Archive | Drama
Regardless of whose side you’re on, the battle over the drum throne for Black Sabbath’s upcoming shows continues to get uglier by the day. To the surprise of no one, current Ozzy drummer Tommy Clufetos played with Sabbath at Saturday’s show at Birmingham 02. Yet the war of words between the remaining members of Sabbath and Bill Ward continues. Firstly, although Bill Ward hasn’t made an official statement about his pictures being removed from Black Sabbath’s website, their site claims that it was a request through Ward’s attorney:
At the request of Bill Ward, through his attorney, so as to not give the public the wrong impression about his involvement in the current Black Sabbath lineup, we have temporarily removed Bill Ward’s images from the main pages of the blacksabbath.com official website. In accordance with Bill Ward’s attorney’s request, we are doing so for the duration of the forthcoming shows.
Meanwhile, Geezer Butler wrote about the goings-on from his point of view on his website. In a post entitled “heavy heart,” he claims that Ward’s camp wanted “an amount that was so unrealistic that it seemed to have been a joke” to play the Download show at Donington. He also stated that Ward hadn’t said anything to anyone in Sabbath before making his statements to the press. He ends his post saying that he “hopes to play with Bill again someday,” but “for whatever reasons, it wasn’t meant to be this time.”
Yesterday, after the Birmingham show, Ward responded to Butler’s post rebutting some of the points he made in his post. Among the clarifications, he says that he reached out to Sabbath to tell him that there were contractual difficulties before going public, and that he had asked for a “decent” fee when he thought the Download show was part of a tour, but was willing to accept a smaller payment as part of the two-show tour. “I will continue to be honest and respectful toward the band and our fans,” he ends his post. “I will also confront any untruths about me, and any fault finding missions aimed at me that come to my attention.”
This is definitely a mess, and with the band being forced to have discussions in public forums, doesn’t seem like it’s going to be fixed anytime soon. That said, if the band are continuing to work on an album, there’s still time before it’s going to be recorded, and if the band’s smart, they’ll negotiate with Ward to at least have him appear on what could well be Black Sabbath’s last album. In the meantime, catch some more of the 02 show and the set list after the jump.
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Heard of New Jersey’s The Gaslight Anthem? You probably will soon. Their major label debut, Handwritten, will be out in July, and their earnest, if somewhat derivative, mashup of Social Distortion and Bruce Springsteen will likely be the focus of some “rock’s not dead yet” trend pieces over the next few months. At any rate, the band played in Brooklyn last night at a show that was broadcast on the Internet via Livestream, and while having a worldwide audience, singer Brian Fallon chose to call out Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose about the lyrics on Appetite For Destruction.
While discussing that the show was being broadcast all over the world, he said he felt like the guy at the awards show that was too cool to show up and accept the award, instead appearing via satellite. “When I was a kid, it was Axl Rose, he’d always be on the TV screen,” Fallon told the audience. “I don’t care, that’ guy’s a pig. Why don’t you listen to Appetite for Destruction again and tell me how many chicks it’s offending? Dude, I was so blind to it at 7 years old. I don’t know what I was talking about. I was like ‘yeah, it is so easy, being 7.’”
We think it’s a little off base to shit-talk a band about the lyrics on their debut album, not to mention the fact that a few (admittedly misogynistic) lyrics aren’t enough to tarnish what might be the best debut album of all time. You can see Fallon’s comments about Axl starting at around the 21 minute mark.
[thanks to tipster Zena Metal]
Onetime Hole frontwoman and current nutcase Courtney Love is at it again. Earlier this week, she took to Twitter to accuse Dave Grohl of sleeping with her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. You can get caught up in the soap opera of Nirvana’s drummer allegedly having sex with Kurt Cobain’s daughter here. You’d be wasting your time, however, since both Grohl and Frances have issued statements denying it. “Unfortunately Courtney is on another hateful Twitter rant,” Grohl said in a statement. “These new accusations are upsetting, offensive and absolutely untrue.”
Meanwhile, the 19 year-old Frances Bean Cobain, who’s actually engaged (feel old yet?), has also released a statement. ”While I’m generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn,” she said. “I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I’m in a monogamous relationship and very happy. Twitter should ban my mother.”
