This week sees Neil Young releasing his latest album with Crazy Horse, Americana.  Young is coming to Scotiabank Place with Crazy Horse on November 24th.  Their opening act will be Patti Smith, who also has a new album out today called Banga.  

     Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh returns with Analog Man, and ZZ Top release their 4-song EP Texicali, a little taste of what’s to come with the full length album they will be releasing later this year.  Yet another ZZ Top song is streaming online now, you can check out “Chartreuse” by clicking this link to the Rolling Stone website.

     Also of note is the film soundtrack for Rock of Ages, which features 80s rock standards performed by the cast of the movie – Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, Mary J. Blige, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Ackerman and Diego Boneta.  The CD includes ‘Paradise City’, ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’, ‘Every Rose Has It’s Thorn’, ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’, ‘Rock You Like A Hurricane’, and ‘Don’t Stop Believing’.

     The full rundown:

CD:

Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Americana
Joe Walsh – Analog Man
ZZ Top – Texicali
Rock of Ages Movie Soundtrack
Patti Smith – Banga
The Beach Boys – That’s Why God Made The Radio
The Beatles – Yellow Submarine Songtrack
Heart – Strange Euphoria (5-CD box set)
Paul Simon – Graceland (25th Anniversary Edition CD w/ bonus tracks)
Various Artists – Make It Your Sound, Make It Your Scene: Vanguard Records & The 1960s Musical Revolution
Various Artists – No More Tears: A Millenium Tribute to Ozzy Osbourne

Vinyl:

David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (remastered)

DVD:

Yellow Submarine

     ZZ Top are hard at work on a new album with producer Rick Rubin, and that record will be released in the fall at the earliest.  But fans can get a sneak peak at it tomorrow, when they release a four-song EP called Texicali.  And you can get a sneak peak at the EP today, and listen to the new song “Consumption”, streaming online at Ultimate Classic Rock.

ZZ Top will release four new songs  on Tuesday June 5. “Texicali” will be available digitally, and will give fans the first new ‘Top tracks in 9 years. The band has been working on a full new release for months and  blame “perfectionist”  producer Rick Rubin for the delay. “Texicali” will offer a preview of whats to come and satisfy ZZ Top fans who have been waiting for the new album which so far, has no title or release date. The band hopes to have it out by the Fall.

     Just in time for the 4th of July, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band have been named the Greatest American Band of All Time by Gibson.  For the past week, Gibson.com has been running down the top 50 list, which looks like this:

1. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band

2. Aerosmith

3. Nirvana

4. The Ramones

5. Metallica

6. Van Halen

7. The Byrds

8. R.E.M.

9. The Beach Boys

10. Allman Brothers

11. Guns N Roses

12. The Doors

13. The Eagles

14. Creedence Clearwater Revival

15. The Stooges

16. Lynyrd Skynyrd

17. The Velvet Underground

18. Pearl Jam

19. Wilco

20. Buddy Holly and the Crickets

     Some other notable names are the Grateful Dead at #21, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at #24, KISS at #26, ZZ Top #30, The Flaming Lips (at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest tonight) at #37, Buffalo Springfield #40, Cheap Trick #42, Alice Cooper #44, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention at #49.  For the full list, click here.

     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.

     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.”

FOR BEATLES FANS…

The Abbey Road on the River Festival  first took place in Cleveland, Ohio in 2002 and moved to Louisville, Kentucky in 2005. It brings in tribute bands and offers a number of events to celebrate the Beatles , drawing an average crowd of 25,000. This year the festival will take place in Louisville between May 26 and 30 and Washington, D.C. between September 2 and 5.

BRYAN GOT HIS STAR…

On Monday March 21st, Bryan Adams became the 2435th person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Bryan’s friend, fellow Canadian  and hockey legend Wayne Gretzky led the induction ceremony. Adams seemed delighted to be honoured and told the crowd “I remember being in Hollywood at the age of 16 and marvelling at the stars. The idea of being on it never entered my mind. It was too far-fetched.”

TWO NEW ZZ TOP ALBUMS!…

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top says there is a tribute album on the way. The ZZ Top tribute will feature  the Foo Fighters, Nickelback  Kid Rock and others. The release date will be announced soon.  The band are also working on a new studio album in Houston and LA.

CROSBY AND NASH PROJECTS…

David Crosby and Graham Nash are starting a new record label. Blue Castle Records first release on March 22nd will be (you guessed it!)  a Crosby and Nash live album called “Another Stoney Evening”.  It was one of the first concerts they performed as a duo , recorded on October 10th, 1971 in Los Angeles.

RELEASE DATE FOR EDDIE VEDDER…

Eddie Vedder is calling his new solo album” Ukulele Songs” and it will feature a mix of original and cover songs played on the ukulele. The release date is May 30. On the same day, Vedder will also release a live DVD called “Water On The Road” which he recorded in 2008.

NEW JOURNEY…

Journey’s new album “Eclipse” will be out on June 3