Happy Turkey month everyone! Got a ton of rock news this month, lots happening on all fronts, so let’s get going!
As you know by now, the Eagles first release in almost 30 YEARS landed the top spot on The Billboard 200 with “Long Road Out of Eden” selling well over 700,000 copies in the US alone. Now that’s a testament to the staying power of a band who writes, sings, and records their own music and has evolved over the years to keep fans of all ages coming back for more. You youngin’s out there listening?
Another great example of stellar musicianship is Linkin Park’s “Music for Relief” and “Unite the United” charities. They have teamed up to raise money for reforesting devastated areas of Southern California following wildfires. The nonprofit organizations launched an eBay auction including autographed items from Linkin Park, Madonna, Green Day, Avenged Sevenfold and the Eagles, as well as VIP ticket packages and other collectables. To view and bid on all auction items, please visit www.ebay.com/CAwildfires.
A band that has always stood up for what they believe in, Megadeth, has a unique fan base of online support communities who chat and share their love of this hard rocking band. In fact, it has added two more international forums. Both Korean and Yugoslavian fans have now logged onto www.Megadeth.com and staked a claim.
When Megadeth played a huge sold out concert in Seoul, Korea last month, front man Dave Mustaine was appointed the “Goodwill Ambassador of the World for the WTA” in Korea by the Secretary General, Mr. Jin Suk Yang of the World Taekwondo Federation. Wow, congrats Dave. You’ve come a long way since we all used to party every Wednesday night over at NYC’s infamous Cat Club in the late 80s. Way to go my friend.
Speaking of 80s metal gods, singer/songwriter and former Judas Priest leader of the pack Rob Halford was in NYC November 16th at J&R Music World for a “meet&greet” autograph session to celebrate the release of “Halford Metal God Essentials Volume 1” featuring two new Halford tracks and a bonus DVD.
With the ravenous Priest crowd spilling out onto the cold NYC streets, Halford was as accommodating to his fans as ever. Rob also brought his current band, Fight, bassist Jay Jay and guitarist Brian Tilse to sign the band’s new release K5 – The War Of Words Demos, a companion audio release to Fight’s new DVD release.
Celebrity Rock Super Group Scrap Metal is playing a concert at a special holiday event in Nashville at the Wildhorse Saloon on December 15th. "The Scrap Metal Jingle Bell Rock Party" promises ‘a Metal Christmas’ for rock fans who want to ‘Party Like a Rock Star’ with their favorite lead singers from the most popular bands of the 80s and 90s like Gunnar Nelson, Mark Slaughter, Kelly Keagy and Matt Nelson. And you never know what other metal supersinger will pop up and sing!
Motörhead's recently released “Stage Fright” HD DVD was nominated for best DVD of the year by one of Germany's leading DVD business magazines, “DVD Entertainment.” Stage Fright, the first HD DVD to feature online functions, is the only music HD DVD nominated, and is up against some heavy competition like “The Fast and the Furious,” “Spiderman” “Fantastic Four” and “Pirates Of The Caribbean” - all either HD DVD or Blu-ray releases. Lemmy I love ya, but Johnny Depp as a Pirate wins out at least in the :::sigh::: category!
Speaking of crowds spilling out onto the streets of NYC, I cannot let this column slip by without talking about the best concert I’ve seen in years. I had the honor of seeing Bruce Springsteen play one of his Madison Square Garden shows last month. And let me tell you this, he has not aged a bit since I first saw him when I was in 9th grade and snuck away from my parents and headed into the Garden to see him in 1979. Having seen him at least a half-dozen times since then, this tour has all the power in it that he had since back when “Born to Run” dropped. With more of a global social conscience now then back then, even though Bruce always had a deep social perspective even when he was writing and singing about his life on the Asbury Park New Jersey boardwalk which was just as profound, The Boss, as always, stopped in between tunes to voice his mind.
Saying not only what we have to be grateful for in life, including the Bill of Rights as well as the NY Yankees and NY Giants (even though he said the Giants “technically” belong to Jersey since they play there!) Springsteen went on to say how we’ve been “lied to” the last six years.” Without saying the Pres’ name (we wouldn’t want the FBI coming to drag Bruce away now, would we?) Bruce gently but surely told the crowd that we need to have a voice in what this country does and that the heart of rock and roll rooted in questioning authority. Bringing the crowd to its feet with that, Springsteen’s two hour show included most of the fan favorites with the notable exclusion of “Born In The USA” which was once misconstrued by an ex US leader as a pro-right wing tune. Don’t know if it was done on purpose or not, but myself nor the crowd missed it at all as Bruce graced us with not only “Born to Run,” “Candy’s Room” and “Jungleland” among others in his two nights at the Garden, but a lot of his more outside-the-box music he’s done over the last few years.
Bruce, if you get your hands on this issue of All Access, first you’ve got great taste! Next, call me for an interview. (My life would be complete then, lol…)
Okay, back to the new band forefront. One you have to check out is “Rockets To Ruin.” Produced by Skid Row’s Rachel Bolan, Rockets To Ruin has released their long awaited first full length recording entitled “Love * Drugs * Rebellion.” The buzz is definitely growing for this high-powered, guitar-driven band as they tour constantly throughout the southeast with some recent gigs in Cali. Definitely check them out at: www.rocketstoruin.com.
And now to Prince. What can I say? On the heels of his lawsuits against You Tube and eBay among a couple of other websites, this purple boy wonder is now taking on FAN websites that simply post his photos or images in his likeness. Ones like Prince.org and Princefans.com, I mean come on, what’s next? Will he be going after someone’s MySpace page after that for having a purple background?!?!??
Seems his fans have banned together to form what they’re calling “Prince Fans United” which is dedicated to fighting the lawsuits on the premise of freedom of speech. Yeesh, with everything else that’s happening in the world, doesn’t this mega-platinum rocker have anything better to do with his time and money than to go after the fans that put him there? He flew me out to his Minnesota compound to do an interview in 1991, and the place was awesome and very decadent. The man was nice. But in all fairness, Prince, the fans are the ones who put you on top. Give ‘em a break and relax.
So I’m off to get onto Rachel Ray’s website to get some turkey stuffing recipes, and until next month, be well, and most of all this November. Be thankful.
If you’ve got any cool band news or best of all gossip, hit me up at CAS11099@aol.com
Peace.
