Picking up moments after the series finale of Breaking Bad ends, Aaron Paul is back as Jesse Pinkman in El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, directed by Vince Gilligan, on Netflix October 11.
Snoopy In Space’s Official Trailer
Blast off with Snoopy as he fulfills his dream to become a NASA astronaut. Joined by Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang, Snoopy takes command of the International Space Station and explores the moon and beyond. Snoopy In Space is coming November 1 to the Apple TV app with an Apple TV+ subscription.
Century Surfers (Roddy Colmer and Jamie Gutfreund ) + “The Storm” hit iTunes Top 50 Alternative Chart in Canada
Canadian indie alt. pop/rock project Century Surfers — including 10-year multi-band scene staple Roddy Colmer and popular news anchor-turned-music man Jamie Gutfreund — are out with their debut single, “The Storm” — and promptly reached the Top 50 alternative chart on iTunes Canada.
To set the scene, Colmer’s the lead vocalist while Gutfreund is on guitar. The former is known for a decade-plus of dominating the scene as lead singer/songwriter of local rock/reggae outfit Rebel Emergency before unleashing two albums with electro-rockers Most Non Heinous. Most recently, he’s run with a solo pursuit; his most recent release Afterglow landed at #2 on the Canadian singer/songwriter charts.
For his part, Gutfreund is a name and face recognizable to the Toronto-area’s early risers through his work as co-host/anchor of the top rated CP24 Breakfast Weekend show, and as remote host for the city’s #1 breakfast news program, and among the resident anchors and reporters on CP24’s breaking news team. Suit and tie begone, however, he’s easily found on guitar moonlighting for various bands city wide.
Having become fast friends through a shared affection for all things 90s rock, the duo first came together with Colmer’s solo album, Afterglow, in mind. “We were thinking he’d support it with guitar, but it quickly spiralled into a completely different direction…” Colmer recalls. “We love Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden… It was natural to start writing songs together.
“We wanted to revisit these sounds, but with a modern approach using the latest production techniques.”
The result is a forthcoming debut EP, set for release in Summer 2020, and the album’s premiere single, “The Storm” — available now. While they all grew from the same soil, this track in particular can trace its roots back to the state of Tennessee.
“The makings of ‘The Storm’ specifically started after Jamie made a trip to Nashville for his first time in the summer of 2018,” Colmer says. “He came home loaded with inspiration and immediately started to write.”
“I picked up my acoustic guitar, dropped the tuning to an open D chord, and started to play,” Gutfreund adds.
“When he first played me the guitar part, it sounded like a storm to me,” Colmer continues. “The verse felt like it was building in intensity, like a wave. Then it reached a crescendo and came crashing down into a chorus.
“I wanted to capture that same feeling with the lyrics and melody.”
“There was something about Roddy’s darker, haunting melody that immediately drew me into the verse,” Gutfreund recaps. “But when I heard him open up during the chorus, I knew this song had strong potential.”
Produced by Dusty Chesterfield — noted veteran of the craft, and current bass player for multi-platinum prog-rockers Saga — the track pointedly lands reminiscent of “peak Stone Temple Pilots,” they say.
“We definitely wear our 90s grunge influences on our sleeves here.”
“The Storm” is available now.
My Next Read: Disgraceland: Musicians Getting Away with Murder and Behaving Very Badly
From the creator of the popular rock ‘n’ roll true crime podcast, DISGRACELAND comes an off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre book of stories from the highly entertaining underbelly of music history.
You may know Jerry Lee Lewis married his thirteen-year-old cousin but did you know he shot his bass player in the chest with a shotgun or that a couple of his wives died under extremely mysterious circumstances? Or that Sam Cooke was shot dead in a seedy motel after barging into the manager’s office naked to attack her? Maybe not. Would it change your view of him if you knew that, or would your love for his music triumph?
Real rock stars do truly insane thing and invite truly insane things to happen to them; murder, drug trafficking, rape, cannibalism and the occult. We allow this behavior. We are complicit because a rock star behaving badly is what’s expected. It’s baked into the cake. Deep down, way down, past all of our self-righteous notions of justice and right and wrong, when it comes down to it, we want our rock stars to be bad. We know the music industry is full of demons, ones that drove Elvis Presley, Phil Spector, Sid Vicious and that consumed the Norwegian Black Metal scene. We want to believe in the myths because they’re so damn entertaining.
