A fuming Jack Osbourne dashed off a Facebook post blasting the tabloids for running photos of his father, Ozzy, after letting his hair go its natural grey color.
The shots of Ozzy ran Saturday in Britain's The Daily Mail.
Twisted Sister's Dee Snider once again criticized Kiss for letting replacement members use the signature stage makeup worn by original guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss.
"I hate what Kiss is doing," the singer said"I hate what Kiss is doing with the guys with Ace and Peter's makeup on — I'm not a fan."
Guitarist Tommy Thayer joined the band in 2002, and drummer Eric Singer first came on board in 1991, taking over after the death of Eric Carr. Thayer and Singer currently wear the makeup designs of Frehley and Criss, respectively.
Snider previously blasted Kiss' makeup move in 2015. "I don't see how people could accept this," he told Eddie Trunk. "Tommy Thayer? I'm sorry. It's insulting. Not only did he play with a tribute band of Kiss, he's imitating Ace in his entire act!"
Responding to Snider's 2015 comments, Kiss' Paul Stanley responded with this: "Let me put it in the simplest terms. In this case, this guy is a wannabe, has always been a wannabe and desperately wants attention and to be taken seriously, and that will never happen because he’s obviously clueless to the fact that he and his whole band are a bunch of buffoons."
Oooh Snap! Dee shoulda learned his lesson back then.
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson celebrates his 67th birthday today (August 27th) . The song "Limelight" was a song about how the band was going to deal with their success. It was on the album Moving Pictures in 1981 writen by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart. It was written at a time when Rush was finally beginning to taste success for the first time. Geddy Lee says the song reflects drummer and lyricist Neil Peart's difficulty in coping with that fame.
”Alex and I have always adapted to the spotlight a little easier than Neil has. He’s a more intensely private person than Alex and I are. At the same time, we were all going through those feelings of coming to terms with the fact that we were starting to be successful and there were a lot more demands being made on our time. And we were trying to figure out the kind of success we wanted to have and the kind of band we wanted to be at that time. You’re preoccupied, unfortunately, with being successful at certain points of being successful and I think it came out in that song.”
Bruce Springsteen released his landmark album, Born to Run, 45 years ago today, Tuesday -- August 25th, 1975.
It was the pivotal album in his career, coming after two albums that hardly sold, despite great reviews. The feeling was that if his third album wasn't successful, it might spell the end of Springsteen as a recording artist. He says there was definitely pressure on him.
“Even though my first record had got a lot of attention when it came out, shortly thereafter we kinda slipped back under the radar. This particular record you knew that the spotlight was gonna be on you, so you were always — you were aware of that to a certain degree.”
Springsteen says he spent an enormous amount of time composing the album's title track, which became his first Top 40 hit and was a lengthy process of writing the song "Born to Run."
"The music was composed very meticulously, so were the words. The amount of time spent honing the lyrics was enormous. The notebook that I wrote 'Born to Run' in, you would take the first page and you would see a line or two -- 50 pages later you know you'd get something close to the finished song. I think it was this thick with different versions and I wrote and I rewrote it and I rewrote it and I rewrote it."
The R.E.M. song "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" sounds like it'd be difficult to record, fast with a lot of words! They didn't really know what they were doing with it, they just did it.It was on the album Document in 1987 written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe Guitarist Peter Buck addresses how difficult it was for Michael Stipe and the band to record.
“His part was hard, but it wasn’t that hard to do. Getting it right was hard, because we didn’t know what we wanted to do arrangement-wise. It’s kind of an odd little song constructed in a kind of weird way. I mean, it changes keys and there’s passing chords that are kind of weird, but it rocks. The subtlety’s a little easier dealing with with slower things. We had no idea what we were doing, we just did it and it was done.”
55 years ago today The Rolling Stones album: Out of Our Heads containing the song "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" became the first Stones album to hit # 1 It stayed and # 1 for 4 weeks. According to Bill Wyman, the guys who wrote "Satisfaction," Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, weren't sold on it being hit single material at the time. If that's so, Richards has certainly changed his tune after playing it live for decades. here is Keith Richards:
“I can play ‘Satisfaction’ today, or tomorrow, and still find new stuff in there and little nuances. And the way to play it with these guys is important because we never play it the same twice. In a way, it’s kind of jazz, but it’s a very – I hate to put labels on any kind of music, you know, to me it’s all music – but there’s a lot of improvisation going on because it leads you to that.”
Ronnie Wood says he's doing his best to be optimistic during the pandemic, but admits he's getting anxious to get back on the road, which is what The Rolling Stones were supposed to be doing this summer. Here is Ronnie Wood on life during the pandemic.
"We are sort of happily carrying on day by day chores and enjoying our families. But the thing is, there's got to be a time when somebody sorts out some direction of what we're gonna do. Somebody's got to lead this thing."
The pandemic has also forced the Stones to delay the recording of their next album. Ronnie Wood on the status of the new Rolling Stones album.
"There's some lovely music on the hob, you know, it's on the back burner. We're bringing it towards the front of the hob now, but gradually. The thing is we can't all get together at the moment to do it. I've been working on music. I've got a couple of albums ready to go as well. But life is on hold."
The Band released Stage Fright, their third album, 50 years today (Monday) -- August 17th, 1970.
Containing 10 songs, including the title track, "The Shape I'm In," "The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show" and "Daniel and the Sacred Harp," it was recorded at the Woodstock Playhouse in Woodstock, New York where the group was based.
The Band's guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson says the album was a "reaction to a level of adulation that The Band members were unprepared for. It was conceived as a lighter, less serious, more rock and roll type of album.
"The album explored themes such as peace, escape and frivolity that revealed darker shades of melancholy, anxiety and fatigue."
Robbie Robertson talks about the song "Stage Fright"
“If you’re in a situation where your job is to stand up in front of everybody and do something, it’s just kind of an interesting study of human nature. People can be so sure of themselves and confident and everything and all of a sudden you put the spotlight on them and they just kind of melt on the floor. There was something that I was personally expressing in this, but I wasn’t talking about me, me, me, me, I was talking about that experience.”
If you're a guitar player in a band imagine the opportunity to play with Jimmy page. it happened to the Black Crowes. the got an album out of it too; [Jimmy Page with The Black Crowes Live at the Greek. Although Led Zeppelin never released "Ten Years Gone" as a single, it was one of the featured cuts on Jimmy Page and The Black Crowes' 1999 Live at the Greek album. Black Crowes guitarist Rich Robinson credits drummer Steve Gorman with helping to get it into their repertoire for that tour.
"Jimmy was like, 'You guys choose which songs you want.' It wasn't like, 'We're gonna go for "Stairway to Heaven."' Y'know, it wasn't any of that. He was like, 'What songs do you want to do?' and, like, 'We want to do some stuff that maybe wasn't played that often -- "Ten Years Gone," "Sick Again," "Custard Pie,"' 'cause Physical Graffiti was one of my favorites. Just to learn those songs and pick them apart and when that band kicks in on [sings riff]. And [drummer] Steve [Gorman] was killing it. That was something that he wanted to do and I think he really accomplished it."
Former Yes singer Jon Anderson started his self-quarantining at his central California home on crutches. He tells us how it happened:
"I was gonna make barbecue, and, what I do, I give my wife a massage as I barbecue -- it's very, very tricky -- and I slipped and broke my foot. And for a month Janey had to cook, do the dishes, she had to go and do the laundry and then she had to take out all the thrash. But she was my fairy princess and now she's my goddess.
