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Hear John Lennon’s Final Interview, From The Last Day of His Life

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Hear John Lennon’s Final Interview, From The Last Day of His Life

On December 8, 1980, Dave Sholin and his RKO Radio crew interviewed John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Dakota Apartment in Manhattan for over three hours. Tragically, it would be Lennon’s very last interview—not one of the last—the last. He was shot dead just hours later in the very entryway of the building that Sholin and his crew had just left. Shot dead by a “fan” whom they had seen hanging around the Dakota as they left.

Sholin would receive the news after landing in San Francisco. The most incredible day of his life suddenly turned into a nightmare. Now that he had Lennon’s last words in his hands, some of which were incredibly prophetic, his day lasted another three without sleep. He immediately was summoned to the station for live on-camera interviews with every news program including Good Morning America, which was going live at 4am PST (7am EST) to talk about John Lennon’s tragic murder and the legacy he had left behind. The world was in deep mourning.

RKO Radio had planned to put together a fully produced radio program on Lennon based on this interview that would air the following month, but now they had just four days to get this out to a grieving public.

The bit about the sixties we were all full of hope and then everybody got depressed and the seventies were terrible – that attitude that everybody has; that the sixties was therefore negated for being naïve and dumb. And the seventies is really where it’s at, which means, you know, putting makeup on and dancing in the disco – which was fine for the seventies – but I don’t negate the sixties. I don’t negate the seventies. The … the seeds that were planted in the sixties – and possibly they were planted generations before – but the seed… whatever happened in the sixties the… the flowering of that is in the feminist, feminization of society. The meditation, the positive learning that people are doing in all walks of life. That is a direct result of the opening up of the sixties. Now, maybe in the sixties we were naïve and like children everybody went back to their room and said, ‘Well, we didn’t get a wonderful world of just flowers and peace and happy chocolate and, and, and it wasn’t just pretty and beautiful all the time’ and that’s what everybody did, ‘we didn’t get everything we wanted’ just like babies and everybody went back to their rooms and sulked. And we’re just gonna play rock and roll and not do anything else . We’re gonna stay in our rooms and the world is a nasty, horrible place ’cause it didn’t give us everything we cried for’, right? Cryin’ for it wasn’t enough. The thing the sixties did was show us the possibility and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility, and the seventies everybody gone ‘Nya, nya, nya, nya’. And possibly in the eighties everybody’ll say, ‘Well, ok, let’s project the positive side of life again’, you know? The world’s been goin’ on a long time, right? It’s probably gonna go on a long time… ”

Robert Plant Announces North American Tour Dates With The Pixies

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Robert Plant Announces North American Tour Dates With The Pixies

Kicking off Sunday, May 24, at the Sasquatch! Festival in George, WA, Robert Plant and the Sensational Space Shifters are playing a string of North American summer dates. This includes his return to Bonnaroo the weekend of June 12, and finishing off the run in Philadelphia at The Mann Center. The complete itinerary is below.

Tickets will go on sale Friday 20 March at 10am ET via robertplant.com. Each ticket to the non-festival shows will include a CD of the band’s latest album, lullaby and…The Ceaseless Roar. The Pixies will be opening five of these shows; JD McPherson four of them.

Citi cardmembers will have access to presale tickets for the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, CA performances from Wednesday, March 18 at 10am PT through Thursday, March 19 at 10pm PT. For more information, please visit citiprivatepass.com.

The tour is in support of Robert Plant’s lullaby and… The Ceaseless Roar, which was named one of the top 50 albums of the year by NPR, which said, “At 66, the singer is still a majestic rock presence, at peace with the legacy of his hard-rock-defining band Led Zeppelin, while remaining relentlessly creative in his solo work. But on his 10th solo album, Plant does pause by those waters to consider the aesthetic, emotional and spiritual currents that have shaped his illustrious life. He finds himself, characteristically, not saddened but renewed… Not one of these songs sounds precisely like its source; that’s the genius of this album. It lovingly layers elements in ways that mirror memory, creating new constructs from floating shards of the musical past.”

