Author Archives: TVD HQ

VIA PRESS RELEASE | From their record-breaking 50 States in 50 Dates Tour in ’81 to their current tour, The Baddest Show on Earth, George Thorogood and the Destroyers have always given 100 percent on stage.

Now, as the legendary blues rockers celebrate more than five decades together, Craft Recordings shines a spotlight on their high-octane concerts with The Baddest Show on Earth: Greatest Hits Live. Spanning 1978–2024, the brand-new collection showcases some of the band’s most electrifying live performances—many making their debut on record—including such enduring crowd pleasers as “Who Do You Love,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” “Bad to the Bone,” and “Move It on Over.”

Arriving June 12, The Baddest Show on Earth will be available on LP (featuring four previously unreleased tracks), while the expanded CD and standard/hi-res digital editions include eight previously unreleased performances. Both physical formats feature new liner notes from GRAMMY® Award-winning producer and blues musician Scott Billington. In addition to black vinyl, fans can pick up a Translucent Yellow vinyl pressing exclusively at Barnes & Noble and Blazing Red Smoke vinyl exclusively through GeorgeThorogood.com and on tour.

For more than 50 years, George Thorogood and The Destroyers have remained one of the most consistent—and consistently passionate—progenitors of blues-based rock. And no one knows that better than the millions of fans who’ve seen them live. Formed in 1973 by guitarist, singer, and songwriter George Thorogood and drummer Jeff Simon, the Delaware-based band honed their sound on stages across the Northeast, building a devoted word-of-mouth following through their high-energy performances and blistering grooves.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | UMe announces a suite of new physical and digital releases celebrating the 50th anniversary of Marvin Gaye’s No. 1 album, I Want You, out now.

The first highlight is a Vinylphyle premium vinyl reissue of the original album, the latest entry in a series of critically acclaimed audiophile releases which launched at the end of last year. As with all releases in the Vinylphyle series, lacquers were cut from the original analog tapes and pressed at 180gm at RTI, with the jacket, featuring its now-iconic cover by Ernie Barnes, a tip-on gatefold with reproductions of the original tape boxes and a new essay, this time a conversation with producer/ songwriter/ entrepreneur Salaam Remi. (More on him below.) Order HERE.

In tandem, UMe will unveil I Want You 2, a special 2LP set featuring bonus tracks, alternate takes, rarities first issued on CD in 2003, and now on vinyl for the first time with an additional new mix of the title song. Pressed on 180g vinyl, the packaging houses an exclusive lithograph, introductory liner notes by acclaimed Cincinnati-born R&B artist and sought-after songwriter Arin Ray (Chris Brown, John Legend). Order HERE.

Also arriving today is a stunning and spirited new digital remix of “Soon I’ll Be Loving You Again” by GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Salaam Remi (Nas, Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys). “I’ve been listening to I Want You repeatedly in different ways for most of my life and have gotten a perspective of it over time,” Remi writes in the Vinylphyle release’s liner notes. “I realized this album is when I realized my adulthood… [it] gives me all the things I look for in music.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Eighties techno-pop band Vivabeat announced today the release of their first-ever live album, Wild World (Live in Los Angeles 1980-84), on Friday, March 27, 2026, via Liberation Hall Music. The album is available for presave and preorder here.

Fans of Vivabeat will be thrilled to learn that two never-before-released tracks, “Glisse le Rat” and “I’m Right,” appear on this new package. The 14 songs were recorded at three live shows in Los Angeles over a four-year period and capture different stages of the band’s career. The Whisky a Go Go date was one of Vivabeat’s earliest shows and features its original lineup. The Lhasa Club was a mid-career performance, and FM Station was the band’s final show ever.

The band’s co-founders, keyboardist and vocalist Marina (del Rey) Muhlfriedel and bass player and primary songwriter Mick Muhlfriedel spearheaded the live project after first reissuing their debut album Party in the War Zone and The House is Burning on Rubellan Remasters in late 2023, followed by expanded editions of Party in the War Zone Expanded and another incarnation of The House is Burning with Liberation Hall Music in 2025.

