“Panama”

Viral internet sensation STEVE ‘N’ SEAGULLS are back! Their third album, Grainsville, will be released on August 31, via Spinefarm Records. It is preceded by lead single “Panama” – a “hillbillyfied” version of the Van Halen classic. The album is available for pre-order here.

Stream + download the track here. Watch the video below:

For the uninitiated, S’N S shot to fame thanks to their bluegrass versions of metal classics, which proved hugely popular across the w-w-w, garnering fans all over the world. The videos from the two previous albums have racked up over 100 million views on YouTube while the records have sold tens of thousands of physical copies. Streams are now hitting the tens of millions.

“We started working on this ’80s masterpiece almost a year ago in the Finnish countryside,” the band said about the new track. “It was one of the first songs we looked at for our upcoming third album. When Hiltunen and Herman started to bang out those iconic riffs with the accordion and the banjo, it immediately sounded right. Some nice booty shakin’ flavours were then added in the studio, and now here it is. This is an ode to the Finnish summer heat and all the old Toyotas still rollin’ down the streets…”

The band is also known for their commitment to touring and entertaining live shows — and Grainsville will once again be supported by extensive live activity, kicking off in July.

STEVE ‘N’ SEAGULLS ON TOUR:
With Clusterpuck:
8/30 — Pittsburgh, PA — Rex Theatre
8/31 — Newport, KY — Southgate House
9/1 — Grand Rapids, MI — Founders Brewing Co
9/2 — Cleveland, OH — Beachland Ballroom
9/3 — Ferndale, MI — Otus Supply
9/4 — Milwaukee, WI — Shank Hall
9/5 — Houghton, MI — Rozsa Center For The Performing Arts
9/9 — St. Paul, MN — Turf Club
9/10 — Des Moines, IA — Wooly’s
9/11 — Chicago, IL — Beat Kitchen
9/12 — Lexington, KY — The Burl
9/13 — St. Louis, MO — Off Broadway
9/14 — Lawrence, KS — Bottleneck
9/15 — Fayetteville, AR — George’s Majestic Lounge
9/16 — North Little Rock, AR — Four Quarter Bar
9/17 — Nashville, TN — Mercy Lounge
9/18 — Birmingham, AL — Workplay Theater

lady-gaga

LADY GAGA dropped the jazz standards and joined New York rock outfit the DIRTY PEARLS for a gloriously sloppy rendition of a staple from the great American metal songbook, VAN HALEN‘s “Panama”, reports RollingStone.com

As Blabbermouth points out, a fan-shot video captured the performance, can be seen below, which took place during a Dirty Pearls gig at NYC’s Gramercy Theater over the weekend. Gaga meandered and danced around the stage for much of the song, at one point tossing her drink into the crowd while Dirty Pearls frontman Tommy London busted out his best Diamond Dave. Gaga eventually steps to the mic during the song’s sultry breakdown, but instead of singing the song’s actual lyrics, she ad-libbed her way through the bridge while singing in her trademark melodramatic pop bellow.

The Dirty Pearls had previously opened for Lady Gaga at her performance-art spectacle at South by Southwest in 2014; and the rock outfit played all the official after-parties throughout the pop star’s 2013 tour. Gaga also name-checked the band on Born This Way’s “Heavy Metal Lover,” in which she sings, “Dirty pearls and a patch, for all the Rivington Rebels / Let’s raise hell in the streets, drink beer and get into trouble.”

For much of the past year, Lady Gaga has been on the road with Tony Bennett, supporting their collaborative collection of jazz standards, Cheek to Cheek, which won the Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Grammy. The pair have a handful of North American and international dates scheduled for the rest of the summer.

Gaga has remained busy elsewhere: The singer recently popped up in Baku, Azerbaijan where she opened the first European Games with a performance of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” And earlier this month, she and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo co-penned an op-ed for Billboard, urging the passage of the “Enough is Enough” bill, designed to fight sexual assault on public college campuses.