2010 – U.K. Declares Abbey Road A Historic Site
February 23, 2010

2010 – With all the talk about EMI possibly selling Abbey Road Studios, the U.K. government has stepped in and declared it a historic site so that no radical changes can be made. Culture Minister Margaret Hodge declared the iconic venue a “Grade II” listed building, which means that although changes to its interior are permitted, any proposed alterations must respect the character and preservation of the site. In a statement, Hodge said the listing had been granted “overwhelmingly on the historic merit of the studios” and because “it has huge cultural importance and a very special place in the hearts of recording artists and music lovers alike.”

“The Abbey Road Studios have been listed in acknowledgement of their outstanding cultural interest and to ensure that recording artists for generations to come can continue to make and record music in the same rooms as musical icons of years gone by,” said Hodge’s statement. “Music – of whichever genre – is the thread that follows us through all our lives and Abbey Road Studios have produced some of the very best music in the world. It’s a testament to both the importance of music in people’s lives as well as the passion this kind of issue stirs up, that so much interest has been generated by the perceived threat to the future of Abbey Road.”

Among those calling for the studios to be saved were Sir Paul McCartney and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who signaled that he was a potential buyer. However, EMI said over the weekend that it did not want to sell Abbey Road, although it was talking to other parties about revitalizing the site. EMI said it had been in discussions since November 2009 to find ways to regenerate the studios.

“EMI confirms that it is holding preliminary discussions for the revitalization of Abbey Road with interested and appropriate third parties,” the company said in the statement. “We believe that Abbey Road should remain in EMI’s ownership.”

2009 – Yahoo annouced Yesterday, December 3rd,  that Michael Jackson’s Death was the most searched term for there search engine on the Internet. A record Previously held by Britney Spears.

2009 – Bon Jovi has added a performance at the 20th anniversary celebration for the fall of the Berlin Wall in Germany to what’s already a jammed promotional schedule for its new album, “The Circle.”

The group is currently slated to be the only entertainment act at the Nov. 9 ceremony, performing “The Circle’s” first single “We Weren’t Born to Follow.” Jon Bon Jovi tells Billboard.com that he “wrote a fan letter, ‘to whom it may concern,’ stating about how we’ve had such a relationship with Germany for all these years and how relevant the song is to the situation and how I was there chipping away a piece of the wall 20 years ago when it came down.”

The German government responded with an invitation. “They heard the lyric and got it and said ‘yeah,’” Bon Jovi notes. “It’s a pretty big deal.”

With “The Circle” coming out Nov. 10, Bon Jovi is also gearing up for its Artists in Residence partnership with NBC, which will kick off with a Nov. 4 “Today” show interview from London, where the group is currently promoting the album. The quintet will appear on the show Wednesday during November, with outdoor plaza performances on Nov. 11 and 25 and an in-studio interview on Nov. 18.

Also on the docket are appearances on the “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams,” participation in the network’s The More You Know public service campaign and an episode of the NBC-owned Bravo channel’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio.” “James Lipton, Christ almighty, that guy’s crazy,” Bon Jovi says with a laugh. “He made us sit there for four hours! He wouldn’t stop asking questions. But it worked. I think it’s gonna make for an interesting program.”

Bon Jovi’s music, meanwhile, will also be used for Notre Dame football and NFL broadcasts; the Nov. 15 prime-time game between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts will feature “This is Our House,” one of three new songs Bon Jovi recorded for greatest hits album that’s slated to be released in late 2010.

While all this is going on, Bon Jovi is gearing up for a world tour that kicks off Feb. 19 in Seattle and is expected to last two years, covering 30 countries. Over the weekend the group sold out the first 10 of its 20-show residence next June at London’s O2 Arena as well as three concerts at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Bon Jovi says more shows will be added to the latter stand.

“We’re gonna go out for quite while,” Bon Jovi says, “but it’s what I like to call a gentleman’s tour. We take long breaks. I actually told the guys…’Get used to it; we’re actually gonna rehearse for a change.’ They were like, ‘Oh, no…’ We’re not big on pre-production, y’know?”

2007 – The mighty Led Zeppelin’s eagerly-awaited reunion concert in London was postponed for two weeks after guitarist Jimmy Page broke a finger. The tribute concert in honour of late Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun scheduled for 26 November would now take place on 10 December. More than a million fans applied for the 20,000 tickets available, which cost £125 each, about $260 US. Profits from the show would go towards scholarships in Ertegun’s name in the UK, USA and the country of his birth Turkey.

