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Stone Temple Pilots Release ‘Core’ Reissue Featuring Unreleased Demos, Live Recordings

Jul 27, 2017

Stone Temple Pilots are released a limited edition bundle of the CORE: SUPER DELUXE EDITON which includes a bonus replica 7-inch vinyl single of “Plush” that was originally released in the UK in 1993. This bundle also includes the Core 25th Anniversary Super Deluxe box set with the original album on 180-gram vinyl, an exclusive Core 25th Anniversary album t-shirt, and Core 25th Anniversary 16″ x 20″ lithograph. The remastered original album contains over two hours of unreleased demos and live tracks (including their 1993 MTV Unplugged performance) and a DVD containing a 5.1 surround sound mix and videos for singles “Sex Type Thing,” “Plush,” “Wicked Garden” and “Creep.” The package, limited to 15,000 copies worldwide, comes housed in a hardcover book featuring rare and unseen photographs from the era. The Super Deluxe Edition includes nine demos, with four dating between 1987 and 1990 when the band performed under the band name Mighty Joe Young.

A limited-edition bundle of the deluxe edition – with 1,000 copies worldwide – includes a bonus replica seven-inch vinyl single of “Plush” originally released in the U.K. in 1993. This set is available to pre-order via the band’s website.

Stone Temple Pilots – Core (Super Deluxe Edition) Track List

Disc One: Original Album Remastered

1. “Dead & Bloated”
2. “Sex Type Thing”
3. “Wicked Garden”
4. “No Memory”
5. “Sin”
6. “Naked Sunday”
7. “Creep”
8. “Piece Of Pie”
9. “Plush”
10. “Wet My Bed”
11. “Crackerman”
12. “Where The River Goes”

Disc Two: Demos And B-sides

1. “Only Dying” – Demo *
2. “Wicked Garden” – Demo *
3. “Naked Sunday” – Demo *
4. “Where The River Goes” – Demo *
5. “Dead & Bloated” – Demo *
6. “Sex Type Thing” – Demo *
7. “Sin” – Demo *
8. “Creep” – Demo *
9. “Plush” – Demo *
10. “Sex Type Thing” – Swing Type Version
11. “Plush” – Acoustic Type Version
12. “Creep” – New Album Version
13. “Plush” – Acoustic from MTV Headbanger’s Ball (Take 1)

Disc Three: Live 1993

Live At Castaic Lake Natural Amphitheater (July 2nd, 1993)

1. “Crackerman” *
2. “Wicked Garden” *
3. “No Memory” *
4. “Sin” *
5. “Plush” *
6. “Where The River Goes” *
7. “Sex Type Thing” *
8. “Wet My Bed” *
9. “Naked Sunday” *

Live At The Reading Festival (August 27th, 1993)

10. “Wicked Garden”
11. “No Memory” *
12. “Sin”
13. “Lounge Fly” *
14. “Dead & Bloated”
15. “Sex Type Thing”
16. “Naked Sunday”*

Disc Four: MTV Unplugged (November 17th, 1993)

1. “Crackerman”
2. “Creep” *
3. “Andy Warhol”
4. “Plush” *
5. “Big Empty” *
6. “Wicked Garden” *
7. “Sex Type Thing” *

Disc Five: (DVD) Original Album 5.1 Mix, 24/96 Stereo Audio, And Music Videos

* Previously Unreleased

Via

Gregg Allman Posthumous Album ‘Southern Blood’ To Be Released For September 8

Jul 27, 2017

Rounder Records has announced the release date for Gregg Allman’s final studio album. SOUTHERN BLOOD arrives everywhere on Friday, September 8th.

SOUTHERN BLOOD will be available for pre-order beginning today July 26. A special and unique part of the deluxe package and the first run of the vinyl will be the inclusion of a painting that Allman and his daughter Layla commissioned from visual artist Vincent Castiglia. The beautiful portrait Castiglia painted was made with Gregg’s actual blood in the paint. The process served as inspiration for the album title. On August 4th, a limited edition numbered double-sided picture disc will be available at local record shops or with pre-orders of the album via greggallman.com.

