https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info.atomALTOSAXO Music Apparel - Music News & Info2023-03-02T21:38:43+02:00ALTOSAXO Music Apparelhttps://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/new-arrivals-march-20232023-03-02T21:38:43+02:002023-03-02T21:46:12+02:00New Arrivals - March 2023Alto SaxoMore]]>
ALTOSAXO Music Apparel
Indie rock supergroup boygenius was formed in 2018 by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. The group showcases Dacus' wit, Baker's emotionally active style, Bridgers' darkly confessional lyricism, and the collaborative magic that happens when the three come together.
Country singer and songwriter Margo Price has an eye for idiosyncratic details and a knack for narratives, qualities that kept her brand of traditionalism from seeming like nostalgia. After Midwest Farmer's Daughter established her as a powerful figure within Americana, she quickly extended her musical reach on 2017's All American Made, moving further in a rock direction with That's How Rumors Get Started, in 2020. Strays is her fourth studio album, released in 2023.
Margo Price performs live at Emo's in Austin, Texas on February 3, 2023.
Alternative rock band Puscifer was formed in Los Angeles by Maynard James Keenan in 1995. They rerleased four studio albums: "V" Is for Vagina (2007), Conditions of My Parole (2011), Money Shot (2015), and Existential Reckoning (2020).
Rockabilly band Stray Cats was formed in 1979 by guitarist and vocalist Brian Setzer, double bassist Lee Rocker, and drummer Slim Jim Phantom in Massapequa, New York. The group had numerous hit singles, including "Stray Cat Strut", "(She's) Sexy + 17", "Look at That Cadillac", "I Won't Stand in Your Way", "Bring It Back Again", and "Rock This Town".
Canadian punk rock band Propagandhi was formed in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba in 1986. Both in their lyrics and hands-on activism, the band's members champion various anarchist causes and veganism, and have taken a vocal stance against human rights violations, sexism, racism, nationalism, homophobia, imperialism, capitalism and organized religion.
Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats was formed in Dublin in 1975, led by the visionary Bob Geldof. They had a series of hits including "Like Clockwork", "Rat Trap", "I Don't Like Mondays" and "Banana Republic".
Bob Geldorf performs with the Boomtown Rats at The World Music Festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum on April 8, 1979.
Singer, songwriter, guitarist and actor Ryan Bingham's music spans multiple genres. His style has been described as Americana and roots rock. He released six studio albums: Mescalito (2007), Roadhouse Sun (2009), Junky Star (2010), Tomorrowland (2012), Fear and Saturday Night (2015), and American Love Song (2019).
Specializing in a stylized, moody modern pop, singer & songwriter Gracie Abrams cultivated an online following through a steady series of singles appearing toward the end of the 2010s. She experienced a breakthrough in 2020 with the singles "21" and "I Miss You, I'm Sorry" from her EP Minor. Abrams' debut album, Good Riddance, arrived in early 2023.
Gracie Abrams performs live at Lollapalooza at Grant Park in Chicago on July 30, 2022.
French progressive metal band Hacride was formed in 2001 in Poitiers. Their sound has evolved from the raw extremities and odd time signatures of technical death metal to one that is more progressive and avant-garde.
Formed in South Bend, Indiana in 1997, Umphrey's McGee became widely established on the American jam band circuit and have become known as one of more ambitious and musically versatile acts in the genre. Their wild amalgam of funk, metal, progressive rock, electronic, jazz, and folk has played out over numerous live and studio albums.
Extreme metal band PUPIL SLICER combines elements of mathcore, death metal and grindcore. The London noise fiends are taking on depression and oppression with jagged technicality and impossible brutality.
ALTOSAXO Music Apparel is an e-commerce website that specializes in music-themed t-shirts. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/taylor-swift-the-eras-tour-20232023-02-23T19:03:50+02:002023-02-23T19:03:50+02:00Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour 2023Alto SaxoMore]]>
Taylor Swift has announced The Eras Tour, confirming that she will be taking all her albums on the road.
Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour is the sixth headlining concert tour by Taylor Swift. Having not toured for her studio albums Lover (2019), Folklore (2020), and Evermore (2020) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Swift will embark on the Eras Tour in support of all of her albums, including her latest, Midnights (2022).
It is her second all-stadium tour, after the 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour. The U.S. leg is set to commence on March 17, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona, and end on August 9, 2023, in Inglewood, California. Swift described the tour's concept as a "journey through all of her musical eras".
Taylor Swift performs onstage at the 36th Annual Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio on October 30, 2021.
Following popular demand, on November 4, eight extra U.S. dates were added to existing cities, bringing the total number of concerts to 35. High demand prompted 17 more shows to be added the following week, making the Eras Tour the biggest U.S. tour of Swift's career, with 52 dates, surpassing her preceding Reputation Stadium Tour (38 dates); all cities part of the Eras Tour enjoy two or more shows following the additions. International dates are to be announced later.
Taylor Swift performs onstage at the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards in Los Angeles on March 14, 2021.
Variety projected the Eras Tour to outgross the Reputation Stadium Tour, which holds the female all-time record for the highest-grossing tour in the United States, with US$266,100,000 from 38 dates; the Eras Tour has already expanded to 52 dates within the country. However, Variety noted that "setting a record gross for international touring may be tougher" as English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran holds the record with his ÷ Tour (2017–19), which consisted of 255 dates.
Taylor Swift performs live at The Gabba in Brisbane, Australia on November 6, 2018.
Swift's five-show run at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles also stands to generate the highest boxscore at a single venue in the U.S. She could break the SoFi Stadium record set by South Korean boy group BTS' four shows in 2022, which grossed $33.3 million, and the all-time U.S. record held by Bruce Springsteen's 10-night stand at Giants Stadium in 2003, which grossed $38.7 million.
Taylor Swift performs live onstage at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee on August 25, 2018.
Of all her “Eras,” Swift is really due to represent the modern one on tour, as much as fans may relish the idea of a somewhat nostalgically themed outing encompassing the full spectrum of her career. She has released “Lover,” “Folklore,” “Evermore” and now “Midnights” since she last was on the road, along with bonus-track-aided re-recordings of the “Red” and “Fearless” albums, any one of which would have been occasion enough to prompt its own tour in an era before the entire concert scene necessarily hit a pause.
There was an attention to detail in the tour announcement even in the graphics signifying the opening acts at different spots in the tour routing, with Bridgers, for instance, being represented by a tiny ghost, in honor of the skeleton costume she’s used on her own headlining tours.
Taylor Swift performs live at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo, Japan on November 21, 2018.
The reception for “Midnights” upon its October release left no doubt just how strong the appetite for Swift tickets will be. It had the biggest week since Adele’s “25” album, per Luminate this week, with 1,578,000 album-equivalent units. Additionally, it was announced Monday that for the first time in history, all 10 top slots of the Billboard Hot 100 were filled by a single artist’s songs, with “Anti-Hero” leading the way at No. 1.
Taylor Swift performs onstage at the 2019 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on November 24, 2019.
Fans very much wanted the full album, anyway — of the nearly 1.6 million album units registered for “Midnights,” 1,140,000 were copies purchased in the form of the full album. It became Swift’s fifth album, out of her 10 original studio releases overall, to sell a million-plus copies in the first week out. The figure also represented the best first-week sales for an album by any performer since “Reputation” came out of the gate with 1,216,000.
Taylor Swift performs at the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show at Earls Court in London on December 2, 2014.
The Eras Tour List of concerts
DATE
CITY
VENUE
March 18
Glendale, AZ
State Farm Stadium
March 25
Las Vegas, NV
Allegiant Stadium
April 1
Arlington, TX
AT&T Stadium
April 2
Arlington, TX
AT&T Stadium
April 15
Tampa, FL
Raymond James Stadium
April 22
Houston, TX
NRG Stadium
April 28
Atlanta, GA
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
April 29
Atlanta, GA
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
May 6
Nashville, TN
Nissan Stadium
May 12
Philadelphia, PA
Lincoln Financial Field
May 13
Philadelphia, PA
Lincoln Financial Field
May 19
Foxborough, MA
Gillette Stadium
May 20
Foxborough, MA
Gillette Stadium
May 26
East Rutherford, NJ
MetLife Stadium
May 27
East Rutherford, NJ
MetLife Stadium
June 2
Chicago, IL
Soldier Field
June 3
Chicago, IL
Soldier Field
June 10
Detroit, MI
Ford Field
June 17
Pittsburgh, PA
Acrisure Stadium
June 24
Minneapolis, MN
U.S. Bank Stadium
July 1
Cincinnati, OH
Paycor Stadium
July 8
Kansas City, MO
GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium
July 15
Denver, CO
Empower Field at Mile High
July 22
Seattle, WA
Lumen Field
July 29
Santa Clara, CA
Levi’s Stadium
August 4
Los Angeles, CA
SoFi Stadium
August 5
Los Angeles, CA
SoFi Stadium
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/new-arrivals-february-20232023-02-05T19:44:08+02:002023-02-05T19:44:08+02:00New Arrivals - February 2023Iordanis KevrekidisMore]]>
ALTOSAXO Music Apparel New Arrivals - February 2023
Multifaceted post-punk group Black Country, New Road pull together disparate genres including jazz, math rock, and klezmer to form sprawling tracks that switch between quieter moments and peaks of bristling intensity. Ants from Up There is their second studio album, released in 2022.
Alternative rock band Angels & Airwaves was formed in San Diego in 2005. The band has released six studio albums: We Don't Need to Whisper (2006), I-Empire (2007), Love (2010), Love: Part Two (2011), The Dream Walker (2014) and Lifeforms (2021).
Alternative rock band Nada Surf was formed in New York City in 1992 by Matthew Caws and Daniel Lorca. A witty and literate melodic rock band, Nada Surf initially gained cult status with their '90s alt rock anthem "Popular" before issuing a slew of ever-sophisticated productions.
The Bee Gees were able to craft a long-running career that began in the late '50s in Australia. Along the way they became a hit-producing psychedelic pop group in England during the '60s and the biggest disco band in the world in the '70s, and had a late comeback as adult contemporary crooners in the '90s. The Bee Gees' Saturday Night Fever soundtrack (1977) was the turning point of their career, with both the film and soundtrack having a cultural impact throughout the world, enhancing the disco scene's mainstream appeal.
Nu jazz band The Comet Is Coming was formed in London in 2013. Their style has been described as Nu jazz, funk rock, psychedelic rock, electronic rock, and space rock. Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam is their third album, released in 2022.
Holy Fvck is the eighth studio album by Demi Lovato, released in 2022. It's primarily a pop punk and hard rock record, being a return to her early rock-influenced roots from her first two studio albums Don't Forget (2008) and Here We Go Again (2009).
An indie singer and songwriter who delivers her vulnerable songs with a distinctive warble informed by vintage country, Angel Olsen's early, spare, acoustic songs grew increasingly lush and dramatic across her first several albums. Her style has been described as art pop, indie folk, indie rock, and alternative country.
Canadian indie rock band Men I Trust was formed in Montreal in 2014 by Emmanuelle Proulx, Jessy Caron, and Dragos Chiriac. They released four studio albums, Men I Trust (2014), Headroom (2015), Oncle Jazz (2019), and Untourable Album (2021).
Grammy award-winning global icon SEAL will embark on a massive 30th Anniversary Tour in 2023 and will commemorate three decades of his landmark self-titled debut album Seal (1991) and eponymous follow-up Seal II (1994). He will be performing the records in their entirety delivering a set highlighted by classic chart-topping anthems such as “Crazy,” “Future Love Paradise,” “Killer,” and “Kiss From A Rose.”
Singer and songwriter Priscilla Renea Hamilton, known professionally as Muni Long, has enjoyed success in the public eye and behind the scenes and went from making videos in her bedroom to becoming an accomplished songwriter and recording artist. She released three studio albums: Jukebox (2009), Coloured (2018), and Public Displays of Affection: The Album (2022).
Stoner metal band Spiritual Beggars was formed in Halmstad, Sweden in 1994. The band is heavily influenced by 1970s hard rock and incorporates elements of psychedelia into its music.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/music-divas-collection2023-01-27T17:15:54+02:002023-01-27T17:18:17+02:00Music Divas CollectionAlto SaxoALTOSAXO Music Apparel | Music Divas T-Shirt Collection. Madonna, Tina Turner, Cher, Debbie Harry, Whitney Houston, Joan Jett, Aretha Franklin, Grace Slick, Lady Gaga, Stevie Nicks, Björk, Gwen Stefani, Patti Smith, Alanis Morissette, Florence Welch, Janis Joplin, Kate Bush, Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, and more...
Originally used to describe a female opera singer, the term "diva" was redefined to refer to any female singer of superior talent.
Today, the diva moniker has evolved even further and made a partial return to its original latin roots when divus was the word for "divine one". The modern musical diva can be arrogant, difficult to work with, high-maintenance, or demanding. In essence, the modern diva sometimes acts like she believes herself to be almost divine and above it all.
This list is for female artists in ALTOSAXO Music Apparel who have ascended to diva status.
"The Queen of Pop" isn't enough to describe Madonna, she is Pop. Madonna has changed the world's social history, has done more things as more different people than anyone else is ever likely to. She ushered underground sounds into the mainstream, specializing in trends percolating in dance clubs.
One of the most dynamic soul singers in American music history, Tina Turner was a vibrant force from the moment she stepped onstage in the late '50s. Known as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the frontwoman of Ike & Tina Turner before launching a successful career as a solo performer. Her 1984 multi-platinum album, Private Dancer contained her hit song "What's Love Got to Do with It", which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Her chart success continued with "Better Be Good to Me", "Private Dancer", "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)", "Typical Male", "The Best", "I Don't Wanna Fight", and "GoldenEye". Tina Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), and Last Action Hero (1993). Having sold over 100 million records, Tina is one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She has received 12 Grammy Awards, 3 Grammy Hall of Fame awards, and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Ike Turner in 1991, and is a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
Tina Turner performs live on stage at Ahoy, Rotterdam, 1990.
When Cherilyn Sarkasian reinvented herself as the more photogenic half of '60s pop duo Sonny & Cher, no one could guess it was merely the first step in an ongoing artistic redefinition that would continue for decades. Often referred as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry.
Cher performs live on stage at the Zurich Hallenstadium in Switzerland on October 9, 2019.
Embracing a broad range of pop music that encompassed British Invasion rock, garage rock, disco, reggae, Latin rhythms, and hip-hop, Blondie was the most commercially successful band to emerge from the New York punk and new wave community of the late '70s. The group was formed in New York City in August 1974 by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band achieved several hit singles including "Heart of Glass", "Call Me", "Rapture" and "The Tide Is High".
Debbie Harry of Blondie recording Parallel Lines, 1978.
Whitney Houston was inarguably one of the biggest pop stars of all time. Her accomplishments as a hitmaker were extraordinary. Just to scratch the surface, the mezzo-soprano powerhouse became the first artist to have seven consecutive singles hit number one, from "Saving All My Love for You" (1985) through "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" (1988). Her version of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" (1992) became nothing less than the biggest hit single in rock history. Her first two albums, each went diamond platinum, followed by a string of additional multi-platinum LPs including the likewise diamond-earning soundtrack for The Bodyguard. Houston was able to handle big adult contemporary ballads, effervescent, stylish dance-pop, and slick contemporary R&B with equal dexterity.
Whitney Houston performing live on stage at Wembley Arena in London on September 3, 1991.
Joan Jett became a figurehead for several generations of female rockers. She has been described as the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll. Jett is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and for earlier founding and performing with the Runaways, which recorded and released the hit song "Cherry Bomb". The Blackhearts' version of the song "I Love Rock 'n Roll" was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in 1982. Jett's other notable hit songs include "Bad Reputation", "Crimson and Clover", "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)", "Light of Day", "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and "Dirty Deeds". She has 3 albums that have been certified platinum or gold. In 2015, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Joan Jett performing live with The Blackhearts in 2016.
Aretha Franklin was one of the giants of soul music, and indeed of American pop as a whole. More than any other performer, she epitomized soul at its most gospel-charged. Her astonishing run of late-'60s hits, "Respect," "Chain of Fools," "I Say a Little Prayer," and many others, earned her the title Queen of Soul. Franklin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979, had her voice declared a Michigan "natural resource" in 1985, and became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
The Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin performs at the BBC Television show 'It's Lulu' in London on August 8, 1970.
Glamorously gaudy, a self-made postmodern diva, Lady Gaga is the first millennial superstar. She generated countless mini-sensations with her style, her videos, and her music, cultivating a devoted audience. Her accolades include 13 Grammy Awards, 18 MTV Video Music Awards, 16 Guinness World Records, awards from the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Her philanthropy and activism focus on mental health awareness and LGBT rights.
James Hetfield of Metallica and Lady Gaga perform onstage at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on February 12, 2017.
Gwen Stefani parlayed her breakout stardom as the lead singer of the SoCal ska-punk outfit No Doubt into an enduring career as a pop star. Stefani reached the top of the charts many times during No Doubt's peak. "Spiderwebs," "Just a Girl," and the ballad "Don't Speak", all pulled from their 1995 album Tragic Kingdom, were enduring alternative rock hits. Throughout her career as a solo artist, she has won several music awards, including one Grammy Award, four MTV Video Music Awards, one American Music Award, one Brit Award, and two Billboard Music Awards. With No Doubt, she has won two Grammy Awards. In 2005, Rolling Stone called her "the only true female rock star left on radio or MTV" and featured her on the magazine's cover. Stefani has been referred to as a "Pop Princess" by several contemporary music critics. In 2012, VH1 listed the singer at the number thirteen on their list of "100 Greatest Women in Music".
Gwen Stefani of No Doubt performing live in Grand Junction, Colorado on June 18, 2016.
Pat Benatar's polished mainstream pop/rock made her one of the more popular female vocalists of the early '80s. "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" reached the Top 10 in the US and Canada and is considered to be her best-known song. The single "Love Is a Battlefield" (1983) was her biggest hit in most countries. In 1984, Benatar released Tropico and its lead single "We Belong", which reached the Top 10 in several countries, including #5 on the US Hot 100. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in November 2022.
Pat Benatar performs at the 37th Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles on November 5, 2022.
Confessional alternative singer/songwriter who added pop sensibility and hip-hop flourishes to become a superstar with 1996's Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette caught the zeitgeist of the mid-'90s, splitting the difference between Gen-X cynicism and self-help actualization. Her well-known singles "You Oughta Know", "Hand in My Pocket", "Ironic", "You Learn", "Head Over Feet", "Uninvited", "Thank U", and "Hands Clean" reached top 40 in the major charts around the world. Morissette has won seven Grammy Awards, fourteen Juno Awards, one Brit Award, and has sold more than 75 million records worldwide. She has been dubbed the "Queen of Alt-Rock Angst" by Rolling Stone.
Alanis Morissette performs live in concert at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas on November 15, 2008.
Famed for her mystical chanteuse image, singer/songwriter Stevie Nicks enjoyed phenomenal success not only as a solo artist but also as a key member of Fleetwood Mac. Fleetwood Mac have sold more than 120 million records worldwide, making them one of the world's best-selling bands. Nicks was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act in 2019, making her the first woman to be inducted twice.
Stevie Nicks performs live at Sea.Hear.Now Festival 2022 in Asbury Park, New Jersey on September 17, 2022.
She rocks 1920’s glamour with her own quirky, retro, boho-chic style. She’s unconventionally beautiful, a fiery red-head with the voice of a siren. English singer, the lead vocalist and primary songwriter of the indie rock band Florence and the Machine, Florence Welch is one stylish lady. Best known for her super glamorous stage ensembles, her gothic glamour and decadent dress collection. Ranging from figure fitting to sheer and sultry to her classic winged dressed and even absolutely bonkers wardrobe and make-up compilations she never fails to get the attention of fans, magazines and designers alike.
Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine performs live onstage at Sziget Festival 2019 in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 2019.
Grace Slick is best known as the powerful-voiced female singer in Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, and Starship, rock bands with which she performed in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. Slick and Jefferson Airplane first achieved fame with their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow, which included the top-ten Billboard hits "White Rabbit" and "Somebody to Love". With Starship, she sang co-lead for two number one hits, "We Built This City" and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now". Slick was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 as a member of Jefferson Airplane.
Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane performs live onstage in San Francisco on June 13 ,1969.
The greatest white female rock singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery. In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company. She also did much to redefine the role of women in rock with her assertive, sexually forthright persona and raunchy, electrifying on-stage presence. Her most popular songs include her cover versions of "Me and Bobby McGee", "Piece of My Heart", "Cry Baby", "Down on Me", "Ball and Chain", and "Summertime"; and her original song "Mercedes Benz", her final recording. Janis Joplin was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995.
Janis Joplin performs live at Summer Festival for Peace 1970 at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York on August 6, 1970.
Kate Bush's music is an ambitious and idiosyncratic melange of folk rock, art rock, prog, and pop, and her lyrics were artful meditations full of drama, fantasy, danger, and a sense of wonder at the human and natural worlds. In 1978 she topped the UK Singles Chart with her debut single "Wuthering Heights". Kate Bush has since released 25 UK Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", "Babooshka", "Running Up That Hill", "Don't Give Up", and "King of the Mountain". Kate Bush has been nominated for 13 British Phonographic Industry accolades, winning for Best British Female Artist in 1987, and has been nominated for 3 Grammy Awards. Bush was appointed a CBE in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music and she was nominated twice for induction in the 2018 and 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Kate Bush performs on stage at Hammersmith Odeon in London on May 12, 1979.
Billie Eilish crafts genre-blurring outcast anthems that bridge the gap between ethereal indie electronic and dark alternative pop. With angsty, introspective lyrics that don't shy away from issues of mental health, she endeared herself to a devoted audience during her breakthrough years in the late 2010s when she was still just a teenager. Eilish is the recipient of numerous awards, including seven Grammy Awards, two American Music Awards, two MTV Europe Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, an Academy Award (Oscar), two Guinness World Records, one Brit Award, and three Billboard Music Awards. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Eilish at number 198 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.
Billie Eilish performs live onstage at Pukkelpop 2019 at Domein Kiewit in Hasselt, Belgium on August 18, 2019.
Since debuting with the Top Ten UK hit "Your Love Is King" (1984), Sade Adu or simply Sade, remained, across four ensuing decades of intermittent activity, shrewd synthesists of classic jazz, cutting-edge R&B, and mature pop. She is known mostly for stylishly seductive ballads, including the international hits "Smooth Operator" (1984), "The Sweetest Taboo" (1985), "No Ordinary Love" (1992), and "By Your Side" (2000). Her success in the music industry was recognised in the UK with an award of the Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2002, and was made Commander in 2017. In 1986, she became the first Nigerian to win a Grammy Award and in 2023, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Sade Adu performing at the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in London on July 13, 1985.
A boundary-breaking artist, Miley Cyrus incorporates different styles, pop, country, hip-hop, and indie, into her music while balancing her acting and singing careers. Cyrus’ personal life, public image, and performances have often sparked controversy and received widespread media coverage. Cyrus has come a long way from her Hannah Montana and Dead Petz days. Through the twists and turns of her long career, the singer has proved that she is utterly unpredictable, and that she most certainly "Can't Be Tamed."
Miley Cyrus performs live on stage at Lollapalooza Chile 2022 in Santiago on March 19, 2022.
Punk rock's poet laureate Patti Smith ranks among the most ambitious, unconventional, and challenging rock & rollers of all time. Her most avant-garde outings, such as 1975's Horses and the following year's Radio Ethiopia, borrowed improvisation and interplay from free jazz, but remained firmly rooted in primal three-chord rock & roll. A regular at CBGB's during New York punk's early days, the artiness and the raw musicianship of her work had a major impact on the movement among contemporaries and followers alike. Her most widely known song is "Because the Night", released in 1978 as a single from the Patti Smith Group 1978 album Easter. In 2007, Patti Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Icelandic singer, songwriter, actress, and fashion icon Björk is noted for her distinct three-octave vocal range and eccentric persona. She has developed an eclectic musical style over her four-decade career that has drawn on electronic, art pop, experimental, trip hop, classical, and avant-garde music. Bjork uses dress as a creative medium to enhance her musical vision, visualize her patriotic politics, as well as ally herself with performance art and further strengthen her position in the avant-garde. She has long been one of the most provocative style stars in pop culture, a risk-taker who has worked with many couture icons.
Björk performs live onstage at La Seine Musicale in Boulogne-Billancourt, France on June 21, 2022.
Tall and gangly, with a cleanly shaven head and an unearthly wail that could shatter glass, the Skunk Anansie frontwoman known as Skin is the kind of indie rock unicorn who comes along once a in blue moon. British alternative quartet Skunk Anansie played what their lead singer called clit-rock, an amalgam of heavy metal and black feminist rage.
Skin of Skunk Anansie performing live at the Sziget Festival 2011 in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 2011.
At the outset of her career, Kacey Musgraves bent country tradition to her will, writing songs that evoked the sound of classic country but were infused with progressive ideas reflecting her millennial perspective. "Merry Go Round" and "Follow Your Arrow," the big singles from her 2013 major-label debut, Same Trailer Different Park, crystallized this gift and established Musgraves as a major voice in country music and she was the rare country singer who could cross over to a rock audience without playing pop. By the end of the decade, she expanded her musical horizons so they mirrored her expansive lyrical stance, a shift showcased on the critically acclaimed 2018 album Golden Hour.
Kacey Musgraves performs live at Austin City Limits Festival 2022 at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas on October 15, 2022.
Lana Del Rey envisioned a Southern California dream world constructed out of sad girls and bad boys, manufactured melancholy, and genuine glamour, and then she came to embody this fantasy. Upon her debut release, Del Rey's music was described as "Hollywood sadcore" and has been repeatedly noted for its cinematic sound and its references to various aspects of pop culture, both critics and Del Rey herself have noted a persistent theme of 1950s and 1960s Americana.
Lana Del Rey performs live at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas on February 16, 2018.
With her literate, emotionally intricate songwriting and inventive guitar playing, St. Vincent's Annie Clark excels at subverting rock and pop conventions. St. Vincent introduced her genre-bending approach on 2007's Marry Me, which fused elements of indie, rock, electronic, and jazz in surprising ways and cracked the Billboard Top Ten with the anti-pop of 2017's Grammy-winning Masseduction. Her musical style has been characterised as rock, pop, art rock and indie rock, incorporating a wide range of influences including experimental rock, chamber rock, electropop, soft rock, and cabaret jazz.
St. Vincent performs live at Austin City Limits 2018 at Zilker Park in Austin, Texas on October 6, 2018.
The most significant country artist to emerge in the early years of the 21st century, Miranda Lambert parlayed her early success as a reality TV contestant into an unpredictable career that simultaneously defined and defied the conventions of mainstream country in the 2000s and beyond. Outside her solo career, she is a member of the Pistol Annies formed in 2011 alongside Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley. Lambert has been honored by the Grammy Awards, the Academy of Country Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards.
Miranda Lambert of the country music group Pistol Annies performs at Fashion Rocks 2014 at Barclays center in New York City on September 9, 2014.
Of the singer/songwriters who rose to prominence during the alternative rock explosion, few are as distinctive or as widely praised as Polly Jean Harvey. Over the course of her career, Harvey established herself as one of the most individual and influential songwriters of her era, exploring themes of sex, religion, and political issues with unnerving honesty, dark humor, and a twisted theatricality. Among the accolades Harvey has received are both the 2001 and 2011 Mercury Prize, making her the only artist to have been awarded the prize twice. In the 2013 Birthday Honours, she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music.
PJ Harvey performs live at Museumsinsel in Berlin, Germany on August 26, 2003.
An alumna of New York's anti-folk scene, singer, songwriter, and pianist Regina Ilyinichna Spektor makes quirky, highly eclectic, but always personal music. Her lyrics are equally eclectic, often taking the form of abstract narratives or first-person character studies, similar to short stories or vignettes put to song.
Regina Spektor performing live at State Theatre New Jersey in New Brunswick, NJ on November 13, 2017.
A bluesy, roots rock specialist with a powerful voice, Grace Potter is a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist (primarily Hammond B-3 and guitar) who burst onto the scene in the early 2000s both as a solo artist and with her band the Nocturnals. The group went widescreen in 2013 with their eponymous third studio album, which paired country and heartland rock with muscular Memphis-style grooves.
Grace Potter performs live at The Paramount in Huntington, New York on December 12, 2015.
Belinda Carlisle gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, the most successful all-female rock band of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist. Still instantly recognizable by her distinctive, helium-esque soprano, it saw her transform from an energetic new wave rocker to a polished adult contemporary pop singer. In 2011, Carlisle, as a member of the Go-Go's, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.
Belinda Carlisle and Gina Schock of The Go-Go's perform onstage at the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio on October 30, 2021.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/new-arrivals-january-20232023-01-09T16:30:26+02:002023-01-09T16:30:26+02:00New Arrivals - January 2023Iordanis KevrekidisMore]]>
ALTOSAXO Music Apparel New Arrivals - January 2023
Hardcore punk band SOUL GLO was formed in Philadelphia in 2014. Their music reflects the defiance of punk rock while embracing the punishing influence of extreme metal and their songs find room for traces of funk and hip-hop amidst the punishing guitars and over-the-top drumming.
With her notably smoky, stylized vocals and introspective lyrics, BENEE marries sophisticated soul and playful alt-pop. BENEE initially gained local prominence with her singles "Glitter" and "Soaked", before her 2019 single "Supalonely" saw international popularity following its success on TikTok and YouTube.
