Hello Dave, nice to see you again……It’s nearly December! Geez. Christmas shopping for me must commence this weekend or else!…..Last night I got to be at a great industry charity event where we ate and drank fine wine with lots of good friends! For decades now, I guess nearly 40 or so, the T.J. Martell Foundation for leukemia, cancer and AIDS research, has been raising millions and millions of dollars to try to find cures for those diseases. It also has been a life saver for many people in the music industry who’ve been stricken with those sometimes life ending diseases. One of the honorees last night was Rush, and Alex Lifeson was there to accept the award. I’m proud to have been associated with Martell in the 80’s & 90’s when it was my role to help organize a celebrity hockey game (we had the HANSON BROTHERS from “Slap Shot” fly in from Albany, NY) and several celebrity softball games out in Los Angeles. I remember when Alice In Chains were in LA recording their Dirt album. Layne, Jerry, Mike and Sean came out and who knew Layne was an amazing hitter! (Layne showed up with a green beard. I think it was the first time I ever saw someone put color in their beard!) He was the ringer for sure! Another year we had Alice Cooper‘s “Rockers” team vs Kip Winger‘s “Rollers” and Alice showed up with a bat that had a battle ax attached (not real, just for show) and the crowd went nuts! Another year (could’ve been this same year) Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold came out and Roseanne sang the national anthem (horribly, I’d like to add!) We also had these great annual bowling parties (I was and still remain the “Gutter Ball Queen!”) So last night was, again, another momentous occasion and a wonderful way to raise money for the research group. Thanks to Q-Prime’s Warren Christensenfor the AMAZING wine……Let’s start with this item from Blabbermouth today. Interesting note: interview with Triple M was done in the hardDriveRadio studios! 🙂 AC/DC guitarist Angus Young addressed the legal problems of drummer Phil Rudd in a new interview with Australia’s long-running rock station Triple M, saying that the drummer is “in a strange place and a strange situation.” Rudd was arrested on Nov 6 and charged with attempting to arrange a murder, threatening to kill and possession of meth and marijuana. Although the first charge was dropped, he still faces seven years behind bars for the others. Young told Triple M’s Lee Simon: “Phil is in a strange place and a strange situation. I know he’s living in New Zealand, but it’s something we’ve gotta get resolved. If we’re going forward, we’ve gotta get something resolved.”He continued: “We had a few problems [with Phil] ourselves before he got into this situation, because there was a lot of strange behavior going on, which I guess you could put it down to him not showing up for a lot of what we were doing. “When you have to get to a stage when you’ve gotta convince someone to be there, it wears thin after a while. But it’s something we got to resolve. It is a bit of a question mark.” Young recently told Rolling Stone magazine about Rudd’s current legal troubles: “Phil created his own situation. It’s a hard thing to say about the guy. He’s a great drummer, and he’s done a lot of stuff for us. But he seems to have let himself go. He’s not the Phil we’ve known from the past.” The guitarist did not want to delve into whether drugs were involved in Rudd’s seeming decline, adding, “I don’t know the exact situation… I can only say, from our perspective, that the guy needs to sort himself out.” AC/DC issued a statement on Rudd’s arrest, saying that this absence will not affect the Dec 2nd release of the band’s new album, Rock Or Bust, and the group’s upcoming tour. Drummer Bob Richards sat behind the kit for the filming of the videos for singles “Play Ball” and the title track, but it is not known whether he will join the band on tour if Rudd cannot…..Metallica‘s been performing all this week on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.” Check out “Enter Sandman.”….Tonight’s episode of Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways is the one filmed in New Orleans. Taylor and Nate said it was their favorite city of them all. The band will perform tonight right after the show airs. Wish I was going to be there! Meanwhile, RollingStone posted this cool item on Dave Grohl. Love it! Meanwhile, I got a little chuckle when I saw the upcoming Rolling Stone cover with Dave. The title to the story on him is “The Passion of Dave Grohl.” Wanna know what the last thing I said to Dave when I saw him at the Lettermanshow backstage in his dressing room was? “Keep the Passion!” Hmmmmm…..Three Days Grace drummer Neil Sanderson says the band’s upcoming fifth album is “turning out to be such a personal reflection” for the members of the group. He writes, “One of my favorite things about making this kind of record is when as a team, we decide to just lay it all on the line emotionally, and write about all the demons, the feelings; good and bad, all the pain and the rushes, and all the highs and lows . . . in all of our lives.” Sanderson says the band is targeting March 31st for the release of the yet-to-be-titled set, adding, “We still have a lot of work to do . . . Some songs we write, and rewrite, then record, and re-record and so on.” Check out this fan-filmed concert in Moscow!….Have a great weekend! And Buffalo, hang in there! I’d be shoveling my roof this weekend if I lived there, lemme tell ya.