Gregg Allman was undoubtedly among rock and roll’s greatest and most significant artists, his soul-fired and still utterly distinctive voice one of the defining sounds in all of American music. From his founding role in the one and only Allman Brothers Band to his long and storied solo career, Allman consistently proved himself to be an iconic singer/songwriter and exceptional practitioner of the American blues tradition. Allman accrued a remarkable list of honors over his five decade career, including the ABB’s 1995 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and 2012 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 54th Annual GRAMMY Awards. Allman detailed his brilliant career in 2012’s acclaimed memoir, My Cross To Bear. Now available in both hardcover and paperback, the New York Times bestseller chronicles an astonishing life and creative journey burdened by unimaginable loss, alcohol and drug addiction, told with clear-eyed wisdom and sharp hindsight.

SOUTHERN BLOOD serves as a remarkable final testament from an artist whose contributions have truly shaped rock & roll throughout the past four decades. Allman’s first all-new recording since 2011’s GRAMMY Award-nominated solo landmark, LOW COUNTRY BLUES, the album is among the most uniquely personal of the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s career, an emotionally expansive collection of songs written by friends and favorite artists including Jackson Browne, Willie Dixon, Jerry Garcia & Robert Hunter, Lowell George and Spooner Oldham & Dan Penn, meant to serve as a salutary farewell to his legion of devoted fans and admirers. Allman collaborated on his closing project with manager and dear friend Michael Lehman and GRAMMY Award-winning producer Don Was, a longtime acquaintance and staunch supporter committed to helping the rock icon actualize his very specific aspirations.

“As his producer, I was dedicated to helping Gregg crystallize his vision for the record and to help make sure that this vision made it to the tape,” says Was. “He was a musical hero of mine and, in later years, had become a good friend. The gravitas of this particular situation was not lost on me. Gregg was a sweet, humble man with a good heart and good intentions and it was a great honor to help him put his musical affairs in order and say a proper farewell.”

Allman, well aware his time was short, approached the project with an unambiguously realistic agenda. High atop his list of goals was to capture the sound of the ultimate Gregg Allman Band in full flight, considering them the tightest knit combo of all the line-ups that had backed him over his 40+ year solo career. Despite his ongoing health issues, the Gregg Allman Band had picked up right where the Allman Brothers Band left off in 2015, spending nearly two years on the road with tour highlights including the now-annual Allman-curated Laid Back Festival. 2015’s two disc CD/DVD set, BACK TO MACON GA, immortalized Allman and his eight-member band’s floor-shaking live power but their leader was determined to see what the group could do within the confines of the studio.

“Gregg was very excited to be in the studio,” says Lehman. “He was especially thrilled to be recording this studio album with his solo band – he was so proud of them and loved the sound that they produced together. Gregg felt close to every single one of them. The Gregg Allman Band was like a family or a well oiled machine, always knowing what the other band members were thinking and doing.”
“The Gregg Allman Band enabled him to realize a sound that he’d been hearing in his head for decades but was previously unable to achieve. We talked a lot about his first solo LP, LAID BACK – what would that type of album sound like in the modern era played by these cats and fronted by an older and wiser Gregg Allman?”

A further key to Allman’s vision for SOUTHERN BLOOD was his decision to record at the world-renowned FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL. Alongside its own fabled history, the legendary studio occupied a momentous place in Allman’s personal back pages.

“A constant discussion during all of my nearly 15 years working with Gregg was his desire to return to Muscle Shoals,” Lehman says. “He always would talk about how he needed to get back to FAME Studios to bring him full circle.”

“Muscle Shoals is hallowed musical ground,” says Was. “FAME was the place where Gregg’s brother Duane first started making waves in the music world and where the earliest seeds of The Allman Brothers Band were sown in a back room during their first, seminal rehearsals. Duane’s presence is still ubiquitous in that building. Recording there was Gregg’s way of making his spirit a part of this album, in the same way that his spirit continued to be part of Gregg’s life.”

