Classic Hits

Last April, KISS launched a new series of official live bootlegs dubbed KISS — Off the Soundboard, and now the Rock & Roll (All Nite) Hall of Famers have announced plans for the second installment of the series.

The new album, titled Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach, is due out on March 11 and will feature a recording from a concert that took place on July 25, 2004, at the Virginia Beach Amphitheatre.

The show featured KISS’ current lineup — singer/guitarist Paul Stanley, singer/bassist Gene Simmons, drummer Eric Singer and guitarist Tommy Thayer — playing career-spanning 20-song set that included such classics as “Rock and Roll All Nite,” “I Was Made for Lovin’ You,” “Detroit Rock City,” “Lick It Up,” “Christine Sixteen” and “Shout It Out Loud.”

Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach will be available on digital as a two-CD set, and as a three-LP collection pressed on standard black vinyl or limited-edition 180-gram opaque-green vinyl. You can pre-order the album now exclusively at KISS’ official online store. Special bundles also are available featuring the colored-vinyl set, along with a t-shirt, trading cards and guitar picks.

The first KISS — Off the Soundboard release featured a March 2001 concert that the band played in Japan at the Tokyo Dome.

Here’s the Off the Soundboard: Live in Virginia Beach CD track list:

Disc 1
“Love Gun”
“Deuce”
“Makin’ Love”
“Lick It Up”
“Christine Sixteen”
“Tears Are Falling”
“She”
“Got to Choose”
“I Love It Loud”
“I Want You”

Disc 2
“Psycho Circus”
“King of the Night Time World”
“War Machine”
“100,000 Years”
“Unholy”
“Shout It Out Loud”
“I Was Made for Lovin’ You”
“Detroit Rock City”
“God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll to You II”
“Rock and Roll All Nite”

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Toy (Toy: Box), the new box set focusing on David Bowie‘s previously unreleased 2000 album Toy, hit stores today, one day before what would’ve been the late rock legend’s 75th birthday.

As previously reported, Toy features versions of various songs that Bowie first recorded from 1964 to 1971, redone at 2000 sessions with members of his touring band at the time.

Toy (Toy: Box) is available now as a three-CD set, a six-disc 10-inch vinyl collection, and digitally. The package will include the originally planned album — which first got its release in November 2021 as part of David’s Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) box set — alternative mixes of the Toy tracks and tunes intended as B-sides, and stripped-down, mostly acoustic mixes of the songs.

In conjunction with the arrival of Toy (Toy: Box), a lyric video for an alternate version of “Shadow Man,” a rarity that Bowie first recorded in late 1970, has debuted at Bowie’s YouTube channel. The newly released version is referred as an “Unplugged & Somewhat Slightly Electric Mix,” and is one of a series of 13 Toy tracks appearing on the box set that were given that treatment.

The unplugged 2000 “Shadow Man” mix also has been paired with a 1970 demo of the song as a two-track digital single release.

Meanwhile, as previously announced, former Bowie touring band member Mark Plati, who produced Toy and played on the original recordings, will take part in an interview about the project at the Bowie 75 pop-up store in New York City this Saturday. Visit Bowie75.com for more details about the various events taking place to commemorate David’s milestone birthday.

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Folk legend Judy Collins has been making albums for over 60 years, but for the first time ever, the 82-year-old singer will be releasing a record entirely made up of songs she has written.

Spellbound, which will be released on February 25, features 12 recently composed folk tunes, plus a new version of her 1990 gem, “The Blizzard.”

Collins tells Billboard that the project began coming together in 2016, after she tasked herself with writing a poem a day for 90 days, which, at her husband’s prompting, turned into a year.

Then, after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Judy says, “my job was to sit down at the piano and write a poem that day or try to finish the ones that were sitting there — if anything spoke to me as a song, write it. It’s the only thing I was doing.”

In the songs, Collins reflects on various aspects and periods of her life, including being part of early-’60s folk scene in Greenwich Village, traveling around the U.S. as a young woman, and her love of her longtime home of New York City.

“I thought I should write a script around it,” Collins jokes about the collection of songs. “It could very well be a musical, a history of my life.”

Her nostalgic tune “When I Was a Girl in Colorado” has been released as an advance digital single, and an animated video for the song has debuted at Collins’ official YouTube channel.

Judy tells Billboard that she has plenty more songs written, so a Spellbound II may be on the horizon. She also is planning a children’s record, another project with frequent collaborator Ari Hest and, possibly, a new duets album.

Collins also has dozens of 2022 concerts scheduled.

