KISS turn 40 in 2013. They played their first show in January 1973 in Queens, New York. Since then KISS have become adored and derided in equal measure, but their influence on a generation of guitar rockers has been huge, and they have proved themselves time and time again to be masters of marketing and self-mythology.
1. Before changing their name to KISS, the quartet were called Wicked Lester. As Wicked Lester, they even recorded an album’s worth of demos for Epic Records in 1971-‘72 that never got released. Some of these songs would show up on later KISS albums. Drummer Peter Criss joined around April 1972 and Ace Frehley followed in January ’73. Two weeks later, they debuted as KISS.
2. Before they decided on KISS, they also considered the names Albatross, Rainbow (before Ritchie Blackmore’s post-Deep Purple band of the same name), and Crimson Harpoon. Gene Simmons was once quoted as saying that he wanted to call the band F***, but he was joking. Simmons is smart enough to know that would be uncommercial.
3. In the 1970s, some anti-rock preachers suggested KISS stood for Knights in Satan’s Service – that’s not true.
4. The Rainbow connection doesn’t end there. Ken Kelly, the artist who painted both the Destroyer and Love Gun album covers also painted album covers for Blackmore’s Rainbow.
5. Former Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French auditioned for lead guitarist of Kiss in late 1972/early ‘73, when they were still called Wicked Lester. But Ace got the gig. Even though Ace auditioned wearing mismatching sneakers, one red and one orange.
6. Their fervent fans are known as the KISS Army, and started in Indiana when a local radio station refused to play any KISS songs in the early ‘70s. Protesting fans marched outside of the radio station and referred to themselves as the KISS Army.
7. Original pressings of debut album KISS did not include "Kissin' Time". The album was reissued in July ‘74 to include the cover, "Kissin' Time," originally a hit for Bobby Rydell.
8. For the cover of KISS, the band wanted their debut LP to resemble Meet The Beatles. Oh, and Warner Bros. Records initially threatened to end the band’s deal if they did not remove their makeup.
9. To get the silver “Spaceman” look for his hair on the KISS artwork, Ace Frehley applied commercial spray-paint that he assumed would wash right out afterwards. Ace was wrong.
10. Ace began using blue eyeshadow in the late ‘70s – he also developed allergic reactions to his silver makeup.
11. “Dimebag” Darrell (Pantera/Damageplan) was buried in a “KISS Kasket”, as he had requested in his will. Gene Simmons said, “There were a limited number made and I sent mine to the family of ’Dimebag’ Darrell. He requested in his will to be buried in a KISS Kasket, as he sort of learned his rock’n’roll roots by listening to us for some strange reason.” For those who favor cremation, KISS urns are also available.
12. In the early 70's Peter Criss flew to England to audition for Elton John's backing band. He failed the audition.
13. Ace Frehley was once known for liking a drink, but his classic “Cold Gin” wasn’t based on his preferred adult beverage. “I didn't drink gin: didn't drink liquor of any kind very often,” he writes in his No Regrets memoir. “I was a beer man then, and not even a connoisseur. Gimme a can of whatever you had in the fridge! I was happy. I wanted to write a drinking song, and "Cold Gin" sounded like a great title.”
14. KISS were offered the part of the Future Villain Band in the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band declined, as they were afraid of damaging their image. The role was taken by Aerosmith.
15. The hand on the cover of Music From The Elder is not that of Paul Stanley, as some fans presume. It’s that of a hand model, according to ex-manager Bill Aucoin.
16. The door pictured on the cover of …The Elder is the door for a Methodist church on Park Avenue in New York City.
17. Gene Simmons is one of the world’s top fire breathers. The bassist’s fire-spitting is a KISS stunt, but Simmons is actually good at it. He’s reached 15ft. Not as good as the 2011 world record held by American Antonio Restivo of 8.05m (26 ft 5 in) but impressive nonetheless in what can only be described a “minority” pursuit.
18. Ace Frehley sings horizontally! He says, “Every time I ever record a lead vocal, I've had to do it on my back. If I stand up and try to sing, I can't hit the notes sometimes.”
19. Paul Stanley wrote a number of early Kiss songs, including "Firehouse" and "Let Me Know" while in high school.
20. Stanley was later an art major at the Bronx Community College, before devoting his time to KISS. But he still paints - see Paul Stanley paintings.
21. Kiss have never had a U.S. number one single. But "I Was Made for Lovin' You" hit Number 1 in Canada and Holland.
22. KISS’s late drummer Eric Carr’s collar on his 1980 “fox” costume was made out of real fox fur.
23. Most of the songs featured on Peter Criss's 1978 solo album were originally written in 1972 for an album by his then-band, called Lips.
24. In 1986, Paul Stanley was close to getting the producer's job for Guns N’ Roses' Appetite for Destruction album. But Stanley eventually changed his mind, and declined.
25. For his solo album of 1978, Gene Simmons wanted guest appearances by Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Shore, Chaka Khan and Liberace. Other obligations meant they couldn’t take part. Simmons also asked Paul McCartney. “Scheduling problems” also stopped that happening.
26. According to Peter Criss, Ace Frehley played bass on a lot of early Kiss songs.
27. Early in their careers, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley and Peter Criss all recorded vocals on commercial jingles, including some for AMC trucks.
28. Sammy Hagar was thrown off as the opening act of a Kiss tour during the late ‘70s due to using foul language on stage.
29. The “newscast” heard at the beginning of "Detroit Rock City" on the Destroyer album was read by producer Bob Ezrin.
30. Immediately after leaving Kiss in 1982, Ace Frehley flew out to Los Angeles to produce the first demo tapes for W.A.S.P.
31. Despite Stanley being the serious art student, Ace Frehley designed the KISS logo.
32. When Eric Carr recorded his vocal for the re-recording of "Beth" in 1988, he sat on the same drum stool that Peter Criss used during the original recording of the song in 1976.
33. In his early years, Gene Simmons entered a Jewish Rabbinical school with the intention of becoming a Rabbi.
34. Ace Frehley was a drum roadie for Mitch Mitchell during Jimi Hendrix's final Band of Gypsys New York performance in 1970.
35. All instruments on the song "Little Caesar" off the Hot in the Shade album were played by Bruce Kulick (all guitars) and Eric Carr (drums and bass).
36. Immediately before joining KISS in 1982, Vinnie Vincent was a staff songwriter for the TV program Happy Days – he reportedly wrote all the songs that characters Joanie and Chachi sang on the show. (We so hope this is true!)
37. The guitar solos on the songs "All American Man" and "Exciter" were played by Rick Derringer (of "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo" fame.)
38. In 1977, Kiss became the first band since The Beatles to have four albums on the Billboard Hot 100 album chart. Alive, Destroyer, Rock and Roll Over, and The Originals were all in the Top 40 at the same time.
39. In 1983, Gene Simmons says he turned down the romantic male-lead role in the movie Flashdance, for fear of hurting his image. Apparently.
40. In the early ‘90s, Gene Simmons claimed to have written a song with Bob Dylan. It has yet to surface.
As is always the way with KISS, some of the above “facts” may be more true than others. Thanks to all the fine KISS fansites, biographies and member autobiographies for their own version of some krazy events…
John Fogerty’s forthcoming new album, Wrote a Song for Everyone, offers up re-tooled versions of Creedence Clearwater Revival classics.
Speaking to Rolling Stone, however, mixing engineer Bob Clearmountain says the album looks more forward than backward. “It’s no nostalgia fest,” he said. “It’s like they’re new songs.”
Fogerty recorded the album with a host of guest artists, including Kid Rock, Foo Fighters and Bob Seger, among others. The former CCR frontman was adamant about working face-to-face with his high-profile collaborators. "I didn't want to just mail people tracks," he said, "because then everyone would just do 'Proud Mary' like the old record." Fogerty added that the turmoil resulting from past legal tussles over publishing rights to the CCR back catalog is far behind him. “There was a long time when a lot of stuff was painful, but that doesn't exist anymore," he said. "I wrote all these songs. They're back home with Daddy, like they should be." Wrote a Song for Everyone is slated for release sometime this fall.
The Rolling Stones are likely not finished with their run of live shows, says Mick Jagger. Speaking with New Musical Express, the Stones frontman said, “Well, I'm just looking at what offers are coming in for this year and sorting them out. I hate announcing things when they're not booked. People are always like, 'Yakety yak, you didn't do that in the end', and I say, 'Well, yeah, we never really announced it!'"
Jagger declined to offer specifics, but when asked if the band might appear at this year’s Glastonbury Festival in England, he didn’t rule out the possibility. “There are other things in the world, you know, apart from Glastonbury,” he said. “But then again, Glastonbury is very important. It seems to be very important to my children -- highlight of their year!” Later Jagger returned to the topic of Glastonbury, and seemed to drop a broader hint. “Is it going to be rainy on the Sunday [of the festival]?” he asked. “Isn’t it nearly always rainy on the Sunday?” The Glastonbury Festival is held annually in Pilton, England. This year the event runs from Wednesday, June 26, through Sunday, June 30.
Mötley Crüe were one of the biggest and most prominent hair metal bands to come out of the ‘80s, churning out hit after hit of rebellious, freewheeling bliss. Now, over 30 years later, the guys are still kicking it, selling out arenas and touring with other heavyweights, like Kiss.
When lead singer Vince Neil isn’t rocking it with the Crüe, he hits the road with his solo band and gives fans a good, ol’ fashioned, stripped-down rock show. We caught up with Neil before one of his recent solo gigs to talk about his background playing guitar, writing Mötley Crüe hits and his Las Vegas tattoo parlor!
How long have you been playing guitar?
I would say about 20 years.
As a lead singer, do you think knowing how to play guitar helps you?
You know, I can play guitar, but I wouldn’t call myself a guitar player, so I don’t know if it really helps your singing, but it’s fun to do. I love it when I have a chance to play a song live and also play guitar on the song. It’s something different, and it’s a different look for fans watching the show.
Have any of Mötley Crüe’s hits been especially difficult to write?
There aren’t really any hard songs to write. It’s usually pretty easy, if it gets hard, it gets shuffled away and something else comes up, or it becomes something you can go back to it and use other parts with it to make it work better. Most of the hit songs have been easy to write, though!
How do you go about writing music with the Crüe?
It starts out with a guitar riff, and then we put it together with the other instruments and put a melody to it. After the melody and song structure are finished, we edit different parts in and out, and eventually, it all combines to become a song.
What inspired you to start your own tattoo parlor, Vince Neil Ink in Las Vegas?
Because I have a lot of tattoos! [Laughs] I decided a long time ago to have a tattoo parlor because it’s something I enjoy.
What do you look for in a good tattoo?
In my own stuff, I have different inspirations. I look for something that’s happened to me or is going on in my life, and I get a tattoo about it. I would avoid putting people’s names on them, though-- girlfriends, stuff like that! That usually never works!
Is there talk of a new Mötley Crüe album?
No- no new album. What I’m hearing is that maybe two or three or four more songs might come out to go with that song we released this year, but it will be something like an EP, not an album. Our schedule seems to have a lot of touring. If something did come out in the form of an EP, it would probably be in the beginning of 2014.
Eric Clapton is getting ready to release a new album. Old Sock will be released on March 12. It will be Clapton's 21st studio album, and his first since Clapton in 2010. The album is produced by Clapton, along with his sometimes touring guitarist Doyle Bramhall II, as well as Justin Stanley and Simon Climie. The release will feature two new original Clapton songs - “Every Little Thing” and “Gotta Get Over.”
Aside from the two new compositions, Old Sock is made up of some of Eric's favorite songs going all the way back to his childhood. Among others, Clapton interprets J.J. Cale and Leadbelly. The album also contains collaboration with Paul McCartney, who sings and plays bass on the track “All of Me.”
Two days after releasing Old Sock, Clapton embarks on a tour which will take him through both the US and Europe. In the middle of the tour, on April 12 and 13, Eric will be in New York's Madison Square Garden hosting the fourth installment of Crossroads Guitar Festival. The festival will include appearances by B.B. King, John Mayer, and Gary Clark Jr., to mention a few.
Rock biography writer Neil Daniels will release AC/DC: The Early Years with Bon Scott on February 22. The book charts the history of the band from their early days, beginning with their formation in Australia in 1973 and including their two Australian albums and five international studio albums. It also examines other releases featuring Bon Scott, who was also in the rock band Fraternity, which later featured Aussie vocalist Jimmy Barnes (Fun trivia: Barnes collaborated with Joe Bonamassa on a cover of his Aussie hit "Too Much Ain't Enough Love" on Joe's latest album, and played in the band Living Loud with Dixie Dreggs/Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse and Ozzy Osbourne's early rhythm section of Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake).
The book includes a forward from Uriah Heep's Mick Box (read our interview with Mick Box here), and it also includes a bonus chapter on Back In Black, the classic album the band used to introduce new vocalist Brian Johnson after Scott's 1980 drinking binge death.
Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler has given a rare interview at 2013’s NAMM (National Association Of Music Merchants) show at the Anaheim Convention Center, California, talking about the band’s forthcoming album.