“I had doubts we could make a live album work given the primitive quality of the recordings,” said Vivabeat’s Marina Muhlfriedel. “I’m so glad to have been proven wrong. The live tracks on Wild World capture a wilder, edgier energy than our studio work, bringing me right back to who we were at the time.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ahead of their final tour as Cabaret Voltaire, Stephen “Mal” Mallinder and Chris Watson recently announced details of a live album, But What Time Is It Really?, due to be released on April 24th via Memetune.

News of the album was accompanied by details of a final North American tour that will see the band on the West Coast in May, returning to the East Coast in September. Support across the dates will come from I Speak Machine, and ISM’s Tara Busch will also stand in for Chris Watson. The full live band is as follows; Stephen Mallinder – vocals, bass, keyboards, samples, Benge – keyboards, electronic drums, Eric Random – keyboards, guitar, and Tara Busch – keyboards, samples.

Tara says, “Cabaret Voltaire have always been a huge influence on ISM—the grit, the raw electricity, not to mention their visuals and art direction—and it’s truly thrilling to be supporting them in the US. I’m also very excited to be standing in for Chris Watson on synths and samples. I relish this as someone that loves performing and getting a deeper, “nerdier” look at how sounds and songs are created and executed live by bands I love—and Cabaret Voltaire is as good as it gets!”

The album—which will be available on vinyl and CD via the band’s webstore and on the upcoming tour—was recorded during last year’s jubilant sold-out UK tour. Marking 50 years since the live launch of one of Britain’s most influential electronic bands (at the Sheffield Students Union Refectory on May 13th, 1975), Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson were joined by Eric Random and Oliver Harrap for an eagerly anticipated and long-awaited tour.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Wewantsounds is delighted to continue its extensive reissue program of Meiko Kaji’s early discography, originally released by Teichiku Records in Japan between 1972 and 1974.

The Quentin Tarantino muse—famous for her starring roles in Lady Snowblood and Stray Cat Rock—was also a gifted singer. Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika is another collection of superb cinematic songs featuring Kaji’s signature mix of Japanese Pop and Groove, backed by lush, atmospheric orchestrations. This includes her rendition of “Tokyo Nagare Mono,” the theme song for Seijun Suzuki’s cult 1966 film Tokyo Drifter. This reissue features the original artwork, an OBI strip, and a four-page insert with new liner notes by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha, who interviewed Meiko Kaji for the occasion.

Japanese actress Meiko Kaji has become a worldwide cult icon, partly thanks to Quentin Tarantino, who heavily based his Kill Bill films on the 1973 revenge classic Lady Snowblood. Renowned for her roles in the Stray Cat Rock and Female Prisoner Scorpion series, Kaji was the definitive face of Japanese exploitation cinema while simultaneously developing a revered musical career.

Between 1972 and 1974, she recorded five sought-after albums for Teichiku Records—starting with Ginchou Wataridori (1972), followed by Hajiki Uta and Yadokari (both 1973). Wewantsounds is now delighted to continue its reissue program with her 1974 release, Otoko Onna Kokoro No Aika (“Lament of Man, Woman, and Heart”).

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Red Rockers revisit their early punk roots with It’s in Our Blood, a previously unreleased 2023 live set recorded in front of a sold-out crowd at Tipitina’s in the band’s hometown of New Orleans. The title will be available on Blu-ray, translucent red vinyl LP, CD, and digital, with the Blu-ray featuring bonus tracks. It’s in our Blood arrives in stores May 22 from Liberation Hall. Distribution will be through MVD Entertainment Group (USA) and Wienerworld (UK). Pre-order at Bandcamp.

Active from 1979 to 1985, Red Rockers were originally inspired by the radical political songs and styles of The Clash and The Dils. The band’s name is an homage to “Red Rockers Rule,” a song co-written by punk brothers Tony and Chip Kinman of The Dils, Rank & File, and Blackbird.