2009 – BLACK SABBATH’s Tony Iommi Undergoing Stem Cell Treatment To Fix Injured Hand

BLACK SABBATH guitar legend Tony Iommi spoke with The Radcliffe & Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 this week about his recent hand injury. “We’re just taking a break now,” Iommi says about the brief HEAVEN AND HELL hiatus – the band also featuring singer Ronnie James Dio, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinnie Appice.

“I’ve had this problem with my hand and I’m having stem cell treatment on it,” Iommi continues. “I have to wear a guard on my hand to prevent me from banging it. But it’s coming along good. The cartilage went out on the joints, so the joints were rubbing on the joints. It was bone on bone and it was getting a bit painful. I’ve had pain for about 18 months and have been taking anti-inflammatories and pain killers. But I wanted to stop doing it because it upsets your stomach. This is the latest thing, so we’ll see if it works.”

(Note: stem cell treatments are a type of cell therapy that introduce new cells into damaged tissue in order to treat a disease or injury)

Iommi also chats about the band’s vital OZZY OSBOURNE-era catalog reissues that are currently out in the UK. Iommi says that “everything will come out” as a deluxe edition at some point in time.

Regarding the 30th Anniversary of the Heaven & Hell album in 2010, Iommi promises more shows next year.

Bon Jovi rocks

2009 – Bon Jovi announce world Tour!

(PR) With New Jersey’s New Meadowlands Stadium as their backdrop, GRAMMY Award-winning hometown heroes Bon Jovi performed at a concert and media event Thursday that announced “The Circle World Tour.”

The band is preparing to spend nearly two years spanning the globe, including the kickoff event of New Meadowlands Stadium, scheduled for May 26th and 27th, 2010. The New Meadowlands concerts will go on sale beginning at 10am on Saturday, October 31st, while additional tour dates go on sale November 9th and 16th.

Beginning with the band’s North American tour launch on February 19th, 2010 in Seattle, WA, Bon Jovi will spend much of the next two years on the road, performing 135 shows in 30 countries. Following in the footsteps of their hugely successful “Lost Highway Tour, Bon Jovi will draw fans around the world into The Circle, with a residency at London’s O2 Arena in June 2010 before returning to America in the fall for an additional nationwide leg, and further dates well into 2011.

“It is often said that the third time is a charm, and in the case of the Bon Jovi/AEG Live relationship, this axiom certainly holds,” said Randy Phillips, President and CEO of AEG Live. “AEG Live has been honored to serve as the band’s worldwide tour promoters, from the 2005 ‘Have A Nice Day’ tour to the highest grossing tour of 2008, ‘Lost Highway,’ to the upcoming ‘The Circle World Tour’ in 2010. Bon Jovi is one of the most prolific and exciting live rock bands in the world.”

The band’s Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, David Bryan and Tico Torres performed an exclusive set for a select group of 5,000 lucky contest winners, fan club members, and on-site construction workers currently at work building the New Meadowlands Stadium. Bon Jovi was also joined by New York Jets Chairman & CEO Woody Johnson, New York Giants President & CEO, John Mara, as well as President & CEO of the New Meadowlands Stadium Company, Mark Lamping. New York’s powerhouse radio station WPLJ DJ, Race Taylor, served as emcee. Live footage of the event is available at www.BonJovi.com.

Having sold more than 120 million albums and performed more than 2,600 concerts in over 50 countries for more than 34 million fans, Bon Jovi is at their best when they’re on the move, and that’s truer now than ever before. The November 10th, 2009 release of Bon Jovi’s new album, The Circle, and the band’s subsequent world tour, provides a powerful reassertion of Bon Jovi’s commitment to the hard-hitting rock & roll that has been the band’s indelible signature since it began more than 26 years ago.

Bon Jovi’s 2010 “The Circle World Tour” North American Itinerary
February 19 Seattle, WA KeyArena
February 22 San Jose, CA HP Pavilion
February 24 Phoenix, AZ Jobing.com Arena
February 26 Anaheim, CA Honda Center
March 2 Sacramento, CA ARCO Arena
March 4 Los Angeles, CA STAPLES Center
March 6 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
March 8 Denver, CO Pepsi Center
March 9 Omaha, NE Qwest Center
March 11 Wichita, KS INTRUST Bank Arena
March 13 Fargo, ND Fargodome
March 15 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
March 17 Detroit, MI The Palace of Auburn Hills
March 19 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
March 20 Montreal, QC Bell Centre
March 23 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Center
March 24 Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Center
March 29 Washington, D.C. Verizon Center
April 7 St. Paul, MN Xcel Center
April 10 Dallas, TX American Airlines Center
April 13 Tulsa, OK BOK Center
April 15 Atlanta, GA Philips Arena
April 17 Tampa, FL St. Pete Times Forum
April 18 Ft. Lauderdale, FL BankAtlantic Center
April 21 Nashville, TN Sommet Center
April 22 Charlotte, NC Time Warner Cable Arena
May 26 East Rutherford, NJ New Meadowlands Stadium
May 27 East Rutherford, NJ New Meadowlands Stadium
July 15 Edmonton, AB Commonwealth Stadium
July 17 Winnipeg, MB Canad Inns Stadium
July 20 Toronto, ON Rogers Centre
July 24 Foxboro, MA Gillette Stadium
July 28 Regina, SK Mosaic Stadium at Taylor Field
July 30 Chicago, IL Soldier Field

