Category: news

Get the TiVo fired up and make sure to pick “season pass” for LA INK which premieres on Tuesday night on TLC. The show is a spin-off of Miami Ink, the show which first introduced tattoo artist Kat Von D to a national audience. Things didn’t go so well in Miami so Kat moved back to L.A. where she set up shop with a talented group of artists including my old friend Kim Saigh (pictured at left).

Now, to put it in perspective, I haven’t seen Kim in probably 12 years but for a year or two we hung out a lot, mostly due to our common interest in hair metal. One of my greatest concert memories (a 2-day stretch of seeing Spread Eagle at the Real Flash Gordon’s in Cleveland and the Akron Agora in Akron) involves seeing those shows with Kim and hanging out with the guys from the band.

Kim’s music tastes and mine always seemed to match up (though I think she preferred Motley Crue over Warrant) back in those days and when Nirvana came along and killed the hair metal genre, we both hopped aboard the grunge bandwagon and started listening to bands like Soundgarden – always trying to outdo each other with our discoveries (I will gladly lay claim to “discovering” Mindfunk … ha ha! … while Kim introduced me to Primus). In fact, if it wasn’t for Kim, I’m not sure that I would have ever had the opportunity to develop a close friendship with Blind Melon. Kim was going to drive to Columbus (from Cleveland … about a 2 hour drive) to catch Soundgarden at the Newport Music Hall. Trying to impress her, I said that maybe I could use my *cough cough*  “status” at a college journalist to interview Soundgarden and get us both backstage to meet Chris Cornell. When I discovered that Soundgarden wasn’t talking to lowly college reporters, I went to plan B … interview the opening band with the hope that if I could hit it off with them, THEY would invite us backstage where we could weasel our way into Soundgarden’s dressing room.

As it turned out, this band that didn’t have a record out – Blind Melon – was opening a short string of dates for Soundgarden and were all too happy to get some press early in their career. I hit it off with Shannon Hoon when I spoke to him on the phone a week before the gig and we became friends based on that conversation. I was able to hook us up with free tickets to the show but Blind Melon didn’t have access to Soundgarden so we fell short of meeting the band that night. But we did get to hang out quite a bit with Blind Melon both that night and the following night in Cleveland where we were just a closed door away from meeting Chris Cornell, Kim Thayil, Ben Sheppard, and Matt Cameron.

Continue reading “TiVo Alert – LA INK”

Blabbermouth.net has a list of confirmed songs for Guitar Hero III due in stores at the end of October. It just keeps getting better and better!

“3’s and 7’s” – QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE*
“Barracuda” – HEART
“Cherub Rock” – SMASHING PUMPKINS*
“Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll” – BLUE ÖYSTER CULT
“Cult of Personality” – LIVING COLOUR*
“Even Flow” – PEARL JAM *
“Knights of Cydonia” – MUSE*
“La Grange” – ZZ TOP
“Lay Down” – PRIESTESS*
“The Metal” – TENACIOUS D*
“Miss Murder” – AFI *
“Mississippi Queen” – MOUNTAIN
“My Name Is Jonas” – WEEZER*
“The Number of the Beast” – IRON MAIDEN*
“One” – METALLICA*
“Paint It Black” – THE ROLLING STONES*
“Paranoid” – BLACK SABBATH
“Raining Blood” – SLAYER *
“Reptilia” – THE STROKES*
“Rock and Roll All Nite” – KISS
“Rock You Like a Hurricane” – SCORPIONS
“Sabotage” – BEASTIE BOYS*
“School’s Out” – ALICE COOPER
“She Builds Quick Machines” – VELVET REVOLVER*
“Slow Ride” – FOGHAT
“Suck My Kiss” – RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS*
“Through the Fire and Flames” – DRAGONFORCE*
“Welcome to the Jungle” – GUNS N’ ROSES*

* Original master recordings

Here’s the way I imagine it went down four or so years ago:

Ex-Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt runs into Perry Farrell’s manager at Starbucks in L.A.

“Hey Nuno, what’s going on?” Perry’s manager asks.

“Dude, I’m really stoked about this thing I’m working on. We’re calling it Dramagods and it kicks ass,” Nuno says.  “What’s up with Perry these days?”

“Well, he’s been writing these songs but he’s not really sure what to do with them. He’ll never work with Hollywood Navarro again so a Jane’s reunion is out of the question and Porno for Pyros isn’t worth reviving.”

“Yeah? The Dramagods stuff is recorded and finished. If you guys need somebody to come jam on a few tunes, here’s my cell number,” Nuno says.

Two weeks later, the manager calls Nuno and invites him down to an informal jam session. “Just don’t mention that you were in Extreme, okay?”

Nuno shows up at Perry’s pad, lays down some killer riffs and is offered a job on the spot by Perry who has no idea who Nuno is. The two start working on material together, Nuno brings in the drummer from Dramagods for a “guaranteed pay day, dude” and Satellite Party takes off.

Cut to present day, Perry Farrell is doing the rounds with the press (I could have talked to him – for a different publication – if my work schedule had allowed) and people keep asking, “How’d you hook up with the guy from Extreme? Nobody saw that coming.” Perry doesn’t know how to respond since it’s only been 6 months since Nuno casually passed off a copy of Extreme’s Pornograffitti to Perry to check out.

Things start getting weird as the band begins rehearsals for their first official tour and some time last week, after being told that he’d have to ride with the roadies in the U-Haul, Nuno decides the time is right to bail and go back to just being the “guitar guy that used to be in Extreme and now has this new band called Dramasomething”.

At least that’s how I envision it in my head.

Nuno Bettencourt and Kevin Figg left Satellite Party last week and have been replaced by (ex-Silvertide) Nick Perri (guitars) and (ex-Ryan Cabrerra) Jordan Plosky (drums) just in time for Satellite Party’s August tour dates.

Here’s what my “friends” have to report:

• The Shys have parted ways with Sire and are now working on their follow-up to my second favorite release of 2006.
• Echo Division, featuring former For Love Not Lisa/Puller guitarist Miles, is offering up a free download of their new song, “Burning Brides”.
• The Dollyrots have a bunch of summer tour dates lined up. GO SEE THEM!
• Magnolia Summer has added some live videos to YouTube, including a few unreleased tracks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4K_g9qz5yU[/youtube]

• The Frames are having a contest where they are asking for fans to help design a new t-shirt. The deadline is July 31 for all of you aspiring t-shirt designers.
• People in Planes are FINALLY recording a new album.
• Zolof the Rock and Roll Destroyer is taking pre-orders for their new album, Schematics, due in stores in September. Hear a song from that album, “Can’t Stand It”, on their MySpace page.