On Dec. 18, Joe Walsh will head into his basement and jam with with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, guitarist Waddy Wachtel, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russ Kunkel along with his brother-in-law Ringo Starr for the streaming concert “VetsAid 2021: The Basement Show,” the latest installment of the guitarist’s annual benefit for veterans’ causes. Tickets for the live event are available at vetsaid.veeps.com, and the show will be available to watch through Dec. 26.
“With variable COVID rates throughout the summer and fall, I wasn’t comfortable putting together the kind of live festival that our fans and performers have come to expect and deserve,” Walsh said in a statement. “I was so pleased with last year’s streaming festival that I thought we could try something even cooler this time around. Join me and my buddies for an old-fashioned basement jam live from my house to yours where I will debut some brand new songs, play some favorites, share some never-before-seen footage and performances from past VetsAid shows and … who knows who will show up and what might happen?!”
VetsAid started in 2017 when Walsh held a special show in Fairfax, Virginia, at the EagleBank Arena featuring the Zac Brown Band, Keith Urban, and Gary Clark Jr. In the following years, everyone from James Taylor and the Doobie Brothers to ZZ Top, Sheryl Crow, Chris Stapleton, and Don Henley joined the effort, though last year Walsh was forced to stage VetsAid virtually due to the pandemic.
Walsh’s father was a U.S. Army flight instructor who died in plane crash in 1949 while serving in Okinawa, Japan. Walsh was just 20 months old at the time. “I grew up with a part of me missing, which was my father,” the guitarist told Rolling Stone in 2019. “I never really knew him. I always wondered, ‘What if?’ I wondered if he would approve of what I was doing. I’m sure he would’ve told me to get a haircut a couple of times.”
He started VetsAid to help other families in similar situations. “I see a forgotten war that’s ongoing, and more suicides than combat deaths,” he told Rolling Stone. “Guys are coming home shattered, and the transition back to civilian life is too high of a mountain to climb for a lot of them.”
His efforts have raised $1.8 million, and this year’s event is going to add to that number. In addition to the basement jam, Walsh will take viewers on a tour of his private guitar collection and answer questions that fans submitted online.
Fans can catch Walsh live again when the Eagles resume their Hotel California tour Feb. 19 at the Enmarket Arena in Savannah, Georgia.
Fontaines D.C. have teamed up with Rosalía for their new collaboration, Where Is Gone?.
The song features on the Irish rock band's forthcoming album, Dopamine Chamber, which arrives on Friday (16.10.26). For guitarist Carlos O’Connell, working with the Spanish superstar is particularly special because of his own Spanish roots.
He explained: “I’ve admired Rosalía ever since her debut album, which I thought was absolutely beautiful.
“What excited me most was the way she continued to preserve Spain's musical traditions, something that felt spiritually connected to what we've been trying to achieve with Irish music. Having roots in both countries, it's been really special to witness. "She's an artist who has continued to amaze me at every point in her career.”
Frontman Grian Chatten has also described the collaboration with Rosalía as one of the most memorable achievements of his career.
He revealed that he felt "humbled" when she agreed to lend her voice to the band's album.
Speaking to NPR, Grian said: “I've always felt there's something almost like a single big idea that I'm personally trying to communicate to the world before I get old and die, if that makes sense. There's one thing I think I'll spend my life trying to express. I have a feeling she has a similar outlook. … I mean, she's an amazing arranger, composer and lyricist. It means so much that she wanted to sing on something we'd put together. It's definitely one of the highlights of my career.”
Rosalía's links to Irish rock music extend beyond Fontaines D.C. She also offered inspiration and helped develop the Spanish lyrics for U2's The Mirror Maker (Rosalía), a track from their forthcoming album, Carnaval de Luz.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week, she spoke about frontman Bono, saying: “I don't know him personally, but he sent me a text explaining that he was working on a new project and had written a song called The Mirror Maker."
Rosalía joked that Bono had invented a few words of his own.
She recalled telling him: “I wasn't sure what to make of it, but I told him he could create his own language if he wanted to.”
She described the opportunity to collaborate with the 66 year old music veteran as a real privilege.
She added: “Bono is a legend.
“It's amazing.”
Bono recently revealed that he was worried about seeming like a stalker when he reached out to Rosalía to ask whether he could name the song after her.
