Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

For Record Store Day in 2026, Collective Soul issued a limited edition vinyl LP titled Touch And Go . The LP was limited to 2,500 copies, and pressed in blue-swirl-colored vinyl. This new studio album from the Georgia-based rock band, who made their name during the alternative '90's, was inspired by '80's new wave sounds, particularly the sound of The Cars. (The album is presumably named after that band's 1980 song "Touch and Go"). The album was described as an "RSD Exclusive Release", and as of one month later has still not been given a wider release. However, a wider commercial release (either physical or digital) is likely to happen more sooner than later. Although this album is touted as marking a new creative direction for Collective Soul, lead singer and guitarist Ed Roland did pursue this genre once before. Touch And Go is reminiscent of a 2020 Record Store Day Black Friday release by The Living Room (aka Alien Attitude), another Rol...

For Record Store Day 2026, the U.K.-based Demon label issued a T. Rex record titled Songs From "Marc" , containing ten tracks recorded by the Marc Bolan-led band for Bolan's 1977 TV series Marc . The LP was limited to 2,500 copies, and was pressed in orange vinyl. Marc aired on British television for six weeks in the late summer of 1977, exactly around the time of Bolan's untimely death in a car crash on September 16th of that year. The show promised an intriguing new phase in the career of the then-faded glam-rock star. He served as the show's host, and lip-synced songs recorded and mimed by the final T. Rex lineup. The show spotlighted other U.K. musical acts from the time, and also showed sequences of a dance troupe called Heart Throb moving to the sounds of recorded songs. For fans of Bolan, the low-budget show is fun to watch, but is also saddening, because it shows the not-quite-30-year-old singer and guitarist during his final days, when he was clearly w...

For Record Store Day 2026, Robert Plant's current band Saving Grace issued a limited edition vinyl EP containing four new studio tracks. The 12-inch, 45 rpm EP, titled All That Glitters... , was limited to 3,500 copies. Saving Grace was also the name of Plant's most recent album from 2025, recorded with the titular U.K.-based band, featuring co-vocalist and accordionist Suzi Dian. The sound of Saving Grace is mainly acoustic, and is inspired by folk, blues, Gospel, and Americana styles. Their mostly gentle sound is far more reminiscent of Plant's work with Alison Krauss than of his work with Led Zeppelin, but it has a more Celtic ambience, and an occasional touch of psychedelia. The 77-year-old Plant is no longer the heavy metal screamer that he once was. His vocals on Saving Grace are understated and controlled, and Dian's vocal accompaniment provides a "sweeter" counterpoint. The songs on the album are covers drawn from various genres, usually rendered w...

This past April 11th, the Rolling Stones released a limited edition, white-labeled 12-inch vinyl single titled "Rough and Twisted", under the pseudonym The Cockroaches. This one-sided single was limited to 1,000 numbered copies worldwide. As of four days later, the song has still not been released to streaming services, and the single is being sold for big bucks on eBay and Discogs. Why the fake name? The Cockroaches was a name that the superstar rock band sometimes used in the 1970's, when they wanted to secretly perform a gig in a low-profile venue away from the spotlight. The distribution of this single was done in a similarly secretive way. Signs began to appear around London, advertising a mysterious band called the Cockroaches, with a QR code that connected visitors to their official website . This website featured a graphic of the disc's plain white cover, and when a "flip" link was clicked, it listed GPS coordinates referring to locations of stores...

Cats were a rock band based in Philadelphia, who were active from 1976 until 1981, and released one self-titled new wave-era album in 1980. The band Cats had no connection to the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical; the very first stage performance of Webber's Cats took place one year after the Cats album was released. One of Cats' songs, "(He's Got) The Rest Of His Life", sounds lyrically similar to Billy Joel's hit "You May Be Right", which was released the same year. However, that Cats song had appeared the previous year on a 1979 various artists compilation which showcased Philadelphia musicians, so it predated the release of Joel's song. Also, since this band bore some musical similarity to Queen, you might suspect them of lifting the title of their album's opening track "On The Prowl" from Queen's "Man On The Prowl", but -- guess what? Cats predated that Queen song by four years. Considering the band's 1976 ori...

For Record Store Day 2026, Rhino Records is issuing a live album from the Cars, titled Heartbeat City Live . The album contains 17 songs performed by the new wave quintet on September 11, 1984 at The Summit in Houston, Texas. The 2-LP set will be limited to 3,500 copies. This concert was part of the tour to support the band's multi-platinum 1984 album Heartbeat City . The show was recorded for broadcast by the Westwood One radio network. The Record Store Day website previously stated (but no longer states) that the concert was "previously unreleased on any audio format - physical or digital". I'm glad that text was removed, because it is not quite accurate. All 17 of the tracks were included on the recent Deluxe Edition of Heartbeat City , issued in 2025 in both physical and digital formats. 13 of the songs were issued on a home video release of the concert in 1985 -- which, I realize, is considered a video format as opposed to an audio format. That videocassette w...

For Record Store Day 2026, Stewart Copeland's 1985 solo album titled The Rhythmatist is being reissued by Demon Records, in a limited vinyl edition which will be pressed in blue translucent vinyl, and limited to 1,200 copies. This edition has new cover art, and each copy will come with an exclusive art print signed by Copeland. The album will be also be reissued on CD on May 29th, with seven bonus tracks consisting of alternate versions of the album's singles "Koteja (Oh Bolilla)" and "Gong Rock". The first post-Police album by that band's former drummer, The Rhythmatist was the soundtrack album to Copeland's 1985 film of the same name, which was released on home video (A&M Video VC 61008). Directed and produced by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux, that amusing 57-minute curio showed Copeland undertaking a series of National Geographic -like adventures in East and West Africa, with the stated intention of studying the influence of African rhythms on mu...