Allen Stone Spreads Soulful Cheer in 'Celebrate Tonight' - Premiere

Allen Stone Spreads Soulful Cheer in 'Celebrate Tonight' - PremiereSinger starts dance party in senior center $(document).ready(function() { $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .email-content').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').hide(); } ); $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .print-page').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').hide(); } ); }); OO.ready(function() { OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer', 'BodXF5OTrKoBjgwsc_N2BDX69VXIUmPv', {'autoplay': true }); });By

Allen Stone, the 25-year-old soul singer from Washington, spreads confetti and unity in his new video for "Celebrate Tonight."

Sporting his signature horn-rimmed glasses, Stone lights up an otherwise subdued celebration at a senior center. His powerful vocals pull the residents from their seats and engages them in spirited, synchronized clapping. The track originally appeared on Stone's self-released, self-titled debut album in 2011, which was given wide release by ATO Records last year.

"'Celebrate Tonight' is a very special song to me," the singer tells Rolling Stone. "This video concept we were able to do brings this song fully to life. I hope it simply communicates happiness and joy and love that we as humans can create and share with one another, regardless of age, race or gender."

Stone plays SXSW on March 13th before heading overseas for a string of performances in Australia and Japan. He returns to the United States in mid-April for more dates.

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Allen Stone Spreads Soulful Cheer in 'Celebrate Tonight' - Premiere

Allen Stone Spreads Soulful Cheer in 'Celebrate Tonight' - PremiereSinger starts dance party in senior center $(document).ready(function() { $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .email-content').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').hide(); } ); $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .print-page').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').hide(); } ); }); OO.ready(function() { OO.Player.create('ooyalaplayer', 'BodXF5OTrKoBjgwsc_N2BDX69VXIUmPv', {'autoplay': true }); });By

Allen Stone, the 25-year-old soul singer from Washington, spreads confetti and unity in his new video for "Celebrate Tonight."

Sporting his signature horn-rimmed glasses, Stone lights up an otherwise subdued celebration at a senior center. His powerful vocals pull the residents from their seats and engages them in spirited, synchronized clapping. The track originally appeared on Stone's self-released, self-titled debut album in 2011, which was given wide release by ATO Records last year.

"'Celebrate Tonight' is a very special song to me," the singer tells Rolling Stone. "This video concept we were able to do brings this song fully to life. I hope it simply communicates happiness and joy and love that we as humans can create and share with one another, regardless of age, race or gender."

Stone plays SXSW on March 13th before heading overseas for a string of performances in Australia and Japan. He returns to the United States in mid-April for more dates.

Electronics Review Center

Read more »

R.E.M. Celebrate 25th Anniversary of 'Green' with Deluxe Reissue

R.E.M.'s beloved sixth studio album, Green, will receive the 25th anniversary deluxe treatment in a new two-disc edition. The set will feature a remastered version of the original album, as well as a live disc culled from a November 10th, 1989 show in Greensboro, North Carolina, the penultimate concert of the band's massive 130-date Green World Tour.

100 Greatest Artists: R.E.M.

Green: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available on Rhino on May 14th digitally and on CD, while the remastered album will also be available with original art and packing on 180-gram vinyl. The live disc includes almost every song from Green, earlier fan favorites like "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," "The One I Love," and "Perfect Circle," and even features "Low" and "Belong" – cuts from the Green follow-up Out of Time that R.E.M. were then testing out live.

Rhino is also set to release a limited-edition, five-track EP, Live in Greensboro, on Record Store Day, April 20th. It comprises five R.E.M. tracks from the same Greensboro show that didn't make it onto the reissue due to space constraints. The EP will include cuts like "I Remember California," "So. Central Rain" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull." Only 2,500 copies of the disc will be available, and each comes with an original R.E.M. patch from the Green Tour recently uncovered in the band's vault.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

R.E.M. Celebrate 25th Anniversary of 'Green' with Deluxe Reissue

R.E.M.'s beloved sixth studio album, Green, will receive the 25th anniversary deluxe treatment in a new two-disc edition. The set will feature a remastered version of the original album, as well as a live disc culled from a November 10th, 1989 show in Greensboro, North Carolina, the penultimate concert of the band's massive 130-date Green World Tour.

100 Greatest Artists: R.E.M.

Green: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition will be available on Rhino on May 14th digitally and on CD, while the remastered album will also be available with original art and packing on 180-gram vinyl. The live disc includes almost every song from Green, earlier fan favorites like "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)," "The One I Love," and "Perfect Circle," and even features "Low" and "Belong" – cuts from the Green follow-up Out of Time that R.E.M. were then testing out live.

Rhino is also set to release a limited-edition, five-track EP, Live in Greensboro, on Record Store Day, April 20th. It comprises five R.E.M. tracks from the same Greensboro show that didn't make it onto the reissue due to space constraints. The EP will include cuts like "I Remember California," "So. Central Rain" and "Feeling Gravitys Pull." Only 2,500 copies of the disc will be available, and each comes with an original R.E.M. patch from the Green Tour recently uncovered in the band's vault.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

High and Tight: Our Rock & Roll Baseball Experts Celebrate Opening Day

From Babe Ruth’s one-man brothel soirees to Dock Ellis’s LSD-assisted no-hitter, there’s always been something undeniably "rock & roll" lurking beneath baseball’s strait-laced surface. With Rolling Stone's High and Tight, we take a weekly look at the game – its history, its characters and its latest news – through the rock & roll lens, with help from our expert panel of musically inclined seamheads. Meet our rock & roll baseball experts here.

What better way to start than with the sweetest, most optimistic pair of words in the English language: "Opening Day." It's that blessed annual event when baseball returns to us like Persephone from the Underworld, Jesus from the cave at Golgotha, or Elvis from a barbiturate stupor. Spring has officially arrived, the bunting billows in the breeze, and the first stats of a new season are poised to etch themselves into the record books. It's time to play ball.

Opening Day is like a blissfully hypnogogic dream where everything and nothing matters; even if your team loses, they've still got 161 games left to play. It can be a day of meaningful feats, like Babe Ruth inaugurating Yankee Stadium with its first-ever home run in 1923, Bob Feller pitching the first (and, so far, the last) Opening Day no-hitter in 1940, or Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947. It can be a day of freakish occurrences, like George Bell, Tuffy Rhodes and Dmitri Young leading off the 1988, 1994 and 2005 seasons by hitting three home runs apiece. It can be a day of over-the-top fan exuberance, like the Polo Grounds snowball fight that forced the New York Giants to forfeit their 1907 home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, the drunken melee at Wrigley Field in 1970 that ended with hundreds of wasted Chicago Cubs fans spilling over the right field wall after the final out, or the 1974 Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres home openers where play was repeatedly interrupted by streakers.

