JUST CALL HIM DR. IOMMI, BLACK SABBATH GUITARIST RECEIVES HONORARY DOCTORATE DEGREE

TonyIommibig Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi has received an honorary degree.

The founder member of the Birmingham heavy metal band was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by Coventry University.

He said it was a “great honor” to receive the doctorate and thanked the university for his nomination.

The honorary degree was “in recognition of his contribution to the world of popular music”, the university said.

It recognized “his role as one of the founding fathers of heavy metal music and his status as one of the industry’s most influential figures”.

Iommi said: “It’s brilliant. I couldn’t believe it.”

He planned to head straight from the graduation ceremony at Coventry Cathedral to join Black Sabbath in Helsinki for the start of their latest European tour.

He has sold more than 80 million records worldwide during his career.

Other high-profile recipients of honorary degrees from the university included artist George Shaw, whose depictions of Coventry’s Tile Hill landscape have won him a Turner Prize nomination.

tonyiommidegree

source: bbc.co.uk

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JAKE E.LEE’S RED DRAGON CARTEL TO RELEASE THEIR SELF-TITLED DEBUT ON FRONTIERS RECORDS

jakeeleeband2013600 The newest band ready to take aim at the creative void in the hard rock world, Red Dragon Cartel, are set to release their debut album through Frontiers Records. The self-titled debut by the band made up of guitar legend Jake E. Lee, bassist Ronnie Mancuso, singer D.J. Smith and drummer Jonas Fairley is set for release on January 24th in Europe and January 28th in North America.

Jake E. Lee is best known for his work in Badlands and as guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne on Bark at the Moon and The Ultimate Sin albums. Red Dragon Cartel also features various guest appearances from some of music’s most notable faces including legendary Cheap Trick vocalist Robin Zander, original Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno, Kill Devil Hill/Pantera bassist Rex Brown, Slash’s Conspirators Todd Kearns and Brent Fitz and In This Moment front woman Maria Brink. The album was produced by Ronnie Mancuso and Jake E. Lee and was executive produced, mixed and mastered by Kevin Churko (In This Moment, Ozzy Osbourne, Five Finger Death Punch).

From the opening riff of Deceived to final sustained piano chord of Exquisite Tenderness, it is clear Red Dragon Cartel has created an album that stands amongst some of the greatest hard rock albums of all time. Infectious songs such as Shout It Out, Wasted and Slave showcase the band’s ability to write memorable hooks and vocal melodies. Robin Zander of Cheap Trick lends his voice to the track Feeder and Maria Brink of In This Moment lends her unique vocals to the track Big Mouth. Paul Di’Anno and Sass Jordan also lend their talents to the band’s debut. Jake E. Lee’s trademark playing style instantly shines through and picks up right where he left off. The album is available for pre-order at Amazon or digitally on iTunes that comes with an instant download of Deceived.

The track listing for Red Dragon Cartel is:

1. Deceived
2. Shout It Out
3. Feeder with Robin Zander
4. Fall From The Sky (Seagull)
5. Wasted with Paul Di’Anno
6. Slave
7. Big Mouth with Maria Brink
8. War Machine
9. Redeem Me with Sass Jordan
10. Exquisite Tenderness

The band will be bringing these new powerhouse songs on the road playing a handful of dates in the US before embarking on a full tour in 2014. Tickets are currently on-sale and all information can be found on the band’s website.

December 12th – Los Angeles, CA – Whisky A Go Go
December 14th – Tempe, AZ – Marquee Theater (Support of Queensryche)
December 15th – San Diego, CA – Brick By Brick
December 20th – Las Vegas, NV – Count’s Vamp’d

For more information, please visit the following sites:

reddragoncartel.com
facebook.com/reddragoncartel
twitter.com/reddragoncartel

Watch the lyric video for the song, Feeder, featuring Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, below.

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RUSH DECIDE TO TAKE SOME TIME OFF

rush400pix Gary Graff of Billboard reports:

Rush is giving its fans plenty of fourth quarter treats this year including a new live a new live CD/DVD a box set and a long-desired remixed version of its 2002 album Vapor Trails. Also, guitarist Alex Lifeson is hoping that will be enough to tide them over while the Canadian trio takes a break.

We’ve committed to taking about a year off,” Lifeson tells Billboard. “We all agreed when we finished this [Clockwork Angels] tour (in early August) we were going to take this time off and we weren’t going to talk about band stuff or make any plans. We committed to a year, so that’s going to take us through to the end of next summer, for sure. That’s the minimum. We haven’t stopped or quit. Right now, we’re just relaxing. We’re taking it easy and just enjoying our current employment.”

Since being inducted into Rock N’ Roll Hall of fame, the Rush guitarist was happy to cast a ballot for this year’s nominees.

