Well it’s been a while since I have posted here. My apologies but I just got home from a long stretch of 11 days on the W Coast which included hosting the Metal Meltdown concert in Vegas and live shows with Don & Jim in Portland, Seattle and San Jose. Everything went great and thanks to all who came out and all who I met. I will be back live on the air tonight on SiriusXM after a few weeks of recorded shows due to my travel. Live 6-10P ET for TRUNK Nation with guests Joe Satriani and from Angel Punky Meadows & Felix Robinson in studio! Don’t miss it tonight 6-10P ET on channel 39. Much to play and say. Much more to come now that I am back somewhat stable for a bit. All upcoming appearances on the home page. Lot of catching up to do so hope to catch you on the radio tonight and more updates here soon.
Former Ratt frontman Stephen Pearcy has released a video for the song, I Can’t Take It, from his forthcoming solo album, Smash. Watch it below.
Pearcy is currently on tour, his recording and touring lineup includes:
Greg D’Angelo – Drums
Erik Ferentinos – Guitar
Matt Thorne – Bass
Chris Hager – Guitar
Stephen Pearcy tour dates:
Jun 13 @ Riverside Park Amphitheatre Rushville, IN
Jun 27 @ J & P Cycles Annual Open Monticello, Iowa
Jul 11 @ Mc Henry Fiesta Days Festival Peterson Park, Mc Henry, IL
July 17 @ The Boardwalk Orangevale, CA
July 18 @ Roc Bar Theatre San Jose, CA
Fri, Jul 24 @ Sycuan Casino El Cajon, CA
Fri, Jul 31 @ 210 Kapones San Antonio, TX
Aug 1 @ Scout Bar Houston, TX 77003
Aug 2 @ Brewsters Corpus Christi, TX
Aug 4 @ Trees Dallas, TX
Aug 8 @ Rockn’ The Railroad Fest Trails End Concert Park Sheridan, WY
Aug 15 TBA
Sep 7 @ Milwaukee Rally Harley Davidson Milwaukee, WI
Sep 12 @ TBA
Sep 25 @ Bossanova Ballroom Portland, OR 97214
Sep 26 @ Studio Seven Seattle, WA
Oct 3 @ Storm Stadium Outdoors/Hair of the Dog Festival Storm Stadium Outdoors Lake Elsinore, CA
Allan Fryer, singer for the Australian band Heaven who once auditioned to front AC/DC, has died after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was sixty years of age.
Heaven released a trio of albums in the early ’80s, touring with Dio, Kiss, Motley Crue and Judas Priest along the way. Their 1983 album, Where Angels Fear to Tread, featured guests such as Ronnie James Dio, Lita Ford and Glenn Hughes. But Fryer may be most famous outside of Australia as a footnote in AC/DC’s search to replace Bon Scott. Fryer was closer to getting the gig than many people knew. Brian Johnson eventually took over, but in a 1999 interview, Fryer said he originally had the backing of AC/DC producers George Young and Harry Vanda, and that they’d already started adding his vocals to existing tracks.
“They took Bon’s voice out of the tapes on songs like Whole Lotta Rosie, Shot Down In Flames, Sin City and all that stuff. They shoved me in them,” Fryer said. “I went back to Adelaide and found out from George and Harry that I had gotten the gig. Then it came on a TV show that local boy Allan Fryer is the new singer for AC/DC. I said, ‘What the hell?’ – because nobody was supposed to know anything like this. So George and Harry wanted me in the band, but meanwhile the boys [AC/DC] were in London at the time and they were trying out Brian from Geordie. So, to cut a long story short, he ended up getting the gig.”
Fryer later formed Heaven in Sydney, but he had at least one more intersection with AC/DC. Mark Evans, early bassist with AC/DC, was also a member of Heaven at one time.
[Editor’s note: I remember seeing Heaven’s video for “Rock School” on a local channel called U68. They played the video pretty often during the rock hour. Watch it below.]
On June 18th, Swedish guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen will unveil his fine art debut collection. Completed with art team SceneFour, the release is a pioneering effort in the new medium of crafting visual art through guitar performance. A new clip in which Malmsteen discusses his art collection can be seen below.
Malmsteen recently stated about guitar being a visual instrument, “Well, for one thing, you can’t play piano with your teeth. You can’t throw it around and be cool with it. So this [guitar] is better than anything to begin with. And, of course, whateve you play it’s going to be expressive as well. You can do showy things with it, which is exciting to most people. Throw it around, throw it in the air, burn it, smash it up, shoot holes in it, whatever. You don’t do that with a piano or even a drum set. This is a very exciting instrument to begin with, but with lights involved it gives the sound a visual. It’s very exciting.”
Asked what he hopes buyers will see in the art, Yngwie said, “Anybody who is into art will be into this because it’s so crazy. It’s nuts almost how cool it looks. But the fact that it is the visual result of a musical performance per say, and it’s never been done like this, it’s extremely unique. So I think anyone who is into art, it’s going to be priceless for them.”
SceneFour is a visual art team based in downtown Los Angeles. Led by artist Ravi Dosaj and conceptual artist Cory Danziger, SceneFour specializes in the construction of collaborative art projects. Through their signature collaborative art approach, SceneFour works with notable visionaries outside of the fine art world to collectively create original art projects. At the conclusion of the creation process with featured collaborative guest, an original art collection is born and released worldwide.
