Classic Hits

Founding Talking Heads frontman David Byrne has teamed up with author Mala Gaonkar to create an immersive sensory experience called Theater of the Mind, which will premiere August 31 at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts Off-Center.

The production, which originally was scheduled to debut in 2020 but was postponed because of COVID-19, takes place in a 15,000-square-foot historic warehouse and, according to an official description, brings audience members on “an immersive journey of self-reflection, discovery, and imagination, inspired by and grounded in neuroscience.”

The show uses stories from Byrne’s and Gaokar’s own lives to shape a narrative that attendees will be able to see, feel, taste and hear.

At each show, 16 audience members will follow a “Guide” through various environments and will have the opportunity to try a number of sensory experiments devised to make attendees question how they perceive their own beliefs, memories and identities.

Byrne explains that Theater of the Mind was inspired by a series of neuroscience experiments in which both he and Gaonkar participated.

“We began referring to the project as a Neuro Funhouse, but as we worked on it we came to realize that it was evolving to be something more than that,” he notes. “It has made us rethink some of our own beliefs and assumptions, to see ourselves and the world in a different way, and we hope that it might have a similar effect on our audience.”

Theater of the Mind begins previews on August 31, and officially opens on Septmber 13. The production will run through December 18. Tickets will go on to the general public on May 20, while pre-sale tickets will be available to all Denver Center for the Performing Arts subscribers starting May 6.

Visit TheateroftheMindDenver.com for more details.

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Slash is one of the most recognizable people in rock today, but when he was growing up, he often pretended to be someone else. Specifically, someone old enough to get into rock clubs.

During an interview on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! Wednesday night, the Guns N’ Roses icon recalled creating fake IDs when he was a teenager. 

“I was pretty good at it,” Slash said. He then told a story of when he and his future GN’R band mate Steven Adler used fake IDs to get into a particular club, but while the doorman let Adler in, he rejected Slash.

“I was just crushed,” Slash shared. “So I went home, and I put on a bunch of makeup and put on some of my mom’s clothes — I was really drunk, you have to understand — and I went back up there. It was Ladies Night, so I went back and I got in.”

Slash’s initial thought was he was going to mess with Adler — “Steven would screw anything,” he joked — but soon realized that the drummer had since left the club.

“This whole black cloud of reality came down,” Slash remembered. “I felt the most vulnerable I’d ever felt, ever. Still to this day, I’ve never felt like that.”

After the interview, Slash and his solo band Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators performed their new single “The River Is Rising.” The track will appear on the upcoming Conspirators album 4, due out February 11.

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Back in November, Journey announced plans for a lengthy U.S. trek this year dubbed the Freedom Tour 2022 featuring Billy Idol and Toto opening the first and second respective portions of the outing, but now comes word that Idol has dropped off the tour for health reasons.

Instead, Toto now will be the support act for Journey’s entire trek, which kicks off on February 22 in Pittsburgh and is mapped out through a May 11 show in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Idol’s departure from Journey’s Freedom Tour is due to a chronic sinus infection that will require surgery in the coming days.

“The last thing I ever want to do is cancel shows and I am absolutely gutted that I won’t be able to perform the upcoming dates with Journey as planned,” Idol says in a statement. “I wish Journey only the best on their tour and give thanks to TOTO for stepping in for me.”

The trek features a total of 40 concerts, including two newly added dates that are scheduled for March 4 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and on March 6 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Tickets for the two shows will go on sale to the public on Monday, February 7, at 10 a.m. ET. In addition, pre-sale tickets will be available via Ticketmaster starting today, February 3, at 10 a.m. ET. Visit JourneyMusic.com for more information.

Toto originally had been slated to join Journey’s tour in April, and had lined up a U.S. headlining trek that was to have run from February 25 through March 19, but now their own outing has been postponed until a later date.

A note on Toto’s official website advises that tickets purchased for the band’s headlining shows will be honored when the dates are rescheduled. Details about those shows will be announced soon.

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Steely Dan has unveiled dates for a 2022 U.S. trek called the Earth After Hours Tour.

