Thank you for posting that interview. Man, I could listen to Benmont talk all day. You have to love the random sidetracks, tangents, rants and deep dives he takes! I've said it before, but he really needs to write a book. Interesting that he goes out of his way here to mention he is friends with Ryan Adams. I wonder if the interview was conducted before all the revelations about Adams surfaced or if Benmont knew about them.
Dirty Knobs update: Get excited people. On my way to work this morning, I heard a new message from Mike Campbell on Tom Petty Radio. He said the Dirty Knobs album, the bulk of which was recorded in a quick two-week session a year ago, is nearly complete. He mentioned that he is working with a voice coach to become more confident with his vocals, and he plans to finish off the record with the band and co-producer George Drakoulias in the next month or so. He is contemplating how to begin rollout of the material this fall after the FM tour wraps up. A CD release will follow before the end of the year, and Mike said next year is entirely reserved for a Dirty Knobs tour!
^Little Nicky, Weasleybury, Chinbury, Charlie T. Junior Y'all think TP was contemplating a new Traveling Wilburys lineup? Hey gang, with the weather starting to warm up members of the Heartbreakers have been out and about, so here is the latest: - As mentioned up the chain, Mike Campbell's band The Dirty Knobs plan to be quite active next year, touring behind their debut album. For now though, The Dirty Knobs will be performing as part of the Hootenanny Food/Spirits/Music Festival on May 18, 2019. The festival will take place at King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas, California with the festivities underway at 4 PM. Tickets are still available but are extremely limited at this time through https://www.hhmhootenanny.com/. - From the archives: Continuing on with the celebration of "Full Moon Fever", several years ago, "The Petty Archives" shared with us a fantastic interview conducted with Tom Petty in the fall of 1989 entitled "In Conversation - Full Moon Fever". You can listen in here: "In Conversation" Tom Petty Interview - Full Moon Fever - Billboard has published a track-by-track analysis of "Full Moon Fever" here: Tom Petty's 'Full Moon Fever' Turns 30: A Track-by-Track Retrospective - WXRT in Chicago, Illinois will be featuring Tom Petty music all day long TODAY (04-26-2019) as their Friday feature. Tom Petty/Heartbreakers have a storied history with Windy City Radio dating back to 1977. On June 17, 1981, Tom Petty/Heartbreakers staged a concert at the friendly Rosemont Horizon and found themselves in the middle of a not so friendly war between two Chicago radio stations. FM station WLUP spent in excess of $150,000 to buy up all the tickets to the gig and gave them away to fans that gathered at subsequent promotional events. This was done allegedly to give WLUP a competitive edge in a ratings war that existed at the time with rival WMET. WMET was angered at the promotion by it's rival and insisted upon a boycott of the Tom Petty/Heartbreakers show. "I thought (the promotion) it was a great idea and I still do..." Petty later told Melody Maker "...If they don't play us on the other station, then they won't. I mean, I went through years of them not playing us on a lot of stations." Needless to say Tom Petty/Heartbreakers remained a favorite in Chicago right through the twenty-first century when in 2003, the band staged five sold out concerts at the Vic Theater. The shows were heavily promoted by WXRT who during the week of the shows, featured Petty as their guest on Sound Opinions and would later issue a very limited compact disc release featuring a performance of "Learning To Fly" from the final Vic Theater show on April 19th: Remembering Tom Petty With Our Friday Feature AND Tom Petty at the Vic 2003 - Speaking of radio WROR explores "Full Moon Fever" and Tom Petty's Generation X appeal: Tom Petty's 'Full Moon Fever' Introduced Him To A New Generation - Recently engineer Shelly Yakus sat down with the "Produce Like A Pro" YouTube channel to talk about his experiences recording the Tom Petty/Heartbreakers song, "Don't Do Me Like That". The conversation can be found here: Don't Do Me Like That - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Inside the Song w/ Shelly Yakus - Finally last year, Steve Ferrone was kind enough to share with listeners of "The New Guy Show" on SiriusXM's "Tom Petty Radio", a fantastic Ron Blair demo entitled "Blue Blood". Since then, Blair has chosen to donate the song to his frequent collaborator Chris Torres and Torres has issued it as part of a side project of his, a band called The Dames. The song is fantastic and is well worth a listen. FWIW: A little bird told me that Ron Blair and Chris Torres might be hitting the road soon as well, so stay on the lookout for that.
