Monday Morning Newsletter (2-2-09)

John Martyn died last week. While his immediate cause of death was not disclosed, his life-long history of drug and alcohol abuse is well-known. He had been in a wheelchair since a leg amputation last year. He was a renowned British Folk artist and was wildly popular at the height of his career in the 1960s. He was only 60.

The band Good Charlotte continues to breed a new generation of superfluous pop punkers. Guitarist Billy Martin and his wife Linzi just had their first offspring which they named Dreavyn because they want her to be ostracized by her future peer group.

Dead this week is Lynyrd Skynyrd keyboardist Billy Powell. In 1977, he survived the plane crash that claimed the lives of three of his bandmates. Powell had rejoined Lynyrd Skynyrd in 1987 for a tribute tour and remained with the band. He called 911 complaining of shortness of breath EMS responders arrived to find him already deceased. He was only 56 years old.

Kelly Osbourne is back in rehab mere days after an assault arrest in London. The assault charges stem from an incident in Soho six months ago wherein the first chunklet of rock-royalty slapped some drunken socialite. The rehab stems from being a blood relative of Ozzy. Sharon Osbourne was quoted as saying “She knew that it was the right thing to do at this point and we're proud that she did it."

The jazz legend David "Fathead," Newman, has died at the age of 75 of pancreatic cancer.. His career was unspeakably long and accomplished. He was a tenor sax player with Ray Charles, Herbie Mann, and Aretha Franklin and hundreds of others. His last show was on New Years Eve in Chicago.

Living out a common music critics metaphor, a Slipknot fan actually dropped dead at a show last week. Corey Nickels was pronounced dead after CPR failed to resuscitate him. It is not the first time a fan has died at a Slipknot show. They induced another heart attack in another fan back in 2004.

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?

Monday Morning Newsletter (06/23/08)

Beck will release a new album on July 8th. Modern Guilt will be his first release on DGC since 2006. Producer Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton described the LP as a melding of hip-hop and punk folk like everyrthing else Beck every did. To Support the record Beck has already scheduled dates in the US and Europe.

This week Ted Nugent sold off a large share of his wild game trophies. The iconic guitarist is a well-known hunter and gun nut. What was not well known was that the Nuge had bagged a rhinoceros and a zebra both of which are for sale. The Nugent family is selling off the trophies to simplify a move to a more remote compound a little closer to scenic Waco, Texas. For the record Jose preferred his material with the Amboy Dukes.

Volcom Records will be releasing Totomoshi's new album, Milagrosa, July 8th. The Frisco-based metal act will be touring nationally in support of the album. For the record, Totimoshi was intended to be gibberish but in the Chinese language Hakka, the word means a constipation. This is only the second record on Volcom Jose has cared about in 8 years.

I know I promised not to write about Amy Winehouse but this is just classic. After smoking more crack than Richard Pryor, Winehouse has ruined her lungs. Her father, Mitch Winehouse, has stated that Amy has early stage emphysema and will have to wear an oxygen mask unless she gives up the crack pipe. At least she didn’t set herself on fire.

The experimental and existential band Negativland is releasing a new album, Thigmotactic, July 15th. Since the 1970s, Negativland has showered us in a series of self-indulgent, loops, cut-and-paste tributes to Dadaism and self-debasement. So Jose was surprised when he heard that Thigmotactic included actual songs. Mark Hosler, a founding member of Negativland, apparently was tired of banging on pots and pans.

The new Guns & Roses album leaked this week. Gag. Jose laughs every time that he sees that YouTube video of Axl getting pegged in the nards with a water bottle. Normally Jose will not approve of a crotch shot, but Axl is an exception.

Slipknot, the biggest band in Iowa is releasing their fourth opus All Hope Is Gone. The work is slated for an August release. The band previewed the album for 24 hours on their website this week. Already naughty bloggers have leaked the unmastered versions of the songs. Nine guys in red jumpsuits: if they weren’t wearing masks I’d think they were a pit crew.

The hip-hop duo Dalek has founded a new record label, Deadverse Recordings. They already have albums by Oddateee, and Laura Minor. In the near-term, Dalek plan to stay with Ipecac Records, but in the future, there is no telling what success will do to them.