Classic Hits

Aerosmith has crapped out in Las Vegas.

The band has canceled the remainder of their Deuces Are Wild Las Vegas residency — two shows, scheduled for Thursday night and this Sunday — due to frontman Steven Tyler‘s ongoing illness. “On the advice of doctors, Steven has to sit these out,” the band wrote on Instagram. Tickets will be refunded.

The band had already scrapped the December 2 and 5 shows of the residency at Dolby Live theater at Park MGM due to Tyler’s undisclosed illness. At the time, Tyler, 74, said on Instagram, “On the advice of my doctor, I’m taking more time to rest… there is nowhere we’d rather be than on stage surrounded by the greatest fans in the world.”

In May, Aerosmith canceled their June and July Las Vegas residency shows so that Tyler could “voluntarily” enter rehab, with the band explaining at the time that he’d relapsed after using pain medication following foot surgery.

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Following their successful North American stadium tour this past year, Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe are ready to rock the entire planet with their co-headlining 2023 The World Tour — and they’ve just announced that the U.S. will be a part of it.

As previously reported, the two bands will start 2023 with two shows in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in February, and will then launch a series of European and Latin American dates. They’ll bring the tour to the U.S. starting August 5 in Syracuse, New York, and wrap up August 18 in El Paso, Texas. Alice Cooper is the special guest on all dates.

“We had an incredible time playing The Stadium Tour in North America this summer and we truly can’t wait to take the show around the globe with The WORLD Tour in 2023,” Mötley Crüe said in a joint statement. “Crüeheads get ready because we have a few amazing U.S. dates set for you!”

The general onsale date is Friday, December 16, at 10 a.m. local time via motley.com and defleppard.com. Citi cardmembers can access a presale starting December 13 at 10 a.m. local time via citientertainment.com.

The global outing follows Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard’s 2022 U.S. Stadium Tour, which also featured Poison and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts on the bill.

Crüe guitarist Mick Mars announced in October that he’s retiring from touring. Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 will take his place for the upcoming shows.

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Even though Elton John‘s ending his touring career, he’ll continue to make music. In fact, he believes he’ll never have writer’s block and will always be able to come up with new songs, because he’s just so much better than everyone else.

During a conversation with Elton, his husband, David Furnish, and ex-Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele about fashion, creativity and philanthropy for Saks Live Events, Furnish tells Elton he’s amazed that he and other musicians haven’t “run out of notes” yet when it comes to writing songs, since there are only a finite amount of them.

“Somebody will run out of notes, but I won’t,” Elton declares. “Most people will run out of notes, but I will not  — because I just have faith … that something will happen.”

“Also I’m a better musician than most people,” he boasts. “I’m a piano player, so … I don’t just use three or four chords.” He then admits, “I know it sounds really egotistical to say that, but I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think that.”

Elton also dismisses American musicians’ fashion sense, saying they “never really got it as far as dressing [up onstage].” “American rock ‘n’ roll acts were usually just very boring to look at. They were just like, ‘Oh, God,'” he added, rolling his eyes for effect.

The exceptions, he notes, were Sly & the Family Stone and Earth, Wind & Fire — “people like that.”

So why are Brits so much better at fashion? “It’s a British tradition,” he explains. “You look at the great British singers like Mick Jagger and Bowie and Marc Bolan and Rod Stewart and Freddie Mercury … they dressed up and they were flamboyant. It’s a theatrical thing in England … and we were raised in Britain to love that kind of stuff.”

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Interest in the Beatles on film is at an all-time high thanks to Peter Jackson‘s eight-hour Disney+ documentary The Beatles: Get Back. That’s why New York’s Paley Center for the Media is hosting an event called From Paperback Writer to the Rooftop Concert: Directing The Beatles.

The event, which takes place Wednesday night, is a conversation with Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who directed the original 1970 Let It Be film that Jackson expanded and reworked, as well as the music videos for “Paperback Writer,” “Rain” and “Revolution.” 

Lindsay-Hogg will be joined by The Beatles: Get Back producer Jonathan Clyde of Apple Corps, Rolling Stone‘s Rob Sheffield and Beatles academic Dr. Holly Tessler of the University of Liverpool.

The videos, as well as highlights from the Beatles’ 1969 rooftop concert — their last public performance — will be screened, and the panelists will discuss the Fab Four’s groundbreaking use of visual media to complement their music.

If you can’t make it to New York City on such short notice, the discussion will be posted on the Paley Center’s official YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure.

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The South by Southwest Music Festival is known for spotlighting emerging artists, but one of the festival’s showcase artists this year has been making records for nearly 60 years.

The Zombies are one of the more than 300 artists announced Wednesday as performers at next year’s edition of the legendary Austin, Texas, festival, which will run March 13 through March 18. The Zombies are from England, of course, but the lineup features acts from all over the world, from Australia, Italy, Turkey, Ukraine, Norway and Colombia to New Zealand, Denmark, Argentina, Nigeria and Japan.

Also included on the list is Painted Shield, the side project of Pearl Jam‘s Stone Gossard. Their debut album, featuring Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready and drummers Josh Freese and Matt Chamberlain, came out in the past few years.

The music festival is part of the larger South by Southwest Conference, which includes TV, movie and comedy  festivals, as well as panels and exhibits covering everything from technology and food to climate change, the gaming industry, marketing, transportation, the cannabis industry and more.

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It must be hard to play in a band, manage that band and file lawsuits against your fellow bandmates at the same time.

Journey‘s Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, who were both jointly managing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame group, have decided to step back from that role, Billboard reports.