While we’re not sure that Twitter is in the habit of banning users, they could do worse than starting with Courtney Love. She hasn’t been ‘World’s Best Mom” material for years now, but making allegations up about the sex life of your daughter is quite possible a new low even for her. I mean, look at that picture. RuPaul would have made a better mom.
Well, we knew that would happen. When Guns N’Roses earned their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the main question on just about everyone’s mind would be if Axl and Slash could put aside their differences long enough to perform as a group at the April ceremony for the first time since 1993. That question appeared to be answered yesterday via a tweet from That Metal Show host Eddie Trunk.During an interview on his SiriusXM show with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame president and CEO Joel Peresman (take a second to think about how ridiculous that title is), Trunk tweeted that Peresman indicated that the entire band had RSVP’d. That’s good, right? Wrong! Only several hours went by before Slash disputed the statement via his own Twitter account.
A few thoughts here: Slash not showing up to the ceremony would be pretty uncharacteristic for Slash. Granted, the guy’s got beef with Axl, but he’s been everywhere from the Disney Channel to the Super Bowl - he loves the spotlight. And he can’t claim that he doesn’t work with divas after all the time he’s spent with Fergie. For Slash to bail on arguably the most important gig he’s had in years seems like something he wouldn’t do. Granted, Rose did claim a few years back that the two of them would die before a reunion happened. Now we’ll just have to wait to see what happens come April.
Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Disturbed are one of the most successful metal/hard rock bands of the last decade. So we were a little surprised to read frontman David Draiman allude to the fact that the future of the band is up in the air. Radio station KQXR/Boise conducted an interview in which they asked the singer about next year’s Music As a Weapon tour. “There won’t be a ’Music For A Weapon’ tour next year,” he told them. “We don’t know what we’re doing . . . We’re not gonna do our own thing either. This is gonna be the last tour that the American people get to see us in for awhile, if not indefinitely. We have some things going on internally, we have some personal things going on. So I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. But I can definitely tell you there won’t be a ‘Weapon’ around next year with us on it. If we end up keeping that brand [and possibly 'leasing' it out to other bands to use]… it has kind of become its own entity, it’s something we have talked about in the past, and that’s possible. But you’re not gonna see a Disturbed tour for awhile.”
The fact that Draiman is stating this only four dates into the their headlining stint on the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival should throw up a warning flag as well. If the band’s dealing with internal issues, the right time to deal with said issues won’t be while confined to a tour bus on a national tour that goes on for another month. And the fact that they’re talking about discord in the band this early in the tour doesn’t really seem to bode well for the band’s future. And for all the Disturbed haters out there, it’s not really cause to celebrate either, unless you’re ready for David Draiman and Dan Donegan solo albums. But if one of the most successful bands of the last decade (all of their albums have at least gone gold and all but the latest have gone platinum) can’t get their shit together, what’s that mean for the rest of other bands? Oh yeah, less successful bands have been having their issues this past week as well.
[via Blabbermouth]
The Onion‘s A.V. Club is one of the best reads on the internet. Featuring reviews and recaps of music, movies, TV shows, books and video games, as well as interviews, it’s a thoughtful, well-measured site that complements the satirical anarchy of The Onion. The site also featured Metal Box, a monthly recap of the best metal releases by critic Leonard Pierce. Earlier this week, the column featured Pierce’s picks for metal albums of the year, a list that’s hard to disagree with. However that might have been among Pierce’s last work for the site, as he’s apparently been fired over a book review.
Last month, Genius Isolated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth was reviewed by the site for its Comics Panel section. The book got a great review, stating that it was “handsome, beautifully designed, and lengthy.” The only problem was that the book won’t be out until March. When this was pointed out on a comics blog, the A.V. Club editor contacted the writer, who admitted he hadn’t read the book. According to the editor, who quickly made a public apology, the writer in question was summarily fired. While the author of the fictitious review wasn’t named, Pierce had said he was reviewing the book on his own blog. And Pierce’s last Twitter update in part, reads “on the road again.” The review of the book has since been removed from the site.