Robert described lullaby and…The Ceaseless Roar as, “a celebratory record, powerful, gritty, African, Trance meets Zep.” He continued, “The whole impetus of my life as a singer has to be driven by a good brotherhood. I am very lucky to work with The Sensational Space Shifters. They come from exciting areas of contemporary music…”

Full North American tour dates:

MAY
24 – George, WA – Sasquatch! Festival
25 – Bend, OR – Les Schwab Amphitheater
27 – Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot #
28 – Las Vegas, NV – Brooklyn Bowl #
30 – Napa, CA – BottleRock Festival
31 – Santa Barbara, CA – Santa Barbara Bowl #

JUNE
2 – Los, Angeles, CA – Greek Theatre #
5 – Hunter, NY – Mountain Jam Festival
7 – Toronto, ONT – Molson Amphitheatre %
9 – Rochester Hills, MI – Meadowbrook Music Festival %
10 – Chicago, IL – FirstMerit Bank Pavilion @ Northerly Island %
12 – Memphis, TN – Mud Island Amphitheatre
12 – 14 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Festival
15 – Raleigh, NC – Koka Booth Amphitheater %
17 – Philadelphia, PA – Mann Center %

# JD McPherson support
% Pixies support

Starbucks is encouraging baristas to discuss race relations with customers

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NYT_RT

From Starbucks:

As racially-charged tragedies unfolded in communities across the country, the Chairman and CEO of Starbucks didn’t remain a silent bystander. Howard Schultz voiced his concerns with partners (employees) in the company’s Seattle headquarters and started a discussion about race in America.

Despite raw emotion around racial unrest from Ferguson, Missouri to New York City to Oakland, “we at Starbucks should be willing to talk about these issues in America,” Schultz said. “Not to point fingers or to place blame, and not because we have answers, but because staying silent is not who we are.”

Partners were not silent. For more than an hour, at an all-hands meeting at the Starbucks Support Center, partners representing various ages, races and ethnicities passed a microphone and shared personal stories.

“The current state of racism in our country is almost like humidity at times. You can’t see it, but you feel it,” said one partner.

Over the past three months, more than 2,000 Starbucks partners have discussed racial issues at open forums in Oakland, Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York and Chicago.

In the midst of a conversation with partners in St. Louis, a soft spoken young man shared that he was proud to have reached the age of 20.

“The magnitude of that statement might have been lost on many in the room, but for me, it brought to light a deeply troubling situation. For some young people in our country, just staying alive is their biggest and most important accomplishment,” said Kelly Sheppard, a Starbucks 15-year partner who attended two of the forums. “How could that be in 21st century America with all of the promise and opportunity our nation provides?”

In each forum, partners demonstrated vulnerability and courage as they shared personal stories. It was clear to those who attended, the gatherings highlighted the mission and values of Starbucks, and the partners’ desire to do more.

Baristas in cities where the forums were held said they wanted to do something tangible to encourage greater understanding, empathy and compassion toward one another. Given their willingness to discuss race relations, many partners wanted to begin conversations with their customers too. Partners in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Oakland and Los Angeles have voluntarily begun writing “Race Together” on Starbucks cups. Partners in all Starbucks stores in the U.S. will join them today. Partners in Starbucks® stores may also engage customers in conversation through Race Together stickers available in select stores, and a special USA Today newspaper section arriving in stores later this week.

In addition, full-page ads in The New York Times and USA Today support the Race Together initiative, which will be further outlined during Starbucks 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Seattle on Wednesday.

Race Together is not a solution, Schultz acknowledged, “but it is an opportunity to begin to re-examine how we can create a more empathetic and inclusive society – one conversation at a time.”

USA_Today_RT_v2

The best movie dance sequences in the history of film in 3 minutes and 19 seconds

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The best movie dance sequences in the history of film in 3 minutes and 19 seconds

Thanks to a supercut video, viewers can experience the joy of the best movie dance sequences in the history of film for 3 minutes and 19 seconds. “It’s all one song,” as Neil Young would say.

The video pairs Walk the Moon’s “Shut Up and Dance” with iconic dance sequences from films, including Big and Little Miss Sunshine. Don’t be surprised if the song makes it back up to the charts due to the social media impact of this compilation.

James Brown on The Mike Douglas Show 1971

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On May 11, 1971, Mike Douglas welcomed guests include Betsy Palmer, Enzo Stuarti, Clay Tyson, Honey & The Bees, Kim & Tom Pisut. AND JAMES BROWN! BROTHERS AND SISTERS! JAMES BROWN, EVERYBODY!