Speaking to Frankie DiVita of Southern California's 96.7 KCAL Rocks, Butler says of guitarist Tony Iommi's cancer treatment: “Tony's responding really well. He's been having his treatment now for 14 months, and he's really responding well to it. So he'll be alright.. you can never stop Tony.”
And will the album be called 13? “Well, it was sort of a temporary name, that we had something to refer to the album as, and I think it kind of stuck. But I don't know if that's gonna be the final title or not. It was named partly because it's coming out in the year 2013 and, originally, we were gonna put 13 tracks on the album. We ended up doing 16 tracks, so I'm not sure what's gonna on the album and what isn't.”
Of the recording process, Butler says, “This is the first time we've done an album together sober; none of us have been drinking or doing drugs or anything, so it's been more professional in that way. And we've stuck to a schedule every day. We'd go in at one o'clock and finish at six, just to keep everything fresh. Five hours a day — that's it.
"It's sort of got the feel of the first three albums — back to the basic rawness. And the lyrics are very… They're just about life…. Life and death and doom and everything else. You get Prozac with every album!”
Rage Against The Machine’s Brad Wilk is on drums for the album after original member Bill Ward declined to be involved. Butler says Wilk was: “[producer] Rick Rubin's idea… He didn't want a typical heavy metal drummer on the album, 'cause it's not really a heavy metal album; it's more of a rock… heavy rock. And Rick Rubin suggested having Brad, 'cause he's more in the vein of [original drummer] Bill Ward. So we jammed with him and he sounded great with the stuff, so we went with that …
“It's sort of back to the way we used to be in the '70s; that's his feel — sort of a jazzy, bluesy feel to him, and that's the way the music is now. It was great working with him.”
The album – called 13 or not – is slated for a June 2013 release, and Sabbath will tour. Whether it will be Brad Wilk on drums is not clear. "We haven't decided yet," is all Butler would say.
In most instances a band reaches its full potential only after recording at least an album or two. Every once in a while, however, a group unleashes a masterpiece right out of the chute. Below are ten instances where a band’s debut album became a classic.
Appetite for Destruction (1987) – Guns N’ Roses
Guns N’ Roses didn’t invent hard rock, but the group’s debut found the band assimilating the genre’s essential ingredients in expert fashion. Combining the swagger of late ’60s Stones and vintage Aerosmith with the menace of punk and a trash-glam aesthetic, GNR injected a much-needed dose of ’70s-style rebellion into the frothy pop metal of the ’80s. “It's a very honest record,” Slash told Fuse TV, in 2012. “I would never have thought in a million years that it was going to be as successful as it became. Obviously, I thought we were a great band, I thought the songs were great, and I always stood behind that ….”
Black Sabbath (1970) – Black Sabbath
The novelist William Burroughs may have coined the phrase “heavy metal,” but it was Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut that gave the term its signature sound. Filled with thunderous bass lines, sledgehammer percussion and menacing guitar riffs, the album forged a template for Sabbath’s exploration of the darker side of riff-driven hard rock. In a 2000 interview with Cosmik.com, Tony Iommi reflected on that sound. “It's just pure power, really,” he said. “My term, ‘heavy,’ comes more when I'm on stage. It's hard to come across on record with a real power, you know? Not so much these days, but it was years ago, it was hard to get that power out.”
Are You Experienced? (1967) – The Jimi Hendrix Experience
This album, more than any other, unleashed the limitless possibilities for the place of the electric guitar in rock and roll. In a 1987 interview, engineer Eddie Kramer said Hendrix’s talents as an orchestrator were fundamental to the album’s sonic richness. “Before his death,” Kramer told Guitar Player, “he was interested in experimenting, incorporating horns and other instruments in his sound. The ideas expressed on the first two albums were testing the waters, seeing how far he could take this idea of orchestration.”
Definitely Maybe (1994) – Oasis
No band better fused the melodic glory of traditional British pop with raucous guitar underpinnings than Oasis did on their landmark debut. Speaking to London’s The Guardian in 1994, just prior to the album’s release, Noel Gallagher described Oasis’s sound. “[It’s] all the best bits of every band that anyone's ever liked,” he said. “We sound like all the important bands. People slag us off and say we sound like The Beatles, T-Rex, the Stones, The Jam, Sex Pistols -- but it's better than sounding like Spandau Ballet. In 20 years' time, Definitely Maybe will still be in the shops, and that's what it's about.”
The Doors (1967) – The Doors
Recorded in just two weeks, The Doors’ eponymous debut constituted one of those rare instances in which a new band emerged with a distinct sound, a clear musical aesthetic and a group chemistry that bordered on preternatural. Stylistically, the album ranged from primal blues to beer-hall cabaret to carnival-esque pop. Guitarist Robby Krieger spoke with Gibson.com in 2011 about the band’s legacy. “Each album has a lot of good stuff on it and that’s why I think The Doors are still happening today,” he said. “A lot of groups have maybe one or two good songs on a record, but we just wouldn’t give up until every song was how we wanted it.”
Never Mind The Bollocks (1977) -- The Sex Pistols
Rebellious, aggressive and, yes, anarchic, The Sex Pistols’ first album kicked rock and roll out of the doldrums it had fallen into during the mid ‘70s. With his ever-present Les Paul Custom, guitarist Steve Jones gave new meaning to punk guitar ferociousness. "It's a pure record,” Jones said, when asked by Digitalspy.com about Bollocks’ longstanding influence. “It was done without any agenda. We were just young guys who had these songs, and it comes across that it was a real piece of art, [instead of] doing an album just to sell records. There's a naivety to it as well."
The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) – The Velvet Underground
Such bands as Sonic Youth and R.E.M. – not to mention the music of David Bowie -- might never have existed were it not for the pioneering work of The Velvet Underground. Their brilliant debut ranged from discordant sonic maelstroms (“European Son”) to breathtakingly beautiful balladry (“I’ll Be Your Mirror”). Twenty years after the album was made, founding member John Cale reflected on its impact. “We had this opportunity to do something revolutionary,” he told Rolling Stone, “to combine avant-garde and rock and roll, to do something symphonic. No matter how borderline destructive everything was, there was a real excitement there for all of us.”
The Clash (1977) -- The Clash
Though it landed in British record stores six months prior to the release of The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, The Clash’s debut album became available in the U.S. only after import copies started flying off the shelves. Besides the obvious influence of The Ramones, the album drew from vintage reggae artists like Desmond Dekker and Junior Murvin, presaging stylistic directions that would later become more evident. “I like the first Clash album the best,” guitarist Mick Jones told Gibson.com, in a 2006 interview. “It’s kind of pure. I played the [Les Pau] Junior through a big 4x12 cabinet … it’s kind of raw. We were struggling with our instruments, and it made it more alive.”
Please Please Me (1963) -- The Beatles
The Beatles went on to make albums that were superior in content and execution, but few matched the visceral energy of their 1963 debut. Recorded in just 12 hours, the album captured the ebullient spirit the band generated during their performances at the legendary Cavern Club. “George Martin told them to play the best items from their stage act, just as if the Cavern audience was watching,” wrote Lennon biographer Philip Norman. “The result was a feat of stamina as impressive as anything from their Hamburg days.”
Led Zeppelin (1969) – Led Zeppelin
No one could have predicted the extent to which this monumental debut would impact rock and roll for decades to come. Working from a raw template first put forth by vintage blues artists, Jimmy Page combined his sophisticated production talents with a gift for riff-making the likes of which had never been heard. “I think most great riffs have already been written, and Jimmy Page probably wrote most of them,” KISS’s Paul Stanley told Gibson.com, in 2012. “Granted, much of what Led Zeppelin did was based on Blind Boy Fuller, Robert Johnson, Hubert Sumlin, you name it -- but they took those things and skewed them in a way that created a signature.”
Jimmy Page can now add “male model” to his ever-expanding list of professional accomplishments. In a new ad campaign unveiled by menswear designer John Varvatos, Page is featured alongside emerging Texas blues great Gary Clark Jr. in a series of portraits titled, “The Master & The Young Guitar Slinger.”
Veteran rock photographer and filmmaker Danny Clinch shot the black and white images at South London’s historic Rivoli Ballroom. Clinch also created a short film of Page and Clark to accompany the images. “Jimmy Page has been a music and fashion icon of mine since 1970, said Varvatos, in a prepared statement. “He has been a major influence and I am honored to call Jimmy a friend.” Varvatos also had high praise for Clark. “Gary Clark Jr. is the real deal,” he said, “[an] amazing guitar player, singer, songwriter and friend. Having 'The Master' and the 'Young Guitar-Slinger' together in our campaign is a dream come true."
Next Thursday (Jan. 31), Dave Grohl’s Sound City Players will stage their second concert, this time at the Hollywood Palladium. Speaking to Billboard.com, Grohl said more shows are forthcoming. “We plan to do shows all over the world," promised the Foo Fighters frontman. “When I came up with the idea of taking all these performers to the live stage a few months ago, my idea [was] to have video presentations between each performance. We'll have that at the next shows."
The 17-musician supergroup – which includes John Fogerty, Stevie Nicks, Rick Nielsen and other high-profile players, made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18. Uniting the band members is the fact that they all recorded albums at the legendary Sound City studio in Van Nuys, California. In his film documentary about Sound City, Grohl spoke with everyone from Neil Young to Barry Manilow about what made the studio special.
“I'd ask everyone tell the story of what Sound City represents to them and what it represents to music,” Grohl told Billboard, when asked to describe his interview style. “I talked with each of these people for at least two hours. The Tom Petty interview was three hours, Stevie was three hours. I could make a movie about each one.”
Concept albums rarely fare well with critics, with reviewers often lambasting such efforts as pretentious or rife with Spinal Tap-ish excess. Nonetheless, in recent years the concept album has enjoyed a resurgence, with discs by the likes of Radiohead, The Flaming Lips and Arcade Fire sporting connected storylines or overarching themes. It’s too soon to say whether these albums will rise to the level of a Tommy, but as shown by the list below, the history of the concept album is strewn with classics.
10. Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
No album has come closer to coherent perfection – both thematically and musically – as this masterpiece from Pink Floyd. Shaped by Roger Waters’ sense of alienation (and “inspired,” one suspects, by the fractured psyche of Floyd founder Syd Barrett), the album probed its dark themes with the sort of exquisite craftsmanship normally associated with a classic novel. David Gilmour’s searing solos, especially on “Time” and “Money,” remain among the most momentous in rock history.
9. Rush – 2112 (1976)
Prog-rock and heavy metal were fused more brilliantly than ever on this conceptual effort, which proved to be Rush’s breakthrough album. Spanning one full album-side, the 20-minute title track presented a harrowing portrait of a world in which individual expression is crushed at every level. Alex Lifeson’s metal riffs gave the music a hard edge that distinguished it from the flighty tendencies of Rush’s British prog-rock counterparts. Today, many of the album’s themes seem prescient.
8. David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (1972)
The loose concept behind David Bowie’s most renowned album seems silly on the surface: extraterrestrial arrives to save a dying Earth, extraterrestrial becomes rock star, extraterrestrial is destroyed by adoring fans. But within that cartoon narrative lies some of the most exciting music ever committed to vinyl. Tethered to Bowie’s exquisite songwriting, Mick Ronson unleashed soaring riffs, explosive power chords, and sustain-drenched solos that reached otherworldly dimensions.
7. Dream Theater – Metropolis Pt. 2:Scenes from a Memory (1999)
Dream Theater’s prog-rock aspirations were never more fully realized than on this conceptual masterwork. Centered on a troubled protagonist haunted by a dark past, the album boasted epic songs evocative of early ’70s Yes, late ’70s Rush, and the more song-oriented of the late ’80s metal bands. Citing Steve Howe, Alex Lifeson and Steve Vai as influences, guitarist John Petrucci played with breathtaking virtuosity, while also conveying the sort of heartrending emotion commonly associated with veteran blues players.
6. Alice Cooper – Welcome to My Nightmare (1975)
Ratcheting up the theatricality that had been integral to the original Alice Cooper lineup, Alice Cooper (the man) unfurled a full-blown concept album with his debut solo disc. Fresh off their stint backing Lou Reed, guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner proved the perfect foil for Cooper, as they meted out economical solos and crashing power chords that brought the frontman’s comic-book melodramas vividly to life. Horror-film veteran Vincent Price pitched in as well, adding a bit of Broadway-style spice to the macabre proceedings.
5. Green Day – American Idiot (2004)
Punk rock and opera might seem like a contradiction in terms, but Green Day fused those concepts perfectly on this landmark disc. Released a few weeks prior to the 2004 presidential election, the album saw the veteran trio shed its sometimes-goofy image for more ambitious goals – such as inspiring listeners to become politically engaged. Playing his trusty Les Paul Junior, frontman Billie Joe Armstrong pushed at the boundaries of the band’s thrash aesthetic, while still unleashing enough buzz-saw riffs to keep longtime fans happy.
4. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Sgt Pepper’s didn’t exactly sport the unified collection of songs that Paul McCartney envisioned, but the psychedelic vibe that courses through the album constituted a powerful concept in its own right. Freed of the burden of writing songs that could be performed live, The Beatles (with George Martin’s help) treated the studio as their playground, and came up with arrangements that sparkled in kaleidoscopic fashion. No other album is more timeless, and more of its time.
3. Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera (2001)
A sprawling two-disc set, this 2001 opus is the Southern rock equivalent of such conceptual works as Quadrophenia or The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. The music dazzles throughout, as the Truckers’ three-guitar format pays homage not just to the sound of Lynyrd Skynyrd, but also to the Allman Brothers, the Marshall Tucker Band, and all points in-between. Superb songwriting, passionate vocals, and raggedly authentic execution make this set a modern-day classic.
2. Jethro Tull – Thick as a Brick (1972)
Tull frontman Ian Anderson pulled out all the stops for this ambitious disc. Boasting one of rock’s most elaborate album packages – 14 pages of bogus newsprint, including a fake review of the music contained therein – the album told the story of a fictional child prodigy named Gerald Bostock. Consisting solely of the title track, spread over two sides, the album featured superbly intricate electric and acoustic work from guitarist Martin Barre, while Anderson performed in full minstrel mode.
1. The Who – Tommy (1969)
Thematically speaking, The Who’s Quadrophenia is a more fully realized album, but Tommy gets higher marks for its innovative and pioneering status. Staking out a middle ground between the sensitive pop styling of The Who Sell Out and the pedal-to-metal roar of Who’s Next (or Live atLeeds), Tommy offered up explosive music tempered with a vulnerable vibe. The storyline about Pete Townshend’s deaf, dumb and blind character becomes murky by album’s end, but the music and arrangements remains taut and cohesive throughout.
This is shaping up to be a busy year for the men of Rush! Not only is the Canadian rock trio getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April, but now, the gents have announced a new round ofNorth Americantour dates in support of their 2012 full-length, Clockwork Angels.
The newly-announced run of shows launches off in Austin, Texas, on April 23 and continues through a show in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on May 11. Next, Rush will set off on a European tour and return to play more North American dates from June through August. While Rush have yet to announced specific venues and dates for the summer tour, a few confirmed cities include Denver; Chicago; Hershey, Penn.; Wantagh and Saratoga, N.Y.; Cincinnati; Milwaukee; Boston; and Grand Rapids, Mich.
Tickets for most of the newly-announced dates will go on sale to the general public Monday (Jan. 28) via at Ticketmaster.com and LiveNation.com. For information on pre-sale tickets for Citi credit card holders, head to www.CitiPrivatePass.com.
Confirmed Rush 2013 U.S. Tour Dates:
4/23 -- Austin, Texas, Frank Erwin Center
4/26 -- Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., BB&T Center
4/28 -- Orlando, Fla., Amway Center
5/1 -- Nashville, Tenn., Bridgestone Arena
5/3 -- Raleigh, N.C., PNC Arena
5/5 -- Virginia Beach, Va., Farm Bureau Live at Virginia Beach
5/7 -- Baltimore, Md., 1st Mariner Arena
5/9 -- Uncasville, Conn., Mohegan Sun
5/11 -- Atlantic City, N.J., Etess Arena
Mick Jagger has said in an interview with NME that the Rolling Stones will not be appearing at this year's Coachella festival: “We're not gonna do Coachella, 'cos it's too early. There was a rumor we were gonna do that one, but it's very early, Coachella. It's April or something, isn’t it? And we're not gonna be ready to go by April. But we're not gonna stop.”
Rumors about the Rolling Stones playing Coachella started after the band's mobile app “accidentally” listed Coachella as an upcoming tour stop. Sad news for fans hoping to catch the band at the massive festival, but good news in the sense that Jagger basically hints at an upcoming tour in the above quote. Jagger continued by saying: “I'm going to see what's on the table and discuss it with everyone. We'll announce it when we've figured it out,“ while Keith Richards added, “all you're going to have to do is wait for an announcement.“
Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello is set to join Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on their Australian tour. Morello is replacing Steven Van Zandt who is taking time off from the tour to record season two of Lillyhammer, a Norwegian-American drama series in which he plays the lead role.
Tom Morello has played with Springsteen on many occasions in the past as a guest guitarist. On April 26 last year he joined the New Jersey rocker on stage in Los Angeles for the songs "Death to My Hometown," "Jack of All Trades," and "The Ghost of Tom Joad." Between his appearances on stage Morello could be seen in the audience rocking out to the show, so it appears that he is quite the fan as well. Morello cover "Tom Joad" on stage with his solo project The Nightwatchman.
It remains to be seen if Morello will be able to keep up with Springsteen, who is known for putting on show lasting around three hours. Some shows last summer even lasted close to four hours, which will definitely be a change of pace for Morello who is used to much shorter sets with his previous bands Rage Against The Machine, and Audioslave.
The plan is that Van Zandt will rejoin the tour in Oslo, Norway on April 29, just in time for the band's three massive stadium shows in Stockholm in the beginning of May where Springsteen has an unparalleled fanatic following.
Are the days of the album over? Def Leppard's Joe Elliott is beginning to ponder that very question. As the band prepares for a Las Vegas residency during which they'll play their entire Hysteria album, Elloitt says the band's next move might be much smaller in scale.
"I don't know if we'll do an album," Elliott told Rolling Stone. "Maybe the way to go is put one or two tracks out at a time and see how it goes, almost like a 7-inch single." The band plans to use the residency as an opportunity to bring together all five members of the far-flung band in one spot to do some songwriting in between gigs, with plans to convert an extra hotel room into a miniature studio ("Hopefully they won't kick us out," Elliott jokes). "We've got a golden opportunity. We've got ample opportunity to look each other in the eye and go 'what you got?' We're back to that rehearsal room vibe."
The Vegas residency at the Hard Rock Hotel kicks off on March 22, and will find the band playing obscure cuts like “Don't Shoot Shotgun: and “Run Riot.”
But you can't really call anything on Hysteria 'obscure' - it's sold over 20 million copies and spawned a whopping seven singles between August 1987 and February 1989, and tracks like 'Pour Some Sugar On Me' are bona fide rock classics. "We're not changing arrangements – like Bowie or Tom Waits might do," Elliott says. "We are going to play these songs as they are on the record. This way we're going to revert back to the original versions."
Will Metallica play the ‘Black' album in its entirety when they headline Australia's Soundwave festival next month?
The band had previously played the ‘Black’ album live in Europe, where they took the unique step of performing it in reverse order, ending with “Enter Sandman.”
I guess that makes sense - after all, that was a pretty long album and even as a kid when I had more time to just sit and listen to an album from start to finish, I rarely made it to the end in one sitting.
Last year Lars Ulrich told Rolling Stone magazine that credit for the idea of playing the album backwards should depends on what you think of it: "If you like the idea, it was mine. If you don't, it was James'. For better or worse, I'm the setlist guy. This is all subject to change if it doesn't work. But the idea of starting off with the lesser-known songs buried down there and ending up with 'Sad But True' and 'Enter Sandman' seems like a winner. You finish with the money shot, which is the first song."
Soundwave will feature dozens of bands across nine stages, including three of thrash's Big Four (Metallica, Slayer and Anthrax - rumors of a late Megadeth addition were probably just wishful thinking), Periphery, Fozzy, Stone Sour, Tomahawk, Linkin Park, Blink 182, A Perfect Circle, Garbage, Cypress Hill, Paramore, Duff McKagan's Loaded and many more. The full lineup can be found here if you're considering a trip to Australia and can find tickets.
A film based on the life of soul legend James Brown is in the works, with Mick Jagger on board as co-producer.
Jagger’s production partner on the project, Brian Grazer, recently told Rolling Stone he’s had the rights to the project for 12 years.
Grazer’s previous production credits include Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. “I like to make movies about mastery and genius,” he said, “and it's hard to find great subjects. James Brown is a visually dynamic subject.”
Grazer went on to say no decision has been made regarding who will play Brown. “We're going to have to test lots of actors and be determined to pick the right one,” he explained.
The producer also expressed admiration and gratitude towards Jagger. “…Mick is so amazing,” he said. “For him to decide he's going to participate and split half the money – he's a man of integrity, and I feel pretty good about that.”
Ozzy Osbourne escaped serious injury in a fire that occurred at his home in Beverly Hills yesterday morning (Jan. 17). As reported by WENN, Osbourne’s hair was singed as he tried to put out the blaze, which was triggered by a lit candle that exploded a vase. The singer’s wife, Sharon Osbourne, provided details on the TV show, The Talk. “My husband had an operation on his hand [on Wednesday] so he's in a complete cast. He comes down and goes, 'Oh, the fire, the fire!' [and tries to put it out] with his hand in the cast. Then he opens the French doors and I go into the kitchen and throw water on it and it erupted. Ozzy's front of his hair [is] gone! His eyebrows [are gone] ... he's got, like, skinned cheeks. It was like The Three Stooges. Everything you are not meant to do -- go to bed with candles alight, open the doors and put water on -- we did it all." Sharon Osbourne went on to thank the firemen from the Beverly Hills Fire Station for bringing the blaze under control, adding, “I want to say to everyone out there, please, please check your candles before you go to bed.”
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, Stones guitarist Keith Richards and U2’s Bono are set to appear in Muscle Shoals, an upcoming documentary about the music that was recorded at two legendary recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala. The flick follows the competition between the city’s FAME Recording Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Look for it to premiere Jan. 26 at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.
Heaps of influential songs were recorded at either FAME or Muscle Shoals, including Aretha Franklin's “Do Right Woman,” The Stones' “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses,” the Staple Singers' “I'll Take You There,” Paul Simon's “Loves Me Like a Rock,” Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” and Bob Dylan's “Gotta Serve Somebody,” to name a few.
Other musicians that appear in the documentary include Gregg Allman, Franklin, Steve Winwood, Sledge and the late Etta James, FAME Studios founder Rick Hall and more. Alicia Keys also makes her mark in the film with a special performance of a tune Dylan first recorded in Muscle Shoals.
Those heading to Sundance will be able to catch Muscle Shoals at 3:30 p.m. local time at Eccles Theatre in Park City.
Whether it’s an amazing solo, an unforgettable riff or simply a power chord that hangs suspended in the air, a great guitar intro can set the tone for an entire song. Rock history is loaded with great examples – the ten below rank among the very best.
“School’s Out” – Alice Cooper
Founding guitarist Glen Buxton came up with the ferocious opening riff for this classic long before the complete song was actually written. In 2007, bassist Dennis Dunaway told Gibson.com Buxton had used variations of the riff on the albums Pretties for You (1969) and Easy Action (1970). “‘School’s Out’ had been kicking around for a while before we based a song around that intro,” he said. “’Eighteen’ was like that, too. It was a jam song for quite a while before it got condensed into its ‘single’ format.”
“Heartbreaker” – Led Zeppelin
“Heartbreaker” was the first instance in which Jimmy Page recorded using his favored setup of a Les Paul and a Marshall. Speaking about the track’s signature riff, producer Rick Rubin told Rolling Stone, “[It’s] one of the greatest riffs in rock. It starts, and it's like they don't really know where the ‘one’ is. The song is magical in its awkwardness." “Heartbreaker” was a live staple for Zeppelin from very early on. Initially it was played at the beginning of their sets, whereas on later tours it became an encore.
“Layla” – Derek & the Dominos
As recently as last January (2012), London’s The Guardian called Eric Clapton’s monumental opening riff for “Layla” the greatest opening riff in the history of rock. Tom Dowd, who produced this classic and the album from which it came, hailed the chemistry between Clapton and Duane Allman. “There had to be some sort of telepathy going on, because I've never seen spontaneous inspiration happen at that rate and level,” he told Guitar World. “One of them would play something, and the other reacted instantaneously. Never once did either of them have to say, 'Could you play that again, please?' It was like two hands in a glove.”
“Crazy on You” – Heart
This 1976 debut single from Heart established that a female-fronted band could indeed be a powerhouse. The acoustic intro, called "Silver Wheels" by Nancy Wilson, remains a high point of Heart’s live shows to this day. In a 2012 interview with Biography.com, Wilson explained how the idea for the intro came to her. “For ‘Silver Wheels,’” she revealed, “I was channeling an acoustic piece Paul Simon played on an early Simon and Garfunkel album. It's called ‘Angie.’” You can check out the similarities between the two pieces by clicking here.
“Start Me Up” – The Rolling Stones
The Stones are known for their classic opening riffs, but none packs a bigger wallop than this one does. Amazingly, “Start Me Up” languished for years before landing on the 1981 album, Tattoo You. “It was one of those things we cut a lot of times,” Keith Richards told Guitar Player, in 1983. “It was a reggae track to begin with, totally different. We put it aside and almost forgot about it. Then, when we went back in the can to get material for Tattoo You, we stumbled on a non-reggae version we'd cut [during the Black and Blue sessions] and realized that was what we wanted all along.”