Doom metal band Freedom Hawk was formed in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 2003. The quartet’s brand of heavy rock captures the best of the ‘70s with touches of early '80s heavy metal, and presents it in a way familiar but uncompromising in its own personality.
Scottish indie pop band Belle & Sebastian was formed in Glasgow in 1996. The band caught on worldwide with their lushly orchestrated chamber pop tunes built on unabashedly twee sentiments and melodies as delicate as they were captivating.
Rootsy rock n’ roll band The Coffis Brothers was born and raised in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Their music is a blend of folk, blues, country, R&B and straight-ahead rock.
Violinist, singer, and songwriter Brittney Denise Parks, better known by her stage name Sudan Archives, has combined left-field strains of R&B, hip-hop, folk, and electronic music with the fiddling style of West Africa. She released two studio albums to date: Athena (2019) and Natural Brown Prom Queen (2022).
Alternative metal band Life of Agony was formed in Brooklyn, New York in 1989. They released six studio albums: River Runs Red (1993), Ugly (1995), Soul Searching Sun (1997), Broken Valley (2005), A Place Where There's No More Pain (2017), and The Sound of Scars (2019).
Alternative rock band Pop Will Eat Itself was formed in Stourbridge, England in 1986. Their style has been described as industrial rock, indie rock, and grebo.
British rock band Bring Me The Horizon was formed in Sheffield in 2004. Their style has been described as metalcore, alternative metal, alternative rock, pop rock, electronic rock, and deathcore. Count Your Blessings is the debut studio album by BMTH, released in 2006.
Female punk rockers the Red Aunts were a rough, raw, raunchy combo who appeared during the California punk revival of the '90s. Both praised and dismissed for their garage band amateurishness early on, the band crafted a grimy, scuzzy sound inflected with subtle strains of blues, country, and rock & roll.
"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division was released in June 1980 as a non-album single. Its lyrics were inspired by Ian Curtis's marital problems and struggles with epilepsy. The single was released the month after his death.
The stage name of singer McKenzie Ellis, Mothica is a New York-based artist known for her darkly textured brand of indie electronic pop she dubbed "gloom pop." She released four EPs, Mythic (2015), Heavy Heart (2017), Ashes (2018), and Forever Fifteen (2021), and two albums, Blue Hour (2020) and Nocturnal (2022).
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/new-arrivals-december-20222022-12-01T17:30:00+02:002023-01-27T17:14:44+02:00New Arrivals - December 2022Alto SaxoMore]]>
ALTOSAXO Music Apparel
DJ and music producer Sonny John Moore, known professionally as Skrillex, began his first tour as a solo artist in 2007. His style has been described as EDM, brostep, dubstep, electro house, EDM trap, moombahton, post-hardcore, and house.
English rock band Black Midi was formed in London in 2017. Their sound has been described as experimental rock, jazz fusion, math rock, progressive rock, avant-prog, noise rock, and post-punk. The band released their 2019 debut album, Schlagenheim, to critical acclaim, and follow-ups Cavalcade (2021) and Hellfire (2022) found the band bringing even more disparate elements into their dynamic and undulating sound.
Punk rock band Samiam was formed in Berkeley, California in 1988. Samiam specialized in the catchy, anthemic punk-pop but separated themselves with a greater debt to hardcore and a more introspective lyrical bent that won over emo audiences.
Punk rock band MxPx was formed in Bremerton, Washington, in 1992 as Magnified Plaid. Their music has been described as punk rock, pop punk, and skate punk. MxPx gained a following by updating the brash, three-chord attack of classic punk for the '90s, and kept that following well into the 21st century by remaining true to their sound and ideals.
Grindcore band Pig Destroyer was formed in Alexandria, Virginia in 1997. Pig Destroyer is one of the most well-known grindcore bands in the genre due to their poetic lyrics and the incorporation of thrash, punk, and doom influences in songwriting.
British rock band IDLES was formed in Bristol in 2009. Their style has been described as punk rock, post-punk, hardcore punk, indie rock, and post-hardcore. They released four albums: Brutalism (2017), Joy as an Act of Resistance (2018), Ultra Mono (2020), and Crawler (2021).
Electronic music duo The Chemical Brothers was formed by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons in Manchester, England in 1989. They were pioneers in bringing the big beat genre to the forefront of pop culture. Their style has been described as EDM, big beat, techno, trip hop, and house. No Geography is the ninth studio album by the Chemical Bros., released in 2019.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/how-r-e-m-created-the-masterpiece-automatic-for-the-people2022-11-02T17:41:01+02:002022-11-02T17:41:01+02:00How R.E.M. Created the Masterpiece ‘Automatic for the People’Alto Saxo
R.E.M. wanted to rock. The delicate, intricate sounds on 1991's Out of Time all but guaranteed that their next album would be bolder, rougher and louder.
]]>
R.E.M. wanted to rock. The delicate, intricate sounds on 1991's Out of Time all but guaranteed that their next album would be bolder, rougher and louder.
Not that the band’s music required an about-face. Throughout 1991, Out of Time reached blockbuster proportions, a multiplatinum smash that was shooting to No. 1 (in the U.S., U.K. and other countries), pushed by the surprise popularity of the mandolin-affected “Losing My Religion.” R.E.M. was everywhere – in videos on MTV, on all types of radio stations, on MTV Unplugged, in TV and radio interviews. They were everywhere, except on tour.
Instead of a massive globe-spanning trek, like the one that followed 1988’s Green, R.E.M. kept it simple: a couple of months of promotion, a handful of broadcast gigs. Then, they could get back to making more music. This is exactly what happened in the late spring of 1991. Guitarist Peter Buck, bassist/keyboardist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry reconvened in R.E.M.’s hometown of Athens, Ga., to devote time to new material. Initially, the goal was to write rockier songs, up-tempo tunes, something that would clash with the mostly subdued mood of their most recent release.
“We wrote fast songs. But it’s funny: Fast songs are easier to write, but it seems like it’s harder to write good ones,” Mills told Rolling Stone in 1992. “This time, the slow ones sounded better.”
Although some songs would outpace a saunter (“The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite,” “Ignoreland”), many of the new recordings were ballads awash in acoustic sounds, prominently featuring acoustic guitar, organ and piano. In the usual method of R.E.M. creation, Buck, Mills and Berry presented a couple of dozen demo recordings to singer Michael Stipe, who in turn wrote lyrics to the songs that most inspired him. Stipe’s initial take: “Pretty fucking weird. More acoustic, more organ-based, less drums.”
Mike Mills, Michael Stipe and Peter Buck of R.E.M. performing live at The Pier in Raleigh, North Carolina, July 21, 1980. The band was unknown and they were playing for the first time outside of their home state Georgia.
The one exception to the music-then-lyrics operating procedure was “Nightswimming,” which originated with Stipe’s poetry about the remembrance (and passing) of youth. In a rare occurrence, the singer took already completed lyrics to bandmates Buck and Mills.
“Being competitive bastards that we are, Mike and I started auditioning chord changes and tunes for Michael,” Buck said in the liner notes to In Time: The Best of R.E.M. 1988-2003. “The two tunes of mine that Michael rejected eventually became ‘Drive’ and ‘Try Not to Breathe.’ Mike had a piano instrumental that he played to Michael. He listened once, nodded his head to hear it again, and on the second pass he sang the lyrics. It was ‘Nightswimming,’ exactly like the record we would record a year later. I was standing in the corner dumbfounded.”
The moment that Buck describes happened when R.E.M. was finishing and mixing Out of Time in late 1990 at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios in Minnesota. They recorded “Nightswimming” along with instrumental versions of “Drive” and “Try Not to Breathe” as demos; maybe they’d become B-sides or even tracks on future albums. As it would happen, after R.E.M.’s brief attempt at making a big rock release, these three recordings set the tone for the new album.
So did the moods of the band members. Primary lyricist Stipe appeared obsessed with mortality. Buck felt the music had something to do not just with aging (the guys were now all over 30), but also with the changes in R.E.M.’s community.
“The world that we had been involved in had disappeared, the world of Hüsker Dü and the Replacements, all that had gone, all those bands were broken up or in the process of breaking up,” the guitarist said in R.E.M.: Fiction: An Alternative Biography. “We were just in a different place and that worked its way out musically.”
Those melancholy feelings, and a sense of loss, permeated the sounds and words of the 12 songs that would become Automatic for the People. Stipe viewed childhood and adolescence in the rear-view mirror, from sepia-toned teenage indiscretions (“Nightswimming”) to “a reading from Dr. Seuss” (followed by an audible laugh on “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite”). Insidious politics took root in “Ignoreland,” real life was compared to reel life in “Monty Got a Raw Deal” (which contained the observation that “nonsense has a welcome ring”) and death dominated many of the other songs (among them “Try Not to Breathe” and “Sweetness Follows”).
R.E.M. 1992 Automatic for the People Limited Edition T-Shirt
The twangy, mid-tempo sing-along “Man on the Moon” might be the album’s focal point, combining most of these themes, including references to childhood favorites (“Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk”), questions about the reality of what is presented on a screen (“If you believed … ”) and notions of immortality, whether actual or imagined. It all revolves around the song’s central figure, comedian Andy Kaufman, who died (or did he?) in 1984. “Man on the Moon” seems to take solace in the idea that maybe, just maybe, Andy’s still out there, wrestling.
When fans and writers discuss Automatic for the People, they gravitate to the darkness of the album, the meditations on death, mourning and grief. All of that is in there, certainly, but the album also presents more than a modicum of hope. The acoustic brambles of “Drive” might prove an austere entry point, but Stipe (via David Essex) is reminding the kids out there that they’re in control. Parting shot “Find the River” is awash in the nearness of death, with the narrator reminding us, before he and the album fade away, that “all of this is coming your way” – the good, the bad, all of the elements that compose a life.
Michael Stipe of REM performs live on stage at the Dutch TV show 'Countdown' in Bussum, Netherlands on March 11, 1991.
But R.E.M.’s most hopeful moment on the album is “Everybody Hurts,” which slices through years of murmured Stipe vocals to channel a clear idea: “No, no, no – you’re not alone.” Drummer Berry was the prime mover on this humanistic, Stax-ish ballad, which became a radio hit with a message that not only resonated with listeners but caused some to think twice about committing suicide.
“It saved a few. People have told me,” Stipe revealed to Mojo. “And I love hearing that. That’s for me, that’s my Oscar, that’s my gold on a shelf right there... that something we did impacted someone’s life in such a profound way. That’s a beautiful thing.”
“Everybody Hurts,” like the majority of tracks on Automatic for the People, took shape over months, featuring a progression of work in multiple studios. Demos were created at the R.E.M.-favored John Keane Studios in Athens and at Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway Studio in New Orleans – which boasted some album-ready material with “Drive” and, obviously, “New Orleans Instrumental No. 1.” The bulk of the recording was done with producer Scott Litt (who had teamed with the band on their previous three albums) in March and April of ’92 at Bearsville Sound Studios in Woodstock, New York. More recording was done in May at Miami’s Criteria Studios (where Stipe took the cover photo of a motel sign’s star ornament) before the final touches and mixes were done in June at Bad Animals in Seattle.
Along the way, the band decided that some of the songs would benefit from the addition of strings. But the quartet thought better of taking the DIY approach to orchestration, as they had done on Out of Time. Instead, they called on former Led Zeppelin member John Paul Jones to see if he would arrange the strings for “Everybody Hurts,” “Drive,” “Nightswimming” and “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite.” He agreed and flew to Georgia to record the parts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
“John Paul Jones really added an extra element to this record that the last one didn’t have, even though it had strings,” Berry said in a promotional video. “Those were basically our string parts that we kinda hummed along to the symphony and they kinda struggled with it. But John Paul Jones came in with, you know, charts and definite ideas. And he really directed that portion of the record.”
In addition, Psychedelic Furs collaborator Knox Chandler added “aggressive” cello playing to “Monty Got a Raw Deal” and “Sweetness Follows,” bringing such a depth of sound to the latter that R.E.M. removed Mills’ bass part from the track. Producer Litt even joined the parade of extra instrumentation, with touches of clarinet and harmonica to “Ignoreland.”
Automatic for the People – named after a slogan at Athens soul food establishment Weaver D’s – was released by Warner Bros. on Oct. 5, 1992. Although R.E.M. was uncertain about the commercial potential of their eighth studio album given its difficult subject matter and acoustic aesthetic, the record proved to be nearly as big a hit as Out of Time. It went platinum a couple of times over, topped out at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart (No. 1 in the U.K.) and produced three Top 40 U.S. hits (five in Britain). To date, it has sold more than 18 million copies worldwide. Reviews, including a rare five-star write-up from Rolling Stone, were the most uniformly positive since the beginning of R.E.M.’s career.
Although fans took to the album, they were disappointed by the news that the band would again opt not to mount a tour in the wake of an album’s release. Rumors swirled around Stipe’s health (with some fearing that the bisexual singer had secretly contracted AIDS) but were dispelled by his bandmates. R.E.M. simply didn’t feel that the time, or the Automatic material, was right for a giant tour.
“We couldn’t tour behind Out of Time or Automatic for the People,” Stipe told Salon in 2011. “It was all beautifully orchestrated slow songs and that doesn’t really fly at a festival in Belgium in front of 45,000 people who have been there for three days and are drunk and tired and muddy. You can’t do that.”
Not only was there not going to be a tour in 1992 (or 1993, or 1994), there wasn’t even a barrage of special performances similar to what had followed Out of Time: No Unplugged, no Saturday Night Live, no in-studio radio concerts. Except for one November benefit show in Athens and a smattering of print and broadcast interviews, Automatic for the People was left to stand on its merits as a recording (in a way that no R.E.M. album before, or until Collapse Into Now, did). That probably had plenty to do with crystalizing the popular opinion that the album was a substantial, complete work.
The lack of a tour also increased the importance of the videos paired with the record’s singles. As the ’80s wound down, R.E.M. came to be known for their artistic, clever music videos, before “Losing My Religion” cemented the band’s stardom by exploding all over MTV in 1991. The Automatic videos only enhanced the band’s reputation. Many of them remain the most memorable and iconic in the band’s oeuvre, from Stipe as a silver screen drifter in “Man on the Moon” to the slow-motion crowd surfing in “Drive” to an epic traffic jam (and amusing/devastating subtitles) in “Everybody Hurts.” With the band off the road, these clips helped define R.E.M. to millions of fans.
But none of those images would have resonated if not for the haunting, elaborate and stirring sounds of Automatic for the People. Decades later, fans and rock writers consider the album to be one of R.E.M.’s masterpieces (and, according to some, their greatest recorded achievement). Even all four members of R.E.M. agree that the album ranks among their very best moments – something that at least Buck was self-aware enough to assess shortly after its release.
“Automatic is the album that I think will hold up best, the one people may think is pretty good 10 years from now,” Buck told the Chicago Tribune in 1994. “I was driving through the desert with a friend listening to it and saying, ‘We should probably break up. This would be a good place to stop.’”
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/new-arrivals-november-20222022-11-01T17:30:00+02:002023-01-27T17:15:24+02:00New Arrivals - November 2022Alto Saxo
New t-shirts by: The Smashing Pumpkins, Blackbriar, The Human League, Enya, The Moody Blues, Talulah Gosh, Beabadoobee and many more...
Alt-rock icons the Smashing Pumpkins are recognized for their amalgam of progressive rock, heavy metal, goth, psychedelia, and dream pop; a layered, powerful style driven by swirling, distorted guitars that churned beneath lead singer and songwriter Billy Corgan's angst-ridden lyrics. Atum: A Rock Opera in Three Acts is their twelfth studio album, released in three separate installments in 2022 and 2023.
Indie rock band The Folk Implosion was formed by Lou Barlow in Boston in 1993. Their music style has been described as indie rock, alternative rock, trip hop, and indietronica. Dare to Be Surprised is the second album by the Folk Implosion, released in 1997.
Catalan group Ketekalles was formed in Barcelona in 2016. Their music style is a fusion of various genres, such as rumba, funk, hip hop, soul, rock, pop, and trap. Hurgar y Sacar is their debut album, released in 2016.
Alternative metal band Blackbriar was formed in Assen, Netherlands in 2012. Their style has been described as alternative metal, gothic rock, and symphonic metal. Their EP, Fractured Fairytales was released in 2017.
Moroccan singer and songwriter Oum El Ghaït Benessahraoui, better known as Oum, mixes hassani, jazz, gospel, soul, afrobeat and Sufi music influences in her songs. She has released five albums: Lik'Oum (2009), Sweerty (2012), Soul of Morocco (2013), Zarabi (2015), and Daba (2020).
"I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar That much is true..."
Synth pop's first international superstars, the Human League were among the earliest and most innovative bands to break into the pop mainstream on a wave of synthesizers and electronic rhythms. "Don't You Want Me" was released in 1981 as the fourth single from their third studio album, Dare.
With her blend of folk melodies, synthesized backdrops, and classical motifs, Enya created a distinctive style that more closely resembled new age than the folk and Celtic music that provided her initial influences. Watermark is the second studio album by Enya, released in 1988 and includes the international hit "Orinoco Flow".
Italian progressive rock band Premiata Forneria Marconi was formed in Milan in 1970. PMF are among the first to combine symphonic classical and traditional Italian musical influences in a rock music context. Such innovations and their longevity have earned PFM a place among the most important bands in the progressive rock genre.
TISM (short for This Is Serious Mum), formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1982, and became one the most popular underground groups of the Australian music scene. Their musical style has been described as alternative rock, alternative dance, synthpop, and dance rock.
English rock band The Moody Blues were formed in Birmingham in 1964. Their 1967 album, Days of Future Passed was a fusion of rock with classical music and established the band as pioneers in the development of art rock and progressive rock. It has been described as a "landmark" and one of the first successful concept albums. The Moody Blues' most successful singles include "Go Now", "Nights in White Satin", "Tuesday Afternoon", "Question", "Gemini Dream", "The Voice", and "Your Wildest Dreams".
The music projects of songwriter, producer, and singer Caroline Polachek have ranged from the dramatic synth pop of Chairlift to her more brooding alter ego Ramona Lisa, experimental ambient music as CEP, and off-kilter electro-pop under her own name. Her musical style has been described as mainly alternative pop, along with art pop, indie pop, and experimental pop.
Singer and songwriter Beabadoobee pairs delicately sung confessions with guitars that pack a wallop. Her style has been described as indie rock, space rock, alternative rock, slacker rock, indie pop, folk-pop, and bedroom pop. Her debut studio album, Fake It Flowers, was released in 2020 and her second album, Beatopia, was released in 2022.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/pink-floyd-reunite-for-ukraine-protest-song2022-04-13T17:39:14+03:002022-04-13T17:39:14+03:00Pink Floyd reunite for Ukraine protest songAlto SaxoMore]]>
Pink Floyd have reunited to record their first new material in 28 years, a protest song against the Ukraine war.
Hey Hey, Rise Up! features David Gilmour and Nick Mason alongside long-time Floyd bassist Guy Pratt and Nitin Sawhney on keyboards.
But the song is built around a spine-tingling refrain from Ukrainian singer Andriy Khlyvnyuk of the band Boombox.
Gilmour says the song is a show of "anger at a superpower invading a peaceful nation".
But it is also intended as a morale booster for the people of Ukraine, and a call "for peace".
Work on the song began a couple of weeks ago, when Gilmour was shown Khlyvnyuk's Instagram feed. The singer had posted footage of himself in Kyiv's Sofiyskaya Square, fully armed and ready to fight the Russian invasion.
Facing the camera, Khlyvnyuk sang The Red Viburnum In The Meadow, a protest song written during the first world war, which has become a rallying cry in Ukraine over last six weeks.
"It just struck me that, as it is a capella, one could turn this into a beautiful song," Gilmour said.
By coincidence, Gilmour had performed live with BoomBox in 2015, at a London benefit gig for the Belarus Free Theatre - and he contacted Khlyvnyuk to seek permission.
"I spoke to him, actually, from his hospital bed, where he had a pretty minor injury from a mortar," the star said. "So he's right there on the front line.
"I played him a little bit of the song down the phone line and he gave me his blessing."
The song was released with proceeds going to humanitarian relief.
The song carries special significance for Gilmour, as his daughter-in-law is the Ukrainian-born artist Janina Pedan.
Pedan had inspired the artwork for the single, which contains the national flower of Ukraine, the sunflower.
"My daughter-in-law told us the story of a woman at the beginning of this conflict, giving sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers and saying that she hoped that sunflowers would sprout where they died."
Gilmour said he found the "powerlessness of the West" in the face of Russian aggression "infuriating" but said he supported the ongoing sanctions against the country.
"It's a shame that the people who suffer most are the ordinary people of Russia - but that is the way the sanctions work. It helps to create a discontent in that country which will hopefully, at some point, create some sort of change of regime."
Asked how he felt about the UK government's response to the crisis, he expressed frustration at the bureaucracy facing Ukrainian refugees who want to settle here.
"A lot of Europe is saying 'welcome' and our [government] is saying, 'you need to get onto a computer and fill in forms'.
"My view would be to open the doors and sort of paperwork out later. But government doesn't seem to be following that way of thinking."
Roger Waters does not feature on the new recording - he left the band in 1985 and has only occasionally performed with them since, such as at the Live 8 concert in 2005.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/the-20-best-billie-eilish-songs2022-02-07T19:34:55+02:002022-02-07T19:34:55+02:00The 20 Best Billie Eilish SongsAlto Saxo
Happier Than Ever tour, we’ve ranked the 20 best Billie Eilish songs.
]]>
Few artists in the past decade have changed the pop landscape like Billie — and here are the highlights from her already-historic run
Over just three releases, Billie Eilish has blazed a new path in pop music that so many others are already following. Sometimes dark and ambient, other times classically jazzy, she’s a tour de force of doing whatever the hell you want while still keeping it catchy. Her second studio album, Happier Than Ever, proved how capable she was maturing her music (which she makes with co-writer, producer, and big brother Finneas) without losing sight of who she is at her core.
Now, to celebrate the start of her massive Happier Than Ever tour, we’ve ranked the 20 best Billie Eilish songs.
20 'Male Fantasy'
Billie Eilish had a few things to prove on her second album, Happier Than Ever: “That I can sing,” she said. “That I’m a woman. That I have a personality.” She makes all these points loud and clear in “Male Fantasy,” the final song. Eilish starts by critiquing porn (“I can’t stand the dialogue”) over country-style acoustic guitar. But then she starts remembering friends and lovers from her past, the ones she can’t get out of her head, wondering how much of her own life is just fantasy. It’s a song that sneaks up and destroys you emotionally — just her specialty.
19 'I Love You'
A beautiful meditation on confusion, Billie Eilish attempts to make sense of someone telling her that they love her when she doesn’t want to hear it — and, complicating things further, she loves that person back when she doesn’t want to. The song is especially moving thanks to Finneas’ sparse arrangement — just some Nick Drake-style acoustic guitar and keyboards — and Eilish’s breathy, sorrowful vocals. She drew inspiration from songs by Phoebe Bridgers, Sufjan Stevens, and, improbably, XXXtentacion and Post Malone for the tune, but it sounds wholly Eilish as the melody rises and falls like alternating hope and disappointment.
18 'Lovely' (with Khalid)
Billie Eilish and Khalid both rose to success as mumbly voiced high-school-age kids who made their little corners of teenage wasteland feel like bold new undiscovered countries. So this duet from the soundtrack for the second season of 13 Reasons Why, a hymn to the happy-sad feeling of owning your own depression, made plenty of sense. Khalid moans dolefully over Finneas’ forlorn piano and distressed string arrangements, and Eilish’s liberated high notes that flutter arrestingly above the gorgeously grim musical landscape.
17 'Therefore I Am'
Not long after this slime-haired prodigy swept the 2020 Grammys, she resurfaced in an empty shopping mall, where a camera follows her all the way to Chipotle. Stars, they really are just like us. That’s what happens in the video Eilish self-directed for “Therefore I Am,” a song that doubles as her raison d’être now that the whole world was paying attention to her. The verses jockey between hypno-pop and ASMR-rap. Like many of Eilish and Finneas’ best work, the song feels off-the-cuff, like a voice memo they got right on the first try.
16 'NDA'
The bleary distortion that opens “NDA” sets the tone: This is a song about life as a disconnected blur of new-fame isolation. At a time when most people her age are enjoying the first fruits of early-twenties freedom, pop superstar Billie Eilish is stuck with a new mansion that feels like a tomb; when she gets a boy back, she has to make him sign an NDA. “Maybe I should think about a new career,” she muses. The tensely humming track, with its water-torture string plucks and meat-cleaver snare thwumps, amps up the sense of claustrophobic desperation, as Eilish’s bleary voice tries to break through, hungering for the freedom she’s earned and deserves.
15 '&Burn' (feat. Vince Staples)
“I’ll sit and watch your car burn,” Eilish sings with the voice of a deranged cherub over crackling 808s. “&Burn” is a sparse revenge fantasy that became a standout on the expanded edition of the then-16-year-old’s debut EP, Don’t Smile at Me. Eilish has said that Vince Staples was her first choice to collaborate on the track, and it’s easy to hear why. Eilish can sound untethered, but Staples’ flow about evening scores drags her back down to face the fire she started.
14 'You Should See Me in a Crown'
The pop-culture-obsessed O’Connells were initially inspired by a line of dialogue in Sherlock when it came to their doomy, pump-up hit “You Should See Me in a Crown” — that and the sound their father made when he was sharpening knives in the kitchen one day. The song is a prime example of how Eilish and Finneas plumb every aspect of their lives for inspiration, from the mundane to the theatrical, to great effect. “I just want it to sound like, if you heard it in a dark room, it’d be fucking scary,” Eilish told Billboard of the track. So terrifying … but that’s the goal, to freak everybody out.”
13 'My Strange Addiction'
Only Billie Eilish could name a song after a show in which people eat glass and compulsively collect dolls, throw in some dialogue from The Office, and somehow come out with a dark, sexy tune about romantic obsession. “My Strange Addiction” riffs off of a very meta 2011 episode of the sitcom titled Threat Level Midnight, about a fictional secret agent named Michael Scarn played by Michael Scott played by Steve Carell. There’s also dancing for some reason. “When we made the beat for ‘My Strange Addiction,’ it reminded me of the song they play when they do the Scarn dance,” Eilish told MTV News. “I thought that was really funny, so we literally just ripped the audio from Netflix and put it in the song.”
12 'My Boy'
In the words of Tina Turner, Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas never ever do things nice and easy. They always do it nice — and rough. “My Boy,” an early track from her 2017 debut, Don’t Smile at Me, starts off like that: jazzy and bitchy, like Anita O’Day in sweatpants (“My boy loves his friends like I love my split ends/And by that, I mean, he cuts ‘em off”). But when the tempo picks up after the first verse, so do the teeth.
11 'Getting Older'
“I had to take a break in the middle of writing that one,” Eilish said about “Getting Older.” “And I wanted to cry because it was so revealing. And it’s just the truth.” It’s the powerful opening song on Happier Than Ever, where Eilish takes stock of the emotional damage of fame. She murmurs over the minimal electro pulse, confessing, “Things I once enjoyed/Just keep me employed now.” (It’s like how Nirvana kicked off In Utero with the line, “Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I’m bored and old.”) But she faces up to her past trauma, saying, “Wasn’t my choice to be abused.”
10 'Everything I Wanted'
“Everything I Wanted’ was penned in 2018, inspired by a severe bout of depression and dreams of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. “The whole dream was me watching how everything went after I’d died,” she told Song Exploder. “I remember in the dream there were newspapers that said, ‘Problematic 16-year-old Billie Eilish has finally killed herself.’ And my best friends were doing an interview and they were like, ‘Oh, we never really liked her.’” Initially mired in the darkness, the song eventually became a celebration of her and Finneas’ bond and how their togetherness has helped keep her afloat. The song went on to take home Record of the Year at the 2021 Grammy Awards.
9 'Bury a Friend'
“But we knew right from the start/That you’d fall apart ’cause I’m too expensive,” Eilish declares, making you pity the fool she was dispensing with, even as you were thrilled to her arrogant freedom. “Bury a Friend” walked the finest of fine lines between terror and intimacy, fusing subterranean industrial rumble, razor-eyed goth-jazz swing, predatory mumble, and the ecstatic wooziness of a teen-pop dream coming into searing focus. When her voice suddenly slips into a Billie Holiday blues purr, the tension between the modern and ancient is almost disconcerting, suggesting an artist ready to diabolically twist the entire history of pop music into her helpless play thing.
8 'Bellyache'
Has there ever been a sweeter sounding description of a bloody massacre? On “Bellyache,” a teenaged Eilish imagines the guilt she’d feel after murdering her friends over an upbeat acoustic guitar line and even some lite-trap rhythms. “[It’s about] getting a bellyache because you just killed a bunch of people, which you would if you just killed a bunch of people if you were human, but psychopaths don’t really have those feelings,” she said shortly after the song came out. “We kind of just became this character that knows they’re out of their mind, but also doesn’t at the same time.”
7 'Ocean Eyes'
Her first song took off for a good reason: “Ocean Eyes” is a sublime teaser of how evocative Eilish’s music would become. Finneas wrote the song originally for his band before giving it to his then-13-year-old sister to sing for her dance recital. The song eventually took off on SoundCloud, helping Eilish secure a recording contract. While the Eilish-penned songs that soon followed offered a window into a darker vision of pop, Finneas was right in realizing that his dream-pop ballad was a perfect fit for his little sister’s still-developing musical sensibilities.