DISGRACELAND is a collection of the best of these stories about some of the music world’s most beloved stars and their crimes. It will mix all-new, untold stories with expanded stories from the first two seasons of the Disgraceland podcast. Using figures we already recognize, DISGRACELAND shines a light into the dark corners of their fame revealing the fine line that separates heroes and villains as well as the danger Americans seek out in their news cycles, tabloids, reality shows and soap operas. At the center of this collection of stories is the ever-fascinating music industry–a glittery stage populated by gangsters, drug dealers, pimps, groupies with violence, scandal and pure unadulterated rock ‘n’ roll entertainment.
You can get it here.
My Next Read: Face It: A Memoir by Debbie Harry
Musician, actor, activist, and the iconic face of New York City cool, Debbie Harry is the frontwoman of Blondie, a band that forged a new sound that brought together the worlds of rock, punk, disco, reggae and hip-hop to create some of the most beloved pop songs of all time. As a muse, she collaborated with some of the boldest artists of the past four decades. The scope of Debbie Harry’s impact on our culture has been matched only by her reticence to reveal her rich inner life — until now.
In an arresting mix of visceral, soulful storytelling and stunning visuals that includes never-before-seen photographs, bespoke illustrations and fan art installations, Face It upends the standard music memoir while delivering a truly prismatic portrait. With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail, Face It re-creates the downtown scene of 1970s New York City, where Blondie played alongside the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie.
Following her path from glorious commercial success to heroin addiction, the near-death of partner Chris Stein, a heart-wrenching bankruptcy, and Blondie’s breakup as a band to her multifaceted acting career in more than thirty films, a stunning solo career and the triumphant return of her band, and her tireless advocacy for the environment and LGBTQ rights, Face It is a cinematic story of a woman who made her own path, and set the standard for a generation of artists who followed in her footsteps—a memoir as dynamic as its subject.
You can get it here.
The Band’s Self-Titled Masterpiece Celebrated With Remixed And Expanded 50th Anniversary Edition Releases
When The Band’s seminal eponymous second album was released fifty years ago on September 22, 1969, not much more was known about the reclusive group than when they released their landmark debut, Music From Big Pink, to widespread critical praise and bewilderment, just the year before. The band, made up of four Canadians and one American, was still shrouded in mystery, allowing for listeners and the music press to let their imaginations run wild about who these men were and what this music was that sounded unlike anything else happening at the close of the psychedelic ’60s. Dressed like 19th century fire-and-brimstone preachers and singing rustic, sepia-toned songs about America and the deep south, The Band – Garth Hudson (keyboards, piano, horn), Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin), Richard Manuel (keyboards, vocals, drums), Rick Danko (bass, vocals, fiddle) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, vocals) – was an enigma, unlike any group that came before or after. And their self-titled “Brown Album,” as it would lovingly be called, cemented their status as one of the most exciting and revolutionary bands in years, on the strength of now-classic songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up On Cripple Creek” and “Rag Mama Rag.”
On November 15, Capitol/UMe will celebrate The Band’s pioneering self-titled album with a suite of newly remixed and expanded 50th Anniversary Edition packages, including a Super Deluxe CD/Blu-ray/2LP/7-inch vinyl boxed set with a hardbound book; 2CD, digital, 180-gram 2LP black vinyl, and limited edition 180-gram 2LP “tiger’s eye” color vinyl packages. All the Anniversary Edition releases were overseen by Robertson and feature a new stereo mix by Bob Clearmountain from the original multi-track masters, similar to the acclaimed 50th anniversary collections of last year’s Music From Big Pink releases. The 50th Anniversary Edition’s CD, digital, and box set configurations also include 13 outtakes, featuring six previously unreleased outtakes and alternate recordings from The Band sessions, as well as The Band’s legendary Woodstock performance, which has never been officially released.
Exclusively for the box set, Clearmountain has also created a new 5.1 surround mix for the album and bonus tracks, presented on Blu-ray with the new stereo, both in high resolution audio (96kHz/24bit). All the new audio mixes have been mastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. The box set also includes an exclusive reproduction of The Band’s 1969 7-inch vinyl single for “Rag Mama Rag” / “The Unfaithful Servant” in their new stereo mixes and a hardbound book with an extensive, illuminating new essay by author and music critic Anthony DeCurtis and classic photos by Elliott Landy which have had an inimitable influence on rock and roll. For the album’s new vinyl editions, Chris Bellman cut the vinyl lacquers for the album’s new stereo mix at 45 rpm at Bernie Grundman Mastering, expanding the album’s vinyl footprint from one LP to two.
