Monday, November 02, 2015

Ann Wilson on New Solo EP, Americana Love and 40 Years of Heart

Ann Wilson on New Solo EP, Americana Love and 40 Years of Heart:

When compiling her short but satisfying new EP of cover songs, already available on iTunes but released physically this Friday, October 9th, on Rounder Records, Ann Wilson had one rule: each track had to move the famously powerful lead vocalist of Heart.

"All the songs had to be songs where the words really turned Ann on," Wilson tells Rolling Stone Country, laughing at her use of the third person. "It's not just going to be a bunch of songs that turn a bunch of guitar players on. It's all for me to get out there and really be able to feel these songs."

In fact, it was the desire to launch a solo tour — her first ever — that spawned the EP, a four-song collection of cuts by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin and Buffalo Springfield, and one new original, the bluesy "Fool No More." Having already played shows in Solana Beach, California, and New York City, the tour hits Annapolis, Maryland, and Vienna, Virginia, before wrapping up in Nashville on October 15th with special guests Alison Krauss and Emmylou Harris.

Related: 50 Rock Albums Every Country Fan Should Own

"Fool No More," with its lyrics about pulling down the blinds and shutting out life, is actually a song of self-awakening, Wilson says, one that recognizes the stark reality of time marching on. "This is about emerging from the blues," she says. "I have been such a fool all my life, just wasting it. It's got a pretty intense message. . . Who among us hasn't gone, 'I don't like this day, so I'm just going to hang out and waste it.' There are parts in this song that say I've been 'a fool on the ceiling, a fool on the floor' — that's talking about my own forays with addiction. I'd been wasting time, just being drunk, just wallowing. And so it's awakening from that."

While far from a country release, The Ann Wilson Thing! - #1 does nod toward Americana, a genre for which Wilson has great affection. She's performed with Krauss and Harris in the past — Krauss guested on Wilson's 2007 solo album of covers, Hope and Glory; Wilson joined Harris and Shawn Colvin for a three-woman show on a Grammy cruise last year — and also raves about Lucinda Williams.

"One of these days I'm going to catch that butterfly in my net. She's so amazing, so talented, one of our best. She's a lone wolf though," Wilson says of the Louisiana singer, synonymous with the Americana genre. "When country reaches over to the left to Americana, that's where I can really relate," Wilson adds. "[Contemporary country] is pretty conservative for my book. Americana is way more satisfying, and has a little more room for expression and soul."

With a diverse set list of primarily covers — Neil Young's "War of Man," Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up" — Wilson has succeeded in finding meaningful and vocally expressive songs to sing onstage. Though she stopped short of including any of her past work, namely Heart songs.

"The thing about the Ann Wilson Thing is there is no Heart in it," she says wryly. "We thought about doing 'Alone,' but it didn't live with the rest of the songs in the set. We have another intellect going on [onstage] that's not about romantic love."

Still, she and sister Nancy Wilson — Heart's Jimmy Page to Ann's Robert Plant —continue to tour with their signature band, 2013 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The group has tour dates slotted into December — but while this February marks the 40th anniversary of their debut album, Dreamboat Annie, Wilson says the group has nothing official planned. At the suggestion of their booking agent it turns out.

"Our booking agent said, 'Well, you probably shouldn't do anything to celebrate your 40th anniversary, because it makes the fans feel old,'" Wilson says, laughing. "We were like, 'OK, sure, we'll just keep going.' We don't need to have a big fireworks show. And there are no plans to knock it on the head any time soon."

Wilson does recall those original recording sessions for Dreamboat Annie, however, which included now classic-rock staples like "Magic Man" and "Crazy on You." "

"I remember being really naïve and not knowing anything about the studio, just going in there and looking around like I was on a high-school field trip," she says. "And being put in front of a microphone and being so scared and nervous, and no big voice, just a scared little voice. Eventually, through the kindness of our producer Mike Flicker, I was brought out. That was a really life-changing experience."

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:22 PM
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Deadmau5, Nas, Run the Jewels to Thrash Winter X Games Stage

Deadmau5, Nas, Run the Jewels to Thrash Winter X Games Stage:

Deadmau5, Nas and Run the Jewels lead the musical lineup for the 2016 Winter X Games, set to take place January 28th through 31st at Buttermilk Mountain in Aspen, Colorado.

