Good morning Radicals! Hope the weekend has prepared you for the incoming family fun for Thanksgiving! Or maybe you’ve got a reprieve and are staying home? Here’s some music new to warm your cold soul..
Metallica announced on Friday (November 16th) that the band has donated $100,000 toward wildfire relief efforts in California through its All Within My Hands charitable foundation. The group said in a statement, “Sadly once again communities in California are experiencing historically devastating wild fires in both the Northern and Southern parts of the state. All Within My Hands has made a $50,000 donation each to the North Valley Community Foundation and the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation; both agencies provide service to victims at evacuation centers and other much needed relief.”
The statement continued, “We would like to encourage you to join us in supporting those in need and our first responders in any way you can by donating money, non-perishable food, clothing and other supplies or by giving your time volunteering or providing temporary housing. Every little bit helps.”
The rash of wildfires in northern and southern California have so far killed at least 71 people, destroyed thousands of buildings and scorched hundreds of thousands of acres of land. More than 1,000 people are still missing in the aftermath of the still-burning blazes. The Camp Fire in northern California is the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history.
In its first six months of operation, the All Within My Hands Foundation donated more than $750,000 to local food banks around the world, a practice the band and the Foundation have continued on Metallica’s current North American tour. They’ve donated $10,000 to local food banks in every city and met dedicated people who focus their daily lives on helping others.
A number of Christian members of the community in Midland, Texas gathered together over the weekend to pray outside the city’s Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center, where Swedish occult rockers Ghost are scheduled to perform on Monday night (November 19th). The residents, led by pastor Larry Long, were apparently concerned that the band was bringing dark spiritual influences into the area.
Long explained his concerns in an interview with KWEL-AM, saying, “I don’t know that we can stop the band from coming — I don’t know how that works — but this is very concerning to me. And I’m not so much concerned about the band as I am about the fact that Wagner Noël didn’t have better sense than to sign this band. What are those people thinking? Are they a part of our community? Do they care what the majority of our community might think about something like that. It’s quite remarkable to me that they would even sign a band like that.”
The pastor admitted that he was bothered by some of the messages in Ghost’s lyrics, saying, “Sure, I’m concerned about the content of the band. We have a freedom of religion in America, which means a freedom of irreligion and anti-Christian faith, if that’s what people want to do. And so, from that sense, yes, the band bothers me. But I’m not in favor of outlawing the band per se.”
Long again expressed his confusion over why the band was booked into the venue in the first place, explaining, “This is not healthy for our community. Because we Christians believe the devil is real, so when you have a devil-worshipping band . . . And I’m sure the band believes the devil’s real; I doubt that they’re just doing this as a part of their shtick for music and music they produce and so on. And if you were to read some of the lyrics of their songs, they’re really quite disturbing.”
The performing arts center released a statement to CBS7 News, saying in part that the venue offers a range of musical talent for varying audiences, and they choose popular bands.
Ghost is known for songs that seem lyrically to honor Satan, while the band’s founder and frontman, Tobias Forge, has dressed in the past as an anti-Pope with a demonic face. The rest of the band perform anonymously as Nameless Ghouls in demonic masks. The group has yet to comment on the Midland situation.
Papa Roach will release its 10th studio album, titled Who Do You Trust?, on January 18th. The 12-track disc features the previously released “Who Do You Trust” and “Renegade Music,” while the band has shared a third new track called “Not The Only One” along with an official lyric video.
Bassist Tobin Esperance said, “Our goal for our 10th album was to push ourselves even further into genres that inspire us most. We have reached the place where we always wanted to be, creating new and exciting music.”
Guitarist Jerry Horton told us a while back that Papa Roach sticks to its musical guns whether it’s fashionable or not: “Where rock is going, it’s really kinda hard to tell, especially with what’s going on right now, but we just always do what we do. And if it happens to be the trend at the time, cool. If not, cool. We do what we do, if people love it, awesome.”
Papa Roach will play a special run of five shows in its home state of California to celebrate the release of the new disc, starting on January 18th in Sacramento and including three concerts at the landmark West Hollywood venue The Roxy in Los Angeles. The band will also join Shinedown and Asking Alexandria on tour in early 2019.
An official music video for the posthumously released Chris Cornell song “When Bad Does Good” was shared on Friday (November 16th), the same day that saw the release of a retrospective self-titled box set containing songs from throughout the late Soundgarden and Audioslave singer’s career. The track is one of 11 previously unreleased songs included in the set.
The video stars Cornell’s son, Christopher Cornell Jr., as a younger version of his father when he was a paper boy in Seattle. Various lyrics and images from Cornell’s career are interspersed throughout the video. Christopher Jr. said in a statement, “For me this video represents my dad and all the art he created throughout his life and what his music meant then and what it means now, not just to me and my family but the city of Seattle and all of his fans.”
The retrospective collection is available in different formats and features material from Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple Of The Dog and Chris Cornell’s solo recordings. Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil told us what he thinks the set encompasses about Cornell as an artist: “Well, the eclectic nature of his talent, the breadth, the spectrum of his talent, but the growth and development of his talent. I think it indicates work. The guy had a pretty good work ethic, and I think the growth is reflective of that. You actually get to see the consequence of his effort and work to improve his craft and his instrument.”
A tribute concert honoring the singer, who died by his own hand in May 2017, is scheduled to take place in Los Angeles in January, featuring Foo Fighters, Metallica and Ryan Adams, along with members of Cornell’s aforementioned groups.
With new album Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. just out in stores this past Friday (November 16th), the Smashing Pumpkins may already have some new recording plans on the immediate horizon. Band leader William Corgan told USA Today that he’s interested in having the Pumpkins record a Christmas-themed LP at some point.
Corgan explained, “We’re already talking about tour stuff for next year, so there will be more Pumpkins shows in 2019. But for me, once we get off tour, I’m either going to be doing some writing in L.A. with some friends or going back to Chicago to start writing new Smashing Pumpkins. I also have an inkling to try and get us to do a Christmas record one day, so I might try to use the Christmas spirit to put the record together in concept, even if we’re not ready to record it.”
Asked if a holiday album would contain covers or original material, Corgan answered, “It would be a mixture. I have released two Christmas songs, and I was thinking it would be nice to re-record those in the context of the record we would make. It would be probably lean more acoustic . . . When I think Christmas music, I tend to think something you want to put on and sit around the tree with the kids and not rock out to. I don’t see us doing a rocking-out Christmas album.”
The Smashing Pumpkins will kick off a short string of 30th anniversary shows on November 30th in the band’s hometown of Chicago, winding down with two nights at the Forum in Los Angeles on December 8th and 9th.
Shiny And Oh So Bright, Vol. 1 / LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun. is the first Pumpkins album in over 18 years to feature Corgan, guitarist James Iha and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin recording together.
So let’s decide together if my lil’ brother Ivan is insane or not