Beginning today, a previously unreleased, vastly different alternate version of “Rag Mama Rag,” with a slowed down tempo and opening with some rollicking ragtime piano in place of fiddle, is available for streaming and for immediate download with digital album preorder.
Clearmountain and Robertson’s approach to remixing the beloved album was done with the utmost care and respect for the music and what The Band represents. “The idea was to take you deeper inside the music, but this album is homemade,” Robertson says in the liner notes. “You can’t touch up a painting. It has nothing to do with what you get when you go into a recording studio.” When he expressed his concerns to Clearmountain, the renowned engineer and producer reassured him: “We’re just trying to overcome the original technological limitations in order to bring you closer into the room,” he explained. “I’m going to do everything in my power not to get in the way of this music at all.” The result is a new mix that allows listeners to hear these classic songs in stunning, and often times startling, clarity, packing more of a sonic and emotional punch than ever before. The included early and alternate versions offer fans the ability to hear the evolution of these tracks or as Robertson says, “That’s us trying to teach ourselves how to play these songs.”
After more than eight years of playing together, first as members of Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band, the Hawks, then as Levon & the Hawks and then as Bob Dylan’s backing band on his infamous 1965-66 tour, where they were booed nearly every night as they helped Dylan transition from folk to electric rock on his pivotal tour, Robertson, Danko, Manuel, and Hudson found a sanctuary in West Saugerties, New York at a house they dubbed “Big Pink.” Here they were able to get away from the chaos of the Dylan tour and work on their own music, often in the company of Dylan, who lived in nearby Woodstock. Over the next year, the foursome woodshedded songs and in this communal house had a relaxed, productive environment where they were free to create whenever the mood struck. In October 1967, Helm, who left the Dylan tour to return home to the south for a stint, re-joined his friends and The Band was born. The group wrote new music and prepared to record their first full-length album. Out of this also sprung “The Basement Tapes” with Dylan.
Released in 1968, The Band’s game-changing debut album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to spring from nowhere and everywhere. Drawing from the American roots music panoply of country, blues, R&B, gospel, soul, rockabilly, the honking tenor sax tradition, hymns, funeral dirges, brass band music, folk, and rock ‘n’ roll, The Band forged a timeless new style that forever changed the course of popular music.
Shortly after the release of Music From Big Pink, bassist Rick Danko broke his neck in a serious car crash and was in traction resulting in The Band’s inability to tour. This only fueled the mystique as they had yet to play live and had only done a few mysterious interviews, including a Rolling Stone cover story featuring a photo of them with their backs to the camera. Once Danko was healed, the guys relocated to Los Angeles to record their follow up album. Searching for the same clubhouse vibe they had at Big Pink, they eschewed a traditional studio and moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills that had previously been owned by Sammy Davis Jr. The place had enough bedrooms that the group could reside there with their families and a pool house where they set up the studio. While Capitol Records was dumbfounded the guys didn’t want to record in one of their state-of-the-art studios down the street, they ultimately relented and paid for the shipment of their equipment across the country. Recording here was not without its obstacles as getting an upright piano up to the house proved trying and since they were in a residential neighborhood, the pool house needed to be soundproofed from the outside, which was quite a sight.
Following dinner together with their families in the main house, The Band, joined by co-producer John Simon who helped shape their sound, as on their debut, would shuffle off to their makeshift studio to write and record their masterpiece, working through the night and stopping around dawn. Listening to these dusty, rural songs, it’s hard to believe they weren’t written in the Appalachian Mountains but instead perched up in the hills overlooking Los Angeles’ sprawling, smoggy metropolis.
It’s fitting then that the first song the group recorded for the album was “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” a Civil War story that was inspired by a visit Robertson made to Helm’s family in Marvell, Arkansas.
