Early results on the year end special poll on the home page at the time I am writing this have Maiden, Rush and VH leading the top 3 for what shows I will do radio specials on in December. Kiss is in 4th just a few votes from VH. Interesting to see and the top 3 bands will get all 3 hours of one of my show for the holiday specials. Voting will close December 1, so whatever are the top 3 get the specials! Be sure to vote for your favorite of the choice there.
Thanks to Nuno Bettencourt, Carmine Appice and Joe Lynn Turner who were my guests last night on my SiriusXM show. As usual you can hear the interviews on the SiriusXM app if you are a subscriber and missed them. Extreme announced a 12 city tour and I will be hosting them in NJ 1/20 at Bergen PAC. Carmine and Joe have a new band together called Rated X. I’ll be seeing both of them Thanksgiving Eve at Dingbatz at the benefit for Karl Cochran.
Please be sure to check the appearances on my home page. Many added and info is always changing. Hope to see you at these gigs if in the area.
Have my first call with VH1 about the new season of TMS this Friday. Taping starts in Feb. Feels good to start the TMS machine rolling again! More info when I have it.
Ran into Brian Johnson of AC/DC last night at SiriusXM. He and Angus (who I saw but didn’t get a chance to speak with) are making the promo rounds through tomorrow in NYC. The scheduling didn’t work for me to get time with them on this run but likely will have some time a little down the line. Both Brian and Angus have been on my radio shows and TMS and I look forward to speaking with them more. Brian is in amazing shape for his age and both seemed in great spirits (Brian was running to have a cigarette before his next interview!). Cool to see the guys and see them looking and sounding so positive when you consider some of the question marks surrounding the band with Malcolm and Phil. They will be on Stern tomorrow. Should be interesting.
I’m getting my every few years colonoscopy tomorrow. I bring that up because it is so important for us as we get older to not be ashamed of such things and get screened. My Dad had colon cancer and caught it early and is thankfully fine now. Ronnie James Dio did not get screened. If he had we may still have him with us today. It was a huge honor for me to host Dio’s memorial five years ago and I will never forget his doctor telling me it’s so important to get the word out about screening. Also congrats to Peter Criss who is getting an award tonight in NYC for his work creating awareness for male breast cancer. Peter was nice enough to ask me to present the award for him but because I am prepping for my screening tomorrow I couldn’t. Peter is doing great work helping to raise awareness and I’m happy he is getting honored for it.
76 Responses
Really Eddie. You’re gonna abandon the Merry Kissmas tradition? I know that the band isn’t what it used to be, but the show was and continues to be a very important part of people’s lives. If it ends, (and yes, I voted) it will be quite sad.
I’ll make that decision when the voting is done. See what happens. The idea this year is to let the people decide what they want.
Totally love this poll idea of top 3 getting their own shows. Rush especially has been vanishing grom rock radio more and more regardless of their hall of fame induction and tours and dvds. So important to give exposure to their huge catalog and not just Fly By Night, Working Man, Closer To The Heart, Tom Sawyer, Limelight, Freewill, Spirit of Radio, and 2112.
Albums like Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, Presto, Roll The Bones, Counterparts, Test For Echo all deserve a ton more attention and 3 hours of Rush will be exactly the time to shed light on those albums all of which sold as much or more than the 70s stuff.
Why did BJ blow u off?
Yeah, after the lead up to the Hall of Fame and Paul’s constant sniping, I actually posted suggesting Eddie stop the Merry Kissmas special or just do one with nothing but Ace and Peter songs. But now as I look at the tight voting results, the true fan in me of ALL of Kiss’ MUSIC (pre-2000) is nervous it might actually not happen and I will sorely miss the tradition. Even if/when I don’t catch it, I at least know the Merry Kissmas special is there! Oh the inner conflicts of being a Kiss fan!! I would definitely love to Maiden and Priest specials, too, though! Thanks, Eddie, for putting the options out there.
Kiss is as strong as ever. Here they come down from the rafters, bombs going off……Kiss 2014 Bee-Lee-Vit.
Lee: No.
Good luck tomorrow Eddie, and congratulations to Peter, keep up the great work.
Thank you!
Who is the new Ms Box?
