Good morning Radicals! It’s the first day of July, which means we’re officially half-way through this very weird year. Congrats! Let’s check in with our favorite bands, shall we?
Linkin Park vocalist Mike Shinoda will release a new solo record, titled Dropped Frames, Vol. 1, on July 10th via his Kenji Kobayashi Productions label.
The LP will feature the first batch of instrumentals inspired by Shinoda’s live Twitch streams from his home studio, with assistance from his fans. The first track, “Open Door,” is the only one to feature vocals — provided by seven fans from around the world.
Shinoda has posted that track online, along with the next two from the LP, “Osiris” and “Super Galaxtica.”
The singer and producer remarked, “In March, when quarantine began, I started creating music live online. In addition to bringing the fans together for a daily conversation, the live streams inspired dozens of unexpected genre mashups and theme ideas . . . listen to them while you chill, while you work, while you paint, while you eat, while you play — wherever they fit into your life.”
Shinoda told us that he’s been opening himself up to creating music in new ways: “Basically I’ve been trying to really leave a lot of doors open. The spontaneity of it keeps things interesting for me. I think it will keep things interesting for the fans. Besides, I feel like this is the way things are done these days. Like, when we started playing music, it was very much about, like, write a record and tour it. That’s not how things work anymore and I don’t have to adapt to that — that’s kind of more natural for me.”
In addition to seven albums with Linkin Park, Shinoda has recorded two previous solo LPs: 2005’s The Rising Tied under his Fort Minor moniker, and 2018’s Post Traumatic, which was partially inspired by the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington.
Pearl Jam paid tribute on Tuesday (June 30th) to the nine people killed 20 years ago on the same date during the band’s performance at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark.
Guitarist Stone Gossard wrote an extended reflection on the incident, which began, “It’s been 20 years since that day. A normal festival show day…show up 5 hours ahead. Wait for your slot. I barely remember it…Sunny, I think. Lou Reed played, I think. Then rain and wind. But nothing has been the same since.”
Pearl Jam took the stage at the Danish music festival on June 30th, 2000 and so many fans surged toward the stage that singer Eddie Vedder implored the crowd to step back and give space to the people up front. In the end, eight men aged 17 to 26 were suffocated or crushed and died at the scene. A ninth passed away days later in the hospital, while 43 more concertgoers were injured.
Gossard wrote, “An unexpected moment intervened that forever changed all involved. The nine young men who were trampled. The lives of their families and loved ones who had to endure imagining their deaths over and over and the reality of never seeing them again.”
Pearl Jam took an extended break after the tragedy and for a while it wasn’t clear if the band would ever get back together. In rare remarks about the incident in a 2001 Spin feature, Vedder said, “It’s the most brutal experience we ever had. I’m still trying to come to grips with it.”
Pearl Jam paid tribute to the victims in its 2002 song, “Love Boat Captain,” with Vedder singing, “Lost nine friends we’ll never know, two years ago today.”
Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl said at the time that he hoped the tragedy was a wake-up call for fans and festival organizers: “The Roskilde Festival tragedy, I think, woke a lot of people up to the dangers of festival freak-outs. I think it was important for a lot of people to realize that, you know, when you get so many people in one place, you have to take care of each other.”
Soundgarden‘s surviving members — guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd — have launched new social media accounts on Instagram and Twitter under the name Nude.Dragons.
The name — an anagram of Soundgarden — was a moniker the band used for a surprise live performance around 10 years ago in Seattle after they first reunited. The Instagram and Twitter accounts so far just feature a couple of selfies taken by the trio.
It’s unclear whether the new accounts have anything to do with the group’s current legal battle with singer Chris Cornell‘s widow, part of which has revolved around her access to the official Soundgarden social media accounts and the way she has used them.
The larger battle is over a series of recordings that Cornell made before his death in May 2017. The band members claim that the recordings were vocal tracks intended for a new Soundgarden album, but Cornell’s widow has refused to turn them over, claiming that the band has withheld substantial royalty payments as a way to bully her.
So far the Nude.Dragons accounts have been followed by Lily Silver Cornell, the singer’s daughter with his first wife, as well as Pearl Jam, Duff McKagan, Taylor Momsen, Eddie Vedder‘s wife Jill and other figures who are close to the band.
Kid Rock‘s Nashville-based Big Ass Honky Tonk & Steakhouse has joined a lawsuit filed by several other Nashville business establishments against state and local officials over COVID-19 restrictions, according to the Tennessean.
Earlier this month, the bar and restaurant temporarily had its beer license pulled for five days and was fined $1,000 after being found in violation of multiple social distancing orders.
The lawsuit alleges that government officials are not treating bars and restaurants in the same way they are treating people participating in protests over the murder of George Floyd. It cites the “clear disparity in how government officials are treating restaurant and bars compared to the individuals participating in protests,” and accuses officials of “not being guided by science, but by political expediency.”
The lawsuit is seeking financial compensation for a loss of business income during the lockdown.
Steve Smith, who co-owns Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk with the singer, previously described Nashville’s government as “communist,” also saying, “They’ve got us behind a Berlin Wall.” Nashville was in stage three of re-opening this week, but the state reported more new infections over the weekend than in any time period since the start of the pandemic and is extending restrictions on activities.
Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo confirmed in an interview with The Vinyl Guide that the band has begun working on new music while in quarantine.
Trujillo explained, “What we’ve started doing is basically just really concentrating on our home studios and being creative from our homes and navigating through ideas and building on new ideas. And that’s where we’re at right now.”
Trujillo said that the band is “excited about cultivating new ideas” for the follow-up to 2016’s Hardwired…To Self-Destruct, adding, “Everybody’s in a good headspace, for the most part, and that’s pretty much our focus now — let’s have fun with this.”
The bassist added that not touring has helped change the band’s creative process, remarking, “Sometimes it takes a while to get the band together and get four individuals who are living in different places in the same room. But it’s, like, ‘Hey, guess what? We don’t have to be in the same room right now.’ We can make music from our homes and work together and build stuff — and then we’ll get in that room together and we’ll bang the stuff out, but we’ll be 40 steps ahead.”
There is no timetable yet for when Metallica will start the recording process, but drummer Lars Ulrich recently hinted that the group could potentially record a new LP while still in self-isolation.
Nirvana will get the jigsaw puzzle treatment this summer. Puzzles based on the cover art of the albums Nevermind and In Utero will be made available on September 4th, 2020, both containing 500 pieces.
There will be a 1000-piece version of Nevermind out as well on September 18, 2020.
The company behind the puzzles, Zee Productions, has also published puzzles based on albums from Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Slayer, Metallica, Rush and more.
Zee’s Rock Saws line has presented the iconic cover art of some of rock’s most influential and highly regarded albums in puzzle form for the first time ever. All puzzles come in a vinyl-box-set-sized container, perfect to fit alongside a vinyl record collection.
Finally, join me in wishing a Happy Birthday to hardDrive XL engineer Bill Powell, along with Palaye Royale guitarist Sebastian Danzig! Have a great day!