During one of their talks, Helm’s father insisted to Robertson that “The South will rise again!” “I felt that I understood something about Levon from meeting his family,” Robertson says. “I wanted to write a song that he could sing better than anyone in the world.” The song imbues the people of the South with a forlorn dignity much in contrast to their stereotypical portrayals in popular culture – and Helm’s heart-rending vocal tells the song’s story with consummate grace.
This was not subject matter that other songwriters were mining from at the time and illustrated how The Band’s primary songwriter, Robertson, did not draw inspiration from typical rock sources, instead pulling from history and his love of classic films and screenplays. As DeCurtis writes in his included essay, Robertson “also found it inspiring to conceive of The Band as a kind of repertory theater in which Manuel, Helm and Danko, three extraordinary and versatile vocalists, could be cast like characters in a play – each song its own carefully drawn portrait of a time, place and person that the singer could fully occupy.”
Indeed, The Band explores America’s thorny history through indelible archetypes — “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” refers to Union cavalry officer George Stoneman’s attack on southwestern Virginia in the last days of the Civil War, “King Harvest (Has Surely Come)” is sung from the perspective of a poverty-stricken farmer who becomes a “union man” to his disappointment, and “Up on Cripple Creek” is about a truck driver’s debauched time with a local girl in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
“It was a complicated record,” Helm wrote in his memoir, “This Wheel’s On Fire.” “We wanted to make one that you didn’t really get until the second time you played it.”
Shortly before releasing their sophomore effort, The Band played their second-ever show at Woodstock in front of nearly half a million people. Originally slated to close the festival, they opted to let Jimmy Hendrix end the three-day counterculture gathering so they could play earlier in the evening to better suit their music. By the time they went on around 10 pm, the rowdy masses were battered by a weekend of rough weather, loud music and an untold amount of substances and as Helm recounted in “Wheel,” “You kind of felt you were going into a war,” he wrote. “There weren’t any dressing rooms because they’d been turned into emergency clinics . . . The crowd was real tired and a little unhealthy.” Yet, The Band persevered and when they started to perform what Robertson calls “hymns,” a spell descended on the crowd and everyone mellowed out. For the first time, this transfixing 11-song performance can now be heard in full as part of the Super Deluxe boxed set. Being only The Band’s second show, the set focuses heavily on songs from Music From Big Pink, including “The Weight,” “Long Black Veil,” “Tears Of Rage,” “Chest Fever” and “This Wheel’s On Fire,” as well as their rendition of The Four Tops’ “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever.”
The Band was released on September 22, 1969 and made an immediate cultural impact. As DeCurtis writes, “it further enhanced the distinctive reputation The Band had earned with Music from Big Pink without at all diminishing the ineffable, category-defying quality of its music. The days of the group being a so-called ‘underground’ band were over. In short order, the Band appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show,’ one of only two television appearances the group would ever make, and it had a hit single with ‘Up on Cripple Creek.’ In addition, The Band appeared on the cover of Time magazine in January of 1970, the first North American group ever to do so.
The Band was instantly hailed by press with The Village Voice‘s chief music critic and senior editor Robert Christgau, calling it an “A-plus record if I’ve ever rated one” and deeming it “even better” than the Beatles’ classic Abbey Road, released the same week. Ralph J. Gleason wrote in his glowing review for Rolling Stone: “It is full of sleepers, diamonds that begin to glow at different times. As with the Beatles and Dylan and the Stones and Crosby-Stills and Nash, the album seems to change shape as you continue to play it. The emphasis shifts from song to song and songs prominent in the early listening will retreat and be replaced in your consciousness by others, only in later hearings to move to the fore again. Little things pop up unexpectedly after numerous listenings and the whole thing serves as a definition of what Gide meant by the necessity of art having density.”
The Band is preserved in the National Recording Registry and is included in the book 1001 Albums to Hear Before You Die. Rolling Stone crowned “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” the 249th greatest song of all time, and The Band No. 45 in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Time included it in their unranked 2006 list of the 100 greatest albums of all time. The Band was inducted into the GRAMMY® Hall Of Fame in 1999 and in 2017 won The Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize.
