Talk About Rock Music

As far as rock music news goes, this is a sad day. Yesterday, Wednesday 12th November 2008, the last living member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience has passed away.

The drummer of the Experience, Mitch Mitchell, was found in his room at the Benson Hotel in Portland by a hotel member of staff, who contacted the police upon the discovery.

Mitchell was 61 years old when he died and had been on tour with Experience Hendrix along the West Coast.

He didn’t just rise to fame by playing with Jimi Hendrix, he has played with some of the other all time legends in the music industry such as The Rolling Stones, John Lennon and Eric Clapton. After the great Jimi Hendrix had passed away, Mitchell continued the man’s legendary work and completed several unfinished tracks later released and included “Rainbow Bridge” and “Cry of Love”.

He was born in Ealing in West London back in July in 1947 and started his celebrity life as a teenager when he appeared on a children’s television show. He then started learning drums and played with a variety of bands during the 1960’s.

In 1963, he joined “The Tornados” but clashed with the producer, Joe Meek, who found Mitchell too individual and wanted someone more likely to follow orders.

He then played with another variety of groups before auditioning for The Who which, as you know, he lost the position to Keith Moon.

Mitchell was then recruited to play alongside Jimi Hendrix in 1966 after he had been brought to England by his manager. Along with bassist, Noel Redding, they released a number of albums together eventually splitting in 1969 although he returned to the band to fulfil their commitment to the ‘69 Woodstock festival.

Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

Mitch, you will be missed.

Here is a video of the great man in action. I hope this does him justice.

Good news people!  If you are anything like me and you tried getting tickets for the UK leg of the Kings of Leon tour, you would have been extremely disappointed to find out that they sold out in about half a milli second.  Alright, maybe not that quickly but they were still sold out by the time I got off by backside to find out about tickets and prices.  Well fear not my fellow lazy friends, as the Kings of Leon have now announced two arena concerts for 2009!!!

They will be rocking the house down in June next year at none other than the O2 Arena in London on the 15th and at the Manchester Evening News  Arena on the 22nd.  Tickets are going on sale this Friday which for you people who own a calender, is the 14th.

Tickets are priced at £32.50 each plus the usual rip off booking fees and you can purchase them direct at the following numbers.

15th June 2009 - London’s O2 Arena - 0844 856 0202
22nd June 2009 - Manchester’s Evening News Arena - 0844 847 8000

But make sure you wait till I’ve got tickets as I really don’t want to miss out again! (Just kidding - book away!!)

Our thoughts are with Kaiser Chiefs keyboard player, Peanut, as he has been taken to hospital in Brazil after being diagnosed with Appendicitis in Sao Paulo.

Kaiser Chiefs

His appendix has been operated on and removed which went well with no complications last Thursday and now has to have lots of bed rest so he can fully recuperate before he does any gigs or travelling of any kind.

With various concerts lined up over the next coming weeks, he will be missing out on a couple of them including the Henry Fonda Centre and Tonight With Jay Leno.  The band are continuing performances without him and will reunite when he is fully recovered.

He will be back on the tour for the Chicago Park West show this Thursday and hopefully will be continuing the rest of the tour as scheduled after that.

The band posted the following statement on their website.

“We’ve made it to LA, but unfortunately we’re a man down. We didn’t want to make a drama out of it so we kept this quiet until now. Peanut had to have an operation to remove his appendix on Thursday, so he’s been in a hospital in Brazil for a few days. The operation was a success, he’s ok, and managed to play with us at Planeta Terra in Brazil on Saturday night, but he’s unable to fly to USA until Wednesday.

“Our concert in LA and TV appearance on The Jay Leno Show will go ahead. We didn’t want to let LA down and its going to be a challenge, but between Roger Lyons (Peanut’s tech) and James Hennin (Simon’s tech) we’ll deputise and make sure the show goes on! It will be our first ever gig missing one of the band.”

I’ve not had Appendicitis myself (now touching my wooden desk repeatedly) but I understand it can be quite a painful experience so we are all glad it was caught in time and wish Peanut a full and speedy recovery and look forward to seeing him back in his rightful place.