6 'My Future'
Billie blew listeners away with “My Future,” a jazzy electronic torch song that shows off how much her voice has toughened between albums. But it’s a special kind of love song — Billie vows she’s not falling in love with anyone but herself. “I’m in love with my future,” she sings. “Can’t wait to meet her.” She and Finneas wrote “My Future” in just a couple of days, sunk in the quarantine blues. She revels in her solitude, both the pleasures and challenges. But instead of feeling lonely, she tries to look in the mirror and get to know that woman better.
5 'When the Party’s Over'
“When the Party’s Over” is the ultimate hymnal in the Church of Billie, where you get to genuflect on the delicate layers of her voice and mournful piano. The When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? track doubles as one of her greatest vocal performances and a songwriting highlight for Finneas, a breakup ballad that’s as gorgeous as it is dramatic. Case in point: It plays in the Season Three finale of Riverdale.
4 'Oxytocin'
On this slinky little techno bop, Eilish pays tribute to the hormone released during sex and childbirth, wondering coyly “What would people say … if they listen through the wall?” The dark and clubby track evokes Nine Inch Nails and Crystal Castles, letting the singer fly her freak flag. “Honestly, the images I have for ‘Oxytocin’ were just sex,” she told The Guardian. “That’s it. All different kinds, and styles, and colors, and locations. That’s really what was in my head. Sex.”
3 'Your Power'
It starts inconspicuously enough, with some campfire strumming and a simple, seven-note melody. Then Billie descends. Doubling the acoustic guitar in a voice so high, so pure, so otherworldly, and so completely, unbearably, impossibly sad, she puts you on the cusp of tears before the first chorus is through. That’s when she slips in the stiletto. “How dare you? And how could you?” she asks. “I thought that I was special. You made me feel like it was my fault you were the devil.” It’s a brutal accusation, coming from an angel’s throat.
2 'Bad Guy'
Once in a generation, a great artist comes out of nowhere to step up to the microphone, and declare, “Duuuuh!” “Bad Guy” was the hit that introduced Billie Eilish to the world, a self-proclaimed “annoying 16-year-old” who turned out to be a genius singer and songwriter. She half-whispers, half-threatens her manifesto: “I’m the bad type, make your mama sad type/Make your girlfriend mad type/Might seduce your dad type.” But she refuses to tone down any of her essential weirdness — she even begins by taking out her Invisalign. “Bad Guy” was the perfect breakthrough hit for Billie: She demands that you pay attention, but demands that you do it on her terms. Because she’s the bad guy. Duh.
1 'Happier Than Ever'
The title track of Eilish’s sophomore album comes in like a lamb and goes out like a whole pack of lions. Inspired by the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life,” “Happier Than Ever” is split into two very different halves. The first two and a half minutes are a folky, emo ballad where she reflects on how much happier she is without a neglectful partner. By the back half, she’s gone electric, screaming at the top of her lungs “I’d never treat me this shitty/You made me hate the city.” It’s pure angst and a departure for the usually cool-headed singer-songwriter, now flexing some of that Green Day fandom that molded her early taste in music.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/abba-reunite-for-voyage2021-09-22T16:00:35+03:002021-09-22T16:00:35+03:00ABBA reunite for VoyageAlto SaxoMore]]>
One of the most anticipated comebacks in pop culture has finally come to pass: the return of ABBA.
Forty years after the bitter songs written in the wake of two band divorces for their last album, 1981’s The Visitors, the Swedish pop quartet has reunited for Voyage, an album of brand new songs that will be released on 5 November – including, they say, a Christmas song. Two tracks from it, the stately and epic ballad I Still Have Faith in You and the shimmying Don’t Shut Me Down, are out now.
The group – Benny Andersson, Agnetha Fältskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Björn Ulvaeus – have also announced a new concert experience in London, also called Voyage, beginning in May 2022. Digital versions of themselves (not holograms, their team asserted) will appear nightly alongside a 10-piece live band at a new 3,000-capacity venue in the city’s Olympic park, called the Abba Arena.
Lyngstad said of their reunion: “Such joy it was to work with the group again – I am so happy with what we have made,” and called Andersson and Ulvaeus “exceptionally talented, truly genius songwriters”.
Ulvaeus said of Fältskog and Lyngstad: “I was completely floored by the way they delivered those songs,” with Andersson saying: “I think hearing Frida and Agnetha singing again is hard to beat.”
Andersson added: “We’re truly sailing in uncharted waters. With the help of our younger selves, we travel into the future.”
The Swedish band will appear as ABBAtars, depicted as their younger selves through motion capture digital technology.
Abba’s digital avatars were created using motion capture technology, similar to that used by Andy Serkis and others to portray CGI beasts in Hollywood movies: the group was filmed in skintight suits for the lifelike recreations. Wayne McGregor, resident artist at London’s Royal Ballet, choreographed the band’s performance, and an 850-strong team from George Lucas-founded effects company Industrial Light & Magic designed and animated the de-aged avatars from the footage.
McGregor said: “Imagine: growing up in the north of England in the 70s and learning to ballroom, Latin and disco dance to the incredible songs of Abba. I was eight and I was totally transported. Fast forward to 2020, being in Sweden and dancing with Abba – in real life! I was about to be 50 and I was totally transported again. That is the magic of Abba.” He promised “technological wizardry, state of the art immersion and entertainment innovation. And still at its searing heart we simply have new songs, new moves, classic songs, classic moves.”
The footage is directed by film-maker Baillie Walsh, and produced by Johan Renck – best known as the Emmy-winning director of TV miniseries Chernobyl – and Svana Gisla, who worked with Renck on videos for David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. Also on the creative team is Benny Andersson’s film producer son, Ludwig.
Both the concert and album have been mooted for some time. The avatar concept – or “Abbatars” as Ulvaeus has called them – was announced in 2016 by music manager Simon Fuller (who is not involved with the 2022 iteration). In 2017, Andersson elaborated on the project, saying: “It will take a bit of time, it takes time to digitalise a face. It’s fun that it’s so technologically advanced.” In 2018, a TV show featuring the avatars was announced, co-produced by the BBC and NBC, which has not yet been aired.
The group also announced that meeting up for the project had “an unexpected consequence. We all felt that, after some 35 years, it could be fun to join forces again and go into the recording studio. So we did. And it was like time had stood still and we had only been away on a short holiday. An extremely joyful experience!”
Two songs were initially written and recorded, including I Still Have Faith in You, but their release was pushed back to early 2019, then late 2019, but never emerged. Since then the group have continued writing and recording, eventually ending up with a full album of material.
In the interim, their pop cultural heft has continued to grow. The stage musical Mamma Mia!, debuted in 1999, and recently reopened in London’s West End, reintroduced the group’s hits to new generations. A 2008 film version made more than £440m in global box office takings and is an enduring family favourite: it is the UK’s biggest-selling DVD ever. A 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, made £285m globally.
Their ongoing popularity has meant that their 1992 greatest hits collection, Abba Gold, is the longest-running album in the UK album chart. In July, it became the first to surpass 1,000 weeks there, and is currently sitting at No 14.
Long before the musical and movies, however, their song catalogue was already one of the most successful – and brilliant – in all pop music. Having formed in 1972, at the height of their fame in the mid-1970s six out of seven singles in a row reached No 1 in the UK: Fernando, Mamma Mia, Dancing Queen, Knowing Me Knowing You, Name of the Game and Take a Chance on Me. They had three further No 1s and a total of 19 Top 10 hits.
Bjorn Ulvaeus, Frida Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson from Abba performing on 'Saturday Night Live' TV show on November 15, 1975.
The reunion also brings two pairs of once-married couples back together. Lyngstad and Andersson were engaged in 1971, the same year that Fältskog and Ulvaeus married, but by 1981, both couples had divorced within a year of each other. Their romantic strife was explored with great candour in songs such as The Winner Takes It All, and in the psychodramas of their final album in 1981.
The group fizzled out in 1983 without an official breakup announcement. In the years since, Fältskog released 12 solo albums, most recently A in 2013; Lyngstad released three albums and made occasional one-off recordings.
Andersson and Ulvaeus co-wrote numerous musicals, including Chess with Tim Rice, and in 2013 they worked with EDM producer Avicii to compose the theme for the Eurovision Song Contest, which they had won with Waterloo in 1974.
The group have long denied they would ever perform live again. In 2014, Lyngstad said: “We only have one answer and that is no … No amount of money would change our minds. Maybe we sometimes say it would be good to do a song together again, just a recording and nothing else.”
In 2016, they did perform one song together at a party to celebrate 50 years of the Andersson-Ulvaeus songwriting partnership: The Way Old Friends Do.
Speaking at a London launch event for Voyage, Ulvaeus said the band was as close as they ever were. “It is incredible to be where we are, no imagination could dream up that. To release a new album after 40 years and to still be the best of friends … to still have a total loyalty. Who has experienced that? Nobody … It is such fun and we have been longing for this for such a long time.”
Why do the project now? “We wanted to do it before we were dead,” he said.
Andersson, also appearing, said the worst of the filming was when they had to shave their beards. “I’ve had mine 50 years.”
Ulvaeus said they chose London to host their live show because “London is the best city to be in when it comes to entertainment, theatre, musicals … We have always felt that the Brits see us as their own.”
Asked what the best thing about being in Abba is, Andersson replied, with refreshing candour: “Not having to worry about the money. You are free to do anything, to keep on writing the music.”
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/elton-john-announces-final-farewell-yellow-brick-road-tour-dates2021-06-25T11:24:27+03:002021-06-25T12:30:14+03:00Elton John announces final 'Farewell Yellow Brick Road' tour datesAlto Saxo
Goodbye, yellow brick road! After being delayed by the global pandemic, music icon Elton John has announced the tour dates for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour. We can't wait to see the legend on the stage one last time!
]]>
Goodbye, yellow brick road! After being delayed by the global pandemic, music icon Elton John has announced the tour dates for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour. We can't wait to see the legend on the stage one last time!
The legendary singer and piano player had previously announced his farewell tour and began it back in 2018 before having to postpone it due to the global pandemic. The newly announced dates will start on May 27, 2022 in Germany. The European leg of the tour will continue on in Italy, Denmark, The Netherlands, France, and end with five shows in the U.K. From there, John will move to North America.
The North American tour then starts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 15, 2022, and continues through November, where the tour will end with two back-to-back nights at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, the site of one of his most iconic performances nearly 50 years earlier.
The tour will then end in 2023, following two shows in Auckland, New Zealand, and then several yet-to-be-announced dates in Australia.
Elton John performing at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, 1975.
Elton John sent out a message to his fans along with the tour dates. “I’m going to go out in the biggest possible way, performing at my very best, with the most spectacular production I’ve ever had, playing in places that have meant so much to me throughout my career,” he said. “Whether it’s next summer in Frankfurt or at the legendary Dodger Stadium for the grand finale in the United States, I can’t wait to see you all on the road one last time.
“This has been an incredible tour so far, full of the most amazing highs, and I look forward to making more wonderful memories with you at these final shows,” he added. “To all my friends down under, We’ll be seeing you too. Thank you and I look forward to seeing you in your town.”
John had previously announced rescheduled dates for several of the North American shows that were postponed due to the pandemic. Those dates start with stops in New Orleans, Houston, Dallas, Little Rock, and Oklahoma City in January 2022 before moving onto the rest of the country and Canada throughout February, March, and April.
The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour features a cavalcade of John’s hits and deep cuts from throughout his storied career.
Public sale of U.K. tickets begins on June 29, 2021. North American public ticket sale opens on June 30, 2021.
This is going to be a legendary tour, so make sure you don’t miss it!
Elton John performs at Doug Weston’s Troubadour in Los Angeles on August 25, 1970.
Check out the dates below.
May 27, 2022 -- Frankfurt, Germany at Deutsche Bank Park FKA Commerzbank-Arena
May 29, 2022 -- Leipzig, Germany at Red Bull Arena
June 4, 2022 -- Milan, Italy at San Siro Stadium
June 7, 2022 -- Horsens, Denmark at CASA Arena Horsens
June 9, 2022 -- Arnhem, Netherlands at GelreDome
June 11, 2022 -- Paris, France at La Defense Arena
June 15, 2022 -- Norwich, UK at Carrow Road
June 17, 2022 -- Liverpool, UK at Anfield
June 19, 2022 -- Sunderland, UK at Stadium of Light
June 22, 2022 -- Bristol, UK at Ashton Gate Stadium
June 29, 2022 -- Swansea, UK at Liberty Stadium
July 15, 2022 -- Philadelphia, PA at Citizens Bank Park
July 18, 2022 -- Detroit, MI at Comerica Park
July 23, 2022 -- East Rutherford, NJ at MetLife Stadium
July 28, 2022 -- Foxboro, MA at Gillette Stadium
July 30, 2022 -- Cleveland, OH at Progressive Field
Aug. 5, 2022 -- Chicago, IL at Soldier Field
Sept. 7, 2022 -- Toronto, ON at Rogers Centre
Sept. 10, 2022 -- Syracuse, NY at Carrier Dome
Sept. 16, 2022 -- Pittsburgh, PA at PNC Park
Sept. 18, 2022 -- Charlotte, NC at Bank of America Stadium
Sept. 22, 2022 -- Atlanta, GA at Mercedes-Benz Stadium
Sept. 24, 2022 -- Washington, DC at Nationals Park
Sept. 30, 2022 -- Arlington, TX at Globe Life Field
Oct. 2, 2022 -- Nashville, TN at Nissan Stadium
Oct. 21, 2022 -- Vancouver, BC at BC Place
Oct. 29, 2022 -- San Antonio, TX at Alamodome
Nov. 4, 2022 -- Houston, TX at Minute Maid Park
Nov. 12, 2022 -- Phoenix, AZ at Chase Field
Nov. 19, 2022 -- Los Angeles, CA at Dodger Stadium
Nov. 20, 2022 -- Los Angeles, CA ar Dodger Stadium
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/j-rock-big-in-japan2021-02-03T18:00:00+02:002021-05-12T17:39:30+03:00J-ROCK - Big in JapanAlto Saxo
J-rock is short for “Japanese rock.” The genre dates back to the ’60s and has been continually evolving. At first, J-rock was heavily influenced by British and American rock bands, but now, the genre has become one-of-a-kind.
]]>
J-rock is short for “Japanese rock.” The genre dates back to the ’60s and has been continually evolving. At first, J-rock was heavily influenced by British and American rock bands, but now, the genre has become one-of-a-kind. The visual kei movement sprung out of the J-rock genre in the 80s. Some J-rock bands began to embrace visual kei, which lead them to sport androgynous, flashy clothing, wild hairstyles, and flamboyant makeup. Although the prevalence of the visual kei movement has died down over the years, it still leaves a huge impression on the j-rock community and also lives on as a subculture.
Visual kei (meaning ‘visual style’, with the ‘kei’ pronounced ‘k’) is a musical genre, and beyond that a subculture, which grew out of a tangled mix of glam rock, punk and new wave influences, combined with kabuki theatre and shojo (manga for young women).
Japanese rock music has received recognition worldwide, being widely known in Asia, and has survived through decades competing with its contemporary local style J-pop. The demand for rock in Japan is so huge that festivals mainly focused on it like the Fuji Rock Festival have been introduced since the late 90s with attendances reaching a peak of 200,000 people per festival making it the largest outdoor music event in the country. J-rock is unique, it sounds nothing like American or British rock, and that’s why it’s so fun to listen to. Take the time to put on your headset, and rock out to J-rock.
We will let you in on the basics of J-rock, and what J-rock bands you should listen to first.
Abingdon Boys School アビングドンボーイズスクール
Abingdon Boys School is a J-Rock band from Tokyo lead by Takanori Nishikawa, formed in 2005. Their music has been featured on many Japanese video games and anime series.
Abingdon Boys School T-Shirt
Aldious アルディアス
Aldious have been extremely popular in Japan since they appeared in the late 2000s. Playing a lovely and energetic brand of power metal, Aldious have been emulated by several acts during the past few years, drawing countless new female musicians to heavy metal music. In the midst of leading this modern feminine J-metal movement, Aldious have sold well enough to feature in the top 50 on Oricon with every release in their career thus far, with multiple top 10s in the process.
Aldious T-Shirt
Babymetal ベビーメタル
BABYMETAL is a Japanese kawaii metal band. The band was formed in 2010, with the original lineup of Suzuka Nakamoto as Su-metal, Moa Kikuchi as Moametal, and Yui Mizuno as Yuimetal, with the concept of creating a fusion of the heavy metal and Japanese idol genres. The band's name is a combination of "baby" (ベビー) and "heavy metal" (ヘビーメタル), and the Japanese pronunciation rhymes with "heavy metal".
2016's Metal Resistance saw the kawaii idol metal troupe embrace the darkness and dial back some of the more radio-friendly J-pop aspects of their sound. Metal Galaxy, the band's third full-length effort, aims to remedy that. The 14-track set commences with the fragmented "Future Metal," an overture of sorts that suggests Babymetal are taking the road less traveled this time around, when in actuality, the idea of globe-trotting plays a large part in the overall proceedings. Thai rapper F. Hero's gruff delivery brings added heft to the already muscular and mosh-pit-ready "Pa Pa Ya!!"
Babymetal T-Shirts
BAND-MAID バンド-メイド
BAND-MAID are an all-female Japanese rock band with an image modeled on maid cafés, which are cosplay restaurants found primarily in Japan where waitstaff dress in French maid or anime costumes and treat customers as masters and mistresses; the group refer to their fans as "masters" and "princesses," with their performances being billed as "servings." The band's hard-hitting sound runs the range from hard rock and metal to punk and pop.
Band-Maid T-Shirt
Blood Stain Child
BLOOD STAIN CHILD is a Japanese metal band from Osaka, that combines melodic death metal with electronic and trance. Amateras is BLOOD STAIN CHILD's seventh studio album. It was released on July 3, 2019, and peaked at #114 on the Oricon album chart. Cha-La Head-Cha-La is a cover of the original opening theme of the anime series Dragon Ball Z.
Blood Stain Child T-Shirt
Bridear
BRIDEAR is an all-female metal band from Fukuoka, Japan, formed in 2011. After 50 performances in 11 European countries in 2016, BRIDEAR has established their status as a popular J-Rock band.
Bridear T-Shirt
Broken By The Scream
Broken By The Scream is a Japanese metal idol group formed in 2016. Critically acclaimed around the world, with low growls from Io, high screams from Kagura, and clean vocals from Yae and Ayame, the screaming metal idol group Broken By The Scream is a unique combination never before witnessed in the idol or the metal scene. Their powerful screaming and beautiful singing is unlike anything else.
Broken By The Scream T-Shirt
Bump of Chicken バンプ・オブ・チキン
Japanese indie rock outfit BUMP OF CHICKEN formed in 1994 for a high school cultural festival. Over the decades, they have released a number of Japanese chart-toppers, including their third set, 2002's Jupiter, and four consecutive number ones in the 2010s, capping the decade with 2019's Aurora Arc. Their music has been used in various video games and as theme songs for movies, television shows and anime in Japan.
Bump of Chicken T-Shirt
Coldrain コールドレイン
Coldrain are a Japanese rock band from Nagoya, formed in 2007. The band's musical style has been described as post-hardcore, metalcore, alternative metal, alternative rock, punk rock, screamo, hard rock, and nu metal. The band has been focusing much more energy on touring overseas, and their popularity seems set to grow exponentially due to their excellent music and powerful live performances.
Coldrain T-Shirt
Desurabbits デスラビッツ
Desurabbits are notable for being one of the early pioneers of the death metal and J-pop cross-over music style known as "japanese death pop". The group is composed of 3 female artists, Yuzu Okawa, Emi Mochizuki and Karin Yasui and one male artist Akira Kanzaki, officially known as Bucho. The group's songs exhibit an eclectic mix of influences, including death metal, J-pop, kawaii metal, jazz fusion, electronic dance music and digital hardcore. The group's fans are collectively known as the "DESURABBITS Army".
Desurabbits T-Shirt
Deviloof デビルーフ
Deviloof are a Visual Kei deathcore band, formed on December 12th, 2015 in Osaka, Japan. When you hear the name Deviloof, words that follow often include brutal, violent and fastest. These ideas are expounded upon in their music, where the band puts on a full display of blistering fast riffs, heavy drum beats and death-growl vocals for the better part of their songs.
Deviloof T-Shirt
Diaura ディオーラ
Diaura is a Japanese visual kei rock band, formed in 2010 by yo-ka, Kei, Yuu, and later recruited Shoya. Their extravagant kote-kei looks and raw, metallic, yet accessible sound made them one of the most exciting indies bands. Diaura released their 1st full studio album Genesis in 2012 and their 2nd full studio album Focus in 2013. Definition is the 4th mini album by Diaura, released on 13 February, 2019. Definition discusses the existence of humanity, what humanity is, and thus was released in 2 versions, with 2 different covers: one with the theme "organic" and the other being "mechanic". Type A features a human being on the cover being eroded by technology, while Type B depicts an AI robot. The two types begin with two different songs, "ivy" and "Phantom", respectively, which discuss the "illusion of humanity" from different perspectives.
Diaura 2019 Definition T-Shirt
Dir En Grey ディル・アン・グレイ
Dir En Grey is a Japanese heavy metal band formed in 1997. The band began as a visual kei collective but gradually moved to more reserved and darker attire and a separate sound that leaned on goth rock and death metal. With a consistent lineup of guitarists Kaoru and Die, vocalist Kyo, drummer Shinya and bassist Toshiya, they have released 10 albums. From the late 90s visual kei sound found in the Gauze (1999) and Macabre (2000) to heavy and death metal sounding tracks heard in Dum Spiro Spero (2011) and Arche (2014), Dir En Grey is a band dedicated to reveal the dark side of humanity and dwell in controversial tropics such as abortion and Japan’s wartime past.
Dir En Grey T-Shirt
Doll$Boxx ドールズボックス
Doll$Boxx are a Japanese all-female kawaii metal band formed in 2012. Members Fuki (vocal), F Chopper Koga (bass), Tomo-Zo (guitar), Hana (drums) and Oreo Reona (keys), are mixing electronic, pop and metal influences into colorful, chaotic bursts of effervescent noise.
Doll$Boxx T-Shirt
Galneryus ガルネリウス
GALNERYUS is a Japanese power metal band, formed in Osaka in 2001 by guitarist Syu and vocalist Yama-B. Syu has described the music of Galneryus as symphonic metal, classic metal and progressive metal. He said that while they are very much influenced by European music, they mix it with the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi to create emotional music. Resurrection is the 6th studio album by GALNERYUS, released on June 23, 2010. It is the first album to feature Galneryus' new singer Masatoshi "Sho" Ono and new bassist Taka, after the departure of Yama-B and Yu-To. The track "A Far-Off Distance" was used as the ending theme for the anime television series RAINBOW 二舎六房の七人.
Galneryus T-Shirt
L'Arc~en~Ciel
L'Arc~en~Ciel is a Japanese rock band, founded in Osaka in 1991. The band released their full-length debut in April 1993. Entitled Dune, the album reached #1 on the independent charts. In 1994 the band release its second album, Tierra. With momentum in their favor, L'Arc-en-Ciel released their next two albums in as many years, 1995's Heavenly and 1996's True. With a reported 40 million records sold, they were the first Japanese act to headline at Madison Square Garden. In 2003, they were ranked 58 on a list of the top 100 Japanese pop musicians.
L'Arc~en~Ciel T-Shirt
Luna Sea ルナシー
Luna Sea is a Japanese rock band formed in 1986. Luna Sea were the definitive visual kei band of the '90s. Their sound was firmly based in '80s hard rock, but the band had a versatile, almost proggy approach to songwriting, and its softer side, displayed later on in the group's career, proved equally strong. Comprised of five extraordinary musicians, Ryuichi on vocals, Sugizo on guitar and violin, Inoran on guitar, J on bass, and Shinya on drums. Luna Sea is one of very few Japanese rock groups that not only are honored for their role as rock pioneers, but also as one of the greatest legends of rock in Japan.
Luna Sea T-Shirt
Necronomidol ネクロノマイドル
NECRONOMIDOL, is a Japanese idol heavy metal group, formed in 2014. They are a prominent force in the alternative idol and kawaii metal movements. Their music is a mix of genres like Black Metal, Darkwave, Synthwave, NWOBHM, Japanese folk and other eclectic genres of music. Their theme, lyrics, and visuals are based on the occult and paranormal, Western horror movies, Japanese horror and H. P. Lovecraft's stories.
Necronomidol T-Shirt
PassCode パスコード
PassCode is a Japanese idol group that was formed in Osaka in 2013 and consists out of the four vocalists Nao Minami, Kaede Takashima, Yuna Imada and Hinako Ōgami. The musical style of Passcode can be described as kawaii metal as the band mixes metalcore with EDM and J-pop.
PassCode T-Shirt
Scandal スキャンダル
Japanese all-female rock band Scandal emerged from Osaka as a spunky indie outfit playing anthemic, pop-friendly punk rock heard on early singles "Space Ranger" and "Koi Moyo" before taking their music to the masses on their major-label debut, Best Scandal (2009). Releasing one Top 5 album per year until 2014's Hello World, they hit a chart peak in 2016 with Yellow. Expanding their presence into anime and manga, Scandal also contributed singles to anime series, including "Shōjo S" and "Harukaze" for Bleach, "Shunkan Sentimental" for Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, "Pride" for Star Driver and "A.M.D.K.J." for GeGeGe no Kitarō, which helped them capture an international audience. Scandal are Haruna Ono (guitar), Tomomi Ogawa (bass), Mami Sasazaki (guitar), and Rina Suzuki (drums).
Scandal band T-Shirt
UchuSentai:Noiz 宇宙戦隊NOIZ
UchuSentai:Noiz is a Japanese visual kei rock band, formed in 1996. They are known for their energetic music and live shows, as well as their eccentric cosplay outfits. The group released their first full-length album, Cyborg Rock Show Kanzenban in 2003. Their style is a combination of techno, hard rock, and pop. Assuming the roles of soldiers from space, they are decidedly serious about protecting peace on Earth with music.
UchuSentai:Noiz T-Shirt
Wagakki Band 和楽器バンド
Fusing Japanese traditions with a modern spin, Tokyo-based Wagakki Band blend elements of J-pop, J-rock, folk rock, metal, and ancient instrumentation with vocals influenced by Japanese poetry and theater. Their early songs were adapted from Vocaloid recordings but they have since written their own original music. Their music videos for the songs "Tengaku" (天樂) and "Senbonzakura" (千本桜) have attracted millions of views on YouTube.
Wagakki Band Limited Edition T-Shirt
Wagamama Rakia 我儘ラキア
Wagamama Rakia is a Japanese idol group formed in 2016, in Osaka. StartingOver is their first album, released in 2019. Wagamama Rakia are Hoshikuma Minami, Kaine Rin, Kawasaki Layna and MIRI.
Wagamama Rakia Killboredom Tour 2020 T-Shirt
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/eddie-van-halen-1955-20202020-10-07T15:07:33+03:002020-10-07T15:07:33+03:00Eddie Van Halen 1955 - 2020Iordanis Kevrekidis
Guitar icon and Van Halen co-founder Eddie Van Halen has died at the age of 65 after a long battle with throat cancer.
]]>
Guitar icon and Van Halen co-founder Eddie Van Halen has died at the age of 65 after a long battle with throat cancer. He died yesterday, October 6, 2020, at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica. Van Halen formed in 1972 and became one of the greatest hard rock bands of the '70s and '80s. With Eddie's signature guitar style -- equal parts skill, flash and muscle -- proving highly influential on the glam metal scene in particular, as well as the connective tissue between the David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar years. He was no slouch on keyboards, either. One of the greats.
ALTOSAXOis an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/40-greatest-punk-albums-of-all-time2020-08-05T19:30:01+03:002021-04-30T14:24:02+03:0040 Greatest Punk Albums of All TimeAlto Saxo
The riot-starters and two-chord wonders that blew rock wide open
]]>
The riot-starters and two-chord wonders that blew rock wide open
Punk rock started in 1976 on New York’s Bowery, when four cretins from Queens came up with a mutant strain of blitzkrieg bubblegum. The revolution they inspired split the history of rock & roll in half. But even if punk rock began as a kind of negation — a call to stark, brutal simplicity — its musical variety and transforming emotional power was immediate and remains staggering. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Ramones’ toweringly influential self-titled debut, we’ve compiled a list of the 40 Greatest Punk Albums of All Time.
If Ramones was Year Zero for punk rock, it didn’t come without precedent, so we included essential forebears like the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Pere Ubu and Patti Smith, artists who were punk in spirit (if not always entirely in sound) before the style really had a name. We didn’t get too fussy about all the old “but really, what is punk?” debates either. Along with the Pistols and the Clash, Black Flag and the Descendents, Minor Threat and Hüsker Dü and the Bad Brains, and on and on, you’ll find the slashing Marxist disco of Gang of Four, the ice-storm goth of Joy Division, the warped rust-and-rubber new wave of Devo, the Mod revivalism of the Jam, the riot-born reggae of the Slits, the art-guitar revelations of Television and Sonic Youth and the 21st-century dervish-noise assault of White Lung. Anarcho-collectivists Crass spent their entire unimpeachably admirable existence trying to defend an ethical barricade against a corpo-goofball atrocity like Blink-182. But they’re both great, and they’re both here.
