3/10: MICK MARS, DEE SNIDER, HHFEST, KISS, GEORGE LYNCH, MORE
Hope everyone had a great weekend. Thanks for all the awesome response to the Mick Mars TMS episode. Great to have guys you don’t hear from often on. Also great response to my in depth radio interview making the rounds. Appreciate that. Was fun to spend a couple days with Mick and get to know him better after all these years. Episode 9 of our current 12 episode season tapes tomorrow with Dee Snider as our guest and Chris Caffery playing guitar. Some other surprises possible as well. More from the set via Twitter tomorrow as we start to roll. As usual see it this Saturday premiere on VH1C. This weeks Mick Mars show replays all week, just check your grids for days and times.
MANY reports about this weekends Hell & Heaven Festival’s status in Mexico City. Latest I am hearing is it is on but at a new location outside Mexico City. Please understand I am a VERY small part of this event and I am only getting my info from the agent that booked me on it. If you are in Mexico you likely know more than me. Assuming it does happen I will be there as planned. I’ll keep you posted on what I hear but much I am learning from you and some of the bands playing I have friends in. Hope it all works out.
Many reports and rumors out there about Kiss and the R&R HOF. All I can tell you is at this time there are NO plans for any version of Kiss to play at it at all and no tribute act either. All four members will make a speech and there would likely be a video montage and that’s about it. Of course anything can change but that is where things are at now I am being told and it does not look likely to be different come 4/10.
LIVE tonight 6-10P ET on SiriusXM 39 TRUNKNation. George Lynch among the guests. Music and talk that rocks live tonight! Join me and get involved.
Eddie,
With the release of Paul Stanley’s book coming in April I was wondering if you had read any or all of the books written by the other members of KISS and what you thought of them. I have read books by Ace, Peter and Gene. Although I enjoyed Ace’s stories. I found Peter’s book to be the most honest. I just wonder if Paul’s will be more like the self serving pablum of Gene or a more honest story of the band from his perspective.
Doesn’t matter, just get them on the same stage and Gene Simmons eyes will fill with dollar signs and Ace will be playing on the 40th anniversary tour. KISS and make up boys cause the current version sucks.
And you are running out of time.
Eddie,
Do you think theres any chance Ace and Peter might join forces in the future and do a few shows together? I think the time is right and the fans would love it especially in the NY NJ area.
No
Why not? Why wouldn’t Ace and Peter consider this?
They’re too many deep seeded issues between the both of them… If you break a pact, it’s hard for anyone to trust you. With that being said…, check out some footage on You Tube w/ Eddie Trunk regarding Ace and Peter… Hope this puts you on the right track…. As far as my opinion on the
KISS situation, sometimes it’s best to remember the good times of what the band was and represented for the fans…. I now and currently decided to move on to bigger and better groups, Kill Devil Hill and Adrenaline Mob!!!!!
Boy that Mexico thing sounds sketchy! If you want to read about a horribly run show check out the Blue Oyster Cult Hotrails website:
http://www.hotrails.co.uk/history/1976.htm 6/4/76 in Idaho was a horror story come to life! The promoters sold the heck out of 3 day rock festival and skipped town during the festival when they realized they weren’t going to make any money. Bands just took down their equipment and weren’t going to play. The crown went ballistic and it’s fortunate nobody was killed.
Here’s an excerpt from the site, from a Blue Oyster Cult roadie:
Yes we played! Three day outdoor festival… BOC was a featured headliner, as was Rainbow and Bachman Turner Overdrive. Nazareth played before us on the first night. We were supposed to leave our lights on stage for the other two days shows… BOC was going to Oakland CA to do Day On the Green in the interim and didn’t need the production support; i.e. sound and lights…
Then we found that the promoter had left with the money and from the booking agent in New York we learned that B.T.O. didn’t even know they were to play! That’s when Rick Downey and I took over the ticket booth. I had a 44 mag. hand gun a security guard lent me. We continued to sell tickets for the three day event not even knowing if we would get past that first day… trying to get the Cult’s money. We counted nickels and dimes!!
We started taking down the light rig after our show… that started the riot… the kids had been ripped off by this promoter before and were ready to strike… first thing out of the ordinary I noticed was an ice cream truck tumbling down the grandstands… then some kids got in a Freightliner and started driving around the race track with kids hanging from the mirrors!!!!! There was a 100 foot crane to put up the top over the stage; the top was tied off to two empty forty foot trailers on either side of the stage… kids got in the crane and started moving toward the stage, jerking the boom from side to side!
A lighting guy attacked the crane with a large/big ass fork lift while we were struggling to get the equipment off the stage before the crane strikes (stage hands had left as did the horseback riding security guards)… we just got the lasers in the truck and as I was driving away, in the rear view mirror I saw the crane fall on the stage; the top came down and flipped the trailers that were supporting it!!!!… the kids then burned everything in site: four big genie’s, about ten big Winnebagos (used as dressing rooms) the stage, grandstands and every building on the site… WOW!
One of the most dangerous scenes I’ve ever been part of!!!!!! The highway was on a rise and the state patrol had about ten cars up there (1/2 mile away) just watching the riot!
The HOT-RAILS site is super entertaining if you’re a fan of 1970s and 80s rock and roll. Lots of great stories featuring bands like Rush, UFO, KISS, FOGHAT etc…. All the greats and some great inside info, like when Ritchie Blackmore got so pissed off at Don Airey that they took off without him after a gig:
Sam Judd
Ritchie Blackmore broke a string 1st song, and played the rest of the set BEHIND his stacks…
When it came time for Cozy’s solo, Don Airey walked over to Richie and asked him why he was standing back there… and right in front of my face, RB knocked him flat on his arse and jumped on him and went to wailing…
Once his roadie Fergie went to break it up, we (Ricky Reyer, Fergie and I) joined in and yanked Blackmore off Don… but at this point Cozy finished the solo… BAM!!… flashpots went off and Cozy jumped off the riser and went to kicking the shit out of Don, who was still down, being attended to by Rick Downey…
At this point Downey nodded with his head that we should probably fall back to neutral ground and we left the stage… they played “Long Live R&R” and came off short about 10 min… end of the night…
Fast forward 6 hrs to 3 AM at Richfield Coliseum (45 miles from Cleveland and the nearest CAB much less TRUCK and, as our buses pulled away from the gig in the middle of the prairie, there sat poor Don Airey at the top of the ramp… with his Hammond B-3, 2 Leslies, Yamaha CP-80 piano and 4 synths… all alone… in the cold rain… enough gear to FILL a good sized “Transit Van” as you lot say…
No idea what he did that night… I’d love to ask him sometime…
Sad image for sure…
Sorry about the lengthy posts Eddie and Dana, but I thought you and some of the readers might enjoy some of the stories. The Mexico City bit reminded me….