WKHY Rock Report |
Jones adds, "We all would have liked to have been done with a new record a long time ago -- but when it’s done, it’s gonna be good. And that’s the point. We’re not gonna put out something that sucks just to put it out." It's been over six years since Tool's last album.
GREEN DAY: Billie Joe's Next Musical
Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong is writing for the stage again. The Yale Repertory Theater have announced that Armstrong will be writing new songs for a "rock" adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing called These Paper Bullets. The show will run from March 14th to April 15th, 2014. It centers on a band from Liverpool dealing with romance and the music industry in London.Source: Hartford Courant
GUNS N' ROSES: Duff Gets Tossed from GNR Bootleg Store
Duff McKagan got himself thrown out of a store selling bootleg Guns N' Roses items in Japan. The ex-GNR bassist wrote about it in his new Seattle Weekly column, saying that while he was exploring Tokyo he stopped at a "7-11 type of store" to get a bag of peanuts to calm his stomach. He then noticed a bootleg T-shirt store that had a Metallica/GNR T-shirt in the front window.McKagan writes, "It got me to further peruse the inside of the store. I was met with a dazzling array of Guns N' Roses shirts with some 'artwork' close to the original and other 'artwork' comically missing. Just as I was looking at a skull-guys-on-the-cross GNR shirt (where we all looked more like chimps than dastardly rock-and-roll hellions), I was asked to leave...for eating inside of the store." McKagan adds, "I was relieved that they didn't recognize me. I rather hope that I look nothing like a skull-chimpy type of rocker."
David Lee Roth has made another appearance on Tokyo radio.
The former radio talk show host here in the States -- for two seconds in 2006 -- is joined by a Japanese interpreter who interprets his ramblings over dance music. This time out, Roth talks about hairstyles and fashion from the '70s, and how he taught Van Halen how to play music that people could dance to.
ALICE COOPER: With and Without Marilyn Manson
Alice Cooper has announced dates with and without Marilyn Manson.
The Masters of Madness tour with Manson starts on June 3rd in Morrison, Colorado, just outside Denver, and runs through June 28th in Rockford, Illinois. This will be the first tour together for the two, who, ironically, first met in Transylvania. Cooper says, "It was the weirdest thing. We had jousted in the press before a little bit, and we realized we were doing a show together in Transylvania, a big outdoor show, two miles from Dracula's castle. He walked by the dressing room and I said, 'Hey, come here.' We finally met face to face, and what we talked about was marriage, which was interesting. I've been married 37 years."
Following the run with Manson, Cooper will continue with dates in July before heading to Europe.
FOO FIGHTERS: Grohl Gives SXSW Keynote
Dave Grohl talked about his career, showed how he did his first overdubs and imitated the Edgar Winter Group during his South by Southwest keynote speech Thursday in Austin, Texas. The Foo Fighters frontman revealed that he recently had dinner with last year's keynote speaker, Bruce Springsteen, and that the Boss's reaction to Grohl's doing the speech was cackles of laughter.
In his 45 minute talk, Grohl covered a wide range of topics:
- He spoke about how hearing "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group inspired him to want to make music. He also broke out an impression of that instrumental.
- Grohl said a punk show at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. on the Fourth of July in 1983 changed his life.
- With two cassette decks, he showed how he used to record a guitar track on one, then played the guitar track with the other deck and overdubbed percussion on it.
- He said that after Nirvana's Kurt Cobain killed himself, he put his drums away and didn't listen to music because he couldn't bear to hear someone else singing about the pain or joy.
- And he made fun of such talent shows as American Idol and The Voice, saying that each artist has a distinct voice that he or she should follow.
ROBERT PLANT: Whole Lotta Life
Outside of Jimmy Page's photo history of his life, none of the members of Led Zeppelin have written their memoirs -- but we'll be getting another third-person biography next year.Robert Plant: A Life was written by former Q and Kerrang magazines editor Paul Rees, and will be published in the U.K. in October and in the States in January. Rees, who's had a close professional relationship with Plant, is basing the book on in-depth interviews with those closest to to the singer.
Natalie Jerome at Harper Collins says, "Robert Plant's stature as one of the greatest frontmen of all time is without question, and as fans of his music from Led Zeppelin to present, we have long wanted to publish his story. This book is as close to Plant telling his own story in his own words as we've seen or heard to date."
KISS: And Now for the Formative Years
The next officially sanctioned KISS book has a publication date -- and it won't cost over a thousand dollars like their last one, Monster.
This one, Nothin' to Lose: The Making of Kiss (1972-1975), was written by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, along with music journalist Ken Sharp. At 554 pages, it chronicles the formative years of the band up until the release of Alive. It also includes interviews with original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, and with producers, engineers, management, members of their staff and fellow artists -- such as Ted Nugent, Alice Cooper, Bob Seger, members of Aerosmith, Rush, Black Sabbath, Styx and many others.
Nothin' to Lose will be out on September 10th.
