For the legion of fans who attended the 2015 Van Halen Tour, it’s unlikely they failed to notice the striking, aged-looking Ivory Wolfgang USA guitar that Eddie Van Halen played onstage.
In exciting news, EVH Gear has announced that it will make available an exact replica of this very instrument for consumers with the release of a limited 20-piece run of custom-built EVH Wolfgang USA Tour Relic Replica guitars.
Van Halen originally planned on using the same Wolfgang USA in Stealth Black that he played during the band’s 2012 tour, but he also asked Master Builder Chip Ellis to build him this guitar with a detailed relic treatment so that the original coat of black paint showed through the Ivory top coat.
“Chip built that for me and did a wonderful job,” Van Halen said in a recent interview. “I compared it to my trusty old Stealth, and the white guitar sounded better, so it immediately became my main guitar for rehearsals and the tour.”
Famous for tinkering with his guitars, Van Halen decided to sand down the back of the neck since he felt it was a little thicker than what he typically prefers from his neck profiles.
“It’s still a little fatter than the Stealth’s neck, but I’m happy with it, so it stuck,” he said.
The custom-built instrument also features an ebony fingerboard, block fretboard inlays, custom kill switch, EVH Custom High Friction (Tone) Pot and an EVH “HPU” or High Performance Upgrade, custom-made Low Friction (Volume) Pot.
“It’s the only volume pot I’ve found where I can play ‘Cathedral’ without any crackle or pop,” he said.
All of these features will be found on the EVH Wolfgang USA Tour Relic Replica, which also comes with a Custom Anvil white case (with black interior) featuring the Van Halen logo, Certificate of Authenticity autographed by Eddie Van Halen, EVH instrument cable, EVH strings .009-.042 and an EVH leather strap with dog leash.
Jeb Wright of Classic Rock Revisited spoke with Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler. Excerpts from the interview appear below.
Jeb: Black Sabbath is about to do their final tour. A lot of band’s say it is the end Geezer, but then it isn’t the end. Is THIS tour really the end of Black Sabbath?
Geezer: It is one hundred percent the end. We’ve all agreed that this is it.
Jeb: How did you come to decide to call it quits? Was it Tony’s illness?
Geezer: It was our decision. Tony’s condition was an influence on it, but we all felt the same. The 13 tour went great. We just felt we’d do one more tour… to make it official, we called it The End. We are all in agreement that this can’t go on forever, so we should go out on the top.
Jeb: Are you looking ahead to the date where you are playing that last gig? Or is that just too much to think about right now?
Geezer: No, I have not thought about it yet. I won’t think about it until that last date is confirmed. We don’t know where and when it will be. We are still going to finalize where the last gig is going to be. It is better not to think about it yet. We are just taking it one day at a time at the moment. We are always looking forward to the gig that comes next. We take it one gig at a time.
Jeb: There have been rumors there will be one more studio album, but lately I’ve heard that is not the case.
Geezer: If there is then fine… but I don’t think there will be. It would be nice if there was another album. We had some songs left over from the 13 album, but we’re putting it out as a sort of EP that can only be bought at the gigs from this tour.
Jeb: I have to ask this question: I’ve heard that you were in a band with Ozzy Osbourne before he was with Black Sabbath. You were called Rare Breed.
Geezer: That is true, yeah. We only did a few gigs, locally, in Birmingham. That is how we got together. Ozzy lived literally two streets away from me and I used to see him around. He went to the same school as Tony Iommi. We lived so close together that we would see each other in the streets. I heard that he was looking for a band in the music shop… I didn’t even know it was him. I went to his house and it was Ozzy. He was a skinhead at the time. I thought, “This isn’t going to work out.” Skinheads at that time were into soul music and reggae. He liked Robert Johnson and blues so we got together and formed the Rare Breed. When that finished we were looking for a drummer and we went around to Tony’s house to see if he knew of any drummers and Bill Ward was there. Bill said he would join the band if Tony would come along and that is the way we got together.
Jeb: [On The End tour], will this be the greatest hits or will you throw in some rare songs?
Geezer: It is mainly… we are doing practically the whole of the Paranoid album. We’re doing everything but Planet Caravan. We tried that but it didn’t really work live. We’re playing mainly older stuff. We’re doing Hand of Doom. We have not played that for god knows how many years. It will be mainly old stuff.
Jeb: As thrilled as I am for Tommy to do this tour, the elephant in the room with every Sabbath fan is that Bill Ward is not present. I will be blunt… why not just give Bill the money?
Geezer: It’s beyond the money thing. It is not really anything to do with that. It is whether he’s capable of touring or not. On the 13 tour, he was not on that tour. About a week after we started he had to go into the hospital for major surgery. We would have had to cancel the tour if Bill was still with us. He hasn’t been well for a long time. He’s had a couple of heart attacks. You have to face facts when you get to our age and you’re not in great, great health rather you can go out on the road for two years, or whatever. It is a hard life to do. The easy part is when you’re on stage playing. It is all of the traveling and everything else that comes with it that is the hard part. I think Ozzy, in particular, didn’t think Bill would get through it. He certainly wouldn’t have got through the first part as he was in the hospital. We can’t keep cancelling tours just because the drummer can’t play.
