Archive | Tributes
Slayer aren’t a mass-appeal, but the band have definitely made an impact on pop culture over the last 30 years. And the sad and untimely passing of Jeff Hanneman this past Thursday has resonated beyond just metal fans. Take, for example, NHL team the Los Angeles Kings. The hockey team, who are currently in the first round of the playoffs, paid tribute to Hanneman on Saturday by playing “Spirit in Black” from Seasons in the Abyss as the warmup music for their game this past Saturday (4). The music must have inspired the team – down two games to none, they went on to win the game. If you need a refresher on the song, check it out after the jump. Read more »
As we mentioned on Monday, Relapse director of retail sales and marketing and New York City metal fixture Pat Egan passed away earlier this week in a hospital after suffering complications from pneumonia. He touched the lives of many that he met, including countless bands he worked with. But as a lifelong metalhead, Egan loved one thing more: his family. Now, Relapse and 20 of the acts he helped break have banded together to release Patlapse, a compilation that will go towards a college fund for his daughter Katie.
Patlapse spans Relapse’s catalog, featuring tracks from Baroness, Mastodon, Pig Destroyer, Dillinger Escape Plan and an unreleased Exhumed track, among others. While it only costs $5, you can contribute as much as you’d like, knowing that all proceeds will go towards his daughter’s education. All of the bands on the compilation waived their royalties in order to donate to Egan’s family.
Even if you didn’t know Pat, this is a kickass compilation that would be worth $5. Knowing that it’s going to a good cause to continue his family’s legacy is just all the more reason to pick it up.
The text accompanying the compilation is below, with the track listing after the jump.
On Monday February 18, 2013 Relapse lost one of its own. Pat Egan, Relapse’s director of sales for the past 10 years, passed away after a struggle with Pneumonia and related complications. If you were lucky enough to know Pat, you will remember him as a fun, funny, hardworking, passionate lifelong metal-head who left an impression on EVERYONE he came in contact with. If you never got a chance to meet him, but you’re familiar with Relapse Records or some of the bands on the label, Pat was instrumental in the success of almost all of the bands and records Relapse has released over the past decade.
Pat touched so many bands and had his hand in literally hundreds if not thousands of records over the years. This compilation is a collection of just a small handful of some of the bands that Pat was most passionate about both personally and musically. Some of these songs are ‘classic’ Relapse songs, and some of them are brand new/unreleased songs that the bands wanted to give to help Pat’s family out.
Pat leaves behind a wife and a beautiful daughter who were both the lights of his life. All proceeds from the download of this compilation will go towards a college fund for his daughter Katie, a scholar and an athlete with a bright future ahead of her. All of the bands on this compilation have waived their royalties and Relapse is passing through all proceeds from the sale of the comp directly to Pat’s wife and daughter.
The compilation costs a minimum of $5, but you are welcome to donate more than that if you would. There is no limit on how much you can give.
On behalf of everyone here at Relapse, thank you for your donations. It will go further than you can imagine in keeping Pat’s legacy alive. Read more »
Any fan of rock or metal music knows that it wouldn’t exist without Led Zeppelin. Hell, even the President knows it. While it was likely written by a speechwriter, President Barack Obama honored the band at the Kennedy Center Honors this past weekend. We knew he was a fan of Beyonce, but Obama’s at least familiar enough with the band to sound like he knows what he’s talking about. He even brings up their predilection for trashing hotel rooms. Yesterday (3), the three surviving members of the band also went on The Late Show with David Letterman, where they discussed being honored by the President. While they didn’t perform on the show, you can check out their appearance after the jump.
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Back in April, we discovered that Metallica would not only participate in a tribute compilation for Ronnie James Dio, but also contribute to a Deep Purple anniversary album. Finally, some details as well as a release date for the tribute which celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Machine Head album have been announced.
The title of the tribute album will be Re-Machined: A Tribute To Deep Purple’s Machine Head and it will be released on September 4, 2012 via Classic Rock Magazine. Among others, Metallica, Chickenfoot, Black Label Society and Iron Maiden will make appearances. Metallica will be covering “When A Blind Man Cries” while Iron Maiden will offer their rendition of “Space Truckin’”, you will find the full track list at the end of this article.
But the tribute goodness doesn’t end there, as the celebratory package will also feature a 124-page long magazine featuring interviews with many of the featured artists as well as the honored Deep Purple themselves, including an interview with the late Jon Lord. Even more so, the magazine will show some unreleased photographs from back in the day and other artifacts from the band’s history.
Machine Head was Deep Purple’s sixth studio album recorded in December 1971, and stayed on the Billboard 200 charts for 118 weeks. Find the full track list of the tribute record after the jump. Read more »
As you all know by now, today (May 16) marks the two year anniversary of Ronnie James Dio’s death. While his legacy will always live on, it’s without a doubt that Dio’s presence is still missed. However, rather than putting together a tribute that wouldn’t do his influence justice, we’re letting 3 Inches Of Blood do that.