Lawrence Kasdan’s Handwritten Screenplay for “The Empire Strikes Back”

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Lawrence Kasdan's Handwritten Screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (1)

Lawrence Kasdan's Handwritten Screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (2)
Yoda Training Luke

Lawrence Kasdan's Handwritten Screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (3)
Han Resucing Luke on Hoth

Lawrence Kasdan's Handwritten Screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (4)
Han and Leia Bickering/Flirting on Hoth

Lawrence Kasdan's Handwritten Screenplay for The Empire Strikes Back (5)
Han Getting Frozen in Carbonite

What Sneezing Into A Trombone Sounds Like

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What Sneezing Into A Trombone Sounds Like

Things were going well until this trombonist was overcome with the sudden urge to sneeze.

Riff-Mania! The Stories Behind Iconic Guitar Riffs

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From Gibson:

From Chuck Berry to The Beatles to the Stones and beyond, the guitar riff has served as the foundation for many of rock and roll’s most enduring classics. To tell the background behind every great riff would be a monumental task, but we thought it would be fun to present the stories behind some of the best, as told by the players themselves.

Led Zeppelin II

“Whole Lotta Love,” Led Zeppelin

Jimmy Page (as told to BBC News): “I wanted a riff that really moved, that people would really get, and would bring a smile to their faces, but when I played it with the band, it really went into overdrive. There was this intent to have this riff and the movement of it, so it was menacing as well as quite sort of caressing.”

“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” The Rolling Stones

Keith Richards (as told to NPR): “I go to bed as usual with my guitar, and I wake up the next morning, and I see that the tape is run to the very end. And I think, ‘Well, I didn’t do anything. Maybe I hit a button when I was asleep.’ So I put it back to the beginning, and pushed play, and there, in some sort of ghostly version, is [the opening lines to ‘Satisfaction’]. After that, there’s 40 minutes of me snoring.”

“Smoke on the Water,” Deep Purple

Ritchie Blackmore (as told to Guitar International): “I was trying to get an edge to what we were doing in Deep Purple, which is why I wanted something so powerful. But the thing is, I’ve seen people play it, and they always seem to strum it. I actually pick the notes with two fingers at the same time, the thumb and the first finger. Just the two notes. It’s a finger-style riff.

“Walk This Way,” Aerosmith

Joe Perry (as told to Gibson.com, 2007): “I stumbled onto that riff at a sound check. I can remember sitting there thinking how much I like James Brown, and the Meters, and I wanted to write a song that had that sort of R&B feel. That was the motivation, and that’s what started the riff. As far as the lyrics go, I didn’t know it was going to go that way, and I don’t think Steven did either. He just knew that the piece of music was in line with the type of music we liked, and that’s why it kind of stuck around. It just kept shouting, ‘Sing over me!’ But I didn’t know how it was going to go. He just kind of let it fly.”

“Layla,” Derek and the Dominos

Eric Clapton (as told to Uncut, 2006): “We spent a lot of time working together on the guitars and Duane was very instrumental in the development of the song. He came up with this riff that was pretty much a direct lift from an Albert King song, ‘As The Years Go Passing By,’ from the Stax album Born Under A Bad Sign. It’s a slow blues and there’s a line that goes, ‘There is nothing I can do, if you leave me here to cry’, and we used that.”

Sony unveils cassette tape that can hold 64,750,000 songs

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Sony unveils cassette tape that can hold 64,750,000 songs

From Consequence of Sound:

For a time, the cassette tape absolutely dominated the sales market. In 1990 alone, a staggering 442 million tapes were sold. However, with the rise of the CD, the birth of the mp3, and the eventual resurrection of vinyl, sales dwindled, and by 2007 only a mere 274,000 individual cassettes were sold. Sure, cassette-centric labels like Kissability and Mirror Universe Tapes have offered the cassette a new and niche following, but it’s a clear sign of the times when the cassette’s accompanying Walkman is regarded like some alien artifact.

Now, though, Sony has brought the cassette back from the dead by unveiling a tape that can hold a whopping 148 gigabytes per square inch. If you can’t do the math, that’s 185 terabytes of total data. We’ll wait as you toss your iPod into the trash.

The tape, which was unveiled this weekend at the International Magnetics Conference in Dresden, holds approximately 74 times the amount of data of standard tapes. (For comparison, by 2010, most standard tapes could only store about 29.5 GB per square inch.)

Divine influence or magic aside, how exactly did Sony manage to boost the potential of the 50-plus-year-old magnetic tape technology? According to Gizmodo:

“The tape uses a vacuum-forming technique called sputter deposition to create a layer of magnetic crystals by shooting argon ions at a polymer film substrate. The crystals, measuring just 7.7 nanometers on average, pack together more densely than any other previous method.”

