Beatles fans with half-a-million dollars to spare may want to grab a ticket to ride to the ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair, which returns to Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory from April 4-7.
The 64th edition of this celebrated book fair boasts a rare piece of Beatles memorabilia that is up for sale: Paul McCartney’s handwritten rough draft of the Beatles classic “Lovely Rita” from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, one of the most acclaimed and influential rock albums of all time. On a piece of paper, torn from a spiral notebook, you can check out McCartney’s first go at the lyrics in black ink, as well as Macca’s later revisions in blue ink (he changed “writing all the numbers in her little black book” to “filling in a ticket with her little blue pen,” neither of which made it to the final product). Biblioctopus Rare Books brings the item to the fair with an asking price of $650,000.
That piece of Beatles history is far from the only bit of music memorabilia available for viewing (and purchase) at the book fair. Royal Books, Inc., is selling three alternate artwork proof designs for the Pixies’ 1989 cult classic Doolittle, designed by Vaughan Oliver with photography by Simon Larbalestier. Elsewhere at the fair, B&B Rare Books is set to host a collection of vintage Nirvana posters and flyers, including one from Dec. 1988, as well as an MTV guest book from the late ‘90s, signed by everyone from *NSYNC to TLC to Foo Fighters. And Schubertiade “B” Dry Goods has everything from a Bob Dylan paper dress from the ‘60s to a Nat “King” Cole Trio bowtie rack to a tank top signed by Miles Davis (the shirt is, in fact, a Kind of Blue).
Details about the ABAA New York International Antiquarian Book Fair can be found at nyantiquarianbookfair.com.
Celebrating nearly five decades of musical friendship, guitarists Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have collaborated on music for the first time. Releasing tomorrow (Friday, March 29), “The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1” showcases the unmatched synergy between these two legendary guitarists as they seamlessly trade solo sections throughout the nearly six-minute opus, Teaming up with Satch and Vai on the track are Eric Caudieux on keyboards, who also served as co-producer the song, with the rhythmic backbone provided by Matt Chamberlain on drums and Matt Bissonette on bass.
A music video, directed by Z.Z. Satriani, takes this concept one step further with a whimsical look imagining what the beginning of that friendship might have looked and sounded like way back in the 70’s. The video will also premiere on March 29 at 9:00am PT/12pm ET. Check out the trailer below.
Of the inspiration behind the new song, Satriani commented, “When Steve and I decided the time had finally come for us to collaborate on an album I immediately thought of our humble beginnings, where we came from, and our teenage rock ’n’ roll hopes and dreams. To anybody else it may look like just a field, part of the sprawling Carle Place Public School complex, but for some of us, back in the early 70s, when the sun went down and the moon came up, it became 'The Sea of Emotion'.”
”We would hang out there late at night and share our deepest thoughts with each other. For me and my closest friends, it was a magical place, this field right outside the back of the Rushmore gym. The memories we shared at that location so long ago became the inspiration for a musical journey in three parts. Each part of the song has little reminders of what we were so into musically back then, including a chord sequence that Steve and I would sometimes jam over during guitar lessons.”
Vai echoes the sentiment about their hometown, “This song, and its additional two parts, are inspired by a giant field outside the High School of the town Joe and I grew up in. As young teenagers, we would sit overlooking this magnificent field and wax on generously for hours about the meaning of life and many other deep, rich discussions, so we deemed this field, 'The Sea of Emotion'. Fifty years later, it has been memorialized in melody and groove.
“Connecting with Joe on this track, and the other music we are working on, is perhaps the most rewarding musical collaboration I’ve ever engaged in. Although we’ve toured and recorded jams together through the decades, for this music we are intimately bringing together our melodic impulses and playing techniques and creating something that is bigger than the sum of its parts.”
The Satch-Vai tour opened on March 22 in Orlando, FL. The tour continues on, hitting Atlanta, Boston, New York, DC, Detroit, Minneapolis and more before winding up in Santa Rosa, CA, on May 12 with 38 shows in total. This tour also marks the first time that the long-time friends have joined together as a duo bill.
