CD:

Rush – Clockwork Angels (listen to album premiere tonight at 8:00 on CHEZ 106 with Jackie)
The Byrds – Complete Columbia Albums Collection (13-disc set)
Electric Light Orchestra – Classic Albums Collection (11-disc set)
Grace Potter – The Lion The Beast The Beat (at RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest July 4th)
Metric – Synthetica (at RBC Royal Bank Bluesfest July 15th)
Wintersleep – Hello Hum (at Ottawa Folk Festival September 7th)

The Rolling Stones are about to re-release their 1978  album “Some Girls” , giving it the same treatment as  “Exile On Main Street”. There will be a “Deluxe” and “Super Deluxe”  version, and at least one new track : “No Spare Parts” which you can hear on CHEZ. The band recorded the song in Paris  during the “Some Girls” sessions.

The re-mastered re-releases of “Some Girls” are due November 21

Bob Seger has a new hits collection for us, that starts with the original mono mix of “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man’ and includes recent tracks like “Downtown Train”  and “Hey Hey Hey Hey (Going Back To Birmingham)”. His holiday tune “Little Drummer Boy” is also in the collection.

Bob Seger-” Ultimate Hits -Rock & Roll Never Forgets” is due out November 21.

There’s something for Rush fans too. A box set called “Sectors” that covers the band’s years with Mercury Records. The set is in chronological order with each “sector” covering  a different time span. The albums have all been remastered and there are lots of added treats like booklets of photos, lyrics and artwork.

Rush “Sectors” is coming November 21.

     In an interview with The Mirror, Alice Cooper says he once held a gun to Elvis Presley’s head.  Alice says this happened in 1971, when Elvis was “at the top of his game”.  He was invited to Elvis’ room to meet the King, where Elvis told him to point a loaded gun at his head.  Then Elvis did a flying kick and a karate move, disarming Alice and pinning him to the floor, saying “that’s how you stop a man with a gun”.
     Also in the interview, Cooper says he used to hide from Keith Moon whenever the legendary Who drummer was in town, for fear he would be sucked into a week-long bender that his body simply couldn’t handle.

     Steven Tyler is not making friends in the fly-fishing community.  After the Aerosmith frontman wore decorative feathers in his hair on a couple of episodes of American Idol, female fans started snapping them up immediately.  Hair salons began ordering the feathers from the outlets that make them – fly fishing companies who use the feathers for their lures.  The outfitters haven’t been able to keep up with the demand, and there is now a serious shortage of fly-fishing lures.
     In other Aerosmith news, the band will be back in the studio the first week of July to continue work on their next album.  Now that American Idol is done, Steven Tyler has more time.

     In an interview with Artist Direct, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell says music’s album format is dying, and he doesn’t think the next Leppard release will be a regular record.  The group just released their first-ever live album, Mirrorball, on Tuesday.  Says Campbell, “I’m not sure if it will be a full-length album. I don’t see the point, since the goalposts have shifted…people aren’t interested in full lengths. It used to be ten to twelve songs that the record company wanted and you’d go into the studio and do it. But there’s so much going on and there are so many things vying for people’s attention that people don’t have time to listen to a full album. Very few will do that. I’d rather put out less music with more quality – we want to give people quality.”

     Rush drummer Neil Peart will appear on The Late Show With David Letterman tonight as part of Letterman’s “drum solo week”.  Peart’s solo will not be the standard one he plays on tour – he had to cut the piece down from eight-and-a-half minutes to just four minutes to fit the TV schedule. 

     Black Country Communion, the “supergroup” featuring Jason Bonham on drums, Joe Bonamassa on guitar, Glenn Hughes on vocals and bass, and Derek Sherinian on keyboards, have debuted their newest video for the song “Man In The Middle”.  Here it is:

     Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover says he is sick of the Metallica comparisons.  Not that Purple is compared to Metallica that often, but that whenever a band decides they want to work with an orchestra, people inevitably say “oh, like Metallica”.  Glover says bands have been doing it long before Metallica did.  (Purple famously worked with an orchestra on keyboardist Jon Lord’s composition Concerto For Group And Orchestra in 1969.)  The current lineup of Deep Purple have just started a tour with a 28-piece orchestra.

     And finally, ZZ Top have debuted their long-awaited new single.  And you could listen to it…if you were in outer space.  The song, “Flying High”, was given to a friend of the band named Michael Fossum.  Fossum is an astronaut, and is currently carrying his copy of “Flying High” aboard a Russian space craft on his way to the International Space Station.

CD:

John Mayall – Howlin’ At The Moon
Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side – Recorded Live! New York 1972
R.E.M. – The Lowdown
Rush – Moving Pictures (deluxe edition – CD & Blu-Ray)
Stevie Nicks – In Your Dreams
Various Artists – No Future: A Tribute to the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned

DVD:

Bruce Springsteen – The Promise: The Making of Darkness On The Edge of Town

Blu-Ray:

Rush – Moving Pictures (deluxe edition – CD & Blu-Ray)

     ZZ Top hasn’t made a new album since 2003′s Mescalero, but they are in full swing recording one – and they say it should be out by the end of this year.  Guitarist Billy Gibbons tells Billboard.com, “(We are) still just making a lot of loud noise. We still pose as interpreters of the blues. We can’t invent it; It’s already been invented. But we can do it our way… (We) might cover a couple of things.”  Full story here.

