Stop, Look & Listen: AC/DC’s “Rock’N'Roll Train” Has Arrived

It’s the first single from “Black Ice”, the band’s first studio album in eight years and fans can hear it right here, right now.  Black Ice features 15 new tracks from brothers Angus and Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson, Cliff Williams, and Phil Rudd.

CLICK TO LISTEN TO ROCK’N'ROLL TRAIN

Black Ice will be released October 20th and sold in the US exclusively at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club retail locations at the special price of $ 11.88. Online, the CD will be available with free shipping and handling via the band’s website, www.acdc.com. It will also be sold at Walmart.com and Samsclub.com.

 

You’ll find the ringtones at Verizon.

 

AC/DC also starts their first world tour since 2001 in October. 

 

Blogger Nabbed By Feds For Leaking New Guns N’ Roses Tunes

He couldn’t wait just one more decade?  Nine tracks from the upcoming Guns N’ Roses album Chinese Democracy — which has been upcoming for about ten years — were allegedly leaked to the public when a Los Angeles area blogger decided to jump the gun. READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

London’s Hard Rock Cafe Offers Priority Seating And Special Menu To Gatwick Express Customers

If you’re heading to the U.K. for your own Magical Mystery Tour you might as well start your trip with a proper meal.  The best way to travel between the airports and London are the high speed trains.   They’re convenient, safe and relatively inexpensive. Gatwick Airport’s “Gatwick Express” leaves every 15 minutes and gets you to Central London’s Victoria Station in 30 minutes.  GATWICK EXPRESS INFO

Present or purchase a Gatwick Express ticket at either of the ticket desks located at Victoria and Gatwick stations where you will receive a voucher which provides you with priority seating and a choice of foods from the Hard Rock Cafe’s specially created Gold Menu.  This is the original Hard Rock Cafe which opened 1971 and and the home the first piece of memorabilia donated by the Hard Rock- Eric Clapton’s Red Fender Lead II guitar.

So what’s for lunch?

The Gatwick Express Gold Menu

Choice of entree:

Hard Rock Cafe Burger with cheese and/or bacon

Creole Chicken Sandwich

Caesar Salad

Veggie Burger

Bar-B-Que Pork Sandwich

All burger entries are served with side salad or fries, lettuce, tomato and onion

Dessert: HRC’s signature ice cream

Choice of Beverage

Billy May Not Be The Only Hero — Springsteen To Close Yankee Stadium? McCartney Sanctioning Beatles Museum In Branson? New Led Zeppelin Studio Album? Rock Rumor Roundup…

Bruce just might be wrapping things up for the Yankees — George Harrison’s sister Louise hopes to open a Beatles museum in Branson, MO this year — and Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham have been in the recording studio.  Classic Rock wishful thinking? Check out each story below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ ABOUT BRUCE HERE

 

 

 

 

 

READ ABOUT THE BEATLES MUSEUM HERE

 

 

 

 

 

READ ABOUT LED ZEPPELIN HERE

 

 

Grank Funk Railroad - Playboy After Dark 1969

“The contemporary sounds… what you people call rock” - not one of Tony Randall’s “musical bags”. 

 

Grank Funk Railroad - Playboy After Dark 1969

Israel Re: Sir Paul & Bandmates - “Let ‘Em In”

Paul McCartney to return forty-plus years after the Beatles were banned from performing in Israel.  It’s their 60th birthday and they’re gonna have a good time.  READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE  

 

 

Can Sir Paul top this?

Bert Parks’ interpretation of “Let ‘Em In” at the 1976 Miss America Pageant:

 

 

 

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Major Players On Deck For Allman Brothers 40th Anniversary Tour

Gregg Allman is hinting that some mega-talent will be joining the band on stage for their March 2009 Beacon Theater run in New York. READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE

We Built This Site On Rock And Roll - Welcome To The ClassicRockForever Community

Do You Feel Like We Do?

While you’re never too old – or too young – to rock, if you are part of our ClassicRockForever community there’s good chance that you are a Baby Boomer.

You believe that “The Wonder Years of Rock” started in the 60’s with the Beatles and started fading away in the early 80’s.  After that, fewer bands and artists kept your attention - maybe U2, Tom Petty & Heartbreakers or Guns & Roses. 

You know that music can’t be formatted and packaged as neatly as “the biz’ would like it to be.  Yes, the same person can handle The Who, Earth Wind & Fire, Loggins & Messina, Elvin Bishop, The Ramones… and all in one day.

You might have checked out of the music scene for a decade or two while you pursued a career and/or raised a family.   You knew there was probably some great new music happening out there… in fact, even today… but, sorting through the media clutter makes finding it a chore.