Brother Duane’s presence courses through SOUTHERN BLOOD, from Jackson Browne’s “Song For Adam” – the final verse of which Was says reminded Gregg of his older brother’s premature passing – to the funk-fried “Blind Bats and Swamp Rats,” originally found on the Duane-produced TON-TON MACOUTE!, a lost classic from left-handed blues guitarist Johnny Jenkins. Allman, Was, and Lehman spent significant time plotting out SOUTHERN BLOOD, carefully selecting material that would capture the moment and simultaneously serve as a synopsis of an undeniably extraordinary life. Songs like Bob Dylan’s haunting “Going, Going Gone” and Tim Buckley’s immortal “Once I Was” allowed Allman a chance to look back over his time on Earth while also pondering the journey that lay ahead.

“Gregg, Don and I listened to a lot of material,” Lehman says. “We went back and forth with each other to ultimately come up with songs that Gregg felt reflected his mood, where he was presently in life both on a personal level and professional level, as well as what would be on his fans’ minds later on.”

Allman was of course a gifted and evocative tunesmith in his own right, the award-winning author of such modern standards as “Midnight Rider,” “It’s Not My Cross To Bear,” “Dreams,” and “Whipping Post.” SOUTHERN BLOOD is highlighted by one of the most candid tracks of his long songwriting career, “My Only True Friend,” co-written with Gregg Allman Band guitarist/musical director Scott Sharrard.

“‘My Only True Friend’ was Gregg’s attempt to contextualize the course of his life,” says Was. “The man that his fans saw performing onstage was the essential Gregg Allman – he was whole and truly satisfied when he was up there playing music. The trials and troubles he faced in life were mostly the result of not knowing what to do with himself in between shows. In this song, he’s addressing a woman and explaining that, although he loves her and doesn’t want to face living his life alone, being away on the road and performing every night is his lifeblood. If you understand this about Gregg Allman, every other aspect of his life makes complete sense.”

Sharrard – who also contributes his own show-stopping “Love Like Kerosene” – led the Gregg Allman Band through two weeks of recording, with all nine musicians playing together in the same room and Allman singing live vocals. Despite the undeniable “overtones of finality,” the sessions proved both relaxed and fun for all involved. Though Allman’s diminishing stamina caused the daily sessions to be shortened, he filled each moment in-studio with every ounce of signature Gregg fire and enthusiasm — an intensity that prevailed to the very last note.

“Gregg was not feeling great,” Lehman says, “but being a true professional, he gave it his all as usual. He hit the studio every day for about four or five hours and would typically nail one or two of the songs.”

“Gregg was thrilled that the sound in his head was manifesting itself on the tape,” Was says. “He didn’t have all the lungpower of his younger self, but we felt that these raw, weathered performances were honest and compelling. We all agreed to leave them as they were on the day they were recorded. In the spirit of LAID BACK, Gregg wanted to hear things like background harmony vocals and reverb on his voice but this album is essentially a documentary of our two weeks in the studio.

“Even though I’d known Gregg for a while, I was still blown away to be there with him and to witness his genius up close. I can still remember being swept away by his performances. He was so deeply engaged with the music! Working closely with him reinforced and further enhanced my view that Gregg Allman was one of the greatest artists of this or any time.”

Rich with emotional texture, historical connectivity, and purity of performance, SOUTHERN BLOOD would be a landmark Gregg Allman record under any circumstance, its powerful subject matter and passionate presentation as emblematic an expression of his distinctive art as any prior work in the Allman canon. Though his loss leaves a vast musical space that can never truly be filled, SOUTHERN BLOOD stands tall as a remarkable valedictory and memorial to a true giant of American music, now and forever.

GREGG ALLMAN
SOUTHERN BLOOD
(Rounder Records)
STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 8, 2017
1. My Only True Friend (Gregg Allman-Scott Sharrard)
2. Once I Was (Tim Buckley-Larry Beckett)
3. Going Going Gone (Bob Dylan)
4. Black Muddy River (Jerome J. Garcia-Robert C. Hunter)
5. I Love the Life I Live (Willie Dixon)
6. Willin’ (Lowell George)
7. Blind Bats and Swamp Rats (Jack Avery)
8. Out of Left Field (Dewey Lindon Oldham Jr.-Dan Penn)
9. Love Like Kerosene (Scot Sharrard)
10. Song for Adam featuring Jackson Browne (Jackson Browne)

Watch Patti Smith join U2 onstage in Paris

Jul 27, 2017

On Tuesday night in Paris, punk goddess Patti Smith joined U2 onstage for a performance of “Mothers of the Disappeared.” Trading lead vocals with Bono, Smith sung lyrics from her song “People Have the Power.”