In 2018, the album was awarded a rare perfect 10 by Pitchfork in their Sunday Review, in which they exclaimed, “But ultimately, this record needed to be called The Band because it’s about the Band—how these men worked together, the way their personalities intersected and completed each other, the very architecture of their friendship. The album dispels all of the assumptions we carry about how bands are supposed to work—the songwriter is all-powerful, the rhythm section is the supporting cast, hierarchies are inevitable. The Band instead operates on a paradigm in which the power comes from the bottom up and authority is dispersed evenly among compatriots.” Now, listeners can experience that brotherhood once more on The Band (50th Anniversary Edition), in which five visionaries ended up capturing the soul of America with an album that’s influence still ripples through current music today five decades later.
The Band (50th Anniversary Edition) Track Listing
CD1; Digital
1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin’ Chair
9. Look Out Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. The Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Bonus Tracks:
1. Up On Cripple Creek (Earlier Take) *
2. Rag Mama Rag (Alternate Version) *
3. The Unfaithful Servant (Alternate Version) *
4. Look Out Cleveland (Instrumental Mix) *
5. Rockin’ Chair (A Cappella / Stripped Down) *
6. Up On Cripple Creek (Instrumental Mix) *
* Previous unreleased
CD2; Digital
Live At Woodstock, 1969 (Original Rough Mixes)
1. Chest Fever
2. Tears Of Rage
3. We Can Talk
4. Don’t Ya Tell Henry
5. Baby Don’t You Do It
6. Ain’t No More Cane On The Brazos
7. Long Black Veil
8. This Wheel’s On Fire
9. I Shall Be Released
10. The Weight
11. Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever
Additional Studio Bonus Tracks:
12. Get Up Jake (Outtake – Stereo Mix)
13. Rag Mama Rag (Alternate Vocal Take – Rough Mix)
14. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (Alternate Mix)
15. Up On Cripple Creek (Alternate Take)
16. Whispering Pines (Alternate Take)
17. Jemima Surrender (Alternate Take)
18. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) (Alternate Performance)
Blu-ray (Stereo and 5.1 Surround – High Resolution Audio: 96 kHz/24 bit)
1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin’ Chair
9. Look Out Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. The Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
Bonus Tracks:
13. Up On Cripple Creek (Earlier Version)
14. Rag Mama Rag (Alternate Version)
15. The Unfaithful Servant Alternate Version)
16. Look Out Cleveland (Instrumental Mix)
17. Rockin’ Chair (A Cappella / Stripped Down)
18. Up On Cripple Creek (Instrumental Mix)
“Classic Albums – The Band” (Documentary)
2LP (45 RPM)
180g black vinyl (included in the box set and available individually); ltd. edition 180g pink vinyl (available individually)
Side One
1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
Side Two
1. When You Awake
2. Up On Cripple Creek
3. Whispering Pines
Side Three
1. Jemima Surrender
2. Rockin’ Chair
3. Look Out Cleveland
Side Four
1. Jawbone
2. The Unfaithful Servant
3. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
“Rag Mama Rag” (Original 1969 7″ Capitol Single)
A. Rag Mama Rag
B. The Unfaithful Servant
SiriusXM to Launch “The Johnny Carson Channel” in October
Today SiriusXM announced the launch of The Johnny Carson Channel on October 1. The month-long special programming will air on channel 105 and feature the top, handpicked episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Johnny Carson’s influence on the comedy world and the history of American pop culture is immeasurable. From his can’t-miss opening monologues to classic characters such as Carnac the Magnificent, Carson broke the TV mold to inspire what is now the all-important genre of late night television. His tremendous national platform also helped launch the careers of household names including Jerry Seinfeld, Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres, David Letterman, and Jay Leno, to name a few.
“Johnny Carson changed the game and set the standard for late night talk shows. It’s so good to hear these amazing shows again!” DeGeneres said of the new SiriusXM Carson channel.
SiriusXM’s The Johnny Carson Channel will feature notable classic moments, including the first Tonight Show stand-up appearances of Seinfeld (1981), Leno (1977), and DeGeneres (1986), in addition to the debut of Eddie Murphy (1982). There will also be hilarious moments from Richard Pryor and Rodney Dangerfield’s 1974 stand-up appearances, as well as interviews with Lucille Ball, Muhammad Ali, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Billy Crystal, and Oprah Winfrey, in her first Tonight Show interview back in 1986. Listeners will hear the episodes from the classic theme song to the opening monologue to the guests, with the exception of musical performances.
