I love the Golden Globes. The looks, the stars, the comic barbs. George Clooney‘s comment to his wife? Love it…..OK, so Saturday night, my pal Dave Grohl and his music makers Foo Fighters performed at the Fabulous Forum in LA. Not just your normal Foo Fighters show, either. It was Dave’s 46th birthday night (well, it’s actually on the 15th)! Pulse of Radio reported on it! The band performed a three-and-a-half hour show, joined by guests such as Slash, Van Halen‘s David Lee Roth, Paul Stanley of Kiss and Alice Cooper. According to Billboard, the sold-out show was also staged as a benefit, with proceeds from ticket sales going to MusiCares and the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund. Playing on a rotating stage, the Foos launched the show just after 8:30 p.m. with the Kiss classics “Detroit, Rock City” and “Do You Love Me” as they were immediately joined by Stanley. The band then ran through a fistful of Foo Fighters hits like “All My Life” and “My Hero” before inviting Slash and Tenacious D to the stage for a humorous take on “Immigrant Song” and a crowd singalong of “Happy Birthday.” Other guests included:
- Alice Cooper for a double dose of “School’s Out” and “18”;
- Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell for “Mountain Song,” with additional accompaniment by ex-Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde;
- A version of the Rolling Stones‘ “Miss You,” with Farrell turning the mic over to Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins after admitting he didn’t know the words;
- Performances of Black Sabbath‘s “N.I.B.” and “Fairies Wear Boots.”
In between guest spots, the Foos returned to their catalog for chestnuts like “Best Of You,” “This Is A Call,” “Monkey Wrench” and “Times Like These,” along with lesser-known cuts. Then at about the 150-minute mark, Grohl brought out a guest that he admitted he didn’t really know before now: David Lee Roth. A bare-chested Roth strutted onto the stage for a run through Van Halen’s “Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” before yielding the mic to a musician who was a major influence on Grohl: Motorhead‘s Lemmy Kilmister. Grohl and the legendary Lemmy led the Foos, along with a returning Slash and Zakk Wylde, through a rendition of Chuck Berry‘s “Let It Rock.” After more than three hours, Grohl promised that the band would play even longer the next time it came back to Los Angeles. The Foos will launch their biggest North American tour ever later this year, hitting arenas, amphitheaters and stadiums in the summer and fall. Checktheir performance with Paul Stanley here. With Alice Cooper here. With Perry Farrell here. With Tenacious D & Slash here. With David Lee here. With Slash, Lemmy and Zakk here. Oh yeah!…..Hmmm. Now THIS is debatable. Marilyn Manson has claimed in a new interview with Noisey he coined the term “grunge” in a review he wrote of Nirvana‘s 1989 debut album, Bleach, while he was working as a music journalist. Manson explained, “I hated rock ‘n’ roll when I started . . . Nirvana was different. That was one of the bands I covered first as a journalist and I’m just going to go ahead and say I coined the term ‘grunge’ in a review of Bleach. You’re welcome.” Manson, under his real name Brian Warner, did write for a South Florida music magazine in the 1980s called 25th Parallel. In actuality, the word “grunge” was used as far back as 1978 to describe rock music, but Mudhoney and Green River frontman Mark Arm is credited with using the term in a 1981 letter to a Seattle fanzine called Desperate Times. Sub Pop Records co-founder Bruce Pavitt later used the term in 1987 and 1988 to describe Green River’s music. Manson’s new album, The Pale Emperor, is due for release on January 20th. His tour kicks off on the 21st and Lou Brutus will be on the hotLine with him on Thursday after the show. Meanwile, there is a new Manson track to check out from the album called “Cupid Carries A Gun”-listen…This guy still has delusions of grandeur, and yes, only time will tell. Former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland said in an interview with a Bay Area radio station he “wouldn’t be opposed” to a reunion tour with the latter group, who dismissed him in early 2008. Weiland stated, “I wouldn’t be opposed to, at some point, doing a reunion tour. That’s just coming from my perspective, though. I know there’s been a little banter before. And (Slash) was doing his own solo project, so he defused that. But . . . that’s the thing about rock and roll: you never can say never.” However, Slash told us a different story in 2013 when Weiland was fired from Stone Temple Pilots and floated the idea of a Velvet Revolver reunion then: “No, there’s absolutely no truth to whatever he’s been talking about, and I’ve just written him off as being nuts, and so I’ve just left it at that (laughs).” Asked in his radio interview which band he would go back to if he had to pick just one, Weiland replied, “That’s a difficult one, because there was all the stuff that went on with me leaving STP, it made things really confusing. And all I can say is, time heals wounds. And it would depend on what the situation was, really. It’s a hard one to say.” Weiland was fired from Stone Temple Pilots