Former KISS guitarist Vinnie Vincent will host Vinnie Vincent’s Merry Metal Christmas on December 14th and 15th at S.I.R. Studios in Nashville, Tennessee.
Vincent will be performing, food will be served, there will be a Q&A, photo ops, more memorabilia on display, [and] signings. Unreleased and master tracks of Vincent’s classic songs will also be previewed and much, much more.” Tickets for Vinnie Vincent’s Merry Metal Christmas are priced at $500.00 per ticket and can be purchased here. See a promo, for this event, below.
Guitarist George Lynch (Dokken, Lynch Mob, KXM) recently spoke with Derek “Mr. Shred” Thomas of “Talking Shred,” excerpts follow (as transcribed by Blabbermouth.net).
Speaking about canceingl his appearance with Dokken at this year’s M3 Rock Festival after contracting pneumonia:
Lynch: “We’re going to make up for it big time. I’m not supposed to say anything, but next year, we’re going to do something — but not what you think… We’re going to do something, but it’s going to be Dokken and Lynch Mob together going out, and then at the end of the night, me and Don [Dokken] are going to go out and do a few Dokken songs together.”
On whether he’s considered making an instrumental “shred” album:
Lynch: “Absolutely. I have some trepidation about it because of the glut of insane players who are making it hard for old guys like me to keep up. I look at all those Instagram guys, and my mind is just blown every day. It’s so beautiful, because a lot of it is, they’re not doing what they did in the late ’80s/early ’90s and just going hyperspeed shred. They do that too, but they’re going back to bebop and jazz and Wes Montgomery stuff, Joe Pass stuff — just really heavy, playing over changes and doing really beautiful even traditional music. On top of that, the Tosin Abasi, multi-string, multi-tapping, two-handed, all that stuff too, and putting it all together and coming up with hybrid new stuff, which is fascinating… I’ve been trying to do the finger[picking] thing. I can’t really do it. I do a fake finger thing, and that’s just me trying to be Jeff Beck, because I think we all just want to be Jeff Beck.”
Discussing his memories of playing on the Hear ‘N Aid charity single, Stars:
Lynch: There was a line outside in the outdoor patio area going into the room, and it was almost like waiting at the DMV, except that every f–kin’ guitar [player]… If you wanted to get rid of all your guitar competition, you just plant a bomb there. You would have been the only guy left, and would have won by default. Everybody was scared of Yngwie [Malmsteen], and rightly so. He was just emerging at the time, and that, I think, performance really cemented him into the history books. His place in the hierarchy was established after that pretty concretely. I noticed that when everybody went in, everybody was chasing Yngwie, so everybody was playing faster than they normally do, but uncomfortably so — kind of frenetic and nervously. I was doing it too, but it was hard to be yourself because this guy cast such a large shadow. It was a problem listening to the record for me and trying to differentiate the different players. It seemed like they all just kind of ran together, except for Yngwie.”
Toto guitarist Steve Lukather was a recent guest on The Eddie Trunk Podcast, and he discussed the status of Van Halen, portions of what he stated appear below (via blabbermouth.net).
Lukather said, “I love Ed[die Van Halen] and Alex [Van Halen]; they’ve been friends of mine for 40 years. I’m still friends with Mike [Anthony]. I love all those guys. I’m Switzerland, man. I don’t get in the middle of all that.
I look you right in the eye and say, listen, I’ve been in contact with Ed. We text all the time. I really can’t say much, man. I don’t wanna say anything.
Everybody wants Van Halen back — nobody more than me, ’cause I still think they’re one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time,” he continued. “Eddie changed the planet [with his guitar playing].
Him and Alex are sitting there laying back and they’re waiting to see what happens next. I think they’re on a hiatus. There’s been some health issues that they’re dealing with and stuff like that. We’re older guys now, and to go on the road, and stuff like that, it requires a lot of extra effort in terms of as a human being.”
“All I’m gonna say is I don’t think there’s any drama issues that are keeping them from working right now,” Steve added. “I’m not the guy to say anything. I love those brothers so much and we’ve always had a great relationship. I’m a big fan and also adore them as human beings.”