With all the talk of an expanded Wildflowers sucking all the oxygen out of the metaphorical room, has there ever been even a whisper of a 30th Anniversary Full Moon Fever reissue? I know there isn't a ton of material for the album -- he had to scrape up 3 or 4 songs just to make it long enough to release! -- but even Tom himself said he had a few leftovers that were better than "Zombie Zoo." It was a massive hit, and remains an important album in his catalog. Where's the love for Full Moon Fever?!
One of my all time faves. A deep track (IMHO even "Walls" (Circus) received more airplay from this record) a record which seemed to get little exposure anyway. Even more rare it is live and features seldom used drummer Curt Bisquera.
Interesting that it features Scott; when the band performed the song on Leno (with Curt Bisquera), Scott was missing which is the only time I've not seen him on stage with the band since the early 90s..
If this has been posted somewhere, apologies. Stumbled on this preorder for the Zollo https://www.amazon.com/Conversation...qid=1556384911&s=books&sprefix=paul+zo&sr=1-2
In terms of leftovers, I think TP was referring to "Waiting For Tonight," which is a killer track that I agree is better than "Zombie Zoo." Aside from that, "Down the Line," a track I personally love, was included on Playback, and "Don't Treat Me Like a Stranger," which I think is overrated, was included on last year's American Treasure box set. Beyond those three tracks, I don't know how much material is left to mine from the FMF sessions.
You don't really appreciate Scott's third guitar and harmony vocal until it's not there. He really did give the Heartbreakers an extra kick. Also, Mike is ridiculously low in the mix, I can barely hear him!
Personally, if there was an anniversary 30th Full Moon Fever, I'd be hoping for a full live show as the bonus material. The two live tracks from '89 on American Treasure are gems.
There is a good show out there widely available. The Even the Losers from that show is even better than the version on American Treasure, I think https://www.amazon.co.uk/Carolina-September-Collection-Remastered-Broadcasting/dp/B01D20HBHE But an official release of a full show from this tour would be fantastic
Hey peoples, - This topic is what I would term a non-starter but it might be of some interest to you east coasters, particularly in Rhode Island. It was announced late Friday afternoon that Benmont Tench will be part of a dynamic lineup of performers to take the stage at the Newport Folk Festival this summer. Tench will perform alongside the likes of Kacey Musgraves, Phil Lesh, Trey Anastasio, Jeff Tweedy and Sheryl Crow. Tench's performance will take place on Friday, July 26 at Fort Adams State Park. That is the good news! The bad news is that by the time the tower was buzzed and Tench's performance announced, the festival had long since been sold out! There might be some tickets available through the *ahem* secondary market and the Newport Folk Festival website has set up a fan-fan ticket exchange program, so it's not a complete lock-out. Still a bit of a bummer! Anyhow for those looking for more information on Benmont Tench and the Newport Folk Festival, click through here: Newport Folk Festival The reason there hasn't been all that much discussion about a deluxe edition of "Full Moon Fever" is that unlike projects such as "Wildflowers" or "Southern Accents", "Full Moon Fever" was actually brought to completion, pretty much start to finish. The fact that it was somewhat of a spontaneous project to begin with in that Tom Petty only came into the project with one song in the clip ("Yer So Bad") and then wrote a bunch of others, also contributes to the narrative that there isn't all that much left in the can. Additionally Jeff Lynne's style of recording music, once described by Tom Petty/Mike Campbell as an artist painting a portrait and selecting colors to add to the canvas as he goes along also doesn't lend to a the idea of a vast collection of completed individual takes of songs. The "few leftovers" which you mentioned have actually all been issued already. There were two cuts that made it onto b-sides of singles, "Down The Line" and "Don't Treat Me Like A Stranger" (which for some reason remained an impossibly rare find for nearly three decades). Then there was a fantastic song entitled "Waiting For Tonight" which was one of the two final songs that Petty wrote for the project alongside "Alright For Now". Apparently, Tom Petty already decided that "Feel A Whole Lot Better" which was recorded to "make up the numbers" so to speak after MCA told him that the record was "too short" was going to make the cut. It was around this time he recorded those two other songs and he made a decision that only one was going to make the cut and he selected "Alright For Now" for the record. "Waiting For Tonight" came out on the "Playback" box set a few years later and in the years prior to his passing, Petty seemed to indicate that he should've swapped "Zombie Zoo" out for "Waiting For Tonight". "Zombie Zoo" apparently was a Jeff Lynne favorite to the point where at one point he apparently gifted TP with some "Zombie Zoo" socks! But that is really it in terms of proper "Full Moon Fever" outtakes unless you are holding out hope for a demo of "Blown Away" which may have been part of the bumper crop of material that Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne wrote for "Full Moon Fever". Beyond "Full Moon Fever", there were some sessions with the Heartbreakers in 1988, but according to Petty they didn't yield much material. Essentially in the middle of recording his solo album, recording with The Traveling Wilburys and then running all around Los Angeles with Jeff Lynne to work with other artists, Tom Petty also envisioned trying to get some Tom Petty/Heartbreakers recordings in the can. But allegedly it didn't get very far. The Tom Petty/Heartbreakers' song, "Travelin'" from this period is on "Playback" and there is another song, "Indiana Girl" which is an embryonic version of "Mary Jane's Last Dance" that featured bluffed verse lyrics and no chorus that likely would not be suitable for release. There are a few other recordings from this period that I'm aware of, but they aren't in the vein of unique original compositions and would likely fall short of the bar of material that would be considered for an archival project.