Nas and Run the Jewels will kick off the X Games' official concert series on January 28th at 8 p.m., while the rest of the weekend will feature performances from Twenty One Pilots, DJ Snake and Kygo. A complete schedule is below.

Tickets for the individual gigs are available on the X Games website and most cost $35 for general admission and $50 for preferred access. For Saturday's doubleheader with DJ Snake (early set) and Deadmau5 (late set), GA tickets for the individual shows cost $25 and $50, respectively, and $40 and $65 for preferred; a GA ticket for both shows costs $65, and $80 for preferred. A six-show general admission All-Music pass is available for $150, while a preferred version runs for $200; the latter includes access to a private entrance, preferred viewing, restrooms and a cash bar.

Preferred access to the concerts is also included as part of a four-day platinum pass, which comes with various perks at the games and competitions, and retails for $1,799. As always, though, general admission to X Games events and competitions will be free to the public.

Along with the shows at Buttermilk Mountain, the 450-capacity Aspen venue Belly Up will host the same acts over the course of the week: Nas on Wednesday, January 27th, Twenty One Pilots on Thursday, the 28th, Run the Jewels and Kygo — as the early and late shows, respectively — on Friday, the 29th, Deadmau5 on Saturday, the 30th, and DJ Snake on Sunday, the 31st. Tickets for those concerts are available on the Belly Up website.

Both the Winter and Summer X Games have been ramping up their music offerings in recent years. Metallica headlined the festivities in Austin this June along with Nicki Minaj, Talib Kweli, Kid Ink, Pennywise, Deltron 3030, Joywave and Glitch Mob.

Metallica also partnered with the Glitch Mob for a remix of "Lords of Summer" — an eight-minute cut they debuted at a show in Bogotá, Colombia last summer — that served as the Summer X Games' theme song. The metal heroes also offered up a professionally mixed recording of their headlining X Games set, donating all proceeds to efforts to assist victims of the Central Texas floods earlier this year.

Winter X Games Concert Schedule at Buttermilk Mountain

January 28 — Nas and Run the Jewels @ 8 p.m.
January 29 — Twenty One Pilots @ 9:30 p.m.
January 30 — DJ Snake @ 4:30 p.m.
January 30 — Deadmau5 @ 9:30 p.m.
January 31 — KYGO @ 3:30 p.m.

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:22 PM
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Brad Paisley on CMA Awards Joke Writing: "God Bless the Ashley Madison Hack"

Brad Paisley on CMA Awards Joke Writing: "God Bless the Ashley Madison Hack":

On November 4th, the CMA Awards return to Nashville's Bridgestone Arena, with Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood returning as co-hosts for the eighth consecutive year. Tuesday evening, a few hours before they performed with Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris and Paul Simon at New York's All for the Hall guitar pull, the pair discussed their preparation for next month's show.


Paisley, fielding questions from Rolling Stone Country and other reporters backstage, was positive, even giddy when talking about the CMA script writing. "It's a great year to host an award show because there's just a lot of funny stuff," he said. "We had a tough time last year — it was like Ebola and ISIS. It was just not funny things, and somehow we found a funny monologue in the middle of all of that. It took surgery to do it. It was looking for the little things in the current events that you could laugh it."

The singer, a 14-time CMA award winner, has found 2015 to be a little less challenging. "This year there's a lot you could laugh at. This election has been just amazing. They give us soundbites — we can't keep up. And God bless. . .  I guess that's that wrong thing to say, but God bless the Ashley Madison website hack, for many reasons."

Underwood interrupted with a clarification: "The hack, not the website."

"No, not the website, of course not," Paisley continued. "Although I'm glad it exists at this point, as hosts of that show. If anybody has the right to deal with a cheating website, it's us."

The All for the Hall events take place annually in Nashville and bi-annually in New York and Los Angeles. Profits go to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:21 PM
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Blake Shelton Announces 2016 Winter Tour Dates

Blake Shelton Announces 2016 Winter Tour Dates:

Blake Shelton will hit the road next February, launching a short tour to help drum up buzz for a new album and to promote his upcoming hits collection. Kicking off February 18th at Cincinnati's U.S. Bank Arena, the month-long trek will take Shelton across the midwest, northeast and Tennessee, with all 11 shows occurring in weekend-long stretches.

