Billboard.com reports that The Yardbirds, after a thirty six year hiatus, just finished recording their new album “Birdland.” The album, being released on Steve Vai’s Favored Nations label, should hit retail shelves on April 22, 2003. Yardbirds once included guitar legends Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. The new "Birdland" lineup includes original members Chris Dreja (guitar) and Jim McCarty (drums), and new members Gypie Mayo (lead guitar), John Idan (bassist) and harmonica player Alan Glen. The majority of the album was recorded in Vai’s studio in Los Angeles and Vai himself guest stars on the album along with Jeff Beck, Queen’s Brian May, Slash, Joe Satriani, The Goo Goo Dolls' Johnny Reznick and Toto’s Steve Lukather. The album is mostly comprised of renditions of old Yardbirds songs but includes seven new tunes.

It was an “Up” Christmas for sexy country crossover vocalist, Shania Twain. Her new record Up (same title as the less popular Peter Gabriel come-back record) was the winner in sales last week having Soundscanned over 450,000 copies. That dethroned rapper Jay-Z. Despite retailer’s claims of the worst Holiday sales season in 30 years, the top 200 records sold over 14.4 million albums in the week before Christmas. This is up from 10.7 million albums the week before that.

Two sources close to AudioRevolution.com have confirmed that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon will be released on the SACD format on March 3, 2003 – the 30th anniversary of the album’s original release. Sources say that Sony reached out the band, convincing them to do an SACD version of the record and is likely paying for part or all of the production costs of the new 5.1 mix. The title is likely to be officially announced at Sony’s SACD event at the upcoming CES show on January 9, 2003.

Reliable sources close to AudioRevolution.com report that in a conference at the Surround 2002 Expo in Beverly Hills today, engineer Alan Parsons spoke on the topic of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon being mixed for DVD-Audio (see AudioRevolution.com lead story from last week’s email).

When Tony Soprano gave his new purpose built home theater its first good test drive, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was the first record he listened to. In the case of the Don, it was likely on CD but for those of us with DVD-Audio and SACD players we desperately want to hear the ultimate audiophile rock record in higher resolution. Now rumors have surfaced that the record will be released on March 3, 2003 - the 30th anniversary of the release of the record.