Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

Twenty One Pilots, the Ohio-based alt-pop/hip-hop duo, released a 7-inch single on Record Store Day 2016 titled Double-Sided . Limited to 7,500 copies, the single contained two previously unreleased live tracks recorded at the Fox Theater in Oakland, CA. The single was part of a series of 7-inch singles labeled "Disquaire Day", to show solidarity with French record stores after the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris . The A-side, titled “A Few Older Ones”, is a live medley of songs from the first three albums: Twenty One Pilots (2009), Regional At Best (2011), and Vessel (2013). The mashed-up songs include “Pantaloon”, “Semi-Automatic”, “Forest”, “Screen”, “Ode To Sleep”, and “Addict With A Pen”. This live medley is built on a piano-and-drums combo, without the electronic instrumentation of the studio versions. The duo does well performing in this fashion, and they skillfully segue between the different song passages to create a coherent-sounding whole. The only pr...

The 27th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to Platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in April of 2016. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its Platinum members every three months. The twenty-seventh Vault package contained a 3-LP set, featuring live concerts from three bands that Jack White was involved with in 1998 and 1999. The 7-inch single from the Dead Weather contained two tracks from their 2015 Dodge And Burn album. The Live at the Gold Dollar box set contains three full-length live LP's recorded at the now-defunct Detroit venue in the late 1990's. The three discs are housed in a telescoping box, which also contains soft-touch record sleeves for each indi...

As you've probably heard by now, Metallica are the official ambassadors of Record Store Day 2016, which falls on Saturday, April 16th. The band that released a cassette on last year's Record Store Day will this year release a CD, entitled Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Metallica! - Live at Le Bataclan. Paris, France - June 11th, 2003 . As the title indicates, the CD documents a nine-song live set performed at the Bataclan in Paris in June of 2003. In light of the recent terrorist attack at that venue in November 2015 , proceeds from sales of the CD will be donated to the Fondation de France's Give For France charity. This concert was performed at a strange time in Metallica's history, just days after the release of their chaotic St. Anger album. This was the first year that the band employed current bassist Robert Trujillo, after they weathered two years of troubles documented in the film Some Kind Of Monster . This show was the second of three shows that the band ...

For Record Store Day 2016, ABKCO is reissuing the Animals' 1965 EP Animal Tracks in a 3,000-copy limited edition. This EP was originally released in the U.K. and Europe in 1965, and has never been released in the U.S. Animal Tracks was originally pressed as a 7-inch 45; the Record Store Day EP is pressed in 10-inch vinyl for better fidelity. This EP is not to be mistaken for the full-length Animal Tracks album, which was also released in 1965. None of this EP's four tracks appeared on the American version of that album, although all of them were included on the U.K. version of the album. The first three tracks find the British Invasion quintet playing covers of R&B classics from Chuck Berry ("How You've Changed"), Ray Charles ("I Believe To My Soul"), and Louis Jordan ("Let The Good Times Roll"). On each of these three tracks, Eric Burdon croons soulfully over Alan Price's restrained yet intricate piano arrangements. These tr...

After spotlighting the pre-Eagles work of the late Glenn Frey , I also wanted to talk about the early band of Frey’s Eagles co-founder Don Henley. Before Frey and Henley met, Henley played drums and sang lead vocals for a Texas band called Shiloh. Shiloh recorded one self-titled album in 1970, and it was released on the same label – Amos Records – which distributed the sole album of Frey’s early duo Longbranch/Pennywhistle. During the ‘60’s, Henley and other members of Shiloh had previously played together in at least two other bands. The first of these was the Four Speeds (no relation to the Gary Usher surf-rock band of the same name). Henley and two other future Shiloh members – bassist Richard Bowden and keyboard/trumpet player Jerry Surratt – were in this band, along with original guitarist Freddie Neese. These four teenagers cut two singles in 1964, “Variety” and “Why Did You Leave Me”, both of which were decent Texas-style garage rock songs that would fit in on a Nuggets box s...

Glenn Frey passed away on January 18, 2016 at age 67, from complications caused by rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia. Frey was the co-founder of the Eagles, who recorded some of the most popular songs of the 1970’s; Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is one of the top-selling albums of all time. In a statement, Eagles co-founder Don Henley said that Frey “was the one who started it all. He was the spark plug, the man with the plan.” Although the Eagles defined the Los Angeles sound for the rest of the world, none of their members originally hailed from L.A. Before moving to Southern California, Frey played guitar in numerous bands as a teenager in and around his native city of Detroit, Michigan. One of those bands, The 4 Of Us, had earlier recorded two singles – the 1965 psych-surf track “You Gonna Be Mine” and the 1966 Byrds cover “I Feel A Whole Lot Better” – before Frey joined their lineup. Frey recorded his first single in 1967 at the age of 18, with anot...

The 26th set of exclusive vinyl items offered to platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service was mailed out to the members in December of 2015. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its platinum members every three months. The twenty-sixth Vault package contained a live LP featuring a White Stripes show from early 1999, and a 7-inch single from the Dead Weather which served as the only physical version of their Dodge And Burn album’s second single, “Impossible Winner”. The White Stripes LP Live At The Gold Dollar Vol. III — pressed in blood-red vinyl with black wisps — documents a concert performed by Jack and Meg White at that now-defunct Detroit bar in February of 1999, a few months before the duo’s self-tit...

As 2015 comes to its end, we acknowledge that rock and roll officially turned 60 this past year. (You can make all the old-age jokes you will about it, as long as you don't say rock and roll is "dead". That's my pet peeve). 1955 is generally thought of as the year that rock and roll was born, because that was the year in which Bill Haley and the Comets topped the charts with the first number one rock hit "Rock Around The Clock". But 1955 was really not the year of the birth of rock and roll; it was merely the year in which rock and roll roared into the mainstream. It’s hard to say when rock and roll really began. Some people argue that the first rock and roll song was “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (aka the Ike Turner Band), mainly due to its accidentally distorted electric guitar sound. That song was released in 1951 – but rock and roll certainly dates back farther than that. Some would say that its earliest seeds were planted way back ...