The 23-city road trip gets underway on May 20 in Portland, Oregon and is mapped out through a July 3 show in Bethel, New York.

The tour originally was to have featured Steve Winwood as the opening act, but according to a message on SteelyDan.com, the former Traffic frontman “is no longer able to appear due to unforeseen circumstances.” Instead, contemporary jazz-rock ensemble Snarky Puppy will open most of the concerts from May 20 through June 19, while singer/songwriter Aimee Mann will serve as the support act from June 21 until the end of the trek.

Following the Earth After Hours Tour, Steely Dan will play a series of rescheduled U.S. dates from their postponed 2021 Absolutely Normal trek. Those shows run from a July 15 performance in Richmond, Virginia, through an August 4 concert in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Tickets for all dates are on sale now. Visit SteelyDan.com for the band’s full itinerary.

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Lionel Richie has posted his appreciation at the news that he’s now a nominee for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

On Twitter and Instagram, the chart-topping, Grammy and Oscar-winning star wrote, “I’m honored to be nominated for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame alongside so many other incredibly talented artists. Congratulations to all the nominees!”

Lionel also reminded people that “Fan voting is open now and you can vote every day through April 29 at vote.rockhall.com.”  The top five vote-getters in that online poll will make up a “fan ballot,” which will then be included in the voting that will determine which artists will be inducted later this year.

Lionel is one of 17 acts who are nominated this year, including Duran Duran, Pat Benatar, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick, Dolly Parton, Eurythmics and Devo.  Even if he doesn’t get in, he’s getting a nice consolation prize this year: On March 9th, he’ll receive the Library of Congress’ Gershwin Prize for Popular Music during an all-star tribute concert in Washington, D.C.  The event airs on PBS May 17.

Meanwhile, Lionel is gearing up for the debut of the 20th season of American Idol, which debuts February 27 on ABC.

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Tuesday, Graham Nash announced that he was removing his solo music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young over alleged COVID-19 misinformation hosted by the streaming service.  Now Graham and his Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young band mates David Crosby and Stephen Stills have joined together in support of Neil.

While its been years since they’ve collaborated, the members of Crosby, Stills & Nash have teamed up to ask their labels to pull all of their collective recordings from Spotify.

A statement from trio reads, “We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences. Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music — or the music we made together — to be on the same platform.”

The request covers recordings by CSN, CSNY and Crosby & Nash, as well as David’s and Stephen’s solo projects.

Young recently announced that he was pulling his music from Spotify after he was alerted to an open letter signed by hundreds of scientists and medical professionals expressing concern that harmful misinformation was being circulated on some recent episodes of the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, which is hosted exclusively by the streaming platform.

Neil had sent a letter to Spotify that basically gave them an ultimatum, and the service ended up removing his music rather than cutting ties with Rogan.

After Young exited Spotify, the company did announce that it will be adding content advisories before podcasts that discuss COVID-19.

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This Sunday, February 6, marks what would’ve been Bob Marley‘s 77th birthday, and to commemorate the milestone the late reggae legend’s family is curating a series of special in-person, virtual and charitable events that will take place in the coming days.

Marley’s 77th Earthstrong ROOTS festivities include a newly curated exhibit at the Bob Marley Museum in Kingston, Jamaica, dubbed The 7 Roots of Bob Marley’s Livity, which will feature artwork by young, up-and-coming artists. Submissions will be accepted until Friday, February 4.

Also on February 4, The Marley Brothers, a group featuring Bob’s sons Ziggy, Stephen, Damian, Julian and Ky-Mani Marley, will release a new cover of their dad’s song “Cornerstone,” a day before the siblings perform a headlining set at the CaliVibes Festival in Long Beach, California.

The 77th Earthstrong ROOTS festivities will wrap up on Bob’s birthday this Sunday with a limited-capacity concert celebration at Tuff Gong International studio in Kingston, Jamaica that will be streamed live on Marley’s official YouTube channel and the Tuff Gong Television YouTube channel.  Also that day, a performance by Stephen Marley from his Lion’s Den Studio in Miami will premiere at Bob’s YouTube channel.

For more information about Bob’s 77th birthday festivities, visit Tuff Gong International’s official Facebook page.