A fascinating, detailed conversation with Shelly Yakus breaking down the recording of "Don't Do Me Like That":
Thanks so much for all this new (to me, anyway) info on one of my favorite albums. I don't have my Playback book handy, but I remember "Waiting For Tonight" and "Travelin'" being presented as kind of companions in between the FMF and Wilburys albums. But you consider "Waiting For Tonight" to be a legitmate FMF outtake, and contender for the album, whereas "Travelin'" was always for a separate Heartbreakers project that never got off the ground? It's too bad it got forgotten (until the box set); it would have made a good stand-alone single in 1990 after the FMF cycle had ended -- or even used as a track on Into The Great Wide Open. Anyway, I suppose it's good to know that all the FMF-era songs have been released; I would love to see FMF remastered to the levels of Playback (too compressed for some, I know!), but as long as there are no hidden gems still in the vault, I'm content. Just curious -- why did Tom hate "Zombie Zoo" so much? Was it because it seemed to make fun of the goth / outsider kids in LA? Or he just didn't like it musically? It's not one of my favorites either, but I never minded it. Did he leave it in for sentimental reasons because Roy sang on it?
To reiterate, "Waiting For Tonight" was recorded for "Full Moon Fever" but left unissued (it's why The Bangles are given kudos in the FMF liner notes, something that puzzled the heck out of me back in '89!) and "Travelin'" might've have been the start of a new Tom Petty/Heartbreakers album but according to the "Playback" liner notes, the Heartbreakers weren't happy with the new approach to recording music that Tom Petty/Mike Campbell had learned from working with Jeff Lynne and were now utilizing on "Travelin'". Tom Petty sensed this and basically took the track back and put it to the side and a short while thereafter joined The Traveling Wilburys, a collaboration which took up much of his time and attention throughout the rest of 1988. Petty would later relate to Paul Zollo in Zollo's 2005 book, Conversations With Tom Petty why work with The Heartbreakers didn't materialize in 1988: "They hated it ("Travelin'"). They hated it, hated it, hated it. That was the only session done. It was like 'Forget it, see you down the road. We'll do it another time.'" Tom Petty also indicates to Zollo that after The Heartbreakers departed the studio, himself and Campbell picked up working on "Waiting For Tonight" earmarking it for "Full Moon Fever". I don't know exactly why Petty disliked "Zombie Zoo". I'm guessing he felt there was stronger material in the can (namely "Waiting For Tonight") that got pushed overboard when Jeff Lynne put on a hard push for "Zombie Zoo" to make the record. I know that Tom Petty pulled the song title from a reference given to him while he was having a meal at a restaurant and was greeted by some punks who told him that they were playing a gig a place called "Zombie Zoo". Petty would later relate to Paul Zollo that the song was essentially lighthearted and nonsensical and according to Mark Felsot of SiriusXM's "Tom Petty Radio", Petty preferred that "Zombie Zoo" not be played 364 days out of the year, only making an exception for Halloween where one could play the song to their heart's content.
I think Zollo's book "Conversations with Petty" will be reprinted and be out by Oct. 31.....and has 50 new pages. Anyone know anything about this? Are there any other books being released on Petty?
