EAT MY SHORTS: BITES FROM THE BIZ
- JOURNEY TO RELEASE ‘REVELATION’ IN JUNE
BILLY JOEL ADDS TOUR DATES
LOU REED TAKES ‘BERLIN’ ON THE ROAD
VAN MORRISON BANS ALCOHOL
NIKKI SIXX UPDATES MOTLEY CRUE
RUSH SHAKING UP SET LIST
OZZY SAYS SABBATH REUNION POSSIBLE
McCARTNEY - MILLS JUDGEMENT MONDAY
R.E.M. ‘ACCELERATES’ THEIR POLITICAL MESSAGE
FLASHBACK: THE BEATLES RELEASE ‘LET IT BE’
NICK LOWE ANNOUNCES U.S. TOUR DATES
Nick Lowe is hitting the road for a series of dates, starting on April 8th in Sellersville, Pennsylvania.
JOURNEY TO RELEASE ‘REVELATION’ IN JUNE WITH NEW SINGER
Journey will release a new three-disc set, called Revelation, on June 3rd featuring one CD of new music. The first disc features 11 re-recorded classics, the second will include 11 new tracks, and the third is a concert DVD. The latest line-up includes new singer Arnel Pineda, guitarist Neal Schon, keyboardist Jonathan Cain, bassist Ross Valory and drummer Deen Castronovo. Journey are also planning a tour that’s set to kick off in July. Details will be announced in the coming weeks.
BILLY JOEL ADDS TOUR DATES TO ITINERARY
Billy Joel has added several dates to his upcoming itinerary, including a handful of shows at Uncasville, Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Arena.
LOU REED TAKES ‘BERLIN’ ON THE ROAD
Lou Reed has revealed plans to take his Berlin show on the road this year — in Europe only. Participating in a keynote interview on Thursday (March 13th) at the South By Southwest Music Conference in Austin, Texas, Reed said that he would be playing the Berlin album in its entirety on a summer trek of Europe, where the 1973 album is enormously popular. Reed did not give any reason for why he would not play shows in the U.S., but veteran music producer Hal Willner, who was interviewing him, noted that Reed “probably can’t afford'’ to bring the show to these shores, where the audiences would be presumably smaller.
VAN MORRISON BANS ALCOHOL AT HIS SHOW
Van Morrison surprised those attending his Wednesday night (March 12th) performance at the South By Southwest Music and Media Conference by refusing to allow alcohol to be sold or served at the venue, La Zona Rosa. A spokesman for Lost Highway Records, Morrison’s label, told us that the no-alcohol police was ‘’his choice… basically part of his deal for the show'’ but offered no explanation for Morrison’s decision. Leaving the gig, fans were given promotional Van Morrison pens as a kind of apology.
FLASHBACK: THE BEATLES RELEASE ‘LET IT BE’
It was 37 years ago Sunday (March 16th, 1970) that the Beatles released “Let It Be,” their final single in America prior to breaking up. The track was actually over a year old, having been recorded on January 31st, 1969, during the group’s ill-fated “Get Back” sessions which were originally conceived as a TV special chronicling the Beatles’ stage comeback. The sessions instead became the Let It Be movie which chronicled the disintegration of the band.
RUSH SHAKING UP SET LIST FOR NEXT SET OF SHOWS
Rush drummer Neil Peart has revealed that the band will shake up its set list for the next leg of its Snakes & Arrows tour, which begins on April 11th in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Peart wrote at his personal blog, “We had planned to end the tour in Europe last fall, but apparently more people want to see us, or see us again, so we were asked to do more shows. Some of them will be in places we haven’t got to for a while, like New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Winnipeg, and that is nice, plus we plan to make a few changes to the set list and presentation to freshen it up a little.”
NIKKI SIXX GIVES UPDATE ON MOTLEY CRUE, PERSONAL LIFE
Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx has posted an update on the progress of the new Crue album, the first full-length recording by the original lineup in more than a decade. Sixx wrote at his personal blog, “The studio has been flowing nicely. We were all together again today plotting, planning, designing, listening and the band seems to have the old bite back, but we will let you be the judge of that when it’s time. I do know the people around us, the ones we can trust, are feeling the magic from the songs, so maybe it’s not only in our heads?”
OZZY OSBOURNE SAYS BLACK SABBATH REUNION WILL HAPPEN ‘IF IT HAPPENS’
Ozzy Osbourne told the Sydney Morning Herald that he has no idea whether he’ll reunite with Black Sabbath for a 40th anniversary concert tour, saying, “If it happens, it happens, if it don’t, it don’t.” Osbourne added, “They’re (saying), ‘I’ll be able to do it’, then a week after, you get a phone call: it’s off; then it’s back on again.” This echoes comments that Osbourne made to us about the chances of going on the road with Sabbath again: “You know what? I don’t want to say yes, and I don’t want to say no, because I’ve put my foot in my mouth so many times. If it’s meant to happen, it will happen.”
R.E.M. ‘ACCELERATES’ THEIR POLITICAL MESSAGE
R.E.M. rolled out a generous amount of new material and stuck a strong political tone during its appearance at the South By Southwest Music and Media Conference in the early hours of Thursday (March 13th) in Austin, Texas. The group played 10 songs from its forthcoming album, Accelerate, which is due out April 1st. There was a minimum of hits ('’Drive,'’ ‘’Fall On Me,'’ ‘’Man On The Moon'’), but the group did dig out obscure favorites such as ‘’Second Guessing'’ and ‘’Auctioneer,'’ as well as album tracks like ‘’Walk Unafraid,'’ ‘’Electrolite,'’ and ‘’The Great Beyond,'’ which frontman Michael Stipe said R.E.M. hasn’t rehearsed in two years
PAUL McCARTNEY - HEATHER MILLS DIVORCE JUDGEMENT EXPECTED ON MONDAY
A judgment in the divorce case between Paul McCartney and estranged wife Heather Mills is expected to be handed down in a London High Court on Monday (March 17th), according to Reuters.