Additionally, SiriusXM has produced and collected interviews with over 50 of the most respected comedians in the world reflecting on their favorite Carson moments, and their stories will be aired among the episodes. The talent will include: Leno, Bob Newhart, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Howie Mandel, Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Kevin Nealon, Rita Rudner, Joel McHale, Bob Saget, and more.
“Johnny Carson was a national treasure who still holds a tremendous fan base,” said Scott Greenstein, President and Chief Content Officer, SiriusXM. “SiriusXM listeners can now rediscover their favorite Carson moments, many of them for the first time in decades, and I’m also thrilled to help introduce his comedy to a whole new audience of young comedy fans.”
SiriusXM subscribers with streaming access can listen to SiriusXM’s 200+ channels – including The Johnny Carson Channel – at home on a wide variety of connected devices including smart TVs, Amazon Alexa devices, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation, Roku, Sonos speakers and more. Go to www.SiriusXM.com/AtHome to learn more.
The Police: Remastered versions of ‘Reggatta de Blanc,’ ‘Zenyatta Mondatta,’ ‘Ghost in the Machine’ and ‘Synchronicity’ to be reissued on heavyweight vinyl
The Police will be reissuing re-mastered 180-gram heavyweight vinyl of ‘Reggatta de Blanc,’ ‘Zenyatta Mondatta,’ ‘Ghost in the Machine’ and ‘Synchronicity’ as well as a 6-CD boxset ‘Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings’ that brings together all their studio albums with the addition of a bonus disc of B-sides entitled ‘Flexible Strategies,’ on November 8, 2019.
‘Reggatta de Blanc’ – Originally released in 1979, this is the band’s second album and their first album to reach No. 1 in the U.K. It features the band’s first two chart-topping hit singles – “Message in a Bottle” and “Walking on the Moon,” while the album’s title-track received the GRAMMY® Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1980. In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine named it one of their 500 greatest albums of all time.
‘Zenyatta Mondatta’ – The third Police album, released in 1980, is regarded as one of the finest rock albums of all time and again reached No. 1 in the U.K. album chart, as well as No. 5 in the U.S., and features two classic hit singles – “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.” The album won two GRAMMY® Awards including Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and Best Rock Instrumental Performance for “Behind My Camel.”
‘Ghost in the Machine’ – Originally released in 1981, their fourth studio album was No. 1 on the U.K. album chart, No. 2 in the U.S. and is a multi-platinum bestseller. It features three hit singles – “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” “Invisible Sun” and “Spirits in the Material World.” Their jazz influences became more pronounced, but the album had a very strong, sophisticated pop appeal. This album was also included in Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest albums of all time.
‘Synchronicity’ – The fifth and final studio album was released 1983 and was the band’s most commercially successful album. This album made The Police global superstars, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and generating no less than four classic hit singles – “Every Breath You Take,” “King of Pain,” “Wrapped Around Your Finger,” and “Synchronicity II.” At the 1983 GRAMMY® Awards, the album was nominated for a total of four awards, including Album of the Year, and won for Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal for the title track “Synchronicity” and Best Pop Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal “Every Breath You Take.” ‘Synchronicity’ is considered one of the most important albums of all-time consistently appearing in “Greatest Album Lists” and earning an induction into the GRAMMY® Hall Of Fame in 2009.
Following the 40th-anniversary vinyl box of the same name, ‘Every Move You Make: The Studio Recordings’ is a limited edition 6-CD box set, featuring all five studio albums plus a bonus 12-track disc – ‘Flexible Strategies’ – comprised of non-album b-sides (including a very rare remix of “Truth Hits Everybody”). All albums are full-color gatefold CD digipak wallets housed in a lift-off lid clamshell-style box and have been remastered at Abbey Road. The Police’s studio albums include – ‘Outlandos d’Amour’ (1978), ‘Reggatta de Blanc’ (1979), ‘Zenyatta Mondatta’ (1980), ‘Ghost in the Machine’ (1981) and ‘Synchronicity’ (1983).
Formed in 1977, The Police are comprised of Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers. During their existence, their contribution to the lexicon of rock was immense. The originality of their music fused elements from both punk and reggae to form a brilliant new style that can only be described as “Music of The Police.” Having sold in excess of 50 million albums worldwide, The Police had phenomenal chart success and earned a multitude of accolades both public and critical, but they never allowed such peripherals to overshadow their commitment to the music itself.
