Tomorrow, we leave to start the long drive north to the Adirondacks. Both looking forward and not. Hate leaving paradise, but it’s getting hot as hell. And I need to smell some lilacs! So hope I don’t miss them all!
This morning, I saw this Facebook post from my friend David Draiman of Disturbed! Looks like another cool tie in with with “The Sound Of Silence,” except this time, it’s celebrating the music and art of Paul Simon, who wrote the song! Sounds like a wonderful event!
Oh my. This is sad. The Pulse Of Radio via Alternative Press says Peter Cornell, younger brother of late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell, posted the following message on Facebook a few days ago, following the death of his sibling earlier this month. Peter wrote, “It’s been difficult to put words together. My heart is broken. Chris was always just my brother. We just ‘were.’ No pretense. No dog and pony show. We didn’t have to get deep all the time. Sometimes we only needed to just be in the same room and just be present. That was enough.”
Peter added, “It wasn’t until this week, it really hit me how he belonged to the world. That he is an icon and a legend. That being said, I am so sorry to YOU for your loss. Artists, actors, musicians. We rely on these people to lift us up. To inspire us and distract us in times of trouble. Chris protected us when we needed him to. His one of a kind-ness surrounded us like a suit of armor. He was a warrior and a wizard. A howling wolf and a trusted mentor.”
Peter continued, “My brother gave freely of his gifts and it was never a struggle. He kept himself from the saturation of celebrity in such a humble way. The power and anger and passion of my brother’s music was always genuine, original and legitimate. He was the powerful, sensitive, fragile, angry, mystical creature that will exist forever in his body of work. And he did it for ALL of us.”
Peter concluded by thanking all of Chris’ fans for their “kindness and condolences,” saying, “I will never wrap my head around his passing.”
Chris Cornell died in the early hours of May 18th, the victim of an apparent suicide by hanging, shortly after Soundgarden played a concert in Detroit. Toxicology and autopsy reports are pending and will determine if the anti-anxiety drug Ativan, which Chris was taking, was somehow a factor in his death. His funeral took place last Friday (May 26th) at the Forever Hollywood cemetery in Los Angeles, attended by bandmates, fellow musicians and actors such as Brad Pitt and Josh Brolin that he had befriended.
And the photo posted above was a Twitter post from Nancy Wilson of Heart, a fellow Seattle musician and friend of Cornell’s. The members of Audioslave, Prophets Of Rage and Rage Against The Machine, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk and Tim Commerford, performed Audioslave’s “Like A Stone” without vocals as a tribute. Watch it here on DJ Lord’s Facebook page.
Ozzy Osbourne, Prophets Of Rage, Five Finger Death Punch, Rob Zombie and Incubus will top the bill for the fourth annual Louder Than Life destination festival, set to take place Saturday, Sep 30th and Sunday, Oct 1st at Champions Park in Louisville, KY. Ozzy will headline on the first day while Prophets Of Rage will close out the second, while the massive lineup also includes Stone Sour, Rise Against, Mastodon, Halestorm, The Pretty Reckless, In This Moment, Hollywood Undead, Of Mice & Men, Starset, Beartooth, Nothing More and many others.
Rob Zombie said, “The Zombie and his horde are ready to throw down and get weird at Louder Than Life. Zombie and Ozzy together again! Dig it!”
Zombie and Ozzy have a long history together, with Zombie telling us that he first met the Black Sabbath singer over 20 years ago: “I don’t even remember why I was meeting him. It was very early on, I mean, it was ’95 maybe or something, and I went over to his house…not the house that they had on the TV show The Osbournes, but the house they lived in before that, the one next door to Pat Boone. And it was great. You know, I’d always loved Ozzy, loved Black Sabbath, and it was just me and Ozzy in his house and he played me this entire album he had made with (producer/songwriter) Mark Hudson that was very Beatles-sounding. It’s never been released, but it was fantastic.”
Prophets Of Rage guitarist Tom Morello said in a statement about Louder Than Life, “Prophets Of Rage are psyched to bring a brass-knuckle Marshall stack beatdown to the Louder Than Life festival. We are gonna unleash the rage, bring the noize and take the power back so come on down and get some.”
Single-day and weekend tickets for Louder Than Life will be available at LouderThanLifeFestival.com starting on Friday (June 2nd) at noon ET.