Because this is a list of albums and not bands, a lot of great punk acts didn’t make the cut. The Circle Jerks, Adolescents, Fear, the Big Boys, the Dickies, the Dicks and even the mighty Damned just didn’t have that one perfect LP statement that could inspire consensus among our editors. Ultimately, we found ourselves pulled toward records that embodied punk’s spirit, and even stretched it a little. “Punk rock should mean freedom,” said Kurt Cobain in 1991, just as Nevermind was exploding punk values across the middle American mainstream. Here’s a map to where that freedom has gone.
40. Dead Kennedys, ‘Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables’ (1980)
Dead Kennedys' debut LP is the ultimate hardcore comedy album, with singer Jello Biafra playing Johnny Rotten as goofball satirist on songs like "California Über Alles" and "Holiday in Cambodia." Fueled by the band's technically sharp guitarist, "East Bay" Ray Pepperell,Fresh Fruit also had more musical fire than contemporary efforts by similarly over-the-top hardcore shock-rockers like Fear or the Adolescents.
39. Devo, ‘Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!’ (1978)
As much performance-art collective as punk band, Devo screeched their way out of Akron, Ohio, with a brilliantly warped New Wave vision. Their first album explored obsessions like robotics, Ronald McDonald and cannibalistic apes, making devolution feel like the future.
This Vancouver band comes on like Black Flag fronted by the bastard daughter of Patti Smith and Stevie Nicks, with each song going off like a nail bomb of desire. Standouts like "Drown With the Monster" and "Face Down" are splatter-noise anthems that feel amazingly fresh — highly impressive for a band operating four decades into punk's history.
37. Blink-182, ‘Enema of the State’ (1999)
Blink-182's third LP reimagined Green Day'sDookieas one big, undeniably catchy fart joke. This pop-punk smash stayed on the charts for 70 weeks. Dismissed as a bad joke at the time by tastemaking snobs, Blink have proven weirdly resilient as a touchstone for a generation of fans. You can hear echoes of the Descendents and Misfits, among other punk staples, within the polished tunes on their breakthrough album.
The furiously political British anarchist collective Crass lived their dogma with admirable rigor: Based out of a collective house that's still in operation today, they did everything themselves, including running their own Crass Records and designing their own multimedia presentations. The anti-sexistPenis Envy features radical rants to back up the politics.
35. Fugazi, ’13 Songs’ (1989)
Ex–Minor Threat and Embrace leader Ian MacKaye's amazing next act was an arty revelation: He and his Fugazi bandmates invented a body-moving post-hardcore sound — and with "Waiting Room," wrote American punk's finest karaoke banger. As a social force, Fugazi were huge enough to take advantage of what dueling lead singer Guy Picciotto called "the power of 'no,'" only playing all-ages shows with $5 tickets and refusing to license any merchandise (even if fans bootlegged T-shirts that read "This Is Not a Fugazi T-Shirt").
No punk band ever displayed its alienation as grippingly as Joy Division. Ian Curtis' foghorn baritone and the music's ice-floe torpor inspired a goth-punk nation. Yet there was beauty in his keening voice and the band's silvery clang. Curtis hung himself less than a year after the LP's release.
The pioneering Slits fused reggae beats and punk guitars on joyously anarchic songs like "Shoplifting," with its awesome catchphrase, "We pay fuck-all!" The Slits followed Patti Smith in defining punk as feminist, implicitly and explicitly. And like U.K. comrades the Raincoats, they did it not merely by forming an all-woman band (itself a radical move), but with music owing little to punk-dude dogma.
Glenn Danzig and his band of New Jersey mutants brought much-needed irony to the hardcore scene with anthems like "I Turned Into a Martian." Ditching hardcore's go-to politics to howl about B-movie stuff like zombies and seductive lady vampires, the Misfits' ghoulish full-length debut,Walk Among Us, was the height of horror punk.
31. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, ‘Fever to Tell’ (2003)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs were the finest product of the early-2000s "post-punk revival" that produced the Rapture and the Liars. Their debut LP was the work of three very smart New York art kids, starring a firecracker in a pink dress named Karen O. She howls like a cheetah in heat — until she bruises your heart in the surprise "Maps," which might be punk rock's greatest slow jam.
With their third album, the New York crew set themselves on a course to becoming the most important noise band of the past three decades. Amp-torture clinics like "Starpower" and "Expressway to Yr Skull" explore what bassist Kim Gordon had called "the darkness shimmering beneath the shiny quilt of American pop culture."
29. The Replacements, ‘Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash’ (1981)
Definitive proof that Midwestern drunkards could be as fast, loud and sloppy as any New York junkie, with resident poet Paul Westerberg croaking about booze and despair over the band's "power trash." What truly set them apart was the humor that came through in lyrics like "I hate music!/It's got too many notes!"
28. The Germs, ‘(GI)’ (1979)
The Germs only released one album before waste-case singer Darby Crash killed himself in December 1980. But the Joan Jett–produced(GI)set a standard for spoiled L.A. nihilism, masking surprisingly nuanced lyrics in a hilariously sloppy blur.
Minor Threat defined a new hardcore code with their anthem "Straight Edge" — down with drugs, down with booze, up with keeping your wits about you and fighting the power. The D.C. scene leaders didn't stay together very long, but they remain hugely influential thanks to Ian MacKaye's true-believer intensity, as he spread the straight-edge gospel of how to bring revolutionary values to everyday life.
26. Flipper, ‘Generic’ (1982)
Named after a dead dolphin their singer found at the beach one day while tripping on acid, San Francisco's Flipper had two bassists and played long, crushingly slow improv jams like the eight-minute "Sex Bomb," which caps off Generic. Their fuck-you freedom inspired Kurt Cobain, who often sported a homemade Flipper T-shirt.
25. Mission of Burma, ‘Vs.’ (1982)
"I think we're just a closet prog-rock act that happened during punk," Mission of Burma's Clint Conley once said. But the Boston avant-screech band pioneered an arty approach to punk with its 1980 debut indie single, "Academy Fight Song."Vs.is a complex headphone record, yet it's also a festering racket — with the anti-Reagan screed "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate," and the throbbing tremolo trance of "Trem Two."
24. The Jam, ‘All Mod Cons’ (1978)
Dubbing himself "the Cappuccino kid," the Jam's Paul Weller channeled punk fervor into a Mod revival, inspired by the Kinks and the Who. Their third album is a snapshot of London life, from "'A' Bomb in Wardour Street" to "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight," a salvo against rightwing punkers.
23. Pere Ubu, ‘Terminal Tower’ (1985)
As punk was heating up in New York and London, it was also percolating in Cleveland, where Pere Ubu created an "industrial folk" that sounded post-punk in 1975. This archival set peaks with the chillingly anthemic heartland noir of "Final Solution," where singer David Thomas yowls over Peter Laughner's rustbelting guitar. The hard-living Laughner drank his way into an early grave by the time he was 24, but the band he co-founded is still at it today.
22. Bikini Kill, ‘The Singles’ (1998)
Bikini Kill demanded "Revolution Girl Style Now" on their cassette-only debut in 1991, and delivered just that as leaders of the Nineties riot-grrrl movement. The highlight of this singles collection is "Rebel Girl," featuring riot foremother Joan Jett on guitar and vocals; when singer Kathleen Hanna hollers "in her kiss, I taste the revolution," thousands of rebel girls were ready to storm patriarchy's barricades.
21. Richard Hell and the Voidoids, ‘Blank Generation’ (1977)
Television co-founder Richard Hell pretty much invented what he called the "patchy raggedness" of punk fashion and hair care. When he went solo onBlank Generation, he enlisted Robert Quine, a Velvet Underground fanatic whose appropriately jagged guitar style was ideal for anti-love songs "Betrayal Takes Two" and "Love Comes in Spurts." And with the title track, Hell gave us what might be punk's ultimate anthem of liberation ripped from the void.
20. X-Ray Spex, ‘Germfree Adolescents’ (1978)
Teenage multiracial London girl Poly Styrene had braces on her teeth and wore Day-Glo rags, screeching anthems like "Oh Bondage Up Yours!" over saxophone blasts, and chanting, "I am a poseur and I don't care! I like to make people stare!" X-Ray Spex's explosive debut went criminally unreleased in the U.S., but it became a word-of-mouth cult classic, influencing Sleater-Kinney, the Beastie Boys and many others.
19. Bad Brains, ‘Bad Brains’ (1982)
The African-American Rastas in Bad Brains had roots in jazz and reggae, yet they helped found the D.C. hardcore scene with their self-proclaimed "P.M.A." — positive mental attitude. Named after a Ramones song, they were already local legends by the time they dropped their 1982 cassette-only debut, with its terrifyingly fast thrash-dervish attack "Pay to Cum."
18. Green Day, ‘Dookie’ (1994)
Green Day's major-label debut exploded across teenage America in the wake of Kurt Cobain's death like sweet, manic relief. Dookiewas an irresistible paradox: 14 songs about despair detonated with Who-ish zeal and radio-tight pop craft. Singer-guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong called it his "journal about what it's like to live as a street kid" — desperate for connection and frustrated to an atomic degree.
Television spent years woodshedding at CBGB, to arrive at a sound as thrilling in its ambition asRamoneswas in its simplicity.Marquee Moondrew on surrealist poetry and free jazz, connecting Sixties psychedelia with a more aggressive brand of derangement. The result was punk rock's first — and greatest — guitar landmark, making New York's mean streets seem like a mystic playground.
16. Descendents, ‘Milo Goes to College’ (1982)
L.A.'s Descendents thought their debut would be their only record because singer Milo Aukerman was, in fact, heading off to school. He earned his degree in biology, but the Descendents still managed to become a pop-punk institution, turning stunted rage toward their miserable middle-class existence on "I'm Not a Punk" and "Suburban Home" to pave the way for Green Day and every Warped Tour band that followed.
15. New York Dolls, ‘New York Dolls’ (1973)
"What the Dolls did to be influential on punk was show that anybody could do it," singer David Johansen said. Aggressive, sloppy, androgynous and loud, they blazed through the gutter glam of "Trash" and "Personality Crisis" like a demented Rolling Stones. The Dolls' Todd Rundgren–produced debut exudes sleazy swagger, one reason punk impresario Malcolm McLaren managed them before assembling the Sex Pistols.
When Sleater-Kinney's Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein proclaimed "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" on 1996'sCall the Doctor, they were laying down a dare to themselves and the Nineties indie-rock scene. The band's next album,Dig Me Out, made good on that promise. Adding powerhouse drummer Janet Weiss, the Olympia, Washington, trio's feminist punk hit hard — from the elated rush of "Words and Guitar" to the raw romantic torment of "One More Hour."
The Minnesota power trio broke all the rules of three-chord hardcore with this double-vinyl concept opus — the story of a young guy escaping a broken home and making his way in the city. Bob Mould and Grant Hart traded off spit-and-growl vocals in savagely emotional hardcore blasts, but the music expanded into psychedelia, acoustic-folk rage and the closing 14-minute feedback instrumental, "Reoccurring Dreams."
Before punk even existed, it already had its queen — a Lower East Side poet fusing Sixties garage rock and Rimbaud to create her own ecstatic vision. Working closely with guitarist Lenny Kaye, pianist Richard Sohl and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty (as well as CBGB buddy Tom Verlaine, who co-wrote the Jim Morrison tribute "Break It Up"), she made the New York scene's first major statement. Her record company hated Robert Mapplethorpe's classic cover photo, an image as boundary-shattering and beautiful as the music inside.
These Mancunians broke through pop-punk barriers with insanely catchy gems about hormonally charged angst, from "Orgasm Addict" to the remarkably mature breakup song "Oh Shit!" ("Admit admit you're shit you're shit"). Not-remotely-secret weapon John Maher, the ultimate punk drummer, crashes through "Ever Fallen In Love?" like he's leading a human-sexuality seminar gone horribly wrong.
"Punk rock should mean freedom," Kurt Cobain said in an interview just as he was becoming alt-rock's self-canceling messiah. Though he was embarrassed by its slick sound,Nevermindwent off like a grenade in the American mainstream, turning junior-high dances into mosh pits with music that embodied Cobain's dream of punk rock that the metal kids he grew up around in rural Washington could love.
X were way too arty to fit in with the L.A. hardcore scene — married couple John Doe and Exene Cervenka sang about L.A. as a surreal nightmare full of psycho speed freaks and burned-out Hollywood directors, over Billy Zoom's junkshop rockabilly guitar. Their producer was the Doors' Ray Manzarek; they paid respects with a version of "Soul Kitchen" that would have scared Jim Morrison right out of town.
"We! Are tired! Of your abuse! Try to stop us! It's! No uuuuuuse!" Black Flag walked it like they talked it, perfecting the L.A. hardcore form, with Greg Ginn's demented guitar and Henry Rollins' muscle-bound toxic rage.Damagedgot them mixed up with a major label, which refused to release it and denounced it as "an anti-parent record." Which it is — not to mention anti-cop, anti-TV, anti-beer and, what else you got?
Three blue-collar corn dogs from the port town of San Pedro, California, with zero pretensions and a gift for gab, and a hilarious taste for no-bullshit political analysis like the "The Roar of the Masses Could Be Farts." All over this sprawling, 45-song double-album classic, guitarist D. Boon and bassist Mike Watt spiel back and forth about a lifetime of friendship rooted in shared punk values — as Boon says in "History Lesson, Pt. 2," "Our band could be your life." They also stretch out into jazz noodling and folkie picking, along with Creedence Clearwater Revival, Steely Dan and Van Halen covers. The combustible eclecticism would have an impact on bands from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Pavement. But just when they were starting to get some national attention, Boon was tragically killed in a 1985 car accident, just after the band's final album,3-Way Tie (For Last), was released.
6. Wire, ‘Pink Flag’ (1977)
No album summed up the infinite possibility in punk's radical simplicity better than this 35-minute, 21-song debut. R.E.M., Spoon and Minor Threat are just a few of the bands that have covered songs fromPink Flag, which ranges from the hardcore Rubik's Cube "1 2 X U" to the 28-second tabloid nightmare "Field Day for the Sundays" to "Fragile," punk's first pretty love song. "A perfect album," said Henry Rollins of Black Flag.
5. Gang of Four, ‘Entertainment!’ (1979)
Fusing James Brown and early hip-hop with the bullet-point minimalism of the Ramones, Gang of Four were a genuine revolutionary force in their pursuit of working-class justice. The Leeds foursome bound their Marxist critique in tightly wound knots of enraged funk and avenging-disco syncopation, slashed by guitarist Andy Gill's blues-free swordplay.
4. The Stooges, ‘Funhouse’ (1970)
"The Stooges were the perfect embodiment of what music should be," said Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. On the Detroit band's second album (produced by Kingsmen keyboardist Don Gallucci), that meant primal garage chaos nearly a decade ahead of its time. Guitarist Ron Asheton hammered as few chords as possible ("T.V. Eye" is just one), while Iggy Pop channeled bad-trip psychedelia and metallic R&B into hormonal meltdowns that inspired generations of pent-up noise fiends.
3. The Sex Pistols, ‘Never Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols’ (1977)
"If the sessions had gone the way I wanted, it would have been unlistenable for most people," Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten said. For millions, it was. But when the Sex Pistols' only official album made a frontal assault on the U.K. pop charts, Rotten's snarled lyrics about abortion and anarchy terrorized a nation. The result remains punk rock's Sermon on the Mount, and its echoes are everywhere.
On April 3rd, 1976, a London pub-rock combo, the 101ers, played a show with gnarly urchins the Sex Pistols. The future was "right in front of me," recalled 101ers singer-guitarist Joe Strummer. A year later, Strummer was the battle-scarred voice of the Clash and in the U.K. Top 20 with his new band's self-titled flamethrower debut, a brittle-fuzz volley of politicized rage and street-choir vocal hooks that transformed British punk from a brawling adolescent turmoil to a dynamic social weapon in songs like "White Riot," "London's Burning" and "I'm So Bored With the U.S.A." Strummer and his co-writer, guitarist Mick Jones, were not born debaters; manager-svengali Bernie Rhodes pressed them to go topical. But the effect — propelled by bassist Paul Simonon and original drummer Terry Chimes — was pivotal. CBS in America did not issue the album until 1979, adding later singles. The original remains the sound of a riot being born.
When the Ramones recorded their debut album for $6,400 in February 1976, the agenda was simple: "Eliminate the unnecessary and focus on the substance," as Tommy put it in 1999. But the brilliance of punk's most influential and enduring record — how four disparate outcasts from the American adolescent mainstream made such original single-minded fury — remains hard to define. Stork-like singer Joey was a pop kid chanting "Hey ho, let's go!" at the start of "Blitzkrieg Bop." Guitarist Johnny pared Dick Dale and Bo Diddley down to the airtight, bluesless staccato of "Beat on the Brat" and "Loudmouth." Bassist and primary lyricist Dee Dee wrote about what he knew (drugs, despair, hustling) with telegramatic wit. And drummer Tommy, a former recording engineer on Jimi Hendrix sessions, co-producedRamones, guarding its brevity and purity. "We thought we could be the biggest band in the world," Johnny recalled. In a way, they would be. This is where it began.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/the-10-best-blues-rock-albums-of-the-1970s2020-07-01T13:26:00+03:002020-07-01T13:27:06+03:00The 10 Best Blues-Rock Albums of the 1970sAlto Saxo
As it smoothed out some of the rough edges of the previous decade, blues-rock would become much more commercial during the 1970s, with bands moving from small clubs to massive stadiums. These are the albums that carried the torch for the blues-rock sound throughout the 1970s.
]]>
While the blues-rock trailblazers of the 1960s received their inspiration from the blues giants of the 1950s like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Boy Williamson, the blues-rock artists of the 1970s would, in turn, be influenced by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Cream, Jimi Hendrix. As it smoothed out some of the rough edges of the previous decade, blues-rock would become much more commercial during the 1970s, with bands moving from small clubs to massive stadiums. These are the albums that carried the torch for the blues-rock sound throughout the 1970s.
Allman Brothers Band: 'At Fillmore East' (1971)
After two excellent studio collections of blues-and-soul-inspired rock music (1969's self-titled debut and the following year's Idlewild South), the Allman Brothers Band broke through nationally with the live two-album At Fillmore East. One of the best blues-rock albums ever assembled, At Fillmore East includes extended, instrument-driven live jams on some of the Allman's signature tunes. From Blind Willie McTell's "Statesboro Blues" and T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" to the band's original "Whipping Post" and "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," this is the band's definitive artistic statement...and it rocks like a twister in a trailer park!
Derek and the Dominos: 'Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs' (1970)
After touring behind Delaney & Bonnie & Friends as just "one of the guys," Eric Clapton used many of his D&B "Friends" to record his 1970 solo debut and this shot in the dark, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. With the core group of bassist Carl Radle, drummer Jim Gordon, and the multi-talented Bobby Whitlock performing on both albums, it could be argued that it was the addition of guitarist Duane Allman that made Layla stand head and shoulders above Clapton's self-titled debut. Allman's participation helped spur Clapton to greater artistic heights, and whether covering Big Bill Broonzy's "Key To The Highway" and Jimi Hendrix's "Little Wing" or getting down and dirty on Clapton's "Bell Bottom Blues" and the classic title track, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs is a landmark album for both Clapton and Allman.
Formed by Savoy Brown alumni "Lonesome" Dave Peverett (guitar, vocals), Tony Stevens (bass), and Roger Earl (drums) along with guitarist Roger Price, Foghat took the Savoy boogie-rock sound to arena-rock heights. The band's 1972 debut is its bluesiest, Foghat adding a hard-rock edge to Willie Dixon's "I Just Wanna Make Love To You," Chuck Berry's "Maybellene," and the Bobby "Blue" Bland gem "Gotta Get To Know You" as well as introducing their own boogieing sound to originals like "Trouble, Trouble." While later albums would vault Foghat to the peak of the mid-1970s blues-rock mountaintop, their first effort offers up pure, undistilled blues-rock cheap thrills.
Humble Pie: 'Smokin'' (1973)
England's Humble Pie had stumbled around the continent for a number of years with mixed results, never really breaking through in the U.S. or their homeland. After Peter Frampton left to pursue solo stardom, former Small Faces frontman and Humble Pie mastermind Steve Marriott brought in a proper blues guitarist in the talented Clem Clempson. Following up on the soulful R&B-tinged hard rock sound of the band's Performance: Rockin' The Fillmore album, Marriott decided to go all-in with a bluesier sound and scored a Top Ten chart hit with Smokin'. Fueled by success on AOR radio, songs like "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "30 Days In The Hole" found an eager U.S. audience and put the band on the fast track to stardom.
Janis Joplin: 'Pearl' (1971)
The best female blues vocalist in rock music, Janis Joplin's death before the completion of Pearl left many questions unanswered even as it sealed the singer's legacy. Delivering her best studio performance since recording Cheap Thrills with her former band Big Brother and the Holding Company, Pearl offers a wealth of rock, soul, and blues. From Joplin's original "Move Over" or her Kris Kristofferson-penned hit "Me and Bobby McGee" to the Etta James' classic "Tell Mama" or the Southern soul treasure "A Woman Left Lonely," Joplin knocks 'em all out of the park. Nick Gravenites' "Buried Alive In The Blues," captured as an instrumental due to Joplin's tragic death on the day of recording, is a fitting epitaph for the troubled singer.
Robin Trower: 'Bridge of Sighs' (1973)
When former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower lit out on his own, he received no little criticism for the obvious Hendrix influence felt on his 1973 debut Twice Removed From Yesterday. A year later, the guitarist released the classic Bridge of Sighs, a groundbreaking collection of psychedelic-blues with a deep R&B undercurrent that not only stretched the limitations of the power-trio format but redefined what could be accomplished with the blues-rock form. Fueled by Trower's transcendent and, at its core, bluesy guitar playing and singer James Dewar's soulful vocals, Bridge of Sighs would rise into the Billboard Top Ten albums chart and make Trower an arena-rock attraction for the rest of the decade.
Rolling Stones: 'Exile On Main Street' (1972)
The troubled creation of the Rolling Stones' classic Exile On Main Street album is a subject worthy of several books, but suffice it to say that fans and critics alike didn't quite know what to make of the album upon its release in 1972. A ramshackle and dark-hued collection of rock, blues, R&B, and even a little country twang, the double-album set featured odd cover art, singer Mick Jagger's vocals were often buried in the mix, and the lyrics were oblique in a manner befitting Bob Dylan. The album gradually won over a legion of fans, influenced a generation of blues and rock artists, and led to what could arguably be considered the greatest rock 'n' roll tour of all-time in the Stones' 1972 trek across the United States.
ZZ Top: 'Tres Hombres' (1973)
The "little ol' band from Texas" had been kicking the can around the Southwest for years by the time they recorded their third album, the band honing their skills on stage and in the studio. Boiling down their boozy Texas boogie and blues-rock sound to its essence, Tres Hombres is the epitome of the guitar-driven power trio. Billy Gibbons' fretwork is as greasy as any you'll hear west of the Mississippi River, and songs like "Jesus Just Left Chicago," "Master of Sparks," "Hot, Blue and Righteous," and the classic "La Grange" buzz and rattle with the angry ghosts of a hundred Delta bluesmen. The Reverend's buddy Grimey says that this stuff is so simple that anybody could play it, but the truth is that nobody plays it quite like ZZ Top.
Rory Gallagher: 'Irish Tour' (1974)
The Irish-born Rory Gallagher earned his reputation as the singer and guitarist for blues-rock band Taste. By the time of his controversial 1974 tour of strife-torn Northern Ireland, he had been pursuing a solo career for half a decade. Gallagher was always more at home on stage than in the studio, and the performance caught on tape for Irish Tour is among one of his best. The guitarist rose to the occasion and delivered a red-hot set of fan-fave originals like "Walk On Hot Coals" and "Tattoo'd Lady" along with a couple of notable covers – Muddy Waters' "I Wonder Who" and J.B. Hutto's "Too Much Alcohol." This is one of Gallagher's best, and if you've always wondered what all the brouhaha was about, Irish Tour will let you know.
Savoy Brown: 'Looking In' (1970)
The British blues-rock stalwarts Savoy Brown had been flogging away at the brass ring for almost four years and five albums before finding the perfect chemistry with Looking In. The first album with "Lonesome" Dave Peverett on vocals, Looking In included some of bandleader Kim Simmonds' most scorching fretwork, and a powerful rhythm section in bassist Tony Stevens and drummer Roger Earl (who would later defect to Foghat with Lonesome Dave). Benefiting from constant touring across the U.S., the album would inch into the Billboard Top 40 albums chart, and kick off a string of modestly successful early-1970s releases like Street Corner Talking and Hellbound Train that nevertheless fell short of the mainstream acceptance enjoyed by Foghat.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/15-insane-tales-from-lemmy-kilmister-s-life2020-06-11T23:11:00+03:002023-02-02T19:44:54+02:0015 Insane Tales From Lemmy Kilmister’s LifeAlto Saxo
Some of the most unbelievable stories from Motörhead’s hard-living rock pioneer
]]>
Some of the most unbelievable stories from Motörhead’s hard-living rock pioneer
“I can’t say I was really that surprised when the doctor told me I needed a defibrillator inserted in my chest,” Lemmy Kilmister toldRevolverin 2013. “When you’ve lived the life that I have, you should always expect something like that to crop up. I was not a good boy. I’ve had too much fun.”
Gambling is for fools, but that’s the way he liked it: The late Motörhead frontman was always willing to deal with the effects of an extreme lifestyle if it meant living his way. He did just that until he became too ill to party like a rock star, and even then continued making music and playing shows nearly right up until the end. Here are 15 of Lemmy’s wildest, strangest and most fascinating experiences, most of which he experienced between the Sixties and Nineties — the time when the Motörhead frontman seemed unstoppable and invincible.
Pilled by Death
Lemmy and a friend were in a car splitting up 100 blue pills – a mixture of speed and downers – when a police cruiser pulled up to them. The tweakers stuffed the pills into their mouths to get rid of the evidence, and the cops were unable to find any contraband. That night, when Lemmy fell asleep, his heart rate and breathing slowed precipitously. "It looked like I had stopped breathing although I hadn't," he said in White Line Fever."I was lying there with both eyes open [and] having kind of a hard time speaking." At least two people with him thought had died until they figured out he was still breathing.
Performing with Motörhead in 2003.
Booted From “the Most Cosmic Band in the World”
In May 1975, Lemmy was busted at the Toronto border with a gram of amphetamine sulfate down his pants. He spent a night in jail and then received a combination of good and bad news. "The police charged me for cocaine and I really had amphetamines," said Lemmy. "It was a wrongful charge so they had to let me go." However, even though he returned to Hawkwind the next day, the band kicked him out after their next show. "If I was busted for acid, everything would have been fine," he said. "But they were all about the psychedelic experience. The most cosmic band in the world fired me for getting busted with the wrong kinds of drugs!"
Lemmy performing as bassist and vocalist of the rock band Hawkwind in Paradiso, Amsterdam, in 1972. He played in several rock bands, including the Rockin’ Vickers and Sam Gopal.
Enter “Philthy Animal”
When Lemmy first met Phil "Philthy Animal" Taylor in the summer of 1975, he never imagined the stoner would wind up in his new band, Motörhead. "I was with the Hell's Angels at the time, and he used to come and score dope at our house," Lemmy told Revolver. "Then he'd light up and pass out and we'd wake him up in the morning and send him home. He was always telling us he was a drummer, but we never took him seriously." When the drummer Lemmy originally hired didn't vibe with the band in the studio, Lemmy reached out to Taylor. "Phil said, 'Sure, I'll fuckin' come down and do it for you.' We overdubbed him on our first album except one track. He proved to be the maniac we needed."
There was a period in the late Seventies when audiences at punk rock shows in England showed their appreciation by spitting at the bands onstage, or "gobbing." Motörhead, a favorite band of the punkers, were sometimes on the receiving end of phlegm showers. "I never liked it, but we accepted we couldn't stop it," Lemmy told Inked. "One time I saw a guy spit a big green thing on my arm and I borrowed a line from Winston Churchill. I pulled it off my arm and rubbed it in my hair and said, 'See that? Tonight I'll have a shower and I'll be clean, but tomorrow you'll still be a stinking asshole.'"
Lemmy with Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen.
Public Display of Affection
"One cool thing happened in the Seventies when a chick just climbed up [onstage] and blew me," Lemmy told Inked. "I was singing — well, I couldn't stop, could I?"
Head to Head
Shortly before beginning rehearsals for the landmark 1980 Motörhead album Ace of Spades, Lemmy collapsed backstage after a show at Stafford Bingley Hall and had to be revived for the encore. In his memoir, he says he told the press that he was exhausted from receiving three blowjobs earlier that afternoon. "That was true, actually," he said. "There were chicks all over the place, and there was this really cute Indian bird — she was two of them."
On stage in 1978.
Bad Blood
Figuring that 15 years of regular drinking and drugging had taken a toll on his system, Lemmy decided to have a complete blood transfusion in 1980. He figured it would be like an oil change — out with the old, in with the new. But Lemmy held off after his doctor ran some tests and determined he would react badly to healthy blood. "He told me I didn't have human blood in my system anymore," he told Inked. "Apparently, I had become so toxic, mostly from all the speed and alcohol, that fresh blood would have killed me."
Lemmy shot for Observer Food Monthly in 2010.