Less than three months after a highly-publicized divorce from Miranda Lambert, Shelton hasn't retreated from the spotlight. Instead, he remains a presence on the country charts — where "Sangria" became his 20th career Number One single earlier this summer — and a familiar face on TV, with the ninth season of The Voice launching September 21st. He's also gearing up for the release of Reloaded: 20 #1 Hits, a no-filler set of Shelton's vast radio staples.

But the singer reveals in a statement that he's also working on a follow-up to last year's Bringing Back the Sunshine, which will mark his 10th studio release. "Man, I'm just so excited about 2016," he says. "We've got a new album coming, and I can't wait to get back out on the road and play some new music for my fans."

Shelton recently threw a traffic-stopping block party in Nashville to celebrate his Number One singles. He'll compete for Male Vocalist of the Year at the 49th CMA Awards, held November 4th.

Here are Shelton's announced winter tour dates:

February 18 - Cincinnati, OH @ U.S. Bank Arena
February 19 - Louisville, KY @ KFC Yum! Center
February 20 - Detroit, MI @ The Palace of Auburn Hills
February 25 - Lincoln, NE @ Pinnacle Bank Arena
February 26 - Kansas City, MO @ Sprint Center
February 27 - St. Louis, MO @ Scottrade Center
March 3 - Memphis, TN @ FedEx Forum
March 4 - Nashville, TN @ Bridgestone Arena
March 17 - Buffalo, NY @ First Niagara Center
March 18 - Wilkes-Barre, PA @ Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza
March 19 - Pittsburgh, PA @ CONSOL Energy Center

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:21 PM
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Joan Osborne on 20th Anniversary of 'Relish,' Polarizing 'One of Us'

Joan Osborne on 20th Anniversary of 'Relish,' Polarizing 'One of Us':

Featuring the ubiquitous — and to some controversial — Top 10 single "One of Us," Joan Osborne's major-label debut Relish was released 20 years ago this past March. To celebrate the anniversary, the album is being reissued October 30th in CD, digital and vinyl form.

Osborne, who continues to tour solo, and has shared the stage with different Grateful Dead offshoots and as a member of the Americana supergroup Trigger Hippy, say the album remains a touchstone for fans.

"I still play a lot of the songs from that album. I feel proud that it's a record that people come up to me every show and they say, 'I listened to this record yesterday and it stands the test of time and it's something I keep going back to again and again,'" Osborne tells Rolling Stone Country. "Or people will say, 'This is a show that me and my dad can come to together because we both like your music.' I feel really proud of that."

Produced by Rick Chertoff (Cyndi Lauper), Relish was highlighted by the raucous "Right Hand Man," a cover of Bob Dylan's "Man in the Long Black Coat" and the irreverently spiritual "One of Us." Written by Eric Bazilian of the Hooters, "One of Us" was polarizing with its lyrics asking, "What if God was one of us/just a slob like one of us?" Bazilian's acoustic demo version of the song appears as a bonus track on the CD reissue.

Looking back, the bluesy singer says it was the song's pop ballad nature that she herself questioned when it exploded on radio.

"There was a moment where I maybe felt a little bit misinterpreted as an artist, because that song got so much more attention than many of the other tunes. I felt, 'Well, wait, there's a lot more going on here and don't pigeonhole me as a little pop singer or whatever,'" Osborne says. "But you have to look at those as pretty minor complaints for having a song that had that kind of reach and that kind of popularity and impact. That song sent people to the album as a whole and allowed them to see that there were more dimensions to what I was doing. I'd be hard-pressed to be anything but overjoyed about the success of that song."

In addition to the "One of Us" demo, specific formats of the Relish 20th Anniversary Edition will include various bonus tracks, unreleased songs and live performances. Osborne is currently on the road with Mavis Staples.

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:21 PM
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LCD Soundsystem Label Reps Shoot Down Reunion Rumors

LCD Soundsystem Label Reps Shoot Down Reunion Rumors:

A rep for LCD Soundsystem's label wrote a series of scathing tweets refuting rumors that the group was eyeing a 2016 reunion, after reports surfaced online suggesting it was a possibility. "Hey idiots, LCD Soundsystem isn't reuniting," DFA Records label manager Kris Petersen wrote. "They're dead, along with your good looks and cultural relevance." DFA cofounder Jonathan Galkin also denied the rumors to Pitchfork.

