Three more days ’til I leave for Austin and the SouthBySouthWest convention! I am so psyched, altho not too excited about having to leave the apartment at 4:45 AM! UGH! That’s UNGODLY!….Congrats to my friend Young Guns, who achieved the Number One Most Played Active Rock Song this week with “Bones”!!! WOO HOO! Catch them on the hardDrive Live Five Tour starting April 12th!…..Watched this video this morning. Godsmack singer Sully Erna promised special trips for five lucky fans who purchased the deluxe box set of his 2010 solo album, Avalon, and found a “golden ticket” inside their copy, and he honored the first of those tickets on the weekend of March 1st. Accompanied by his girlfriend Joanna, Erna took winner Jeremy Hodge Costello and his partner Carlye to Catalina Island, CA. Carlye revealed she and Costello, who has been undergoing lung cancer treatments, would listen to Avalon on the hour-long drive to Costello’s treatments. She explained, “He made it his own kind of grounding. We’d spend the whole hour and not talk and we’d have our coffee and listen to that CD and it kind of wrapped his head right so by the time we got there he’d hold my hand and we’d get through it.” Good job, Sully!….One of Sully’s favorite bands, Black Sabbath has posted a vintage 25-minute video online of the band’s 1975 appearance on the classic TV series Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. (I remember that ’70’s-80’s series, it was awesome!) The video, posted at the group’s official YouTube channel, features the original lineup in the midst of promoting the Sabotage album. That record’s “Hole In The Sky” is featured in the mini-set, along with “Killing Yourself To Live,” “Snowblind,” “War Pigs” and “Paranoid.” Sabbath has been posting more archival photos and videos online ahead of the tentative June release of 13, the first album to feature singer Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler in 35 years. Rage Against The Machine drummer Brad Wilk played on the album instead of founding member Bill Ward, who sat out the reunion over a contract dispute. Man, Wilk’s been getting around! He’s also playing with Dave Grohl’s Sound City Players!…..Pulse Content also reports members of Pearl Jam have been kind of cagey about when we’ll hear a new album from the group, but guitarist Mike McCready says he’d like to see it come out sooner rather than later. Speaking with Premiere Guitar, McCready said, “We are all very prolific in bringing in ideas and we’re all in conversation and are starting to rehearse in about a month. I feel like we’ll have something by this year. I don’t know that everyone in the band feels that way, but I’m going to do my damnedest to move it along if I can have any kind of say in it. I would really like to get it out this year because we would really like to do some touring and things like that.” Listen for McCready as he appears on upcoming editions of hardDrive and hardDrive XL with Lou Brutus…..Gotta tell ya, I’ve been listening to the new Red Line Chemistry Tug of War album, and it’s awesome! Those guys really kicked it up on this one, probably some of the best music they’ve ever done with mastermind Nick Raskulinecz behind the console. One cool thing about the making of the record, RLC’s drummer got to use Neil Peart of Rush‘s drum kit, which he sent to Nick as a present after producing the latest Rush album. Nice! Look for Tug of War April 30th….Happy 49 today to Vincent Paul Abbott of HellYeah, Pantera and Damage Plan. Getcha Pull, Mister!