     Buffalo Springfield has announced their first tour in 43 years.  Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay have announced six tour dates in California this summer, as well as a date at the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee.  More dates are to come.  Young, Stills and Furay will be joined by Rick Rosas and CSN drummer Joe Vitale in place of late band members Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin.  Full story here.

     Rush are celebrating the 30th anniversary of their landmark album Moving Pictures with a deluxe edition reissue.  It will be available either as a remastered CD/DVD package or as a CD/Blu-Ray.  The re-release comes out this coming Tuesday, April 5th.  Here’s the sneak preview:

     Allman Brothers guitarist extraordinaire (and Gov’t Mule frontman) Warren Haynes is getting his first solo studio album since 1993 ready, and offering a free preview on his website.  Man In Motion comes out May 10th.

     In other Allman Brothers news, the band has been named the #1 act of all time to change lead guitarists and still remain great.  Following the death of Duane Allman in 1971, the band went through many changes before settling on the guitar tandem of Haynes and Derek Trucks in 2001.  The full list, which also includes Metallica, the Yardbirds, Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones, is here at Gibson.com

     Rumours of a Kinks reunion have been flying around for years, as brothers Ray and Dave Davies have feuded off and on, then flirted with the idea of getting back together, then decided once again that they hate each other.  The latest story is that the possible reunion is getting closer to reality.  More on the story here.

     Ace Frehley says Gene Simmons once saved his life.  In an interview with VH1, Frehley talked about the time Simmons, a trained lifeguard, saved him from drowning.  Said Frehley, “I didn’t know Gene was a lifeguard…I actually drowned one day at a Holiday Inn. [laughs] I’m serious … this was in the ’70s. I actually drowned. Everyone else was [expletive] up, I was [expletive] up obviously, but everyone else was loaded, and I went under… the next thing you know, I’m drowning. Gene pulls me out of the pool and pumps the water out of me…Only later I found out that he was a certified lifeguard when he used to go to college.”

“How I Won The War” is about to be released on DVD. Within days of wrapping up the Beatles’s last tour together, John Lennon started filming this black comedy with “Hard Day’s Night” director Richard Lester. It didn’t bring in overwhelming praise from reviewers but gave Lennon’s fans a chance to see him in a different light. Around the same time, he ditched the Beatle hairstyle and  started wearing his trademark glasses.

“How I Won the War” first came out in 1967 The remastered version will be out on DVD March 20.

Rush will celebrate its 30th anniversary of “Moving Pictures” by releasing the Deluxe Edition. We’ll get the original album and three bonus music videos in both 5.1 surround sound using the original multi-tracks and in newly remastered stereo using the original analog master tapes. Special artwork along with new liner notes and photos will also be included.
The package will arrive on April 5 in two different formats: a digitally remastered CD and DVD combo and a digitally remastered CD and Blu-ray combo.

Slash may be on the road right now, but it doesn’t stop him from working on his next album. In a recent interview Slash confirmed he’s touring with some sort of mobile studio and working on new material for a solo album he hopes to release in 2012.

According to guitarist Tommy Thayer, KISS are set to enter the studio this month to begin the work on a follow up to 2009’s “Sonic Boom,” with guitarist/vocalist Paul Stanley as producer.  This may have something to do with the recent announcement that Kiss would postpone a tour of Japan until the fall and would add more dates.

A little more AC/DC news: The “Black Ice” World Tour live CD/DVD will arrive on May 10. Amazon lists the title as “AC/DC Live At River Plate”. The release covers shows at the River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires December 2, 4 and 6, 2009 and was directed by David Mallet who’s worked with the band for years and years.

It appears that Mick Jagger is In L.A. working on a new solo album with producer Dave Stewart. If that’s true, it doesn’t bode well for a Rolling Stones album or tour, but would be Jagger’s first solo album since 2001. Mick’s own brother Chris let the information slip out during an interview in Portugal recently.

Styx guitarist Tommy Shaw is about to release his debut Bluegrass album, “The Great Divide” on March 22nd.
He’s joined by a number of talented  guest musicians, including Alison Krauss, Dwight Yoakam, Jerry Douglas and many more.

  Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil is going to jail thanks to his DUI arrest.  Neil reached a plea deal with the Las Vegas district attorney, and will be serving two weeks in prison followed by two weeks of house arrest.  By pleading guilty, Neil avoided what could have been a six-month jail sentence had the case gone to court.

  Metallica’s Lars Ulrich hinted, in an interview with Rolling Stone, that the Big Four of heavy metal (Metallice, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax) may be playing more shows this summer.  The Big 4 are already scheduled for the Coachella festival in California, Knebworth in Britain and Sonisphere in France.

  William Shatner and Zakk Wylde have apparently teamed up to record a cover of the Black Sabbath classic “Iron Man”.  Said Shatner on Twitter, “Just watched tracks being laid down by Zakk Wylde of Black Label Society for my upcoming record SEEKING MAJOR TOM…Zakk is one of the great guitarists who played with Ozzy Osbourne. A master playing a cover of ‘Iron Man’. He’s fantastic! I’m energized.” Sneak preview here.

  Poison frontman Bret Michaels is recovering at home following heart surgery.

  Rush drummer Neil Peart will release his fifth book this spring, entitled Far And Away: A Prize Every Time. 

  Sammy Hagar and Chickenfoot hit the studio this weekend to begin work on their second album.