This is Spinal Tap
For Motörhead's Iron Fist tour in 1982, a team constructed a stage prop of a giant fist with spotlights at the tips of its fingers. The band began the show by descending from the ceiling and by the time they got to the bottom, the fist would be open and they would be performing. "Naturally enough, it didn't work right the first night," Lemmy wrote in White Line Fever. "We got stuck going back up as well. The stage rose about halfway and stopped moving and curtains caught on the stage. Philthy nearly stepped from his kit into oblivion."
Lemmy at the Rainbow Bar and Grill, May 2004.
German Obsession
Much has been written about Lemmy's fascination with Nazi Germany and his collection of German war memorabilia. "The Germans had the best uniforms," he said. "The bad guys always have the best stuff — the Confederates, Napoleon." In interviews for Al Jourgensen's biography, the Ministry frontman talked about catching Lemmy in a particularly compromising position after a show in Austin in 1995. "I knocked [on Motörhead's] bus. No answer. So I open the fuckin' door and there's Lemmy in a complete full-in Gestapo uniform spanking a naked chick with a riding crop. She was loving it. So was he. I apologized and closed the door."
When Lemmy was diagnosed with a dangerous arrhythmia in 2011, he underwent surgery to have a miniature cardioverter-defibrillator implanted in his chest, which delivered a jolt of electricity when it detected an irregular heartbeat. After the operation, Lemmy gave up smoking and cut back to one alcoholic drink a day. But there were complications during his recovery. He started retaining fluids and was bedridden for two weeks. Doctors couldn't figure out why he was gaining so much weight until they examined his diet and found that he was binging on blueberries as a substitute for drinking. "I guess anything in excess is no good for you, even things that are supposed to be healthy," he told Revolver.
The band’s Glastonbury performance was to be one of the last before Lemmy died of cancer on 28 December 2015 in Los Angeles. He was aged 70.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/led-zeppelin-celebration-day-global-watch-party2020-05-28T23:00:00+03:002021-05-04T22:38:15+03:00Led Zeppelin - Celebration Day - Global Watch PartyAlto Saxo
Led Zeppelin’s famous 2007 reunion for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert will be available to watch this Saturday for free.
]]>
Led Zeppelin’s famous 2007 reunion for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert will be available to watch this Saturday for free
Led Zeppelin has partnered with YouTube for an exclusive streaming event of 'Celebration Day', the concert film chronicling the band’s historic live 2007 performance.
Led Zeppelin took the stage at London’s O2 Arena on December 10, 2007 for the band’s first headline show in 27 years and one of the most wildly anticipated concerts in rock ‘n’ roll history. From May 30 at 8pm UK time and for 3 days until June 2, enjoy the concert film of this historic live performance.
The gig saw founding members John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant being joined by Jason Bonham, the son of the band’s late drummer John Bonham, for a 16-song set. You can see the Led Zeppelin setlist that features in Celebration Day below.
1. Good Times Bad Times 2. Ramble On 3. Black Dog 4. In My Time Of Dying 5. For Your Life 6. Trampled Under Foot 7. Nobody’s Fault But Mine 8. No Quarter 9. Since I’ve Been Loving You 10. Dazed And Confused 11. Stairway To Heaven 12. The Song Remains The Same 13. Misty Mountain Hop 14. Kashmir 15. Whole Lotta Love 16. Rock And Roll
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/the-greatest-rock-concerts-of-all-time2020-05-20T11:44:00+03:002021-05-04T22:39:34+03:00The Greatest Rock Concerts of All TimeAlto SaxoFrom Led Zeppelin’s U.S. debut to Phish at Big Cypress, and beyond. The Rock concerts and tours that made the final cut weren’t just huge spectacles, they deepened the power of rock & roll itself.
]]>
From Led Zeppelin’s U.S. debut to Phish at Big Cypress, and beyond
The list below was born out of some pretty serious arguments. Was Bruce Springsteen better in 1975 or 1978? Which was more awesome, “The Joshua Tree” or “Zoo TV”? The Rock concerts and tours that made the final cut weren’t just huge spectacles, they deepened the power of rock & roll itself. “You’re almost levitating on the energy from the audience,” says Keith Richards. “And I miss it when I’m not doing it.” Here are the people who’ve done it best.
Led Zeppelin World Tour
Before the private planes, mountains of cocaine and allegations of black magic, Led Zeppelin were four blokes tearing a path through America for the first time. They hit the U.S. in late December 1968, just before their debut LP hit shelves. “I remember pulling up to a theater and the marquee said, ‘Vanilla Fudge, Taj Mahal and support,’ ” Robert Plant said in 2005. “I thought, ‘Wow, here we are: support!’ ”
Everyone knew their name soon enough. A month in, they unleashed a four-hour set at the Boston Tea Party. “We’d played our usual one-hour set, using all the material from the first album,” John Paul Jones said. “The audience just wouldn’t let us offstage.” Over 168 shows that year, as they unveiled new songs like “Whole Lotta Love,” Zep’s live fury and future promise came into view. “This group could become one of the biggest bands in history,” Jones said. “I hope we don’t blow it.”
When Black Sabbath landed at JFK Airport for their first U.S. tour, Ozzy Osbourne scrawled “Satanist” as his religion on the immigration form. Many who saw their shows – opening for the Faces, Alice Cooper and the James Gang – didn’t know what to make of the shaggy Brits. A turning point came at New York’s Fillmore East. “I tore my floor tom off the riser and threw it at the audience,” says drummer Bill Ward. “I was like, ‘Fucking move! Do something!’ Soon everyone was headbanging.” Relentless touring in Europe had turned Sabbath into a brutal assault force. “It was primal,” says Ward of the tour. “There’s a lower self that went onstage, and it was just dynamite.”
After 1969’s rock opera Tommy, The Who wanted to return to their raw roots with a live album. Pete Townshend hated the recordings they made on their U.S. tour so much he threw them onto a bonfire. But everything clicked back home in England, in front of 2,000 ravenous fans at the University of Leeds, where the band tore through 38 songs, including a nearly 15-minute “My Generation.” Townshend later called it “the greatest audience we’ve ever played to.”
In early 1970, Neil Young had finally become a star thanks to the huge success of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. During a quick break from that band and from recording his third solo LP,After the Gold Rush,Young decided to introduce his new fans to his other band, Crazy Horse – whose garage-rock thrash sounded the complete opposite of CSNY – on a run of clubs, theaters and the occasional junior-college auditorium. “When Neil plays with Crazy Horse, he goes into this other place and plays deep from inside,” says drummer Ralph Molina. “He becomes Neil Young, the real Neil Young.”
It was a sound no one had heard before. While other early jam bands like the Allman Brothers played with virtuosic professionalism, Crazy Horse produced raw chaos. Each night began with a brief solo acoustic set before Crazy Horse came onstage. Songs like “Down by the River” and “Cowgirl in the Sand” sometimes stretched to nearly 20 minutes, Young trading unhinged solos with guitarist Danny Whitten. “Danny had a strong musical presence, probably just as strong as Neil,” says bassist Billy Talbot. “We started doing songs longer, which Neil had never done before.”
In March, Bill Graham booked them at the Fillmore East for four shows in two nights, where they shared a bill with Miles Davis and the Steve Miller Band. Each night, Whitten sang “Come on Baby Let’s Go Downtown,” a song about scoring heroin, which he’d started using heavily around this time. One night backstage, Young wrote down the phrase “I’ve seen the needle and the damage done” on a sheet of paper. Within two years, Whitten was dead, and Young’s song about him, “The Needle and the Damage Done,” would appear onHarvest,the best-selling album of 1972. “It was such a loss,” said Young. “[It taught me] you can’t count on things. You just can’t take things for granted. Anything could go at any time.”
When Elton John took the stage at Los Angeles’ Troubadour for the first night of his six-date residency, he was a little-known 23-year-old pop singer with thick glasses and greasy hair who had only recently changed his name from Reginald Kenneth Dwight. When the show was over, Elton was a sensation. The stakes couldn’t have been higher: His debut LP, which had come out that spring, wasn’t selling. After what he called a “crisis meeting” with his label, it sent him to the States. The label made sure to pack the 300-capacity club with big names like David Crosby, Graham Nash and Mike Love of the Beach Boys. “The second night, Leon Russell was in the front row, but I didn’t see him until the last number,” Elton recalled. “Thank God I didn’t, because at that time I slept and drank Leon Russell.”
Neil Diamond introduced Elton. “I’m like the rest of you,” he said. “I’m here because of having listened to Elton John’s album.”
But those who had heard his album had no idea what they were in for: a poetic singer-songwriter with the flamboyance of a rock star. Album tracks like “Take Me to the Pilot” and “Sixty Years On” were played with a punk-like energy, Elton falling to his knees like Jerry Lee Lewis and knocking the piano bench over. The set also mixed in standards like “Great Balls of Fire” and “Honky Tonk Women.” And the rapturous reception he received encouraged him to experiment with even more adventurous stagecraft. “He seemed like a very quiet, subdued person,” says drummer Nigel Olsson. “All of a sudden, in front of an American audience, he started wearing Mickey Mouse ears and jumping up and down. That’s where all the strange gear started.” Unlike Elton’s debut album, which was packed with lush strings, harp and a synthesizer, he performed that night accompanied only by Olsson and bassist Dee Murray. “We just made a lot of noise,” Murray toldRolling Stonein 1987. “It was new. Elton was experimenting. Plus, we had to make up for the orchestra. We just socked it to them.”
Elton played five more nights as word started to spread around town: “His music is so staggeringly original,”Los Angeles Timesmusic critic Robert Hilburn wrote. In the coming weeks, “Your Song” began climbing the charts, eventually hitting Number Eight in January 1971.
Forty-seven years later, Elton still looks back fondly on that first trip to America. “It was just all systems go,” he says. “Nothing was impossible. You’re working on adrenaline and the sheer fact that you’re a success. I still love what I do, and I’m 70 years old. I love it even more.”
The Allmans were still young, hungry Georgia rockers when they booked three nights at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East in New York in early 1971 with the idea of recording a live album. “My brother always believed a live album was what the Brothers needed to do, and the record company finally agreed,” Gregg Allman recalled. “The Fillmore was just the logical choice. I don’t think we even discussed another venue.” The LP they made there,At Fillmore East,became their defining statement.
The Allmans were initially slotted into a bill headlined by Johnny Winter. But they came out guns blazing the first night, and when the hall emptied out after their set, they were promoted to headliner. With the band order duly shuffled, the Allmans had time to stretch out on spectacular journeys — “On those long jams, you climbed in and there was no tomorrow, no yesterday,” said drummer Butch Trucks. The gigs were hardly trouble-free. On the last night, a bomb scare delayed the start of the second show until the wee hours (“Good mornin’, everybody!” someone announced before “Statesboro Blues”). That early-a.m. set ended up becoming the keeper: “Whipping Post” sprawled over gorgeous melodic terrain for 23 minutes; “Mountain Jam” ascended for more than a half-hour. Atlantic Records engineer Tom Dowd oversaw the taping; unlike most live albums, nothing needed to be redone in the studio besides a few vocal overdubs. The LP went gold on October 25th, four days before guitarist Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident. “It’s the best-sounding live album ever,” said the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. “It’s just fuckin’ awesome.”
Mick Jagger has a clear memory of being onstage in the summer of 1972, singing “Love in Vain,” the Robert Johnson song the Rolling Stones had recently reworked into a soul ballad. Jagger still marvels at the live version – particularly Mick Taylor’s searing lead guitar, which slowly took over the song and culminated in a minute and a half of mournful, melodic virtuosity. “He was playing beautifully at this point,” says Jagger. “It was chilling. It was so sad and haunting. And the horns were really justsubtlythere. The beats and stops were usually perfect. That was one of my favorites.”
The Rolling Stones were at the peak of their powers in the summer of 1972: Keith Richards was playing the most fearless rhythm guitar of his career; Taylor stretched out their music to improbable peaks; and Jagger stalked the stage, whipping his belt and perfecting his ability to turn music, as critic Robert Greenfield observed, into a psychodrama.
It was the band’s first North American tour since Altamont, the disastrous, deadly California festival in December 1969. Shaken by that debacle and the death of Brian Jones, the band hunkered down in the studio, recording three masterpieces: 1969’sLet It Bleed,1971’sSticky Fingersand 1972’sExile on Main Street. Their Sixties peers – The Beatles, Bob Dylan – were less prolific, withdrawing from public view. In their absence, the Stones had only grown in stature. “After 10 years of playing together, the Stones had somehow become the number-one attraction in the world,” Greenfield wrote in his chronicle of the tour,A Journey Through America With the Rolling Stones. “The only great band of the Sixties still around in original form playing original rock & roll … They were royalty.”
Both Jagger and Richards remember the excitement they felt ahead of the eight-week run. If the prospect of getting back on the road weren’t enough, the opening act on tour was a 22-year-old Stevie Wonder, whom Jagger made a habit of watching side-stage. “It was exciting, the feeling of anticipation – getting back in touch with what it is we did,” says Richards. Adds Jagger, “We were trying to get out of the studio, out of the South of France, and Keith had all these drug problems – so it was kind of good to get out on the road.”
The Stones’ office was overloaded with requests for tickets, priced at $6.50 (some fans sent in as many as 60 postcards each). A Dick Cavett TV special on the tour described the strange new phenomenon of scalping (plus the new concept of groupies). On opening night in Vancouver, 2,000 fans tried to force their way into the Pacific Coliseum, leaving 31 policemen injured – the first of several violent incidents. “That was in the day when people who didn’t have a ticket would show up,” says Jagger, “and be like, ‘OK, we’re here, we’re fucking going in.'”
Unlike the 1969 tour – which featured slow, slogging rhythms – the band played at breakneck speed. “Keith was doing that,” says Jagger. “I’m not trying to blame him for anything. He kept starting it.” Says Richards, “That was probably trying to catch up with lost time.” Songs like “Street Fighting Man” ran several minutes longer than the studio versions as the band ripped away. “We were probably searching for the ending,” Richards jokes.
For Richards, the highlight was playing the new songs fromExile on Main Street,recorded the previous summer. “Playing theExilestuff for the first time was a real turn-on,” says Richards. After opening with “Brown Sugar,” the band tore through severalExileclassics: “Rocks Off,” “Rip This Joint,” “Sweet Virginia.” Unlike later tours, Jagger hung around during Richards’ songs, howling away “Happy” into the same mic. “I always enjoyed doing that,” Richards says.
There were also a few throwbacks, including a horn-fueled version of “Satisfaction,” and “Bye Bye Johnny,” a Chuck Berry song that the Stones had been doing since 1963. According to Richards, they picked the deep cut for its rhythm: “There’s an interesting reverse beat going on that always intrigued us.”
On the road, the Stones encountered an older audience – one that ranged from about age 15 to 30. “There always used to be screamers, and they didn’t seem to worry much about the music,” Bill Wyman told Cavett. As a result, the band played with more focus. It helped that arena sound had improved: “Now you hear everything and you see everything, and there’s so much tension,” said Wyman.
For all the onstage professionalism, the backstage scene was as wild as any rock & roll tour before or since. The band traveled with the largest entourage in rock history up to that point – including a physician, label president Marshall Chess and a press corps Richards compared to a political campaign. The press included photographer Annie Leibovitz, and authors Terry Southern, Robert Greenfield and Truman Capote, who reluctantly joined for aRolling Stonecover story. “For him, it was a social occasion,” says Jagger, who recalls Capote saying he hated the fact that Jagger wore the same clothes every night. “He would’ve liked it better now – I have such a bigger wardrobe.” (Capote never wrote his piece, claiming it “didn’t interest me creatively.”)
Jagger admits that the traveling party was “a bit distracting.” He had to watch his drug intake in order to perform. “I wasn’t on meth, out of my mind or anything,” Jagger says. “But I was having a lot of fun.” Richards’ favorite story “has got to be Bobby Keys and me nearly burning down the Playboy mansion,” he says. Staying at Hugh Hefner’s home, Richards and saxophonist Keys accidentally set fire to one of the bathrooms. “We were going through a doctor’s bag and we knocked over a candle,” says Richards.
At the same time, Jagger remembers “all these dark moments” on the tour. On the morning of July 17th in Montreal, dynamite exploded beneath one of the band’s vans, destroying equipment. “It was kind of scary because it was during the separatist movement of Quebec,” says Jagger. “I mean, it wasn’t just some random guy trying to blow up a truck.” The show, remarkably, went on that night, but a riot ensued when 500 fans with counterfeit tickets were turned away.
The following day, the band flew to a small airport in Rhode Island. As the entourage cleared customs, Richards took a nap on the side of a parked firetruck. He woke up to the flashing lights of a local newspaper photographer. “I just reacted,” Richards says. “I got up and hit in the general direction of the light and busted the guy’s camera. Things escalated from there. Then the fucking FBI got involved.” The photographer claimed he was assaulted, and Richards and Jagger were arrested and placed in a jail cell, while an unruly audience at Boston Garden waited. Fearing a riot, Boston Mayor Kevin White organized their release, and the band took the stage after midnight. “There was never a dull moment,” says Richards.
The offstage chaos was documented by the legendary photographer Robert Frank, who brought along a camera for a documentary that, as Jagger understood, would be “about playing and about music.” Instead,Cocksucker Blueswas a cinéma vérité experiment full of lurid scenes: naked groupies having sex on an airplane, Jagger snorting cocaine, and groupie heroin use. The band blocked its release (though it became a popular bootleg). “[Robert] would initiate things,” says Jagger. “Most documentary filmmakers kind of get you to do things that you perhaps wouldn’t do if they weren’t there.” Jagger cites the famous scene where Richards and Keys threw a TV out of a Hyatt Hotel window: “Robert would probably say to Keith, ‘Keith, throw the TV out the window.’ They probably weren’t going to do that that morning.” But Richards disagrees. “Bobby Keys and I engineered that,” he says. “We called the cameraman ’round when we dismantled the TV. So that scene was directed by Bobby Keys and Keith fucking Richards.”
The tour wrapped with four shows at Madison Square Garden. Though the Stones had played 48 shows in only 54 days, they didn’t hold back. The July 25th show featured a sentimental sing-along of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and perhaps the fiercest “All Down the Line” ever played. “You almost feel like you’re levitating on the energy from the audience,” says Richards. “It’s a strange experience.” The tour ended the following night, on Jagger’s 29th birthday. Wonder joined the band for a raucous medley of “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and a revved-up, horn-fueled take on “Satisfaction” (Wonder said he wrote “Uptight” with “Satisfaction” in mind). A cake was rolled onstage, and the show ended with a pie fight among bandmates. The afterparty, thrown by Ahmet Ertegun, included Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
It was the end of an era. Afterward, Richards slid further into addiction, and was arrested on heroin and gun charges the next year. In 1974, after only five years, Taylor left the band to go solo. The Stones’ next North American tour, in 1975, featured stage props like a giant inflatable phallus, and little of the ragged charm of the 1972 tour. “There were no sort of guidelines,” Richards says. “You sort of made it up and you went along. It was a good feeling, that tour. A bit frenetic and a little blurry, like an old movie, you know? It was a bit jerky.”
David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars World Tour
“I wanted the music to look like it sounded,” said David Bowie, who reigned over the moon-age daydream of his greatest tour as a crimson-haired, sparkly, makeup-slathered rock & roll space god. The music, thanks to the savage elegance of the Spiders From Mars, was even wilder, with an intense symbiosis developing between Bowie and chunky-toned guitarist Mick Ronson. “There was magic there,” says keyboardist Mike Garson. Ziggymania broke out across the world, and even as Bowie moved on, it never really stopped.
It takes an extraordinary band to top the studio versions of songs like “Domino” and “Cyprus Avenue,” but with the 10-piece Caledonia Soul Orchestra, Van Morrison pulled it off night after night. With horns, strings and blazing jazz chops, the band was ready to “take the songs anywhere Van wanted to take them,” says guitarist John Platania. “Every performance of each song was different.” Morrison was, as usual, lost in the music, getting so into it that he gave himself backaches – the platform shoes he was favoring at the time probably didn’t help. He rarely addressed the crowd, and kept his band on its toes with subtle gestures that sparked dynamic shifts worthy of James Brown. “He had these signals behind his back,” says Platania. “He would flash his hand and spread his fingers out. We knew instantly we had to bring it down and then build it up again.” Morrison was stretching out, toying with his phrasing, elongating syllables like a jazz singer. The band ended when the tour did – but it lives on in Morrison’s It’s Too Late to Stop Now,one of the most essential live albums of all time, recently released in a gloriously extended version. “We were sad to see it end,” says Platania. “But in those days, he would say stuff like, ‘The show doesn’t haveto go on.'”
Over a two-month-long residency, the Patti Smith Group went from art project to formidable band – and lower Manhattan’s CBGB was well on the road to becoming one of the most famous rock clubs in the world. Much of the material that ended up on Smith’s debut, Horses,came to life at CB’s, with Smith improvising poetic chants as the band brutalized simple chord patterns. “CBGB was the ideal place to sound a clarion call,” Smith wrote. Television, meanwhile, had just begun emphasizing the guitar-weaving tapestries they would immortalize on Marquee Moon. Rock history was being made at a club with no dressing rooms and an incontinent dog in residence – and the musicians knew it. “I remember one night standing outside CBGB, in the doorway of the derelict hotel next door, smoking a joint,” says Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, “and realizing that this was the kind of gathering of psychic energies I’d always dreamed of when, say, I would read about the San Francisco scene in 1966.”
Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue North American Tour
Bob Dylan could have played arenas when he toured to support 1976’s Desire. Instead, true to form, he did the unexpected: He booked tiny theaters with just days’ notice, charged less than $9 per ticket and took along a gaggle of friends – including Roger McGuinn, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Joan Baez. Dylan had started hanging around his old West Village haunts with buddies from his folkie days, and he wanted to take that nostalgic spirit on the road. “We all sing and sing and sing and laugh until we pass out,” Baez told Rolling Stone. “For us, it makes no difference if we just play for 15 people or 15,000.” Backed by one of his best bands ever (including guitarist Mick Ronson), Dylan stretched out shows for as long as five hours – with help from McGuinn, Elliott and others, who would do their own sets and join his. New tracks from Desirewere mixed with 1960s classics (“It Ain’t Me Babe,” “Just Like a Woman”) and covers (“Deportees”). The shows were full of raw, spontaneous intimacy: Dylan duetted with his ex-lover Baez, did scorched-earth versions of “Idiot Wind,” and pleaded for the release of jailed boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter. As Rolling Thunder participant Allen Ginsberg said, “Having gone through his changes … Bob now has his powers together.”
“Our second coming,” says Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart of the band’s 1977 North American tour. Everyone knew the Dead could jam out infinitely. But that year they were discovering something new: that tight, songful concision could transport a crowd just as easily. “We had a lot of new songs and wanted to get at ’em,” says singer and guitarist Bob Weir. “And the only way to get at the next song was to finish the one you were doing.” Ironically for a band that had little use or patience for studios, it would be recording sessions that strengthened its live approach.Terrapin Station, the group’s most recent LP, was recorded with Fleetwood Mac producer Keith Olsen, who’d helmed their self-titled 1975 breakthrough; he forced the Dead to prep and rehearse more than they ever had. “Going in with Keith and having him organize and arrange all this stuff,” says Weir, “that gave us a solidity.” The results of Olsen’s whip-cracking became clear as soon as the Dead went back on the road — they tore into old favorites like “St. Stephen” and tried new combinations, like going from the fast-paced “Scarlet Begonias” into the churning “Fire on the Mountain,” and proved their newly honed chops could help sculpt jams such as the 10-minute “Terrapin Station.”
“We felt like rock gods,” Weir says. It helped that the band was in relatively good shape physically as well. “Jerry was healthy,” says Hart. “That was a big thing.” The high point took place on May 8th at Cornell University’s Barton Hall, regarded by Deadheads as the band’s greatest show ever. In the end, the 1977 tour completely changed the Dead’s sense of connection with fans, and their own musical purpose. “That was an era where it started to creep up on us that people came to hear the songs,” says Weir. “It finally dawned on us: ‘Oh, that’s what it’s all about.'”
The Ramones arrived in England with something to prove. The punk revolution had broken out in London in 1977, with the Sex Pistols getting wall-to-wall press and causing havoc. But no one in the nascent U.K. punk scene was ready for the precision-strike arrival of the Ramones. In his memoir, Johnny Ramone wrote that at a Pistols show on their first night in town in December ’77, “Johnny Rotten asked me what I thought of them, and I told him … they stunk.”
Three days later, the Ramones unleashed a furious assault on the audience in Glasgow, opening with “Rockaway Beach” and not taking a break until 26 songs later. Playing to a punk-crazed English audience pushed the Ramones to play their most intense shows. The tour wrapped on New Year’s Eve at the Rainbow Theatre, their 148th show of the year. “Probably the best show the Ramones ever did,” said Johnny. Amazingly, Joey had been singing through incredible pain; he’d suffered third-degree burns on his neck when a makeshift humidifier exploded on him. Said Ramones co-manager Linda Stein, “[Johnny] came to me and said … ‘Put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane.'” He wanted to be sedated.
The career-defining two-year stretch of shows that followed 1976’s Hotel Californiasaw the Eagles become a stadium band. Yet in an era in which rock shows were growing bigger and more impersonal, the Eagles’ studio perfectionists, Don Henley and Glenn Frey, found a way to recreate the feel and detail of their albums onstage, with every harmony and guitar lick seamlessly in place decades before backing tapes and Auto-Tune made that process easier. Hits like “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Take It to the Limit” were given almost impossibly pristine treatment. The tour itself was chaotic; at one point, bassist Randy Meisner and Frey got into a fistfight when Frey called Meisner a “pussy.” But you wouldn’t have known it watching their sets. “Some critic said we used to go out onstage and loiter,” Henley said. “I think we accomplished a great deal.”
It had been three very long years sinceBorn to Runmade Bruce Springsteen a national star. A bitter lawsuit filed against his former manager in 1976 left him legally unable to enter a studio for two years before makingDarkness on the Edge of Town. “Prove It All Night,” his new single, stalled at Number 33 on the charts. Anything radio-friendly, like “Fire” and “Because the Night,” was held offDarknessto maintain the starker atmosphere Springsteen wanted for his set of songs about the reality of everyday working life. To many, all of this was evidence that Springsteen was in decline. So he did the thing he could do better than almost anyone alive: He went on tour. “With the burden of proving I wasn’t a has-been at 28,” he wrote in his 2016 memoir,Born to Run,“I headed out on the road performing long, sweat-drenched rock shows featuring the new album.”
Springsteen and the E Street Band played 115 shows across North America, the longest series of dates they would ever play in a single year. Even the soundchecks were grueling. “Literally, we would play ‘Thunder Road’ for a half-hour and Bruce would walk around and sit in every section and make sure the sound was as good as possible,” says drummer Max Weinberg. “Look, Bruce took his fun very seriously.” Not everyone thought it was so much fun. “I thought it was a little self-indulgent and a little bit silly,” says bassist Garry Tallent. “We would do four-hour sound-checks and then a three-and-a-half-hour show. We were younger then.”
Sets featured the majority of the new album, a big chunk ofBorn to Runand favorites off the first two discs, like “Spirit in the Night” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight).” After so much time off, the band played with a stunning mix of pent-up energy and technical precision. “Anyone can be great on any given night,” says Weinberg. “To really be great every night takes a lot of willpower, a lot of dedication, a lot of self-confidence, a lot of respect for your audience – tremendous respect for the audience.”
Live, the songs completely transformed from their recorded versions. For “Prove It All Night,” the band added a piano and guitar intro that built to a furious climax, and “Backstreets” developed an emotional spoken-word interlude about lost love that eventually morphed into “Drive All Night,” fromThe River.“Even at that point, the whole thing was ‘You have to see them live – you can’t go by the record,'” says Tallent.
As the tour crisscrossed the nation, with five shows getting broadcast on the radio and quickly hitting the bootleg market, a new respect for the album took hold. “Night after night, we sent our listeners away, back to the recorded versions of this music,” Springsteen wrote inBorn to Run,“newly able to hear their beauty and restrained power.”
One particularly great show took place at the tiny Agora Ballroom in Cleveland. Opening with a ferocious cover of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” and wrapping up three hours later with a wild “Twist and Shout,” it became one of the most coveted bootlegs in rock history. “It was really hot,” says Weinberg. “Just sweltering. It was incredibly exciting. Then you just get on the bus and go to the next gig. It was like that about five nights a week with two days off.”
Word of Springsteen’s glorious return prompted CBS Records to mount a huge billboard of his image on the Sunset Strip, advertising the album and tour but making no mention of the band. “It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” Springsteen told a radio DJ. One night, Springsteen snuck up to the roof of a nearby building with Tallent and saxophonist Clarence Clemons. Armed with cans of black spray paint, Springsteen hoisted himself onto Clemons’ massive shoulders and wrote “Prove It All Night E Street” across the entire thing. “We didn’t deface it,” says Tallent with a laugh. “We corrected it. That was our way of letting people know to not expect the next coming of Christ. It’s just a rock & roll show.”
Darkness on the Edge of Townstill wasn’t a commercial hit by the end of the run, but critics across the country hailed the tour as the best of the year, and the album remained at the core of Springsteen’s set list for decades to come. “[They] are perhaps the purest distillation of what I wanted my rock & roll music to be about,” Springsteen wrote. “[On the last stand of the tour] an exploding firecracker tossed by an inebriated ‘fan’ opened up a small slash underneath my eye. A little blood’d been drawn, but we were back.”