Ringo Starr Announces North American Tour Dates + Wide Release Publication of His book: ‘PHOTOGRAPH’

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Ringo Starr Announces North American Tour Dates + Wide Release Publication of His book: ‘PHOTOGRAPH’

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Fresh off a February/March 2015 All Starr Tour, Ringo announces another string of tour dates with his current All-Starr Band, bringing the band he doesn’t want to stop playing with coast-to-coast across North America from October 1 to October 31. Prior to the tour on September 21, Ringo and Genesis Publications will publish his photography book, PHOTOGRAPH, in wide release. This Spring will see the March 31 release of Ringo’s new album, POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE, by Universal Music Enterprises, and on April 18, he will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where he will be honored with the Award for Musical Excellence.

In PHOTOGRAPH, Ringo Starr reveals never-before-seen photographs and mementos from his archives, sharing memories of his childhood, The Beatles and beyond. Ringo’s lens captures his Beatles bandmates in pensive and playful moments, portraying them from the point of view of an insider, friend and skilled photographer. In an original manuscript of over 15,000 words, join Ringo growing up amidst the excitement of the emerging Merseybeat scene, as he remembers his first car, drum-kits, girls and bands on his ‘road of happy drumming’. From Pwllheli to Delhi, obscurity to superstardom, his travels are recounted with honesty and hilarity.

That same honesty and hilarity continues on the road now with the All-Starrs, with whom he has forged a bond that is evident in every show they play. Ringo’s playful spirit also comes across through his Twitter, where he shares his candid and of-the-moment photographs and trademark humor.

“I love pictures put together, showing different times of your life, “Ringo said about the book, “At the time, I never thought that there would be a whole book of my photographs.”

PHOTOGRAPH was originally conceived as a limited edition book of only 2,500 copies, which sold out within weeks. Two years later, Ringo Starr and Genesis Publications announce the ‘Open Edition’ – a more accessible and affordable printing of his book to be released in bookstores this September 2015. The author is donating all royalties to the Lotus Foundation.

Ringo Starr’s 18th studio release, POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE, features 11 original tracks and is his first album to include a song written and recorded by Ringo and his current All-Starr Band – Steve Lukather, Todd Rundgren, Gregg Rolie, Richard Page, Warren Ham and Gregg Bissonette. POSTCARDS FROM PARADISE was produced by Ringo and recorded at his home studio in Los Angeles and, as always, features friends and family. The album’s guest artists include: Joe Walsh, Benmont Tench, Dave Stewart, Ann Marie Simpson, Richard Marx, Amy Keys, Peter Frampton, Nathan East, and Glen Ballard.

Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band on Tour:

Oct 1 The Masonic, San Francisco, CA
Oct 2 Vina Robles Ampitheater, Paso Robles, CA
Oct 3 Field of Dreams, Sonoma, CA
Oct 6 Century Link Arena, Boise, ID
Oct 8 Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre Victoria, BC
Oct 9 Queen Elizabeth Theatre Vancouver, BC
Oct 10 South Okanagan Event Ctr, Penticton, BC
Oct 12 Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton, AL
Oct 13 Jubilee Auditorium, Calgary, AL
Oct 14 Brandt Centre, Regina, SA
Oct 16 State Theater, Minneapolis, MN
Oct 17 Riverside Theater, Milwaukee, WI
Oct 18 Fox Theater, Detroit, MI
Oct 20 Massey Hall Toronto, ON
Oct 21 St Denis Theatre Montreal, QU
Oct 23 Wang Theater, Boston, MA
Oct 24 Foxwood Theater, Mashantucket, CT
Oct 25 State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ
Oct 27 Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, PA
Oct 28 Lyric Opera House, Baltimore, MD
Oct 30 Tower Theater, Philadelphia, PA
Oct 31 Kings Theater, Brooklyn, NY

 

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That Eric Alper

Eric Alper is a 6-time nominee for Publicist of the Year during Canadian Music Week and has overseen the publicity campaigns for over 183 JUNO Award-nominated albums (and 16 in 2025), 45 Grammy-nominated albums, including 47 JUNO Award, 58 Canadian Folk Music Award, 126 Maple Blues Award-winning albums and is also truly honoured to work with some of the biggest and most important artists of our time.

Contact me: eric@thatericalper.com

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