The source of the rumors was music website Consequence of Sound, citing anonymous "multiple sources" as confirming that the group intended to perform "at least three high-profile music festivals" in the U.S. and U.K. Billboard subsequently published its own article with confirmation coming from another anonymous "well-placed source."

In his Twitter tirade, Petersen called Consequence of Sound's "multiple sources" "some fucking knobs on the Coachella message board." He also submitted a statement to Vulture. "LCD Soundsystem is not reuniting at Coachella next year," he wrote. "I'm sure some festivals have offered the group a giant tempting pile of money, but there is no truth to this. Can we all just move on with our fucking lives?"

While a rep for the band declined to comment, a rep for DFA Records tells Rolling Stone, "'This office has no knowledge at all of any reunion." A rep for Monotone, Murphy's management company also tells Rolling Stone, "We have no knowledge of any reunion."

LCD Soundsystem played their final concert in April 2011 at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Last spring, they put out a five-LP box set of the entire, nearly four-hour concert titled The Long Goodbye. The band also set up a "Long Goodbye" exhibit at Brooklyn record store Rough Trade, which included the album playing in full and photographs of the group.

Since the group disbanded, main man James Murphy has found many interesting ways to keep busy. He remixed computer-generated music made from tennis matches, recorded a chill song for a Noah Baumbach movie, covered David Bowie, opened a wine bar and began campaigning for a chance to refigure the way the New York City subway system sounds.

When Rolling Stone asked Murphy in June 2014 if he ever wondered whether or not it was a mistake to end LCD Soundsystem, he said no. "It felt pretty good," he said of bidding farewell to the band. "But that doesn't mean that I don't miss it. There are times when I miss it a lot."

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:20 PM
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DJ Jazzy Jeff Talks New Album With Will Smith: 'The Timing Is Perfect'

DJ Jazzy Jeff Talks New Album With Will Smith: 'The Timing Is Perfect':

It's been 22 years since Will Smith (then known as the Fresh Prince) and DJ Jazzy Jeff released their fifth and ostensibly final album, Code Red. But unlike other pioneering groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Fugees, the group's end was not predicated on infighting or ego. Smith's acting bug became a full-on fever and Jazzy Jeff became an in-demand DJ who still performs more than 150 shows a year.

The childhood friends have remained close, and their reunion, revealed by Smith in an interview with Apple Music earlier this week, was hiding in plain sight for years: Jeff regularly DJs the wrap parties for Smith's movies, with the rapper inevitably hopping on the mic to perform a medley of the duo's greatest hits.

But this week, Smith announced the duo's reunion with plans for a new album and the first world tour of their career. The rapper told Zane Lowe he has recorded 20 to 30 songs — which may or may not appear on the album — but the duo are taking their time in recording new material. "Timelines are a thing of record companies," Jeff tells Rolling Stone. With Smith releasing his first verse in more than a decade last week, the prolific DJ spoke to Rolling Stone on the past, present and future of the pop-rap pioneers.

Where are you in the recording process?
Will's been recording. We had a really good conversation because he wants to get back in recording. One of the things that we talk about is going from all of these stupid, giant, million-dollar studios to now having the ability to record something in a hotel room. We laugh about the amount of material we would have put out if we had had those resources [in the Eighties and Nineties]. I want to just start recording to get him back into this space that there are no rules anymore! Every time we do an impromptu show, he's like, "Man, we can go out and we should go out." And I'm like, "I'm already out. I'm waiting for you!"

Do you have a recording timetable yet?
Not yet. I know just with the schedules, it will be in sections. It could be any time like, I'm home for two weeks and we're going to get together and do something. That could really start off with me sending him something and him recording it and then us getting together. But the only way that I will [record the finished track] is if we are in the studio together. That's how it's always been. I’m not worried about me at all. I think the beauty of it is that he started it, and he's ready to go.

"The beauty of it is that he started [recording], and he's ready to go."


Was it always in the back of your mind while touring all these years that you guys would release another album?
Let me put it like this: You don't retire from an art. This has always been inside of him and he's always wanted to do this. He has never stopped rapping. It's just that being the biggest movie star on the planet, you don't have enough time. There has never been a time that he didn't jump on my microphone when we're together, because that is in his blood. You think you're going to be around a basketball court with Michael Jordan and he is not going to shoot? That'll never happen! I’m just happy that he's at the point where he's like, "You know what? I really want to do this." And the whole idea is he realizes he wants to have fun. I can tell the level of enjoyment he has from doing it.