Jeb: It is nice to hear you say it was not an easy thing to do.
Geezer: We started out with Bill on the 13 tour. That is the way we all thought it was going to be, that Bill was going to be part of this whole thing. It just turned out that is wasn’t to be. His health has to come first before anything.
Jeb: Are there any songs from a bass standpoint that you’re looking forward to playing?
Geezer: I am looking forward to doing Hand of Doom again as it is very bass orientated. I think 1972 is the last time we played Hand of Doom. We are always asked if we can do it, but for some reason we’ve never included it in the set. We have a lot of old classic Sabbath songs; to do that, it is hard to drop stuff to put songs like that in. This time we decided to put Hand of Doom in.
Jeb: Were you ever happy and satisfied to be the lyricist in Black Sabbath?
Geezer: [long pause] No.
Jeb: Last one: Geezer what do you want to say to the fans of Black Sabbath that have stuck with you all these years?
Geezer: Thanks for keeping us here. Thanks for being with us for all of these years. It has been great. They really are the best fans that anyone could ever wish for. They’ve been with us since day one. They have been fighting for us and they are so loyal. It is incredible. We are so blessed to have them.
On February 3rd, Operation: Mindcrime, the new band led by former Queenryche singer Geoff Tate, will hit the road for over thirty dates on what will mark the group’s first major U.S. tour of the year.
For the forthcoming U.S. tour, Tate will be joined by several of the stellar musicians and bandmates who performed on The Key, including guitarists Kelly Gray (Queensryche) and Scott Moughton, drummers Simon Wright (AC/DC) and Scott Mercado (Candlebox) and keyboardist Randy Gane (Myth).
What can fans expect on this tour? The unexpected. Tate says: “I plan to play songs from Empire, ‘Operation: Mindcrime 1 and 2, Rage For Order and my new album, The Key, along with favorites from all the other albums I recorded under the name Queensryche.” He adds, “My band’s name may have changed but the songs remain the same.”
Operation: Mindcrime will wrap up the initial leg of their tour in Tate’s hometown of Seattle, Washington with a performance at The Neptune on March 18th.
Tour dates:
Feb. 3 – Strummer’s – Fresno, California
Feb. 4 – The Canyon Club – Agoura Hills, California
Feb. 5 – Ramona Mainstage – Ramona, California
Feb. 6 – Count’s Vamp’d Rock Bar & Grill – Las Vegas, Nevada
Feb. 9 – Psychedelic Ballroom & Juke Joint – Reno, California
Feb. 10 – Saint Rocke – Hermosa Beach, California
Feb. 11 – The Coach House – San Juan Capistrano, California
Feb. 12 – The Catalyst – Santa Cruz, California
Feb. 13 – Ace of Spades – Sacramento, California
Feb. 15 – Rialto Theatre – Tucson, Arizona
Feb. 16 – Livewire – Scottsdale, Arizona
Feb. 18 – Sunshine Theater – Albuquerque, New Mexico
Feb. 19 – Granada Theater – Dallas, Texas
Feb. 20 – Alamo City Music Hall – San Antonio, Texas
Feb. 21 – Scout Bar – Houston, Texas
Feb. 23 – 12th & Porter – Nashville, Tennessee
Feb. 24 – Capone’s – Johnson City, Tennessee
Feb. 25 – Neighborhood Theatre – Charlotte, North Carolina
Feb. 26 – Lincoln Theatre – Raleigh, North Carolina
Feb. 27 – Headquarters Live – Salisbury, Maryland
Feb. 28 – Sellersville Theater – Sellersville, Pennsylvania
Mar. 01 – Gramercy Theatre – New York, New York
Mar. 2 – The Paramount Theater – Huntington, New York
Mar. 3 – The Westcott Theater – Syracuse, New York
Mar. 4 – The Chance – Poughkeepsie, New York
Mar. 5 – Tupelo Music Hall – Londonderry, New Hampshire
Mar. 7 – Rams Head On Stage – Annapolis, Maryland
Mar. 9 – Jergel’s Rhythm Grille – Warrendale, Pennsylvania
Mar. 10 – House of Blues – Cleveland, Ohio
Mar. 11 – The Token Lounge – Westland, Michigan
Mar. 12 – Tailgaters Grill – Bolingbrook, Illinois
Mar. 13 – The Cotillion – Wichita, Kansas
Mar. 17 – Hawthorne Theatre – Portland, Oregon
Mar. 18 – The Neptune – Seattle, Washington
Operation: Mindcrime’s, The Key, was released on September 18th, 2015. Click on the highlighted song titles to hear some songs from the album.
Chickenfoot have announced they’re almost finished recording a new song – and are set to play a one-off concert in the US in May.
The group featuring guitarist Joe Satriani, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony confirmed in September that the band were back in the studio.
Satriani tells Northwest Music Scene, “It looks like we’re going to do a show in the middle of May. I think it’s a Lake Tahoe show. We’re working around the schedule of Chad, who’s got a rehearsal scheduled at that point with the Chili Peppers. Then we’ve got a track that’s pretty much done – it’s about 99% finished. We actually recorded a song. We’re the slowest-working band in history – we take forever. But there is stuff happening, and we’re still laughing and communicating.”
