AeroVan ReImagined
Photo courtesy of History Channel
When the daily grind of political news gets to us, we retreat to the History Channel ' s American Pickers featuring Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz as they scour the country treasure hunting for vintage relics for their resale business. After nine years of " picking " on their cable TV show, Mike and Frank seem well beyond hawking antiques for a living, but when they " picked " Aerosmith ' s original tour van on a Season 19 episode, Wolfe and Fritz ' s preservation of music history hit a new level of dedication.
American Pickers has featured episodes with Cheap Trick ' s Rick Nielsen, and The Black Keys ' Dan Auerbach discussing and re-selling stage gear, but preserving the tour van goes beyond dabbling in the rehab of a musical instrument.“ It was almost like that [ Aersomith ] van was in the woods waiting for us to rescue it," Wolfe said.
According to Jolopnik. com, " not much was initially known about the rusted, 1964 International Harvester Metro van, buried in the woods, said the property’ s owner, identified only as Phil, who told Wolfe and Fritz the vehicle was there when he bought the land.”
After two hours of verifying the whereabouts of the van through a series of calls and mobile photos sent to Auerbach and Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, original band member( circa 1970) Ray Tabano confirmed the authenticity of what appears to be a milk delivery truck in a former life. Tabano recalled the band’ s early days where“ we’ d drive from Boston up to New Hampshire for $ 125,” he said, referring to the pay for the band’ s gigs at the time.“ Then after the gas, the tolls, and the food and back, we’ d all make like $ 3 apiece.”
After some haggling, Wolfe and Tabano agreed on a sale price of $ 25,000. Once some preservation and repairs go into the vehicle, it wouldn’ t be surprising to see the van parked at the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, or at the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas one day. The episode can be seen on YouTube, the History Channel ' s website or on your local cable or satellite provider.
09 • 2018
Chvrches in Motion
Photo Curt Baran
We’ re living in a time where John Lennon and Yoko Ono’ s late ' 60s message of“ Give Peace a Chance” resonates more than ever. Now Lennon’ s musical and life partner Ono has decided to re-release their 1972 Utopian themed film again.
Imagine has been restored frame-by-frame, from the original reels with the audio remix by triple Grammy Award-winning engineer, Paul Hicks. It is accompanied by 15 minutes of never-before-seen extras including studio footage of John and his band( including George Harrison, Nicky Hopkins from the Rolling Stones, Alan White from Yes and Klaus Voormann) performing " How Do You Sleep?" and " Oh My Love " in a specially created Dolby Atmos surround sound " raw studio " mix that puts you in the center of the recording studio while the band play live."
The album, originally recorded by Phil Spector, is also getting a new life. Geffen and UMe announced an extensive new reissue of John Lennon‘ s iconic 1971 album, Imagine, set to release on October 5th. The new Imagine box set will include 140 tracks spread over four CDs and two Blu-rays including rare outtake recordings, previously unreleased demos, isolated recording track elements, and much more. In addition to the deluxe box set’ s audio element, Imagine— The Ultimate Collection will include a lengthy book about the making of the album.
Engineer Paul Hicks explains. " Yoko was very keen that these Ultimate Mixes should achieve three things – to be totally faithful and respectful to the originals, be generally sonically clearer overall and should increase the clarity of John’ s vocals. It’ s about John’ she said. And she was right. His voice brings the biggest emotional impact to the album."
A film screening is planned at Chicago ' s Music Box Theatre, date TBD.
Old Friends
John Lennon
Vinnie Vincent
L to R: Chvrches sponsored Whitburn Football Club and Lauren Mayberry
One of the surprisingly good sets at Lollapalooza 2018 featured Scottish electro-rockers Chvrches. We never cared much for their records, but the band’ s late afternoon set proved what a formidable live band they’ ve become. Even more surprising is that the band has chosen to sponsor a Scottish Junior football( soccer) club’ s away jersey.
The team hooked up with the band through the father of band member Iain Cook. Whitburn Football Club secretary Ann Haddow told the Scottish Sun:“ One of our supporters, Robert Cook, does an awful lot for the club. His son Iain is in the band, and he had asked him if they were interested in sponsoring us."
According to the newspaper,“ Now supporters of the band are clamoring to get their hands on the East Superleague team’ s kit [ uniform ] after singer Lauren Mayberry’ s fan club tweeted about their link to the club. The West Lothian team have now had inquiries from new supporters around the world including South America."
British bands have a long history of supporting their soccer teams, including New Order, whose“ World In Motion” single famously powered England’ s World Cup team in 1989. Now Chvrches is taking their support to a hometown grassroots level.
Photo courtesy of Backstage Axxess
Middle period Kiss guitarist Vinnie Vincent is scheduled to play his first live shows in 30 years at Graceland in Memphis. The shows will start with an acoustic set, followed by an intermission, and then a full shred electric set. In addition to special guest Robert Fleischman, original vocalist for the Vinnie Vincent Invasion, who will be joining Vinnie for several songs including " Back On The Streets," there will be more special guests, to be announced soon, according to Blabbermouth. net.
Early MTV video star and ' 80s rocker Aldo Nova is releasing new music for the first time in 20 years. His new record, 2.0., offers re-recordings of six tracks from his debut album( including his biggest hit“ Fantasy,“) and one new song,“ I’ m a Survivor.” The new album is Aldo’ s first since Nova’ s Dream, according to ultimateclassicrock. com. Nova’ s personal tragedy inspired the album.“ During the time that I was working on 2.0, my wife was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer,” Nova explained in a press release.“ I managed to finish the album right before she passed away on Christmas Day. I still was able to take care of every doctor’ s appointment, every chemo treatment. I was cooking and cleaning, and at night I worked on my album.”
6 illinoisentertainer. com september 2018