Metal Box was always a highlight of the A.V. Club. Written from Pierce’s biased point of view, his taste was esoteric enough for him to champion little-known international black metal bands, yet mainstream enough to count albums by The Sword and Iron Maiden among the year’s best. And there was always a lively discussion in the comments section, where it seemed like a lot of listeners got turned on to bands by his and other users’ recommendations. There’s no word on whether the A.V. Club will continue having a metal section, but Pierce will be missed. That said, fabricating a book review is a pretty serious offense, and as shitty as it is for the site to lose a talented writer, what Pierce did was pretty inexcusable.
The worlds of metal and porn have overlapped since metal was released on 8 tracks and porn was filmed on Super 8. So it was no huge surprise when metal site theprp.com “broke” the story that the reason Killswitch Engage frontman Howard Jones pulled out of the band’s current tour was because he apparently impregnated porn star Allie Foster. There’s only one problem – it hasn’t been confirmed by anyone.
The main source of information, Foster’sTwitter page, is all over the place. Much of it has been deleted, with Foster claiming that her page was hacked. But before that, there were tweets saying things like “Howard Jones of Killswitch Engage, meet TMZ and your bitter baby momma coming with sweet sweet fuckin’ revenge, you dirtbag.” Then there was a post saying “I lied. I’m fat, not pregnant. But Howard really still is a dirtbag. I just had to get him back somehow.” Her current updates claim that she’s still pregnant, has been out of porn, and clearing things up with Howard. Following this? I’m not.
Roadrunner is taking the high road, and has no comment. And neither should anyone else. With no disrespect to Foster, until it’s confirmed by something more than a porn star’s Twitter account, this is nothing more than the ramblings of a groupie. Yes, the metal community is a small one when it comes down to it. And sure, the metal blogosphere is even smaller. But I don’t think that’s a reason for everyone to act like gossipy bitches off unconfirmed information. It’s called fact checking. Sure, if you live your life in the public eye, maybe you should expect to be scrutinized a little more. But until the facts come out, it might not be the worst thing to respect the band’s privacy.
I don’t really have anything to say about this, mostly because it’s not very interesting and I don’t like giving Axl press. But for the sake of completeness, here’s a weak-ass video of Axl Rose getting into a “fight” with a paparazzo at an airport last week. In retrospect, it took me much longer than it should have to figure out which one was Axl.
While we’re waiting to hear back from various publicists, the internets are atwitter (literally!) with some tidbits regarding a few bands. While the Megadeth/Suicide Silence tour ended last night in Las Vegas, it did so without Suicide Silence on the last two dates. The band’s Twitter account confirmed that they didn’t play Reno or Vegas shows, but doesn’t say why. However, another Twitter post from drummer Alex Lopez, since removed, states “”Dave Mustaine kicked us off the Megadeth tour cuz he wanted to take our laminates for a little incident weeks ago, so we told him to fuck off.” And bassist Dan Kenny posted “I would love a fist fight with Dave Mustaine… I hear he is quite good at MMA; I would triangle him in a second!”
Meanwhile, it appears that Trivium might have parted ways with drummer Travis Smith. Smith had sat out their most recent tour for “personal business,” with former drum tech Nick Augusto filling in. We’ll keep you updated if and when we receive word from the label.
Ozzy Osbourne has been through a lot in his lifetime, but none of it probably comes close to how he must have felt when he was told he had AIDS by a doctor. He tells the UK’s Glamour magazine that he tested positive for the disease, saying that it was one of the worst days of his life.
“It turned out that because I was drinking and using drugs so much, my immune system had dropped so that it was a borderline result. When I went back to be tested again it was negative.”
I’m actually not sure which is the biggest takeaway from this story: that a presumably expensive doctor would misdiagnose someone in the worst possible way, that the founding father of heavy metal thought he was HIV positive, or that Ozzy is giving exclusive interviews to fuckin’ Glamour magazine.
Posted by Bram Teitelman on Mon, May 21, 2012 at 11:14 am
As The Ward Turns, Drama