Following the recent death of hard rock legend Ronnie Montrose, various musical friends and former bandmates are to gather and pay musical tribute next month.

On April 27th at the Regency Ballroom in San Fransisco, Sammy Hagar and members of Montrose will head the cast of musicians gathering to pay tribute to Ronnie’s musical legacy.

Montrose – featuring original members Hagar, Denny Carmassi and Bill Church – will be joined by Sammy Hagar’s Chickenfoot bandmate Joe Satriani.  Also appearing will be Gamma, featuring Davey Pattison, Glenn Lesch, Tommy Suczek, Marc Bonilla and a second appearance from Carmassi.

The evening will culminate with an all-star tribute, featuring guest appearances by the following musicians:
Neal Schon and Steve Smith (both of Journey fame),  Mr Big vocalist Eric Martin, drummer Eric Singer (KISS), ex-Bad English bassist Ricky Phillips and veteran drummer Jimmy DeGrasso, formerly of Y&T, White Lion, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies and MD:45.

US singer-songwriter Bunny West has recorded a cover of Iron Maiden’s ‘Run To The Hills’.

Bunny “takes her inspiration from Hank Williams Johnny Cash, Etta James and The Black Keys” and uses such influences to remodel the 1982 metal classic into a haunting piece in her own style. You can view an in-the-studio clip of West performing the track below.

Iron Maiden, meanwhile, released a new 2CD live album and blu-ray ‘En Vivo!’ on March 26th, capturing the band live in Chile on their ‘Final Frontier’ tour.

Cult power-pop hero Holmes (aka Roy Shakked) has begun work on his fourth release and he needs your help!

For the follow up to 2011’s excellent covers album [entitled ‘Covers’, read a review here], Holmes has started a fundrasing campaign via Kickstarter.

He says: I’m currently working on my 4th album release, independently. All songs have been written and about a third way through recording I find myself slowly crawling along without financing. I’m here asking for your participation & help in finishing the recording process and starting up touring and promotion. Though it would take much more money to check everything on my “to do” list, our $10,000 goal will be indispensable for me, my fellow musicians, engineer, graphic designer and everyone else involved.

The music on this album is my best yet and your support could be the difference between just a nice sounding product that takes months to complete and a pristine sounding album, finished only weeks from now and promoted properly. You give – you get back – CDs, T-shirts, live shows, personalized songs and more!

By pledging a few dollars, you can make difference and also get sent cool stuff! You know you want to!

Check out the details here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/485020017/new-holmes-album

It has been announced that David Bowie will re-issue his classic 1972 album ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars’ on June 5th.

The release coincides with the album’s 40th anniversary.

While the newly remastered CD will feature no bonus tracks, a bonus DVD audio disc (only to be included with the vinyl issue) will include a few unreleased mixes of ‘Ziggy’ tracks. It is not yet known whether the original ‘Ziggy’ tracks on the DVD-audio will be in 5.1 mixes or PCM 2.0 stereo.

The tracklisting is as follows:

CD Version

‘Five Years’
‘Soul Love’
‘Moonage Daydream’
‘Starman’
‘It Ain’t Easy’
‘Lady Stardust’
‘Star’
‘Hang On To Yourself’
‘Ziggy Stardust’
‘Suffragette City’
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’

180-gram vinyl and DVD package

Side 1

‘Five Years’
‘Soul Love’
‘Moonage Daydream’
‘Starman’
‘It Ain’t Easy’

Side 2

‘Lady Stardust’
‘Star’
‘Hang on to Yourself’
‘Ziggy Stardust’
‘Suffragette City’
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’

DVD

‘Five Years’
‘Soul Love’
‘Moonage Daydream’
‘Starman’
‘It Ain’t Easy’
‘Lady Stardust’
‘Star’
‘Hang On To Yourself’
‘Ziggy Stardust’
‘Suffragette City’
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’
‘Five Years
‘Soul Love’
‘Moonage Daydream’
‘Starman’
‘It Ain’t Easy’
‘Lady Stardust’
‘Star’
‘Hang On To Yourself’
‘Ziggy Stardust’
‘Suffragette City’
‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’
‘Moonage Daydream’ (Instrumental) *
‘The Supermen’ *
‘Velvet Goldmine’ *
‘Sweet Head’*

*Previously unreleased mixes

REAL GONE says: New Bowie releases are always welcome. However, there’s a strong feeling that the record company have been somewhat cheeky with this anniversary issue. Big fans will undoubtedly want those unreleased mixes but why not include them on the CD? This set up means that those who wouldn’t normally shell out for expensive pieces of vinyl will now likely do so… It’s almost possible to see those in charge rubbing their hands.