*Advanced tickets to the New Meadowlands Stadium go on sale to American Express Cardmembers beginning at 10am on Monday, October 26th.

kiss

KISS founding drummer Peter Criss announced on his official website that last year he was diagnosed with breast cancer. Yes, you read that right. We’ll let him fill in the details:

This is Breast Cancer awareness month… In ‘08, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, but with (early detection) my great doctor Alex Swistel & staff and the Lord above, who always looks over me, I am cancer free today!!!

I wanted to let you know men get it like women do. Don’t be afraid to let someone know if you have a lump. Do the right thing for you and your loved ones and get it checked. Man or woman, there is no discrimination with breast cancer … we all don’t have nine lives.

Lucy Vodden. The inspiration behind John Lennon's song, 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds'

2009 – Lucy Vodden Dead: ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ Dies At 46

LONDON — Lucy Vodden, who provided the inspiration for the Beatles’ classic song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” has died after a long battle with lupus. She was 46.

Her death was announced Monday by St. Thomas’ Hospital in London, where she had been treated for the chronic disease for more than five years, and by her husband, Ross Vodden. Britain’s Press Association said she died last Tuesday. Hospital officials said they could not confirm the day of her death.

Vodden’s connection to the Beatles dates back to her early days, when she made friends with schoolmate Julian Lennon, John Lennon’s son.

Julian Lennon, then 4 years old, came home from school with a drawing one day, showed it to his father, and said it was “Lucy in the sky with diamonds.”

At the time, John Lennon was gathering material for his contributions to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” a landmark album released to worldwide acclaim in 1967.

The elder Lennon seized on the image and developed it into what is widely regarded as a psychedelic masterpiece, replete with haunting images of “newspaper taxis” and a “girl with kaleidoscope eyes.”

Rock music critics thought the song’s title was a veiled reference to LSD, but John Lennon always claimed the phrase came from his son, not from a desire to spell out the initials LSD in code.

Vodden lost touch with Julian Lennon after he left the school following his parents’ divorce, but they were reunited in recent years when Julian Lennon, who lives in France, tried to help her cope with the disease.
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He sent her flowers and vouchers for use at a gardening center near her home in Surrey in southeast England, and frequently sent her text messages in an effort to buttress her spirits.

“I wasn’t sure at first how to approach her,” Julian Lennon told the Associated Press in June. “I wanted at least to get a note to her. Then I heard she had a great love of gardening, and I thought I’d help with something she’s passionate about, and I love gardening too. I wanted to do something to put a smile on her face.”

In recent months, Vodden was too ill to go out most of the time, except for hospital visits.

She enjoyed her link to the Beatles, but was not particularly fond of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“I don’t relate to the song, to that type of song,” she told the Associated Press in June. “As a teenager, I made the mistake of telling a couple of friends at school that I was the Lucy in the song and they said, ‘No, it’s not you, my parents said it’s about drugs.’ And I didn’t know what LSD was at the time, so I just kept it quiet, to myself.”

Vodden is the latest in a long line of people connected to the Beatles who died at a relatively young age.

The list includes John Lennon, gunned down at age 40, manager Brian Epstein, who died of a drug overdose when he was 32, and original band member Stuart Sutcliffe, who died of a brain hemorrhage at 21.

A spokeswoman for Julian Lennon and his mother, Cynthia Lennon, said they were “shocked and saddened” by Vodden’s death.

Angie Davidson, a lupus sufferer who is campaign director of the St. Thomas’ Lupus Trust, said Vodden was “a real fighter” who had worked behind the scenes to support efforts to combat the disease.

“It’s so sad that she has finally lost the battle she fought so bravely for so long,” said Davidson.

It was 40 years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play and, although she did not perform on the album, a Surbiton housewife confirms today that she was the inspiration for one of its most famous songs.

Myth and rumour have surrounded the real-life inspiration for Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, John Lennon’s swirling ode to psychedelia.