Here’s the Spellbound track list:

“Spellbound”
“Grand Canyon”
“So Alive”
“Hell on Wheels”
“Shipwrecked Mariner”
“When I Was a Girl in Colorado”
“Thomas Merton”
“Wild with Mist”
“Gilded Rooms”
“Prairie Dreams”
“City of Awakening”
“Arizona”

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Edgar Winter has organized a star-studded tribute album to his late older brother, blues-rock guitar great Johnny Winter, that features contributions from an impressive list of musicians who knew or were inspired by Johnny.

Titled Brother Johnny: An All-Star Tribute to Johnny Winter, the album will be released on April 15, and includes the talents of Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, ZZ Top‘s Billy Gibbons, The Doobie Brothers‘ Michael McDonald and John McFee, ex-Allman Brothers Band members Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks, Foo Fighters‘ Taylor Hawkins, Toto‘s Steve Lukather, and many others.

Brother Johnny is a 17-track collection curated by Edgar and producer Ross Hogarth. In addition to featuring various covers and renditions of songs by Johnny, it also includes two new originals by Edgar.  The first single, a cover of the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B.Goode,” has been released as an advanced digital track, while a visualizer video has premiered at Edgar’s YouTube channel. The tune features Edgar and Walsh sharing lead vocals, Edgar on piano and sax, and David Grissom — a fellow Texan like the Winter brothers — on guitar.

Walsh also plays guitar on version of Johnny’s “Stranger” that features McDonald and Starr as well.

Edgar says “Johnny B. Goode” is a significant song in his and Johnny’s life because it helped give them their first big break as musicians when their early band Johnny and the Jammers played it at a Texas talent contest and they won the chance to make their first record.

On paying tribute to Johnny with the album, Edgar notes, “[O]ne thing will always remain the same…that bond, of brotherhood, of family, of music, and of love. So in his name, I dedicate this album. Brother Johnny.”

Johnny Winter died in July 2014 at age 70.

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Bon Jovi will be there for its fans later this year.  The rockers unveiled plans for a 15-stop tour that will span across the U.S. starting in the spring.

Called the Bon Jovi 2022 Tour, the band will hit up arenas in the country’s biggest cities, starting April 1 in Omaha, Nebraska, at the CHI Health Center.  The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers’ tour wraps April 30 in Nashville, Tennessee, at the Bridgestone Arena.

The tour will support Bon Jovi’s 2020 album, and frontman Jon Bon Jovi cannot wait to hit the road again to see his fans.  “We have all missed touring and we know that nothing can replace the energy of a live show for the fans or the band,” he said in a statement.

Tickets for the 15-stop tour go on sale starting Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. ET on Bon Jovi’s official webpage. Fans will be able to cut the line if they are a member of the JBJ Experience, and can access the pre-sale a few days earlier, on Tuesday, January 11, at 10 a.m. ET.

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Just a reminder that the star-studded A Bowie Celebration virtual concert event commemorating what would’ve been David Bowie‘s 75th birthday takes place this Saturday, January 8, starting at 9 p.m. ET.

As previously reported, the presentation was organized by longtime Bowie keyboardist Mike Garson, and will feature performances by Def Leppard, Duran Duran‘s Simon Le Bon and John Taylor, Noel Gallagher, Living Colour, Rob Thomas, WALK THE MOON, and actors Gary Oldman and Evan Rachel Wood, among others.

In addition, Ricky Gervais will make a special appearance during the show, part of the proceeds from which will benefit the Save the Children charity.

Garson will lead a house band featuring various musicians who toured and/or recorded with Bowie.

The event will be dedicated to legendary late photographer Mick Rock, and also will celebrate the 35th anniversary of Jim Henson fantasy film, Labyrinth, which starred Bowie as the Goblin King and featured five songs he wrote.

Tickets and ticket bundles for the event are available now at RollingLiveStudios.com/Bowie.

Meanwhile, a contest has been launched in conjunction of the livestream offering a variety of special prizes.

The grand prize features Bowie’s new 18-LP Brilliant Adventure box set, a one-on-one Zoom with Garson, a ticket to the streaming event, access to a virtual Q&A with some of the show’s musicians, a signed copy of Garson’s book Bowie’s Piano Man, t-shirts and other goodies.

To enter, fans must follow @bowietour, @licoricepizzarecords or @rollinglivestudios on Instagram, leave comment under the post about the contest, tag at least five friends and ask them to follow. The person who generates the most follows wins the contest. The winner will be announced at 3 p.m. ET on Friday.

Seven additional randomly chose winners each will receive a different Bowie album.