Satch and Vai’s musical careers have been intertwined since their very early days. Satriani served as Vai’s guitar teacher during their teenage years on Long Island, New York. Their connection has continued to evolve over the years, even sharing record labels, starting at Relativity Records in the late 80’s, to both calling Sony/Epic Records home for a significant portion of the 90’s. Together, they have also frequently teamed up with a third guitarist on multiple occasions throughout the span of 29 years, participating in the semi-annual G3 Tours, both in the U.S. and abroad.
The Satch-Vai Tour itinerary
March 29 North Charleston, SC North Charleston Performing Arts Center
March 30 Durham, NC Durham Performing Arts Center
April 2 Charlotte, NC Belk Theater
April 3 Richmond, VA Dominion Energy Center
April 5 Boston, MA Orpheum Theatre Boston
April 6 New York, NY Beacon Theatre
April 7 Waterbury, CT Waterbury Palace Theater
April 8 Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Center for the Arts
April 10 Collingswood, NJ Scottish Rite Auditorium
April 11 Washington, DC Warner Theatre DC
April 13 Northfield, OH MGM Northfield Park
April 14 Rochester, NY Kodak Center Theater
April 16 Detroit, MI Fisher Theatre
April 18 Chicago, IL Chicago Theatre
April 19 Cincinnati, OH Andrew J. Brady Icon Music Center
April 20 Fort Wayne, IN Embassy Theatre
April 21 Indianapolis, IN Murat Theatre
April 23 Milwaukee, WI Riverside Theater
April 24 Minneapolis, MN State Theatre
April 25 Des Moines, IA Des Moines Civic Center
April 26 Springfield, MO Gillioz Theatre
April 28 La Vista, NE The Astro
April 29 Salina, KS The Stiefel Theatre
April 30 St. Louis, MO The Factory
May 1 Kansas City, MO Uptown Theater
May 3 Austin, TX ACL Live at The Moody Theater
May 4 Dallas, TX Music Hall at Fair Park
May 5 Houston, TX 713 Music Hall
May 7 Denver, CO Paramount Theatre (SOLD OUT)
May 8 Salt Lake City, UT Delta Hall at Eccles Theater
May 10 Valley Center, CA Harrah’s Resort Southern California
May 11 Wheatland, CA Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
May 12 Santa Rosa, CA Luther Burbank Center for the Arts
Talk, the 14th studio album by prog-rock pioneers Yes, was initially released on March 21, 1994, and is often referred to as the great ‘lost’ Yes album. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Spirit of Unicorn Music will reissue the album as a four-CD Deluxe Edition featuring bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from New York, new interview with the principal players by Jerry Ewing, a double-LP limited edition white vinyl set, and a single CD.
After the stellar success of their 1983 album 90125 and the slightly troubled birth of its follow-up Big Generator in 1987, which reached the top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic, Yes splintered once more. There was talk of getting a new singer, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson was one name bandied around, as were Kansas singer Steve Walsh, Billy Sherwood of World Trade, and even “C’est La Vie” singer Robbie Nevil.
Eight of the band's members of Yes reunited for 1991’s Union album and a tour to follow. From those eight, a new Yes emerged: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Rick Wakeman. Due to managerial reasons, Wakeman could not participate, so enter Tony Kaye on keyboards once more and the 90125 line up was back together. Yes also had a new label, Victory Records, headed up by the former Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson, who had personally bankrolled the “Cinema/90125” sessions.
The music and lyrics for Talk were written mainly by Rabin and Jon Anderson, and Anderson is adamant that it is his favorite album from the Rabin era of the band, “It was just a beautiful time for me and Trev… it was a very harmonious experience for me.”
Talk was also one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape. It was a groundbreaking move at the time, but the technology, as advanced as it was, was not without its problems. In January 1994, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in California was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale, and production had to be halted as the early Apple Mac computers they were working on were being affected by the tremors. To put the technology into context now, in its unedited form, Talk took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.
Talk was preceded by the release of the opening track, the uplifting “The Calling”, which started to make inroads on US Radio and was followed by “Walls”, which was co-written by Roger Hodgson, from his time working with Rabin in 1990. However, disaster loomed as Victory Music, the original label, went bankrupt shortly after the album’s release, and the album was left to wither and die.