But even if nothing remotely out of the ordinary happens, it's still a beautiful thing to hear the umpires shout "Play Ball!" again, to watch your favorite players take their positions on the field for the first time, and to see the season spreading itself out before you like some gorgeous alluvial plain…even when you know in your heart that it's really going to be more like Death Valley. Even Bud Selig whoring out the first official games of this season to Japan – via last week's two-game series between the Mariners and A's, which few Stateside fans bothered to watch due to the 3 a.m. PST start times – does nothing to diminish the intrinsic magic of your team's 2012 home opener.

So for this first installment of High and Tight, we figured it'd be only right to ask our esteemed panel of rock and roll baseball freaks: What's your favorite memory of Opening Day?

Name: Joe Pernice
Band: Pernice Brothers
Position: Vocals, Guitar

Obvious, for sure, but my most memorable was Opening Day 2005. I was definitely still riding the high from the Red Sox World Series win. But what made 2005 Opening Day most memorable was all of the emotions that WERE NOT present: resentment, fear, hope, dread …you know, all the stuff Red Sox fans know so well. The Sox 2004 World Series win was like finally having health insurance after so many years without it: I might break a few bones this year, but so what, I'm covered.

Name: Scott Ian
Band: Anthrax
Position: Guitar

The New York Yankees are 74-36-1. (Yes, there was a tie in 1910 versus the hated Red Sox.) That's the only Opening Day memory I need.

Name: Greg Dulli
Band: The Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I usually drop acid on Opening Day, so they're all pretty memorable.

Name: Tom Morello
Band: The Nightwatchman, Street Sweeper Social Club, Rage Against the Machine
Position: Guitar, Vocals

Opening Day at Wrigley field is an exciting time of renewed hope for a franchise that is fueled almost exclusively on hope. My most memorable Opening Day was when I was five or six years old. I went with my mom and some friends and the temperature must have been 30 degrees below zero, and even at that age I wondered how dare they play baseball in this weather. And we have a nice black and white photograph of the four of us bundled up like Eskimos, smiling as if we were enjoying a baseball game despite the freezing weather.

Name: Pete Yorn
Position: Vocals, Guitar

Growing up in New Jersey, I was always a Yankee fan. It's funny, my memories of Opening Day are more about the stories I heard or read. My dad was a huge Bob Feller fan and he would always talk about the great Cleveland Indian. In 1940, Bob became the first and only man to throw a no-hitter on Opening Day, 1940. My dad always liked to tell me that a little over a year later, Bob would serve four years of military service during World War II. The year I was born, 1974, Hank Aaron wasted no time and tied Babe Ruth for first on the all-time home run list with number 714. Wish I was there for that. My strongest memories are of my own brief playing experiences. I do miss the Little League opening days from back when I was a kid in Montville, NJ. We'd all be in our brand new uniforms and march in a parade through town over to Municipal Field. We'd eat hot dogs and drink C&C cola and shove way too much Big League Chew into our cheeks. The smell of those ball fields on a spring day is one of my most deeply engrained sense memories.

Name: Ben Gibbard
Band: Death Cab for Cutie
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I don't have a memory per se – but certainly a yearly, false optimism that the Mariners just might figure a way to win the World Series. Still waiting on that one.

Name: Ken Casey
Band: Dropkick Murphys
Position: Guitar, Vocals

 Many Opening Days at Fenway, me and my gang of friends would sneak in over the wall in the right field corner where the Ted Williams statue is now. Fifteen kids come over the wall at once ... they usually only were able to grab one or two of us while we all scattered. Thank God I have other options today. I think they'd catch a much higher percentage these days ... we've all lost a step or two.

Name: Handsome Dick Manitoba
Band: Manitoba
Position: Vocals

Sadly, I have no remarkable single event to report from any of my opening day appearances at "The Shrine," what Art Rust, Jr. called "The Big Ball Orchard in the South Bronx." What I do have, however, is something bigger, far more important, more grand than any single weird event or moment. What I have is this overwhelming feeling, this all-encompassing tingle, a thrill that is unlike any other in my life. It comes from earning my spring by working through the winter, 58 of them now. Spring. It's the paycheck you get for suffering through short days, frigid damp months, the dreariness known as New York winters. The paycheck. Flowers blossom, birds chirp, days get longer, and kids play outdoors all day long, instead of a select few hours. Women shed their layers, men start their Tarzan chest beats, and ... BASEBALL BEGINS ANEW. For me, Opening Day is the real New Year. To hell with calendars and religion. THIS IS THE BIG INNING! My first foray in Yankee Stadium each year, no matter how many years I have been going, is the same. My heart pounds as I approach my majestic home of champions. I grew up in the Bronx, so this stuff goes way back to early childhood and dad-bonding. The five minutes or so, as I approach, enter, and find my seats is it for me. Entering the Stadium, finding the aisle, walking down the steps, the 360 degree surround – visually and sonically – that is Yankee Stadium for the first time each spring, is among the great thrills I continue to experience as a human being on this planet. That smell, that perfectly manicured grass, those sounds, that feeling, the first time each year, never disappoints, never varies. I am not being dramatic. I am thrilled. I am HOME.

Name: Scott McCaughey
Band: The Baseball Project, The Minus 5
Position: Guitar, Vocals

I went to Opening Day at old Yankee Stadium in its last year. The game was a complete wash-out, but of course they didn't officially call it for about two hours. I calculated by then that they must have made close to a million dollars on concessions, because the 50,000 fans were going for it big time although it was obvious that not one pitch would be thrown on that dismal day. I never even went to the section where my seat was. There was an off-day next day so they rescheduled the opener for then, and miraculously, I was still able to go. I showed up wearing the same very loud green sport coat that I'd been huddling in the day before. As I found my seat in the upper deck, a Jeter-jersey-clad fan yelled at me: "Dude, you came back!" Good to know you stand out in a crowd.

Name: Steve Wynn
Band: The Baseball Project
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I have so many Opening Day memories from early youth to current times but since I don't always trust my long-term memory, I'll go with last week. I mean, it's just so WEIRD to get up just before dawn and turn on the TV to watch the first game of the year – live from Japan, no less. Something about watching the A's take on the Mariners while I drink my morning coffee and see the sun come up outside my window is just surreal and sets a good, otherworldly tone for the season to come.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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High and Tight: Our Rock & Roll Baseball Experts Celebrate Opening Day

From Babe Ruth’s one-man brothel soirees to Dock Ellis’s LSD-assisted no-hitter, there’s always been something undeniably "rock & roll" lurking beneath baseball’s strait-laced surface. With Rolling Stone's High and Tight, we take a weekly look at the game – its history, its characters and its latest news – through the rock & roll lens, with help from our expert panel of musically inclined seamheads. Meet our rock & roll baseball experts here.

What better way to start than with the sweetest, most optimistic pair of words in the English language: "Opening Day." It's that blessed annual event when baseball returns to us like Persephone from the Underworld, Jesus from the cave at Golgotha, or Elvis from a barbiturate stupor. Spring has officially arrived, the bunting billows in the breeze, and the first stats of a new season are poised to etch themselves into the record books. It's time to play ball.