Photo Gallery: Korn with Stone Sour at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage

Jul 26, 2017

All photos taken by Mini’s Memories. You can contact her at minismemories@hotmail.com

An iPod with over two days of music, from 1972

Jul 25, 2017

Imagine if someone tried to create an iPod type device for the home in 1972 using mechanical technology…this is what it would look like.

Dan Zanes and Friends’ ‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ Features Chuck D., Billy Bragg, And More

Jul 25, 2017

Dan Zanes discovered Lead Belly’s music on the day he got his first library card. On ‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ (out 8/25 on Smithsonian Folkways), the GRAMMY-winning family music performer presents a fresh vision of Lead Belly’s music for a new generation with a little help from his friends. Along with guests including Chuck D., Billy Bragg, Aloe Blacc, and Valerie June, Zanes brings the music of this American icon back full circle to its original home on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.

“Lead Belly’s music made me want to play as a 7-year-old, and I’ve been doing that ever since,” says Zanes, who wrote an essay called “Lead Belly, The Grey Goose, and Me” that accompanies the 15-track album. “Lead Belly was the reason I started making music, and Lead Belly was the template for everything I’ve done in family music. I consider him to be the father of modern family music.”

‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ begins, appropriately, with Zanes picking a 12-string acoustic guitar on “More Yet.” Soon, he’s joined by a full band of friends, including a group of children who sing with him.

The album’s songs, many of which have become folk standards, are performed in a variety of styles, showing the broad impact of Lead Belly’s music. “We wanted to bring his approach into the 21st century, to make a living folk record for an icon whose legacy is very much alive,” Zanes says. Zanes acknowledged Lead Belly’s love of wordplay by bringing in MCs including Chuck D. and Memphis Jelks, who trade lines on the popular 19th-century dance song “Skip to My Lou.” Billy Bragg joins Zanes for a psychedelic folk interpretation of “Rock Island Line,” the railroad song that became the anthem of the British skiffle craze of the 1950s. A version of “Cotton Fields” sung in Spanish and English pays tribute to both Lead Belly and norteño great Ramón Ayala, who also had a hit with the song.

Called “the family-music genre’s most outspoken and eloquent advocate” by Time magazine, Zanes, a New Hampshire native who made several albums as a member of the Del Fuegos during the ’80s, has been performing for families since releasing ‘Rocket Ship Beach’ in 2000. With his band, Dan Zanes and Friends, he has released more than a dozen albums and has toured the world sharing handmade 21st-century social music with enthusiastic crowds of kids and kid sympathizers. His ‘Catch That Train!’ won a Grammy for Best Musical Album for Children in 2007.

Zanes and his fiancée, Claudia Eliaza, are pioneers in the sensory-friendly performance movement. The Kennedy Center recently commissioned the two to create the first sensory-friendly folk opera, Night Train 57, slated to premiere in October. “For me, the folk experience is about inclusion and participation — welcoming people in,” Zanes says. “The spirit of Lead Belly’s music that affected me as a 7-year-old drives me to want to create and present in a sensory-friendly atmosphere today.” In addition to making other national performances of Night Train 57, Zanes will tour as “The Lead Belly Project” beginnning in fall 2017.

It is fitting that ‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ will be released by Smithsonian Folkways. The album represents a homecoming of sorts for music of “The King of the 12-String Guitar,” Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter (c.1888-1949), who was a foundational artist for Folkways Records and recorded his most famous work for the label and its founder Moses Asch in the 1940s. Lead Belly was famous for his love of performing for children, often giving concerts at schools around New York. Smithsonian Folkways highlighted this side of the singer with 1999’s ‘Lead Belly Sings for Children’, a collection of songs originally recorded in children’s concerts and studios during the 1940s. In 2014, Smithsonian Folkways celebrated the legacy of one of America’s most treasured 20th-century icons with a career-spanning, 5-CD box set called ‘Lead Belly: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection.’

‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ is Zanes first album for Smithsonian Folkways. It includes a 40-page booklet with lyrics to all songs and liner notes by Zanes and Jeff Place, the Senior Curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections.

‘Lead Belly, Baby!’ Track List:
1. More Yet (feat. Shareef Swindell)
2. Rock Island Line (feat. Billy Bragg)
3. Ha-Ha This-A-Way (feat. Tamar Kali)
4. Julie Ann Johnson (feat. Jendog Lonewolf)
5. Bring Me Little Water, Sylvie (feat. Madame Marie Jean Laurent & Ceddyjay)
6. Polly Wee (feat. Father Goose and Little Goose)
7. Boll Weevil (feat. Aloe Blacc and Pauline Jean)
8. New York City (feat. Claudia Eliaza)
9. Skip to My Lou (feat. Chuck D. and Memphis Jelks)
10. Take This Hammer (feat. Valerie June)
11. Cotton Fields (feat. Sonia de los Santos, Elena Moon Park, & José Joaquin Garcia)
12. Red Bird (feat. Ashley Phillips)
13. Whoa Back Buck (feat. Donald Saaf with Isak and Ole)
14. Stewball (feat. Marley Reedy)
15. Relax Your Mind (feat. Neha Jiwrajka)

Yusuf / Cat Stevens Returns With ‘The Laughing Apple’ Out September 15

Jul 25, 2017

Yusuf / Cat Stevens, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of all time, will release his highly anticipated new album, The Laughing Apple, on September 15. The album will be released under his Cat-O-Log Records logo exclusively through the label that launched his career 50 years ago, Decca Records.

The Laughing Apple follows the common ‘60s template of combining newly-written songs with a number of covers – except that all the covers are from Yusuf’s 1967 catalogue. The Laughing Apple celebrates some of his earliest material, presenting the songs as he has always wished they had been recorded.

“There are some I always wanted to hear differently,” he explains. “Many of my earlier recordings were overcooked with big band arrangements. They crowded the song out a lot of times.”

Yusuf produced The Laughing Apple with Paul Samwell-Smith, the original producer behind Yusuf’s landmark recordings, including 1970’s Tea for the Tillerman, which contained the classics “Wild World” and “Father and Son”. That multi-platinum album became a benchmark of the singer-songwriter movement, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has named it one of the definitive albums of all time.

The Laughing Apple takes listeners to that little garden where the Tillerman sat under the tree, with a charming new illustration by Yusuf. That picture harks back to Tillerman’s younger days when he worked as an apple-picker. Yusuf also has illustrated each of the 11 songs on The Laughing Apple in his naive style, resembling a storybook — for those whose hearts have never really grown old.

When all things were tall,

And our friends were small,

And the world was new.

Those words of Cat Stevens’ Silent Sunlight now seem to reflect most accurately the sentiments of The Laughing Apple. “As you grow older, the sweetness of youth, as Wordsworth expressed in his poem “Splendour in the Grass”, get stronger,” says Yusuf. “Looking back and emotionally drawing on the themes of childhood possibilities and disappointments is what exemplifies this album, for me.”

The new album also marks the return of Yusuf’s longtime musical foil, Alun Davies. Davies, whose graceful acoustic guitar is an essential component of Yusuf’s classic sound, first appeared on 1970’s Mona Bone Jakon and recorded and performed with Yusuf throughout the ‘70s. The Laughing Apple‘s newest songs — “See What Love Did to Me”, “Olive Hill” and “Don’t Blame Them” — possess the reflective insight of a spiritual seeker and the melodic charm that made Yusuf beloved by millions during the ‘60s and ‘70s and still speak to a younger, wide-eyed generation.