“All Right Now” – Free
Through the years there’s been much speculation about the gear Paul Kossoff used to record this sensational riff. Most people assume Kossoff played his famous ’59 Les Paul through a Marshall – his standard live setup -- but an anonymous source close to Kossoff believes it may have been a Gibson L5-S solid-body, played through a Selmer T&B 50 amp. Whatever gear he chose, the late six-string legend came up with a tone for the ages.
“I Feel Fine” – The Beatles
The Beatles had better guitar intros than this one – “Ticket to Ride,” “Revolution” and “Day Tripper” spring to mind – but “I Feel Fine” stands out for being the first-ever instance of guitar feedback deliberately released for public consumption. In 1997, Paul McCartney told his friend, Barry Miles, “John had a semi-acoustic Gibson guitar [a J-160E]. It had a pickup on it so it could be amplified. We were just about to walk away to listen to a take when John leaned his guitar against the amp. I can still see him doing it. It went, 'Nnnnnnwahhhhh!’" Lennon played the rest of the song on his J-160E as well.
“Reelin’ in the Years” – Steely Dan
This sensational guitar-solo intro was played not by Skunk Baxter, as many people believe, but by session guitarist Elliott Randall. Speaking to Guitar World in 2008, Randall explained: “Most of the song was already complete, so I had the good fortune of having a very clear picture of what the solo was laying on top of. We did it in one take and nothing was written. Jeff Baxter played the harmony parts, but my entire lead -- intro/answers/solo/end solo -- was one continuous take…. The whole solo just came to me, and I feel very fortunate to have been given the opportunity to play it.”
“Johnny B. Goode” – Chuck Berry
Never mind that the opening riff for this classic was in essence lifted from the intro to Louis Jordan's 1946 recording, "Ain't That Just Like a Woman,” which featured guitarist Carl Hogan. No one except Berry and his ES-335 could have taken Jordan’s idea and turned it into ground zero for just about every aspiring rock guitarist who’s come in his wake. Berry's recording of “Johnny B. Goode” was included on the Voyager Golden Record, an LP launched into space aboard the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. The spacecraft contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form (or future humans) who may find them.
“21st Century Schizoid Man” – King Crimson
One could reasonably argue that progressive rock was launched with this opening track from King Crimson’s 1969 debut album, In the Court of the Crimson King. Many of Robert Fripp’s shrieking guitar parts, including the intro, were doubled by Ian McDonald on saxophone, which gave added weight to the menacing, industrial sound. Among the many artists who have covered this song through the years is Ozzy Osbourne, who included a version on his 2005 album, Under Cover.
Dave Grohl and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor – plus Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and Scott Reeder - have unveiled a new track, "From Can to Can't." It’s taken from the album Sound City - Real to Reel, the soundtrack to Grohl's upcoming documentary about the Van Nuys, California studio where Nirvana recorded Nevermind.
The movie, Grohl's directional debut, will receive its premiere at the Sundance film festival. It’s planned to be in theaters 31 January.
Hear the new song below, also now available on iTunes.
No one could accuse Joe Bonamassa of not staying busy. This year alone, the guitar sensation has released three albums—a solo disc titled Dust Bowl; a group album titled 2, with Black Country Communion; and a duet album of soul classics, titled Don’t Explain, with acclaimed singer Beth Hart. Amazingly, as recently as last fall, some scribes were still calling Bonamassa “the best living guitarist you’ve never heard of.” Guitar aficionados--and Gibson players, in particular—know better, and in fact many have delved into the details of Bonamassa’s life in music thus far. Still, we found a few tidbits that might have escaped all but the most dedicated followers.
His favorite guitar is a ’59 Les Paul Sunburst, a “Holy Grail” that he actually takes on the road with him.
“I tour nine months a year,” Bonamassa told Gibson.com, in a 2011 interview. “What am I going to do, come home and noodle with it on the couch? Go, ‘Wow look at this, I’ve got a ’59 Les Paul that never gets used, maybe on a recording here and there.’ I’d rather get a nice case for it--which I did--hire an ex-secret service agent as my security guard--which I did [laughs]--and take it on the road.” In an interview with AmericanBluesScene.com, Bonamassa praised the ‘59’ Les Paul’s extraordinary tone. “I have over 300 guitars, but out of all of them, that one is definitely my favorite.”
He uses heavy gauge strings partly as a “preventative” measure.
“I’m not a shredder guy,” Bonamassa once told Premier Guitar, “but I have shredder tendencies that I think get in my way. I have a tendency to put in a million notes and show off to the world, and that’s not usually my best solo. So, the .011s keep me from going there all the time. I can ramp up to it, but I’m not living there, over-playing all the time.”
His all-time favorite guitarist is Free’s Paul Kossoff.
“He’s such an unsung hero,” Bonamassa told M – Music & Musicians, in 2011. “His playing cuts like a knife through butter. You can feel his emotions in every note, whether it’s a hard note or a soft note. He’s a tactile player. And the tone he got with that beautiful ’59 Les Paul was just crushing. I actually got to play that guitar as a show in Newcastle last year. A friend of a friend owns it, and he let me borrow it I. That was a thrill. I felt like I was channeling Kossoff.”
The first rock song he mastered, as a child, was Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile.”
“I learned that riff properly,” Bonamassa told M – Music and Musicians. “A lot of kids today learn the Stevie Ray Vaughan version of that riff. Hendrix’s ‘Slight Return’ riff is different.” Bonamassa also told GuitarMessenger.com that the only other guitar piece he learned, note for note, was the dueling solo from the film, Crossroads. “That was difficult and challenging and very frustrating,” he said. “I’m just not a note-for-note kind of guy.”
Those trademark shades he wears vary with the seasons.
“I have four sets of them,” Bonamassa once told GuitarMessenger.com. “I have the 'hot summer show' ones–called Silhouettes, because they wrap around your ears. That prevents them from sliding off. Then, when you get into the wintertime and the theater’s not that hot, I wear a set of Pradas. I also have a set of Ray Bans and a set of Revos. I’m sure I’ve bought enough sunglasses to put somebody’s kid through college.”
The place you’re most likely to find him, when he’s not on tour, is The Home Depot.
“I’m deep into home improvements,” Bonamassa told a fan forum, in 2006. “I love The Home Depot. I'm good at walking in and picking things out, buying the supplies for the deck or whatever other project is on the list. But I leave the work to the pros. I’m just good at the buying part.”
His biggest regret is that he didn’t start singing at an earlier age.
“I didn’t start singing ‘till I was 18, and that’s something I deeply regret,” Bonamassa once lamented. “But then again, there’s tons of stuff where you go back and say, ‘Well, I should’ve gone left, but instead I went right. That was a bad decision.’ Anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and makes you smarter for the next day.”
He would much rather perform live than record in the studio.
“The studio is a daunting place, for me,” Bonamassa told GuitarMessenger.com, in 2007. “Some people flourish in that environment, but I don’t. Everything is decisions. ‘Is this good enough?’ ‘Is the sound just right?’ ‘Is there enough reverb?’ ‘Is it panned correctly?’ I get overwhelmed. Whereas, live, who cares? It comes from the top of your head, and you just blow it out. If I suck tonight, I’ll be better tomorrow. The cool thing about live is there’s always tomorrow to redeem yourself.”
The most important advice he received from his mentor, B.B. King, had nothing to do with guitar playing.
“He said, ‘Watch your money and keep your eye on the business side of things,’” Bonamassa told M – Music & Musicians, in 2011. “It’s about music, but it’s also about business. He sat me down and said, ‘Joe, you need to always reinvest back into what you do, back into your fan base. Fans can detect if you’re not doing that, if you’re not doing things to improve the show.’ It’s no different from running a Walgreen’s, or a Joe’s Pizza Shack.”
He believes great rhythm guitar playing is underappreciated.
“Even someone like me, who often gets caught up in soloing, plays rhythm guitar eighty percent of the time,” Bonamassa once said, in an unpublished interview. “Even a guy who puts on a ‘guitar show’ has to play rhythm, and has to be fluent in chords and voicings. Also, if you don’t learn how to back off your volume when someone else is soloing, that’s problematic. Rhythm playing is about learning how to blend in with the band, and be part of the ensemble.”
The CBS cop drama “Hawaii Five-0” is set to air a very unique episode. On January 20 the show will feature seven songs from the upcoming Jimi Hendrix album People, Hell, & Angels. The album is a collection of unreleased material that Hendrix was working on in 1968 and 1969, said to be very experimental.
Out of the 12 tracks on People, Hell, & Angels, the following are said to be included in “Hawaii Five-0”: "Bleeding Heart," "Mojo Man," "Hey Gypsy Boy," "Inside Out," "Crash Landing," "Hear My Train A Comin'" and "Somewhere." Adam Block, President of Legacy Recordings said about the album on the official Jimi Hendrix website: “People, Hell & Angels, provides us with further insight into the genius of Jimi Hendrix. Working with new rhythm sections and instrumentation, Jimi Hendrix was opening up the horizons of his music, creating new sounds filled with endless possibilities.”
“Hawaii Five-0” airs on CBS at 10 p.m. on Sunday January 20, right after the AFC Championship Game, so it's bound to get a large viewing audience.
Thanks to a legal loophole, The Beatles' classic "Love Me Do" is currently in the public domain, free to be covered by anyone with the means to record, without approval or compensation for those involved in its creation.
The song has just entered the public domain in Europe, and small labels are already taking advantage of the opportunity to re-record the 1963 hit. Several have already rushed out their own versions of the song, and plenty more are expected. European copyright laws protect a recorded track for fifty years, which "Love Me Do" has just passed, as of January 1.
Other Beatles songs may mange to escape this most unauthorized of fates: the law is under consideration for an amendment this year, which would see the copyright period stretch from 50 years to 70 years (which is closer to the US threshold of 95 years), but the new protection isn't expected to be retroactive, so "Love Me Do" is destined to be reimagined, recast and otherwise re-recorded.
According to Noise 11, the first label to release a rerecorded version of the song is Digital Remasterings, who included it on a release of early Beatles recordings including the often released Hamburg Star Club live show.
Another is Pristine Classical, a label which usually specializes in remastered public domain classical pieces, but who has broken that policy for "Love Me Do." Noise 11 reports that some sources are saying that these labels are releasing the song in protest of the pending updated copyright limit, which stands to reduce the number of recordings available for their library.
It's been quite the week for the sudden revelation of super well-kept secrets: first David Bowie announces his first album in ten years, The Next Day, which will be released in March. Then on the weekend Black Sabbath announced that the drummer on their forthcoming album - titled 13 - is Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave's Brad Wilk. Wilk takes the place of Bill Ward, who is sitting out the reunion on the grounds of a contract dispute.
The album will be released in June, with the exact date yet to be determined. It'll be released on Vertigo worldwide and Vertigo/Republic in the USA.
Interestingly, it marks the band's return to Vertigo, their original label. Will the band play material from 13 when they play in New Zealand, Australia and Japan in April and May? Sabbath are remaining tight-lipped on that point at the moment. But they have promised to reveal additional touring plans in the coming months.
Of course, there are some fans who have voiced displeasure at the idea of a Sabbath reunion album without the venerable Ward. But personally, as a Sabbath fan who loves the band's Tony Martin-era albums (most of which included only Tony Iommi from the original line-up), the thought of three original Sabbath members playing together on an album and onstage is pure luxury.
Read Gibson.com's interview with Tony Martin here.
Dave Grohl’s forthcoming rock-doc movie Sound City now has a band. Sound City is due to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18, and Grohl has put together a live roster for the showcase that is seriously impressive.
As well as Grohl, it includes: John Fogerty (Creedence Clearwater Revival), Jessy Greene (strings), Chris Goss (producer), Taylor Hawkins (Foo Fighters), Rami Jaffee (Wallflowers), Alain Johannes (Queens Of The Stone Age), Nate Mendel (Foo Fighters), Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac), Rick Nielsen (Cheap Trick), Krist Novoselic (Nirvana), Chris Shiflett (Foo Fighters), Pat Smear (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), Rick Springfield, Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour), Lee Ving (Fear) and Brad Wilk (Rage Against the Machine).
All of the musicians are featured on the soundtrack for Sound City which tells the story of the Sound City studio in California where legendary musicians have recorded. Grohl was with Nirvana there for Nevermind.
Metallica will perform at 2013’s Summer Sonic festival in Japan. The band will headline the event on August 10 in Tokyo and will close the proceedings on August 11 in Osaka. Metallica last played Summer Sonic in 2006.
And in a new interview with Classic Rock magazine, Lars Ulrich says Metallica’s upcoming 3D movie will combine concert footage with a fictional storyline. Ulrich cites the 1976 Led Zeppelin movie The Song Remains the Same as a major influence, explaining, “There are four members in Led Zeppelin, four members in Metallica, it's a full-length movie, and there’s a lot in this film that does not take place onstage. The major difference is that the stuff that takes place offstage in the Metallica movie does not feature any members of Metallica. It’s two separate worlds — a Metallica show and a story that unfolds in a parallel universe — and at some point they intertwine.”