So he performs and says, "This feels good. We should record." When did that go from general discussion to you both seriously considering an album?
Every time we would get together, he would talk about, "Yeah, I'm thinking about it. I got a concept for a record." The last time we got together seriously was in the spring when he started Suicide Squad and I went up [to see him] and we talked for four hours. I just finished the Dayne Jordan project and I played it for him from beginning to end and he was just like, "Wow." And I just went on to tell him like, "Listen, I did this all by myself. This wasn't through a record label; we just went in and did it." And all of that is foreign because you almost felt like someone has to co-sign you to make music. If you got the talent, we got the studio and the resources and you don't need a record label. That's what this generation does that we've never done.

Did Will think that the two of you would have to go label-hunting?
No, no. It's not that he thought that. It's just he's never done it any other way. Before I did Dayne Jordan, neither had I. So I’m sitting back like, "I own a studio and I can make music." I got a videographer on the road and we started shooting videos, so we shot a video in Dubai. Who shoots a video in Dubai besides Jay Z and Kanye? This is exactly what you would do on a Sony and now you have the resources to do it by yourself. All I did was share that information with him, like, "Dude, you know what we can do now without any boundaries?"

He mentioned having 20 to 30 songs recorded. How many of those were with you versus his solo stuff?
We haven't even gone to the studio yet. He's done all of this while he was doing Suicide Squad. So we haven't gotten in to do the stuff that we are going to do, which is next level. One of the conversations that we had was just talking about jumping. You gotta jump. If Jaden goes into the studio and he hears something hot, he records it and puts it out in 24 hours. And from the perspectives of Will and myself, you're like, "What?" I said, "You know what? Just drop it." And he kept saying, "What does 'drop it' look like?"

Will did a verse off of [Kanye West's] "Clique" when it first came out. He rapped it for me and it was huge. And I looked at him and said, "Why didn't you put that out?" And he just looked at me. I'm like, "Wait, you wrote an incredible verse off of a really popular song. That is what they do! Just drop it!" But he just sat on it.

In the Zane Lowe interview, he talked about being scared to record new music. Do you think it was fear?
I don't think it was a fear thing. He was really trying to grasp the concept of just putting it out. You got something that is hot and great and that is it. I told him to just put it on SoundCloud and you could see the wheels turning like, "Oh shit, I can really do that?" That is a very hard concept. It's like they opened the gates to the prison and nobody ran. Everybody just stood there because you are used to be incarcerated that you're like, "I'm not going to run. What if something happens?"

Is it true this will be your first world tour together?
Yeah, it's funny. When we were doing the Run-D.M.C. tour, we'd go to New York and Mobile, Alabama and do a lot of that stuff. When we got to the point of being bigger, it was during the Fresh Prince [of Bel-Air] years, so we couldn't really tour like that. We didn't have six months to just go all over the world.

Has anything been solidified for the tour?
I don't know. What I tell people is, "If Will says, 'Listen, we're going on tour,' we're going on tour." That’s my partner. Anytime he needs me, I'm there. If it's like, "Yo, we're out," we're out. Let me know so I can make some arrangements and we're gone.

"Will did a verse off of 'Clique' when it first came out. He rapped it for me and it was huge. But he just sat on it."


Rappers and producers are finding success at older ages now more than ever before. Do you think the climate is right for a new album after more than 20 years?
The timing is perfect and it was just something that clicked. I think a lot of it is just the understanding of the space. You've got to look at it like, us, Dr. Dre, LL Cool J all came up together, and now everybody's in a different professional space, but your fanbase is still there. We are the first generation that's growing older with hip-hop. So think about it: We didn’t know how to handle that. You try to figure out: Is hip-hop the music of the youth? And it's like, yeah, it’s the music of the youth . . . when you’re young!

We didn’t have the media outlets that cater to a more adult demographic because we are the first. So now, you got Boom [classic hip-hop radio] stations and Sirius XM's BackSpin and everybody loves that. Now you got a station that plays Big Daddy Kane's "Ain't No Half-Steppin'" and "Raw," but they'll also play him if he makes something new. The outlet is finally catching up to the music. I keep saying, "Seriously, did you think Rakim lost it?" Rakim just didn't put out music because where would his music be played? There comes a time, and this is weird to say with us being hip-hop lovers, that you outgrow Hot 97.

