http://www.rocksoff.org/headers2015/i5-crosseyedheart-01.jpg
With Monte Lipman at the first 'Crosseyed Heart' listening session @ Electric Lady Studio, NYC - JUly 21, 2015 © Kevin Mazur

A listening session, ok but why? 

It's common industry practice. It happens all of the time.

Bitch wrote on Jul 21^st, 2015 at 10:02pm:

A listening session, ok but why?

Standard promotional tool for any release, and has been for many years.

Most reviews you'll read of any album in magazines or newspapers are published ahead of the release date, and most of the interviews are done before it comes out too. 

Media events like this are geared to to maximise publicity and interest in advance. After a record comes out, it becomes yesterday's papers (see what I did there?)  very quickly

a small tidbit lifted from Yahoo....

Keith Richards’ First Solo LP In Decades Unveiled On Both Coasts

At the end of the listening session for the new Keith Richards solo album “Crosseyed Heart,” at L.A.’s Conway Recording Studios on Tuesday night, Tom Mackay, exec VP and GM of Republic Records, said “I know everyone’s anxious to get back to their loved ones… meaning their cell phones.”

Enforcement was so strict that if people weren’t advised as they arrived in the parking lot to leave their smartphone devices in the car, then they were instructed to check them at the door.

As things got under way, Mackay cautioned the assembled — including music supervisors, at least one music studio chief (Paul Broucek) and assorted journalists — that there was to be “no full album reviews after tonight,” and requested those gathered to refrain from social networking.

It was a tall order in this day and age of instant sharing, when it seems that nothing feels experienced if it isn’t photo-blasted on Instagram, Facebooked or Tweeted. The people in the room were either forced to interact with each other, or listen intently to the album, being released Sept. 18. Mr. Richards was not present, but was instead on the East Coast (New York’s Electric Lady Studios) attending a similar playback, with the Rolling Stones Zip Code Tour having ended July 15 in Quebec.

As things were wrapping up at Conway’s Studio C space, one fellow journalist turned to me and said, “well, that’s the best Rolling Stones album I’ve heard in a while.”

Not being that familiar with past Richards solo projects, the last of which was released more than 20 years ago, I can’t compare “Crosseyed Heart” to “Main Offender” (1992) or “Talk Is Cheap” (1998), neither of which exactly tore up the charts. Like those previous efforts, “Crosseyed Heart” features Richards’ main solo colloborator/drummer Steve Jordan, who co-produced and co-wrote much of the material, and guitarist Waddy Wachtel, who played in Richards’ band The X-pensive Winos,” co-founded with Jordan in 1987.

The new album — a mix of blues, country, one reggae number and rough-and-tumble Stones-like rockers — is infused with Richards’ trademark guitar licks, often layered to remarkable effect, as well as his world-weary vocals, which alternate between Dylan’s rasp and Mark Knopler’s gruff monotone.

If anything, the recording is a showcase of Richards’ versatility, with him playing acoustic and electric guitars, bass, electic sitar, piano, Wulitzer and Farfisa Organ on one track, “Suspicious.”

According to Mackay, “Trouble,” with its Stonesy, loping gate, will be the album’s first single.

and now from The LA Times....


By Randy Lewis  contact the reporter
This article is related to:  Keith Richards,
  The Rolling Stones

What do you do when your bandmate and songwriting partner happens to be one of the most celebrated lead singers in all of rock 'n' roll?. you largely keep your mouth shut and be content to be one of the most celebrated lead guitarists in all of rock 'n' roll.


Still, from time to time you might have something to say, and so Richards has stepped to the mike with “Happy” back when the Rolling Stones recorded “Exile on Main Street” in 1972, and on two solo albums, “Talk is Cheap” in 1988 and “Main Offender” four years later.

Given the Stones’ pace in the studio of late, which at best might be described as “deliberate” (their most recent album, “A Bigger Bang,” is now 10 years old), Richards is now set to release “Crosseyed Heart,” just the third solo studio album of his half-century-plus recording career.ENT
The Times’ will have a formal review closer to the album’s release date in September, but on Tuesday night in Hollywood, a group of about 50 people got an early listen to an album that features a core band of drummer and singer Steve Jordan (who co-wrote most of the songs with Richards), guitarist Waddy Wachtel and multi-instrumentalist Larry Campbell.

Among the guests: the late Bobby Keys, the Texas saxophonist whom Richards often described as his musical soulmate after they met in the late-‘60s. Also on board is singer Norah Jones, who engages with Richards in a duet on “Illusion,” along with the great Muscle Shoals organist Spooner Oldham, New Orleans singer Aaron Neville and his son Ivan Neville.