Opening Day is like a blissfully hypnogogic dream where everything and nothing matters; even if your team loses, they've still got 161 games left to play. It can be a day of meaningful feats, like Babe Ruth inaugurating Yankee Stadium with its first-ever home run in 1923, Bob Feller pitching the first (and, so far, the last) Opening Day no-hitter in 1940, or Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in 1947. It can be a day of freakish occurrences, like George Bell, Tuffy Rhodes and Dmitri Young leading off the 1988, 1994 and 2005 seasons by hitting three home runs apiece. It can be a day of over-the-top fan exuberance, like the Polo Grounds snowball fight that forced the New York Giants to forfeit their 1907 home opener against the Philadelphia Phillies, the drunken melee at Wrigley Field in 1970 that ended with hundreds of wasted Chicago Cubs fans spilling over the right field wall after the final out, or the 1974 Chicago White Sox and San Diego Padres home openers where play was repeatedly interrupted by streakers.

But even if nothing remotely out of the ordinary happens, it's still a beautiful thing to hear the umpires shout "Play Ball!" again, to watch your favorite players take their positions on the field for the first time, and to see the season spreading itself out before you like some gorgeous alluvial plain…even when you know in your heart that it's really going to be more like Death Valley. Even Bud Selig whoring out the first official games of this season to Japan – via last week's two-game series between the Mariners and A's, which few Stateside fans bothered to watch due to the 3 a.m. PST start times – does nothing to diminish the intrinsic magic of your team's 2012 home opener.

So for this first installment of High and Tight, we figured it'd be only right to ask our esteemed panel of rock and roll baseball freaks: What's your favorite memory of Opening Day?

Name: Joe Pernice
Band: Pernice Brothers
Position: Vocals, Guitar

Obvious, for sure, but my most memorable was Opening Day 2005. I was definitely still riding the high from the Red Sox World Series win. But what made 2005 Opening Day most memorable was all of the emotions that WERE NOT present: resentment, fear, hope, dread …you know, all the stuff Red Sox fans know so well. The Sox 2004 World Series win was like finally having health insurance after so many years without it: I might break a few bones this year, but so what, I'm covered.

Name: Scott Ian
Band: Anthrax
Position: Guitar

The New York Yankees are 74-36-1. (Yes, there was a tie in 1910 versus the hated Red Sox.) That's the only Opening Day memory I need.

Name: Greg Dulli
Band: The Twilight Singers, Afghan Whigs
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I usually drop acid on Opening Day, so they're all pretty memorable.

Name: Tom Morello
Band: The Nightwatchman, Street Sweeper Social Club, Rage Against the Machine
Position: Guitar, Vocals

Opening Day at Wrigley field is an exciting time of renewed hope for a franchise that is fueled almost exclusively on hope. My most memorable Opening Day was when I was five or six years old. I went with my mom and some friends and the temperature must have been 30 degrees below zero, and even at that age I wondered how dare they play baseball in this weather. And we have a nice black and white photograph of the four of us bundled up like Eskimos, smiling as if we were enjoying a baseball game despite the freezing weather.

Name: Pete Yorn
Position: Vocals, Guitar

Growing up in New Jersey, I was always a Yankee fan. It's funny, my memories of Opening Day are more about the stories I heard or read. My dad was a huge Bob Feller fan and he would always talk about the great Cleveland Indian. In 1940, Bob became the first and only man to throw a no-hitter on Opening Day, 1940. My dad always liked to tell me that a little over a year later, Bob would serve four years of military service during World War II. The year I was born, 1974, Hank Aaron wasted no time and tied Babe Ruth for first on the all-time home run list with number 714. Wish I was there for that. My strongest memories are of my own brief playing experiences. I do miss the Little League opening days from back when I was a kid in Montville, NJ. We'd all be in our brand new uniforms and march in a parade through town over to Municipal Field. We'd eat hot dogs and drink C&C cola and shove way too much Big League Chew into our cheeks. The smell of those ball fields on a spring day is one of my most deeply engrained sense memories.

Name: Ben Gibbard
Band: Death Cab for Cutie
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I don't have a memory per se – but certainly a yearly, false optimism that the Mariners just might figure a way to win the World Series. Still waiting on that one.

Name: Ken Casey
Band: Dropkick Murphys
Position: Guitar, Vocals

 Many Opening Days at Fenway, me and my gang of friends would sneak in over the wall in the right field corner where the Ted Williams statue is now. Fifteen kids come over the wall at once ... they usually only were able to grab one or two of us while we all scattered. Thank God I have other options today. I think they'd catch a much higher percentage these days ... we've all lost a step or two.

Name: Handsome Dick Manitoba
Band: Manitoba
Position: Vocals

Sadly, I have no remarkable single event to report from any of my opening day appearances at "The Shrine," what Art Rust, Jr. called "The Big Ball Orchard in the South Bronx." What I do have, however, is something bigger, far more important, more grand than any single weird event or moment. What I have is this overwhelming feeling, this all-encompassing tingle, a thrill that is unlike any other in my life. It comes from earning my spring by working through the winter, 58 of them now. Spring. It's the paycheck you get for suffering through short days, frigid damp months, the dreariness known as New York winters. The paycheck. Flowers blossom, birds chirp, days get longer, and kids play outdoors all day long, instead of a select few hours. Women shed their layers, men start their Tarzan chest beats, and ... BASEBALL BEGINS ANEW. For me, Opening Day is the real New Year. To hell with calendars and religion. THIS IS THE BIG INNING! My first foray in Yankee Stadium each year, no matter how many years I have been going, is the same. My heart pounds as I approach my majestic home of champions. I grew up in the Bronx, so this stuff goes way back to early childhood and dad-bonding. The five minutes or so, as I approach, enter, and find my seats is it for me. Entering the Stadium, finding the aisle, walking down the steps, the 360 degree surround – visually and sonically – that is Yankee Stadium for the first time each spring, is among the great thrills I continue to experience as a human being on this planet. That smell, that perfectly manicured grass, those sounds, that feeling, the first time each year, never disappoints, never varies. I am not being dramatic. I am thrilled. I am HOME.

Name: Scott McCaughey
Band: The Baseball Project, The Minus 5
Position: Guitar, Vocals

I went to Opening Day at old Yankee Stadium in its last year. The game was a complete wash-out, but of course they didn't officially call it for about two hours. I calculated by then that they must have made close to a million dollars on concessions, because the 50,000 fans were going for it big time although it was obvious that not one pitch would be thrown on that dismal day. I never even went to the section where my seat was. There was an off-day next day so they rescheduled the opener for then, and miraculously, I was still able to go. I showed up wearing the same very loud green sport coat that I'd been huddling in the day before. As I found my seat in the upper deck, a Jeter-jersey-clad fan yelled at me: "Dude, you came back!" Good to know you stand out in a crowd.