Is it a chicken-and-egg scenario between recording the new album and booking a tour? Wouldn't one influence the other?
It's not like we don't have material to do. When we go out and perform now, we don't do new material. Now, as you get to the point that you can add new stuff on, ah man, this is great. I just think it's the perfect time. Now there are no boundaries.

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:20 PM
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Sony, Michael Jackson Estate in Talks for Transfer of Massive Catalog

Sony, Michael Jackson Estate in Talks for Transfer of Massive Catalog:

Sony ATV, the famous music-publishing catalog that Michael Jackson bought in 1985 and used for decades as a financial lifeline, will soon be sold in full to the late singer's estate — or the estate may sell its own half back to Sony Corp. The technology giant will "either become 100 percent owner or divest," a source close to the deal tells Rolling Stone, adding that Sony reps will soon meet with Jackson's estate reps to work out the terms. The company has begun what is known as a "buy-sell process," with one source saying that "this is just the first step" for the company.

The catalog, which owns publishing rights for 750,000 songs, including tracks by the Beatles, Taylor Swift, the Rolling Stones, Marvin Gaye and many others, is worth an estimated $2 billion. It has been a 50-50 venture between Sony and Jackson since 1995, when the King of Pop agreed to merge his share with Sony's music-publishing catalog. In 2007, an auditor said Jackson's half of the catalog was worth $390 million — providing crucial assets for the big-spending superstar during a period when he was releasing almost no new music or making money off concert tours.

Reps for Jackson's estate declined to comment.

Jackson had been deeply in debt in 2006 when he agreed to give Sony an option to buy his half of the catalog at some later date. Sony exercised that option sometime last month. "The structure of a joint venture is sometimes difficult to manage," the source says.

Company reps would not comment, but leaked Sony documents last year suggest execs were dubious of its potential in a time of low digital-music revenues. Kenichro Yoshida, Sony's chief financial officer, said in a statement last year that Sony ATV "has a rather complex capital and governance structure and is impacted by the market shift to streaming."

The Beatles lost control of much of their publishing in the Sixties after a series of complicated business deals. When Jackson bought the catalog, for $47.5 million, Paul McCartney unsuccessfully bid against him. "The key thing to remember today is don't sell your catalogue," Marshall Gelfand, Jackson's accountant, told the Los Angeles Times at the time. "The whole explosion of music videos and the trend toward using more music in movies is going to make copyrights even more valuable. If you are an established artist today, you should only consider selling your catalogue as a last resort to raise cash."

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:19 PM
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John Mayer and Grateful Dead's Bob Weir Talk Upcoming Dead & Company Tour

John Mayer and Grateful Dead's Bob Weir Talk Upcoming Dead & Company Tour:

A couple years ago, John Mayer was recording a solo album, trying to channel the Grateful Dead's sound. "You should have seen me some of those days," he says. "I was going behind the drums trying to do a loping drum beat, and then trying to sing over it. It's impossible for any other five guys to do it, let alone one person. You can't multitrack the same vibe they get. I think my respect and admiration for that music sort of shifted from me trying to make something like it, to kind of giving up and accepting the fact that I am just me."

But now, Mayer has found a solution to the problem: joining the Dead. Beginning October 29th in Albany, New York, he will front Dead & Company, which includes guitarist Bob Weir, drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, bassist Oteil Burbridge, and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti. The band is giving away 10,000 tickets to their November 7th show at Madison Square Garden through American Express, and the show will be broadcast online in a livestream directed by Brett Ratner.

The band started discussing the tour with Mayer in January but waited to book it until after the Grateful Dead's highly successful Fare Thee Well gigs with Phish's Trey Anastasio in Santa Clara, California, and Chicago. "I remember writing Bob afterward going, 'Hey, enjoy the afterglow,'" Mayer says from rehearsals at Weir's TRI Studios in San Rafael, California. "To be quite honest, those [Dead & Company] dates came out in groupings not because we were trying to stage this really high-energy, suspenseful plot of dates — we were putting them together as they were coming out."