They called it the Pearl Harbour Tour, and they opened each night with a slashing version of “I’m So Bored With the USA.” For an English punk band trying to break through in the States, it was an interesting marketing approach. “England’s becoming claustrophobic for us,” Joe Strummer told Rolling Stone. “I think touring America could be a new lease on life.” With a touring budget of just $30,000 from their record label (most of which they gave to opening act Bo Diddley), the Clash stormed the heartland and made converts wherever they went. During downtime on their tour bus, they watched a VHS copy of Star Warsover and over. They hit the Palladium in New York in February, blowing away a crowd that included Andy Warhol and Bruce Springsteen. “Every country has one thing in common, which is they all listen to shit music,” said co-leader Mick Jones. “We’re here to alleviate that.”
Pink Floyd’s 1979 rock opera,The Wall,was their most ambitious album to date, and when they took it on the road the next year they knew a traditional stage show would simply not do it justice. Pushing the limits of concert technology, they built an actual wall during the first half of every show, then played the bulk of the second half behind it, obscured from the audience. “Not much spontaneity,” said drummer Nick Mason, “but we’re not known for our duck-walking and gyrating around onstage.”
The logistics were so daunting that they staged it only 31 times across 16 months, hitting just four cities: Los Angeles; London; Dortmund, Germany; and Uniondale, New York. The most dramatic moment of the show happened near the end, when the wall came tumbling down. “The first couple of bricks would terrify people in the front rows,” said guitarist David Gilmour. “The audience would think they were going to be killed.”
It was an image that defined Talking Heads for a generation of music fans – skinny, nervous David Byrne on theSpeaking in Tonguestour, struggling to dance in a cartoonishly huge white suit. “What I realized years before,” Byrne says, “is I had to find my own way of moving that wasn’t a white rock guy trying to imitate black people, or bring some other kind of received visual or choreographic language into pop music … I just thought, ‘No, no, you have to invent it from scratch.'”
Since forming in the mid-Seventies, Talking Heads had gone from CBGB New Wavers to one of the biggest bands in America. For the tour to support 1983’sSpeaking in Tongues,their most popular album to date, they reinvented themselves, growing from a quartet to a nine-piece funk mob that included P-Funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell, Brothers Johnson guitarist Alex Weir and vocalist Lynn Mabry. Byrne also took cues from the experimental visual-art world, projecting abstract slides onto a spare backdrop, creating a stark aesthetic to match the band’s driving, uncluttered funk. The suit was inspired in part by Japanese Noh theater.
What emerged was arty dance-party transcendence. Byrne and drummer Chris Frantz recall the two-night run at New York’s Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in August as a highlight. “Madonna had just released her first record; she was walking around barefoot,” Frantz says. “I saw Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall off to the side of the stage – she was dancing, Mick wasn’t.” The Greek Theater in Berkeley the following month was a similar bacchanal. “We’d begun to get the Deadhead crowd,” Frantz says, laughing.
In late 1983, the band decided to document the tour with a concert film, and teamed up with director Jonathan Demme (who would later win an Oscar forThe Silence of the Lambs). “We didn’t want any of the bullshit,” says Frantz of the band’s initial idea forStop Making Sense.“We didn’t want the clichés. We didn’t want close-ups of people’s fingers while they’re doing a guitar solo. We wanted the camera to linger, so you could get to know the musicians a little bit.”
Shot over three nights at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles,Stop Making Sensemay be the greatest concert movie. It begins with Byrne walking onto a deserted stage with a boombox, setting it down, pressing “play,” then reimagining “Psycho Killer” for acoustic guitar and 808 drum-machine beats. His bandmates and backing musicians join him incrementally, song by song. “It’s cut down,” Byrne notes, comparing the film to the two-hour shows, “but there were no other substantial changes.”
The effect was so real, people actually got up and danced in movie theaters. “I’d never seen that before,” Frantz says. “Or since.”
On each night of the Purple Raintour, Prince and the Revolution huddled backstage for a prayer. “It was a meaningful ritual,” says bassist Mark Brown. “The crowds were so loud, and it was so crazy, that we needed each other because that was the only thing you had: each other for support.” With Prince’s movie Purple Rain catapulting the singer toward megastardom, the 98 shows he did in support of the soundtrack album were like Broadway productions. Prince began the show ascending from beneath the stage on a hydraulic lift, and went through five costume changes. “He had all these visual cues,” recalls keyboardist Lisa Coleman. “He’d throw a hankie into the air, and when the hankie hit the ground, that’s when we would stop.” At the Los Angeles Forum, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna joined Prince for the encore, which included a nearly half-hour-long version of “Purple Rain.” “He wanted to tower over everybody,” says keyboardist Matt Fink. “He was the Muhammad Ali of rock.”
In 1988, Metallica released their pivotal album… And Justice for Alland went from thrash-metal renegades to mainstream stars. But when their manager suggested an arena tour to support the LP, the band wasn’t convinced. “I was like, ‘Seriously?'” drummer Lars Ulrich recalls. “We knew we could do L.A., New York, San Francisco, but the American heartland didn’t seem like a great idea. No band as extreme as ours had ever done a full arena tour. So we used Indianapolis as a yardstick. If we were cool there, we were cool almost anywhere. When the tickets went on sale in Indianapolis, we ended up doing 13,000 or 14,000, which in 1988 was an insane victory.”
On the Damaged Justice Tour, Metallica learned just how many authenticity-starved headbangers were really out there. The band got the first taste of its transformative power in the summer of 1988 when it was booked onto the Monsters of Rock Tour, opening for Van Halen and Scorpions. At the L.A. Coliseum, fans responded to Metallica’s set by flinging their folding chairs at the stage to create a football-field-size mosh pit. “It was bonkers,” says bassist Jason Newsted, who had recently joined the band, replacing the late Cliff Burton. “For a kid coming off a farm and jumping into my favorite band, it was very dreamy. I didn’t sleep. Every day was another dream coming true.” He also got a lesson in how to conduct himself on the road. “I’d walk on the crew bus of a big band and there’s a pile of blow on the table in the front lounge,” Newsted recalls. “I look over there at my heroes, all red and swollen, and I’m like, ‘Guess what I’m not gonna do? That!'” The kickoff of the Damaged Justice Tour coincided with the success of Metallica’s anti-war-themed video for their new single, “One,” which quickly became an MTV hit. At the peak of bloated hair metal, Metallica were playing jagged seven-to-nine-minute-long thrash odysseys. But the crowds at their shows kept growing. “The kids know that at the end of the day there’s something very real and honest about what we do,” Ulrich toldRolling Stonein 1989. “You can’t take that away from us.”
In the summer before they released Nevermind, Nirvana were still a largely unknown band. They booked a series of European festival dates, opening for their friends Sonic Youth — and witnessed for the first time their power to convert and ignite huge crowds. “It was passionate. It was reckless,” says Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, who also astounded audiences with their New York noise-rock. “[Nirvana] were going on at 2:00 in the afternoon, playing a 20-minute set. But there was this massive amount of pogo’ing going on.” With drummer Dave Grohl on tour with the band for the first time, and the new Nevermindmaterial, Nirvana were received almost like headliners. Kurt Cobain biographer Charles Cross called it Cobain’s “happiest time as a musician.” Recalls Grohl, “Everything was still very innocent.” A documentary of the tour, 1991: The Year Punk Broke,captured Cobain spraying champagne all over a dressing room and Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic gleefully tearing through a backstage cheese plate. The high point for Moore was in Brussels, where security tried to stop Nirvana’s nightly ritual of smashing their gear, and Novoselic had to be pulled down as he tried to climb up the closing stage curtains. “It was,” says Moore, “the most perverse, deconstructed, psychedelic freakout concert I’ve ever seen.”
For its first tour of the Nineties, the biggest rock band in the world had one simple goal: to completely reinvent itself as a live act. U2 had just given their sound a full-scale makeover with 1991’sAchtung Baby– a groundbreaking fusion of rock, pop, electronic dance grooves and krautrock – and they needed a tour that reflected their sleek, challenging new music. “We were drawn to anything that was going to give us a chance to get away from theJoshua Treeearnestness,” said the Edge, “which had become so stifling.”
The notion of U2 as the inheritors of rock’s social mission had been central to their Eighties stardom. But as the band was well aware, it was increasingly out of step with an era defined by groups like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, who cast a skeptical eye at sweepingJoshua Tree–style rock heroism. For theAchtung Babytour, U2 were ready to loosen up and throw a dance party, albeit a subversive one, packed with multimedia images that were a clear break from the stark purity of their Eighties stage sets. “The tour was being conceived at the same time as the album,” Bono recalled in 2005. “Zoo radio was a phenomenon before reality TV, with so-called shock jocks such as Howard Stern. It was aggressive, raw radio, the precursor toThe Jerry Springer Show.The world was getting tired of fiction. … We wanted to make a tour that referenced this zoo/reality phenomenon.”
Extensive cable news coverage was a fact of life by the early Nineties; during the Gulf War, images of Scud missiles raining down on Iraq became dinnertime entertainment. U2 essentially turned the Zoo TV set into a postmodern art installation that reflected the numbing cacophony of the cable-TV era, playing in front of a mosaic of TV screens that mashed up war footage with old sitcoms, cooking shows and everything in between.
Bono, meanwhile, came up with a new, sly persona to match the new stage set. He donned an Elvis-style leather jacket, wraparound sunglasses and leather pants that evoked Jim Morrison. He took this rock star amalgamation and created a character called the Fly. “When I put on those glasses, anything goes,” Bono toldRolling Stone. “The character is just on the edge of lunacy. It’s megalomania and paranoia.”
Zoo TV opened in Florida on February 29th, 1992. If the staging and Bono’s wild get-up weren’t enough indications this was a new U2, the band kicked things off with eight consecutive songs fromAchtung Baby.“People went for it,” Bono said toRolling Stonelater that year. “The first show, you just didn’t know. ‘How is this going to go down?’ And they went for it. I think our audiences are smart and that they expect us to push and pull them a bit. They had to swallow blues onRattle and Hum,for God’s sake! They can take it.”
The tour’s first leg coincided with the 1992 presidential race, and every night from the stage Bono called the White House and asked to speak with President Bush. “Operator Two and I had a great relationship,” Bono said. “She tried not to show it, but I could tell she was very amused, as we rang her night after night.”
Bush never took the call, but a young Arkansas governor was all too happy to talk to the band. U2 met with Bill Clinton in Chicago in September 1992 during the tour and forged what became an enduring relationship. The sitting president was unmoved. “I have nothing against U2,” Bush told a crowd in Bowling Green, Ohio, that month. “You may not know this, but they tried to call me at the White House every night during their concert. But the next time we face a foreign-policy crisis, I will work with John Major and Boris Yeltsin, and Bill Clinton can consult with Boy George.”
For opening acts, U2 chose artists who enhanced the idea of the band as a gathering point for pop music in an increasingly fragmented era – from Public Enemy to the Ramones, Velvet Underground and Pearl Jam. Eddie Vedder was initially skeptical about the scale of Zoo TV, but he came around. “[I eventually] understood that these weren’t decisions they were making out of fashion or simply being clever,” Vedder said. “It was like an edict they’d created as a new philosophy for the group, to really explore the avenues of connecting to people on a large level.”
During a break in early 1993, U2 recordedZooropa,which took the experiments ofAchtung Babyfurther. When the tour resumed, Bono devised a new character: MacPhisto, a devilish figure with white face paint and horns. “The character was a great device for saying the opposite of what you meant,” said the Edge. “One highlight was calling the minister of fisheries in Norway, young Jan Henri Olsen, to congratulate him on whaling, which was forbidden by the European Union but legal in Norway. He actually took the call and invited Bono to come and have a whale steak with him.”
Those phone calls became a major part of each performance – some nights Bono ordered pizzas for the crowd; on another he rang Madonna on her cellphone (she didn’t pick up). As venues got bigger, U2 kept things intimate by adding a miniset to the show, playing on a tiny stage.
The wall-to-wall video screens also set the scene for every pop spectacle that followed, from Lady Gaga’s Monster Ball to Kanye West’s Glow in the Dark Tour. “Zoo TV wasn’t a set piece, it was a state of mind,” said the Edge. For Bono, the experience was life-changing: “I’ve had to stop ‘not drinking.’ I’ve had to smoke incessantly. I’ve learned to be insincere. I’ve learned to lie. I’ve never felt better!”
The scene Radiohead encountered at 1997’s Glastonbury Festival looked more like a war zone than a concert. It had been pouring rain for days, forcing the 90,000 fans at the remote field in Somerset, England, to live like refugees in a monsoon. Two stages sank into the mud, and some fans actually came down with the World War I–era malady trench foot. Early in Radiohead’s set, Thom Yorke’s monitor melted down. The lighting rig was shining directly into his face, meaning he couldn’t see in addition to being unable to hear himself play. “If I’d found the guy who was running the PA system that day,” Yorke told a journalist,“I would have gone backstage and throttled him. Everything was going wrong. Everything blew up.”
Weeks after releasing their career-defining album,OK Computer, it looked like Radiohead might flop during a headlining set at the world’s biggest music festival. Instead, the chaos inspired one of the band’s greatest performances. Rage poured through Yorke all night long, giving extra fire to eight songs from OK Computer,plus nearly all ofThe Bends — and even a crowd-pleasing version of their first hit, “Creep.” It was a transcendent performance, even if Yorke didn’t realize it at the time. “I thundered offstage at the end, really ready to kill,” he said. “And my girlfriend grabbed me, made me stop, and said, ‘Listen!’ And the crowd were just going wild. It was amazing.” In 2006,Qmagazine voted it the greatest concert in British history.
In early 1997, the most exciting new band in rock was a trio of young women driving their own van across the country, with only their friend Tim along as a roadie. “We’d get to the club,” recalls Sleater-Kinney singer-guitarist Corin Tucker, “and the sound man would be like, ‘Wait. You’re the band? You? You girls?'” But playing songs from its album Dig Me Out,the group bulldozed the staid indie-rock scene with unbridled punk-rock exuberance. “In Atlanta, 10 women got onstage and took their shirts off and danced with us,” says co-leader Carrie Brownstein. “I don’t know if they’d ever felt that freedom before, and I was really proud to provide the soundtrack for that.”
By the mid-Nineties, Pearl Jam were in serious danger of imploding, thanks to intraband tensions and a self-defeating war against Ticketmaster that had left them almost unable to tour. But they started over with 1998’s aptly named Yield,their most collaborative album yet, and when they hit the road with a new drummer, Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron, the shows fulfilled their promise as one of rock’s all-time great live acts. New tracks (“Given to Fly,” “Do the Evolution”) were instant crowd favorites, and classics like “Alive” sounded bigger than ever. “We’re making up for lost time here,” Eddie Vedder told the crowd one night. “Thanks for waiting.”
For Phish’s Trey Anastasio, this colossal one-band festival, at a South Florida Native American reservation, was “the culmination” of the band’s first run. “Eighty thousand people came from all over,” he said, “and virtually nothing went wrong.” The fest’s final set began around midnight, and went on for more than seven hours, displaying every side of peak Phish, a singular mix of in-joke quirks and ESP-level improv. Toward the end came an unforgettable take on the “Sunrise” section of “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” played as the sun actually rose. “I will never listen to that tape because I know what a letdown it would be compared to what it was actually like,” Anastasio said. “When that sun came up, and the sky was blazing pink, it was an indescribable moment.”
The return of Christine McVie after 16 years brought the Fleetwood Mac’s live show to a whole new dimension. Lindsey Buckingham’s guitar solo on “Go Your Own Way” soared to new heights; Stevie Nicks seemed possessed during the nightly exorcism of “Rhiannon”; and all three voices locked seamlessly on “Little Lies.” It was all the magic of 1977 without the distractions of hard drugs and sexual soap operas.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/queen-to-stream-1992-freddie-mercury-tribute-for-covid-19-relief2020-05-14T22:03:00+03:002020-05-14T22:05:15+03:00Queen to Stream 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute for COVID-19 ReliefAlto Saxo
Classic show featured surviving members of band playing alongside David Bowie, Robert Plant, Axl Rose and more
]]>
Classic show featured surviving members of band playing alongside David Bowie, Robert Plant, Axl Rose and more
Queenwill make the 1992Freddie MercuryTribute Concert for AIDS Awareness available on the band’sYouTube pagethis Friday, May 15th, to raise money for the World Health Organization and its COVID-19 relief efforts.
The concert will stream live at 7 p.m. British Time (2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT) and will be available to watch for the next 48 hours. For every dollar donated during the stream, YouTube’s parent company Google will match with a $2 donation as part of its ongoing Google/YouTube UN Foundation fundraiser.
TheFreddie Mercury Tribute Concerttook place at Wembley Stadium in London April 20th, 1992, several months after Mercury died from complications from AIDS.The show featured Queen’s surviving members, — Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon — playing an array of Queen classics and other songs with artists like David Bowie, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, Tony Iommi, James Hetfield, Seal, George Michael, Elton John, Axl Rose and Liza Minnelli. The show also featured individual performances from Metallica, U2, Def Leppard, Guns N’ Roses and Spinal Tap.
The profits from the concert helped launch the Mercury Phoenix Trust, which has donated over £17 million (about $20 million) to myriad projects in 57 countries to assist in the ongoing fight against AIDS.
While COVID-19 forced Queen + Adam Lambert to postpone their Rhapsody tour to 2021, the band has kept busy. At the end of April, with each member in quarantine, they remotely re-worked “We Are the Champions” into “You Are the Champions” to raise money for the WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/25-most-iconic-music-stage-outfits2020-05-13T00:02:00+03:002020-05-13T00:02:16+03:0025 Most Iconic Music Stage OutfitsAlto Saxo
A big part of being a musical megastar is dressing like a madman and yet making it look enormously cool because you're so confident and sexy. You can't for one second doubt that your massive spangled jumpsuit or teeny hotpants might look a bit daft, because then the magic is broken.
]]>
A big part of being a musical megastar is dressing like a madman and yet making it look enormously cool because you're so confident and sexy. You can't for one second doubt that your massive spangled jumpsuit or teeny hotpants might look a bit daft, because then the magic is broken.
Here are 25 outfits that are burned onto the collective retina of music fans. Outfits that will make you start immediately air-guitaring or strut around miming and wonder if you too should start wearing more massive hats. (you shouldn't)
Angus Young Wearing school uniform for 40 years should be incredibly creepy, but AC/DC's Angus Young has consistently made it look cheerfully rock 'n' roll. It does also help when you're one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
Tartan. Shirt around the waist. Bandana. Clothing with pointless stuff written on it. Unnecessary Lycra. Axl Rose went full nineties for this look and you have to respect that.
David Bowie You could pick almost any of David Bowie's looks as iconic, particularly from the Ziggy Stardust era. Looking like the coolest kid from the other side of the galaxy, his get-ups were as surprising and delighting as his songs.
Daft Punk Two benefits of always wearing a robot helmet on stage: Never having to brush your hair and you can send someone else on in your place if you're a bit tired. Not a benefit: Probably quite sweaty.
Deadmau5 Not unlike the Daft Punk approach to stage dressing, just with massive ears. Also have to be wary of any giant cats around.
Elton John Elton John made his thing to always dress like a lunatic on stage, amassing so many costumes that he sold 2,000 of them at auction in 1988. Understandably, he held onto this Donald Duck outfit.
Freddie Mercury Pretty tame by the legendary Queen frontman's standards, the multi-buckled yellow leather jacket nevertheless became the outfit with which he's most associated, as loud, confident and unmistakable as that roaring voice.
Lady Gaga The majority of Lady Gaga's oddest costumes have tended to be for the red carpet - the meat dress, the wipe-clean nun. She usually wears something more practical onstage, like a decapitated Victorian widow mounted on her shoulders, for example.
Michael Jackson Each Michael Jackson tour brought a memorable look, usually involving a mix of black and gold and a lot of buckles, but none sticks in the mind like theDangeroustour's military look with gilded overpants.
Kiss It takes a lot of bravado to get away with wearing armour, monochromatic make-up, codpieces and stacked boots. Bravado is not something Kiss lack.
Madonna Madonna's conical bra from her Blonde Ambition tour became the singer's most copied look and really upset the Pope. Well done all round.
Miley Cyrus & Robin Thicke Seemingly very carefully engineered to create controversy, Cyrus's PVC bikini and wandering foam finger are arguably the defining pop image of 2013. It was her announcement that she's no longer Hannah Montana and that she can play the media like a fiddle. In addition, Thicke'sBeetjuicestyle outfit was the perfect counterpoint, creating a look that will remain seared on the public's consciousness for a while to come yet.
Morrissey Morrissey is a true one-off, with perhaps his most memorable onstage get up involving some gladioli, and this famous performance onTop Of The Popswhen he wore a hearing aid. No-one knows the reason why he decided on this accessory - be it a tribute to one of his heroes Johnnie Ray, or in solidarity with a fan who was ashamed of wearing it - but it went down in folklore nonetheless.
Orbital Simple and effective. A pair of torches mounted on goggles to help you see what you're doing with all those buttons and wires and, hey presto, a thoroughly iconic look. Also useful if you get home late and can't find the light switch.
Pet Shop Boys The Pet Shop Boys could fill many cupboards with the weird and wonderful hats and accessories they've worn on stage over the years. This cube head apparatus, from thePandemoniumTour gets the vote for apparently being impossible to perform in, and yet not.
Prince Absolutely nobody but Prince can get away with dressing like a rich 80s mum whose hairdresser hates her.
Red Hot Chili Peppers This complicated human-sized lightbulb costume the band wore to open their set at Woodstock '94 made it almost impossible for them to actually play their instruments. But the struggle was worth it. What a bright idea.
Reni Plenty of Stone Roses fans have tried to ape Reni's bucket hat signature but unfortunately without the right swagger you look like you're the simple one in a 1980s British sitcom. He later replaced this iconic look on the recent comeback tour with a dreadlock wig. Nobody knows why.
Slash Slash's big-hair-big-hat look is the only rock oufit with its own emoticon, which the guitarist uses to sign of all his tweets: iiii]; )' And that, frankly, is ridiculously cool.
Spice Girls Famously made out of a couple of tea towels, Geri's dress for the 1997 Brit Awards earned massive exposure for the girlband and for Geri's pants. It fetched over £41,000 at auction and even has its ownWikipedia page.
Wham! Wham's insistence that its audience 'Choose Life' was emblazoned on many a t-shirt throughout the late 1980s. ThenTrainspottingnicked the line in 1996, taking one of the last reasons to remember Andrew Ridgeley.
Flavor Flav Oh Flavor Flav, single-handedly keeping makers of quite small clocks in business.
MC Hammer How people laughed at MC Hammer and his trousers apparently designed to accommodate a very full nappy. And then a few years ago people started wearing them again...and everyone who laughed the first time laughed again.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/tina-turner2020-05-09T19:21:00+03:002021-03-03T17:39:06+02:00The Legend of Tina TurnerAlto Saxo
She was the symbol of rock ’n’ roll stamina for 50 years. Her Proud Mary was 175% longer than the original, and John Fogerty didn’t even dance. She became a star with Ike Turner in her 20s, escaped his abuse in her 30s, fought her way up the pop charts in her 40s, toured the world through her 60s, and now she would like to sleep in a Swiss chateau.
]]>
She was the symbol of rock ’n’ roll stamina for 50 years. Her Proud Mary was 175% longer than the original, and John Fogerty didn’t even dance. She became a star with Ike Turner in her 20s, escaped his abuse in her 30s, fought her way up the pop charts in her 40s, toured the world through her 60s, and now she would like to sleep in a Swiss chateau.
Since Tina Turner first stepped into the flood lights of stardom, her life has been a roller coaster that has taken her to the highest highs and the lowest lows. She came from difficult circumstances, which only got worse when Ike Turner set his sights on Tina. He got her started in the entertainment industry, but he also brought a lot of pain into her life.
Tina eventually left him, but even once she escaped her husband it seems things kept going wrong for her. Despite an incredible career spanning decades filled with hit after classic hit, one of the greatest artists of a generation continued to suffer all kinds of problems.
Tina and Ike Turner
As a little girl growing up in Nutbush, Tennessee, Anna Mae Bullock, as it reads on the singer's birth certificate, was the child of sharecroppers, Floyd and Zelma Bullock.
When Tina was 10-years-old, her mother fled the constant fights with her husband, left her family and her home, in search of a better life for herself, according to an interview Tina did with Rolling Stone. Tina's dad eventually split as well, forcing her to have to grow up quickly. During this time, she and her older sister Alline were raised by their grandmother, and when she died they made their way to St. Louis, where her estranged mother was living. These were the beginnings of hard times for the little girl who would grow to become one of the best-selling recording artists in the world.
While living in St. Louis, Tina and her sister would frequent R&B clubs in the area, although she was just a teenager at the time. It was during a night out at Club Manhattan that she met the man who would put a permanent bruise on her life, Ike Turner.
Tina Turner on stage in Amsterdam, 1971.
A lot of things could take blame for Tina and Ike Turner's paths crossing for the first time. A full moon. A curse. Perhaps a black cat walked in front of her. But as her poor luck would have it, her own sister Alline was the one responsible for them meeting. Alline was a barmaid at a popular R&B club in St. Louis, where Ike Turner's band, Kings of Rhythm would regularly perform. One night, while Tina was there watching the band, the drummer put a mic in front of her and she started to join in. Later, Ike ran over saying, "Girl, I didn't know you could sing!"
In a 1986 interview with Rolling Stone, Tina says that everyone was happy for her that night because they all knew her sister, and had heard stories from her about Tina wanting to be a singer. And from that night on, she was.
Ike started giving her clothes and jewelry to wear for performances. Already doing his best to mold her into what he wanted. Tina, on the other hand, didn't want anything to do with him at first. "I thought he was terribly ugly," she said to Rolling Stone.
Tina Turner at The Ed Sullivan Show in 1970
With their popularity growing, Ike and Tina were married in Tijuana, Mexico, in 1962. Two years later their son, Ronnie, was born. They had four sons in all, one from an earlier relationship of Tina's, and two from an earlier relationship of Ike's.
In 1966, Tina and Ike's success reached new heights when they recorded the album River Deep, Mountain High with superstar record producer Phil Spector. The title track was unsuccessful in the United States, but became a massive, top 5 hit in England and brought the duo new fame. Still, the duo became more known for their electrifying live performances without accumulating a ton of corresponding hits.
In 1969, they toured as the opening act for the Rolling Stones, winning themselves still more fans. Their popularity was rekindled in 1971 with the release of the albumWorkin' Together, which featured a renowned slow-to-fast remake of the Creedence Clearwater Revival track "Proud Mary" that reached the top 5 of the U.S. charts and won the two their first Grammy.
"Proud Mary" became a cornerstone of the couple's shows, renowned for Tina's vocal delivery along with the swirling, hand-rolling dance moves from accompanying vocalists, the Ikettes.
The duo later had a top 5 U.K. hit with 1973's "Nutbush City Limits," a rock-country-soul jam penned by Tina herself with autobiographical elements. Then in 1975, Tina also appeared in her first film, playing the Acid Queen in The Who'sTommy.
Tina Turner as the Acid Queen in The Who's rock musical Tommy, 1975
In 1976, Tina Turner fled Ike Turner with nothing more than 36 cents and a Mobil gas card in her pocket. According to a 2019 profile by The New York Times, the singer reveals that she was swollen from beatings, in debt, and didn't even take her wigs, she just up and left. Entertainment Weekly records she stopped in the first safe place she found, a Dallas Ramada Inn, and pled with the manager there to give her a room, which he did.
Ike and Tina were in the midst of touring when she finally got up the courage to leave him, and although she was relieved to finally be free, it wasn't free and easy at first. A good number of promoters tried to sue to recoup expenses and ticket sales, and Ike himself retaliated.
In 1978, they were officially divorced, with Tina citing Ike's frequent infidelities and increasing drug and alcohol use in addition to the abuse.
In the years following her divorce, Tina's solo career got off to a slow start. To make ends meet and to care for her children, she used food stamps and even cleaned houses. But she also continued to perform in lower-profile venues and made guest appearances on other artists' records, though not achieving any notable success initially.
Tina Turner and Janis Joplinat Madison Square Garden, November 27, 1969
Turner’s rock’n’roll identity was ultimately her gateway out of her marriage to Ike and into her solo career. Although the rock circuit (and covering the likes of the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival) would prove a lucrative way for the Ike and Tina Revue to expand their fanbase, it was Tina who had fully turned to rock as recourse, claiming her entitlement to perform music for which the 1920s blues queens (Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey) paved the way and which the 1940s and 50s path-breakers (Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Mama Thornton) had critically helped to invent.
Tina Turner Limited Edition T-Shirt
Huge Comeback: 'Private Dancer' and "What's Love Got to Do With It"
In 1983, however, Turner's solo career finally gained steam when she recorded a remake ofAl Green's "Let's Stay Together." Noted for a related video in which she appeared in a rag dress between two dancers, Turner took her remake to the top 5 on the domestic R&B charts and the top 10, U.K. pop.
The following year, she exploded back into the record industry when her much-anticipated solo album,Private Dancer, was released to overwhelming critical and popular success. It went on to win four Grammy Awards and eventually sold more than 20 million copies worldwide.