Name: Steve Wynn
Band: The Baseball Project
Position: Vocals, Guitar

I have so many Opening Day memories from early youth to current times but since I don't always trust my long-term memory, I'll go with last week. I mean, it's just so WEIRD to get up just before dawn and turn on the TV to watch the first game of the year – live from Japan, no less. Something about watching the A's take on the Mariners while I drink my morning coffee and see the sun come up outside my window is just surreal and sets a good, otherworldly tone for the season to come.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Shearwater Celebrate New CD With Hometown Gig in Austin

Shearwater perform for the band's CD release party at Antone's in Austin, Texas.

The Austin band Shearwater has transformed itself from an art band that relied on the patience of its audience in a game of tension-and-release into a full-on rock band. As a CD release gig for the new album Animal Joy proved last night at Antone's, the band seems intent on winning over new fans by pummeling them with a three-guitar assault, a double-drums blitzkrieg and a choirboy voice that howls like a child in Lord of the Flies.

Rewind to January 2010. Shearwater had just played their "Island Arc" trilogy at a church in Austin. The back-to-back-to-back performance of 2006's Palo Santo, 2008's Rook and 2010's The Golden Archipelago – critically lauded but commercially lackluster albums – signaled for frontman Jonathan Meiburg the close of a chapter. Core band members went their own ways – drummer Thor Harris hit the road with Swans and bassist Kimberly Burke (Meiburg's ex-wife) dug into life in Boston as a playwright, with a new family.

Meiburg, meanwhile, entered a crummy practice space, turned his electric guitar way up and set about writing something personal, something that would tap into his emotional intelligence, something that would convey times in his life when his blood was pumping in overdrive.

"I wanted the new record to have a body, not just a brain," Meiburg said by phone a couple weeks ago. "I meant it to evoke a moment in which you realize that the course of your life has to change, whether you like it or not, and that your old life has to die so that a new one can begin. There's pain and also exhilaration in breaking free and becoming yourself."

Those ideas are manifested in songs like "Breaking the Yearlings," a big, ominous anthem with a hair-raising undercurrent of keyboard that sounds like a church organ, and the majestic, piano-driven "You As You Were," in which the line "I am leaving the life" is sung over and over (nine times in a row last night), until the words combust and Meiburg is symbolically reborn.

The main difference between old and new Shearwater is that the older version had in Harris a percussionist with a less-is-more approach, whereas the revamped band has in drummer Danny Reisch, who recorded Animal Joy, a player who likes to pop and mash his skins. (Harris was in attendance last night and was saluted by new Shearwater, sparking onstage banter about making a t-shirt for Reisch that reads "Where's Thor?")

"We talked about making the rhythm section much more upfront and precise, rather than distant and gauzy," Meiburg said. "We also forbid ourselves the use of strings or other orchestral instruments, a rule we bent only for a shrieking clarinet that sounds like someone bending a steel beam in half."

That added power made "Dread Sovereign" and "Insolence," two autobiographical songs that might have slow-burned into oblivion with the old band, into creatures who fight to the death. Combine it with an arsenal of rabid guitars and you have a perfect rock song like "Immaculate," a short-circuit take on striving to be perfect.

Trying to decide which band is better, the old or the new, might leave you confounded. Don't worry: it did the same for Matador Records, who balked at Shearwater after the Island Arc trilogy.

"We love Matador, but our contract came to an end," Meiburg said. "And they didn't want the demos for the new record."

This opened the door for Sub Pop to sign Shearwater. Ironically, Matador co-founder Gerard Cosloy wrote in promotional materials for Animal Joy, "Just give ‘em the fucking Grammy already!"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Shearwater Celebrate New CD With Hometown Gig in Austin

Shearwater perform for the band's CD release party at Antone's in Austin, Texas.

The Austin band Shearwater has transformed itself from an art band that relied on the patience of its audience in a game of tension-and-release into a full-on rock band. As a CD release gig for the new album Animal Joy proved last night at Antone's, the band seems intent on winning over new fans by pummeling them with a three-guitar assault, a double-drums blitzkrieg and a choirboy voice that howls like a child in Lord of the Flies.

Rewind to January 2010. Shearwater had just played their "Island Arc" trilogy at a church in Austin. The back-to-back-to-back performance of 2006's Palo Santo, 2008's Rook and 2010's The Golden Archipelago – critically lauded but commercially lackluster albums – signaled for frontman Jonathan Meiburg the close of a chapter. Core band members went their own ways – drummer Thor Harris hit the road with Swans and bassist Kimberly Burke (Meiburg's ex-wife) dug into life in Boston as a playwright, with a new family.

Meiburg, meanwhile, entered a crummy practice space, turned his electric guitar way up and set about writing something personal, something that would tap into his emotional intelligence, something that would convey times in his life when his blood was pumping in overdrive.

"I wanted the new record to have a body, not just a brain," Meiburg said by phone a couple weeks ago. "I meant it to evoke a moment in which you realize that the course of your life has to change, whether you like it or not, and that your old life has to die so that a new one can begin. There's pain and also exhilaration in breaking free and becoming yourself."

Those ideas are manifested in songs like "Breaking the Yearlings," a big, ominous anthem with a hair-raising undercurrent of keyboard that sounds like a church organ, and the majestic, piano-driven "You As You Were," in which the line "I am leaving the life" is sung over and over (nine times in a row last night), until the words combust and Meiburg is symbolically reborn.

The main difference between old and new Shearwater is that the older version had in Harris a percussionist with a less-is-more approach, whereas the revamped band has in drummer Danny Reisch, who recorded Animal Joy, a player who likes to pop and mash his skins. (Harris was in attendance last night and was saluted by new Shearwater, sparking onstage banter about making a t-shirt for Reisch that reads "Where's Thor?")

"We talked about making the rhythm section much more upfront and precise, rather than distant and gauzy," Meiburg said. "We also forbid ourselves the use of strings or other orchestral instruments, a rule we bent only for a shrieking clarinet that sounds like someone bending a steel beam in half."

That added power made "Dread Sovereign" and "Insolence," two autobiographical songs that might have slow-burned into oblivion with the old band, into creatures who fight to the death. Combine it with an arsenal of rabid guitars and you have a perfect rock song like "Immaculate," a short-circuit take on striving to be perfect.

Trying to decide which band is better, the old or the new, might leave you confounded. Don't worry: it did the same for Matador Records, who balked at Shearwater after the Island Arc trilogy.

"We love Matador, but our contract came to an end," Meiburg said. "And they didn't want the demos for the new record."

This opened the door for Sub Pop to sign Shearwater. Ironically, Matador co-founder Gerard Cosloy wrote in promotional materials for Animal Joy, "Just give ‘em the fucking Grammy already!"