in early 2013, five years after reuniting with the band that put him on the map. The member of STP claimed that Weiland’s solo activities and erratic behavior were detrimental to the band, which hired Linkin Park‘s Chester Bennington as a replacement. Velvet Revolver technically still exists, but has still not found a new singer to take Weiland’s place. Weiland and his solo act, The Wildabouts, will release a new album called Blaster on March 31st, with a tour kicking off next month…..The first authorized documentary about late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, titled Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, will air on May 4th on HBO, following its premiere later this month at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The film is written, directed and produced by Brett Morgen and is the first to be made with the cooperation of Cobain’s family. Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, is an executive producer for the project, although his widow Courtney Love was not involved with the production. HBO stated that in addition to “dozens of Nirvana songs and performances,” the film will contain “previously unheard Cobain originals.” Morgen and his team were given access to Cobain’s entire personal and family archives, and the film will include footage from numerous Nirvana performances, along with never-before-seen home movies, recordings, artwork, photography, journals, demos and songbooks. Morgen said he discovered “over 200 hours of unreleased music and audio” along with art, home movies and writings once he had access to the Cobain archive….Finally, also from our friends at Pulse of Radio, one of our close personal friends is celebrating a big birthday today! Singer, screenwriter and director Rob Zombie turns 50 on today (Jan 12th). In addition to making several albums with White Zombie, five solo studio records and a handful of compilation, remix and live sets, plus scripting and directing six feature films, Zombie has also directed almost all his own videos, run his own record label at one point and written his own line of comic books.When asked not long ago if there was anything that he hadn’t done yet that he still wanted to do, Zombie said he wasn’t sure: “I mean, I never really look at it that way. I don’t know. I mean, you know, there’s always something, something always comes up that you’re like, ‘Wow, never thought of that, that’s cool.’ Even if it’s just with music and movies, I mean, every movie is the new challenge and there’s always a new, exciting thing that goes with it. Every record is a new challenge and that’s what’s great about it. I’m happy with that. It’s not like I’m always looking for a completely new thing I have to do. Both those things are still pretty exciting.” Zombie’s most recent musical release was his fifth studio album, Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, which came out in April 2013. He will release a new live album, Spookshow International Live, later this year through T-Boy Records. Zombie has recently been working on his seventh feature film, titled 31. He raised the money to finance the movie through a Kickstarter campaign. His other pictures include 2003’s House of 1000 Corpses, 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects, 2007’s Halloween and 2013’s The Lords Of Salem. Zombie, whose real name is Robert Cummings, was born in Massachusetts. His childhood obsessions with horror films, comic books and punk rock all directly inspired his later work as a musician and filmmaker. Zombie named his biggest musical influences when he was young: “There was three things in the ’70s when I was a little kid that were incredibly influential to me. You know, Alice Cooper, Elton John and Kiss. As a kid I was just crazy about all three of those.” He attended the Parsons School for Design in New York City, where he and bassist Sean Yseult met and formed White Zombie. White Zombie was an underground cult act for several years before signing with Geffen Records and releasing its commercial breakthrough album, La Sexorcisto: Devil Music. Volume One, in 1992. After the band split in 1996, Zombie launched his solo career in 1998 with the record Hellbilly Deluxe. Zombie’s albums with White Zombie and on his own have sold more than 25 million copies. He has earned five platinum albums and two gold ones. His wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, has been a dancer in his live show and has played roles in all of his films. Zombie shares his birthday with Rage Against The Machine vocalist Zack de la Rocha, who turns 45 years old on Monday. Zombie said a while back what he’s been most grateful for in his 27-year career: “My main goal with everything was ‘I don’t ever want to have to have a real job. As long as I can make enough money to eat and live, I’m happy,’ you know. And that goal was accomplished a long time ago. So that’s what I’m thankful for. ‘Cause I had a lot of crappy jobs and I was like, ‘I don’t wanna do this.‘” Let’s flash back to Rob’s first music video for “Thunder Kiss ’65,” shall we? Others celebrating birthdays today: Zack De La Rocha is 45. Howard Stern is 61. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is 51, And Smokin’ Joe Frazier is 71.