The nominees for the 60th annual Grammy Awards presentation were announced this morning and in the Rock and Metal categories, here you go:
Best Rock Performance:
–Leonard Cohen-“You Want It Darker”
–Chris Cornell-“The Promise”
–Foo Fighters-“Run”
–Kaleo-“No Good”
–Nothing More-“Go To War”
Best Rock Song:
–Metallica-“Atlas, Rise!”
–K Flay-“Blood In The Cut”
–Nothing More-“Go To War”
–Foo Fighters-“Run”
–Avenged Sevenfold-“The Stage”
Best Rock Album:
–Mastodon-“Emperor Of Sand”
–Metallica-“Hardwired…To Self-Destruct”
–Nothing More-“The Stories We Tell Ourselves”
–Queens Of The Stone Age-“Villains”
–The War On Drugs-“A Deeper Understanding”
Best Metal Performance:
–August Burns Red-“Invisible Enemy”
–Body Count-“Black Hoodie”
–Code Orange-“Forever”
–Mastodon-“Sultan’s Curse”
–Meshuggah-“Clockworks”
The winners will be announced on Sunday, Jan 28th at a ceremony in NYC at Madison Square Garden. It will be televised on CBS.
Now here are my comments: K Flay…what part of that song is ROCK? Who was on the committee who brought that one to the table and everyone agreed? So many other contenders for this, it’s ridiculous! ARGH. And kudos to Nothing More and their label and manager/producer! They delivered the goods on their new album! So excited for them to be in three categories. And Foo Fighters, Queens Of The Stone Age, Metallica, Mastodon (that album is great) and Avenged Sevenfold, all deserved! I mean, look. To some, especially the artists, receiving a Grammy is a big deal. To fans, not so much. And even to the Grammys, they disrespect the rock community by not even broadcasting the acceptance speeches from the winners. But all in all, congrats on your nominations!
Speaking of the Foos, they’ll once again be the musical guests on Saturday Night Live, with the Dave Grohl-led band scheduled to perform on the show on Dec 16th alongside host Kevin Hart. Grohl has appeared as a musical guest on the series more than a dozen times, as a member of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, as well as with Them Crooked Vultures, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Paul McCartney‘s backing band. He’s also appeared in a number of skits.
Grohl told us not long ago that one of his dreams is to actually host Saturday Night Live. A petition was even launched two years ago asking SNL producer Lorne Michaels to have Grohl host the program. Although other musicians have hosted the long-running late-night show, none of them have performed and participated in sketches as much as Grohl.
SNL has also announced that U2 will be the musical guests on this Saturday’s (Dec 2nd) edition of the program.
Of Mice & Men: Alan Ashby, Aaron Pauley, Valentino Arteaga, Phil Manansala
Of Mice & Men announced a new tour with Blessthefall, Cane Hill and Fire From the Gods. See Road Rage for all the info!
AC/DC guitarist and co-founder Malcolm Young was remembered as “quiet, humble and understated” at his funeral in Sydney, Australia on Tuesday (Nov 28th), according to ABC News. Hundreds of people gathered at St. Mary’s Cathedral for the service, including AC/DC guitarist and Malcolm’s brother Angus Young, former AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd and ex-AC/DC bassist Mark Evans. Eulogies were read by Bradley Horsburgh and David Albert, who described Young as a “quiet, humble and understated man.”
One of Malcolm Young’s guitars was carried into the church for the service, while guitar picks inscribed with his date of birth and death were handed out with the official funeral programs. After the service, a pipe band played a medley of songs as the funeral procession left St. Mary’s, including the guitar solo from AC/DC’s “It’s A Long Way To The Top,” as well as “Waltzing Matilda” and “Road To Gundagai.”
Malcolm, who co-founded AC/DC with Angus in 1973, died on November 18th at the age of 64 after suffering from dementia and failing health for several years.
In other news, a new campaign has been launched to make AC/DC’s 1981 hit “For Those About To Rock” the Number One song on the U.K. chart during Christmas week in honor of Malcolm Young. Topping the holiday chart is often the focus of fan-based campaigns, including one to place Rage Against The Machine‘s “Killing In The Name” at Number One in 2009 above an X Factor contestant’s new song. A post and video announcing the campaign said in part, “Who would be up for having another crack at putting an Acca Dacca classic above an X Factor nobody in tribute to Malcolm, George, and Bon?” The charting period runs from Friday, Dec 15th to Thursday, Dec 21st this year, and fans can make their impact by purchasing the song via online download services in the U.K. or streaming it 150 times during the charting period.
