January 19, 2011

The members of Widespread Panic start celebrating 25 years together next month with three intimate, sold-out shows in the band’s home state of Georgia. For those fans who didn’t score

The next issue of Rolling Stone features news that should thrill Grateful Dead fans as David Fricke reveals that Rhino will put out ALL of the band’s legendary Europe ’72 Tour in a deluxe, limited-edition package that includes 22 shows on over 60 CDs for $450.

Rhino will put out Europe ’72 in its entirety this fall with pre-orders available now over at Dead.net. According to the article, the team working on this project will have put two years into it by the time the release goes live. Fricke also reports that the Dead would be open to putting out other whole tours, Fall ’73 and Spring ’90 were mentioned. Kudos to Rhino and the Grateful Dead organization for giving us fans of archival releases “the full monty.” You can read the entire article in the next issue of Rolling Stone, which hits newsstands on Friday.

Europe ’72 was initially released as a triple-live album on November 5, 1972. The release featured a slew of vocal overdubs and is the Dead’s best-selling live album of all-time. The tracks were taken from a variety of performances on that tour. Deaddisc.com has a summary on which tracks came from which show. 2001’s Golden Road box set contained eight previously unreleased tracks from the tour. Other previous archival releases which feature material from the Europe ’72 tour are Rockin’ The Rhein, Hundred Year Hall and Stepping Out with the Grateful Dead – England ’72.

READ ON for more details on the Europe ’72 box…

Remember last month when the Black Crowes said farewell to their fans with a six-show sold-out run at the Fillmore in San Francisco by performing a cover of the Rolling

We’re sad to report that STS9 has canceled its upcoming winter tour as bass player David Murphy sets off to undergo timely and necessary cancer treatment following the band’s appearance at Mayan

With tonight’s premiere of American Idol – Season 10, we  will surely be finding something else to do. However, this season’s opener puts one of music’s biggest names in the judge’s seat. Steven Tyler has been in the spotlight for almost 40 years. He’s best known for his lips, his colorful scarves and a parade of hit songs that became radio staples. So is it any surprise that he’s joining American Idol?  Here’s what Three Grown Men have to say…

Kevin Smallwood:

Let’s be honest and call a spade a spade: Aerosmith has never been a cool band. They are like the jean jacket of the music industry. And like the jean jacket, they occasionally experience a cultural revival that is little more than a rehashing of novelty and nostalgia.

When this sort of sad decline takes place, you’ll often see either one of two things: 1. the lead singer will gracefully accept that his time in “that” spotlight is over and move on to other projects, good or bad (see: Robert Plant) or 2.  The lead singer will desperately cling to his fame by fighting his former band-mates, suing them and taking their songs on tour with a new band (see: Roger Waters, John Fogerty).

These are the generally accepted principles of aging classic rock stars. And Steven Tyler is not a classic rock star; Aerosmith may technically dip their toe in the classic rock genre because of Dream On and Sweet Emotion – but the majority of their career was spent on MTV with big hair and spandex pants.

READ ON for more of 3GM’s take on Steven Tyler…