Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Inbox Update: John Fogerty, Pink Floyd, The Cult

What do upcoming releases featuring John Fogerty, Pink Floyd and the Cult have in common? All are featured in the releases I have re-posted here...

John Fogerty set to release Wrote a Song for Everyone on Vanguard Records

New album finds Foo Fighters, Bob Seger, Keith Urban, My Morning Jacket and others teaming with Fogerty

Legendary rocker John Fogerty has announced that he will be releasing a new record, titled WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE in the fall – his first on Vanguard Records. The album is a celebration of Fogerty’s iconic songbook -- it is a collection of classics and deep tracks from his remarkable canon of hits as well as some brand new songs, performed alongside an array of today’s biggest superstars, including Foo Fighters (“Fortunate Son”), Bob Seger (“Who’ll Stop The Rain”), Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, My Morning Jacket, Alan Jackson, Miranda Lambert and more. In addition, besides as-yet-unannounced contributors from the upper echelons of the country, pop and rock worlds, the album will also see Fogerty teaming with acclaimed new bands like Dawes, all of whom are eager to acknowledge the groundbreaking songwriter/guitarist’s titanic influence. WROTE A SONG FOR EVERYONE will be released on Vanguard Records in the fall. Full details, including a complete artist list and tracklisting, will be announced shortly.

Fogerty – whose latest song, “Swamp Water,” recently debuted in its role as theme to the new Fox series, The Finder – spent much of last year touring with his crack backing band, including an unprecedented two-night-stand at New York City’s famed Beacon Theatre. The sold out shows saw Fogerty performing two classic Creedence Clearwater Revival albums in their entirety, along with an electrifying bonus set spanning the incredible CCR catalog to his ongoing solo career.

Broadcast live on SiriusXM’s Classic Vinyl, the two Beacon concerts earned rapturous critical applause, with MOJO noting that “(Fogerty’s) voice sounds so vibrant and full, it could be cryogenically preserved. His guitar solos bite and quaver with finer definition than ever…(The) songs establish their endurance through the star’s canny infusion of the deepest blues emotion in the most polished pop form. That’s their genius – to raise ‘singles band’ effervescence to the level of album art.”

John Fogerty is a true American treasure, one of popular music’s all-time greatest singers, guitar players, and songwriters. His remarkable career began in his hometown of El Cerrito, California, soon earning massive popular and critical success with the one and only Creedence Clearwater Revival. As leader of CCR, Fogerty forged a distinctive, groundbreaking sound all his own, equal parts blues, country, pop, rockabilly, R&B, swamp boogie, and Southern fried rock ‘n’ roll, all united by his uniquely evocative lyrical perspective.

From 1968 to 1971, Creedence Clearwater Revival unleashed an incredible succession of hit singles and platinum certified albums that remain unparalleled in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll history. Their expansive cover of “Suzie Q” was followed by a stunning series of Fogerty-penned favorites that dominated rock and pop radio, including “Proud Mary,” “Down on the Corner,” “Born On The Bayou,” “Have You Ever Seen The Rain,” and what remains the definitive anti-war anthem, “Fortunate Son.”
“GREEN RIVER,” the second of three CCR albums released in 1969, proved their first out-and-out blockbuster. Fuelled by the smash singles, “Bad Moon Rising” and “Green River,” not to mention the immortal “Lodi,” the album spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200, confirming Fogerty’s status among American rock ‘n’ roll’s preeminent artists.

About Vanguard Records
Vanguard Records, part of the Welk Music Group, is owned by the Welk Family and one of the world’s leading independent record labels. Its selected roster of quality artists includes Matt Nathanson, Merle Haggard, Chris Isaak, Greg Laswell, Trevor Hall, Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers, The Gourds and the legendary Levon Helm. Further expanding the roster are distributed artists such as The Indigo Girls, Chely Wright, Robert Cray Band, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and the great George Jones. www.vanguardrecords.com


Eagle Rock set to release Pink Floyd: The Story of Wish You Were Here on June 26

Set for release on DVD and Blu-ray


Eagle Rock Entertainment is proud to announce the simultaneous release on June 26 of Pink Floyd The Story Of Wish You Were Here on DVD and Blu-ray. This is the authorized story of the album made with the full involvement and approval of the members of Pink Floyd.

Wish You Were Here, released in September 1975, was the follow up album to the globally successful The Dark Side Of The Moon and is cited by many fans, as well as band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour, as their favorite Pink Floyd album. On release it went straight to Number One in both the UK and the US and topped the charts in many other countries around the world. This program tells the story of the making of this landmark release through new interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason and archive interviews with the late Richard Wright. Also featured are sleeve designer Storm Thorgerson, guest vocalist Roy Harper, front cover “burning man” Ronnie Rondell and others involved in the creation of the album. In addition, original recording engineer Brian Humphries revisits the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios to illustrate aspects of the songs’ construction.


The band members discuss the album’s themes of absence, the greed of the music business and former band member Syd Barrett, who is famously celebrated in “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, which both opens and closes the album. The program also covers the unexpected visit Barrett paid to Abbey Road during the recording, the difficulties of the early recording sessions and how the decision to split “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” into two sections was the catalyst for the album’s successful completion.

