Tagged: rolling stone
“We haven’t even gotten a chance to hang out, just us three, yet … We’re going through healing,” says Ben Shepherd of band’s future
A massive crowd gathered on a misty Sunday to honor the late grunge pioneer Chris Cornell . The Seattle Museum of Pop Culture unveiled a life-size bronze statue of the late Soundgarden singer, which was commissioned by his widow, Vicky Cornell. She was there with their children Lily, Toni and Christopher, as well as Cornell’s former bandmates Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd.
“It’s a reflection of his light, a light that shone through his music and touched millions,” Cornell said during the ceremony. “A light that he used to illuminate our lives, and a light that will continue to inspire those in the future. This statue represents that light — a beautiful, powerful, incomparable presence in a hometown worthy of someone as special as Chris.”
Thayil, Cameron, and Shepherd told Rolling Stone that it was “a lot to take in” seeing Soundgarden fans turn out nearly a year and a half after Cornell was found dead in a Detroit hotel room on May 18, 2017, hours after a Soundgarden concert.
“There were so many moments [with Chris] that impacted my development as a musician and later on, just as friends,” Cameron said. “I remember so much of when I first joined the band in ‘86. The band was still formulating a sound, but it didn’t take long to get to the sound that it eventually would become and to stay that path. As a guy who’s played in bands forever and ever, it’s really hard to get that so early on in the life of a band, so that’s still significant to me.”
Shepherd, who joined the band in 1990 following Jason Everman’s exit, added, “One thing about Chris, speaking specifically about him, [was] he had the spirit of ‘go for it’ all the time. Just go for it. Push, find out where we can go. And all three of those guys for me when I joined — I was thrown in the fire — they were already rollin’. And they’re all so adventurous and so strong that they made it a totally natural thing to just see where we can go. … It was all about moving forward. What’s next. Onward. Let’s go find out.”
Cornell’s lack of ego, they added, helped the group to stay together through numerous tours, which wasn’t always the case for their peers. (“You guys were one of the first bands out of this town that actually toured and then came back and stayed a band and then kept doing it,” Shepherd said to Cameron. “Soundgarden was focused from day one. You could just tell that they were stable and ready to go.”)
“I think Chris was always encouraging us to bring in material and contribute creatively,” Cameron said. “He didn’t have the type of fragile ego that required feeding it at all times. He wanted to be fed as an artist, not as a star.”
Two of the three band members — Cameron and Thayil — reunited in June for Denmark’s Northside Festival as part of a supergroup called MC50, joining the likes of original MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer, Zen Guerrilla’s Marcus Durant, Fugazi’s Brendan Canty and King’s X’s Dug Pinnick to pay tribute to the Detroit-based rock group, but plans for future reunions will have to wait as they continue to process Chris’s death.
“We’re just still taking our time and giving ourselves space to process everything,” Cameron said. “We would certainly love to try to continue to do something, figure out something to do together.”
“On a personal level,” Shepherd said, “We haven’t even gotten a chance to hang out, just us three, yet. … We’re going through natural healing, then thinking about the natural next step.”
Stevie Nicks now has a chance to enter the Hall of Fame as a second time since she appears on the 2019 ballot
Fleetwood Mac -- "Say You Love Me"
Stevie Nicks is on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot for the first time as a solo artist. If she makes it in, she’ll join a select class of double inductees that includes John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon, Neil Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, Jeff Beck, Johnny Carter, Peter Gabriel, Michael Jackson, Curtis Mayfield, Clyde McPhatter, Jimmy Page, Lou Reed, Paul Simon, Rod Stewart, Sammy Strain and Ronnie Wood. Eric Clapton is the lone triple inductee since he got in as a solo artist, a member of Cream and a member of the Yardbirds.
Nicks first entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 as a member of Fleetwood Mac . “I just want you to know that we all do appreciate this,” she said that night. “This is an incredible honor and we are all just as nervous as we were 25 years ago.” The group then played “Landslide,” “Big Love” and “Say You Love Me” in a segment that you can watch right here. Just months earlier they’d wrapped up their highly successful Dance reunion tour. Nobody knew it at the time, but the Hall of Fame was one of the last times that Christine McVie would play with Fleetwood Mac until she rejoined the group in 2014.
Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Green made a rare appearance with his old band when they were inducted. He didn’t perform with them that night since it wouldn’t really make sense for him to play along with songs written years after he left, but by complete coincidence Santana were inducted that same evening. They turned the Fleetwood Mac classic “Black Magic Woman” into a massive worldwide hit, and Green finally got to play it with them.
It remains to be seen whether or not Stevie will enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist next year. She faces pretty stiff competition from Radiohead, the Cure, Janet Jackson, Kraftwerk and many others. But if she gets in along with those four, we’re going to get one hell of an all-star jam at the end.
Lemmy Kilmister , who died December 28th , left an indelible mark on rock & roll. Everything about him — his thunderous singing and songwriting, his drugs-and-smokes lifestyle, even his protruding facial moles — was unapologetic and uncompromising. But just as important, Lemmy and Motörhead left their grammatical mark on rock & roll.
Yes, we're talking about that umlaut — and Lemmy's role in popularizing one of rock's most wonderfully enduring, if sometimes nonsensical, traditions.
Motörhead were, of course, not the first band to stick dots above one or more letters in their name for no practical phonetic reason. In the late Sixties, German proggers Amon Düül were most likely the first to take the umlaut plunge. In 1971, Blue Öyster Cult gave the mark its first brush with mainstream crossover. As original manager and producer Sandy Pearlman told me years ago, he and rock writer Richard Meltzer were talking about the band one day while standing outside a New York restaurant that served up Blue Point oysters. "I said, 'Why don't we call it Blue Oyster Cult?'" Pearlman recalled. "And Richard said, 'And we'll add an umlaut over the "O"!' And I said, 'Great!"'
Several years later, when Lemmy parted ways with psychedelic art-rockers Hawkwind, he initially dubbed his new band Bastard — but ultimately settled on Motorhead, after a song he'd written in Hawkwind (it was also slang for bikers on speed). The crowning touch was the addition of the umlaut over that second "o." "I thought it looked mean," he said a few years ago. "That's the thing, innit?"
Mean, if not gnarly, was indeed the key. In their pre–"(Don't Fear) the Reaper" days, Blue Öyster Cult peppered their image and lyrics with intimations of menace and darkness, especially in songs like "Career of Evil" and "Dominance and Submission." But when it was attached to Motörhead, the umlaut, combined with Lemmy and his bandmates' scraped-raw approach to rock & roll, felt like the real ominous deal, and its repercussions were huge. "I pinched the idea off Blue Öyster Cult," Lemmy said in 2011. "Then Mötley Crüe pinched it off us and it goes on and on."
"I pinched the idea off Blue Öyster Cult. Then Mötley Crüe pinched it off us and it goes on and on." —Lemmy Kilmister
A modest but accurate boast: Rock history is now dotted — literally — with the Crüe, Queensrÿche, Hüsker Dü (not metal, and Swedish for "Do you remember?"), the Accüsed, Green Jellÿ (umlaut used ironically), Spinal Tap (often spelled, for optimum intended hilarity, with the umlaut over the "n"), and Rrröööaaarrr (1986 album by Canadian headbangers Voivod). Even R&B singer Jason Derulo used an umlaut on the cover of his first album, over the "u" in his last name, to help people correctly pronounce his surname.