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Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and More Celebrate Hubert Sumlin in New York

Matt Kent/Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Close to midnight last night at New York's Apollo Theater, Eric Clapton had just finished a thunderous take on classic blues number "Forty Four" when Keith Richards ambled onstage with no introduction. Wearing a dark blazer, long green scarf, fedora and a huge grin, he embraced Clapton and stood center stage to massive applause, delivering a smoky take on Wolf’s "Going Down Slow," a chronicle of a frail man who has savored life’s greatest pleasures. "Man, I've had things that kings and queens will never have," Richards growled. "In fact, they don't even know about them, let alone get ’em. And good times? Mmmm...." He hovered around Clapton and then stood sidestage by the piano while Clapton delivered a throaty verse and then weaved clean-toned solos with young Austin guitarist Gary Clark Jr.

There were many highlights at Howlin for Hubert – a tribute to guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who played in Howlin’ Wolf’s band for decades and passed away on December 4th due to heart failure – but that was the peak. It was Richards’ first major musical appearance since the Rolling Stones last toured five years ago, and he showed little rust. After "Going Down Slow,"  he sat down and played metallic 12-string slide while singing "Little Red Rooster," and then strapped on a Gibson electric guitar to sing and trade licks with Clapton on "Spoonful." "It’s good to be back," Richards said, peering up to the balcony before breaking into a cackle. "Goddamn, it’s good to be back."

The entire show, which featured all-stars including Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Warren Haynes, Jimmie Vaughan, Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II and Elvis Costello –  plus overlooked legends like Wolf’s former bandmates, harmonica player James Cotton, guitarist Jody Williams and saxophonist Eddie Shaw – was one for the history books. The event originated while Sumlin was still alive as a celebration to mark his 80th birthday. It stayed that way; Guest after guest recounted Sumlin’s unfaltering positivity and passion for his instrument. At one point, Toni Ann Mamary, Sumlin’s longtime manager and companion, tearfully recalled Sumlin tellling her, "I’m gonna be there. I don’t care if I play – I’m going to be there." She added, "Can you feel him?"

The night began with a film featuring classic Sumlin performance footage and a recent interview with him, where Sumlin humorously described how he found his own piercing signature sound after Wolf strongly urged him to lose the guitar pick. The stage lights then revealed two massive portraits of Sumlin behind the stage. His sunburst Stratocaster sat on a stand at center stage, with his trademark feathered cap hanging off of it. Clapton emerged – with short, slicked-back hair and wearing a blazer – with Cotton, Sumlin’s old musical partner.  Clapton kicked the night off howling an acoustic, stomping "Key to the Highway," complemented by Cotton’s razor-sharp harp fills.

Each set came and went in a flash. Performers were backed by an incredible house band including Steve Jordan and Jim Keltner, two of the best drummers alive, bassist Willie Weeks and pianist Ivan Neville. An early highlight was Jimmie Vaughan performing an electric solo version of "Six Strings Down," a tribute to fallen gunslingers. When he sang "Albert Collins up there / Muddy and Lightnin’ too / Albert and Freddy / playing the blues," it was easy to feel more than one spirit in the room. Kenny Wayne Shepherd and 77-year-old Jody Williams jammed on Williams' ferocious 1957 instrumental "Lucky Lou," Shepherd unleashing flurries of loud, screeching notes.  The New York Dolls’ David Johansen – who sang lead at many of Sumlin’s shows in recent years – emerged for "Evil," replicating Howlin' Wolf’s vocals with a weathered cat-scratch howl.

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Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and More Celebrate Hubert Sumlin in New York

Matt Kent/Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Close to midnight last night at New York's Apollo Theater, Eric Clapton had just finished a thunderous take on classic blues number "Forty Four" when Keith Richards ambled onstage with no introduction. Wearing a dark blazer, long green scarf, fedora and a huge grin, he embraced Clapton and stood center stage to massive applause, delivering a smoky take on Wolf’s "Going Down Slow," a chronicle of a frail man who has savored life’s greatest pleasures. "Man, I've had things that kings and queens will never have," Richards growled. "In fact, they don't even know about them, let alone get ’em. And good times? Mmmm...." He hovered around Clapton and then stood sidestage by the piano while Clapton delivered a throaty verse and then weaved clean-toned solos with young Austin guitarist Gary Clark Jr.

There were many highlights at Howlin for Hubert – a tribute to guitarist Hubert Sumlin, who played in Howlin’ Wolf’s band for decades and passed away on December 4th due to heart failure – but that was the peak. It was Richards’ first major musical appearance since the Rolling Stones last toured five years ago, and he showed little rust. After "Going Down Slow,"  he sat down and played metallic 12-string slide while singing "Little Red Rooster," and then strapped on a Gibson electric guitar to sing and trade licks with Clapton on "Spoonful." "It’s good to be back," Richards said, peering up to the balcony before breaking into a cackle. "Goddamn, it’s good to be back."

The entire show, which featured all-stars including Buddy Guy, Billy Gibbons, Warren Haynes, Jimmie Vaughan, Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II and Elvis Costello –  plus overlooked legends like Wolf’s former bandmates, harmonica player James Cotton, guitarist Jody Williams and saxophonist Eddie Shaw – was one for the history books. The event originated while Sumlin was still alive as a celebration to mark his 80th birthday. It stayed that way; Guest after guest recounted Sumlin’s unfaltering positivity and passion for his instrument. At one point, Toni Ann Mamary, Sumlin’s longtime manager and companion, tearfully recalled Sumlin tellling her, "I’m gonna be there. I don’t care if I play – I’m going to be there." She added, "Can you feel him?"

The night began with a film featuring classic Sumlin performance footage and a recent interview with him, where Sumlin humorously described how he found his own piercing signature sound after Wolf strongly urged him to lose the guitar pick. The stage lights then revealed two massive portraits of Sumlin behind the stage. His sunburst Stratocaster sat on a stand at center stage, with his trademark feathered cap hanging off of it. Clapton emerged – with short, slicked-back hair and wearing a blazer – with Cotton, Sumlin’s old musical partner.  Clapton kicked the night off howling an acoustic, stomping "Key to the Highway," complemented by Cotton’s razor-sharp harp fills.

Each set came and went in a flash. Performers were backed by an incredible house band including Steve Jordan and Jim Keltner, two of the best drummers alive, bassist Willie Weeks and pianist Ivan Neville. An early highlight was Jimmie Vaughan performing an electric solo version of "Six Strings Down," a tribute to fallen gunslingers. When he sang "Albert Collins up there / Muddy and Lightnin’ too / Albert and Freddy / playing the blues," it was easy to feel more than one spirit in the room. Kenny Wayne Shepherd and 77-year-old Jody Williams jammed on Williams' ferocious 1957 instrumental "Lucky Lou," Shepherd unleashing flurries of loud, screeching notes.  The New York Dolls’ David Johansen – who sang lead at many of Sumlin’s shows in recent years – emerged for "Evil," replicating Howlin' Wolf’s vocals with a weathered cat-scratch howl.

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Stars Celebrate Life of Billionaire Philanthropist Warren Hellman

Warren Hellman and the Wronglers performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 2011.Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

An estimated 15,000 people and a handful of carefully selected artists celebrated the life of billionaire philanthropist Warren Hellman at a memorial concert held alongside San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Sunday. Hellman's musical heroes – including Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Buddy Miller, Boz Scaggs and the Wronglers with Jimmie Dale Gilmore – all memorialized and eulogized Hellman from stage, as well as behind it.