As always, Richards’ ragged voice is an instrument that’s more serviceable than distinguished -- it’s the equivalent of a crude raft that can take the user from one bank of a river to the other, not traverse long distances with tremendous style or panache.

Yet Richards gets emotions across in the album’s 15 songs, and that’s always been what rock 'n' roll is about. The album opens with the title track, just Richards playing guitar and croaking a vocal that connects him with the Delta blues, which has always been a cornerstone of his guitar-playing.

Several songs offer up big Stones-like rockers with beefy grooves and tasty guitar work, which is probably what most listeners look for in a Richards album. But it also contains tracks that are sweetly reflective, occasionally regretful and often vulnerable, qualities you might not always expect from one of rock's most notorious anti-heroes who, at 71, is not only a husband and father, but a grandfather and, most recently, a first-time children's book author.

More to come on this project.

Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter. For more on classic rock, join us on Facebo

Gazza wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2015 at 5:45am:

Bitch wrote on Jul 21st, 2015 at 10:02pm: A listening session, ok but why?  Standard promotional tool for any release, and has been for many years. Most reviews you'll read of any album in magazines or newspapers are published ahead of the release date, and most of the interviews are done before it comes out too.  Media events like this are geared to to maximise publicity and interest in advance. After a record comes out, it becomes yesterday's papers (see what I did there?)  very quickly

You are so clever Gazza!
So I guess the people doing the "listening" dont know the difference between a RS album and a KR album.
One fellow journalist turned to me and said, “well, that’s the best Rolling Stones album I’ve heard in a while.”

That comment goes back to Talk Is Cheap. Critics called Talk is Cheap the best Stones album in years.

Bitch wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2015 at 5:13pm:

Gazza wrote on Jul 22nd, 2015 at 5:45am: Bitch wrote on Jul 21st, 2015 at 10:02pm: A listening session, ok but why?  Standard promotional tool for any release, and has been for many years. Most reviews you'll read of any album in magazines or newspapers are published ahead of the release date, and most of the interviews are done before it comes out too.  Media events like this are geared to to maximise publicity and interest in advance. After a record comes out, it becomes yesterday's papers (see what I did there?)  very quickly You are so clever Gazza! So I guess the people doing the "listening" dont know the difference between a RS album and a KR album. One fellow journalist turned to me and said, “well, that’s the best Rolling Stones album I’ve heard in a while.”

what Steel Wheels said.

He means its better than any recent Stones album.

Bitch wrote on Jul 21^st, 2015 at 10:02pm:

A listening session, ok but why?

I attended the listening session of "A Bigger Bang", recorded and shared here, to the fine people of Rocks Off, it was the premiere for all, all over the entire net

Check our archives in the link below and browse all comments, 7 pages of comments...

LOL I enjoyed it once more


http://www.rocksoff.org/Archives/08-24-2005/214276-1.html

Gazza wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2015 at 6:51pm:

Bitch wrote on Jul 22nd, 2015 at 5:13pm: Gazza wrote on Jul 22nd, 2015 at 5:45am: Bitch wrote on Jul 21st, 2015 at 10:02pm: A listening session, ok but why?  Standard promotional tool for any release, and has been for many years. Most reviews you'll read of any album in magazines or newspapers are published ahead of the release date, and most of the interviews are done before it comes out too.  Media events like this are geared to to maximise publicity and interest in advance. After a record comes out, it becomes yesterday's papers (see what I did there?)  very quickly You are so clever Gazza! So I guess the people doing the "listening" dont know the difference between a RS album and a KR album. One fellow journalist turned to me and said, “well, that’s the best Rolling Stones album I’ve heard in a while.” what Steel Wheels said. He means its better than any recent Stones album.

without even hearing it I know its the best Stones easily in the last 10 years

Rolling Stone feature on the listening party including a few comments on some of the songs

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/keith-richards-holds-crosseyed-heart-listening-party-in-new-york-20150722

Sounds like "Blue in the Morning" is this album's "I Could Have Stood You Up."

Did anyone here enter the raffle to win tickets to attend this event?

"Like a thief in the night."  :nanker

Oh God. Rolling Stone is really scraping the barrel these days with its writing.

Wonder what Jane Rose played on the album

:forfucksake

leonid wrote on Jul 27^th, 2015 at 2:56am:

Wonder what Jane Rose played on the album :forfucksake

She played with Keith's money. :waka-jawaka

another story about the listening party in The New Yorker...

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/03/chum

We will now get a Mick Jagger/Dave Stewart collaboration and like it.