Nevertheless, Yes kicked off their US tour for Talk that June and played 77 shows in the US, Canada, South America and Japan. Sadly, the tour never got to Europe or the band’s homeland, which is a source of regret to both Rabin and Anderson. Footage of the show in Santiago, Chile, is available online and shows a band playing at their peak. “My regret is I wish there was a live album,” says Rabin. “I wish we recorded some shows properly, it’s just a board mix….but you can feel the energy from it.”
The Talk tour ended at Hiroshima’s Kousei Nenkin Kaikan on October 11, 1994. It would be the last time Trevor Rabin would play with as a full-time member of Yes.
Talk could be described as the great ‘lost’ YES album and is probably the most cohesive of the Rabin-era YES albums in sound, and the one closest to the classic Yes sound of the 70s, exemplified by the stunning fifteen-minute album closer “Endless Dream.” “When I listen to ‘Endless Dream’ it’s such a great piece of music,” Anderson enthuses today. “It’s one of the great Yes pieces of music that not many people know. It’s beautiful. And ‘The Calling,’ I love it.”
Stray Cats — Brian Setzer (guitar, vocals), Lee Rocker (upright bass, vocals) and Slim Jim Phantom (drums, vocals) — will rock their way across America this summer when they return to the road for a three-week tour on July 27. The three-piece band’s trek will include stops in Bend, Los Angeles (two shows in Costa Mesa), San Diego, Denver, New York City and more before wrapping up August 17 in Bridgeport, CT. They’ll be joined for these dates by The Midnight Cowgirls as the support act.
Tickets go on sale this Friday, March 29 at 10:00 AM (local time). An artist fan club presale kicks off Wednesday, March 27 10:00 AM (local time); sign up for the band newsletter at Straycats.com to get access.
These shows will mark the Stray Cats’ first performances since the release of their critically acclaimed 2019 album 40 and subsequent reunion tour, which they followed with a live album, Rocked This Town: From LA To London, in 2020.
Stray Cats 2024 concert dates are as follows:
7/27 - Chateau Ste. Michele Winery - Woodinville, WA
7/28 - Hayden Homes Amphitheater - Bend, OR
7/30 - Mountain Winery - Saratoga, CA
8/1 - Pacific Amphitheatre - Costa Mesa, CA
8/2 - Pacific Amphitheatre - Costa Mesa, CA
8/3 - Rady Shell at Jacobs Park - San Diego, CA
8/6 - Mission Ballroom - Denver, CO
8/8 - Bluestem Center for the Arts - Moorhead, MN
8/9 - Ledge Amphitheater - Waite Park, MN
8/10 - Hard Rock Casino Northern Indiana - Gary, IN
8/12 - Rose Music Center at The Heights - Huber Heights, OH
8/13 - Artpark Outdoor Amphitheater - Lewiston, NY
8/15 - The Rooftop at Pier 17 - New York, NY
8/16 - Ocean Casino Resort – Ovation Hall Atlantic City, NJ
Bruce Springsteen returned to performance last week in Phoenix, taking the stage with the E Street band to relaunch their world tour after a six-month break due to the singer’s battle with peptic ulcer disease.
In an interview with E Street Radio host Jim Rotolo, the 74-year-old musician said there was a point recently when he feared he might never perform live again.
“Once I started singing, you know, you can rehearse singing, but your voice isn’t the same in rehearsal. You don’t have that edge of adrenaline that really pushes it into a better place and the thing when I had the stomach problem, one of the big problems was I couldn’t sing,” said Springsteen, who paused the E Street’s planned 2023-2024 world tour in September due to the serious effects of the gastro disease; 29 shows were postponed as a result of the medical issue.
“You sing with your diaphragm. My diaphragm was hurting so badly that when I went to make the effort to sing, it was killing me, you know?,” he said. “So, I literally couldn’t sing at all, you know, and that lasted for two or three months, along with just a myriad of other painful problems.” At a certain point, Springsteen said he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to return to his signature high-energy performance style at all.
