RTT News
November 22, 2009

Paul Rodgers, Mick Ralphs and Simon Kirke are reforming as Bad Company and hitting the road for a string of eight shows in the U.K. this April. The band announced their comeback at the Hard Rock Café in Central London before playing an intimate show for a small, select audience. “These dates are to thank the fans for keeping the music alive,” Rodgers said of the upcoming shows. “It’s great to be with Paul and Simon,” Ralphs added. “We made great music together and had the time of our lives doing it. I’m really looking forward to us bringing Bad Company back to the U.K.”

Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry is slated to open for Bad Company along with his side group, The Joe Perry Project.

A new Bad Company live CD/DVD will also appear in the near future, scheduled for a release on February 9.

Tour Dates

April 1- Birmingham LG Arena
April 2- Manchester Arena
April 4- Sheffield City Hall
April 5- Cardiff CIA
April 7- Newcastle Arena
April 8- Glasgow Clyde
April 10- Brighton Center
April 11- Wembley Arena

Joe Perry Tour Dates:  (here).

Tonic.com
November 24, 2009

(Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images)

He may be wreaking havoc on the hearts of Aerosmith fans lately — what with making a decision to take a two-year break from the band, and recent comments from his own band mates suggesting that he may be back on drugs — but rocker Steven Tyler was in top form when he showed up and rocked out at the annual Michael J. Fox Foundation fundraiser event in New York City last Saturday night.

By all accounts, the Boston Bad Boy was all giant-mouthed smiles as he hit Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To Cure Parkinson’s,” the notoriously rock-centric annual charity gala to support Fox’s Parkinson’s foundation. (Last year’s musical guest? The Who!) Late in the evening, when Tyler hit the stage to sit in with headliner Greg Allman, “He sounded fabulous!” one audience member tells Tonic.

Even more fabulous? Tyler’s presence helped raised more than $4.3-million for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research — a dollar amount that’s on par with previous annual galas. And that’s no small feat given the state of the economy.

Elvis Costello and John Popper (of Blues Traveler fame) also performed at this year’s event, to an audience of 900 that included some of Fox’s famous friends: Roger Daltry, John McEnroe, Rachael Ray, Julianne Moore, Ryan Reynolds and Martin Scorcese among them.

As always, Fox himself strapped on a guitar for an end-of-night jam session with the band.

Marty McFly would be proud.

Founded by the Back To The Future and Family Ties star, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinon’s Research is dedicated to ensuring the development of better treatments, and ultimately a cure, for the disease through an aggresively funded research agenda. To date, MJFF has funded nearly $160 million in research.

Gibson.com
November 24, 2009

Though it’s shrouded in mystery, news of yet another “supergroup” project is brewing — this one involving some of rock’s greatest guitar royalty.

Writing Monday (Nov. 23) in his online diary, engineer Kevin Shirley says he’s been recording with Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Joe Perry, Brad Whitford and “many other” guitarists for some “high profile projects” about which he’s “sworn to secrecy.”

Shirley, who engineered Led Zeppelin’s How the West Was Won, goes on to say that in January he’ll be “producing what has the promise to be one of the most exciting ‘supergroups’ to come around in a long time.”

“[However], theory is just that,” Shirley writes, “until we see how the dynamics play out in the studio between these superb musicians. And of course the songs will make the real difference.”

Shirley also says he’ll soon be “remixing one of Classic Rock’s seriously classic albums.” Given that next year marks the 40th anniversary of such landmark discs as Santana’s Abraxas, Led Zeppelin III, and Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, the range of possibilities is wide.

In yet another teasing nondisclosure, the veteran engineer said he’s set “to record one of guitar’s great legends” in December.