Red Rockers stormed out of the gate in 1980 with “Guns of Revolution,” a debut 7-inch single that sent shockwaves through the American punk underground and quickly made the band a popular live draw. A debut album, Condition Red, arrived the following year and galvanized critical enthusiasm for the band.

Rolling Stone dubbed them “the American Clash” and called out their “power, aggression, and highly charged political anger.” Despite the acclaim, and tour dates with The Clash, 415 Records struggled to convert the plaudits into record sales.

The Red Rockers’ fortunes would turn around in 1983 with the arrival of “China.” The first single off the band’s second album (Good as Gold), “China” was an immediate hit at college radio and MTV, and opened the doors to tours with The Cars, The Kinks, the Go-Go’s, Joan Jett, The B-52’s, and Men at Work. A final album, Schizophrenic Circus, was greeted with controversy over the band’s commercial new sound and image, and signaled the end for Red Rockers. The band’s legacy would remain mostly dormant for several decades.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Don’t play this in the car when you drive. The groove is so funky, you’ll wreck.” —James Brown

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab (MoFi), the leader in high-fidelity audio reissues, announces the first-ever audiophile vinyl release of Kool and the Gang’s exhilarating 1971 album, Live at P.J.’s.

Arriving March 20, the album is available for order at mofi.com as a numbered-edition 180g 33RPM LP limited to 2,000 copies. Sourced from the original analog master tapes (1/4” / 15 IPS analog master to DSD 256 to analog console to lathe), the record is pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing and housed in a premium Stoughton gatefold jacket.

Make it funky. Kool and the Gang do that and much more on Live at P.J.’s, a freewheeling concert album that preceded the resurgent soul-jazz movement by decades. Recorded at the Hollywood, CA, club on a late-May Saturday night in 1971, the wordless set demonstrates the boundless diversity and virtuosity of the septet—Robert “Kool” Bell, Ronald Bell, George Brown, Claydes Smith, Robert Mickens, Dennis Thomas, and Ricky West.

Compared to prior editions, this restorative reissue plays with deeper, tauter bass, enhanced definition, and more realistic presence. Everything from the brassiness of the horns to the snap of the snare and the rattle of the congas comes across in full-range perspective.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Head and The Heart have announced the release of a deluxe, remastered version of their RIAA Certified Platinum self-titled debut album on May 1 to celebrate its 15-year anniversary. The release includes a limited vinyl pressing, along with a digital release on all digital platforms.

“Fifteen years ago, we were traveling with burned CDs and cut-up old blue jeans, stamped with “The Head And The Heart” to put the copies in. We had no expectations and a full tank of gas. We had songs and we had each other…Our roots had grown and we were about to begin a wild journey.

In those early days before record labels and long tours, we had a demo of “Lost In My Mind” that we had recorded in our apartment in Seattle in late 2009. It was loose, imperfect, and honest in a way that only first attempts can be. We’re so excited to dust it off and present it to you today!

Listening back to it, we’re transported to that apartment, when all that existed was belief in our songs and each other. Over the last year, playing these songs again has brought us back to the beginning, to that feeling of possibility. And there’s way more coming soon. More dates, More nights to celebrate what this record has meant to us, and hopefully to you.

Thank you for growing with us. Thank you for staying. Fifteen years later, it still feels like we’re just getting started.”
—Tyler Williams, The Head and The Heart

Last week, The Head And The Heart announced a North American tour kicking off later this spring where they will perform the album in its entirety as part of the 15 year celebration. The tour kicks off in Nashville, IN on May 1 and includes stops at Roosevelt University Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on May 2, Brooklyn Paramount in NYC on May 10, and more. The tour will conclude at Boch Center – Wang Theatre in Boston on May 14.