It was first thought that the singer’s muse was Lucy Richardson, a Suffolk schoogirl who went on to become a film art director.

Then speculation centred on the daughter of the comedian Peter Cook. And many believe that the song is a disguised paean to the joys of LSD. But Beatles biographers and accounts by the band members confirm that Lucy O’Donnell is the only possible source for the song.

Lucy, now a 43-year-old housewife from Surrey, was a classmate of John’s son, Julian, at Heath House nursery school in Weybridge. Her moment of fame came in 1967, when Julian came home from school with a drawing of a girl surrounded by stars. John asked him what it was. “It’s Lucy, in the sky with diamonds,” Julian said.

Les Paul

2009 – Guitar legend-inventor Les Paul dies at age 94

Aug 13, 12:56 PM (ET)

By LUKE SHERIDAN

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) – Les Paul, who invented the solid-body electric guitar later wielded by a legion of rock ‘n’ roll greats, died Thursday of complications from pneumonia. He was 94.

According to Gibson Guitar, Paul died at White Plains Hospital. His family and friends were by his side.

As an inventor, Paul also helped bring about the rise of rock ‘n’ roll with multitrack recording, which enables artists to record different instruments at different times, sing harmony with themselves, and then carefully balance the tracks in the finished recording.

The use of electric guitar gained popularity in the mid-to-late 1940s, and then exploded with the advent of rock in the mid-’50s.

“Suddenly, it was recognized that power was a very important part of music,” Paul once said. “To have the dynamics, to have the way of expressing yourself beyond the normal limits of an unamplified instrument, was incredible. Today a guy wouldn’t think of singing a song on a stage without a microphone and a sound system.”

A tinkerer and musician since childhood, he experimented with guitar amplification for years before coming up in 1941 with what he called “The Log,” a four-by-four piece of wood strung with steel strings.

“I went into a nightclub and played it. Of course, everybody had me labeled as a nut.” He later put the wooden wings onto the body to give it a tradition guitar shape.

In 1952, Gibson Guitars began production on the Les Paul guitar.

Pete Townsend of the Who, Steve Howe of Yes, jazz great Al DiMeola and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page all made the Gibson Les Paul their trademark six-string.

Over the years, the Les Paul series has become one of the most widely used guitars in the music industry. In 2005, Christie’s auction house sold a 1955 Gibson Les Paul for $45,600.

In the late 1960s, Paul retired from music to concentrate on his inventions. His interest in country music was rekindled in the mid-’70s and he teamed up with Chet Atkins for two albums. The duo were awarded a Grammy for best country instrumental performance of 1976 for their “Chester and Lester” album.

With Mary Ford, his wife from 1949 to 1962, he earned 36 gold records for hits including “Vaya Con Dios” and “How High the Moon,” which both hit No. 1. Many of their songs used overdubbing techniques that Paul had helped develop.

“I could take my Mary and make her three, six, nine, 12, as many voices as I wished,” he recalled. “This is quite an asset.” The overdubbing technique was highly influential on later recording artists such as the Carpenters.

Released in 2005, “Les Paul & Friends: American Made, World Played” was his first album of new material since those 1970s recordings. Among those playing with him: Peter Frampton, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Richie Sambora.

“They’re not only my friends, but they’re great players,” Paul told The Associated Press. “I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.”

Two cuts from the album won Grammys, “Caravan” for best pop instrumental performance and “69 Freedom Special” for best rock instrumental performance. (He had also been awarded a technical Grammy in 2001.)

Paul was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2005.

Paul was born Lester William Polfus, in Waukseha, Wis., on June 9, 1915. He began his career as a musician, billing himself as Red Hot Red or Rhubarb Red. He toured with the popular Chicago band Rube Tronson and His Texas Cowboys and led the house band on WJJD radio in Chicago.

In the mid-1930s he joined Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians and soon moved to New York to form the Les Paul Trio, with Jim Atkins and bassist Ernie Newton.

Meanwhile, he had made his first attempt at audio amplification at age 13. Unhappy with the amount of volume produced by his acoustic guitar, Paul tried placing a telephone receiver under the strings. Although this worked to some extent, only two strings were amplified and the volume level was still too low.

By placing a phonograph needle in the guitar, all six strings were amplified, which proved to be much louder. Paul was playing a working prototype of the electric guitar in 1929.

His work on taping techniques began in the years after World War II, when Bing Crosby gave him a tape recorder. Drawing on his earlier experimentation with his homemade record-cutting machines, Paul added an additional playback head to the recorder. The result was a delayed effect that became known as tape echo.