Following an amazing concert at The Royal Albert Hall, The Killers surprised guests at a charity gig hosted at the Union Chapel.  The Mencap Little Noise Sessions is a huge event lasting 10 days kicked off by Jo Whiley, Radio One DJ and is all about raising awareness for people with learning disabilities.  The event started back in 2006 and have had some big names including U2, Snow Patrol and Noel Gallagher.

They played 3 songs which were the new single, “Human” and “Smile Like You Mean It” where frontman Brandon Flowers sang with a piano and a violin.  They then wowed the audience with a cover of the Cyndi Lauper song, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

Mark Stoermer, bassist for the band, was interviewed by Radio One’s Newsbeat:

“It was a change of pace tonight. We’ve played a lot of places here in London but never one like this place.  We’re always trying new things like the saxophone and we always approach each new song with a different attitude.  It’s cool to do these things as kind of a one off and we don’t normally play things stripped down like we did tonight. It was a lot of fun.”

The new album, “Day and Age” is set for release towards the end of this month on the 24th November.  Mark  commented on the new album.

“We are at a place where our fans won’t be too surprised and we have shown them that we have a wide range in terms of what we do.  We’re always trying new things like the saxophone and we always approach each new song with a different attitude. If we feel we need to try something on a song we go for it. We don’t just do those things for the hell of it.  his album again is all over the place but fans that have been with us for the last couple of albums will get it.”

If you want more information on the bands playing at the event or want to know more about the charity and how you can help, please visit their website.

UK band Razorlight played a gig on Friday the 7th of November on a roof of a pub!  The Hawley Arms in Camden, London has recently re-opened following the major fire that rampaged through the popular London “alternative” town earlier this year.

Razorlight

Razorlight fans stood shivering in the cold but rocked on regardless.  The band, who are regulars at the pub were nervous before performing as they weren’t sure if anyone was going to turn up with the cold weather and were amazed when they saw the large turn out.

Their latest album, “Slipway Fire”s was released on November the 3rd and played a few songs from the new record.  They opened with “In The Morning” and then Johnny Borrell, lead singer, leapt onto the balcony railings and belted out “North London Trash”.

With the gig going down really well with the audience, they finished with “In The City” and upon leaving the roof, Andy Burrows, drummer for Razorlight welcomed Ronnie Vannucci from the Killers who had been watching from teh balcony.  In an interview with NME, Borrell stated,

“”I’ve been nervous before two gigs in my life, the Bricklayers and tonight.  You worry no one will turn up, but that was great. It was to see to many people, it was really good to get out there and play.”

We wish them luck with their new album and look forward to seeing them in concert.  The boys are currently touring so check out their website for dates.

Although there have been hundreds of rumours that the reason for a Blur reunion not happening due to Damon Albarn holding it back, he has recently stated in an interview that it shouldn’t be rules out and a reunion could be happening at some point in the future.  Following a rocky band relationship with Graham Coxon, apparantley the pair have now sorted things out and Albarn has possible changed his mind and that Blur is far from over.

“Graham and I have been hanging out together a bit.  We had lunch the other day. He’s great, it’s fantastic to get my old friend back. So it’s good, but I can’t really say any more than that.”

Back in July this year, Blur had been offered a slot at Glastonbury.  I say slot, but I mean headline!  Alex James, who plays bass for the band, revealed that the reason for not going through with it was because of Albarn.

Albarn is currently working on the latest Gorrilaz song so we can expect an album to be released next year from them.  This will be one of the reasons that Blur won’t be happening soon and another reason would be that he wants to keep an eye on his opera which is opening this month in London.  If you are interested in going to see it, it’s called Monkey: A Journey To The West.

Although it is not taking place till June next year, the Glastonbury festival has already confirmed the first band in the line-up for one of, if not THE biggest festival taking place next year.

The four piece band, who hail from our very own city of culture (That’s Liverpool if you didn’t know) are called Major Major and recently won the Rockstar Bands competition held earlier this year in a village called Pilton.

By winning the competition, they won a place at Glastonbury and also a recording session at Peter Gabriel’s studio!  Well done lads!

