Rolling Stones Announce Tour

After plenty of rumors and speculation, The Rolling Stones have finally announced dates for their “50 and Counting” anniversary tour.

Early reports said this tour would have 18 dates, and only nine were announced today. If your city isn’t on this list, it may turn up later this summer or fall. Here are the announced dates:

May
5 – Oakland, Calif. @ Oracle Arena
8 – San Jose, Calif. @ HP Pavilion
11 – Las Vegas, Nev. @ MGM Grand Garden Arena
15 – Anaheim, Calif. @ Honda Center
25 – Toronto, Ontario @ Air Canada Centre
28 – Chicago, Ill. @ United Center

June
12 – Boston, Mass. @ TD North Garden
18 – Philadelphia, Pa. @ Wells Fargo Center

Rolling Stones official web site

Video Du Jour (X2): The Rolling Stones

Yep, the Rolling Stones are back. They played the first of their 50th anniversary shows in London last night, and the grizzled Stones were joined onstage by former band members Mick Taylor and Bill Wyman, along with the ubiquitous Jeff Beck.

Save your pennies – the Stones are threatening to tour. Meanwhile you can amuse yourself with the official video for “Doom and Gloom,” featuring Swedish actress Noomi Rapace (Prometheus, the original Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). By the way, there’s some nudity in here, so it’s not safe for work!

Bonus: The Rolling Stones performing “Honky Tonk Women” in London on 11/25, apparently with Bill Wyman on bass.

The Rolling Stones official web site

Video Du Jour: Rolling Stones

By now everybody knows the Rolling Stones are back, sort of. They are releasing a greatest hits set, GRRR!, on Nov. 13 and they’ve booked a few live shows in anticipation of a full-blown tour next year.

GRRR! has 50 tracks and features two new songs, the first for the Stones in about seven years. We already covered “Doom and Gloom,“ now here’s “One More Shot.”

Rolling Stones official web site

Lost Classics!: Di$co Time!

Would Gene Simmons and KISS go disco? You bet! (Photo by Keith Leroux for KISSOnline)

A few years ago, while riffling through my closet, I came across my old pea green leisure suit. In one pocket was a ticket stub to a Bee Gees concert, circa 1979 in the Houston Summit. (Yes, that was the one with the guest dancer appearance by one Mr. John Travolta, in town filming Urban Cowboy). Horrified at this perfect polyester time capsule, I bundled it up and gave it as a Christmas white elephant gift at the office party.

I bet there are some pretty famous people who can’t get rid of their disco mistakes so easily. Remember the Beach Boys’ disco cash-in from 1979, “Here Comes The Night”? So do we, unfortunately. How about the Electric Light Orchestra hiding behind an Olivia Newton-John vocal for the horrid “Xanadu” (1980)? Or Paul McCartney’s “Goodnight Tonight” (1979)? Truly frightening.

Unbelieveable, really.

Even artists you wouldn’t expect to do disco, people with a lot artistic integrity, did some booty-shaking tracks back in the day. They may have tried to disguise it, but a disco by another color still smells … well, you know. How about Bruce Springsteen’s “Cover Me” (1984) – a bit late in the game but you can’t deny that driving backbeat. The Eagles doing “One Of These Nights” (1975) might have been a little early in the curve so you can give them the benefit of the doubt, but had it come out a few years later it would be disco. And what about “The Magnificient Seven” by the Clash (1981)? Hmmm.

Then there are the Rolling Stones. How many disco songs did they actually do? Aside from “Miss You” (1978), there’s “Emotional Rescue” (1980) and probably “Beast of Burden” (1978). And the less said about “I Was Made for Lovin’ You” by KISS (1979), the better.

So do you have a leisure suit in the closet? Break it out, dust off your old dance moves and let’s shake some tail on this Saturday night to your favorite rock acts gettin’ down with some disco!

MP3: “One Of These Nights” (live) by the Eagles

MP3: “Cover Me” by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

MP3: “Goodnight Tonight” by Paul McCartney & Wings

MP3: “Here Comes The Night” (1979 version) by the Beach Boys

MP3: “Xanadu” by Olivia Newton-John & the Electric Light Orchestra

MP3: “The Magnificent Seven” by The Clash

MP3: “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” (2009 version) by KISS

MP3: “Discotheque” by U2

MP3: “Emotional Rescue” by the Rolling Stones

MP3: “Shakedown Street” by the Grateful Dead

MP3: “Run Like Hell” by Pink Floyd

And why not?