The DVD and Blu-ray releases contain additional bonus material not featured in the TV broadcast version, including further interviews with Roger Waters, David Gilmour and Nick Mason plus Roger Waters and David Gilmour performing excerpts from the Wish You Were Here album.

The Story Of Wish You Were Here is a fascinating document and fitting tribute to Pink Floyd’s outstanding achievement in the creation of this masterpiece.


Eagle Rock Entertainment is the largest producer and distributor of music programming for DVD, Blu-Ray, TV, Audio and Digital Media in the world. Eagle works directly alongside talent to produce top quality, High Definition and 3D programs, both concerts and documentaries, including The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Who, Queen, The Doors, Jeff Beck, U2, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney and Ozzy Osbourne. Eagle is a Grammy Award winning company and has received over 30 multi-platinum, over 50 platinum and over 90 gold discs, worldwide. Eagle Rock Entertainment has offices in London, New York, Toronto, Paris and Hamburg.



The Cult set to tour North America in tandem with release of 'Choice of Weapon'

Against Me! and the Icarus Line to support


The Cult, from left, features Billy Duffy, Chris Wyse, Ian Astbury and John Tempesta.

Venerable rock band The Cult will hit the pavement hard this summer with the first leg of its 2012 North American tour. The 20-date trek is set to kick off on Friday, May 25 in San Diego, CA bringing the band's incendiary rock energy to major and secondary markets across the continent. In addition, the tour will include headline dates at the Great Canadian Beaverfest in Windsor, ON, and at Buffalo, NY's Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf Concert Series (see itinerary below). For most of the dates, The Cult will be supported by Against Me! and The Icarus Line. Ticket on-sales begin later this week; log onto http://thecult.us/main/shows/ for all details and to purchase tickets.


"This is going to be a very intense, high-energy tour," said The Cult's vocalist, Ian Astbury. "We are really looking forward to the time we spend on stage connected to our music and our audience. That's our purpose."


The Cult - Astbury, Billy Duffy, called one of the post-punk era's greatest guitarists, Chris Wyse on bass, drummer John Tempesta, and touring member Mike Dimkich on rhythm guitar - is touring in support of Choice of Weapon, the band's first new studio album in five years, due out May 22 (Cooking Vinyl). Featuring The Cult's signature sounds of Astbury's vocals and Duffy's guitar, the album was produced by Chris Goss (Queens of the Stone Age, U.N.K.L.E. Masters of Reality) and Bob Rock (Metallica, Bush, The Cult's Sonic Temple), recorded in New York City, Los Angeles, the California high desert and the band's Witch Mountain studio between July and December 2011, and written by Astbury and Duffy.

Early praise for the record came from the Toronto Star's Ben Rayner who wrote that Choice of Weapon "feels like the work of the cosmically inclined outfit responsible for such durable records as 1985's Love, 1987's Electric and 1989's smash hit Sonic Temple than anything the band has done in years." And, from Rock's Back Pages: "...a sea

ring blend of cleanly distorted guitars, pummeling rhythm, and lyrics that channel an inner landscape reflective of a personal journey and descriptive of the state of the world, simultaneously."


"When we were writing and recording 'Choice of Weapon,'" explained Astbury, "we had no agenda, there was no particular destination, no place to be, and no chart position to aim for. We took our time, we went in, we grabbed the jewels, and stayed focused on keeping everything as fresh and as raw as possible. The new songs are a sharpened and heightened extension of everything we have ever done."


Choice of Weapon reflects the survival in today's volatile world where the sense of entitlement is growing, where we are constantly bombarded by "ones and zeros," and where the "have-nots" increase on a daily basis. The album poses the questions, "how do we survive and still keep our integrity and humanity? What weapons do we choose to insure a sane future for ourselves and our children, and not de-evolve into a 'Hunger Games' scenario?"


On these North American dates, The Cult will play many of their classics as well as introduce fans to some of their new songs, including "Lucifer" - not a song about the devil, but a reference to the morning star, the idea of a journey through darkness and decadence to find the road to wisdom - "Honey From a Knife" - based on the Buddhist teaching about the seductiveness of addiction - and "For The Animals," the first official single from Choice of Weapon. "For The Animals" asserts the rising tensions, the rage and hostility of the growing group of disenfranchised youth in our society.

"Again, we find ourselves with our backs against the wall," Astbury continued, "and we like that, we like being outside the perimeter. We're the long shot, so place your bet on us."


Confirmed dates for The Cult's 2012 North American tour are as follows:


MAY

25 San Diego, CA - Humphreys By the Bay

26 Las Vegas, NV - M Resort

27 San Francisco, CA - The Fillmore

30 Denver, CO - Ogden Theatre



JUNE

1 Chicago, IL - Congress Theatre

2 Windsor, ON - Great Canadian Beaverfest, Riverfront Festival Plaza

3 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE - Indoor Stage

5 Boston, MA - House of Blues

7 Buffalo, NY - Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf

8 New York, NY - Terminal 5

9 Hampton Beach, NH - Ballroom

10 Philadelphia, PA - Electric Factory

12 Washington, D.C. - The Fillmore

13 Norfolk, VA - The Norva

15 Myrtle Beach, SC - House of Blues

16 Orlando, FL - House of Blues

17 Atlanta, GA - The Tabernacle

19 Houston, TX - House of Blues

20 Dallas, TX - House of Blues

22 Tempe, AZ - Marquee Theatre

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