The movie has no title as yet. Ulrich says, “It’s sort of fun, it’s intimidating… it’s a little overwhelming, to be honest, because it’s a whole different league."
There’s no getting around it: for any beginning guitarist who aspires toward excellence, practice is the essential component in achieving that goal. But what about players who’ve already reached the pinnacle of their craft? Do they continue to practice, and what exactly does “practice” mean to them? Below, ten six-stringers who’ve climbed the ladder to greatness share their thoughts on the topic.
Joe Satriani (as told to M – Music & Musicians)
I do still practice, but it’s different from how it used to be. I know where all the scales are, and where all the chords are, so all that work is behind me. You never forget those things, once you learn them. But I do play every day. Today, at some point, I’m going to run through my entire set, for the upcoming tour. And I’ll do that every day up until I start rehearsing with the band. And then of course we’ll rehearse several times a day, together. You always want to be at your very best, before anybody buys a ticket to your show.
Eric Johnson
I grew up listening to classical music, to players whose performance level was very high. The desire to play at that level got instilled in me. The question then becomes, how do you achieve that? Do you achieve it by constantly redoing something, with overdubs or multiple takes, or do you achieve it by being so proficient that you’re able to pull off something great at any given moment? Classical musicians are so well rehearsed, and their performance level is so high, they just go in and nail it, and capture a real performance. Practice is key, to be able to do that. A lot of the music I love – folk, blues, rock and pop – is wonderful when it’s rough and off-the-cuff. That’s one polarity, and that’s predominantly my type of music. But then there’s the other polarity, which involves a higher level of performance.
Joe Bonamassa (as told to M – Music & Musicians)
I try to practice things that are somewhat outside my normal sphere. I tend to pick up an acoustic guitar or a mandolin, instead of just hammering something out with an electric. I might practice prog rock as well. In the live shows we sometimes do Yes’s “Heart of the Sunrise.” We used to do Genesis’s “Los Endos,” from their Trick of the Tail album.
Kaki King (as told to Performing Songwriter)
When I’m about to go on tour, or I’m doing a gig, I’ll have rehearsals and I’ll prepare. But I have a bit of paranoia involving the possibility of injury. I’ve known many guitar players who have practiced incessantly, and hunched their backs for ages, and have hurt themselves. There have been times when I’ve given a hug to a guitarist-friend at the end of an evening, and I’ve detected that they’re wearing a back brace. I never want to encounter that problem. My dedication to music takes a bit of a different form. I don’t constantly go over the music I’m making, and the fact that I don’t really comes down to my not wanting to get hurt. That may seem ridiculous to some people, and maybe it makes perfect sense to others.
Alex Skolnick, Testament (as told to Guitar World)
When Testament was up and coming, that was the first incentive I had to practice hard and get it together. There is nothing like knowing you're going to be in front of an audience. I remember we used to tape some of the gigs on little cassette recorders that sounded terrible, but you got an idea of how you sounded. That was also a wake-up call that I really needed to focus. As for my practice routine, I was studying the basic scales. One thing that hasn't changed is, I always warm up a lot before I have a show. Whatever I need work on, that's what I warm up on. Back then, it was all about memorizing scales and patterns; now it's more transcribing solos by my favorite artists. I'm always working on lines by Joe Henderson, Chick Corea or John Scofield. So I learned all the scales from that. But then I had to forget them and learn licks and learn how to trust myself.
Neal Schon, Journey
I play constantly, but it usually takes the form of jamming. I’ve never really practiced in a conventional sense. I have a looper set up with a couple of small-powered speakers. And I have a Fractal unit at home, going into a looper, with a drum machine … so that I’m able to switch up the drum beats after I’ve laid down a riff or two. I loop constantly and I make up riffs, for what I want to have a blow on. That’s how I practice. I just riff over the top of those things, and play some melody.
Chris Broderick, Megadeth (as told to Guitar World)
The funny thing is, as time goes on, the realization of how much you don’t know only gets worse! I see more and more things that I need to approach on the instrument—more different techniques, more styles, more players. I remember a time about 15 or 20 years ago when I would sit down with the instrument and say, “Well, I’ve already practiced my scales, I already worked on my arpeggios, I’ve worked on this and I’ve worked on that, and I don’t have anything else to practice.” But today, there’s just a minefield of things to work on. I finally came to the conclusion that you’ve just got to go toward whatever it is that interests you the most at any given time. Hopefully, you’ll zigzag your way through the patterns of everything you want to learn. Eventually, you’ll come full circle.
Steve Lukather (as told to M – Music & Musicians)
I try to practice every day. That might consist of learning new music, or learning someone else’s music. There’s always a lesson in doing that. It helps with ear-training, among other things. And then there’s the technical aspect of practice. That might involve something like delving into Ted Greene’s Chord Chemistry book, which you could spend a lifetime studying. Or, if you’re banging your head against a wall, you might dig out Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns. A lot of practice, for me, consists of just listening to things. I’ll hear something and think “Wow, that’s interesting. Let me try that.” I also continue to learn things from great players I know personally, as friends.
Tom Morello (as told to M – Music & Musicians)
A friend gave me the best of advice anyone’s ever given me in the music business. He said, “Practice guitar at least one hour a day, every day, no matter what.” I took that to heart, and soon my playing ability improved. From there I went to two hours a day to four hours a day until eventually I was practicing eight hours a day, no matter what. That means if you’re on vacation with the family in Ireland, for example, you stop at a bus station and play for 45 minutes, to get toward your practice time. I did that, in an obsessive-compulsive way that I don’t really recommend, because it precludes a social life.
Clint Lowery, Sevendust (as told to Guitar World)
I don’t practice as much as I did in my earlier days. On the road I do quite a bit; I practice for about an hour and a half before we play. I go over scales and keep my right hand active and my left hand mobile. Every now and then I’ll have a phase where I pick up the guitar, and every time I hold it I’m still excited about playing. Some days I feel like I could play anything, and other days I feel like I’m a beginner again. That’s the beauty of this whole thing. Insecure players sometimes make for better players because you’re always striving to figure stuff out. I’m a big YouTube junkie; I watch people play on there and try to emulate what they do. There are some amazing guys out there. You can sit in your basement and play guitar 24 hours a day and play everything fast as lightning with all this accuracy, but there’s a feel that some people have that just can’t be practiced or rehearsed. Some people just have it.
Led Zeppelin is seeking to offer exclusive rights to an online subscription service for rights to stream the band’s material. As reported by The New York Times, if the group reaches a deal, the effort could help legitimize the streaming subscription market, which has been slow to build a large customer base. Companies in consideration include Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio and Deezer. The latter company was founded in France and is interested in establishing a presence in the American market. “We’re excited about the opportunity to collaborate with Led Zeppelin to activate streaming rights for their catalog,” a spokesman for the Warner Music Group, the band’s longtime record label, said in a prepared statement. “We’re supportive of the band’s discussions with W.M.G.’s streaming service partners to create a window of exclusivity to maximize the impact of this launch.”
Music Rising, the charitable organization founded by U2’s The Edge, producer Bob Ezrin and Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz, is turning its attention to areas affected by Hurricane Sandy. The organization’s initial action, announced yesterday (Jan. 8), is to donate $250,000 toward helping restore school music programs across areas of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut impacted by the storm. Founded in 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Music Rising provided musical instruments to students and musicians in the Gulf region following that storm’s devastating impact.
Music Rising’s work since then has included assisting the Nashville Symphony following the Tennessee floods of 2010, and collaborating with Tulane University to develop a curriculum that provides a permanent, comprehensive and definitive study of the musical heritage of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. The Music Rising program is administered by the Gibson Foundation.
Roger Waters has said what most fans pretty much new already - there will be no Pink Floyd reunion. In an interview with The Sun, Waters said: “I can’t. I left Pink Floyd for very good reasons, and it was the right and proper thing to do. It was over in in 1985 – and it’s still over.” But he does go on to say “I’m having dinner with Nick [Mason, Pink Floyd drummer] tonight. He’d jump back in a heartbeat.”
Waters has been busy touring the world with his massive production of The Wall during the past couple of years. In 2011 the surviving members of Pink Floyd – Waters, Mason, and guitarist David Gilmour all reunited on stage during one of The Wall shows. Roger, who initially said he had played the last show of The Wall last summer, decided to resurrect it for one more trek through European stadiums in the summer of 2013. Says Waters about the show “I was determined that this show should not just tell the story of miserable little Roger Waters, but make it a much broader and theatrical piece about the walls that divide us – north and south, rich and poor, Christians and Muslims.”
Late guitar legend Jimi Hendrix’s new album, People, Hell & Angels, is set to reach stores and online outlets on March 5, and Rolling Stone is offers fans a stream of the song “Somewhere” on their official website. “Somewhere” is one of the 12 previously unreleased songs that will appear on People, Hell & Angels, the set spanning music Hendrix created from 1968 to ’69.
Say you really dig the track? You don’t have to wait until March 5 to pick it up. “Somewhere” will be released as a single on Feb. 5 via digital download, as a limited-edition vinyl disc at various indie record stores and as a CD single at Walmart. The vinyl single will also feature the B-side “Power of Soul,” which Hendrix recorded with Band of Gypsys in August of 1970, while the CD single will include a live version of “Foxey Lady” performed by Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys at the Fillmore East in New York City in January of 1970.
More Hendrix goodies will arrive in conjunction with the album release on March 5, including some high-quality vinyl versions of the Jimi Hendrix’s debut album, Are You Experienced? and the band’s Axis: Bold as Love album.
Queen guitarist Brian May has always been an animal lover, and now, the 65-year-old musician is getting honored for his protection of the furry creatures. According to NME, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has crowned the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer its U.K. Person of the Year, thanks to his backing of a campaign to halt the British government’s forthcoming culling of badgers in rural parts of the U.K.
“In his fight to save Britain’s badgers, Brian May never backed down,” PETA spokesperson Mimi Bekhechi said in an official statement. “He spread his message of compassion for animals through everything he said, wrote and even wore until the world sat up and paid attention. His tenacity and boldness are an inspiration to kind people everywhere.”
May helped launch a campaign to save the badgers by starting Team Badger, an organization that resulted in 160,000 signatures for a petition against the proposed hunt. In October, the campaign proved a success, and the culling was halted because of the swelling debate over the issue.
Oh well. It was a nice idea while it lasted. Last week we reported that Big Bear Music founder Jim Simpson, the man credited with discovering Black Sabbath, was petitioning for Birmingham Airport to be named after Ozzy Osbourne. "The message that would carry is instantly international, confident, powerful, unforgettable and says ‘Hey World, we are proud of our own’,” Simpson said when he announced the idea.
But local officials have put the brakes on the idea, announcing, "We’ve no plans to rename the airport. We’re not quite sure where the story’s come from but we’re certainly not in discussions."
It wouldn't have been the first time an iconic rocker had an airport named after him: Liverpool has a John Lennon Airport, after all.
Simpson floated the idea after plans for a Black Sabbath Day in Birmingham failed to get the proverbial spooky green light. "I believe that there is a masterstroke that would instantly confound the cynics,” Simpson said in response. "Just re-name our airport! How does The Ozzy Osbourne International Airport resonate?"
It's probably the biggest 'will they/won't they' question in rock at the moment (now that it's been made quite clear that Led Zeppelin won't be touring any time soon): are the Rolling Stones going to undertake a more extensive tour than the five-date run of late 2012?
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Mick Jagger says there's a bit of paperwork to sort through first. "There have been quite a few offers," Jagger confirms. "I'm going to see what's on the table and discuss it with everyone. We'll announce it when we've figured it out."
Richards backs Jagger up: "Really, all you're going to have to do is wait for an announcement," he said, adding that the five 50th anniversary shows "went like a dream, at the same speed, man. But we barely got off the starting blocks. It would be dopey to bring things up to this level and say, 'Well, that's that, 50 years, bye-bye.'"
Keith says one thing that needs to be discussed in the Stones' 51st year is how much to play and how to do it. Richards concedes there are serious questions to be answered about live work in the Stones' 51st year: how much to do, how to do it. "That will definitely come into the equation," he says. "At the same time, a gig's a gig. The curtain opens and there you are. I just get the feeling – they're itching at the bit now. This thing wasn't enough."
This is the new cover art for David Bowie's first album in a decade called The Next Day. Interesting concept, which is fully explained in this interview. I think the big question is whether he will tour, which doesn't seem likely given the facr that he pulled himself off the road due to heart issues around 10-11 years ago.
Also, Bowie revealed a new song with video and as you would expect, it isn't your run of the mill band performance video. Great lyrics to the track too for, "Where Are We Now?"
When it comes to guitar effects, there’s something about the “talk box” that listeners especially love. A collective roar still rolls through the crowd whenever Peter Frampton breaks out the unit during live shows.
The sound never fails to intrigue when Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” pops up on classic-rock radio. Considering that the talk box has been around for several decades, it’s remarkable how few musicians are familiar with the history of the device.