MP3: “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart

MP3: “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees

Video Du Jour: Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have yet another greatest hits collection, GRRR! , coming in November.  The band is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and hopefully this is just the first step that will lead to an extensive concert tour next year.

The 50-track collection will have two new songs and one of them, “Doom and Gloom” has been released.

Rolling Stones official web site

The Most Bad-Ass Riff

Muddy Waters at the Houston Juneteenth Blues Fest, 1977.

Rock and roll has some killer riffs, mostly played on the electric guitar, and there is no riff more bad-ass than the da-dum-da-DUM riff from songs like Bo Diddley’s “I’m A Man.”

Bo had some killer riffs in some of his songs, but the original source seems to be “(I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man,” by Muddy Waters from 1954. Written by Willie Dixon, it seems to be the first use of this motif that has shown up in blues and rock music ever since. Bo Diddley, a Chess Records label mate of Muddy Waters, cut his “I’m A Man” in 1955 and Muddy actually answered that record with his own “Mannish Boy.”

Remember Muddy singing “Mannish Boy” in The Band/Martin Scorsese film The Last Waltz? That was actually Muddy’s own remake, modeled after his version on the 1977 album Hard Again. The Rolling Stones copped that same song and riff the same year, for their album Love You Live.

Many others have used the same riff, either covering the blues classics of Bo and Muddy, or doing their own originals. “Bad To The Bone” by George Thorogood to the very recent “Early Roman Kings” by Bob Dylan have used this riff.

It’s lasted this long, and shows no sign of ever going away. That is because it’s bad-ass.

MP3: “(I’m Your) Hoochie Coochie Man” by Muddy Waters

MP3: “I’m A Man” by Bo Diddley

MP3: “Mannish Boy” (live) by the Rolling Stones

MP3: “Bad To The Bone” by George Thorogood and the Destroyers

MP3: “A Night With the Jersey Devil” by Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

YouTube: “Early Roman Kings” by Bob Dylan

GRRR! The Stones’ Big Announcement

After promising a “big announcement” coming this week, the Rolling Stones dropped news of … wait for it … a greatest hits collection.

Titled GRRR!, the compilation will be available in five different formats, including a three-CD 50-track version and a four-CD super-deluxe version gathering 80 songs. All formats will include two new songs, “Gloom And Doom” and “One Last Shot,” new studio recordings recently completed by the group in Paris last month.

So, in case you haven’t gotten around to buying Forty Licks or Hot Rocks, you can get GRRR! in CD or vinyl beginning Nov. 13 in North America and a day earlier around the world.

Later that week, on Nov. 15, HBO will debut a new documentary, Crossfire Hurricane, which will document the entire career of the Rolling Stones. The band is of course celebrating its 50th anniversary this year – the actual date of birth was July 12, 1962, when the Rolling Stones played their first gig at London’s Marquee Jazz Club.

And if you’re wondering, any 50th anniversary tour plans have been moved to 2013 when, as Mick Jagger has said, it’s more “realistic” to get these codgers on the road. Looking forward to it!

R0lling Stones official web site

YouTube: “Honky Tonk Women”, live at the Olympia Theatre, Paris, 11th June 2003

Rolling Stones Promise ‘Big Announcement’ Soon

The Rolling Stones are promising “some exciting news will be revealed next week.” You can download an app for your iPhone that is supposed to give you a preview, but it doesn’t work for me.

We do know that the Stones have been in the studio lately; Mick Jagger tweeted a photo of himself apparently hard at work recording some new tunes. And, from the looks of the logo above, it appears there will be some type of celebration of the band’s 50 years – likely a tour of some kind. It should all be revealed next week.

At any rate, you can go to the Stones official web site for more info.

Video Du Jour: The Rolling Stones w/Muddy Waters

In November 1981, in the middle of their mammoth American tour, the Rolling Stones arrived in Chicago to play three nights at the Rosemont Horizon. Long influenced by the Chicago blues, the band paid a visit to Buddy Guy’s club the Checkerboard Lounge to see the legendary bluesman Muddy Waters perform.

It wasn’t long before Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Ian Stewart jumped on stage and later Buddy Guy and Lefty Dizz also came up. Of course it was all captured on tape, and it’s now available on DVD as Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones Live At The Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981.

With sound mixed and mastered by Bob Clearmountain, this amazing blues night is being made available in an official release for the first time. Check your local video store or Amazon.com, or you can order at the link below the video.

Muddy Waters & The Rolling Stones Live At The Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981 web site from Eagle Rock Entertainment

Video Du Jour: Brian Jones

Happy birthday, Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones singer/guitarist would have been 70 today. That’s him playing the harmonica(s) in the video.