2019 is proving to be a bright and shiny 25th anniversary year for Atlanta multi-Platinum rockers COLLECTIVE SOUL, and they’ll be celebrating their ongoing legacy in all-out style with a little bit of the old and a lot of the new. They’re in it for the long haul and are gearing up to keep the party going.

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Chuck Garric is one of the hardest-working bass players in rock music today.  Not only has he toured and played a key role in Alice Cooper's band since 2002, he also fronts his own band, Beastö Blancö, alongside Calico Cooper.  He has also co-written songs for Alice Cooper.

A Nashville native, Chuck has played with a with Turd, The Druts, L.A. Guns, Dio, and the Eric Singer Project.  He's also played bass for Billy Bob Thornton, Ted Nugent, Don Felder, and Journey at the Alice Cooper Christmas Pudding for the past three years.

Beastö Blancö recently wrapped up touring in support of their latest album "We Are" and is currently prepping for a tour with Alice Cooper that starts in weeks.

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Begin the Begin is the first biography of R.E.M. wholly researched and written since they disbanded in 2011. It offers by far the most detailed account of the group's formative years--their early lives, their first encounters with one another, their legendary debut show, early tours in the back of a van, initial recordings, their shrewdly paced rise to fame.

The people and places of the American South are crucial to the R.E.M. story in ways much more complex and interesting than have previously been presented, claims Robert Dean Lurie; he explores the myriad ways in which the band's adopted hometown of Athens, Georgia--and the South in general--shaped its members and the character of their art. The South is much more than the background here; it plays a major role: the creative ferment that erupted in Athens and gripped many of its young inhabitants in the late 1970s and early '80s drew on regional traditions of outsider art and general cultural out-thereness, and gave rise to a free-spirited music scene that produced the B-52's and Pylon, as well as laying the ground for R.E.M.'s subsequent breakout success.

Lurie has tracked down and interviewed numerous figures in the band's history who were underrepresented in, or absent from, earlier biographies--they contribute previously undocumented stories and cast a fresh light on the familiar narrative.

ABOUT ROBERT DEAN LURIE

Robert Dean Lurie is a writer and musician based in Tempe, Arizona. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and is the author of "Begin the Begin: R.E.M.'s Early Years," "We Can Be Heroes: The Radical Individualism of David Bowie," and "No Certainty Attached: Steve Kilbey and The Church."

Thanks to Anastasia Vishnevsky for our theme music and as always, please consider subscribing to our podcast through your favorite app. If you like what you hear, please consider giving us a favorable rating AND subscribing at iTunes, Spotify, the iHeartRadio app or wherever you’re listening to us.  Every positive review helps new listeners find the show.

If Rick Nielsen weren’t one of rock and roll’s most colorful and accomplished characters in real life, there’s no way to have dreamed him up. A homemade cartoon figure who is also a down-to-earth family man. A superlative guitarist who makes it look like a goof onstage. An inveterate joker whose best-known song is a sincere request for love. You think it’s all an image, a pose? Spend a few minutes with the man and you’ll find out just how wrong you are. (From RickNielsen.com)

Thanks to Anastasia Vishnevsky for our theme music and as always, please consider subscribing to our podcast through your favorite app. If you like what you hear, please leave a rating and/or review. It helps our podcast rise through the rankings so others can discover it.