Intricate details about the talk box’s various configurations are a story for another day, but the way in which the unit functions is basically the same, no matter the design. In essence, the talk box allows a musician to shape a sound, usually originating on guitar, via a plastic tube running from the effects unit into or near the performer’s mouth. The musician “mouths” words in such a way that an instrument/vocal hybrid is produced and the guitar appears to “speak.”
The earliest known variation of the talk box dates back to 1939, when pioneering pedal steel player Alvino Rey attached a specially-wired microphone – designed to modulate his instrument’s sound – to his wife’s throat. In performance, his wife hid behind a curtain and “mouthed” Rey’s guitar lines, creating what was called a “singing guitar.”
This novelty presaged the development of the Sonovox, a device that used small speakers – again, attached to a performer’s throat -- in place of a microphone. Several Hollywood films made use of this device, but for rock fans, its most notable moment came when it “spoke” the days of the week on The Who’s 1967 album, The Who Sell Out.
The back story for the modern-day version of the talk box begins in the early ‘60s, when Nashville steel player Pete Drake first used it on an album titled Forever. Designed by fellow pedal steel player Bill West, the contraption consisted of an 8-inch paper-cone speaker attached to a funnel from which a plastic tube emerged. Speaking with M – Music & Musicians in 2012, Joe Walsh revealed how this version of the talk box fell into his hands a few years later.
“The James Gang used to play in Nashville,” explained Walsh,” and I became good friends with Dottie West, the famous classic country singer. We would go to her house and people would come over, and we would sit around with an acoustic guitar and pass it around. That could be anybody – Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Roger Miller -- whoever was in town. Dottie’s husband, Bill West, was a pedal steel player. He actually invented the talk box that was used on Pete Drake’s album. One day, while I was at Dottie’s house, Bill went out to the garage and got it and gave it to me. He said, ‘Here, you plug this end into your mouth. You’ll figure it out.’”
Walsh said it took a couple of months for him to become proficient with the device. “After I got the hang of it, I then figured out how it was built. I went to a hardware store and got some parts and made one for myself. ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ was the first time I used it on record. I showed it to a friend of mine named Bob Heil, who has a manufacturing company, and he [started making] them. I still have the original -- the one Bill West gave me -- tucked away in a storage locker.”
In fact, the original talk box used on “Rocky Mountain Way” had only enough volume for studio use. Together, Walsh and Heil developed a unit powerful enough for live shows. In a 2010 interview with Musician’s Friend, Heil explained: “Joe had recorded ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ using an 8" speaker and a funnel, a device used in Nashville by the steel guitar players. Well, it wasn't very loud so you couldn't use it live. So here we are, two ham radio operators on a Sunday afternoon out in my plant. We grabbed a 250-watt JBL, built a low-pass filter, got all the plumbing together, and voila -- the talk box. That's how it started. After that tour, everybody's going nuts! ‘What's this thing he's got?’ So I put together a commercial unit called the Heil Talk Box. Then Peter Frampton's girlfriend called me wanting a Christmas present for Peter. So I sent a Talk Box. The rest of the story writes itself from there.”
Interestingly enough, Frampton had first seen the talk box back in 1970, when he played on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album. Speaking to Premier Guitar in 2012, he explained: “Peter Drake was also on the record. During a slow moment in the studio, he got out this little box with a pipe, plugged in his steel and started playing. I asked Peter where he got it from and he said he made it, so that was a bummer. But not long after that, Bob Heil, who had done Humble Pie’s sound, started making talk boxes and gave me one as a present. I used it right away in the studio for ‘Show Me the Way’ before the Comes Alive! LP came out, but it wasn’t until I brought out the talk box live that I realized its full power.”
Through the years, use of the talk box has cut across generations of players, in a variety of genres. From Rufus’s 1974 funk smash, “Tell Me Something Good,” to Avenge Sevenfold’s “Lost,” from their 2007 self-titled debut album, the device has always found a place in contemporary music.
As long as audiences continue to come alive when it’s used, the device will always have its place. “They [still] laugh and hoot and howl … to this day,” Frampton says. “I recently ran into Joe, and we started talking about being the two guys known for the talk box. We shared a laugh about how audiences are still like, ‘What the hell is that?’”
When it comes to guitar effects, there’s something about the “talk box” that listeners especially love. A collective roar still rolls through the crowd whenever Peter Frampton breaks out the unit during live shows.
The sound never fails to intrigue when Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” pops up on classic-rock radio. Considering that the talk box has been around for several decades, it’s remarkable how few musicians are familiar with the history of the device.
Intricate details about the talk box’s various configurations are a story for another day, but the way in which the unit functions is basically the same, no matter the design. In essence, the talk box allows a musician to shape a sound, usually originating on guitar, via a plastic tube running from the effects unit into or near the performer’s mouth. The musician “mouths” words in such a way that an instrument/vocal hybrid is produced and the guitar appears to “speak.”
The earliest known variation of the talk box dates back to 1939, when pioneering pedal steel player Alvino Rey attached a specially-wired microphone – designed to modulate his instrument’s sound – to his wife’s throat. In performance, his wife hid behind a curtain and “mouthed” Rey’s guitar lines, creating what was called a “singing guitar.”
This novelty presaged the development of the Sonovox, a device that used small speakers – again, attached to a performer’s throat -- in place of a microphone. Several Hollywood films made use of this device, but for rock fans, its most notable moment came when it “spoke” the days of the week on The Who’s 1967 album, The Who Sell Out.
The back story for the modern-day version of the talk box begins in the early ‘60s, when Nashville steel player Pete Drake first used it on an album titled Forever. Designed by fellow pedal steel player Bill West, the contraption consisted of an 8-inch paper-cone speaker attached to a funnel from which a plastic tube emerged. Speaking with M – Music & Musicians in 2012, Joe Walsh revealed how this version of the talk box fell into his hands a few years later.
“The James Gang used to play in Nashville,” explained Walsh,” and I became good friends with Dottie West, the famous classic country singer. We would go to her house and people would come over, and we would sit around with an acoustic guitar and pass it around. That could be anybody – Chet Atkins, Glen Campbell, Roger Miller -- whoever was in town. Dottie’s husband, Bill West, was a pedal steel player. He actually invented the talk box that was used on Pete Drake’s album. One day, while I was at Dottie’s house, Bill went out to the garage and got it and gave it to me. He said, ‘Here, you plug this end into your mouth. You’ll figure it out.’”
Walsh said it took a couple of months for him to become proficient with the device. “After I got the hang of it, I then figured out how it was built. I went to a hardware store and got some parts and made one for myself. ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ was the first time I used it on record. I showed it to a friend of mine named Bob Heil, who has a manufacturing company, and he [started making] them. I still have the original -- the one Bill West gave me -- tucked away in a storage locker.”
In fact, the original talk box used on “Rocky Mountain Way” had only enough volume for studio use. Together, Walsh and Heil developed a unit powerful enough for live shows. In a 2010 interview with Musician’s Friend, Heil explained: “Joe had recorded ‘Rocky Mountain Way’ using an 8" speaker and a funnel, a device used in Nashville by the steel guitar players. Well, it wasn't very loud so you couldn't use it live. So here we are, two ham radio operators on a Sunday afternoon out in my plant. We grabbed a 250-watt JBL, built a low-pass filter, got all the plumbing together, and voila -- the talk box. That's how it started. After that tour, everybody's going nuts! ‘What's this thing he's got?’ So I put together a commercial unit called the Heil Talk Box. Then Peter Frampton's girlfriend called me wanting a Christmas present for Peter. So I sent a Talk Box. The rest of the story writes itself from there.”
Interestingly enough, Frampton had first seen the talk box back in 1970, when he played on George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album. Speaking to Premier Guitar in 2012, he explained: “Peter Drake was also on the record. During a slow moment in the studio, he got out this little box with a pipe, plugged in his steel and started playing. I asked Peter where he got it from and he said he made it, so that was a bummer. But not long after that, Bob Heil, who had done Humble Pie’s sound, started making talk boxes and gave me one as a present. I used it right away in the studio for ‘Show Me the Way’ before the Comes Alive! LP came out, but it wasn’t until I brought out the talk box live that I realized its full power.”
Through the years, use of the talk box has cut across generations of players, in a variety of genres. From Rufus’s 1974 funk smash, “Tell Me Something Good,” to Avenge Sevenfold’s “Lost,” from their 2007 self-titled debut album, the device has always found a place in contemporary music.
As long as audiences continue to come alive when it’s used, the device will always have its place. “They [still] laugh and hoot and howl … to this day,” Frampton says. “I recently ran into Joe, and we started talking about being the two guys known for the talk box. We shared a laugh about how audiences are still like, ‘What the hell is that?’”
Like vinyl? If so, Jack White's Blunderbuss' was the biggest selling vinyl album of 2012 bumping The Beatles’ Abbey Road from the top of the chart.
Every year, Nielsen SoundScan registers the biggest selling albums on vinyl, and for the past two years The Beatles’ Abbey Road has topped the chart. Abbey Road is still selling well, given it was album released nearly 44 years ago, in 1969. But it is down to #2.
Vinyl records sold 4.6 million in the U.S. in 2012. That was an increase of 17.7% on 2011.
According to Nielsen SoundScan the top 10 vinyl albums of 2012 were:
1. Jack White Blunderbuss (34,000)
2. The Beatles Abbey Road (30k)
3. Mumford & Sons Babel (29k)
4. Black Keys El Camino (25k)
5. Mumford & Sons Sign No More (23k)
6. Beach House Bloom (21k)
7. Bon Iver For Emma Forever Ago (19k)
8. Alabama Shakes Boys & Girls (17k)
9. Adele 21 (16k)
10. Bon Iver Bon Iver (15k)
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has announced awards for 2012. Taylor Swift sold lots of course, but Metallica continue to sell.
Metallica’s Metallica (aka the“Black Album”) got its 16th Platinum certificate – that’s 16 million copies now sold. Ride the Lightning receive its 6th. They also received six gold certificates for passing 500,000 digital downloads of individual songs and two gold certificates for songs that exceeded 500,000 downloads as ringtones.
Other veteran artists receiving certifications in December were the Rolling Stones going gold with hits compilation Grrr!, Elton John getting platinum for over one million downloads of “Your Song,” and Tears for Fears receiving gold for digital downloads of their single “Shout.”
Metallica won in the “Mastertone Gold Song” category (500,000 ringtone downloads-plus) for “Enter Sandman” and “One.”
Deep Purple’s Live In Paris 1975 is out on 29 January. Recorded on 17 April 1975 at the Palais des Sports in Paris, this was the last concert with lauded guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, before he left to form Rainbow. The other band members are vocalist David Coverdale, bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice. Tracks include "Burn," "Stormbringer," "Highway Star," "Space Truckin,'" and the evergreen "Smoke on the Water.”
Deep Purple’s Live In Paris 1975 track listing is:
Disc 1:
“Burn”
“Stormbringer”
“The Gypsy”
“Lady Double Dealer”
“Mistreated”
“Smoke on The Water”
“You Fool No One”
Disc 2 comprises:
“Space Truckin'”
“Going Down”
“Highway Star”
Plus a 1975 interview with David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice.
Meanwhile, Deep Purple’s current singer has been talking about the band’s new 2013 album
“It’s being mixed as we speak,” Ian Gillan told 100percentrock.com. “We’ve finished recording. It’s a new tone, it’s a new direction, it’s fresh stuff. I think it was all written and recorded in Nashville, and the reason we went there – not to make a country record, but because Bob Ezrin, our producer, lives in Nashville and so it made a lot of sense because he had all the studio facilities and back up and everything else. So it made it really easy.”
“I can’t compare it with any other album either, as far as I know. It will obviously find a niche somewhere when it comes out in April, so I’m looking forward to hearing it.”
With the CD and DVD set Celebration Day riding high on the Billboard charts, we need no reminder of the potent magic Jimmy Page created as the leader of Led Zeppelin. With his beloved Les Pauls"Number 1" and "Number 2" on his shoulders as well as a variety of other famed instruments Page wrote his name across the annals of rock history in very large script indeed.
The eight studio albums and the live The Song Remains the Same recorded from 1968 to 1979 during Zeppelin’s original incarnation are still the subjects of constant scrutiny by players, pundit and fans. And the studio leftovers collection Coda and well as the live How The West Was Won, an 1972 in-concert set that emerged in 2003, are equally fine-tooth-combed for arcana regarding technique and meaning.
Given the microscopic examination these recordings endure, it’s surprising so relatively little attention is paid to the albums for which Page served as creative master pre-, parallel- and post-Led Zeppelin. He’s never been a slouch, and these discs range from roof raising rock performances to psychedelic experimental fantasies to nail-biting soundtracks to foreshadowings of some of Led Zeppelin’s finest moments.
For your consideration, here’s a list of Jimmy Page un-Zepped, his most significant recordings outside of the masterpieces he created with Led Zeppelin — still arguably the world’s greatest rock and roll band, even if they’ll never play another note.
