwagon are among the many famous musicians featured in Sound City, an upcoming documentary that the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl is directing about the famous Los Angeles recording studio of the same name. In conjunction with the film, Grohl has been working on new tracks with a number of artists who have used the facility over
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Boston's Tom Scholz (Gary Miller/FilmMagic)Boston is getting ready to tour for the first time since 2008. The arena rockers have lined up 10 North American dates so far, starting with a June 28 concert in Hollywood, Florida, and running through an August 7 stop in Sturgis, South Dakota.
In a message posted on the band's official website, Boston's lead guitarist and resident mastermind Tom Scholz quips that he felt it was a good time to get the group back on the road this year since the ancient Mayan calendar apparently predicts that
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Harper Collins PublishersGregg Allman's long-in-the-works autobiography, My Cross to Bear, will hit stores on May 1. In a recent interview with ABC News Radio, the Allman Brothers Band leader revealed that he began working on the 400-page tome, which was co-written with author Alan Light, back in 1974.
The memoir chronicles the many highs and lows of Allman's life, from his childhood years through the formation and early success of his iconic Southern
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Facebook.com/BlackSabbathWith guitarist Tony Iommi continuing to battle lymphoma and drummer Bill Ward embroiled in a contract dispute, Black Sabbath has revised its plans to tour Europe this summer. The heavy-metal legends now will play only one concert -- a June 10 set at the Download Festival in Donington, England. Some of the previously announced appearances have been canceled, while for others a supergroup
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