Yngwie is currently working on a new studio album for a late 2015 release. He told Australia’s 3D Radio about the recording process for the CD, “Well, it’s changed somewhat because [I have] my [own] recording studio now. And it’s in my house. And it’s not like a home studio; it’s a full-blown studio. And it’s in here. And I go in here and I see what happens. If I like what I hear, then I use it. If I don’t like it, I don’t use it. And in the past, I used to do demos. I would do demos, and rehearse it with the band and you rent the studio and go in and record it and so forth. It was a very different process because by the time it was actually recorded, it had gone through so many stages that the spontaneity was gone. Now, it’s here now; it’s here now. And it’s a lovely thing.”
Yngwie released a live album, Spellbound Live In Tampa, and a live DVD, Spellbound Live In Orlando, last summer. The two releases represent back-to-back Malmsteen shows. The CD and DVD, both of which are named after Malmsteen’s latest studio album, 2012’s Spellbound, were issued on September 17th, 2014.
Eric Martin, Kip Winger and Richie Kotzen are among the first acts to be confirmed for Def Leppard’s 2016 cruise.
Hysteria On The High Seas takes place aboard the MSC Divina, leaving from Miami, Florida, on January 21st next year and stopping at Half Moon Cay and Freeport in the Bahamas.
Def Leppard will be headlining, with guitarist Vivian Campbell’s Last In Line also due to appear. Cinderella’s Tom Kiefer, Winger’s mainman Kip Winger, Mr. Big’s Eric Martin and The Winery Dogs’ Kotzen have also been announced.
Def Leppard say, “Be prepared to get wet, wild and ready to rock.”
After 40 years rattling teeth, bones and ears with their legendary rock’n’roll, you might excuse Motörhead if they wanted to ease off. Put their feet up. Relax a little. And instead, Motörhead gleefully say a loud and hearty ‘bollocks’ to that sort of feeble-minded thinking with their 22nd studio album, Bad Magic.
Bristling with thunderous attitude, pioneering spirit and some of the fiercest rhythms and riffs that’ll beat your ears into submission this year, Bad Magic is a massive kick in the teeth for anyone who dared believe it might be otherwise. Indeed, if those people still remain, they would do well to grab some big fat earplugs, fall to their knees and pray like buggery, because big-rig head crushers like Thunder And Lightning and the especially l-o-u-d Teach‘Em How To Bleed show that Motörhead are as strong, mean, loud, relentless, uncompromising and goddam heavy as ever.
Drawing on their own vast catalogue of road-warrior freewheeling rock’n’roll spirit, Bad Magic also strides confidently into some of the earlier attitudes of Motörmusic. Written and recorded in the studio together, for the first time in the Kilmister/Campbell/Dee era, the more ‘live’ approach to creating Bad Magic has obviously paid dividends in this regard. There is the driving malevolence of Choking On Your Screams, with Lemmy in magnificently omnipotent vocal mood, Electricity carries a hefty chunk of punk attitude married with some of Phil Campbell’s best lead work in years, while Shoot Out All of Your Lights is all devilish, greasy biker-borne-screw-you-and yours, Mikkey Dee’s tribal drums pounding out a great path for more Kilmister proclamations. The boys even enjoyed a guest appearance from Queen’s Brian May on The Devil, adding a scintillating solo on this thunderous Motörstomper.
Produced at NRG Studios with long-time producer Cameron Webb, Bad Magic came together after a couple of years which saw Motörhead enjoy their most successful international era in over two decades off the back of their last release Aftershock. Lemmy also finally decided to face the fact he is flesh, blood and mortal like all of us, adjusting his lifestyle to kick the ass of health-issues and re-emerging stronger, leaner and meaner than ever. His own personal performances on Bad Magic rank as some of the most wide-ranging and unique he has delivered in years, and on the ballad Until The End, Lemmy opens up with equal levels explanation and intent on the simple but important matters which life conjures for us all. Add to all of this a wonderfully executed, gritty delivery of The Rolling Stones classic Sympathy For The Devil, and it will be clear to anyone with a pair of ears that Bad Magic is Motörhead’s finest work in over two decades.
You can also expect the road to get its butt kicked by Motörhead once again in the last half of 2015. Starting in mid-August, there will be a North American tour with Anthrax which ends with the now-legendary Motörboat cruise between Sept 28th – Oct 2nd from Miami, Florida to Nassau in the Bahamas, also featuring Slayer and Anthrax among a bumper line-up of bands. Also, Motörhead’s 40th Anniversary European Winter tour will start on November 15th 2015 at Le Zenith in Paris, ending on December 6th at the Hartwell Arena in Helsinki, Finland. More dates will be announced soon, so keep checking the band’s official website www.imotorhead.com as well as the following social media platforms for details:
1. Victory Or Die
2. Thunder & Lightning
3. Fire Storm Hotel
4. Shoot Out all of Your Lights
5. The Devil
6. Electricity
7. Evil Eye
8. Teach Them How To Bleed
9. Till The End
10. Tell Me Who To Kill
11. Choking On Your Screams
12. When The Sky Comes Looking For You
13. Sympathy For The Devil* – *by The Rolling Stones