Blabbermouth reporting Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor told Oklahoma City radio station and hardDrive affiliate 100.5 KATT the band’s new studio effort, Hydrograd, was “the most fun I’ve ever had making an album,” adding, “It was the easiest album I’ve ever made, and yet it is so strong, it’s so badass. It is tight, it’s fast, it’s rocking, it’s crushing, it’s melodic, there’s songs for the ladies. I mean, it’s got everything you could ever want in a rock and roll album, man. And it’s probably one of the things I’m most proud of in my life.”
Taylor told us that the band felt more confident than ever in its own abilities when it began recording: “When you know what you want to do, and you have the talent to pull it off, you know, you get right to it. You do exactly what you hear in your head. And so between that, you get the live vibe. You also get the swagger. So you get a certain type of dangerous edge that comes to it. Even with some of the sweeter stuff, like it really has that element of bringing back a big sound.”
Hydrograd is Stone Sour’s sixth studio album and will be released on Jun 30th. The disc features the single “Song #3,” which is already Number Nine on the rock radio chart.
Stone Sour will be special guests of Korn on the latter act’s “Serenity Of Summer” trek, which starts on June 16th in Salt Lake City and wraps on August 2nd in Cleveland.
Meanwhile, Corey Taylor’s new book, America 51: A Probe Into The Realities That Are Hiding Inside ‘The Greatest Country In The World,’ will be published on Aug 8th. The singer said the book was originally “supposed to be this love letter to America . . . and then, politically, all hell broke loose, and I kind of had to change the entire tone of my book . . . It’s probably my angriest, weirdest book ever.” Taylor has published three previous books, all of which made the New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list.
Ok, it’s not ROCK news, but it is good news. After the terrifying and tragic event at Ariana Grande‘s Manchester, UK stop last week, the singer wanted to do something for her fans. Coldplay will reportedly join a bill of A-list stars joining Ariana Grande at her charity concert to benefit victims of the terrorist attack on Manchester Arena. Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Pharrell Williams, Usher and Niall Horan are set to show up alongside Grande for the “One Love Manchester” show set for the city’s Old Trafford cricket ground this Sunday (Jun 4th).
The grounds have a 50,000-person capacity. The show will air live on BBC TV, BBC Radio and Capital Radio Networks. A streaming partner will be announced soon. All proceeds will benefit the victims of the May 22nd bombing that followed Grande’s concert Manchester Arena, leaving 22 dead and more than 100 wounded.
The singer postponed her European tour through June 5th in the wake of the attack. Fans who were at the Manchester show will be offered free tickets, while general admission tickets go on sale Thursday (Jun 1st). (The Pulse Of Radio)
Shaman’s Harvest, our friends from Jefferson, MO, have announced the global release of Red Hands Black Deeds on Jul 28 on Mascot Records. Produced by Keith Armstrong, the new album premeditatively took on a more organic approach, utilizing vintage gear. Singer Nathan Hunt offers, “We used analog effects pedals and vintage amps. It was kind of like trying to find the melting point between Midwest and L.A. It still has the Shaman’s Harvest Midwest vibe to it, but it definitely has organic L.A. written all over it.” Guitarist Josh Hamler adds, “Goat toes are the new cowbells. We’d tell Keith we wanted a certain sound, and he’d pull stuff out that we never thought of, like the goat toes we used on “Blood Trophies” and “A Longer View” or sandpaper on ‘Scavengers’.” The band – singer Nathan Hunt, bassist Matt Fisher, rhythm guitarist Josh Hamler, lead guitarist Derrick Shipp, and drummer Adam Zemanek – simply didn’t want to use anything digital, and when a certain effect was needed they approached the process creatively, coming up with solutions to reach a realized vision. As Hamler shares, “We had been so stuck in our way of writing and recording, but Keith had a different, more interesting approach to coming up with that sound. He really helped us find a fresh new creative path.”
The writing of the record began in Nov 2016 at the time of the presidential election, so it’s no wonder there are social and political undertones to many of the songs. “The tension in the record kind of speaks for itself. There’s a dark anxiety, tension-filled feeling that reflects what’s going on in the world,” says Hamler.
The band also posted tour dates and we’ll have them in Road Rage.
Happy Lifeday to American acting treasure Clint Eastwood who turns 87 today. Paulie Walnuts will take over Dirt til I am back online Tuesday morning. Have a great rest of the week!