Malcolm and Angus’ older brother George passed away earlier this month, while original AC/DC singer Bon Scott died in 1980. The Albert family had managed AC/DC for more than four decades.
Blabbermouth reporting Metallica has partnered with Starbucks and Spotify as part of the “Give Good” charity campaign this holiday season. Starting today (Tuesday, Nov 28th aka “Giving Tuesday”), special limited edition Metallica-branded gift cards will be available at 8,000 Starbucks locations nationwide, with proceeds from the effort being donated to Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation.
Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation is “dedicated to creating sustainable communities by supporting workforce education, the fight against hunger, and other critical local services,” acccording to the foundation’s website. The foundation was launched last February with the goal of “making the world a better place through local community support.”
Metallica played a benefit show earlier this month in San Francisco to raise money for victims of the recent Northern California wildfires. The band will resume its Hardwired…To Self-Destruct world tour in February after the holidays.
Chance the Rapper’s Social Works and Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation will also be recipients of donations from Starbucks and Spotify, which will total $1 million.
Hey, we’re famous! Prophets Of Rage guitarist Tom Morello told hardDrive Radio in a new video interview that he can be friends with musicians like Kid Rock and Ted Nugent — and enjoy their music as well — even if he is at the opposite end of the spectrum from them politically. Morello explained, “I’m a fan of Ted Nugent’s music and Kid Rock’s music and I like both of them as people; I consider them both friends. They’re people I may not agree with, if we had a checklist of stuff, but they’re both good, decent people and I’m proud to be friends with both of them.”
Morello is an outspoken leftist and activist, while Nugent and Rock are both right-wingers who support Donald Trump in the White House. Morello continued, “There’s certainly no litmus test — and neither was there with (former band) Rage Against The Machine and certainly there isn’t with Prophets Of Rage — you don’t have to be down with the message . . . there’s a place for you in the pit.” The guitarist added, “I was a huge fan of bands like Motley Crue and AC/DC, and the lyrical content was super misogynist on the one hand and sort of quasi-devil-worshipping on the other, and I was neither down with women-hating or the devil, and yet I loved those bands.”
Morello explained a while back how he was initially inspired to get involved in political activism: “I grew up in a very conservative town in Illinois, and the politics of my household were in stark contrast to the politics of the community around me. That, and also being one of the only black kids in an all-white community is very politicizing. You know, ever since then my twin passions have been playing guitar and political activism. So I try to find, you know, ways to affect the world around me in a way that at the end of the day I can look at myself in the mirror.”
Prophets Of Rage’s self-titled debut LP was released in September. The band, which features members of Rage Against The Machine, Public Enemy and Cypress Hill, will finish the year with a pair of December radio festivals in San Diego and Los Angeles.
For all you out there who still find this of interest ….Blabbermouth reporting musician and director Rob Zombie has narrated “Charles Manson: His Final Words,” a new documentary which will air this Sunday, Dec 3 on the Reelz channel. The documentary focuses on the Manson family murders told from Manson‘s perspective using never-before-seen case files, pictures and exclusive interviews with Manson himself from inside California State Prison.
“Charles Manson: The Final Words” includes Manson’s eerie and disturbing conversations about modern society, justice, his decades behind bars, the Bernard Crowe shooting and the murders along with digitally restored audio recordings from the original investigations to reconstruct a path of events that led to the brutal slayings of movie star Sharon Tate and four of her friends on August 8, 1969 in addition to the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea.
The documentary also includes compelling new interviews with members of the Manson Family which reveal never-before-heard details that help uncover the real story and motives behind the grisly murder spree. Viewers will hear from accused Manson Family members Bobby Beausoleil, Barbara Hoyt and Catherine “Cappi” Gillies along with prosecutor Stephen Kay, defense attorney Gary Fleischman, music producer Phil Kaufman as well as other investigators and authors.
Manson, who died earlier in the month at the age of 83, was jailed for life in 1971 for a series of nine vicious murders committed in Los Angeles at four locations in July and August 1969. The murders were carried out on his orders by members of a cult that sprang up around him known as the Manson Family.