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Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has celebrated his famous band with a new painting, a Pablo Picasso-inspired piece title “Abstract Performance” that offers a surreal depiction of the legendary rock group playing live.

Wood was on hand to debut the painting on Tuesday during a surprise visit to Wood Lane in London outside the popular Westfield shopping center. A billboard teasing the painting appeared at the same location earlier this week. You can check out photos of Ronnie’s visit to Wood Lane, including a pic of him with his wife, at his Twitter page.

Limited-edition prints of “Abstract Performance” are available for purchase now through February 15 at the Art Store section of RonnieWood.com, priced at $2,000. Each print will be hand-signed and hand-numbered by Wood and feature a personal dedication from him.

“Abstract Performance,” which Wood completed in 2020, is among a recent series of abstract, Picasso-inspired paintings of The Rolling Stones that Wood has created.

“Picasso did his own take on a lot of artists, but I bet he never thought no one would ever do a take on him,” Wood says. “I hope and think he’d be flattered, but also a bit shocked and pleasantly surprised at my take on his work.”

Meanwhile, a new post on Wood’s Instagram page reports that “[e]xciting new works [are] coming soon from Ronnie’s art studio.” The message is accompanied by a photo of a variety of paintings on which he apparently is currently working, including another abstract of The Stones and a portrait of Buddy Holly.

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Pat Benatar, Duran Duran, Eurythmics, Lionel Richie, Devo, Carly Simon, Dionne Warwick and Dolly Parton are among the 17 artists who have been nominated for induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.

Also on the ballot are Beck, Kate Bush, Eminem, Fela Kuti, Judas Priest, MC5, New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine and A Tribe Called Quest.

To be eligible for induction, an artist must have released their first commercial recording 25 years before the year of their nomination.

Benatar, Eurythmics, Warwick and Devo have all been nominated for induction before, while Duran Duran, Richie, Simon and Parton are among the first-time nominees.

Speaking with ABC Audio, Rock Hall executive Jason Hanley notes, “I think it’s a great year for someone like Pat Benatar. Between her and [her husband and guitarist] Neil Giraldo…they wrote some of the great classic songs of the 1980s.”

He adds, that songs like “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” “were such good songs and delivered with this great rock edge, classic kind of clean but distorted ’80s guitar, and Pat’s just amazing voice.”

Hanley also says he’s excited that Duran Duran have been nominated, noting that the British New Wave act combined good looks, catchy tunes and excellent musicianship.

“Yes, they were on the cover of Tiger Beat. And yes, they also wrote and performed really great songs,” he offers. “And I think if you can handle both sides of Duran Duran…then you really have a really good argument to vote for them.”

Hanley also similarly touts Eurythmics for the multifaceted appeal of their music.

Singling out the ’80s synth-pop duo’s signature tune “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)” as an example, Hanley notes, “[T]heir music was so catchy, but it also really made you think and it kind of dug into these darker sides of the human emotion.”

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Legendary Motown group The Temptations will take part in a special free streaming Q&A event that will be viewable at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s and the Motown Museum’s official YouTube channels this Friday, February 4, at 7 p.m. ET.

The event, which is being presented by the Rock Hall in partnership with the Motown Museum, will feature founding Temptations member Otis Williams and the rest of the current lineup, as well as the group’s manager, Shelly Berger, discussing their band’s storied history and their new studio album, Temptations 60.

The album, which was released last Friday, celebrates the 1989 Rock Hall inductees’ 60th anniversary, and is made up almost entirely new original songs. One of those tunes, “Is It Gonna Be Yes or No,” was written and produced by fellow Motown great Smokey Robinson, who also provides guest vocals on the track.

“When we started out as a part of that Motown movement that took the world by storm in the ’60s, I never could have imagined we’d still be performing today,” says Williams, who turned 80 this past October. “To mark our 60th anniversary with two of the most distinguished institutions in American music culture, recognized for preserving, inspiring and teaching music history between generations, is such a great honor for me and The Temptations.”

After the livestream ends, the Q&A will be archived for viewing on demand on YouTube.

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