I just wanted to share our families story. On May 15th of this year my husband and myself went to the Black Label show in Pittsburgh. He wasn’t feeling to good the prior week but kept on trucking to work everyday and he had 2 days off in a row, and that never happens. So we had plans to go to the show for my birthday, he took some ibuprofen and we went to the show. He could barely stand at the show and spent most of it leaning against the wall in pain but he suffered through because we LOVE Black Label so much…(our kids names are no joke Zakkary Abbott and Randy Wylde…and you know musicians, so the Abbott and Randy parts you should be able to guess, no problem)….so the next day he could barely get off the couch let alone walk. He was in so much back pain I decided it was time to go to the E.R. They ran a bunch of tests and eventually came in and informed us he has Testicular Cancer. Chris is 36, we have 2 young sons age 6 and 9 and he has a 19 yr old daughter, our hearts sank into the abyss. He is currently fighting with every ounce of his being for his life because he sadly falls into a category of Testicular Cancer patients that only includes about 3% of people with the disease because of the extensive spread throughout his abdomen/lungs/lymph nodes and chest cavity. He is currently enduring second line chemo(the first round did not work) and is inoperable because it is growing too fast and is completely surrounding his main arteries and his chemo is not responding as well as expected and is continuing to grow. He still has hope as he is preparing to have a bone marrow transplant and increased chemo as to completely wipe out all his cells and then replace them with his own marrow….all we can do is have hope right now…But there is a reason I am sharing this story with you, if we had never gone to that show he would have never had felt terrible enough for me to convince him to go to the hospital. If we never went he would have continued to take his pain reducers and continue on like regularly and who knows what would have happened. It may sound crazy but we credit that concert for saving his life that particular day and getting him onto a path for treatment. Chris wears his Black Label shirt from that concert constantly and we truly believe that day was meant to happen. He never had ANY symptoms, no physical problems that looked out of the ordinary and no pain other than an occasional back ache. Testicular Cancers target age is between 15-35 yrs of age and NO ONE talks about it. It isn’t an easy cancer to get info about especially advanced forms. It is one of the most curable cancers IF caught early. Sadly this particular cancer runs in his family and his grandfather died from it years ago and even still NO ONE talked about it. I would like to make more young men aware of this cancer and how treatable it is if caught early in our case this COULD have been prevented if SOMEONE had been talking about it, and making the family aware it ran in the family. The stigma and embarrassment is no comparison to saving some ones life….the one thing we vowed to do is make our young boys know about this cancer and there will not be a drs. appointment that goes by where this topic is not talked about. It should be just as common to talk about testicular cancer amongst men as it is for women to talk about breast cancer. I commend you for being open and spreading awareness about getting screened…….thanks for reading, sincerely, Sherry Caldarelli and Chris Megahan and family…carry on your crusade against cancer and if you think our story is worthwhile to help save just one person you are welcome to share it. Rock on Mr. Trunk \m/ and spread the word of prevention!!
Thanks for writing Sherry and I truly hope for the best for your husband in his battle and your family. It IS important people get screened and not just say “it will pass’. It is a message in Dio’s death I told his doctor I would do my best to convey to the rockers. Hope your husband kicks it’s ass!
thank you….we are gonna try our best!!!!! This will not be the end of our song!!
Good thoughts coming your way, Sherry. Stay strong.
Also– you might let Zakk’s people know about this. He might surprise you and just show up at your house running the scales in your front yard or something! 🙂
thank you for reading our struggle and it would make me happy if someone out there could avoid this terrible disease by seeing our story and decides to get screened for testicular cancer…hindsight is a bitch and we wish we would have known sooner it ran in his family, we need all the good thoughts we can get ….thank you all for your thoughts!
Best of luck to you and your husband. You both and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.
Maam, Thx so much for sharing.
God bless you and your family. Certainly hope that things will go well for you all. I had my first screening last summer at age 51. Anyone that is at or approaching 50 and hasn’t had a screening please get this done!!
sherry, my prayers for your husband. thank you for sharing. good luck eddie and kudos to you for providing a forum for the greater good.
Sherry, Godspeed to you & your family. Fight the good fight, and never give up! 😉
Sherry, thanks for your write up. Chris, wishing you the best, bro!!!
Eddie, do u prefer your colonoscopy w/or w/o propofol? I find the 30 second propofol buzz to be truly amazing.
Uh, I don’t get a buzz from it at all. Knocked out, wake up, hopefully clean, and done for 3 years or so..