Satriani previously admitted he’d given up trying to bring the members together to record their first material together since 2011’s Chickenfoot III, saying their unwillingness to write together left him bewildered.
Satriani is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his debut solo album Not Of This Earth with the North American leg of his Surfing To Shockwave tour, starting next month.
TMZ reveals, that Lemmy Kilmister’s death certificate identifies the Motorhead frontman’s cause of death, as prostate cancer and congestive heart failure.
White it was widely reported he battled an aggressive form of cancer before his death, but the copy of his death certificate we obtained is the first confirmation it was prostate cancer.
Kilmister passed at away at age 70 on December 28th, 2015.
The 2016 Monsters Of Rock Cruise, fittingly titled Shredders From The Deep, has announced the talent for its official two-day pre-cruise festival (complimentary for all cruise attendees) which will begin this year’s four-day, four-night voyage out of Miami this February 22nd-26th aboard the NCL Pearl.
As if this year’s cruise lineup of 40-plus bands–led by headliners Tesla, Steve Vai, Extreme, Sebastian Bach, Queensryche,Helloween and Y&T–wasn’t enough, this year’s official two-day pre-cruise festival will really amp things up and feature band performances, guitar giveaways, artist meet & greets and a “Monster” beer tasting event at Magic City Casino’s Club 305 (450 NW 37th Ave. / Miami, FL 33125) on Saturday, February 20th and Sunday, February 21st.
Day 1 (2/20) of the pre-cruise festival will be highlighted by a performance from Lynch Mob with special guests Killer Dwarfs and Kickin Valentina. The following day (2/21), cruisers will be invited to “Shredder’s Ball,” featuring performances from Sebastian Bach, Steve Vai, Winger, Saigon, D-A-D, Paradise Kitty and a special all-star jam from Hurry, an all-star Rush tribute featuring bassist James LoMenzo (John Fogerty, Megadeth, Black Label Society), guitarist Brent Woods (Sebastian Bach, Vince Neil), drummer Brian Tichy (Bonzo Bash, Whitesnake, Foreigner) and keyboardist Stephen Le Blanc (Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Experience). The official two-day pre-cruise festival is open to the public (non-cruisers) and tickets can be purchased at the door.
Confirmed line-up for the 2016 Monsters Of Rock Cruise–visiting the private island of Great Stirrup Cay and the cosmopolitan resort meccas of Nassau and Paradise Island in the Bahamas, plus a full day of Metal mayhem at sea–includes headliners Tesla, Steve Vai, Extreme, Sebastian Bach, Queensryche, Helloween and Y&T. Joining the MOR headliners is an epic Metal lineup featuring Gotthard, Doro, Lynch Mob, Vixen, Dangerous Toys, Michael Monroe, Kingdom Come, Armored Saint, Saigon Kick, XYZ, Killer Dwarfs, Metal Church, Hardcore Superstar, Michael Angelo Battio, Akira Takasaki (Loudness), Jeff Scott Soto, Gus G (Ozzy Osbourne), Uli Jon Roth (Scorpions), Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake), Helix, Michael Angelo Batio, Vinnie Moore, Madam X, Tyketto, Anvil, Hellion, Dio Disciples, Lilian Axe, Soto, D-A-D, Heavy Mellow, Brandon Gibbs, Paradise Kitty, The Kix and fan-favorite Winger.Plus, Eddie Trunk and comedian Don Jamieson (VH1’s That Metal Show),San Francisco bay area radio host Nikki Blakk and Luc Carl (SiriusXM’s Hair Nation) are the official cruise hosts and will moderate Q&A’s.
New to this year’s cruise are the complimentary Rock Star Dream Shredder Clinics–available to all passengers aboard the cruise. Clinics will be led by instructors Steve Vai, Vinnie Moore (UFO), George Lynch (Dokken and Lynch Mob), Gus G. (Ozzy Osbourne), Michael Angelo Battio, Akira Takasaki (Loudness), and Jerry Finn and Gina Stile (Killer Dwarfs and Vixen). According to cruise spokesman, Larry Morand, “The guitar clinics are designed to give our passengers the opportunity to hone their guitar skills in an up close and personal experience with some of rock’s greatest shredders. Fans don’t just watch the artist perform, they make music with the artists.” Artists in each clinic will also give away an autographed guitar to one lucky fan in attendance.
In addition to the performances and clinics, the cruise will feature over-the-top special events only experienced on this voyage, including: Artist Meet & Greets, Monsters Rock & Roll Prom 1987,Shotgun Wedding Vow Renewal, Monster Passenger Talent Contests, 80’s Hair Style Contest, Tattoo Contest, Rock Star Dating and much more.
Cabins are still available, starting at $999 per person (double occupancy), with Special EZ Pay financing options available for as little as $499 USD per person down (double occupancy), with the remaining balance payable over 12 equal monthly installments beginning the month after the initial reservation is completed. For booking and more info, visit monstersofrockcruise.com/east/ and connect on Facebook and Twitter.
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