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Although Celtic punk can be a very dicey proposition, Boiled in Lead have long been a standard of the hybrid style’s success. Persevering, the band has grown into a Minneapolis institution. The reality is that their sound branches out much farther than a simple blend of Irish cadences and raw and simple riffs. Through lineup changes, Boiled in Lead’s been at it since the mid-1980s, and on March 20, they release their twelfth album King of the Dogwoods on colored vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Omnium Records.

The breadth of Boiled in Lead’s work is varied to the point where they are regularly described as simply folk-punk. It’s a term that can conjure up unpleasant visions of street corner strummer-cussers of a rudimentary sort, either solo or in band formation. To summarize, too many strive for Billy Bragg at his most inspired and stripped down and come up far short. If taking influence from Violent Femmes, the goal is sadly to harness the angsty rather than the eclectic.

If brancher-outers, Boiled in Lead, have never cozied up to the sound of Camper Van Beethoven (well, almost never anyway), in part because the Minnesota crew have consistently kept a loose handle on their Celtic-punk foundation (Irish music was rarely if ever part of Camper’s thing). All the while, Boiled in Lead resists cliché.

For many, Celtic-punk begins and ends with The Pogues. But there is a core difference between The Pogues and Boiled in Lead. The Pogues were the kind of band Elvis Costello would agree to produce. Boiled in Lead are much tougher in comportment, perfectly comfortable on a bill with Hüsker Dü, but never faltering into soused-ass group sing-alongs. Summed up in a word: smart.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The 25th Anniversary edition of Godsmack’s landmark sophomore album, Awake, is available now as a digital deluxe and on deluxe 2LP smoky-green color vinyl and CD via Republic/UMe. This commemorative edition includes a special holographic lithograph of the cover art and features five bonus tracks, including “Why,” which was featured on the Any Given Sunday soundtrack, and a Black Sabbath cover of “Sweet Leaf.”

Following their multi-platinum self-titled debut in 1998, Godsmack returned two years later in 2000 with an album that not only met but surpassed all expectations. The release delivered a powerful collection of songs that quickly became fan favorites, including “Bad Magick,” “Awake,” and “Greed,” and cemented the band’s reputation as one of the defining acts of their era. Building on the momentum of their breakthrough success, the sophomore album’s title track earned Godsmack their first Billboard No. 1 hit, while another standout single, “Vampires,” garnered the band their first GRAMMY® nomination. The reissue celebrates a defining moment in Godsmack’s career, showcasing the enduring legacy of an album that continues to resonate with fans worldwide.

Additionally, Godsmack recently announced their massive GODSMACK — THE RISE OF ROCK WORLD TOUR 2026, a sprawling North American run featuring special guests Stone Temple Pilots and Dorothy. Promoted by Live Nation, the tour will bring Godsmack’s signature high-octane live show to amphitheaters nationwide. The tour kicks off Sunday, May 10, in Bristow, VA, at Jiffy Lube Live and makes stops across the U.S. and Toronto, Canada, including Austin, Chicago, Denver, Phoenix, and California, before wrapping Saturday, September 26, at Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater in Nampa, ID.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | “The third album from the Muscle Shoals singer-songwriter unfolds with the wariness of a social and spiritual outsider who broods his way to graceful defiance.” —NPR

Louisiana singer-songwriter Dylan LeBlanc is excited to announce a special 10th Anniversary re-release of his acclaimed album Cautionary Tale, which is due out on May 15, 2026 via Single Lock Records. To herald the announcement, he has unearthed a demo of fan-favorite track “Roll The Dice (Bedroom Demo).”

Of the song, he shares: “This is a bedroom demo from my house at the time in Nashville, Tennessee. Being young and prideful, I was trying to figure out how to manage my relationships.

‘If pride was a mountain I’d be walking tall but the valley down below is a deadly fall’ just came out because it felt like what was happening to me. There was a version of myself I wanted to be for someone else that I desperately needed to find for the first time for unselfish reasons. It’s a song about second chances.”

This month, LeBlanc is also hitting the road on a US tour, which kicks off on March 13 in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, followed by SXSW in Austin. Find all dates here.

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