‘Mighty Peace’ is the first inspired song Yusuf wrote while still beating the folk-club path in London during the early ‘60s. The song laid fallow for more than 50 years, and, with a newly added verse, finally has made it onto an album. “Mary and the Little Lamb” reflects a similar story: it is an unreleased song that existed only on an old demo, and it also has a new verse. “Grandsons” updates “I’ve Got a Thing About Seeing My Grandson Grow Old”, which now has hung around long enough to fulfill its biographical destiny. (Yusuf is the beloved grandfather of eight little grandkids.) The original version appeared for the first time on the 2000 edition of The Very Best of Cat Stevens.

Other highlights of The Laughing Apple include new versions of ‘Blackness of the Night’, “Northern Wind (Death of Billy the Kid)”, “I’m So Sleepy” and the title track, four songs that appeared in their original incarnations on New Masters, a 1967 album largely unknown in the US.

The album also contains “You Can Do (Whatever)”, a song originally intended for the film “Harold and Maude” that remained unfinished until now.

2017 is a milestone marking 50 years of Yusuf / Cat Stevens’ amazing musical history. In 1967, Decca released his debut album, Matthew and Son, on its Deram Records subsidiary.

Yusuf’s music has established him as a timeless voice for all generations. His songs are used regularly in films and television shows, with “Father and Son” playing during a crucial scene in the blockbuster movie Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

A recipient of The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates’ Man of Peace award and the World Social Award, Yusuf continues to support charities such as UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Tree Aid through The Yusuf Islam Foundation in the UK.

Full tracklisting of The Laughing Apple below:

Blackness of the Night
See What Love Did to Me
The Laughing Apple
Olive Hill
Grandsons
Mighty Peace
Mary and the Little Lamb
You Can Do (Whatever)!
Northern Wind (Death of Billy the Kid)
Don’t Blame Them
I’m So Sleepy

Åke Blomqvist Teaches You How To Disco

Jul 25, 2017

Åke Blomqvist (1925-2013) was a Finnish dance instructor, and together with his wife Leena, he ran dance schools in Helsinki, Tampere and Lahti. Åke was the host of a dance program that went on Saturday in Finnish TV. In 1980, he showed how to dance disco, and enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie!

Tegan And Sara Announce “The Con” Cover Album For Charity

Jul 25, 2017

This week was the ten-year anniversary of the release of Tegan and Sara’s acclaimed album The Con. To mark the date, the dynamic duo announced an album where 14 different artists will cover the album’s various tracks. Proceeds from the album, to be released Oct. 13, will benefit the duo’s foundation supporting “economic justice, health, and representation for LGBTQ girls and women.” They posted a note on their website today.

When we released The Con exactly 10 years ago today – July 24, 2007 – we had been on earth for 9,390 days. Another 3,650 days have passed since then and if we’re lucky we could live another 12,510 days. In a way, we’re at the hallway point of our lives; “halfway to death” as our Dad ominously told us on his 35th birthday. This was also the kind of existential number-crunching we were doing during our 26th year on earth in 2007, and The Con was born from that experiential panic.

To commemorate the impact The Con had on our career and songwriting, today we are very excited to announce The Con X: Covers, a new album featuring 14 of our favorite artists covering all 14 songs from the original album. When I hear another band or artist cover one of our songs it can be indescribable and pleasantly disorienting – creating hope where there was originally hopelessness or joy where there was only ever regret. A pop song can become a claustrophobic ballad, or an anguished confession might be transformed into a euphoric mantra. In some ways hearing someone else interpret something so familiar is a way to finally be freed from the personal history of the song and to hear it for the first time.

The Con X: Covers will be released on October 13, 2017, and we are especially excited to announce that our record label, Warner Bros., will be donating net album proceeds to The Tegan and Sara Foundation, working in support of LGBTQ girls and women. Our next announcement will include the full list of artists (be patient!), and for now we want to thank each and every one of them for donating their time and talents to this cause that we are so passionate about.

xo Sara (and Tegan)

Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” Featured In Steven Spielberg’s ‘Ready Player One’ Movie Trailer

Jul 24, 2017

Steven Spielberg showed the first trailer for his next film, Ready Player One, at Comic Con in San Diego this weekend. What was even cooler was to hear Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” providing the soundtrack to ax exciting chase scene featuring hundreds of VR-controlled police robots.

https://youtu.be/VE71JOvLPvE