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The Cars‘ Elliot Easton and The Scorpions‘ Matthias Jabs are among a variety of artists who will take part in the NAMM organization’s Believe in Music online event, which is scheduled for January 20 and 21.

Taking place instead of the annual in-person NAMM Show music-equipment trade conference — which has been moved to the summer — Believe in Music is a global online gathering that will help unify and provide support for the people and organizations that bring music to the world.

Believe in Music will offer a variety of free music-business-related presentations, including artist interviews, performances, round-table discussions, forums, tutorials, gear unveilings and more.

Easton and Jabs both will be participating in interviews on January 20, scheduled for 4:15 p.m. ET and 5:30 p.m. ET, respectively.

Other artists also taking part in interview events include rock-guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd and Struts members Luke Spiller and Adam Slack.

For full details about the online event, visit BelieveinMusic.tv.

The 2022 NAMM Show has been combined with the Summer NAMM conference, and is scheduled to take place July 3-5 at California’s Anaheim Convention Center.

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Dead & Company won’t be playing in the Mexican sand after all this month, as the band has just announced that it’s called off its entire two-weekend Playing in the Sand destination festival.

The news of the cancellation comes after drummer Bill Kreutzmann dropped out of the event earlier this week due to health issues, and then singer/guitarist John Mayer dropped out because he got COVID-19.

On Instagram, Dead & Company posted a message that reads, “With much sadness and after great consideration of every possible scenario, the Playing in the Sand shows in Riviera Cancun on January 7-10 and January 13-16 have now been canceled…due to the spiking COVID-19 cases.”

The statement continues, “Dead & Company…tried everything possible to bring normalcy and to deliver a great experience and amazing music, but with each day it became increasingly clear that canceling is the correct thing to do for the fans and for our crew.”

Noting that anyone who has tickets will receive an email about refunds, the statement ends by saying, “See you soon, hug your loved ones, stay safe and be kind.”

The event was to have featured multiple performances by the Grateful Dead spinoff group and other artists at the Moon Palace Cancún resort.

 

 

 

 

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Cobra Kai co-creator Jon Hurwitz is hoping to add a bit of “Thunder” to the titular dojo’s “Strike First Strike Hard No Mercy” motto.

As Hurwitz tells Entertainment Weekly, he’s been trying to use the AC/DC classic “Thunderstruck” in the Karate Kid sequel series for some time now. In fact, “Thunderstruck” was specifically written into a script for a montage season in the recently premiered fourth season of the show.

“We’ve written ‘Thunderstruck’ into the script several times over the years,” Hurwitz shares. “We’ve never been able to afford it in that moment or to make that choice [to spend the money on it] right now.”

“Our fantasy is having the kind of music budget that would allow for us to have nonstop AC/DC and Bon Jovi and Guns N’ Roses,” he adds.

While viewers have yet to hear “Thunderstruck” soundtrack any epic Cobra Kai karate showdowns, the show does feature a lot of Karate Kid-era appropriate rock music, including Mötley Crüe, Poison and Ratt.

“[Music supervisor] Michelle Johnson has done an amazing job, she’s been phenomenal in understanding the tone of the show,” says Hurwitz. “She’ll pitch us many, many songs or send music to our editors and we’ll narrow it down. There’s nothing we love more than finding the right song for a montage.”

Cobra Kai season 4 also featured a wink to metalheads in an episode when a neighbor of the character Stingray yells at him for “blaring s***ty Metallica all night.” Stingray, who’s played by Richard Jewell star Paul Walter Hauser, then replies, “That was actually Exodus‘ Bonded by Blood, but it’s not your fault, you don’t know the genre.”

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The Eagles have more than doubled the number of scheduled U.S. concerts for their Hotel California 2022 Tour, adding 12 new shows in a variety of major cities in March, April and May.

The new dates run from a March 17 concert in Cleveland through a May 25 performance in Salt Lake City, and also include shows in Chicago. Indianapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Nashville and the New York City suburb of Belmont, New York.

Tickets for the newly announced dates will go on sale to the general public on Friday, January 14, at 10 a.m. local time, and a limited number of VIP packages will be available that same day. There also will be opportunities to purchase pre-sale tickets; visit Eagles.com/events and Ticketmaster.com for more info.

The Eagles already had 10 other U.S. concerts lined up, spanning from a February 19 performance in Savannah, Georgia, through a May 19-20 stand in Austin, Texas.

As previously announced, the Hotel California trek features the current Eagles lineup performing the band’s classic 1976 album of the same name in its entirety, as well as other memorable tunes by the group, accompanied by an orchestra and a choir.

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