Van Halen last performed on October 4th, 2015 at L.A.’s Hollywood Bowl. As previously reported, frontman David Lee Roth will start his Las Vegas residency at the Mandalay Bay Resort And Casino, January 8th. For more information, click here.
Before there was Black Label Society, there was Pride & Glory. Known at the time as a Zakk Wylde side project, Black Label Society and their debut self-titled record, would lead to what Berzerkers worldwide now know as Black Label Society. Black Label Society was Wylde’s first self-fronted project, before releasing his first solo album, Book Of Shadows, in 1996.
Pride & Glory., now available on an all-new picture disc version, contains five new bonus tracks via a download card: The Wizard (Black Sabbath cover), Torn and Tattered, In My Time of Dyin’ (Led Zeppelin cover), The Hammer & the Nail and Come Together (The Beatles cover).
Pride & Glory track listing:
1. Losin’ Your Mind 2. Horse Called War 3. Shine On 4. Lovin’ Woman 5. Harvester Of Pain 6. The Chosen One 7. Sweet Jesus 8. Troubled Wine 9. Machine Gun Man 10. Cry Me A River 11. Toe’n The Line 12. Found A Friend 13. Fadin’ Away 14. Hate Your Guts 15. Machine Gun Man (acoustic bonus) 16. Mother Mary (alternate version)
These five additional tracks will be included on the download cards for a total of 21 tracks:
1. The Wizard (Black Sabbath cover) 2. Torn And Tattered 3. In My Time Of Dyin’ (Led Zeppelin cover) 4. The Hammer & The Nail 5. Come Together (The Beatles cover)
As previously reported, legendary Judas Priest frontman, Rob Halford will be releasing a Christmas album, titled, Celestial, to be released October 18th through Legacy Recordings.
Following the release of his video for, Donner and Blitzen, follows his cover of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Listen to the song, below.
Celestial tracklist:
Side A:
1. Celestial [new song] 2. Donner and Blitzen [new song] 3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 4. Away In A Manger 5. Morning Star [new song] 6. Deck The Halls
Side B:
1. Joy To The World 2. O Little Town Of Bethlehem 3. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing 4. The First Noel 5. Good King Wenceslas 6. Protected By The Light [new song]
For more details about this special release, and information on Halford’s Arizona in store appearance on October 19th, please click here.
Judas Priest singer Rob Halford says work on his upcoming memoir is “underway.” He first revealed plans for the book nearly a year ago; he tells UCR fans can expect it to be an honest look back at his life.
“There’s no point in putting a book together if you don’t have full disclosure, in my opinion,” he says. “Since I’ve been clean and sober, I’ve probably been more honest and truthful about myself than I ever have been. You only get a chance to do it once and do it properly…”
…“I don’t want it to be an autobiography — I want it to be more of a memoir,” he explains. “It’s going to have a lot of things in there that you’re going to go, ‘Oh, I’m not really interested in that.’ You’re also going to go, ‘Oh my God, I never knew he did that.’ But it’s going to make you feel happy, it’s going to make you feel sad. It’s going to make you feel angry, it’s going to shock you. It’s going to have all of the things that I think have been in most people’s lives…”
Right now, he’s still basking in the glow of the positive reception to Firepower, Judas Priest’s 18th LP that came out in 2017. “With any album, you just don’t know what the reaction is going to be,” he says. “You just have to go in the studio with all of the right intentions and beliefs and work really, really hard to make it happen. We do that for every Priest album. I don’t know what it is — it was just that everything was right. Everything felt right. All of the pieces were in the right place. The writing that came from Glenn [Tipton] and Richie [Faulkner] and myself was just at a really strong level.”
In recent Halford news, the Metal God’s forthcoming Christmas album, Celestial, will be released October 18th via Legacy Recordings.
Credited to Rob Halford with Family and Friends, the album mixes holiday classics with all-new compositions, and will appeal to lovers of traditional holiday music and headbangers alike.
To read all about this special release, and to watch a video for the song, Donner and Blitzen, please click here.
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