“I put my votes in,” says Lifeson, whose impromptu “blah, blah, blah” speech was a highlight of the 2012 induction ceremony. “Certainly with Deep Purple and Yes and Nirvana, I think they’re all candidates, and I think KISS deserves to be in there, too. We have lots of great memories of working together with them, and I think they’ve been influential and worked for a very long time and worked very hard. I think for all the indifference we had before, actually going through it and feeling the love in the room and the sense of community we felt with all the other musicians that are in there, it’s a good thing provided it’s inclusive and it’s broad.”

Read more at Billboard.

source: billboard.com

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THE EXPERIENCE HENDRIX TOUR 2014 TO FEATURE ZAKK WYLDE, JONNY LANG AND MORE

ExperienceHendrixLogo630 The Experience Hendrix Tour, a tribute to Jimi Hendrix that began in 1995, will return in 2014, reports Radio.com.

The tribute tour will feature such artists as Buddy Guy, Bootsy Collins, Zakk Wylde, Dweezil Zappa, Jonny Lang and many more.

Running at a little over three weeks, Experience Hendrix will begin March 11th in Dallas, Texas, with an end at Detroit’s Fox Theater on April 3rd.

Wylde and Ana Popovic are the tour’s rookies, while the rest of the roster have played the circuit in some incarnation or form in years past. Experience Hendrix began in 1995 as the Jimi Hendrix Guitar Festival at Bumbershoot. A full list of dates can be found below.

Experience Hendrix dates:

March 11 – Dallas, Texas – Verizon Theater
March 13 – St. Louis, Mo. – Fox Theater
March 14 – Chicago, Ill. – Chicago Theater
March 15 – Ames, Iowa – Stephens Auditorium
March 16 – Milwaukee, Wisc. – Riverside Theater
March 18 – Louisville, Ky. – Whitney Hall
March 19 – Charleston, W. Va. – Clay Center
March 20 – Pittsburgh, Pa. – Benedum Theater
March 21 – Glenside, Pa. – Keswick Theater
March 22 – Atlantic City N.J. – Harrahs
March 23 – Wilkes-Barre, Pa. – Kirby Center for the Performing Arts
March 25 – Red Bank, N.J. – Count Basie Theater
March 28 – Albany, N.Y. – Palace Theater
March 29 – Waterbury, Conn. – Palace Theater
March 30 – Washington, D.C. – Lincoln Theater
April 1 – Buffalo, N.Y. – Center of Arts
April 2 – Northfield, Ohio – Hard Rock Theater
April 3 – Detroit, Mich. – Fox Theater

For more information, please visit www.experiencehendrixtour.com.

additional source: billboard.com

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KISS THEMED TALK SHOW, “THREE SIDES OF THE COIN” INTERVIEW EDDIE TRUNK, CHAT POSTED HERE

eddiestudio Three Sides Of The Coin, a KISS talk show, co-hosted by Michael Brandvold (of Michael Brandvold Marketing), Mitch Lafon (rock journalist) and Tommy Sommers recently celebrated their 50th episode with special guest, Eddie Trunk. For over two and a half hours, the four delved into Trunk’s start in the music business at Megaforce Records, the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame, his love and support of influential guitar hero Ace Frehley, his thoughts about the current KISS line-up, his sometimes shaky relationship with KISS frontman Paul Stanley and much more.

“There will be, very soon, a version of KISS with no original members,” muses Trunk about the band’s near future. “Nobody went to a KISS show in the ‘70s and said ‘I hope I catch a guitar pick from Spaceman tonight’. It was ‘I can’t wait for Ace’s guitar to smoke,’ stated Trunk about the band’s current branding. ‘It didn’t say bass by the Demon on KISS – Alive! It said Gene Simmons. They were the people,” added Trunk emphatically. When speaking of his personal relationship with affable KISS icon, Paul Stanley, Trunk declared, “Paul has always been hot and cold with me.” As for Eric Singer and Tommy Thayer, Trunks says, “they are great musicians. I have no problem with Tommy and Eric. I don’t begrudge them at all for doing this.” Voicing his opinion on the different line-up changes, Trunk throws out, “I’ll never forget hearing Animalize for the first time, I was like ‘Oh, my God – KISS has a shredder in the band (Mark St. John)’ and it was exciting because it was different. That, to me, made line-up changes exciting,” and adds, “one of the beautiful things about being a KISS fan, I think, is that throughout their whole history every record was a different turn. Unmasked was a power-pop record, The Elder was a concept record, Creatures (Of The Night) was an all out metal record; whether or not you like these records is irrelevant. They took these different turns. You had all these different variations.” As for KISS’ being included on the Rock N’ Roll Hall Of Fame’s ballot this year, Trunk says clearly that, “as KISS fans we have fought the perception for years that KISS is nothing, but a manufactured joke that can’t play their instruments or write songs. What’s offensive to me is that we’re here over ten years after they first became eligible and still trying to figure out if they should get in. They should have gone in the first time they were eligible.”

