Oh MAN! It’s another music hangover from last night’s hardDrive LIVE FIVE show at Roseland here in NYC! It was the BEST TIME EVER! The night was filled with friends and good times and every single band BROUGHT their A game! Night started out with introducing Lou Brutus to Dr Phil! He was there to support his son’s band, Stars In Stereo, who open the bill. Met the band and they are really nice kids. They shared a dressing room with Young Guns. Yesterday was also their tour manager’s birthday, so my trusty assistant Paul and I went over to Whole Foods to grab him a vegan cake and his favorite beer. We also brought the guitar and drumhead for the bands to sign for the Vivogig contest. Hope you guys that are going to the shows download the Vivogig app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch! Hung out with the Halestorm gang (they also stopped by the studio earlier in the day!), and there in the Halestorm dressing room was Amy Lee of Evanescence with her husband. Low and behold, Amy joins Lzzy on stage for “Break In” and the crowd went nuts! It was so cool. They’d done that when Halestorm toured with Evanescence last year. After the show, I spoke with Amy for a while about the state of rock music. She’s a bright and wonderful person. Anyhow, back to the shows. Lou Brutus was the MC of the evening and he ROCKED it! The show was the first NYC club appearance for Young Guns, who tore it up! The energy of their performance alone got the audience going, and I think I even saw a circle pit! But I had to leave for a while to get my friend Richard Patrick of Filter in to the venue. Richard is in town doing promo for his new album, The Sun Comes Out Tonight. So it was cool to have him in the house for sure! He was so impressed with all the bands, especially blown away by Lzzy Hale’s amazing voice! Then Bullet For My Valentine hit the stage and the place went nuts. Much love for these Welsh boys! (Met singer Matt Tuck‘s wife and sweet little boy!) Bullet always puts on an amazing show and they’ve been having a ball on this run! Lzzy joined them (in a wardrobe change!) for “Dirty Little Secret.” We are looking forward to working with Bullet again when they return this fall! 🙂 Oh, getting back to Stars in Stereo, they used these cool video screens mounted in what looked like amp & speaker columns. Gave off the impression sparks were flying out of the speakers. Pretty neat. Anyhow, Boston, get ready for a great night tonight! And get there early to see the whole bill! … Five Finger Death Punch announced the first single off their new album is called “Lift Me Up” and the song will make it’s debut tomorrow night on the Golden Gods Awards! (You better keep your eyes on this site tomorrow for the surprises!) The studio version of the song will be out on May 13 and be available online on the 14th. The show will be streaming on XBox Live and AXS TV tomorrow night. 5FDP plan to release a two-part album (titles coming) with the first album due Jul 23. Also on the Golden Gods show, Metallica is receiving a lifetime achievement award, and Halestorm will also be performing http://bit.ly/13pBfkq.. Soundgarden‘s upcoming appearance on the PBS concert program Live From The Artist’s Den will premiere in July, according to Loudwire. Although an exact broadcast date has not been set, a teaser for the show’s sixth season indicates that a slew of new concerts from Soundgarden, Mumford & Sons, the Killers and others will all make their debut that month. A crew from the Emmy-nominated series filmed Soundgarden’s February 17th concert at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles, the last gig of a three-night stand there, with that night’s set featuring 28 songs from all eras of the band’s career. Meanwhile, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell has launched a new web store at ChrisCornell.com that is currently featuring a limited-time sale on merchandise related to Cornell’s Songbook solo tour and live album. A portion of net proceeds from the sale of these items will benefit the Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation, which was founded in 2012 to raise awareness and mobilize support for children facing tough challenges including homelessness, poverty, abuse and/or neglect….This Friday (May 3rd) has been declared Metallica Night at AT&T Park in San Francisco, home of baseball’s San Francisco Giants. According to a press release issued by the team, members of Metallica will participate in pre-game festivities which will include throwing out the ceremonial first pitch and guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett performing the National Anthem. The custom Giants-themed guitars that will be played by the pair will be signed immediately following the National Anthem and auctioned off at the Giants Community Clubhouse, with proceeds being shared by the Giants Community Fund and the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation. Metallica said in a statement, “We’re psyched to be teaming up with the World Series champs for the first ever Metallica Night…! When the Giants take on their arch-rivals the Los Angeles Dodgers, we’ll be on hand that night to kick off the game . . . joining the orange and black fanatics with Metallica vibes and shenanigans throughout the evening to cheer on the team for the first home Dodger game of the season.”…Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard has some good news for the group’s fans: the 10th studio album from the band is nearing completion. Speaking with GuerillaCandy.com, Gossard reported,“It’s almost done and as far as what it sounds like, it sounds like Pearl Jam. You’re going to hear some rock songs and you’re going to hear some quiet songs and you’ll hear some song in between. That’s all I can really say about it because we aren’t talking about it yet, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to say anything.”…Black Sabbath singer Ozzy Osbourne said in a new interview with The West Australian he’s confident he’ll stay sober this time after relapsing into drug and alcohol abuse for 18 months. Clean now for just under two months, Ozzy stated, “I don’t do anything anymore. I don’t drink or smoke.” According to Radar Online, Ozzy has reportedly promised his daughter Kelly he will stay clean before she gets married. Kelly is rumored to be engaged to vegan chef Matthew Mosshart and a source said, “Kelly went right for daddy’s heart — she made it clear that she needed him to be present when he walked his little girl down the aisle. Ozzy would never ruin her big day, so he promised Kelly that he would get it together way before her wedding to Matthew.”…Blabbermouth reports Corey Taylor of Stone Sour spoke with Bloody Disgusting about the comic book for the House of Gold & Bones albums: “I had this idea for a while, for a short story that would accompany the album or just an album in general. I always had this idea, but it was just a nugget, and it was never anything fleshed out or anything extensive. It always just sat on the back burner for a really long time, until the first Slipknot tour that we did after Paul [Gray, bass] died. Until then, I had kind of put creativity aside for a while, because I wasn’t there yet in my head. While we were out there on the road, the idea just came to me and all the sudden I could see the beginning, the middle and the end, very vividly. I could see the characters coming together in my head, and that kind of triggered the music that I contributed to both Stone Sour albums. In the end, things became much bigger in scope than the original idea, but when the idea came to me, I just kept feverishly writing things down in notebooks, fleshing out the characters and putting together a chain of events. By the time we finally got into the studio, this whole concept was about 98% finished, so I finalized it while we were in the studio. That was kind of where the idea to make it a comic book came from.” The comic book is pretty cool. Check it out on Dark Horse Comics….Gotta dash. Richard Patrick heads into the studio and I gotta prep. Later!
