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Tuesday, Feb 12, 2019

Julian Woolsey


Good morning Radicals! The fallout from the Grammy snub of Vinnie Paul continues, as the rock world continues to call out the disrespect.

Lou Brutus, Grammy voter himself, posted an excellent rebuke of the Grammy committee on his instagram page. Reading that is a good place to start.

In its ongoing quest to disrespect the rock genre, the Recording Academy left late Pantera and Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott off the “In Memoriam” segment of the 61st annual Grammy Awards telecast, which aired on CBS from Los Angeles on Sunday night. Also left off the segment were fellow hard rock artists Oli Herbert of All That Remains and Kyle Pavone of We Came As Romans, who both passed away last year like Abbott.

Although the three were listed on the Grammy website’s memorial page, one of the many rockers who called out the Academy for blatantly skipping the three on the telecast was Halestorm singer Lzzy Hale, who was a presenter at the event.

Hale wrote on Instagram, “I am disappointed and disheartened that (Abbott, Herbert and Pavone) were not acknowledged in the annual ‘Memoriam’ list this year.” She continued, “I am very much aware that our genre is still not given the respect that it deserves. This is why I’m involved. That’s why I was there, in my leather jacket and horns raised, representing my genre presenting awards at the pre-televised ceremony . . . if you want change, you must take action.”

Hale pointed out that Abbott was nominated for four Grammy Awards over the course of his career, which ended with his death last July at the age of 54.

Other rock artists slammed the Grammys on social media for excluding Abbott and the others, as well as for the Academy’s disregard for rock. No rock awards were given out on the televised ceremony Sunday night — they were all handed out during a pre-telecast ceremony — while the only rock act to perform was Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge has won another victory in the legal battle between himself and four former members of the band. An appeals court has rejected the argument of the ex-members that the judge who ordered the dismissal of their lawsuit against Forge had a conflict of interest in overseeing the case.

The four musicians appealed the dismissal, with their attorney, Michael Berg, writing in court documents that “it must have been almost impossible” for judge Henrik Ibold “to objectively and impartially assess the probative of the information that Tobias Forge has provided” since both Ibold and Forge are members of the Swedish Order Of Freemasons.

An appeals court has now determined that the plaintiffs had failed to demonstrate an actual conflict of interest. In the decision, the court wrote that in Sweden there is a constitutional freedom of association which means that all citizens — even judges — have the right to belong to organizations. Both Forge and Ibold claimed they did not know each other through the Freemasons.

Forge, who founded Ghost nine years ago, was sued by the four ex-members in April 2017. They accused the singer of cheating them out of their rightful share of the profits from the band’s album releases and world tours.

Forge himself disputed that such an agreement ever existed and on October 17, 2018, after a six-day trial, a 108-page decision was released dismissing the case. The four former members were also ordered to pay Forge’s legal fees, which could amount to approximately $146,000. Foo Fighters guitarist Chris Shiflett said in a recent interview with Los Angeles radio station KLOS that 2019 will likely be a year of little activity for the band.

Asked if the Foos were finished for a while after touring 2017’s Concrete And Gold album for the better part of the past year, Shiflett replied, “Well, kind of. It’s not a super-heavy year; we kind of wrapped up touring for the last record but . . . we have some stuff — we have some festivals coming up later in the year.”

Shiflett also said, “I don’t know, we’ll see how that works,” when asked about a new Foos record next year. In fact, 2020 would be on schedule for the band, who have released a new record every three years since 2002.

We asked drummer Taylor Hawkins a while back if the Foos put pressure on themselves every time they start a new album to top the previous one: “Absolutely. Always, every time. I mean, you always want every one of ’em to be the best one you’ve ever done, and you always think you haven’t done your best one, and you know, although it’s arguable to some people, we still feel that way. You know, I still think we haven’t done, written our ‘Hotel California’ yet or whatever, you know, our ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or whatever. So you know, you should always be a little scared every time.”

Foo Fighters were forced to reschedule their performances at the two-night grand opening of The Fillmore New Orleans on February 15th and 16th due to an unidentified band member being injured. The dates have been rescheduled to May 15th and May 16th and all tickets for the original dates will be honored.

 

A mansion once owned by Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is apparently on sale in Northern California for $12 million. The 13,000-square-foot, six-bedroom, nine-bathroom home, just a short ferry ride across the Bay from San Francisco, features a recording studio, underground sport court, pool and sauna, an aquarium over a bathtub and many other amenities.

The property sits on a 20,000-square-foot-plus lot, and the listing states that the sale “will include an aggregate of three separate parcels totaling more than two acres,” adding, “The property owner prefers to sell all three parcels in one transaction but, for the right price, may consider selling them separately.”

Public records list Ulrich as a past owner of the property, which is now under a trust. Ulrich, a native of Denmark, moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco with Metallica in 1983 and has lived in Marin County since the 1990s. Frontman James Hetfield recently moved from the area to Colorado, while guitarist Kirk Hammett has lived in both Hawaii and the Bay Area. Bassist Robert Trujillo lives in L.A.

Metallica is currently in the midst of a North American tour that next brings them to El Paso, Texas on February 28th.

Try to have a good day, and watch out for snow!