Music News: Tom Petty's website starts mysterious countdown
by Jay Gabler
July 10, 2018
Tom Petty’s website has launched a countdown that will hit zero at 9 a.m. CDT on Wednesday morning. Rolling Stone puzzles it out:
There's no solid indication of what will happen when the countdown ends, but it is paired with an image of Petty as he looked in the mid-1990s, right around the time that Wildflowers came out. In many of his final interviews, Petty spoke excitedly about his plans for a deluxe edition of Wildflowers that would include many unreleased songs from the period. "There's probably six songs that nobody has heard," he told Rolling Stone in 2016. "There's 11 or 12 [new] songs on the album. I think people are going to like it a lot. I like it a lot."
Springsteen childhood home sold
One of Bruce Springsteen’s childhood homes in Freehold, New Jersey has been sold for $255,000 — about $15,000 less than it was originally listed for. As Billboard notes, in his autobiography Springsteen describes being in that house when he watched Elvis Presley’s historic performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1956.
Taylor Swift interviews Pattie Boyd
Taylor Swift doesn't do a lot of press, but she's on the cover of Harper's for an interview where she asked the questions rather than answering them. Her interviewee: Pattie Boyd, the woman who was married to first George Harrison and then Eric Clapton, inspiring both "Something" and "Layla." Boyd has a new memoir out, and as Spin observes, her story is "naturally appealing to a pop star who's made a career of writing about her lovers."
Bey launches fashion collection for charity
Beyoncé is partnering with Balmain to launch a line of clothing inspired by her epic performance at Coachella. The collection, which launches on Friday, is "composed of yellow and pink sweatshirts Bey wore onstage and a black tee with the same graphic," reports Billboard. Proceeds from the collection will benefit the United Negro College Fund.
Soundgarden members reunite
Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil and drummer Matt Cameron have reunited onstage for the first time since the 2017 death of their bandmate Chris Cornell.
As Rolling Stone reports, last month in Denmark "they played together as part of a supergroup called MC50, which pays tribute to the Detroit-based rock group MC5, best known for their leftist politics and the incendiary song 'Kick Out the Jams.' At the show, they played 'Come Together,' a song off the Kick Out the Jams album."
The MC50 tribute group, led by the MC5's Wayne Kramer, are embarking on a tour that lands at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis on Oct. 23.