Watch the full interview below.

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BILLY SQUIER’S CAREER GETS A BOOST FROM HIP HOP

billysquier640 Maureen Callahan of the New York Post reports:

Ask anyone under 25 if they’ve heard of Billy Squier, and the answer is likely no. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t heard him.

Squier has one of the most unusual stories in all of pop culture: a one-time superstar who, in the ’80s, straddled glam, pop and hard rock. Then, in 1984, after his unintentionally camp video for Rock Me Tonite hit MTV, featuring Squier prancing around in fluffy hair and satin sheets, his career was over, just like that. “Flapping his wrists like a French chef whose souffle has just fallen,” said Rolling Stone.

Thirty years on, the most famous of Rock N’ Roll exiles has a stealth second career as the most sampled musician in the history of hip-hop.

“I think he has millions of fans that love his body of work but probably thousands of fans that love him,” says Big Daddy Kane, who has sampled Squier’s The Big Beat so often he’s lost count.

“He’s definitely someone who helped mold and shape hip-hop with his music,” Kane says. “I would put him in the category of James Brown, the Honeydrippers and Chic. He gave the B-boys and B-girls a track to dance to, but it would only be a DJ or an MC who knows who Billy Squier is.”

Or a producer — like the legendary Rick Rubin, who sampled The Big Beat on Jay Z’s 99 Problems and Squier’s 1981 hit The Stroke on Eminem’s Berzerk.

“People sometimes write that Billy is the king of hip-hop,” Squier said in 2005. “I didn’t even know what hip-hop was back then.”

Nor do many of the artists who sample Squier know much, if anything, about him.

“My producer found that beat,” says Mickey Avalon, who heavily sampled The Stroke for his 2009 single Stroke Me. “I didn’t even know what happened to Billy Squier.”

[When] the rock world abandoned Squier, the hip-hop community discovered him, stripping his singles for parts and, in the process, proving just how unerring and malleable a songwriter he was.

The Big Beat — the song that would change everything — never charted, but the record did, and in 1983, Run-D.M.C. sampled the song on “Here We Go (Live at the Funhouse). It’s the first known commercial hip-hop sampling of Billy Squier — one of nearly 200 today.

“For a rock star, he was always someone who put the rhythm track first,” says Rob Sheffield, writer for Rolling Stone and author of the karaoke memoir Turn Around Bright Eyes.  ‘The Big Beat’ was not a hit, but that immense drum track got a lot of attention. I don’t know if Billy Squier thought he was becoming part of the future of the funk, but that’s the way hip-hop works.”

Since then, Squier has been sampled by everyone from Grandmaster Flash to Kanye West to Alicia Keys to A Tribe Called Quest to Jay Z.

“Billy Squier was one of the rock stars who learned from Led Zeppelin that massive drums do a lot of the talking,” Sheffield says. “He was the first guy to really figure out their production trick — that isolated thunder.”

Hence the hip-hop appeal: “You can put anything on that.”

Oscar-nominated songwriter Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne agrees. “Billy Squier had a tendency to start his singles with the drums ‘in the clear’ for a few bars — i.e., playing alone before the rest of the band comes in, which makes them really easy to sample,” he says.  ‘The Big Beat’ and The Stroke both start this way. And Chouinard played really big, simple John Bonham-esque beats that work great for rock and hip-hop.”

It’s estimated that Squier has earned millions of dollars through sampling alone — and a mostly uncredited second life as a Billboard superstar.

He’s still slightly puzzled by his preeminence in hip-hop and is bitter the rock establishment hasn’t re-embraced him in the same way. “I wouldn’t want to end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as the ‘Master of Hip-Hop Samples,’ ” he said in 2005, “but you take what you can get.”

Rap songs that Squier’s beats have been featured in:

The Stroke 1981 has been sampled in:

Eminem, “Berserk”
Mickey Avalon, “Stroke Me”
Company Flow, “Wurker Ant Uprise”
Grandwizzard Johnny O and the Might Sorcerer Crew, “When It Breaks”

The Big Beat, 1980 has been sampled in:

Jay-Z, “99 Problems”
Kanye West and Pusha T, “Looking for Trouble”
Dizzee Rascal, “Fix Up, Look Sharp”
Nas feat. Will.i.am, “Hip Hop is Dead”
Puff Daddy, “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down”
A Tribe Called Quest, “We Can Get Down”
Big Daddy Kane, “Put Your Weight On It,” “Get Down,” “Ain’t No Half Steppin,” “The Beef Is On” and “3 Forties and a Bottle of Moet”
Ice Cube, “Jackin’ for Beats”
Alicia Keys, “Girl on Fire”
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, “Magic Carpet Ride”
Run-D.M.C, “Here We Go”

Read more at the New York Post.

source: nypost.com

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