The Canadian metal group have released a new lyric video for the song “Look Out” in honor of the late metal legend. Vocalist Cam Pipes had the following to say about the song and Dio’s influence:
“It was hard to find the right words for a song honoring Ronnie James Dio, but I hope it is regarded as a fitting tribute to a legendary figure. His impact on the metal community will last forever, and though he may have been small in stature, his contribution to the music scene is larger than most will ever achieve.”
So raise your devil horns up high and check out 3 Inches Of Blood’s Dio tribute lyric video for “Look Out” above.
Though best known as a hip-hop trio, the Beastie Boys influence expanded to almost all genres (including hard rock). That’s why the passing of Adam Yauch (aka MCA) this past Friday was a heavy hit for most. Obviously, we’re a metal site first and foremost, but we do want to share with you some of Keith Buckley’s (Every Time I Die/The Damned Things) thoughts on Yauch’s death and its impact.
In an open letter posted on his website, Buckley reflected on the deaths of Yauch, Roy Orbison, Kurt Cobain, and Dimebag Darrell and how they affected him differently. While you can read the singer’s entire letter online, here’s what he had to share in regards to the Beastie Boys’ late rapper:
“Adam Yauch passed away of cancer last Friday. I was in Vienna when I found out and my first reaction was ‘yea, cancer will do that. what a shame.’ But as more outlets started posting the story and my twitter feed became clogged with old videos or memories that people had of first hearing License To Ill or Pauls Boutique, the sadness went from something I knew I should feel but for some reason couldn’t to a very palpable sense of loss. When I say I ‘couldn’t feel’ sadness it’s not because I am impartial to death, but my understanding of it as ruthless, unprejudiced and inevitable fails to allow much room for surprise. He was sick with a terminal disease. Death will come. It was the hearing of THAT news that really shocked me. But as the night went on and I got closer to our set time, I began thinking harder and with more clarity about why I was there at all, about to perform on the other side of the world with a band like ETID and soon something unmistakably set in as ‘gone.’
The world had experienced a real loss, like someone was telling you something important and never finishing the sentence. The breath was spent before the last number of the sequence could be revealed. The Beastie Boys were an enormous part of my growing up and because of that, they are an enormous part of who I am today. Nothing can take that away from me, not even cancer. It had been years since I thought about the excitement of getting one of their CD’s for my birthday or how every weekend of every winter was spent in my friends car driving 45 minutes to snowboard with their music blaring on the ride there and back. Why did it take MCA’s death to get me to cherish my childhood once again? Why have I come so far from that unexplainable, almost spiritual sense of relief and love and envy that I felt when I saw the video for ‘So What’cha Want’ to where I am now where mainstream music can barely move me at all? Did their music do to the world what it did to me? Did it make you want to do nothing but love your friends and give you a confidence you never had as you timed your steps through the halls of your high school with the beat that played in your headphones?
The Beastie Boys made music fun and they made me smile but not because they were solicitous of a child my age, but because they were inventive and consistent and you got the idea that they were friends. They were a crew you wanted to be a part of- rowdy, creative, sincere and forever. Every time you got on your skateboard with a Beastie Boys tape in the boombox you were starring in your own video. Fuck, I’m a white kid from an affluent suburb of Buffalo, NY and it made me wish I could RAP. They had been lodged in my subconscious as the representation of an ideal I had become too jaded to acknowledge anymore and the news of his death jarred it loose. Music can be for everyone. The musician and the fan are not mutually exclusive. You can create exactly what you want because you are not an island, there will always be someone to revel in the human experience of your art like I basked in theirs. The lyrics were so clever and the music was so inspiring that all I ever wanted to do was write in way that made people read it and go ‘oh! I get it. Cool’ and play music with my friends and I just wanted to have fun and give myself over to excitement and stay possessed by awe and live life as loudly as I could and I wanted to sweat and sing and make people laugh and remind them that its ok to look stupid sometimes and its ok to be proud and young and weird and as our intro played everything suddenly focused and I realized something I hadn’t before. That’s exactly what I was doing. A stone was taken out of the music world’s foundation, but what was built around it is too big to fall.
Thank you MCA. Rest in Peace.”
Beautifully said, Keith. Beautifully said. You can read his entire open letter via his website.
[picture via Casey Lee]
You’ve probably already know of Dio Disciples, the tribute band featuring Tim “Ripper” Owens and members Dio’s solo group. Now get ready for yet another touring group featuring former Dio collaborators forming to pay tribute to the late great singer: The Southern Cross.
This particular group was formed by former Dio guitarist Rowan Robertson (currently of DC4). The guitarist, who only appeared on 1990’s Lock Up The Wolves, apparently reached out to drummer Rick Hagan before Dio’s death about performing material from his time in the band. The group has actually toured Norway at least twice under the name Queenstreet. However, when long time Black Sabbath keyboardist Geoff Nicholls joined the fold, they changed their name to The Southern Cross and focused on performing all of Dio, Sabbath, and Rainbow’s staple hits.