It hasn’t been announced which stage they will be performing on but you may have seen them recently if you went to the Glastonbury party gig where they played with the likes of The Ting Tings and Franz Ferdinand.  If you haven’t had the chance to check them out yet, take a look at their myspace page and have a listen to the songs they have uploaded on their main page.

Tickets for the festival have already gone on sale with an option to pay a deposit to reserve a place.  This is the forst time that the festival has sold tickets in this way.  They tell us it is because they want to make it easier for students to go but other news reports that they only broke even last year so looks like they may want to get your mioney in the bank early enough to earn big sums of interest - just a thought!

With their last album, “Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned”, being released in 2004, The Prodigy are set to make a sensational follow up album to be released in March 2009.  With 11 brand new tracks that may just rip your ears away from your head, the band are really excited about the new album titled, “Invaders Must Die”.  In a recent interview with Kerrang, Liam Howlett stated,

“All f*$#%£g bands say their new record’s their best, but this just feels really triumphant for us.  It’s on fire. It’s all about the three of us together and what we can do. You know what we deal with: it’s beats in a predominantly electronic style and it’s full of f&$£*d -up guitars!”

The Prodigy

Wanting to move away from all the rock, dance, metal tracks that are appearing left right and centre the band want to stir up the music industry, being one of the things that The Prodigy does best.  Rather than mixing things up by using guest vocals and crossing over with other bands, none other than Mr Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, will be jumping into the rear end of the band in the drummers position to bang out some amazing rhythms.

Dave actually emailed the band to find out if there were planning anything in the future and if he could join them on a track or two.  The track, “Run With The Wolves” is said to be the most most powerful song on the new album with all the members really going for it.

With a new album being released in March, The prodigy are also planning a tour next year with none other than Dizzy Rascal.  Dates as follows:

5th April - Cardiff International Arena
6th April - Newcastle Metro Radio Arena
7th April - Glasgow SECC
9th April - Birmingham NIA
10th April - Manchester MEN Arena
11th April - Nottingham Trent FM Arena
13th April - Sheffield Arena
14th April - Brighton Centre
17th April - London Wembley Arena

Ticket sales start on the 7th November 2008 from ticketmaster.

Who would have thought it would last this long?  Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue and Kat Von D of LA Ink fame have been dating now for most of this year and I do have to say to them both “Well done!”

They seem like the perfect couple and have helped each other with their problems.  Nikki who is a self confessed ex-heroin addict amongst other things has stated that Kat has really helped him stay focussed and he couldn’t be happier.  It seems that Nikki has actually done the same for Kat, who has opened her arms to sobriety in its truest form.

After both of them recently going through divorces, it’s nice to see them both happy with each other.  They met through mutual friends who told Kat about NIkki and wanted to set them up on a blind date.  With Kat being against the whole principle of a blind date, they eventually met and became friends.  The relationship blossomed from there when they realised how much they had in common.

When Nikki took her out to see a movie, they held hands for the first time and later on he tried to kiss her but instead, she gave him one heck of a karate chop! She can keep him in his place which is definatley what Nikki needs right now and as long as both of them stay grounded, this should be the realtionship to watch over the next few years.

For those of you who didn’t know about it, The Classic Rock Awards Show was held last night with some well deserved recognition being handed out across the board.

Led Zeppelin, recently reunited, won the Event of the Year award when they had their reunion show last year at the O2 Arena in December.  The gig, which happened to be the first gig in 19 years, had over a million applications for the 18,000 tickets.

Paul Stanley, better known as the guitarist from Kiss, won Showman of the Year.

Whitesnake won the prize for Best Album, Good To Be Bad.

The Living Legend Award was presented to none other than our very own Ozzy Osbourne and the award was presented to him by another living legend, Slash.

AC/DC won the DVD of the Year with the newsest DVD in their collection, Plug Me In.

But you’re all wondering who got Band of the Year with all the legendary rockers winning awards left right and centre, which in all fairness, being the “classic” award show you would expect them to be winning.  Well, I can tell you that none other then the Foo Fighters won the award and frontman Dave Grohl accepted the award in true Foo style with a video message.

Well they’ve won so many now, they can probably use the same one!!