They celebrated the life of a man who, for the past decade, hired them and hundreds of other artists to perform at a free three-day festival he threw in Golden Gate Park every October. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass saw daily crowds that topped 100,000 and Hellman paid for all of it out of his own pocket, insisting that the festival remain free to the public and free from any corporate sponsorship, advertising or tie-ins of any kind. It cost him millions of dollars every year and it was a joy for him to be able to do. He saw it as his gift to the city and his contribution to music. He simply loved music. Hellman passed away on December 18, 2011 due to complications from leukemia, at the age of 77.

A banjo player himself, Hellman was often invited by various artists to sit in with them during their sets – both at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and elsewhere. While that couldn't happen on Sunday for obvious reasons, that spirit was alive and well at the memorial as many of the artists sat in with each other during their sets. At the end of Harris' set, she invited all of the day's artists onstage for a group sing of the Band's "The Weight." Hearts were heavy, indeed – yet there was no denying that this was a celebration.

"He's my favorite capitalist," Steve Earle told Rolling Stone backstage after his set. Earle performed at ten out of the eleven Hardly Strictlys to date and said that Hellman, who became a personal friend, always overpaid all the artists – but "for the right reasons," he said. "When you have a lot of money, you have choices as to what you can do with that, and Hellman did this. He also saved the pension plans of a whole bunch of the City of San Francisco workers – you don’t run into that very much among investment bankers."

Earle opened his set with a brand new tune which he wrote on the airplane on his way to the memorial concert. The song was called "Warren Hellman’s Banjo."

Boz Scaggs had equally reverential words about the late benefactor. "Warren was a humble man and he studied banjo under some pretty good teachers for a number of years," he told Rolling Stone. "He actually got to the point where he was playing with a number of us who are featured performers in this festival and he was welcome because he really learned his instrument. He managed to get to know a lot of the performers who played, but it wasn't like a hush came over the crowd when he came; Warren just was hanging and he seemed to be enjoying it more than anyone."

He certainly would've enjoyed the program on Sunday, especially during some of the more unexpected moments such as when Old Crow Medicine Show, perhaps in a double-nod to another fallen spirit, transformed Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" into a bluegrass breakdown. Or when Emmylou Harris invited Gillian Welch and David Rawlings out for a cover of Rosa Watson's "Your Long Journey."
Often called "the heart of Hardly Strictly," Harris – who has performed at every Hardly Strictly since the event's inception – reiterated what many of the other artists confirmed from the stage throughout the day: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass will return to Golden Gate Park this October and for many Octobers to come. Hellman set up an endowment to ensure that the festival would continue long after his death.

"We love you Warren,” said Harris, who was one of Hellman's personal favorites and a beloved friend. "We will see you in October every year for as long as we can stand – and, after that, in a wheelchair."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Stars Celebrate Life of Billionaire Philanthropist Warren Hellman

Warren Hellman and the Wronglers performing at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in 2011.Larry Hulst/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

An estimated 15,000 people and a handful of carefully selected artists celebrated the life of billionaire philanthropist Warren Hellman at a memorial concert held alongside San Francisco's Ocean Beach on Sunday. Hellman's musical heroes – including Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Old Crow Medicine Show, Robert Earl Keen, Buddy Miller, Boz Scaggs and the Wronglers with Jimmie Dale Gilmore – all memorialized and eulogized Hellman from stage, as well as behind it.

They celebrated the life of a man who, for the past decade, hired them and hundreds of other artists to perform at a free three-day festival he threw in Golden Gate Park every October. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass saw daily crowds that topped 100,000 and Hellman paid for all of it out of his own pocket, insisting that the festival remain free to the public and free from any corporate sponsorship, advertising or tie-ins of any kind. It cost him millions of dollars every year and it was a joy for him to be able to do. He saw it as his gift to the city and his contribution to music. He simply loved music. Hellman passed away on December 18, 2011 due to complications from leukemia, at the age of 77.

A banjo player himself, Hellman was often invited by various artists to sit in with them during their sets – both at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass and elsewhere. While that couldn't happen on Sunday for obvious reasons, that spirit was alive and well at the memorial as many of the artists sat in with each other during their sets. At the end of Harris' set, she invited all of the day's artists onstage for a group sing of the Band's "The Weight." Hearts were heavy, indeed – yet there was no denying that this was a celebration.

"He's my favorite capitalist," Steve Earle told Rolling Stone backstage after his set. Earle performed at ten out of the eleven Hardly Strictlys to date and said that Hellman, who became a personal friend, always overpaid all the artists – but "for the right reasons," he said. "When you have a lot of money, you have choices as to what you can do with that, and Hellman did this. He also saved the pension plans of a whole bunch of the City of San Francisco workers – you don’t run into that very much among investment bankers."

Earle opened his set with a brand new tune which he wrote on the airplane on his way to the memorial concert. The song was called "Warren Hellman’s Banjo."

Boz Scaggs had equally reverential words about the late benefactor. "Warren was a humble man and he studied banjo under some pretty good teachers for a number of years," he told Rolling Stone. "He actually got to the point where he was playing with a number of us who are featured performers in this festival and he was welcome because he really learned his instrument. He managed to get to know a lot of the performers who played, but it wasn't like a hush came over the crowd when he came; Warren just was hanging and he seemed to be enjoying it more than anyone."

He certainly would've enjoyed the program on Sunday, especially during some of the more unexpected moments such as when Old Crow Medicine Show, perhaps in a double-nod to another fallen spirit, transformed Whitney Houston's "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" into a bluegrass breakdown. Or when Emmylou Harris invited Gillian Welch and David Rawlings out for a cover of Rosa Watson's "Your Long Journey."
Often called "the heart of Hardly Strictly," Harris – who has performed at every Hardly Strictly since the event's inception – reiterated what many of the other artists confirmed from the stage throughout the day: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass will return to Golden Gate Park this October and for many Octobers to come. Hellman set up an endowment to ensure that the festival would continue long after his death.

"We love you Warren,” said Harris, who was one of Hellman's personal favorites and a beloved friend. "We will see you in October every year for as long as we can stand – and, after that, in a wheelchair."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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The Kills Celebrate a Decade of Rock in New York

The Kills' show last night at Manhattan's Terminal 5 was billed as a 10th anniversary concert, but the band hardly acknowledged the occasion over a 90-minute set focused mainly on material from their two most recent albums. There were a few surprises particular to this show: They were joined by four additional percussionists in matching black leather and red bandanas whose drumming was more ornamental than audible, and they revived the seldom-performed No Wow gem "At the Back of the Shell." But for the most part, this was business-as-usual for a band more invested in their present than their past.