Tape echo gave the recording a more “live” feel and enabled the user to simulate different playing environments.

Paul’s next “crazy idea” was to stack together eight mono tape machines and send their outputs to one piece of tape, stacking the recording heads on top of each other. The resulting machine served as the forerunner to today’s multitrack recorders.

In 1954, Paul commissioned Ampex to build the first eight-track tape recorder, later known as “Sel-Sync,” in which a recording head could simultaneously record a new track and play back previous ones.

He had met Ford, then known as Colleen Summers, in the 1940s while working as a studio musician in Los Angeles. For seven years in the 1950s, Paul and Ford broadcast a TV show from their home in Mahwah, N.J. Ford died in 1977, 15 years after they divorced.

In recent years, even after his illness in early 2006, Paul played Monday nights at New York night spots. Such stars as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler, Bruce Springsteen and Eddie Van Halen came to pay tribute and sit in with him.

“It’s where we were the happiest, in a ‘joint,’” he said in a 2000 interview with the AP. “It was not being on top. The fun was getting there, not staying there – that’s hard work.”

2009 – Micheal Jackson’s Funeral!

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Berry Gordy called Michael Jackson the “greatest entertainer that ever lived” as family, friends, colleagues and fans gathered to remember the King of Pop at the Staples Center in Los Angeles Tuesday.

Michael Jackson’s casket is placed in front of the stage at the Staples Center.

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“The more I think and talk about Michael Jackson, I feel the King of Pop is not big enough for him,” Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, said as the crowd rose to its feet. “I think he is simply — I think he is simply the greatest entertainer that ever lived.”

Jackson’s golden casket was placed in front of the stage at his memorial as a choir sang.

Several of Jackson’s older brothers served as pallbearers, carrying the coffin to the stage as the Andrae Crouch choir sang “Soon and Very Soon.”

The stage at the Staples Center resembled a church sanctuary with a stain-glassed backdrop.

Mariah Carey was joined by Trey Lorenz singing The Jackson 5’s 1970 hit “I’ll Be there” as a montage of Jackson photographs appeared on arena screens.

Queen Latifah, saying she was on stage to represent “millions of fans inspired by Michael,” said “Michael was the biggest star on earth.” Lionel Richie then performed the song “Jesus is Love.” Stevie Wonder took the stage to sing “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer.”

Smokey Robinson read personal messages from several of Jackson’s celebrity friends who could not attend.

“Michael was a personal love of mine, a treasured part of my life, part of the fabric of my life, in a way that I can’t seem to find words to express” Diana Ross said in a message read by Smokey Robinson.

Robinson also read a message from Nelson Mandela, saying they had grown close after trips and performances in South Africa.

“We had great admiration for his talent and that he was able to triumph over tragedy on so many occasions in his life. Michael was a giant and a legend in the music industry. And we mourn with the millions of fans worldwide,” Robinson said, relaying Mandela’s message. “We also mourn with his family and his friends over the loss of our dear friend.”

The public memorial began after Jackson’s family and closest friends attended a gathering at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills on Tuesday morning.

Jackson’s family and friends were at the chapel, which can hold about 1,000 people. Seven men carried the golden casket covered in red flowers from Forest Lawn’s Hall of Liberty.

“It wouldn’t be fair for the fans who are going to appear and be here at the Staples Center not to see his casket,” Teddy Riley, a singer who worked closely with Jackson on several albums, said. Watch Riley talk about working with Jackson »

An army of fans poured into Los Angeles from places far-flung, hoping to collectively mourn their idol in a massive ceremony.

Thousands appeared to be on hand, but the atmosphere was peaceful, almost festive. People waited patiently, talking to each other, taking pictures and singing Jackson songs. Some fans were excited, others somber, as they entered the arena.

Parking lots in the area raised their prices, some as high as $30. Airports in Southern California saw a spike in bookings. And several movie theaters in the area announced special screenings of the event, which also will be carried live by some television networks and Web sites.

Police put up concrete barriers around the center, allowing only fans with tickets to the star-studded event to enter. See gallery as people prepare for service »

The first fans — those holding the best seats — began entering the arena at 7:30 a.m. The service is set to start at 10 a.m. (1 p.m. ET).

Deka Motanya, a San Francisco, California, woman who won tickets in the computer lottery, posted a message on Twitter just before 9 a.m. saying she had reached her “not-too-bad seats.” “(M)ichael jackson music playing. people filling in; very organized w/ assigned seats” her message said.

Happy 4th of July from THIS DAY IN ROCK!

Stu Sweatman and John Myers!

http://www.stusweatman.com

http://www.myspace.com/stusweatman