Since the spring, Mayer has been practicing nonstop, attending what he calls "Grateful Dead University." "I was in isolation, learning these songs, and the first thing you have to do is have heard it long enough to be able to anticipate it in a certain way," Mayer says. "You have to understand that particular song's flow. And then I pick up the guitar and find out kind of where it lives on the fretboard, and then I sort of go a little deeper. Each song gets that layered thing, so that by the time I really know it, I know how the song goes, what the sort of guitar approach is, but then also what the sort of ethic of the song is."

"There's no better music to solo over." —John Mayer


Now that they're in rehearsals, Mayer is seeing the rewards of his hard work. "There's no better music to solo over, and I can tell you because I've been doing it a lot. Grateful Dead songs are so much fun to play. And some of them are as fun as they are hard to play. Part of the challenge is not disappearing into how much fun it is — [where] you forget that this is actually a highly complex composition."

Bob Weir, who is also on the line for the interview, approves: "John's enthusiasm for this is amazing — I couldn't believe it," he says. "He learned the songs, has great enthusiasm, and he's a great guitar player. So he fits in perfectly."

Mayer knows that the Grateful Dead community are a tough crowd. "I don't feel the pressure, but I would say I feel a responsibility. I'm too focused on the task at hand to consider the scenarios of it not working. I've heard it work, and I've heard it not work 30 seconds later. And it's up to me to get as close as I can making it work all the time."

"John," adds Weir. "That's 100 percent been our M.O. for decades."

"Then I must be on the right track!" says Mayer.

The Dead members are still on a high from their Fare Thee Well run. "We played good music because the crowd was amazing," says drummer Mickey Hart. "I never felt a crowd like that before. The spirit that they had, it was just, like, on steroids. It was an amazing, amazing feeling. We play to a lot of people, very exuberant people, but there was nothing like those nights — especially in Chicago, when it all kind of crystalized and all came together in kind of a magical, alchemical way. That's the only way I can describe it."

While Phil Lesh is the only member from those shows not joining Dead & Company on the road, Weir is not ruling out the possibility of Lesh appearing with the band onstage again. "I would expect if that's going to happen, it's going to be if we're in ... He has a place in New York, but more so, he lives out here [in California]," Weir tells Rolling Stone. "But he doesn't want to hit the road. He's 75 now. It's kind of not an option for him, the way he puts it. And so, you know, that's still where we are; that's still where we're going to live, at least I am. And so, if we're going to see him, we're going to see him around here or around someplace where he is."

It may seem like an obvious move for Lesh to participate, aside from the fact that the Fare Thee Well shows were billed as the last time the "Core Four" — Weir, Lesh, Kreutzmann and Hart — would ever perform together. Now, Weir admits he's not so sure the Fare Thee Well lineup is finished. "Well, you know, I'm going to just go ahead and say it: It feels like there is some unfinished business. As Billy pointed out yesterday, we didn't get to the East Coast this summer. And you know, it won't be the 50th anniversary, but I'm certainly open to it."

Pressed to clarify if the Fare Thee Well lineup will play together again, Weir pauses for a moment. "Right now, my notion of what that is or could amount to is still nebulous — I don't even want to poke it. But you know, like I said, I'm open."

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:19 PM
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Joe Ely on Trump, Border Politics and New Album 'Panhandle Rambler'

Joe Ely on Trump, Border Politics and New Album 'Panhandle Rambler':

If you catch Joe Ely on tour this fall playing songs from his new album Panhandle Rambler (released on Rack 'Em Records), don't be surprised if the show is a lot more subdued than the last time you saw the Texas singer-songwriter. Don't misunderstand: it's a terrific record that's right up there among the best works of Ely's career. But aside from the loopy barroom delirium of "Southern Eyes," the other 11 songs on Panhandle Rambler are as quiet, literate and noirish as any that Ely has ever recorded.

"It's not a dance record by any stretch of the imagination," Ely tells Rolling Stone Country with a laugh. "It did surprise me, when I started seeing connections between all these songs together, just how many were in minor keys — I usually don't have that many. But I'd gone through a couple of rough years, so it reflected a little more introspection than some of the others I've put out. There's nothing wrong with a minor key if it's what works with the song."

Personal travails aside, the 68-year-old Ely is in the midst of an impressive stretch of career milestones, including the 2014 publication of his first novel, Reverb: An Odyssey, a semi-autobiographical rumination with a cast of characters living in a "normal state of static chaos." Recent accolades for Ely include induction into the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Texas legislature declaring him the official Texas State Musician for 2016 (an honor that has previously gone to Lone Star State artists like Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett and Asleep at the Wheel's Ray Benson.)