The 10th anniversary conceit is helpful, though, in getting a grasp on just what the perennially underrated Kills have accomplished over the past decade. They're just coming out of an awkward phase of their career in which they were not quite established enough to have elder statesman gravitas, and a bit too experienced to seem buzzy and fresh to those who would prefer to jump on something new and cool. With this tour, the duo are clearly eager to reinvent themselves as rock & roll lifers, which, of course, they are. Frontwoman Alison Mosshart is only 33, but has been putting out records since she was a teenager, and guitarist Jamie Hince did time in a series of long-forgotten indie bands. They carry themselves like people who could never bring themselves to even consider giving up a life on the road.

When the Kills began a decade ago, raw, hedonistic rock was on a brief upswing in popularity, which was in many ways a response against the dour post-grunge radio rock of the late Nineties, and an increasingly twee and defanged indie music scene. At the time, the duo got lost in the glut of garage bands with names beginning with a definite article. These days, most of those other bands are either long gone or irrelevant, while the Kills' music has kept evolving. Hince started off with blues minimalism backed by simple drum machine beats, but he's become one of his generation's most distinctive guitarists, with a style that embraces scuzzy digital distortion.

Mosshart, for her part, has become a style icon for a small cult of young women who admire her effortless confidence and ability to project a self-possessed sexiness without showing much skin or making concessions to the dudes in the room. Her badass style is very big on leopard print, to the point that the band now performs in front of an enormous leopard-print backdrop. Her visual aesthetic carries over to her vocals and lyrics, which balance playful wit and emotional vulnerability with aloof coolness and an all-consuming obsession with passionate romance.

That fixation on romance is the key to the Kills' enduring appeal, and what sets them apart from so many of their peers. Mosshart and Hince specialize in conveying passion and desperation, and in building a world for themselves that measures up to the dramatic, exciting vision of rock that exists in their fantasies. In 10 years, they've done an amazing job of making this dream a reality for themselves, and offering their fans a version of rock glamor that is, once again, a refreshing alternative to most of their contemporaries.

The Kills' setlist at Terminal 5 was as follows:

"No Wow"
"Future Starts Slow"
"Heart Is A Beating Drum"
"Kissy Kissy"
"URA Fever"
"DNA"
"Satellite"
"Last Day of Magic"
"Crazy" (Patsy Cline cover)
"At the Back of the Shell"
"Black Balloon"
"Baby Says"
"You Don't Own the Road"
"Tape Song"
"Cheap and Cheerful"
"Pots and Pans"

"The Last Goodbye"
"Nail In My Coffin"
"Sour Cherry"
"Fuck the People"
"Monkey 23"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Read more »

The Kills Celebrate a Decade of Rock in New York

The Kills' show last night at Manhattan's Terminal 5 was billed as a 10th anniversary concert, but the band hardly acknowledged the occasion over a 90-minute set focused mainly on material from their two most recent albums. There were a few surprises particular to this show: They were joined by four additional percussionists in matching black leather and red bandanas whose drumming was more ornamental than audible, and they revived the seldom-performed No Wow gem "At the Back of the Shell." But for the most part, this was business-as-usual for a band more invested in their present than their past.

The 10th anniversary conceit is helpful, though, in getting a grasp on just what the perennially underrated Kills have accomplished over the past decade. They're just coming out of an awkward phase of their career in which they were not quite established enough to have elder statesman gravitas, and a bit too experienced to seem buzzy and fresh to those who would prefer to jump on something new and cool. With this tour, the duo are clearly eager to reinvent themselves as rock & roll lifers, which, of course, they are. Frontwoman Alison Mosshart is only 33, but has been putting out records since she was a teenager, and guitarist Jamie Hince did time in a series of long-forgotten indie bands. They carry themselves like people who could never bring themselves to even consider giving up a life on the road.

When the Kills began a decade ago, raw, hedonistic rock was on a brief upswing in popularity, which was in many ways a response against the dour post-grunge radio rock of the late Nineties, and an increasingly twee and defanged indie music scene. At the time, the duo got lost in the glut of garage bands with names beginning with a definite article. These days, most of those other bands are either long gone or irrelevant, while the Kills' music has kept evolving. Hince started off with blues minimalism backed by simple drum machine beats, but he's become one of his generation's most distinctive guitarists, with a style that embraces scuzzy digital distortion.

Mosshart, for her part, has become a style icon for a small cult of young women who admire her effortless confidence and ability to project a self-possessed sexiness without showing much skin or making concessions to the dudes in the room. Her badass style is very big on leopard print, to the point that the band now performs in front of an enormous leopard-print backdrop. Her visual aesthetic carries over to her vocals and lyrics, which balance playful wit and emotional vulnerability with aloof coolness and an all-consuming obsession with passionate romance.

That fixation on romance is the key to the Kills' enduring appeal, and what sets them apart from so many of their peers. Mosshart and Hince specialize in conveying passion and desperation, and in building a world for themselves that measures up to the dramatic, exciting vision of rock that exists in their fantasies. In 10 years, they've done an amazing job of making this dream a reality for themselves, and offering their fans a version of rock glamor that is, once again, a refreshing alternative to most of their contemporaries.

The Kills' setlist at Terminal 5 was as follows:

"No Wow"
"Future Starts Slow"
"Heart Is A Beating Drum"
"Kissy Kissy"
"URA Fever"
"DNA"
"Satellite"
"Last Day of Magic"
"Crazy" (Patsy Cline cover)
"At the Back of the Shell"
"Black Balloon"
"Baby Says"
"You Don't Own the Road"
"Tape Song"
"Cheap and Cheerful"
"Pots and Pans"

"The Last Goodbye"
"Nail In My Coffin"
"Sour Cherry"
"Fuck the People"
"Monkey 23"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

The B-52's Celebrate 35 Years With Hometown Party

The B-52's Celebrate 35 Years With Hometown Party in Athens, Georgia.

They didn't really know what they were doing – didn't even totally know how to play their instruments, if they were being honest. But back in 1977, a couple of the band's friends were holding a Valentine's Day house party at a place on Milledge Ave. in Athens, Ga., just across the street from where the Dunkin' Donuts sits today. The B-52's – a band that would christen itself after the beehive hairdo that bore an aesthetic similarity to a Boeing-designed strategic bomber – were playing for 25 or so people, who were dancing like crazy. The band set up in the foyer, the audience was in the living room. It was cramped, but there was a keg. Someone was taking photographs of hands, feet, dresses, legs. The floor was about to cave in.

"We weren't really a band at the time," Keith Strickland tells Rolling Stone. "But Fred [Schneider, B-52's frontman] said we were, so then we had to be one, and we had to shore up some songs. I think we [ended up] with about six, which were 'Rock Lobster,' 'Planet Claire,' 'Lava,' 'Killer Bees' and 'Strobe Light.'"

Last night, just about a mile and a half from that house, and 35 years nearly to the day of that very first, awkward, performance-art of a performance, the B-52's played the Classic Center in downtown Athens. But it felt less like a couple thousand people housed within a fancy venue and more like a gathering of old friends – ones who came bedecked in pinstriped blazers with leopard-print lapels, colored wigs, and lights draped or attached all over their bodies, but old friends nonetheless.