• Little Games, The Yardbirds (1967): Page was on deck for the Yardbirds’ final hour in the studio, recording this disc with producer Mickie Most, who would go on to produce the Jeff Beck Group’s stunning blues-rock masterpiece Truth the next year. Little Games was the least successful of the Yardbirds’ albums. Nonetheless, it remains notable today for the recorded debut of Page’s violin bow guitar technique on the song “Tinker Tailor Solider Sailor.”
• Live Yardbirds (1971): Jeff Beck had left the Yardbirds well before this album was taped at the Anderson Theater in New York City on March 30, 1968, so it’s a display of Page’s lead guitar prowess with the group as well as a record of his conceptual advance toward forming Led Zeppelin. The disc was only released by Epic Records after the latter had become an international sensation and is fairly unremarkable except to Page’s and the Yardbirds’ hard-core fans. Once again, however, there is a notable historic artifact: the song “I’m Confused,” which Page turned into Led Zeppelin’s sweeping musical epic “Dazed and Confused.”
• Death Wish II soundtrack (1982): Page’s gristly compositions pumped up the intensity for the second entry in this Charles Bronson vigilante film franchise, which came on the heels of Page’s attempt to form a band called XYZ with Yes’ Chris Squire and Alan White as the rhythm section. Some of the soundtrack’s most interesting turns — like “Shadow in the City” — are boldly experimental. The latter recalls the mid-section of “Dazed and Confused,” but with primitive looping, Godzilla-toned bass and keyboards, and extended guitar technique including scraping and hammering strings.
• Whatever Happened to Jugula?, Roy Harper and Jimmy Page (1985): Page had played on several of folk hero Harper’s previous albums, but this is their only full collaboration with Page on every track. His acoustic playing prevails and can be heard at full bore on the outro to “Nineteen Forty-Eightish.” This is a must hear album for Page fans.
• The Firm, The Firm (1985): Page’s attempts to find a suitable outlet for his playing led him to form this rickety outfit with ex-Free and Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers, who emerged at one point during the band’s concerts dressed in white, including a cape, perched on the bench of a white grand piano that rose from beneath the stage. The group’s sole charting single was “Radioactive,” which had a trim guitar solo that allowed little room for Page’s expressive mastery. But the band did get him out of the house and back into concert halls.
• Mean Business, The Firm (1986): This sequel is important “Fortune Hunter,” a track written by Page and Chris Squire for their short-lived XYZ. Otherwise only bootleg versions of the four songs they co-wrote in 1981 are in circulation.
• Outrider (1988): Strictly speaking, this is Page’s only solo album, a fully conceived studio project bearing his name that enjoyed a full-on commercial release. The disc’s high points are three instrumentals, and when Page toured behind Outrider his instrumental performances of those tracks and Led Zeppelin cuts provided the high points. An important zenith was Plant’s rejoining Page for vocals on “The Only One.” The disc also marked the beginning of Page’s collaboration with drummer Jason Bonham.
• No Quarter, Plant & Page (1994): It took MTV to reunite Page with Plant, for a television special. The disc features largely acoustic reworkings of Led Zeppelin classics and four-Middle Eastern influenced tracks that found both musicians still willing and able to expand their boundaries with winning results. This live recording also sparked several years of collaboration between the Led Zeppelin foils.
• Walking Into Clarksdale, Plant & Page (1998): Nothing quite delivers the punch of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant. This disc is a dark, fascinating excursion back to their blues roots and the most emotionally rich recording either had made since the first half-decade of Led Zeppelin — at least until Plant’s Grammy winning Raising Sand pairing with vocalist Allison Krause.
• Live At the Greek, Jimmy Page and the Black Crowes (2000): Page recruited blues and boogie stars the Black Crowes and hit the road playing Led Zeppelin and Yardbirds songs — and doing so in classic, ripping form."Holy Grail" Les Paul papa Peter Green’s “Oh Well” and a handful of older blues classics also made the cut.
• Lucifer Rising and Other Sound Tracks (2012): Page completed his soundtrack for experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising in 1972, but Anger got, well, angered at Page and stripped it from the film upon original release. Page himself issued the recordings last year, describing the disc as “a diary of avant garde compostions.” It is available exclusively from Jimmypage.com
Congratulations are in order for The Boss! MusiCares, the Recording Academy’s chief charity, has crowned Bruce Springsteen its Person of the Year. To help pay tribute to Springsteen, the organization has happed a collection of stars to perform at a special gala in honor of the musician, including Neil Young, Elton John and Sting. The show, which will feature the musicians playing Springsteen tunes, is set to take place at in Los Angeles on Feb. 8, in conjunction with the Grammy Awards.
A long list of other musicians are on tap to perform at the show, as well, including Jackson Browne, Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, Patti Smith and John Legend. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart will host the evening.
Funds raised from the MusiCares show will go to help musicians and those in the music industry who need financial, medical or personal help.
If you could pay tribute to Springsteen by covering one of his songs, which one would you pick? Let us know in the conversation below!
Will Ozzy Osbourne get an airport named after himself? At least that is the hope of Jim Simpson, head of Big Bear Music, and the man credited with discovering Black Sabbath. Simpson is petitioning for Birmingham Airport to be named after the singer, in order to recognize the importance of the Birmingham band on an international level.
Says Simpson to the Birmingham Mail: “How does the Ozzy Osbourne International Airport resonate? The message that would carry is instantly international, confident, powerful, unforgettable and says ‘Hey World, we are proud of our own’.”
Simspon goes on to say: “Ozzy might not always have been a paragon of virtue, but he is a genuine flesh and blood Brummie.”
Black Sabbath will be releasing a new record in 2013, their first with Ozzy Osbourne since 1979. The band had big touring plans for 2012 but were forced to cancel due to Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi being diagnosed with cancer.
Rolling Stone reports that former record industry executive Joe Smith has donated a large amount of interviews he has done with famous musicians to the Library of Congress. The interviews were conducted some time in the mid’80s.
One of the interviews is with Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, who talks candidly about his hard partying days in the’70s: “I can remember the height of my oblivion, I was into doing things just because I could. I would think nothing of tipping a whole long spread, and I'd be so livid – explicit – no turkey roll! Give us a turkey – no gravy, no stuffing, just real meat. No hockey pucks, no mystery meat, just a turkey.”
Does that perhaps sound a bit like Nigel Tufnel, the over the top character from the rock mockumentary This is Spinal Tap? Well, apparently Tyler thought that the movie hit a little too close to home, as he reveal in the interview with Joe Smith: “That movie bummed me out, because I thought, 'How dare they? That's all real, and they're mocking it.'"
Peter Frampton’s career hit the doldrums in the wake of Frampton ComesAlive!, the monumental album that made his a star. In a just-published interview with M – Music & Musicians, Frampton thanks David Bowie for helping him get back on track. “The ‘80s were a difficult period for me,” Frampton says. “[That continued] until my dear friend David Bowie got me out on the road for the Glass Spider tour and on his Never Let Me Down record, and reintroduced me as a guitar player around the world. I can never thank him enough for believing in me, and seeing past the image of the satin pants and big hair to the guitar player he first met when we played together in school. I enjoyed touring with David so much I just wanted to go back out and play, because I hadn’t really played out that much in the ‘80s.”
Frampton later added that he’s continuing to write new music for the Cincinnati Ballet, with whom he teamed up for a production to be staged in April.
Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal has some simple advice for players trying to break into the music business: be on time. In an interview with Metal Hammer, the Guns N’ Roses six-stringer said punctuality, preparedness and a sense of calm go a long way toward making a musician indispensable. “By ‘on time’ I mean ‘be early,’” he said. “Make sure you’re there for when you need to be — wait in your car, communicate, let them know ten minutes early that you’ll be there in five minutes, and walk in five minutes later.”
Thal added that by being prepared he means “knowing more than you need to.” “If you’re going to lay down guitar parts,” he advised, “know the drum grooves and where all the accents and up-beats and fills and breaks are. Know the bass lines. When the bassist doesn’t show and they freak out, you [can] say, ‘I know the bass part. I can lay it down.’” Thal went on to stress the importance of “being a soothing presence in the room.” “When everyone is contagiously breaking into panic and stress mode, you’ll be their voice of reason without even trying,” he said.
After tremolo, fuzz and reverb, wah-wah is one of the earliest effects, and certainly one of the most expressive. Its interactive nature means everyone uses the wah-wah a little differently. Some players rock the pedal in time with the song. Others use it to outline phrases. Others use it as a tone filter. That sense of individuality is a great metaphor for the guitar itself; all distilled down into a space small enough to fit under your foot. Here are the 10 best wah-wah solos.
10. Living Colour, “Cult of Personality”
Vernon Reid is an extremely able player technically, yet his solos are all about emotion and energy, not technique. “Cult of Personality” is a great example of this. Drawing on Ornette Coleman’s concept of harmolodics (“the use of the physical and the mental of one’s own logic made into an expression of sound to bring about the musical sensation of unison executed by a single person or with a group,” according to Coleman himself), Reid’s solo is fast, dirty, exciting and engaging. And did I mention fast? It sounds like he may drop a note at any time, but he never does. When the solo moves to more spacious phrases in the middle, he squeezes those notes for all they’re worth, punctuating everything with killer wah work.
9. Led Zeppelin, “Whole Lotta Love”
On first listen, this might not seem like a wah-wah at all. Even in the days when effects were in their infancy, Jimmy Page was finding ways to use them that were a little outside the square. On “Whole Lotta Love,” Page used his wah-wah pedal as a tone control, left all the way at the top of the pedal’s travel for a piercing treble. The guitar practically slices through the speakers, and throws the audience one last sonic curveball after the freak-out middle section before returning to the much more straightforward final verse.
8. David Bowie, “Cracked Actor”
Bowie’s one-time guitarist Mick Ronson is one of the greats, and you can both hear and see his influence on Randy Rhoads. Ronson’s work on Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World album practically wrote the book on grunge 20 years before grunge happened. His “Cracked Actor” solo is a great example of his screaming, vocal wah style, and it’s also notable for the way it snakes in and out of the harmonica. It can be hard to tell where one ends and the other begins – ample evidence of Ronson’s skills as an arranger. He was also a fan of leaving the pedal in a stationary position, like Page on “Whole Lotta Love.”
7. Van Halen, “Poundcake”
Eddie Van Halen is not the first player who comes to mind when you think of wah-wah, but it was all over 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and the subsequent tour and live album, Live: Right Here, Right Now. Like everything else about Van Halen’s playing, there’s something a little unorthodox about his wah work. At times it almost sounds like he's using the pedal backwards, and at other times EVH seems to hover over just a small section of the pedal’s travel. Although his sound on “Poundcake” is drenched in delay and pitch shifting, and augmented by an electric drill placed over the pickups, the clever use of wah is what really makes this solo.
6. Stevie Ray Vaughan, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)”
It’s probably impossible to beat Jimi Hendrix’s original (another fine example of wah work) but Stevie Ray probably got a close as anyone is likely to get. His cover of “Voodoo Child” is ferocious, energetic and powerful, compared to Jimi’s more mystical take on the song. It’s Stevie’s Darth Maul to Jimi’s Yoda. One of the coolest moments is at 4:18, when Stevie Ray starts a greasy bend without the wah engaged, then kicks it in for the remainder of the note (and leaves it on for almost the rest of the song). Stevie Ray’s version works so well because he really makes the song his own; while at the same time never forgetting that it’s really Jimi’s and that he’d better take care of it.
5. Frank Zappa, “Inca Roads”
Technically this isn't a wah-wah pedal – it’s an envelope filter. Sometimes envelope filters can sound quite wah-like, and other times they can be more synthy. Zappa was a big fan of using the envelope filter as an auto wah, and his solo on “Inca Roads” from One Size Fits All isa fine example. It also represents an early recorded example of two-handed tapping, three years before Eddie Van Halen (although Steve Hackett and Billy Gibbons were also known to be tapping before then). Zappa’s “Inca Roads” solo made a huge impression on a young Steve Vai, and you can hear echoes of Frank’s stunningly original “Inca Roads” licks and melodies in Vai’s playing to this day.
4. Steve Vai, “Bad Horsie”
Vai’s no stranger to his own wild wah licks, and “Bad Horsie” is full of them. Set against a monster groove and tuned down to Drop C, “Bad Horsie” almost sounds obscene. If a guitar ever went off the rails and became a stripper, “Bad Horsie” is what it’d dance to. The song is a good example of a couple of different wah styles. For much of the song, Vai uses the pedal to shape individual notes. But for one huge tapping extravaganza starting at 4:33, he uses it almost like a phaser, very slowly drifting through the pedal’s upper range to create a shifting, swirling, cascading effect.