“I was, during the course of it, before people told me, ‘Oh no. It’s gonna go away, and you’re gonna be OK,’ you know, you’re thinking like, ‘Hey, am I gonna sing again?’ and you know, this is one of the things I love to do the best, the most, and right now I can’t do it.,” Springsteen said. “You know, I can’t do it, and it took a while for the doctors to say, ‘Oh no. You’re gonna be OK.’ At first, nobody was quite saying that, which made me nervous, you know, and at the end of the day, I found some great doctors, and they straightened me out, and I can’t do anything but thank them all.”
In Phoenix on March 19, Springsteen and the E Street Band rocked through 29 songs without even mentioning the medical issue until the final song of the set. “I had a motherf–cker of a bellyache,” he told the crowd near the end of the two hour and 45 minute set.
The Springsteen tour continues tonight (March 25) at Pachenga Arena in San Diego.
"I guess the way that your love makes me feel/Must mean I’m really addicted," sings Ozzy Osbourne on “Crack Cocaine,” the newly released track out today (March 21) from Billy Morrisons’s new solo album The Morrison Project, due April 19 via The Label Group’s partnership with TLG|ZOID through Virgin Music Group.
This collaboration also features Steve Stevens on guitar and was co-written by Morrison, Osbourne, and Stevens who all appear in the video with Paris Jackson playing the glamorous/romantic interest, with cameos from visual artist Risk and actor Jeff Hilliard. Check out the video below.
“Crack Cocaine” marks the first new song with Osbourne on vocals since the 2022 release of his last solo album, Patient Number 9, which earned him two Grammy Awards (“Best Rock Album,” “Best Metal Performance”). “I was in the same room as Billy and Steve,” says the singer about co-writing the song. “The lyrics just came out of the blue. It was written in about 20 minutes.”
Morrison, primarily known as Billy Idol’s rhythm guitar player for the past 15 years alongside lead guitarist Steve Stevens—sheds more light on the song’s origins: “The music was a direct result of sitting in a room with Steve, both with de-tuned guitars, and writing what we felt was an ultimate Ozzy riff. From there, we brought Ozzy over, and we all sat around working on the lyrics, but 90% of those came from Ozzy himself. He’s the one that suddenly stood up and sang “Like Crack Cocaine”!! We looked at each other and knew we had the title!!”
Importantly, reveals Stevens, “First and foremost, Billy and I discussed what an Ozzy fan would really love to hear. We really zeroed in on the ‘90s-era Ozzy, the truly heavy stuff. We cast aside any rules both musically and lyrically. It was really a great team and Billy is just such a great motivator. Obviously as a guitarist, to contribute to an Ozzy song is like a kid in a candy store. He’s played with such an amazing array of guitarists that I tried my best to honor that tradition.
“I think the fact that Billy and I have spent the better part of 16 years working together in Billy Idol means we are almost telepathic in how we arrange guitars, etc. Billy and Ozzy have such an amazing friendship that it was easy to feel inspired and want to help them achieve any idea I could assist with. As we worked in my home studio, I tried to make the actual recording process almost invisible. Forget any technical aspects and really have some fun. To Ozzy’s credit, he was totally focused—and man the first time I heard him sing in what was essentially my living room, fucking chills ran down my spine.”
“Crack Cocaine” is the second single/video from The Morrison Project and follows the single/video “Drowning,” which you can view below.
For The Morrison Project — his third solo album and first since 2015 — Morrison has assembled an electrifying 12 songs including guest performances by Ozzy Osbourne, Billy Idol, DMC, Al Jourgensen, Steve Vai, Steve Stevens, Linda Perry, Tommy Clufetos, John5, and more.
Celebrating Record Store Day at participating stores starting April 20, 2024, Mercury Studios will exclusively release Def Leppard’s One Night Only Live at The Leadmill Sheffield on double silver vinyl.
On the eve of the band’s largest UK/ European run ever (including a sold out night at Wembley Stadium) and on the heels of launching their critically acclaimed and chart-topping new album, Drastic Symphonies (recorded at the renowned Abbey Road), Def Leppard streamed a one-off live performance from the historic Sheffield venue, The Leadmill.
This unique set was from one of the most intimate shows the band has played in the UK or Europe in over 35 years, giving their fans the chance to hear and see the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inducted band up close performing an extraordinary stadium style set in a club setting.
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