Tina Turner performing Live Private Dancer at The Blockbuster Stadium, San Bernardino, California 1993
Mark Knopfler wrotePrivate Dancer for his band Dire Straits, but realized that it didn't work with a guy singing it, so he pitched it to Turner, who was beginning her comeback. In a 2004 interview with her fan club, Tina Turner described her reaction when Knopfler played her the song: "Mark said this song is not for a man, it's a girl's song. He recorded it but won't use it so when he put the demo on, he sung 'I'm a private dancer, dancer for money, do what you want me to do,' I told him, 'I think you're right, it's not a song for a guy. I liked it a lot. I wasn't sure whether the girl was a hooker or a very classical private dancer but I thought I'd take it."
Mark Knopfler, Tina Turner and Eric Clapton at the Prince´s Trust 10th Anniversary Rock Gala at Wembley, 23rd June 1986.
Private Dancerwas a formidable entity in terms of its individual singles, with the empowerment anthem "What's Love Got to Do With It" reaching No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts and earning the Grammy for Record of the Year. The smooth-jazz title track "Private Dancer" and "Better Be Good to Me" both reached the top 10 as well.
By this time, Turner was a woman in her mid-40s who was becoming even more renowned for her uniquely energetic performances and raspy singing technique along with her signature look — typically performing in short skirts that exposed her famous legs, with voluminous, punk styled hair.
The night her career finally blew up came in January 1983, thanks to one of her biggest fans: a guy named David Bowie. The Thin White Duke was about to give his new label his biggest hit in years, Let’s Dance. When he came to NYC, the Capitol bosses wanted to wine him and dine him and celebrate the filthy fortune they were all about to make. But Bowie told them he had plans — he was seeing his favorite singer at the Ritz. And — as he informed them — so were they. Her manager Roger Davies was shocked to get a call from the label asking for a few last-minute guest spots. Sixty-three of them.
When Tina hit the stage that night, she had no idea Bowie had dragged his label bigwigs there, along with half the city’s rock & roll royalty. But she blew the room away. “My Cinderella moment,” she put it in the 2019 memoir My Love Story. “That night at the Ritz was the equivalent of going to the ball (minus the part about Prince Charming) because it changed my life dramatically.”
Tina stayed up till dawn with Bowie, Keith Richards, and Ron Wood, jamming on Motown oldies at the piano and draining the hotel’s Jack Daniels supply. In the morning, she got in a cab and sadly “headed back to reality.” She didn’t know it yet, but from now on, this was her reality. The Ritz gig led straight to Private Dancer, and after that she’d never be unfamous again.
Keith Richards, Tina Turner and David Bowie, New York City, 1983
'Beyond Thunderdome' and 'Foreign Affair'
In 1985, Turner returned to the screen, starring oppositeMel Gibsonin the filmMad Max Beyond Thunderdome, to which she contributed the No. 2 pop song "We Don't Need Another Hero."
One year later, she published her autobiography,I, Tina, which would later be adapted as the 1993 filmWhat's Love Got to Do with It, starringAngela Bassettas Tina and Laurence Fishburne as Ike.(Turner's soundtrack for the film, in which she redid classic tracks and offered up the new top 10 hit "I Don't Wanna Fight," would go double platinum.)
Tina Turner and Mick Jagger on stage during Live Aid at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, PA. July 13, 1985
The year 1986 also saw the release of Turner's second solo album,Break Every Rule, featuring the fun "Typical Male." Chronicling unfulfilled desire with a too-brainy romantic interest, the track was yet another hit for Turner, reaching No. 2 on the pop charts.
Tina Live in Europefollowed in 1988 and won the Grammy for Female Rock Vocal Performance, andForeign Affair(1989), which included the top 20 hit single "The Best," outdidPrivate Dancerin worldwide sales.
Tina Turner wearing silver attire and Mel Gibson in a scene from the film 'Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome', 1985.
'Wildest Dreams' and Final Tour
The following decade, Turner releasedWildest Dreams (1996), featuring her cover of John Waite's "Missing You," andTwenty Four Seven(1999).She also made several recordings for film soundtracks, including the James Bond title song "Goldeneye," a U.K. top 10 hit, and "He Lives in You" forThe Lion King 2.
In 1991, Ike and Tina Turner were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Ike was unable to attend the ceremony, however, as he was serving time for drug possession (He eventually died of an overdose in 2007).
In 2008, the iconic entertainer embarked on her "Tina! 50th Anniversary Tour," which became one of the highest-selling ticketed shows of 2008 and 2009. She announced that it would be her final tour, and essentially retired from the music business save for occasional appearances and recordings.
Tina Turner’s tours after the release of Private Dancer in 1984 packed stadiums all across the world, especially in Europe. She launched a farewell tour in 2000 that truly seemed like the end of her live career, but in 2008 she went back out at the age of 69 to celebrate her 50th anniversary in music. It was a show that would have exhausted someone half her age, but Turner got through 90 shows and amazed every single night.
The run wrapped up May 5th, 2009, at the Sheffield Arena in Sheffield, England. Like every show on the tour, that concert featured a cross-section of songs from her entire career, including “Proud Mary,” “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Goldeneye,” and “Private Dancer.” She finished off the night with the relatively obscure “Be Tender With Me Baby” from her 1990 LP Foreign Affair. Here’s video of the big moment captured by a fan in the audience.
Turner has nonetheless continued to be a luminary of the musical world, appearing on the cover of a 2013 GermanVoguethat was widely shared.
Tina Turner at 73 on the cover of a 2013 German Vogue
In 2013, Tina Turner married again, this time to Erwin Bach, a German music executive. The knew each other for a long time prior to getting married, having originally met in 1985 a record label party in London. In 1994, they moved together to Switzerland, and Tina eventually applied to become a Swiss citizen, giving up her American passport.
As her bad luck would have it, People reports Tina suffered a stroke just three weeks after their marriage, which rendered her unable to walk. She got through that, learning how to walk all over again, only to learn in 2016 that she had intestinal cancer. Turning down standard medical treatments in favor of homeopathic remedies turned out to be a bad choice, and eventually caused Tina to be looking at total kidney failure.
In desperate need of a kidney replacement, as a matter of life or death, her new husband stepped in as a donor. The transplant took place in 2017 and was mostly a success, but Turner now suffers from "dizziness, forgetfulness, anxiety, and the occasional bout of insane diarrhea" as a result of her body trying to reject the organ.
Beyoncé and Turner at the 50th annual Grammy awards in Los Angeles, February 2008
Lifetime Grammy and 'TINA: The Tina Turner Musical'
Returning to the spotlight in 2018, Turner was honored with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (alongside other industry legends likeNeil DiamondandEmmylou Harris) to open the year.
Tina Turner accepting her Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from her Swiss garden in 2018
A few months later, fans were treated to a showcase of her greatest hits with the opening of TINA: The Tina Turner Musical at the Aldwych Theatre in London.
Around this time, Turner revealed that she had forgiven her ex-husband for his abusive behavior years ago. "As an old person, I have forgiven him, but it would not work with him," she said in an interview with The Times. "He asked for one more tour with me, and I said, 'No, absolutely not.' Ike wasn’t someone you could forgive and allow him back in."
That summer, Turner learned that her oldest son, Craig, had been found dead at his home in Studio City, California, from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A real estate agent, Craig was Turner's son from her relationship with saxophonist Raymond Hill in the 1950s.
In October 2018, the music legend published another memoir,My Love Story.
Tina Turner Limited Edition T-Shirt
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/if-kurt-cobain-had-lived2020-05-07T12:26:00+03:002020-05-07T12:26:30+03:00If Kurt Cobain had livedAlto Saxo
When artists get famous quickly, what is the script for the second act? With Kurt Cobain, we’ll never know. But he left behind a few clues.
]]>
When artists get famous quickly, what is the script for the second act? With Kurt Cobain, we’ll never know. But he left behind a few clues.
What’s most inspiring about Cobain is how much he accomplished and how quickly he expanded his artistic horizons in such a short time. Would his creative restlessness have continued? If Cobain were alive today he would be 53 years old. Who would he be working with and how would he fit into the musical and cultural landscape? Cobain was well-armed to deal with whatever came his way, partly because of some particularly underappreciated traits – adaptability and humour. Cultural historians and journalists tend to focus on Cobain as the distressed, depressed grunge-era slacker, the epitome of a generation that had lost its way. That does everyone a disservice, because it reduces Cobain to a caricature − or a statue.
Cobain with his infant daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.
One does wonder what Cobain would have thought of the concrete statue of himself unveiled in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington. On the 20th anniversary of his death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, it captures Cobain as a grunge cliche, with ripped jeans and a tear rolling from his right eye.
Statue of Kurt Cobain in Aberdeen, Washington
Missing from a lot of the ‘St Kurt’ eulogising that has become a cottage industry over the last two decades is the notion that Cobain actually had a wicked, albeit dark wit. It’s there in the songs, the cut-up lyrics and startling juxtapositions, showing that he not only appreciated the absurdity of his extraordinary fame and success, but that he was complicit in it.
Teenage kicks In Nirvana’s Serve the Servants, Cobain sang, “Teenage angst has paid off well/Now I’m bored and old.” That could be read as cynical and despairing, but it also shows Cobain could laugh at himself. Almost nothing he did was particularly transparent. What made him interesting as an artist – the complexity, the contradictions, the onion-like layers of interpretation opened up by the way he strung words together– was also what distinguished him as a human being. How much of it is calculated we’ll never know. Cobain may have been the most complicated rock star since Bob Dylan, a mainstream artist who turned inscrutability into an art form. It suggests that he didn’t want to be pinned down, and I doubt he intended to turn Nirvana into a lifetime, forever-touring money machine like The Rolling Stones.
For all its flaws, the tear-stained Aberdeen statue does suggest what might have been, had Cobain lived. It depicts him sitting on a bar-stool with what appears to be a guitar shaped much like the acoustic/electric Martin model he used during Nirvana’s classic 1993 MTV Unplugged performance.
As late as November 1993, only a few months before his suicide, Cobain would talk excitedly about his next move. He wanted acoustic instruments and more textured arrangements for the next album, something that would plunge him deeper into the introspective shadows and subterranean beauty of a Nick Drake or a Skip Spence (co-founder of Moby Grape) rather than the scorched-earth fury of In Utero tracks like Milk It or Rape Me. The approach defined by MTV Unplugged in New York was one possible way forward.
On that album, Cobain found new inspiration by digging into the music of his heroes and inspirations: Leadbelly, The Meat Puppets, David Bowie and The Vaselines. He reduced the songs to their barest essentials: voice, guitar, a bit of bass, brushed drums. On Penny Royal Tea, it was just him and his guitar. “Am I doing this or not?” Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl asked before the song began, but Cobain waved him off. He wasn’t ready to limit himself to only one musical genre played with the same collaborators.
Soul searching Only months before, Cobain had sounded uncertain, interrogating himself on Nirvana’s final studio album, In Utero: “What else should I be?…What else could I say?…What else should I write?” MTV Unplugged provided some answers, a way to stay a step ahead of boredom, and irrelevance. REM’s Michael Stipe has said that he and Cobain were talking about collaborating in the weeks before the singer’s death.
And now, it’s quite possible to imagine Cobain not (like some of his counterparts) as the proprietor of a heritage act – ‘Nirvana, the 25th anniversary tour!’ – but as a musical vagabond, jumping in and out of diverse projects in the way his old Seattle peer, Mark Lanegan (of Screaming Trees) has done. He’d no longer be at the centre of popular culture, but he wouldn’t be a nostalgia act, either. Cobain never felt completely comfortable as the centre of attention; he once said that he coveted John Lennon’s fame, but he also wanted Ringo Starr’s anonymity. So my guess is he would have kept moving, flitting from project to project much like a Dylan, Lanegan, Lou Reed or Neil Young, in search of new inspiration, rather than becoming a greatest-hits jukebox. He probably wouldn’t be a Jay Z-style celebrity anymore because he never craved that constant level of media attention. But the work would keep him relevant because he would be restless and curious enough to keep exploring. “What else should I be?” would be a constant question with a new answer every year.
Kurt Cobain performs in Frankfurt, Germany on November 12 1991.
Who might he be collaborating with today? Artists with a flair for musical risk-taking and cutting humour would have appealed to him: Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Kathleen Hanna, Jack White. He would’ve been a natural to produce the inevitable comeback album by Sleater-Kinney. And you just know that Kanye West would have booked some studio time with him in mind. Whether Cobain would’ve shown up is another matter. Instead, he might have run away on tour with his ‘80s heroes, punk-metal old-timers The Melvins, as their first millionaire roadie.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/the-rolling-stones-through-the-ages2020-05-04T12:30:00+03:002020-05-04T12:30:30+03:00The Rolling Stones Through the AgesAlto Saxo
In 1962, The Rolling Stones played their first live gig on London's Oxford Street and an impressive 58 years later they are still one of the most revered rock 'n' roll bands in the world. We look back at their impressive career in pictures, from a 1963 early line-up performance to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic concert.
]]>
In 1962, The Rolling Stones played their first live gig on London's Oxford Street and an impressive 58 years later they are still one of the most revered rock 'n' roll bands in the world.
Known for their impressive stage presence, the band released such songs as (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (1965), Sympathy For The Devil (1968), Ruby Tuesday (1967) and Wild Horses (1971). Almost as famous for their high-profile relationships with the likes of Jerry Hall, Anita Pallenberg, Marianne Faithfull and Bianca Jagger as for their music, they have been credited for introducing a new form of rhythm and blues to Britain - one that was both irreverent, original and distinctive.
We look back at their impressive career in pictures, from a 1963 early line-up performance to the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic concert.
1963 - An early Rolling Stones line-up performance, including co-founder Ian Stewart (back right), who was dismissed from the band in May 1963 but stayed on as road manager and pianist.
1963 - Their first single was a cover of Chuck Berry's Come On, and was released in June 1963. The line-up at the time consisted of (clockwise from top) Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman.
1964 - On November 23 1964 the Rolling Stones were banned from the BBC for showing up late for radio shows. They had been marketed as a rock 'n' roll version of the Beatles.
1967 - Mick Jagger struck up a high-profile relationship with Marianne Faithfull in 1967, and the singer and actress was the inspiration for songs such as Sympathy for the Devil and You Can't Always Get What You Want.
1967 - Anita Pallenberg was originally the partner of Rolling Stones multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones, but left him for guitarist Keith Richards in 1967 (pictured here, with Pallenberg). Pallenberg is credited as singing backing vocals on Sympathy for the Devil.
1968 - The band were renowned for their distinctive performance style, in particular that of frontman Mick Jagger. Here, they are seen rehearsing for a television appearance at Wembley.
1971 - As notorious for his relationships as for his music, Mick Jagger married Bianca De Macias in a Catholic ceremony in Saint-Tropez. The band had moved to the south of France earlier that year as tax exiles.
1976 - Ronnie Wood joined as a guitarist and bassist in 1975, and remains a member of the group today. Here, he is seen performing with Mick Jagger in Glasgow.
1995 - By 1993, the final line-up of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood was formed. Here, Wood and Richards perform at Wembley stadium in London.
2005 - They announced the name of their new album, A Bigger Bang, on July 26 2005 - their first in eight years. Here, Mick Jagger is seen performing at the opening of the The Bigger Bang tour at Fenway Park in Boston.
2008 - The four current members appear at a screening of Shine A Light, a documentary about The Rolling Stones by director Martin Scorsese.
2013 - Headlining the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday night of Glastonbury 2013.
2013 - On stage in Hyde Park.
2019 - The Rolling Stone's massive show at MetLife Stadium, NJ.
2020 - The Rolling Stones playing at The One World Together concert. The group have released new music that responds to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/longest-classic-rock-songs2020-05-03T22:34:00+03:002021-05-04T22:40:48+03:0020+1 Longest Classic Rock SongsAlto SaxoMore]]>
Make yourself comfortable, this one’s gonna take a while.
Voodoo Chile by The Jimi Hendrix Experience This 15-minute blues jam from the Electric Ladyland is Hendrix’s longest studio recording. It was recorded at the Record Plant in New York City after a late night jam session with Hendrix, Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, organist Steve Winwood, and bassist Jack Casady.
April by Deep Purple This song, written by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore about his birthday month, is the longest ever studio recording by Deep Purple. It was later augmented with a long middle section of classical music written by Lord, becoming the album's 12-minutes final track.
The End by The Doors Jim Morrison originally wrote a long rock song about breaking up with his girlfriend Mary Werbelow, but later it evolved into a nearly 12-minute track on the band’s self-titled debut album.
Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands by Bob Dylan First released on the album Blonde on Blonde in 1966, the song lasts 11:22 and occupies the whole of side four of the double album. This song influenced many artists, from Joan Baez to George Harrison to Pink Floyd's Roger Waters. Critic Clinton Heylin has described "Sad Eyed Lady" as both "possibly the most pretentious set of lyrics ever penned," but also "a captivating carousel of a performance." Tom Waits once said, "It is like Beowulf. This song can make you leave home, work on the railroad or marry a gypsy."
Sister Ray by The Velvet Underground At 17:29, this is the longest song on ‘White Light/White Heat’ album, as well as the longest song in the Velvet Underground's studio discography. It takes up most of the second side of the record.
Telegraph Road by Dire Straits The 14-minute-long opus "Telegraph Road", which became a staple of the band's setlists and Mark Knopfler's once he became a solo artist, as well as becoming an FM radio staple around the world. Knopfler used his 1937 National steel guitar, an Ovation twelve, and six-string acoustic guitars during the recording.
I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home) by Grand Funk Railroad Grand Funk Railroad's longest-running 10-minutes-plus studio recording is of the 1970 "Closer to Home" album. This is one of the band's best-known songs.
I Heard It Through The Grapevine by Creedence Clearwater Revival The song has been recorded by a range of musicians including Creedence Clearwater Revival, who made an 11-minute interpretation of the track for their 1970 album, Cosmo's Factory.
Shine on You Crazy Diamond by Pink Floyd This is 26 minutes long Pink Floyd composition written by David Gilmour, Roger Waters, and Rick Wright. It appeared on Pink Floyd's 1975 concept album Wish You Were Here.
Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding by Elton John After the two tracks were recorded back to back, it was decided to merge them into an 11:09 song. The song became the opening track of Elton's 1973 double-album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
In My Time of Dying by Led Zeppelin This 11:08 track from the 1975 double-album "Physical Graffiti" is a Led Zeppelin version of an old gospel hymn. Jimmy Page said: "We were just having such a wonderful time. Look, we had a framework for In My Time of Dying, OK, but then it just takes off, and we're just doing what Led Zeppelin do. We're jamming. We're having a ball. We. Are. Playing."
Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynyrd On their 1973 debut album, the Southern rockers' signature power ballad goes on for 9:09. It is used as a finale during the band’s live performances and is their longest song, often going well over 14 minutes when played live.
The Gates of Delirium by Yes This is the first track on Yes’s 1974 album, Relayer. It is based on Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace. This was the longest officially released studio recording by the band with almost 22 minutes, taking up the entire first side of the LP.
Thick as a Brick by Jethro Tull This 1972 single-song release is a continuous piece of music 43:46 minutes long, split over two sides of an LP. Thick as a Brick was crafted as a general parody of the genre. The original packaging claims the album to be a musical adaptation of an epic poem by the fictional 8-year-old genius Gerald Bostock. The lyrics were actually written by the band's frontman, Ian Anderson.
2112 by Rush This track being 20:33 long, is the longest song or suite in Rush's library. It is a seven-part suite with lyrics written by drummer Neil Peart telling a dystopian saga set in a future with no music.
Supper's Ready by Genesis Nearly 23 minutes in length, the song is divided into seven sections. A number of musical and lyrical themes do re-appear throughout. Peter Gabriel summed up Supper's Ready as "a personal journey which ends up walking through scenes from Revelation in the Bible....I'll leave it at that".
Karn Evil 9 by Emerson, Lake & Palmer The song was written by Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, and former King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield. It is the fifth and final track on Brain Salad Surgery with a running length of 29 minutes and 37 seconds. The initial release of the album on vinyl found "Karn Evil 9" split between the two sides due to its length.
Mountain Jam by The Allman Brothers Band An improvised instrumental jam, 33:41 in length in its March 1971 Eat a Peach performance, the song features solos from all of the band members. Duane Allman starts with a guitar solo, after which Gregg Allman solos on Hammond organ, followed by a guitar solo by Dickey Betts.
The Turn of a Friendly Card by The Alan Parsons Project. The title piece, which appears on side 2 of the LP, released in 1980, is a 16-minute suite broken up into five tracks listed as sub-sections.
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida by Iron Butterfly This 17-minute title track eats up the entire B-side of Iron Butterfly's 1968 breakthrough album. The lyrics are simple and heard only at the beginning and the end. The song marks the early transition from psychedelic music into heavy metal.
(+1 Heavy Metal) Empire of the Clouds by Iron Maiden From their sixteenth studio album, The Book of Souls, at 18 minutes in length, is Iron Maiden's longest song to date, overtaking "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from their 1984 album, Powerslave. The track tells the story of the R101 airship, which crashed on its maiden voyage in northern France on 5 October 1930.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/madchester2020-05-02T23:41:00+03:002020-05-02T23:43:22+03:00The Music and Geography of MadchesterAlto Saxo
Since the late 1970s Manchester has been firmly associated with a number of distinct types of indie music. First, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was the distinctive post-punk sound of Joy Division, which mutated into the slightly more cheerful tones of New Order.
]]>
Since the late 1970s Manchester has been firmly associated with a number of distinct types of indie music. First, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was the distinctive post-punk sound of Joy Division, which mutated into the slightly more cheerful tones of New Order. Bedsit blues returned in the mid 1980s with The Smiths and James, whilst the tempo and mood was revived around 1988, in the wake of Acid House, with the arrival of the club-and-Ecstasy sounds of Madchester led by The Happy Mondays, The Stone Roses and Oldham's Inspiral Carpets. Manchester is a good example to demonstrate some of the links between geography and indie music.
The Stone Roses
Crucial to all three periods and styles is that their associated bands were strongly linked to the city of Manchester itself, and, indeed, very much fed off this association. Geography was involved both in the moulding of the city's music and in the music's expansion across time and space. Regarding the moulding of the different genres of recent indie music in Manchester, first, the songs often contained clear geographical references, extending beyond the more general imaginary landscapes. Much of the material concerned not the abstractions of love and desire, which form the basis of global popular music, but localised feelings and experiences.
The Hacienda, Manchester 6th July 1988
The existence of local record labels, venues and other promotional facilities has helped Manchester bands develop within their home area, which meant that they did not have to jump immediately onto the train for London. For example, the existence of Factory records and the promotional skills of the head of the company, Anthony Wilson, was a major force behind the emergence of Joy Division. Likewise, the same organisation owned the Hacienda nightclub, a key spur to the Madchester scene. The Happy Mondays themselves were also signed to Factory. In addition, the Manchester music scene has been boosted by the presence of a large number of venues in the city, many of which are quite small (for example, the Academy and the Ritz) and thus facilitate the development of new bands.
Factory Records boss and Hacienda founder Tony Wilson with Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays, 1989
Finally, Manchester's musical productivity has been assisted by an active local press (for example, the Manchester Evening News), independent record stores (for example, Eastern Bloc) and local radio stations (for example, Piccadilly Radio), all of which promote further the city's sound to the surrounding population, cultivating the local following which can act as a pringboard for more widespread success.
Geography also helps to sustain specific musical genres and to market and promote them beyond the specific places concerned. First, returning to imagery, as is widely appreciated through studies analysing lyrical content, popular music typically creates romanticised images of a place. For example, The Beatles' 'Strawberry Fields Forever' and 'Penny Lane' conjure up a picture which is far more idyllic than the reality of Liverpool life for many. Elsewhere, the Manchester tradition of glum "indie kids" plus tripped-out Ravers suggests a city of industrial depression yet vibrant nightlife. These varied levels of imagery are maintained both by the songs of the bands but also by their marketing and coverage in the music press. Hence, the significance of Manchester receiving the "Madchester" tag from that press in the late 1980s.
Bez and Rowetta of Happy Mondays on stage at Hacienda
Manchester's 1988 "summer of love" became a musical movement with the debut of Stone Roses, one of the most influential English bands of the decade. Stone Roses (1989) epitomized the fusion of hypnotic disco beats, catchy elodies, surreal arrangements, and Sixties-style naive enthusiasm. Mixing Byrds with Abba, and Jimi Hendrix with Petula Clark, and James Brown and the Mamas & Papas, songs such as I Wanna Be Adored, She Bangs The Drums and Made Of Stone bridged different languages and civilizations while setting the foundations of a new language and a new civilization. Credit went not so much to vocalist Ian Brown and guitarist John Squire, but to the rhythm section of Alan John "Reni" Wren (drums) and Gary Mounfield (bass). Squire's guitar was more predominant on Second Coming (1994), a work heavily infected by hard-rock and southern boogie.
Shaun Ryder's Happy Mondays, who had already debuted with the psychedelic funk music of Squirrel And G-Man Twentyfour Hour Party People (1987), co-founded the movement with Bummed (1989), which embodied the ecstatic trance of raves but also a proletarian approach to it. Ryder, a sarcastic, nonchalant (and heroin-addicted) "primadonna" of techno, focused on the grooves with the disco-fied Pills'N'Thrills And Bellyaches (1990). Years later, he upgraded Madchester to the generation of Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers with a new band, Black Grape, basically a rapper fronting a horn and keyboard orchestra, and with the multifaceted dance music (funk, hip-hop, jungle, raga, house, reggae and heavy-metal) of It's Great When You're Straight (1995).
Tim Burgess' Charlatans (UK) were emblematic of how "Madchester" soon became more of a social phenomenon than a musical one. Some Friendly (1990) merely offered old-fashioned organ-based psychedelic pop-soul.
Madchester remembered
Key figures in the Madchester scene share their memories of the sounds, the clothes and atmosphere
Peter Hook, Co-founder of Joy Division and New Order Without Ian Curtis there would have been no Hacienda (the club was built with Joy Division/New Order/Factory's money), and without the Hacienda there would have been no Madchester. It changed the face of Manchester, whether you like it or not. The whole indie music merging with dance music, the fashion, everything, it all came from the Hacienda. When I was in New Order I never took any notice of anniversaries. You were totally focused on New Order, so never paid any notice to anything else. But since I split with them I've started taking more notice. I was talking to DJ Graeme Park and he said: "We've got to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Haç, because we're not going to be here for the 40th!" The people behind it, New Order manager Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson, aren't here, so I decided to celebrate it. I love everything we achieved. Tony Wilson, Rob Gretton, Ian Curtis, (producer) Martin Hannett, all these people should never be forgotten for what they did for Manchester. The rest of New Order should be proud too, because without their investment this never would have happened. We lost a fortune but my accountant always tells me: "You'll never miss the millions you lost until you're skint", so it's a good incentive to keep working.
Joy Division, TJ Davidson’s rehearsal room, Little Peter Street, Manchester, 19 August 1979
Shaun Ryder, Lead singer, Happy Mondays The summer of 1987 is when things really changed. People bang on about the Sex Pistols at the Free Trade Hall in 1976, how there were only 40 people there but it changed everything. But when we first had E, there couldn't have been more than a dozen of us in our corner of the Hacienda. No one had a clue. We had the end of '87 to ourselves, then it all exploded. By the time (the club night) Hot started in May '88, the roof had lifted off the Haçi. If there were 1,500 in there, 1,400 were off their tits. It was our video directors, the Bailey Brothers, who came up with the term "Madchester", but we said, "Great, yeah, go with it", because Manchester was mad at the time. But no one used the term in Manchester, unless they were a prick. There was absolutely no rivalry between the Stone Roses and us from my side. I thought it was great that when we first didTop of the Popsin 1989, the Roses were on the same show; it felt like Manchester was taking over. People still talk about it to me, blokes in their 40s saying, "I was at college when you and the Roses first didTop of the Popsand it was fucking brilliant!"
Ryder and Bez of the Happy Mondays in the early 1990s
Craig Gill, Drummer, Inspiral Carpets I was 14 when I joined Inspiral Carpets in 1985, and at first I had to take time off school when we had a gig. Early on, Happy Mondays saw us rehearsing at the Boardwalk and asked us to support them, and it just grew from there. We then supported the Stone Roses at the International at the end of 1987 and knew it would be packed because their manager Gareth Evans used to give out free tickets. No one believes that now, after they sold 225,000 tickets for Heaton Park in an hour, but he used to. Noel Gallagher auditioned to be our singer and didn't get the gig, but we let him down gently by saying he could be our roadie instead. He broke his leg before a tour once, and we must be the only band in history that's had to carry their roadie in and out of gigs. Playing G-Mex,Top of the Popsand headlining Reading in 1990 were the highlights for us. We got paid £27,000 for Reading and spent £20,000 on fireworks. Noel was on stage as a pantomime cow, so that's the first time he played Reading! After we split, I had a record stall in Affleck's Palace for a bit, and people always came in asking where the Hacienda or Salford Lads Club were, so I decided to start doingmusic tours of Manchesterand there's been a massive demand. The weekend of the Heaton Park gigs I'm going to be doing daily Stone Roses bus tours around Manchester.
