Monday Morning Newsletter (07/07/08)

This week former senator Jesse Helms died of natural causes. José would like to state that he was a bigot, homophobe, racist, and xenophobe, the worst kind of gringo that there is. While it is callous to celebrate the death of any man, there is no ugliness in silently celebrating the death of an evil one. Amigos, please light a votive candle for Senor Jesse, may he burn in hell for all of eternity.

Rage Against The Machine broke up in October of 2000. It was then that Zack De La Rocha promised us a solo album. It’s been eight years later and we’ve got bupkis. Ok so we have a couple of tracks he did with DJ Shadow, but a solo album that is not. The new rumor is that Rocha is working with Jon Theodore from Mars Volta. The project is called One Day As A Lion and Anti- will be releasing their self-titled debut EP July 22. His mystery album recorded with Trent Reznor remains in the vault.

LeRoi Moore, saxophonist for Dave Matthews Band was severely injured in an ATV accident recently. He was on his farm near Charlottesville, Virginia and flipped the vehicle. He is at the University Of Virginia Medical Center. Amigos don’t let amigos drive borracho.

Red Sparowes will be releasing their next EP, Aphorisms, digitally on August 1. Sargent House will be handling the downloadable duties and the physical release this fall. As with their previous releases, all song tiles are ridiculously long. It’s difficult to explain how but this entire newsletter is a song title.

The BBC reports that the gravestone of late Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis has been stolen. The stone simply read "Ian Curtis. 18-5-80. Love Will Tear Us Apart." A police spokesperson told the BBC that there are no security cameras in the cemetery. Anyone with any information about the missing gravestone can contact British authorities here.

In a last-ditch effort to regain their former fame, ZZ Top has allied with Rick Rubin. ZZ Top ended their relationship with RCA two years ago after a decade of neglect. Rubin’s label American Recordings will be issuing their comeback album sometime next year. I guess that guest appearance on Deadwood didn’t help.

Eddie Vedder will be touring the East Coast solo this summer. His string of East Coast dates runs throughout the month of August. If you recall his last set of solo dates he performed songs from his soundtrck to the film Into The Wild, along with other Pearl Jam deep cuts and some random covers. Here he is last summer at a Cubs game.

As has become traditional, Slipknot have unveiled new masks in preparation for their newest album. The new masks are even more detailed and frightening than in the past. This set includes horror icons such as Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld and others. They are said to be grotesque and more terrifying than anything previous.

We had major drama in St. Louis this week. Travis McCoy of Gym Class Heroes was arrested on one count of third degree assault. As you might have guessed the assault did occur during the band’s set at a Warped Tour stop. Apparently some redneck broke out the N-word and McCoy smashed the inbred little ditchpig cracker with his microphone. Anybody have video?