For Lemmy, though, the umlaut was neither gag nor phonetical necessity. Just as Motorhead's early records injected a faster-louder rush and intensity into Seventies metal, shaking off any arena-rock sludginess that started to creep into the genre, so did the band's umlaut make a statement of its own. The diacritic firmed up metal's edge and identity; it declared that the music would always be a separate, sometimes jarring and rude, universe unto itself. (Lemmy, a collector of Nazi memorabilia, rarely if ever commented on any connection between that umlaut and Nazi-era use of the dots in say, "Führer.") For Lemmy, the umlaut, like the music and lifestyle he lived until his body couldn't take it anymore, spoke — or pronounced — volumes.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-lemmy-and-motorhead-gave-metal-its-umlaut-20151229#ixzz3vjzHMNuH
The Kiss bassist blames file sharing for murdering rock n' roll, wonders where the next Bob Dylan is
By Daniel Kreps | September 7, 2014
Neil Young once sang "Rock n' roll can never die," but according to Gene Simmons, it's already dead. The Kiss bassist recently made controversial remarks about Donald Sterling , immigration and depression (which he eventually backed off from), and now the Kiss bassist has another enormous statement to make: "Rock is finally dead," Simmons declared in an interview with Esquire . "The death of rock was not a natural death. Rock did not die of old age. It was murdered," he added. But rock's killer wasn't the blurring of musical genres or lack of craftsmanship. Instead, Simmons blames file sharing and the fact that no one values music "enough to pay you for it" for murdering rock n' roll.
"It's very sad for new bands. My heart goes out to them. They just don't have a chance. If you play guitar, it's almost impossible," Simmons tell his son Nick, who interviewed him for Esquire . "You're better off not even learning how to play guitar or write songs, and just singing in the shower and auditioning for The X Factor . And I'm not slamming The X Factor , or pop singers. But where's the next Bob Dylan ? Where's the next Beatles ? Where are the songwriters? Where are the creators? Many of them now have to work behind the scenes, to prop up pop acts and write their stuff for them."
Simmons goes on to say that 1958 to 1983 was music's pinnacle as he could name 100s of iconic musicians. Since then, Simmons lists two bands that have carried on the spirit of that era: Nirvana and, surprisingly, Tame Impala , which Simmons' son turned him on to. "The craft is gone, and that is what technology, in part, has brought us," Simmons said. "What is the next Dark Side of the Moon ? Now that the record industry barely exists, they wouldn't have a chance to make something like that. There is a reason that, along with the usual top-40 juggernauts, some of the biggest touring bands are half old people, like me."
Simmons then points the finger at who he suspects is guilty for killing rock: "My sense is that file sharing started in predominantly white, middle- and upper-middle-class young people who were native-born, who felt they were entitled to have something for free, because that's what they were used to. If you believe in capitalism — and I'm a firm believer in free-market capitalism — then that other model is chaos. It destroys the structure." Simmons also uses this train of thought to slyly apologize for his previous statements about immigration by adding, "I find that many of the more patriotic people are immigrants."
Perhaps upset that they weren't named among "iconic" acts like Nirvana and Tame Impala, Foo Fighters shared Simmons' "Rock is finally dead" interview on their Facebook page , adding "Not so fast, Mr. God of Thunder..." Dave Grohl and company will attempt to exhume and resuscitate rock with their next album Sonic Highways on November 10th.
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Alternate versions and 80-page hardbound book highlight classic band's reissues.
Less than a year after reissuing their first three albums as deluxe sets, Led Zeppelin plan on putting out two more in the fall. On October 28th, the group will release deluxe editions of its 1971 album, Led Zeppelin IV , and its next record, 1973's Houses of the Holy .
The 40 Greatest Led Zeppelin Songs of All Time
Like the previous deluxe reissues, each album will include the original LP, newly remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page, alongside a second disc of previously unreleased audio culled from the band members' vaults. Additionally, each release will also be available as a single album, a single vinyl LP, a deluxe double-LP, digital download and a super deluxe box set, the latter of which features the CDs, LPs, a download card, an 80-page hardbound book with previously unseen photos and memorabilia and a high-quality print of the album cover.
The group's fourth album has become one of the best-selling albums in history since its 1971 release. Home to AOR staples like "Stairway to Heaven," "Rock & Roll," "Black Dog" and "When the Levee Breaks," the album, which is technically untitled, has been certified 23-times platinum. The deluxe edition contains previously unreleased versions of each of the album's eight tracks. Included are alternate mixes of "Rock & Roll," "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Four Sticks," a mandolin/guitar mix of "The Battle of Evermore" and a markedly different version of "Stairway to Heaven" that the group recorded at Los Angeles' Sunset Sound Studio.