You know there are killer tunes that have disappeared from the radio.  Contrary to what your kid (or local Classic Rock station) might think, J. Geils existed before “Centerfold”; “Can’t You See” isn’t the only great Marshall Tucker Band tune. The James Gang did “Funk #49” AND “Funk #48”.

Back In The Day

Music was an important part of your life. You went to every concert you could, you bought every album you could afford.  However, you weren’t what they now call a “fanboy”.   Close To The Edge might have been the last Yes album you bought.  Van Halen may have been the last band where you knew the lead singer’s name — and then they had to go mess with that.   Basically, you didn’t cross the line from Star Trek fan to Trekkie.

You stood in line (or you would have if you were a kid back then) to see a Hard Days Night and HELP!   You were blown away by the “triple split screen” effect in Woodstock.  And, if you didn’t actually go, you seriously considered attending the midnight shows for “The Song Remains The Same” and/or “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Beyond the music there were certain movies, TV shows, comedians and entertainment events that, well, there was something about them that stuck with you.  Some of them seem pretty goofy to you as an adult but, they still make you smile (or wince) a little inside.

Goldfinger, Thunderball, Love Story, Billy Jack, Walking Tall, Shindig, Hullaballoo, Vanishing Point, That Girl, All In The Family, George Carlin, Second City, Cheech & Chong, the first seasons of Saturday Night Live, Don Kirshner, Sam Kinison, Mod Squad…

The warped bottom line - whether it’s legitimate or not – you believe there are huge cultural differences in how you perceive the entertainment picks you have made over the years.  In fact, they’re part of who you are:

-  You’d rather be a Monkee – or heaven forbid – a Cowsill… before you’d become a member of the Partridge Family or the Brady Bunch.

-   You’d take a bit part in a Looney Toon before you’d take a lead role as a Disney character.

-  You actually wanted to know “Who Shot J.R.?”  but, you weren’t that concerned about Dynasty.

-  You “totally got” SOAP.  You really wanted to like Mary Hartmann, Mary Hartmann more than you did.

 

To be continued.

Where Have All The Lyrics Gone? Long Time Ago.

 

“There’s something happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear”. *  Having lived and grown up (or maybe just aged a bit) in the late 60s and early 70s, I rarely listen to FM radio any more.  Most often the play list is significantly older than my kids (my oldest is going to be 27).  Then I look at the concert listings, and it seems that all the bands who are selling out the big arenas are in their 60s! The Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen or the Fab Faux.  Ian Anderson just turned 61 the other night!  ABBA is the background for a hit movie and Hair is making a comeback in NYC.  Yikes!

 

Don’t get me wrong, there were a LOT of crappy songs back in the day (remember “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies?) but there were plenty of songs that were substantial, or genuinely clever, or both.  But even the good ones… I mean, how can I still get excited over “Stairway to Heaven” or “Dust in the Wind” or… well, you get the idea.  Where is the Bob Dylan for THIS decade?  Or even Roger McGuinn?   Or Grace Slick?  Steven Stills?   Yeah, I know, they’re all still around, but they’re doing the same songs they did forty years ago.

I have always loved “Revolution” by the Beatles.  I love (and am convicted by) the interplay between the strong lyrics and the laid back tune.  Yeah, “we’d all love to change the world” along with the little “bop she do wop” background vocal.  It seems to be asking, “Can you be a revolutionary AND a cool dude at the same time?”  We seem to be a generation that started out to be revolutionaries but got lost in the “don’t you know it’s gonna be alright”.  Perhaps, while we are looking back and enjoying the music of our youth we can look into that music and find those elements that made it important to us in the first place.  What were the messages in the music that stirred our hearts and souls?  Why does so much of the music (and TV, and movies, and etc.) of today seem so insipid?

We seem to have set aside the revolution of our teens and twenties to build homes and businesses, to raise families, to enjoy the good life (Livin’ in the USA).  Maybe as we approach, or are already in, our 60s we could reassess where we’ve been, where we are and where we’re going.

“No reason to get excited,
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”**

Maybe this could be a time to refocus on the messages that stirred our hearts in our youth, yet have become background music as we stir our specialty martinis here in 2008.  Why was Rock ‘n’ Roll so significant to us?

J.D. Stetson

*Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth

** Bob Dylan – All Along the Watchtower

Vanilla Fudge - You Keep Me Hangin’ On

As the TV Host says “… they’ve gone beyond the sounds of today” …….and there ain’t nothin’ he can do about it. Neither can the Go-Go Dancers.  

Vanilla Fudge - You Keep Me Hangin’ On

 

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