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Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Tuesday Rock Roundup

Happy Birthday today to former Jackson 5 and Journey Bassist Randy Jackson. Where is he now? Anyway, he's 53. And original Beatles Bassist Stu Sutcliffe, who died at 21, would have been 69 today.

Tonight Def Leppard start their fifth consecutive summer tour which pairs them with another major classic rock act. Following past tours with Bryan Adams, Journey, Styx and R-E-O Speedwagon, Def Lep will be joined this year by Cheap Trick and Poison. Singer Joe Elliott tells us it will be an event because "we're out with two other bands that everybody knows, everybody knows most of their music and it's gonna be a good evening's entertainment." Elliott also says that this may be the last summer tour for a while.

Elton John's neighborhood is planning to name a street after its most famous musical son. The local council in the London borough of Harrow is considering such a measure. But there's no word whether we'll soon see "Elton John Avenue" or "Yellow Brick Road" in the Pinner section, where young Reg Dwight grew up and dreamed of being a soccer star.

Paul Stanley says KISS is just four days away from finishing a new studio disc. He says: "We recorded 11 tracks and it is everything I've told you. It is classic. It is all written within the band and it rocks big time! The songs, sound and playing will knock your socks off. You will all be as proud and excited as we all are. Oh...and wait till you see the cover! We are just getting started!" They are in talks to release the album, their first since 1998's Psycho Circus, exclusively through Wal-Mart.

Four of the members of Styx -- Tommy Shaw, Chuck Panozzo, Lawrence Gowan and Todd Sucherman -- were given a private tour of the White House yesterday and spent time in the Briefing Room. The press was in the room and the band posed for a few pictures and answered questions. Styx, REO Speedwagon and 38 Special are in Columbia, Maryland tonight.

NEW RELEASES:

Def Leppard release deluxe editions of their Pyromania and Adrenalize albums today. The release comes as they kickoff their tour with Cheap Trick and Poison tonight in Camden, New Jersey. Both albums have been re-mastered, with Pyromania containing a live disc of a previously unreleased 15-track show from The Forum in Los Angeles in 1983. The bonus disc for Adrenalize contains live and acoustic tracks, as well as demos.

The only performance of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Plastic Ono Band to be filmed arrives on DVD today from Shout Factory. Live in Toronto '69 is an hour-long recording in which the Lennons are backed by an all-star lineup including Eric Clapton -- who told us he was asked by John to do the show three hours before their plane left from London. Despite the short notice and only rehearsing in the airplane's first-class cabin, it proved to be a memorable show. Keyboardist Klaus Voorman and drummer Alan White round out the band, which shared the stage with some of John's musical heroes -- Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Bo Diddley.

The Pink Panther 2 is new to D-V-D and Blu-Ray today. Steve Martin returns as the famed "Inspector Clouseau." The only good news is that it comes with some classic Panther cartoons, from back when the franchise was funny.

A fairytale villain leaps from the pages of a book in the fantasy flick Inkheart, with Brendan Fraser.

Confessions of a Shopaholic stars Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers) as a shopaholic with mounting debt who gets a job as a finance journalist.

TV that's gone digital includes the fifth season of the Playboy reality show The Girls Next Door and the sixth season of Reba.