“The Al Franken Show” to Launch on SiriusXM’s Progress Channel Starting September 28
Today SiriusXM announced that comedian and former United States Senator Al Franken will launch his own weekly radio show on SiriusXM Progress channel 127. Starting September 28, the one-hour program will premiere every Saturday at 10:00 a.m. ET, with replays throughout the day, and will also be available On Demand.
Broadcast from SiriusXM’s studios in Washington, DC, “The Al Franken Show” will feature the five-time Emmy winner hosting thought-provoking conversations with headliners and experts in the fields of politics, entertainment, media, technology, global affairs, and more. The program will premiere with expected first guest Chris Rock, with former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and comedian Patton Oswalt scheduled for future shows.
“I’m excited to be back on SiriusXM, which carried my Air America show back in the day,” said Franken. “Listeners can expect a mix of guests from my comedian friends like Chris Rock, to my political pals like former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to policy experts on the issues in play in 2020. When I’m interviewing Harry or former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, I‘ll be the funny one. When I interview Rock or Patton Oswalt, I‘ll be the one who served eight-and-a-half years in the Senate.”
In addition to hosting his own show, the former Minnesota senator will join the SiriusXM Progress team for special coverage of the 2020 elections, including presidential debates, primaries, and Election Night. Franken will also make regular appearances on various shows throughout the Progress lineup.
SiriusXM subscribers can hear “The Al Franken Show” every Saturday morning on SiriusXM Progress channel 127, as well as on the SiriusXM app and desktop web player. It will also continue to be available as a podcast the following day.
Additionally, SiriusXM subscribers with streaming access can hear the program on a wide variety of connected devices including smart TVs, Amazon Alexa devices, Apple TV, Sony PlayStation, Roku, Sonos speakers and more. Go to www.SiriusXM.com/AtHome to learn more.
Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Farewell Concert Rocks Cinema Screens Nationwide on November 7
On November 7, Fathom Events will bring the legendary southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd to cinemas around the country with the exclusive theatrical release of their farewell concert performance. The concert film, directed by multi award-winning director Shaun Silva and Tacklebox Films, will feature their 2018 hometown stadium performance from the “Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour” at TIAA Bank Field (Home of the Jacksonville Jaguars) in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as an intimate interview with the band about their experiences on tour and what performing together has meant to them.
Tickets for “Lynyrd Skynyrd: Last of The Street Survivors Farewell Tour” will be available beginning Friday, October 4, at www.FathomEvents.com and participating theater box offices.
“We can’t wait to share this amazing night and performance with the Skynyrd Nation, especially those that weren’t able to be there that evening,” said Gary Rossington. “The energy, passion and reaction to the music and band was something we will never forget.”
Presented by Fathom Events, in partnership with Vector Management and event producer Spencer Proffer of Meteor 17, this special one-night event will premiere in cinemas nationwide on Thursday, November 7, at 7:00 p.m. local time. A complete list of theater locations will be available October 4 on the Fathom website (theaters and participants are subject to change). Fathom Events has also obtained the global distribution rights to the content, with more details to come about international screenings, including dates and locations.
Last year the Southern Rock icons announced that after a career that has spanned more than 40 years and includes a catalog of more than 60 albums with more than 30 million units sold, they would embark on their Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour. Produced by Live Nation, the farewell tour logged over 50 stops by the end of 2018 and has continued throughout 2019 taking the band across the country and around the globe giving fans one last unforgettable night of classic American Rock-and-Roll.
“This cinema event showcases one of America’s greatest rock bands in an iconic final performance,” said Meteor 17 CEO, Spencer Proffer. “I’m excited to collaborate with my partners at Fathom and Vector to bring this milestone concert to Lynyrd Skynyrd fans around the world.”
“Having the band come home, one last time to Jacksonville and in front of 50,000 fans, was an incredible night,” said Ross Schilling of Vector Management. “Those iconic songs and music prove once again that Skynyrd is one of the greatest American Rock and Roll bands of all time.”
“We’re thrilled to bring one of America’s most iconic bands to movie theaters across the country and give their many fans an opportunity to come together and enjoy one of their final performances,” said Fathom Events CEO Ray Nutt. “This is a historic moment in music, and we are excited to collaborate with Meteor 17 and Vector to once again bring a momentous music performance to a worldwide audience.”