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| 'Houses of the Holy' super deluxe box set. |
| Courtesy of Rhino Entertainment |
That record's follow-up, Houses of the Holy , contains the singles "Over the Hills and Far Away" and "D'Yer Mak'er" and has been certified 11-times platinum since its 1973 release. The deluxe edition bonus disc for Houses of the Holy contains rough, in-progress mixes of "The Ocean" and "Dancing Days," as well as two songs with varied instrumentation: a guitar mix backing track for "Over the Hills and Far Away" and a version of "The Rain Song" without John Paul Jones' piano.
Although the group worked together on assembling these reissues, its surviving members have no intention of touring together anytime soon. In May, Robert Plant told Rolling Stone that he wished to leave things off with the group's 2007 one-off at London's O2 Arena. "A tour would have been an absolute menagerie of vested interests and the very essence of everything that's shitty about big-time stadium rock," he said. "We were surrounded by a circus of people that would have had our souls on the fire. I'm not part of a jukebox!"
Page said he was "fed up" with Plant's comments in a June interview with The National , but ultimately took the high road. "We have a great history together and like all brothers, we have these moments where we don't speak on the same page but that's life," he said.
Here are the track listings for the deluxe editions' companion audio discs (the songs remain the same on the original LPs):
Led Zeppelin IV (Companion Audio)
1. "Black Dog," Basic Track With Guitar Overdubs
2. "Rock and Roll," Alternate Mix
3. "The Battle of Evermore," Mandolin/Guitar Mix From Headley Grange
4. "Stairway to Heaven," Sunset Sound Mix
5. "Misty Mountain Hop," Alternate Mix
6. "Four Sticks," Alternate Mix
7. "Going to California," Mandolin/Guitar Mix
8. "When the Levee Breaks," Alternate U.K. Mix
Houses of the Holy (Companion Audio)
1. "The Song Remains The Same," Guitar Overdub Reference Mix
2. "The Rain Song," Mix Minus Piano
3. "Over the Hills And Far Away," Guitar Mix Backing Track
4. "The Crunge," Rough Mix - Keys Up
5. "Dancing Days," Rough Mix With Vocal
6. "No Quarter," Rough Mix With JPJ Keyboard Overdubs - No Vocal
7. "The Ocean," Working Mix
Album will focus on songs the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman wrote between 1969 and 1987
Stevie Nicks may have spent much of 2013 touring with Fleetwood Mac and celebrating the 35th anniversary of the group's landmark LP Rumours , but the frontwoman still found time to record a solo LP. 24 Karat Gold — Songs from the Vault will see release on October 7th via Warner Bros, though vinyl lovers will be able to pick up a limited edition double LP a week earlier starting September 29th.
The LP follows Nicks' 2011 solo effort, In Your Dreams , and was produced by herself, Dave Stewart and guitarist Waddy Wachtel. Recorded in Nashville and Los Angeles, 24 Karat Gold comprises songs that Nicks wrote primarily between 1969 and 1987, plus two that were penned in 1994 and 1995. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Nicks said she was inspired to reimagine these older tracks after stumbling across a slew of the original bootlegs on YouTube. "[W]e found all the songs that, somehow, were taken from my house or picked up or loaned out or whatever," she said, adding: " I call them my 24 karat gold songs."
In a statement, Nicks said: "Each song is a lifetime. Each song has a soul. Each song has a purpose. Each song is a love story. They represent my life behind the scenes, the secrets, the broken hearts, the broken hearted and the survivors. These songs are the memories — the 24 karat gold rings in the blue box. These songs are for you."
The 24 Karat artwork will feature never-before-seen Polaroids taken by Nicks throughout her career, while the deluxe photobook CD boasts 48 pages of pictures from her private collection alongside two bonus tracks. Pre-orders for 24 Karat start on August 5th, and that same day, Nicks will begin previewing the album on her official new Instagram account.
Along with the release of 24 Karat , Nicks' fall will be dominated by another Fleetwood Mac tour, this one reuniting the group with keyboardist and singer Christine McVie , who left the band in 1998. The On With the Show tour kicks off on Tuesday, September 30th in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Target Center and wraps up 34 shows later on December 20th at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa Bay, Florida.
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