CRIPPLED INSIDE
Forget about Lennon and his “Cold Turkey”! If there’s one musician who deserved an acclaim for an accurate depiction of drug, alcohol, or tobacco addiction, it’s Ozzy Osbourne. This year is an year of honours for the old madman, and having received a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame just recently, on May 9th Ozzy was given a PRISM Award in Los Angeles for his song “Junkie” off 2001 “Down To Earth” album.
STONEAGE DAYDREAM
Everchanging David Bowie is one of the supreme rock visionaries, so it’s no surprise he’s to be the subject of a historical retrospective scheduled for June 7th-September 15th in the Museum of Television and Radio in New York and Los Angeles marking the 30th anniversary of legendary “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” album. An exhibition called “David Bowie: Sound + Vision” will feature more than 50 of Thin White Duke’s videos, rarely seen performances, documentaries and interviews.
KING ENTERS THE BUILDING
The legacy Elvis Presley left behind, when he died a quarter of century ago, is massive, to say at least. The more sensation, then, will make King’s new collection, a 4 CD anthology comprising 100 unreleased tracks. “Today, Tomorrow & Forever” picks chronologically from almost every Elvis’ session including live performance in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1956, Las Vegas’ season of 1969-1970, out-takes from movie soundtracks with “Jailhouse Rock” among them and the title track, a duet with Ann-Margret.
SLIP OF THE TONGUE
It’s been some two month that KISS‘ “Live In Las Vegas – The Unseen Concert” DVD and video started circulating on the Web. With many a fan dissatisfied, the band issued a statement in which say they didn’t approve the release that, moreover, isn’t a complete show anyway.
With the future of KISS still not clear, the debut issue of “Gene Simmons Tongue” – a glossy quarterly magazine said to be a cross between “Maxim”, “Playboy” and“Rolling Stone” – is out on June 4th.
BY NUMBERS
It’s quite likely that this, or following year will eventually see a new album from THE WHO. At least, once the summer tour is over, the band will enter the studio to record a bunch of demos pushed forward by Roger Daltrey. Meanwhile, Pete Townshend is busy – as usual – getting ready some projects including a new novel and a 2 CD compilation of demos and rarities from his “Scoop” series.
The last successful Townshend’s release was his joint project with Raphael Rudd, who tragically died on April 1st.
May 13, 2002
A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN
It seems, after a long break, Rick Wakeman and Dave Cousins work together again. Having started with the albums Wakey recorded for Cousins-led THE STRAWBS before joining YES, the only other collaboration was Dave playing electric banjo on Rick’s masterpiece, “The Six Wives Of Henry VIII”, back in 1973. Now, when the keyboard wiz is back in YES, he still has an album to finish for the summer release.
At the same time, recently Wakeman was telling about “rock” album, with his ENGLISH ROCK ENSEMBLE, while the one he’s working on with Cousins consists of“mostly acoustic sounding music and songs”. The release date is July though. Other musicians involved are Rick’s long-time sidekicks Chas Cronk and Tony Fernandez as well as Ric Sanders of FAIRPORT CONVENTION.
As for Cousins, last week he has been elected a Fellow of the RSA – The Royal Society of Arts. Congratulations!
OUT OF NOWHERE, DRIVING LIKE RAIN
The gap in the DEEP PURPLE remastering programme is getting narrow, and presently only the “Come Taste The Band” album master tapes are yet to be found. Last month saw the “Burn” masters resurface, and now “Stormbringer” reel-to-reels are unearthed – in excellent condition. More, this time there’s enough material for bonus tracks, with instrumental rendition of “Highball Shooter”, three vocal takes of “Soldier Of Fortune” and a David Coverdale-sworn backwards intro of “Stormbringer” which goes, “Cocksucker, motherfucker, stormbringer!”
With Roger Glover likely to take responsibility for remastering archive recordings, PURPLE are set to have a new producer for the album they’re ready to give a go at. The mooted person is Michael Bradford who plays in Kid Rock’s band.
DANDYS OF THE UNDERWORLD
Supergroup era continues! Three seasoned musicians – Neal Smith and Dennis Dunaway of the original ALICE COOPER GROUP and BLUE OYSTER CULT’s Joe Bouchard – joined forces for the album called “Back From Hell”. A rocking stuff with one song, “Love You Too Much”, co-written with Ian Hunter.
| 1. I Want Two 2. Having The Time Of My Life 3. Vampire Night 4. The Joke’s On You 5. Diner Girl 6. Love You Too Much 7. Snake Pit Boogie 8. She Was A Bad Girl 9. Carnival Toy 10. There Was A Girl 11. The Real Thing 12. Fallen Angel |
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