3. Guns N’ Roses, “Sweet Child o’ Mine”
“Sweet Child o’ Mine” was already destined to be a classic on the strength of the opening riff alone, but the solos – and there are lots of them – kick it up to an even higher level. Slash kicks in the wah at 4:07 for a furious solo, then during the “where do we go now?” breakdown he reigns it in, but you can here him chomping at the bit, waiting for the gates to open at 5:12 for some of those classic mournful, sustained notes that only Slash can do. It’s really impossible to imagine the song without the solo, a fact Slash is well aware of, as you may have witnessed first-hand on his recent tour – he plays it note for note, and wah for wah.
2. Cream, “White Room”
The edgy, fuzzy tone Eric Clapton summons from his axe on “White Room” is punctuated by almost out-of-control wah work that sounds deliciously stream-of-consciousness. At times, Clapton uses the wah almost like a tremolo, a technique heard a few years later under the feet of Jimmy Page on “Dazed and Confused.” At other times, Clapton uses the wah to stretch notes out, and at yet others he taps his foot in time with Ginger Baker’s drums.
1. Metallica, “Enter Sandman”
The solo that launched a thousand wah-wahs in the early ’90s, Kirk Hammett’s solo in “Enter Sandman” is a stylistic tour de force, taking in bluesy bends, sliding octaves, alternate picked arpeggios, whammy bar tricks, and some of his biggest, baddest (in a good way) wah work ever. It’s made even cooler by the bluesy little wah-wah licks that occur before and during the second verse, which preface the solo while at the same time not quite giving away what’s about to happen come solo time.
With DVD/CD Celebration Day recently hitting Top 10s around the globe, Led Zeppelin have a whole new audience. And also a mature audience who are revisiting their epic recordings. But where to start? Where to revisit? And which album is best? You decide…
With many Led Zeppelin box-sets, collections, rarities and live albums available we’ll here concentrate on original studio albums before the band disbanded, so that’s eight albums in 10 years. Let’s get down to the sound of the hammer of the gods…
Led Zeppelin I (1969)
After tinkering under the name of The New Yardbirds, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham emerged on record as Led Zeppelin in January 1969. Led Zeppelin I is a crunching debut, and the band’s rawest and most blues-based studio recording. Soft/loud dynamics abound and Page announces himself as a stunning soloist. Standout guitar track? “Dazed And Confused.” Live, Page would saw at his guitar with a violin bow — a trick he borrowed from Eddie Phillips of ‘60s pop-art band The Creation.
Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Zeppelin break out the heavy artillery, with Page turning to Gibson Les Pauls and honing his heavy riffology. Indeed, II is one of the greatest “riff” albums ever - “Whole Lotta Love,” “Heartbreaker,” and “The Lemon Song” are all fabled, if again steeped in old blues. But Zep’s own songwriting was also improving — “What Is And What Should Never Be,” “Thank You,” and “Ramble On” had little to do with the blues. And again, “Ramble On” shows the band’s mastery of the understated (verses) and hard-punching heaviness (choruses). “Moby Dick” is an impressive showcase for John Bonham’s drumming, if superfluous in hindsight, and some still claim this is the first “heavy metal” album. Hardly so — Zeppelin’s diversity was starting to show. Standout guitar track? In terms of legendary riffs, “Whole Lotta Love.”
Led Zeppelin III (1970)
Less than two years since their debut, Led Zeppelin threw a curveball. Page and Plant took time off, retreating to a remote cottage in the Wales countryside called Bron yr aur. Much of the album was written by the duo in the rural setting — there are fewer heavy Page riffs and Plant's hippie-ish lyrics flowered. There are still guitar knockouts - “Immigrant Song” opens as a classic short rocker and “Friends” features impressive acoustic fingerpicking from Page. “Celebration Day” and “Out on the Tiles” are straight-ahead but alluring riff rockers. It’s nevertheless an often overlooked album, with few tracks becoming staples of classic rock radio. Standout guitar track? The smouldering “Since I’ve Been Loving You” or, for riffing, “The Immigrant Song.”
“Untitled” (1971)
It’s now mostly known as IV, but the original album sleeve had no title, not even a band name. It’s also known as “The Runes” or “Four Symbols,” as each band member chose a symbol to represent himself for this album. Regarded by many as Led Zeppelin’s masterpiece, this album is one of the most perfectly realized releases in rock history. “Black Dog” and “Rock 'n Roll” smash the doors open with roaring guitars and drums, the mandolin-led, Eastern influenced “Battle Of Evermore” features Sandy Denny (formerly of Fairport Convention and the only guest vocalist on any Zeppelin album), “Going To California” is another quirky folk-esque escapade. “When The Levee Breaks,” another hyper-heavy super-swaggering blues cover, is atmospheric even 42 years on. Ironically, the album only hit #2 in the U.S, beaten by Carole King’s Tapestry. But these are all decent tracks, and at IV’s heart sits an epic of all epics… Standout guitar track? “Stairway to Heaven” is, for many, the ultimate Led Zeppelin song and IV their best album. But is it? You decide.
Houses of the Holy (1973)
Four years in, and it’s a fifth Zeppelin album… perhaps too soon? It’s relatively “pop-friendly” as “Dancing Days” and “The Ocean” are upbeat rockers that showed Zep could do “catchy.” But they fall over when going too far. “D'yer Maker” — a poor pun on “Jamaica” for its cod reggae - and the funk-attempt “The Crunge” will never make any Zeppelin best-of list. But the galloping “The Song Remains The Same,” “Over The Hills And Far Away,” “The Rain Song" and “No Quarter” make it solid. But it’s not a simple album. "The Ocean" goes from power chords to a capella nursery rhyme to doo-wop. Eclectic yes, but maybe trying too hard to be clever? Standout guitar track? “The Ocean” for its swaggering, stuttering riffs and multi-track solos.
Physical Graffiti (1975)
To some, it’s the ultimate Zeppelin release. To others, it’s meandering, indulgent and lacking in great riffs. Some songs were leftovers from previous recordings — it was Zep’s “White Album” if you like. But the expansive epics — “In My Time of Dying,” “Kashmir,” “In the Light,” “Ten Years Gone” — certainly showed Zeppelin had massive ambition, all amid their “gonzo” years of mid-‘70s touring. John Paul Jones’ arrangement skills came to the fore and riff fans had to be patient… it’s three minutes into “Into the Light” before Page’s guitar even registers. But Robert Plant told Mojo magazine: “if I’m going to blow my trumpet about anything I’ve been connected with, then it would have to be that album.” Standout guitar track: It’s not a guitar track per se, but “Kashmir.” Page uses DADGAD tuning to nail Zep’s rock’n’roll swagger with his nod to Arabian melodies amid JPJ’s “orchestral” grandeur. The classic, closing song on Celebration Day for a reason.
Presence (1976)
Something of a forgotten Led Zeppelin album. Concert movie The Song Remains the Same closely preceded it, and Presence had no big hits. Zeppelin pulled back from the instrumental excess of Physical Graffiti but struggled to meet previous highs.
“Achilles Last Stand” is a Zep classic but very long. Blues escapades “Tea for One” (a shadow of forerunner “Since I've Been Loving You”) and the single “Candy Store Rock” (which didn’t even chart) are quite insubstantial. Behind-the-scenes turmoil didn’t help Zeppelin: Page and Bonham were both battling addictions, and Plant recorded his vocals in a wheelchair after a car crash.
Standout guitar track: The galloping opener “Achilles Last Stand”.
In Through the Out Door (1979)
In Through The Out Door was “proper” Zeppelin’s last stand, and very different. Plant’s son Karac had tragically died, Page and Bonham were still not at their physical best. So, more than any other Zeppelin album, this one belongs to John Paul Jones, who co-wrote all but one song, and whose synthesizer/piano parts are all over it. The guitar swirls and drum swagger of opener “In the Evening” are decent enough, but the rest settles for a poppier punch. “South Bound Suarez” is an upbeat piano rocker punctuated by a great Page solo but the 10-minute “Carouselambra” is meagre compared to past Zeppelin epics. When Zep revisit the blues Â- “I’m Gonna Crawl” - the sound is dominated by synthesizers. If you discovered Zeppelin via this album, you’d be forgiven for wondering what the fuss was all about. Standout guitar track: “In The Evening” or “I’m Gonna Crawl” — Page comes good on the synth-heavy track with a superb world-weary solo.
But that’s just one view. Any many fans have different opinions on when Zeppelin hit their high.
Which is your favorite Led Zeppelin album? Please, comment below…
Soul great Bobby Womack has been diagnosed with early signs of Alzheimer’s disease,the BBC has reported.
The veteran singer-songwriter revealed he’s been having trouble remembering song titles and names of people, and therefore sought medical advice. "The doctor said, ‘You have signs of Alzheimer's,’” Womack told Gilles Peterson of BBC 6 Music. "He said it's not bad yet but it's going to get worse.”
Womack, who’s 66, recently returned to music after suffering a host of health problems, including surgery for cancer and two bouts of pneumonia. His latest album, The Bravest Man in The Universe, was released in the summer of 2012. Co-produced by Blur’s Damon Albarn, the album took home the UK's Q Award for Best Album of 2012. Womack said there was a moment when he couldn’t remember Albarn's last name, adding he's had trouble recalling his material. "How can I not remember songs I wrote?" Womack said. "That's frustrating."
Womack was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009.
Whitesnake drummer Brian Tichy has broken his collarbone in a mountain biking accident. Hopefully he'll be well enough to perform at the monster Bonzo Bash NAMM Jamm 2014 in Anaheim, California later this month.
Tichy is one of the organisers of the Bonzo Bash, a huge celebration of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham's influence on the world of percussion. It will feature Steven Adler (Guns N' Roses/Adler), Charlie Benante (Anthrax), Will Calhoun (Living Colour), Virgil Donati (Steve Vai), Chris Frazier (Whitesnake/Steve Vai), Gene Hoglan (Dethklok), Dave Lombardo (Slayer), Mike Portnoy (Flying Colors), Rikki Rockett (poison), Simon Wright (AC/DC), Jonathan Mover (Joe Satriani) and many more playing their favorite Led Zeppelin songs on a Bonzo replica Natal kit. Other participants include Doug Aldrich (Whitesnake/Dio), Billy Shehan, James Lomenzo (Pride & Glory/Megadeth/White Lion), Jeff Pilson (Dokken), Derek Sherinian, Jack Russell (Great White), John 'JD' Deservio (Black Label Society) and Frank Hannon (Tesla).
Aside from Whitesnake, Tichy has played with Billy Idol, Foreigner, Ozzy Osbourne, Zakk Wylde's Pride & Glory, Lynch Mob and Derek Sherinian (with whom he has also laid down some very impressive guitar work).
Jimmy Page can now add “male model” to his ever-expanding list of professional accomplishments. In a new ad campaign unveiled by menswear designer 
Ozzy Osbourne escaped serious injury in a fire that occurred at his home in Beverly Hills yesterday morning (Jan. 17). As reported by 
“School’s Out” – Alice Cooper
Dave Grohl and Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor – plus Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and Scott Reeder - have unveiled a new track, "From Can to Can't." It’s taken from the album Sound City - Real to Reel, the soundtrack to Grohl's upcoming documentary about the Van Nuys, California studio where Nirvana recorded Nevermind.
His all-time favorite guitarist is Free’s Paul Kossoff.
He would much rather perform live than record in the studio.
Waters has been busy touring the world with his massive production of The Wall during the past couple of years. In 2011 the surviving members of Pink Floyd – Waters, Mason, and guitarist David Gilmour all reunited on stage during one of The Wall shows. Roger, who initially said he had played the last show of The Wall last summer, decided to resurrect it for one more trek through European stadiums in the summer of 2013. Says Waters about the show “I was determined that this show should not just tell the story of miserable little Roger Waters, but make it a much broader and theatrical piece about the walls that divide us – north and south, rich and poor, Christians and Muslims.”
Oh well. It was a nice idea while it lasted. Last week we reported that Big Bear Music founder Jim Simpson, the man credited with discovering Black Sabbath, was petitioning for Birmingham Airport to be named after Ozzy Osbourne. "The message that would carry is instantly international, confident, powerful, unforgettable and says ‘Hey World, we are proud of our own’,” Simpson said when he announced the idea.
Like vinyl? If so, Jack White's Blunderbuss' was the biggest selling vinyl album of 2012 bumping The Beatles’ Abbey Road from the top of the chart.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has announced awards for 2012. Taylor Swift sold lots of course, but Metallica continue to sell.
Deep Purple’s Live In Paris 1975 is out on 29 January. Recorded on 17 April 1975 at the Palais des Sports in Paris, this was the last concert with lauded guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, before he left to form Rainbow. The other band members are vocalist David Coverdale, bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, keyboardist Jon Lord, and drummer Ian Paice. Tracks include "Burn," "Stormbringer," "Highway Star," "Space Truckin,'" and the evergreen "Smoke on the Water.”
Will Ozzy Osbourne get an airport named after himself? At least that is the hope of Jim Simpson, head of Big Bear Music, and the man credited with discovering Black Sabbath. Simpson is petitioning for Birmingham Airport to be named after the singer, in order to recognize the importance of the Birmingham band on an international level.
5. Frank Zappa, “Inca Roads”
Soul great 