Unsurprisingly, it was also a tribute night of sorts to Athens itself. From local upstarts Tunabunny, who were recommended as an opener to Schneider by the folks at legendary local record store Wuxtry, to the local Terrapin Beer Company brews flowing in and out of flimsy plastic cups, to the "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name" vibe of the crowd itself. The whole event practically screamed "quintessential college town."

For their part, the B-52's brought the party. Schneider's speaksinging delivery, one of the most recognizable in all of pop music, still sounds great. Kate Pierson's pipes are stunning despite three-and-a-half decades of wear, and Wilson and Strickland strut like it's the Seventies. Songs like "Hot Corner" and "Roam" earned massive responses, thanks in no small part to their Classic City connections, and the latter was especially emotionally resonant, pairing the group's globe-hopping past with its homecoming present. They played a handful of tracks from 2008's Funplex, and those songs went over fine, but it was clear on both sides that this was going to be a hits showcase.

Then there's that moment when "Love Shack," a ubiquitous cultural force, karaoke hall-of-famer, wedding dance-floor igniter and grocery-store staple, comes to life in front of a group of people and the group goes completely bonkers. Even the most steadfast of the crowd's non-dancing throng seemed moved to stand up and shake it, if only just a little bit. The security guards even lost it.

With the recent disbanding of R.E.M., the B-52's became the last remaining vestige of Athens' college-rock origins, the final band from that first wave of talent that gave the town its first real musical presence, opening the metaphorical door for future bands as varied as Neutral Milk Hotel, Widespread Panic, Of Montreal and Drive-By Truckers. That history is not lost, it seems, even in one of Athens' latest buzzy acts, Tunabunny, who opened the show with its noisy, art-damaged pop, receiving welcoming and rapturous applause in return for its unhinged music.

"Athens is a great place for music, and it's not always perfect," Tunabunny singer/guitarist Brigette Herron said as a precursor to the final song of the band's set. "We have the B-52's to thank for that."

Her sentiment echoed that of  Strickland earlier in the day, sitting behind the stage on which she spoke those words. "I remember listening to that Patti Smith song,'" Strickland said. "She had this lyric, 'Dip into the sea of possibilities.' That was my mantra in those early days. Anything can happen. You can do it."

Set List
"Eyes Wide Open"
"Mesopotamia"
"Private Idaho"
"Lava"
"Give Me Back My Man"
"Funplex"
"Topaz"
"Roam"
"52 Girls"
"Love in the Year 3000"
"Too Much to Think About"
"Hot Corner"
"Pump"
"Whammy Kiss"
"Love Shack"

"Planet Claire"
"Party Out of Bounds"
"Rock Lobster"

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

The B-52's Celebrate 35 Years With Hometown Party

The B-52's Celebrate 35 Years With Hometown Party in Athens, Georgia.

They didn't really know what they were doing – didn't even totally know how to play their instruments, if they were being honest. But back in 1977, a couple of the band's friends were holding a Valentine's Day house party at a place on Milledge Ave. in Athens, Ga., just across the street from where the Dunkin' Donuts sits today. The B-52's – a band that would christen itself after the beehive hairdo that bore an aesthetic similarity to a Boeing-designed strategic bomber – were playing for 25 or so people, who were dancing like crazy. The band set up in the foyer, the audience was in the living room. It was cramped, but there was a keg. Someone was taking photographs of hands, feet, dresses, legs. The floor was about to cave in.

"We weren't really a band at the time," Keith Strickland tells Rolling Stone. "But Fred [Schneider, B-52's frontman] said we were, so then we had to be one, and we had to shore up some songs. I think we [ended up] with about six, which were 'Rock Lobster,' 'Planet Claire,' 'Lava,' 'Killer Bees' and 'Strobe Light.'"

Last night, just about a mile and a half from that house, and 35 years nearly to the day of that very first, awkward, performance-art of a performance, the B-52's played the Classic Center in downtown Athens. But it felt less like a couple thousand people housed within a fancy venue and more like a gathering of old friends – ones who came bedecked in pinstriped blazers with leopard-print lapels, colored wigs, and lights draped or attached all over their bodies, but old friends nonetheless.

Unsurprisingly, it was also a tribute night of sorts to Athens itself. From local upstarts Tunabunny, who were recommended as an opener to Schneider by the folks at legendary local record store Wuxtry, to the local Terrapin Beer Company brews flowing in and out of flimsy plastic cups, to the "sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name" vibe of the crowd itself. The whole event practically screamed "quintessential college town."

For their part, the B-52's brought the party. Schneider's speaksinging delivery, one of the most recognizable in all of pop music, still sounds great. Kate Pierson's pipes are stunning despite three-and-a-half decades of wear, and Wilson and Strickland strut like it's the Seventies. Songs like "Hot Corner" and "Roam" earned massive responses, thanks in no small part to their Classic City connections, and the latter was especially emotionally resonant, pairing the group's globe-hopping past with its homecoming present. They played a handful of tracks from 2008's Funplex, and those songs went over fine, but it was clear on both sides that this was going to be a hits showcase.

Then there's that moment when "Love Shack," a ubiquitous cultural force, karaoke hall-of-famer, wedding dance-floor igniter and grocery-store staple, comes to life in front of a group of people and the group goes completely bonkers. Even the most steadfast of the crowd's non-dancing throng seemed moved to stand up and shake it, if only just a little bit. The security guards even lost it.

With the recent disbanding of R.E.M., the B-52's became the last remaining vestige of Athens' college-rock origins, the final band from that first wave of talent that gave the town its first real musical presence, opening the metaphorical door for future bands as varied as Neutral Milk Hotel, Widespread Panic, Of Montreal and Drive-By Truckers. That history is not lost, it seems, even in one of Athens' latest buzzy acts, Tunabunny, who opened the show with its noisy, art-damaged pop, receiving welcoming and rapturous applause in return for its unhinged music.

"Athens is a great place for music, and it's not always perfect," Tunabunny singer/guitarist Brigette Herron said as a precursor to the final song of the band's set. "We have the B-52's to thank for that."

Her sentiment echoed that of  Strickland earlier in the day, sitting behind the stage on which she spoke those words. "I remember listening to that Patti Smith song,'" Strickland said. "She had this lyric, 'Dip into the sea of possibilities.' That was my mantra in those early days. Anything can happen. You can do it."

Set List
"Eyes Wide Open"
"Mesopotamia"
"Private Idaho"
"Lava"
"Give Me Back My Man"
"Funplex"
"Topaz"
"Roam"
"52 Girls"
"Love in the Year 3000"
"Too Much to Think About"
"Hot Corner"
"Pump"
"Whammy Kiss"
"Love Shack"

"Planet Claire"
"Party Out of Bounds"
"Rock Lobster"

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