Ely being Ely, he told one state senator that he was going to put his newfound political clout right to work "to have every speed bump in the state removed."

Panhandle Rambler is a very fine reminder as to why such honors are deserved. Punctuated throughout by Joel Guzman's rippling border accordion, the album deftly evokes the dark and wide-open ambience of the high Texas plains that remain Ely's spiritual home even though he moved south to Austin long ago. But for all the specificity of the sound, most of the lyrics are open-ended. Lead-off track "Wounded Creek" sets a mysterious tone, sketching out the details of a crime scene without ever revealing what happened.

"The sequence of songs was important to me because I wanted them to fit together but not tell the whole story," Ely says. "I wanted to leave most of it to the listener's imagination. For me, a big part of songwriting is what you leave out, which is sort of the reverse of writing a book where you're always expounding on things. Guy Clark is a master of not telling the whole thing, but just enough."

Not coincidentally, the second song on Panhandle Rambler is a cover of fellow Texan Clark's 2006 ballad "Magdalene." Ely also covers his Flatlanders bandmate Butch Hancock's "When the Nights Are Cold," but Ely's own compositions — populated by a cast of border country miscreants, hobos and ne'er-do-wells — make up the album's heart. The most direct song is an openly autobiographical pledge of love to Ely's wife Sharon, the closing track "You Saved Me." Ely wrote it while stuck in a blizzard after a gig.

"That was three days, but it was productive because there was nothing else to do but write," Ely says. "So I wrote that song and finished another. You never know how things are gonna happen on a record, which is part of being on the road. You never know where you'll be next."

Perhaps emboldened by his new government-sanctioned bonafides, Ely has also been making the occasional onstage political statement in song. He recently resurrected "Borderless Love" for his live set, a song that first appeared on a Flatlanders album six years ago but sounds as if it could have been written in response to Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

"All this crazy stuff Trump is talking about, like deporting 11 million people, that's insane," Ely says. "Somebody once said that most places have lines but Texas has borders. A third-world country is right next to the richest country in the world, which has made the border even more interesting to write about. But it's also a very dangerous situation. So we've been doing 'Borderless Love' again. 'A wall is a mirror that can only reveal/One side of a story that passes for real' — that's a mouthful, but it feels like it fits things better now than when we wrote it."

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 4:19 PM
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KATE BECKINSALE at Heathrow Airport in London

KATE BECKINSALE at Heathrow Airport in London 11/02/2015:

KATE BECKINSALE at Heathrow Airport in London 11/02/2015

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:54 PM
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CHRISTINA MILIAN at The Peanuts Movie Premiere in Westwood

CHRISTINA MILIAN at The Peanuts Movie Premiere in Westwood 11/01/2015:



CHRISTINA MILIAN at The Peanuts Movie Premiere in Westwood 11/01/2015


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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:52 PM
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RITA ORA on the Set of The X Factor in London

RITA ORA on the Set of The X Factor in London 10/31/2015:

RITA ORA on the Set of The X Factor in London 10/31/2015

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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:50 PM
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SHIRI APPLEBY at Google Made With Code Party in Honor of Codegirl

SHIRI APPLEBY at Google Made With Code Party in Honor of Codegirl 11/01/2015:



SHIRI APPLEBY at Google Made With Code Party in Honor of Codegirl 11/01/2015


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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:49 PM
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JOANNA JOJO LEVESQUE by Irvin Rivera

JOANNA JOJO LEVESQUE by Irvin Rivera:



JOANNA JOJO LEVESQUE by Irvin Rivera


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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:48 PM
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GEMMA ATKINSON in Bikini at a Pool in Cuba

GEMMA ATKINSON in Bikini at a Pool in Cuba 06/18/2015:



GEMMA ATKINSON in Bikini at a Pool in Cuba 06/18/2015


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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 3:47 PM
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EMILIA CLARKE at Thewrap’s Power Women Breakfast in Beverly Hills

EMILIA CLARKE at Thewrap’s Power Women Breakfast in Beverly Hills 10/28/2015:



EMILIA CLARKE at Thewrap


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Posted by Nelio Inacio at 10:49 AM
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