Inspiral Carpets
Tim Burges, Lead singer, Charlatans I was born in Salford and grew up in Northwich, Cheshire. I always loved my music and thought Manchester was the place where I fitted in, but I wanted to prove people from the suburbs weren't idiots, so I always made it clear the Charlatans were from Northwich, although that meant nothing to anyone outside the north-west. At the time it felt everyone you met walking down the street in Manchester was involved in music, you'd bump into Mani or [musician/writer] John Robb or 808 State (I still love their early release "Newbuild"). I remember playing the Boardwalk twice within a short space of time and then we didn't look back. Within a year of me joining the Charlatans we had a Number 1 album, but that just felt natural. I was only 23 and everyone was saying, "Bloody hell, it's happened really quick for you!" but I felt I had been waiting all my life for it.
The Charlatans
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/sister-rosetta-tharpe-takes-you-down-by-the-riverside2020-04-28T21:48:00+03:002020-04-28T21:48:24+03:00Sister Rosetta Tharpe Takes You Down By the RiversideAlto Saxo
Guitar wizard, rock & roll pioneer and gospel-blues giant Rosetta Tharpe was not tilting at windmills; she was the Windmill.
]]>
Guitar wizard, rock & roll pioneer and gospel-blues giant Rosetta Tharpe was not tilting at windmills; she was the Windmill
“I feel so bad in the morning. I feel so bad in the middle of the day. I feel so bad in the evening. That’s why I’m going to the river, to wash my sins away.” – Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Down By The Riverside”
Guitar virtuoso Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a rock & roll pioneer whose influence has been acknowledged by Elvis Presley, Little Richard Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Sleepy LaBeef, among others. A bold woman who wasn’t afraid to sing about her faith or her sexuality, she also challenged those who didn’t believe women could make their own business decisions. In doing so, she broke every “social norm”.
Ginger Baker, later of Cream, met Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the late 1950s when she toured with the Diz Disley blues band, for whom he played drums at the time. He recalled, “We did a whole tour of Scandinavia with the gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was a great lady and really took to me when we first met. She had bright red hair like me and said ‘Oh, baby, your hair’s so cool. What do you use to make it that color?’ ‘Nothing.’ I said. ‘It’s natural.’ To which she threatened to pull down my trousers to check if I was telling the truth.”
She was born Rosetta Nubin on March 20, 1915, in Cotton Plant, Arkansas and raised by her mother Katie, a preacher who sang and played mandolin at The Church of God in Christ. The founder of that church, Charles Mason, encouraged the women of Cotton Plant to preach, and that’s just what young Rosetta Nubin did. Further encouraged by her mother to pursue music, Rosetta learned to play guitar by the age of four. Within a few years, she was traveling with Katie, performing at local gospel concerts.
By 1925, Tharpe and her mother moved to Chicago. There, she continued to perform at gospel concerts where she was considered a rarity and was, in fact, often billed as “a singing and guitar playing miracle.” Audiences had never seen a black female guitarist before, especially one who was a pre-teen!
By 1938, Tharpe got her big break at “The Cotton Club Revue” in Harlem, headlined by Cab Calloway and the Nicholas Brothers. Through that exposure, her talent was recognized and she was soon recording the first ever gospel album for Decca Records.
Rosetta Tharpe commemorative stamp
In recording these songs, she was slowly pushing gospel and spiritual music into the mainstream. In 1944 and 1945, Tharpe’s recordings, including “Down by the Riverside” and “Strange Things Happening Every Day” (the latter featuring her electric guitar), rose to the top of the charts. At the time no such genre as “rhythm & blues” existed, so the recordings were marketed as “race records.”
Tharpe was faced with many challenges throughout her life. She was an African American female living in a time where women were expected to be housewives and segregation curtailed advancement for anyone whose skin was not white. African Americans were regularly forbidden entrance into restaurants and hotels, so while touring with the Lucky Millinder Orchestra, Tharpe had no choice but to sleep on tour buses.
“‘Oh, baby, your hair’s so cool. What do you use to make it that color?’ ‘Nothing. It’s natural.’ To which she threatened to pull down my trousers to check if I was telling the truth.”
As a woman working in a male-dominated industry, she was often given the backhanded compliment, “You play like a man.” Singer Inez Andrews recalled, “The fellows would look at her, and I don’t know whether it was envy or what, but sometimes she would play rings around them. She was the only lady I know that would pick up a guitar and the men would stand back.” Her guitar playing was so advanced that she had perfected a signature move – “The Windmill”. People often think it was Keith Richards or Pete Townshend who invented the move, in which guitarists swing their arm in a vicious windup before delivering a powerful strike to sound the chords on their guitar. However, early footage of Tharpe performing proves otherwise. Sister Rosetta Tharpe…a rock & roll gospel singer with a signature move? No wonder the men were envious!
Tharpe was romantically involved with both men and women and was married three times. Her first marriage, to preacher Thomas J. Tharpe, provided her stage name, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. She was open about her sexuality among her friends, but kept her personal life hidden from the public. In the 1940s, ‘queer’ black women were scarce, to say the least, and she didn’t want to put an end to her career. During this period, singer Marie Knight became her partner. Tharpe and Knight toured together, eventually recording “Up Above My Head” and “Beams of Heaven” for Decca.
Fans surround Sister Rosetta Tharpe (signing a Decca record) and her singing partner, Marie Knight in St. Louis, MO, in 1947.
A YouTube video of “Up Above My Head” shows Sister Rosetta singing with religious fervor and boundless energy, then diving into a guitar solo with gusto. I would definitely go to her church. After seeing her in action, it’s difficult to grasp why she isn’t acknowledged in most rock histories.
In 1949, Tharpe recorded a version of “White Christmas.” By then, rhythm & blues was a separate recording genre, and so her recording entered the “R&B Hit Singles” chart.
By the 1950s, Tharpe began moving into more bluesy material, and many of her gospel fans drifted away. She wanted to move along with the times, but her audience was not ready for it. In New York, she and Marie Knight were still welcomed into the jazz clubs, but Tharpe was already feeling disillusioned by American audiences.
England was a different ball of wax. There, during the late 1950s, British youths were hooked on the blues. Every musician from Alexis Korner to Eric Clapton to Brian Jones was listening to the blues greats, most of whom were black and from America. Songs by Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson were learned, memorized and analyzed, serving as major influences in their lives and music careers. It was during this transitional time, in 1957, that the Chris Barber Band sponsored the now legendary “British Blues Revival” concert. Tharpe, who was a celebrity in England by then, received a warm reception from the audience.
Her guitar playing was so advanced that she had perfected a signature move – “The Windmill”. People often think it was Keith Richards or Pete Townshend who invented the move. However, early footage of Tharpe performing proves otherwise.
From 1958 to 1960, she toured throughout Europe, eventually landing a gig with the Diz Disley band, showcasing a young Ginger Baker on drums.
By 1964, Tharpe had been away from the recording studio for some time. Interviews and TV appearances were few and far between. Record producer Joe Boyd witnessed what he called the ‘death’ of the blues in America firsthand. In Greenwich Village and throughout the United States, his generation was now listening to folk music. Electric blues artists like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker were finding it harder to get gigs, though country blues and acoustic blues artists like Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt were taken to heart by the folk crowd.
Joe Boyd thought the neglect of major urban blues artists was nonsense. Skilled blues artists were sitting at home in America when they could be playing gigs every night in Great Britain. Were Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and John Lee Hooker aware of their popularity in England? Perhaps not. If they did know, they’d probably be asking. “Where’s the phone call?”
Sensing the interest across the pond, American music promoter George Wein created the “American Folk Blues and Gospel Caravan” in 1964 and brought it over to England for a 17-city tour. On that “caravan” was Sister Rosetta Tharpe, along with Otis Spann, Ransom Knowling, Muddy Waters, Willie Smith, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry, Reverend Gary Davis and Cousin Joe Pleasants. Ironically, Tharpe didn’t want a blues player like Spann backing her up, but after many disagreements, Boyd managed to get them to play together.
In his memoir White Bicycles, Boyd writes, “I coiled the mic cable and left it beside her in the wings as Gary (Davis) came out to start the second half. When he picked out the opening chords of “Precious Lord” Rosetta began to moan. She was back in that little country church in Arkansas with her mother, singing in a primitive style I had never heard from her. Gary lifted his head and murmured “Oh Lord, sing it girl!” Her interjections seemed to transport him to another time and place, recreating music that few people had ever been privileged to hear.”
Tharpe was encouraged by the audience’s overwhelming response in England, and she appeared with her mother Katie at Wein’s Newport Folk Festival in 1967. Clad in her infamous mink outfit, Tharpe shared the bill with Muddy Waters, Buffalo Springfield, Pete Seeger, and Judy Collins, among others. The definition of “folk” had expanded greatly from the “purist” early days of Greenwich Village coffee shop venues.
In 1970, at a show in Switzerland, Tharpe suffered a stroke. A year later, she was diagnosed with diabetes, and eventually had one of her legs amputated. The same year, despite her recent operation, she sang with her ex-partner Marie Knight at the “Gates of Prayer Church” in New York City.
She died in 1973 of a stroke in Philadelphia at age 58. In 2007, she was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Rosetta Tharpe’s grave in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was a musician who shocked her audiences with her bold demeanor and stage presence. She was a woman who took charge of her life and career, and did not throw up her arms in despair because she was “colored” and a woman. If anything, these prejudices made her stronger and kept her going until the end.
Some might say, myself included, that Tharpe was an underappreciated musician. There are few books that mention her, and interviews are hard to come by. However, as I entered the ‘Soul of a Nation’ exhibition at the Tate Modern recently, I felt a bit of hope for future generations. There was Sister Rosetta Tharpe on the big screen, wind-milling that electric guitar of hers.
Ginger Baker recalled an incident that embodied Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s toughness: “The station at Copenhagen is on a curve: it’s a big ‘mind the gap’ situation, with a foot-wide cavern between the platform and the train. A huge crowd had assembled to greet Sister Rosetta and a little girl was standing in front with a bunch of flowers. Sister came toward the girl to take the flowers and suddenly disappeared down the gap…everybody rushed to help her out, and she graciously accepted the flowers and we all got on our way. I travelled with her in the taxi to the gig from the station and her shins were scraped to hell. She sat down and let on that she’d hurt herself. Until then, she hadn’t reacted at all – it was absolutely amazing. She was a great professional.”
Sister Rosetta Tharpe jams with Hot Lips Page, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway in August 1939 at Burris Jenkins Studio in New York City.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe performing with Lucky Millinder's orchestra in 1943.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/riot-grrrl-movement2020-04-27T20:58:00+03:002021-11-20T11:29:47+02:00Grunge and the Riot Grrrl Movement of the 90’sAlto Saxo
The word "Riot Grrrl," is synonymous with the word feminism. This underground hardcore punk movement started in the early 90’s in Washington, D.C. From their start, Riot Grrrl bands dealt with a big number of women’s issues they felt were not being talked about.
]]>
During the early 1990's the music genre of Grunge (with its associated cultural trappings such as clothing and certain attitudinal/political elements) first came to prominence on a large scale when Nirvana’s album Nevermind unexpectedly became a huge hit. Before this, the grunge scene had been centered on Seattle and the Sub Pop record label.
Often described as a cross between punk and heavy metal, musically grunge had a dark, guitarbased sound based around a traditional rock line up (guitar, bass, and drums). An unusual feature of the grunge scene was the relatively high proportion of female performers and bands, and this, combined with explicit antisexism stances taken by prominent male grunge musicians such as Kurt Cobain, and its close proximity to the feminist Riot Grrrl movement, served to position it as a more gender-neutral scene than many others in rock. However, over time grunge has been reclaimed as a masculine space along the lines of other rock movements.
Many researchers have noted the way women’s contribution to popular music is mostly denigrated as "pop", as opposed to the "serious music" produced by male bands, which reproduces the general association of women with "low-brow" culture and men with the "high-brow". Even where women have "infiltrated" the rock scene, they are far more likely to be sexualized vocalists than to play instruments.
Nirvana live onstage during the In Utero tour.
The prominent male figures of grunge, such as Kurt Cobain and Eddie Vedder, were vocal in their support of tolerance and equality, not just for women but also races and sexualities other than white heterosexuals. Kurt Cobain in particular enjoyed playing with gender roles. He allowed his own sexuality to be called into question by often wearing dresses and/or makeup on stage, in film clips, and on photo shoots, and wrote explicitly feminist songs, such as Sappy or Been a Son. Grunge bands in general avoided imagery that objectified or degraded women. No longer were women in film clips scantily dressed and dancing provocatively, but instead were more often portrayed as equally participating audience or band members.
L7 is often associated with the grunge movement of the 80s & 90s; As an all-female band, at times, also been linked to Riot grrrl, although they preceded and are outliers of both the grunge and Riot grrrl movements.
A number of the female bands associated with grunge, particularly L7, Hole, and Babes in Toyland, became commercially successful during this period also. Thus, at the time of its greatest popularity, grunge offered a message of gender equality and presented a higher proportion of women participating as creative band members than had been apparent in recent rock history—particularly in comparison with "hair metal", the hard rock formation that was popular immediately preceding grunge and which was focused on the traditional rock pastimes of groupies and excessive partying. Part of this message of equality originated in and was reinforced by the associated Riot Grrrl movement.
Babes in Toyland, Spanking Machine, 1990
What is Riot Grrrl?
Riot Grrrl has been the subject of a greater amount of academic research and comment than grunge, probably due to the explicitly political feminist nature of the movement. Briefly, Riot Grrrl was a women’s collective organized around the music scene, which produced fanzines and recordings, and organized and supported gigs of female musicians, while maintaining sharp social commentary on the position of females in society at large. The Riot Grrrls focused on the support females can receive from one another, and problematized the female body by talking about female desires, body parts and more taboo subjects such as incest and rape in an up-front and confrontational manner. They placed a strong emphasis on allowing younger females to express their experiences, as demonstrated through the fact that they were "‘Grrrls" not women. Participants used their bodies as message boards by scrawling provocative words (such as "Slut" and "Whore") on their arms, legs and abdomens.
A flyer by Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill sets out her manifesto for change; and the first issue of the zine Riot Grrrl, by Molly Neuman and Allison Wolfe, July 1991.
While on the one hand encouraging female support of one another, Riot Grrrl also encouraged participants to express anger that they felt at the way they had been treated or victimized due to their gender, thus colonizing the "traditionally" male territory of anger. Since its inception in the early 1990s, Riot Grrrl has become normalized and commercialized in the same way that the wider grunge movement was. They note that the appropriation of parts of the message of Riot Grrrl by "mainstream" performers such as Alanis Morrisette has the potential to spread this message further, but on the other hand takes away the DIY message of the Riot Grrrls and turns the movement into another product to be sold. In the early 1990s the Riot Grrrls, tired of being misrepresented, declared a media black-out, and refused to speak to any mainstream journalists or allow documentation of their activities.
Despite the difficulty associated with applying genre labels authoritatively, there is strong evidence that grunge was closely associated with the Riot Grrrl movement. Both grew out of the same "art world" that was centered around Seattle in the late 1980s, and grunge had important cultural connections to what Bikini Kill has called 'REVOLUTION GIRL STYLE NOW'.
The Riot Grrrl label would be denied most (if not all) exclusively male bands, but the female bands involved could be—and have been—classified either as Riot Grrrl, grunge, or punk. There is demonstrably a significant overlap between these genres. For instance, as will be shown below, there is a shifting of labels of female bands between Grunge and Riot Grrrl. The two movements were geographically and temporally very close, and there was a constant sharing and exchange of personnel and ideas. One oft-repeated illustration of this interaction is in the story behind the name "Smells Like Teen Spirit", which was a phrase written on the wall of Kurt Cobain’s house by Kathleen Hanna, singer of Bikini Kill and cofounder of the Riot Grrrl movement.
Bikini Kill 1994
Riot Grrrl History
The word "Riot Grrrl," is synonymous with the word feminism. The underground hardcore punk movement started in the early 90’s in Washington, D.C. From their start, Riot Grrrl bands dealt with a big number of women’s issues they felt were not being talked about. Of course, the biggest theme of the Riot Grrrl movement was women’s empowerment. The movement sought to empower women by encouraging them to take their place in the men-dominated punk music scene. Women were encouraged to come to the front of the stage during Riot Grrrl bands’ shows; an uncharted territory for women at the time as they were often excluded.
Bratmobile
Some of the Riot Grrrl bands that emerged were Bikini Kill, L7, Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile, and Sleater-Kinney. These proactive women did not only create music, they also created zines, political action, and the notorious Riot Grrrl Manifesto. It is a common misconception that this whole era of music and activism is anti-men. Molly Neuman of Bratmobile summarized it best, "We’re not anti-boy, we’re pro-girl." In fact, despite initial aggression at the beginning shows, The Riot Grrrl Movement had its fair amount of men supporters such as, Kurt Cobain and Calvin Johnson.
Sleater-Kinney originated as part of the Riot grrrl movement and has become a key part of the American indie rock scene.
Although the scene faded out in the late 90’s, their influenced is carried on by bands such as Gossip, Kitten Forever, and Skating Polly. Beth Ditto of Gossip stated that The Riot Grrrl Movement was, "Built on the floors of strangers’ living rooms, tops of Xerox machines, snail mail, word of mouth and mixtapes, Riot Grrrl reinvented punk."
RIOT GRRRL
Limited Edition T-Shirt Collection
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/rock-s-most-hilariously-bad-first-concerts2020-04-15T15:16:00+03:002020-04-15T15:17:56+03:00Rock’s Most Hilariously Bad First ConcertsAlto Saxo
The first steady gig the Doors landed was on the legendary Sunset Strip, home to famous venues like the Roxy and the Whisky a Go Go. But they were down the road, sharing the tiny stage with exotic dancers, overflowing ashtrays and spilled beer at a rundown club named the London Fog.
]]>
The Doors: March 1966 - Los Angeles, The London Fog The first steady gig the Doors landed was on the legendary Sunset Strip, home to famous venues like the Roxy and the Whisky a Go Go. But they were down the road, sharing the tiny stage with exotic dancers, overflowing ashtrays and spilled beer at a rundown club named the London Fog. Rich Weidman’s ‘The Doors FAQ’ says the venue was “frequented by drunks, prostitutes and other assorted lowlifes and sleazy characters,” but it’s here where the band was free to practice the long-form musical exploration that led to early classics like ‘Light My Fire’ and ‘The End.’
The Velvet Underground: Dec. 11, 1965 - Summit, New Jersey A high-school auditorium in suburban New Jersey turned out not to have been the best place for Lou Reed and company to debut their experimental, intellectual brand of rock ‘n’ roll. The group managed to drive away about half the crowd full of students and parents with their three song set. In retrospect, ‘There She Goes’ seems like a safe opener, but it’s hard to say the same about follow-up tracks ‘Venus in Furs’ and ‘Heroin.’
Yes: Aug. 3, 1968 - Essex, England Yes might have the market cornered when it comes to weirdest setting for a first concert. Just a week after they formed, the group (Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Peter Banks, Tony Kaye and Bill Bruford) was slated to play a concert at the East Mersea Youth Camp in Essex. With such little time to prepare, Yes played many covers, but did so in a style that foreshadowed their pioneering progressive-rock sound. “We didn’t just rearrange a song,” explained Banks. “We celebrated it with much enthusiasm.”
The Police: Oct. 20, 1978 – New York What’s so bad about having your first show in the U.S. take place at one of the most famous clubs in all of New York City? Well, for one thing, a dirty bathroom for dressing room. For another, they had just crammed themselves and their gear onto a budget-priced overseas flight, all for the honor of playing to an extremely small crowd. Luckily, everyone who did turn up was able to tune into what made the band so special very quickly. As Andy Summers remembers, “By the end of the first set the audience [was] on its feet and literally howling along with us.” Which probably made spending the next three weeks stuffed inside a Ford Econoline playing 23 shows in 21 nights a lot more bearable.
Heart: 1974 - The Cave, Vancouver Heart’s first concert was in a cave — and we mean that almost literally. As Ann Wilson recalls in the band’s official biography, the venue, named the Cave, “was decorated with rocks on the walls to look like a cavern.” She also recalls that before their first show the band was so so poor they were living off a hundred-pound bag of rice. Disaster nearly struck during the band’s tryout for the show, when a gust of wind knocked Wilson’s guitar to the ground. Luckily, they got the gig, ignored any thought that the fallen axe was a bad omen, and went on to be one of the biggest bands of the classic-rock era.
Kiss: Jan. 30, 1973 - Queens, New York For decades now, Kiss have packed the biggest arenas around the world and earned millions upon millions via ticket and merchandise sales. But they split $50 to perform in front of less than 10 people at their first show, which took place at the Popcorn Club in Queens. Bassist Gene Simmons booked the gig after the band’s first manager quit, declaring them “the worst crap he ever heard.”
AC/DC: Dec. 31, 1973 - Sydney, Australia They’d been together for only a couple of months. They didn’t have enough songs to fill up the evening. Heck, Angus Young hadn’t even donned his famous schoolboy outfit yet. But neither that nor a venue that was well past its prime could stop AC/DC from winning over fans at their first show. As bassist Dave Evans remembers of Chequers: “It had been very glamorous in the ’50s and ’60s, but when we played there it was past it heyday. It was a small venue with a little stage, no dressing room,” he explained in Classic Rock magazine. To make matters worse, the club’s elderly manager would pull the plug on the band’s power every 20 minutes or so, simply because he thought they were playing too loud. Regardless, Young recalled, “That gig was really wild. It’s wild on New Year’s Eve anyway, but putting what we were doing on top of all the seasonal stuff just made it wilder.”
Metallica: March 14, 1982 - Radio City The first time Metallica took the stage, James Hetfield was, for some reason, strictly performing as a singer. "I was really nervous and a little uncomfortable without a guitar," he recalled in an interview with Kerrang. Things got worse: "During the first song [then lead guitarist] Dave [Mustaine] broke a string. It seemed to take him eternity to change it and I was standing there really embarrassed. We were really disappointed afterwards."
Guns N' Roses: June 6, 1985 – Los Angeles On June 6, 1985, Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler performed for the first time as Guns N’ Roses, at the Troubadour in their hometown of Los Angeles. Immediately afterward, they embarked on an extremely ill-fated West Coast tour. Here’s how bad it got: Their car broke down in Fresno, so they hitchhiked for 40 hours — only to find out they’d be getting one-fifth of their promised paycheck for that show. Oh, and that the rest of the tour was canceled. But as bassist Duff McKagan explained in his autobiography, the incident galvanized the group: “Guns N’ Roses were no longer a band, but the band — our band. These are my f——ng boys, they’re willing to fight through anything.”
Def Leppard: July 8, 1978 - Sheffield, England Besides earning one-fifth of a massive five pound payday from the local school where they played, former Def Leppard guitarist Steve Clark (R.I.P.) learned an important lesson about the value of a proper soundcheck during the group’s first-ever concert. After forgetting to take his amp off “standby,” Clark unknowingly kicked off the band’s set not with a roar but with a laugh. As Joe Elliot recalls, “He did his windmill arm motion, just like Pete Townshend, for the big opening chord and nothing happened. No power. Everybody in the audience was laughing.”
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
]]>
https://altosaxo.net/blogs/music-news-info/rock-history-the-prissteens2020-04-14T16:23:00+03:002020-04-14T16:31:19+03:00Rock History: The PrissteensAlto SaxoMore]]>
The Immaculate Trash Punk of Joey Ramone’s favorite underdog band
The New York-based band The Prissteens is made up of guitarist and vocalist Tina Canellas, bassist and vocalist Lori Yorkman, guitarist and vocalist Leslie Day, and one lone guy, Joe Vincent on drums. Vincent is a former member of the punk group the Devil Dogs, also from New York.
The Prissteens singed with Almo Sound Records in the late '90s and began recorded a debut album. They had the help of producer Richard Gottehrer who has worked with the Go-Go's and Blondie. The debut album, Scandal, Controversy & Romance, hit the store shelves in 1998. It sounds like it could have been made by a snotty '60s girl-band. The album's seemingly innocent lyrics focus on boys, parties and going out, but the music is tougher with an edge that screams '70s punk. The band has often been compared to both the Ramones and Phil Spector's girl groups.
Scandal, Controversy and Romance is loud, trashy and sugary sweet. Songs like "I Don't Cry," "Run Back to You" and "Beat You Up" have catchy, upbeat choruses and brash guitar solos backed by fueled drumming. "The Hound" and "What's She Got" show off the band's raunchier side with heavy guitars and blunt lyrics. Even in their darker lyrical moments, the Prissteens manage to convey a party atmosphere from the album's first track to the last. Some of the tunes have been compared to those from groups like The Kinks, The Runaways, and the Ramones.
The Prissteens had songs in television series Sex & The City, 90210, Daria, Canada’s Being Erica and the Jawbreaker movie soundtrack.
While working up a few new demos for a sophomore album, the Prissteens fell apart for the usual reasons, though also victimized via an end-of-the trend era that saw major labels drop a ton of bands and throw money towards rap-rock and the "Year of Electronica."
Here’s a look back at the history of The Prissteens with former members Lori Lindsay, “Mighty” Joe Vincent, and the band’s former manager James Marshall.
Lori Lindsay: I first met Leslie when she played in a different band called The Junior High. She was the coolest chick I’d ever met. When we talked after the show, she was like “Can you play an instrument?” and I was like “yeah.” Thus we decided to start a band. I think Leslie knew Tina from around the East Village where she tended bar, and I had been dating Joe, who was in the Devil Dogs. And then we four just started playing together. That was around 1996…
We all wanted to play and aside from Joe didn’t know what we were doing, so started messing around and formed the band.
The Prissteens, by all accounts, was the right band in the right place at the right time. In the mid-1990s, alternative music became mainstream and a variety of female-fronted alternative acts such as Hole, The Breeders, and Garbage, had dominated the charts. Veterans of the original New York punk scene were also enjoying crossover success. Patti Smith was collaborating with R.E.M., Blondie was reuniting, and The Ramones were reaching younger audiences with new albums, videos on MTV, and tours with the very bands their own music had influenced. Joey Ramone was especially supportive, playing new music from bands like D-Generation and the Independents on his Internet radio show “Joey Ramone’s Radio Coupe.” The Prissteens, with their girl-group harmonies and garage punk rhythms, was a band practically willed into existence by Joey Ramone. It was only a matter of time before he met one of his “favorite New York City bands” and The Prissteens would have their shot at commercial success.
Jim Marshall: I got drunk, woke up manager. What was I thinking?
Joey met them through me. I knew Leslie through her ex-boyfriend Adam Roth (RIP). She was a fan of my radio show and her first band, Junior High, played at the last live broadcast we did at WFMU – the midnight “Hangover Hop.” I started hanging out with Leslie and her friends around ’95 I guess, she started getting tight with Lori and Tina and they formed a band. After they played a few times, a lot of sort of bottom feeder types started circling like sharks so I offered to manage them until they got a real big-time manager. I eventually figured out what a manager is supposed to do and got them a record deal and a publishing deal, and as many gigs and tours as we could get. I guess I was manager from around the time of the first demo (blizzard of ’96, February maybe?), until their very last gig (Don Hills, command audience for Alan McGhee who we were hoping would pick them up after Almo dropped them). That would have been right after the Almost 24 demo, I guess spring of ’99? I’m bad with years, all very blurry…
Lori Lindsay: I have memories of Joey calling me on the phone first thing in the morning almost every day for a period of time, and I would talk to him while I got ready for work (at the time I worked at a small designer clothing store called Daryl K on E. 6th Street in the East Village). I would tell him that I had to get off the phone so I could get to work, and I would hear the phone ringing as soon as I would walk into the store – and it would be Joey calling me at the store to resume our morning conversation. Honestly, at the time I didn’t really get how cool that was…but anyway, yeah, he was so supportive. He included us in everything he was doing at the time.
Joe Vincent: When I was a kid, the first Ramones album came out and completely blew my mind. There was nothing else like it at the time, it sounded like it came from outer space! I listened to it a billion times until it became imprinted in my DNA.
During the months leading up to recording our album, I rediscovered the Ramones and once again was completely amazed by the sheer stupid genius of it. The poetry, the purity of it–this was a music like no other! Nothing could be more rock ‘n’ roll than this! This is what we had to aim for when writing songs. That and The Jackson 5.
After the album came out, Joey was on MTV and said we were his favorite new band! Unbelievable! Joey booked us on all kinds of shows. Once, while we were doing a radio interview on WHTG 106.3 Asbury Park, Joey remarked how much he liked our songs. I turned to him, my idol, and said “I was just trying to be you!”
Lori Lindsay: We played and sang with him and Ronnie Spector (who was one of my singing idols), and he asked us to play specific songs for his birthday bashes. One of those songs was “Soldier Boy” by The Shirelles. It was really fun to do that in his honor, but I’m not sure we did such a great job. But we had a great time arranging it and performing it for him nonetheless.
…As for rumors that Joey and Dee Dee helped get us signed, I really don’t know anything about that. I knew that we all hung around together with our manager Jim Marshall and our future A&R guy Howard Thompson, so yeah maybe Joey and Dee Dee being supportive validated what we were doing in the eyes of the label.”
In 1997, The Prissteens signed a deal with Herb Alpert’s boutique label Almo Sounds, home to Garbage and The Sugarcubes. In December of that year, the band recorded their debut LP Scandal, Controversy & Romance with producers Richard Gottehrer (The Strangeloves) and Jeffrey Lesser.
Regardless, The Prissteens’ brief time in the spotlight left a striking impression on young music fans in the late 1990s.
ALTOSAXO is an online music merchandise store. We are your best source for hard to find music t-shirts on the web and we are continuously adding new artists and designs to our inventory. All of our shirts are made of 100% cotton with excellent quality prints.
