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!
On March 23rd, 2012 singer-songwriter Eric Lowen passed away following complications with ALS (aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease or motor neurone disease), a condition with which he had lived since 2004.
While Eric’s work as one half of acoustic pop duo Lowen & Navarro (also featuring Dan Navarro, cousin of Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro) may not be so familiar to those outside the US, the duo’s work from the 90s and beyond truly raised the bar with regards to singer-songwriter pop.
Best known for writing ‘We Belong’ (a hit for Pat Benetar), ‘I’ll Set You Free’ (a worldwide hit for The Bangles) and ‘Hammerhead Shark’ (covered by David Lee Roth in 1991), the duo wrote dozens of fantastic songs.
The duo released eight studio albums between (including a yuletide release in 2004 and a covers record in 2006) and a handful of live albums between 1990 and 2008, with their second release, 1993’s ‘Broken Moon’ being one of the most consistent; a near perfect album, which showcases the duo’s effortless skills as both musicians and song writers.
After Eric Lowen became too ill to perform, Dan Navarro continued to perform as a solo artist, while Lowen himself oversaw archive releases from the band’s catalogue.
For those unfamiliar with Eric Lowen’s gift as a songwriter, checking out ‘Broken Moon’ or L&N’s underrated follow up, ‘Pendulum’ is strongly advised. If you already own either of these albums, try and remember Eric by giving them a listen if you’ve not recently done so.
You can find out more about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis by visiting the ALS Association’s official website.
A few highlights from Eric Lowen’s career can be seen below.
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’
‘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.
Let’s hope they’ve not added insult to injury by fading out the end of the title track and spoiling the segue into ‘Suffragette City’ as they did on the previous ‘Ziggy’ special edition (2002’s 2CD 30th anniversary set).