As of now, the only dates The Southern Cross have planned are for November in Norway. You can check out more information regarding the lineup, as well as watch video of them performing “Hey Angel” and “Falling Off The Edge Of The World” last September in Norway (under the name Queenstreet and without Nicholls), after the jump. Read more »
Back in February of last year, Ronnie James Dio’s widow Wendy revealed that she was putting together an all-star tribute album to the late metal legend. At the time, she confirmed that artists like Rob Halford, Dave Grohl, Lemmy Kilmister, Alice Cooper, Sebastian Bach and Glen Hughes were either in talks or were on board for the album. Since then, we haven’t heard much about the album. However, during this past year’s Dimebash, Wendy told Artisan News that the tribute album is taking shape.
According to Wendy, all of the artists mentioned above are on board and she’s “letting them pick what songs they wanna do in the way they wanna do it.” While most of the artists have yet to pick which songs they’ll be tackling, she revealed that Grohl will be doing Black Sabbath’s “Mob Rules” and Halford will sing Rainbow’s “Long Live Rock N’ Roll.” Now those are two renditions we’d love to hear. Halford would likely sound awesome singing any of Dio’s songs. And while we’re not exactly sure if Grohl’s version will feature him singing or only performing the music, we’d bet that he’d do a kick ass version as well.
There’s no exact release date set in stone yet, though Wendy says they’re aiming to release it at the end of 2012. You can watch Artisan News’ entire video report above.
Death/grind band Cannabis Corpse was all set to play a tribute for GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot on January 7th. That was, until half their lineup left. Vocalist Andy “Weedgrinder” Horn and Nick “Nikropolis” Poulos have left the band. Fortunately for them, they’re still going to play the show with a high-profile fill-in: Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe. He confirmed the following via his Twitter account:
On Jan 7th here in Richmond at the Canal Club there will be a benefit/memorial show with all proceeds going to the Cory Smoot Family fund. As most of you know, Corywas the guitarist in GWAR who passed away recently, & was a friend of mine who recorded my guest vocals on the Jasta cd.
He leaves a pregnant wife behind (their first child) and a mortgage. If you are in the area please come out & support this show- Cory didn’t have life insurance & his wife is going to need every penny she can get with a kid on the way & bills to pay. Although GWAR is relatively large band, & are doing all they can for Mrs. Smoot, the fact of the matter nobody is rich & times will be hard.
My friends in Cannabis Corpse were scheduled to play the benefit show, but suddenly are having line up difficulties (lost the singer). So what the fuck & why not? Jan 7th @ Canal Club in RVA Cannabis Corpse WILL play- but I will be singing! Come check out some brutal death metal for a good cause! I’ll be working on my death metal voice til then, pretending to smoke weed & getting deeper than fuck. BLAZE OF TORMENT!
It’s great to see someone as established as Blythe to step up and not only fill in for a friend’s band, but also to help out such a worthy cause. It’s likely turned the benefit show from something some people were going to go to into a must-attend for any metalhead. In the meantime, even if you aren’t in the Richmond area, you can still help by donating to the Smoot Family Fund. Meanwhile, if you think you’e got what it takes to join Cannabis Corpse, reach out to bassist Philip “Landphil” Hall at landphilbass@hotmail.com.
The metal community is still in shock over the passing of GWAR guitarist Cory Smoot, aka Flattus Maximus. Many (both fans and musicians alike) have paid their respects and shared their grief since the unfortunate news first hit. However, Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe’s comments that he shared via Twitter were especially touching, and highlighted a side to Smoot that fans didn’t normally get to see. Here’s what Blythe had to say about the passing of his good friend:
“I am very saddened by the passing our friend Cory Smoot AKA Flattus Maximus of GWAR. He was an awesome dude & a great guitar player, as well as a talented engineer & producer. I recorded guest vocals for a few projects at his studio (The Kris Norris Projekt, the Jasta solo record) & as a friend he refused to take my money in payment for the sessions. Last session just gave me some killer tracks of HIS solo work and asked me I ever had time to lay down some vocals for him. I really regret now not having had the opportunity to record those sessions with him. He was always fun to tour with, hang with, and we will be deeply missed, especially in our hometown of Richmond, VA.
It was an honor to work with such a kind human being. My most sincere condolences to his wife, family, and the rest of the GWAR family. Rest in peace brother, I’ll catch you on the flip side.”
As expected, details regarding Smoot’s untimely death, as well GWAR’s current plans, are still unclear. Plus, tributes to Smoot continue to roll in. We’ll keep you posted as more develops. Once again, our condolences go out to Smoot’s family, friends, and band mates in GWAR.
UPDATE: Brockie has released a new statement providing more information about GWAR’s current status.
Slayer aren’t a mass-appeal, but the band have definitely made an impact on pop culture over the last 30 years. And the sad and untimely passing of Jeff Hanneman this past Thursday has resonated beyond just metal fans. Take, for example, NHL team the Los Angeles Kings. The hockey team, who are currently in the first round of the playoffs, paid tribute to Hanneman on Saturday by playing “Spirit in Black” from Seasons in the Abyss as the warmup music for their game this past Saturday (4). The music must have inspired the team – down two games to none, they went on to win the game. If you need a refresher on the song, check it out after the jump. Read more »
Posted by Bram Teitelman on Mon, May 6, 2013 at 11:28 am
Tributes