Schon and Cain have handed the reins over to Def Leppard‘s manager, Mike Kobayashi, who confirms he was “just hired,” according to Billboard. While the band has been a cash cow on the road, raking in $40 million this year, Cain and Schon have been embroiled in a legal squabble over expenses. 

As previously reported, Schon is suing Cain for setting up a band American Express card without his knowledge, while Cain denies that and claims that Schon has been “running up enormous personal charges on the band’s credit card account.” That lawsuit is pending, but it’s not the only recent legal dispute involving the band.

As Billboard notes, in September, former lead singer Steve Perry sued to stop Schon and Cain from trademarking the names of the band’s hits. And in 2020, Schon and Cain sued bassist Ross Valory and drummer Steve Smith, accusing them of trying to get control of the band’s name. The lawsuit was settled in 2021, and Valory and Smith left the band.

Amid all these issues, it’s no wonder Journey needs someone to look after their affairs, especially since the band’s 50th anniversary Freedom tour is set to kick off February 4 in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

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While Bob Dylan‘s tours are Never Ending, catching a glimpse of the famed rocker offstage is something that rarely happens. You almost never see Dylan, for example, making a Starbucks run, leaving a restaurant or taking a smoke break. So how does he avoid getting photographed, when everyone in the world has a phone? It’s because, as his former guitarist explains, “he’s slippery.”

Billy Burnette, a guitarist, songwriter and solo artist who’s played with Fleetwood Mac and John Fogerty, was Dylan’s touring guitarist in 2003. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Burnette explains that Bob does go out, but he flies under the radar. During the tour, Burnette explains, “He went out and ran every day. I’d see him in his sweats in the hotel, but he’s slippery.”

“[T]hey lost him one day [in an airport],” Burnette adds. “They couldn’t find him anywhere. I’m in this little gift shop and I turn around, and there he is. He goes, ‘Hi Billy.’ I was like, ‘How did you get in here?’ He moves around. It’s a weird thing.”

When Rolling Stone points out that Dylan is sometimes seen wearing a hoodie with the hood up, Burnette explains, “When he wears the hood, you’re not supposed to talk to him. I didn’t know that until one day we were in line to get on a plane at the airport.”

“I tapped him on the shoulder,” he continues. “The drummer said, ‘No, no. He don’t talk to anyone when he’s got the hood on.’ I was like, ‘OK. I’m glad you told me.'”

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Peter Frampton is the latest rock legend to sell his catalog — it’s been acquired by BMG.

The deal includes the rights to Frampton’s publishing interests, as well as the money he makes from recordings, writing songs or performing as a sideman or collaborator for artists like David Bowie, George Harrison, Donovan, Ringo Starr and Steve Miller. It spans his entire musical career, from back when he was in the band The Herd in the late ’60s, to his career with Humble Pie in the ’70s, to his record-breaking solo career.

The deal includes Frampton’s signature songs, including “Show Me The Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way,” “Do You Feel Like We Do,” “I’m In You” and “I Can’t Stand It No More.”

In a statement, Frampton says he trusts BMG will “care for my legacy and that my songs are in good hands.”

In 2019, Frampton announced that he’d been diagnosed with inclusion body myositis, a degenerative muscular disease that he expects will eventually rob him of his ability to play guitar. 

His most recent album, 2021’s Frampton Forgets The Words, is a collection of instrumental covers of some of his favorite songs, including tunes by Sly and the Family Stone, Radiohead, Marvin Gaye, Roxy Music, Stevie Wonder, Harrison and Bowie.

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As promised, the latest in a series of new animated videos for songs on the Beatles‘ album Revolver has arrived: It’s for Paul McCartney‘s song “Here, There and Everywhere.”

In the video, the Beatles are seen in the recording studio listening to the song, and then we seen them at various locations throughout their career: arriving at a premiere, disembarking from a plane, hanging out in a hotel room in New York City, appearing on a TV show and riding in the back of a limo. Eventually, they end up back at Abbey Road studios. Throughout the clip, a dancing female figure is literally “here, there and everywhere,” providing the transitions from scene to scene.

The video’s producer, Richard Barnett of Trunk Animation, says the video depicts the Beatles “on tour as they face an ever-changing backdrop of cities, hotels, roads and gigs, with only each other to rely on.” Barnett says the dancing figure represents “inspiration and creative freedom.”

The new animated clip series, which also includes videos for “Taxman” and “I’m Only Sleeping,” were created to promote the deluxe reissue of Revolver that came out in October. It features new mixes of the original 1966 record, as well as a collection of outtakes and a four-song EP that includes the non-album tracks “Paperback Writer” and “Rain.”

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January 5 will mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Bruce Springsteen‘s debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and to mark the occasion, a daylong symposium featuring some of the musicians who played on the record is being held at New Jersey’s Monmouth University.

The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth is organizing the symposium, scheduled for Saturday, January 7. E Street Band bass player Garry Tallent, original E Street keyboardist David Sancious and original E Street drummer Vini Lopez are taking part in the event, along with Bruce’s former manager Mike Appel. 

Panel discussions, interviews, a book signing, a performance of the album’s songs by local musicians and the debut of a mini documentary on the making of the album, featuring an exclusive interview with Springsteen, round out the event. 

Ahead of the symposium, a free Zoom conversation about Greetings is taking place January 3 at 7:30 p.m. EST. David Sancious will be performing at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, New Jersey, on January 6.

In addition to Tallent, Lopez and Sancious, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. featured the late Clarence Clemons, among other non-E Street Band musicians. The album includes some of Springsteen’s most popular early songs, including “Spirit In the Night,” “Blinded By the Light” and “Growin’ Up,” as well as fan favorites “For You” and “It’s Hard to Be a Saint in the City.”

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