Los Angeles metalheads turned out in force to see MOTORHEAD rock Hollywood's Palace along with NASHVILLE PUSSY, FU MANCHU and SPEEDEALER, and so did such rock notables as ERIC SINGER, CARMINE APPICE, SCOTT IAN, WHITFIELD CRANE, BRENT FITZ, BLASKO (ROB ZOMBIE's band), KELLY KEELING and OZZY OSBOURNE's son JACK. It was the third show of a summer tour supporting the new We Are Motorhead album, and according to LEMMY, the band will be on the road in North America through June, trek to Europe in July, head to Japan afterward and play more U.S. gigs after that. Nashville Pussy, who were dropped by PolyGram (in the Universal consolidation) but snapped up by TVT, will release High As Hell on May 30. The band is thrilled to be touring with Motorhead for the second time, as they're big fans (and now friends) of Lemmy & Co. BLAINE and RUYTER, the married singer and guitarist, even met because of Motorhead--both were wearing Motorhead t-shirts when they spied each other in a bar and knew they had something in common. As for news on the VIP guests, Scott Ian, who was fighting a bronchitis cough, said he's been busy finishing a S.O.D. home video and is heading to New York for a week to record a cover of "Destroyer" for a TWISTED SISTER tribute with ANTHRAX. He'll be back home in California until the Maximum Rock tour starts on June 24. Eric Singer, back from tour rehearsals and a show with ALICE COOPER in Phoenix, Arizona last Thursday, leaves today for a week in South America with GILBY CLARKE and Cooper/GLAMNATION bandmate RYAN ROXIE. He returns home next Thursday and heads to Europe with the Cooper tour on June 5. Carmine APPICE said he's thinking about re-forming KING KOBRA in the fall--he's working on deals for Europe and Japan. He's talked to the other band members involved including JOHNNY ROD, who's living in Pittsburgh and was a paramedic for a time, and all want to participate except MARCI (formerly MARK) FREE (yes, he had a sex change and now works in mortgage banking). Kelly Keeling, who is already writing songs with Appice, will be the singer, but jokes that it's on the condition that Carmine has to be blond--a reverse of the band's old image that featured Appice as the only dark-haired member among blonds.
KIP WINGER's Songs From the Ocean Floor will be available through his website in late July.
QUEENSRYCHE has been added to the bill of the Experience Music Project's concert weekend, June 23-25, playing on the 25th along with SCREAMING TREES, ANN WILSON and others. METALLICA, the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, KID ROCK, FILTER, and DR. DRE with EMINEM and SNOOP DOGG play on Friday, June 23. Seats are available via TicketMaster and more show info can be found at www.emplive.com.
Shredder VINNIE MOORE has new live album in Japanese stores. It's an instrumental disc, titled Live.
AC/DC has announced a first leg of North American tour dates that will kick off August 1 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and run through September 23 in San Jose, California.
JOHN SYKES will title his new disc Nuclear Cowboy, but it may be released later than June 28th (as was originally intended). A few tracks to be featured include Raising The Devil, We Will, Degraded, I Wish It Would Rain, Arc Angel, Talking About Love & Lies. John was set to meet with Scott Gorham this week to discuss the upcoming THIN LIZZY tour (oh, so it IS happening now?). In related news, a live Thin Lizzy album titled One Night Only will be released in Europe June 19 through SPV and June 20 in the US via CMC International. It was recorded during last years reunion.
Here's something from Reuters: SMASHING PUMPKINS plan to break up by the end of the year after a dozen years as a group, their publicist said on Wednesday. Word of an impending split spread quickly after lead singer Billy Corgan spoke on Tuesday about disbanding the Pumpkins during an interview broadcast by Los Angeles radio station KROQ. Reached by telephone in New York, the band's publicist, Annie Ohayon, said, "They are not splitting up right now, but they will split up by the end of the year. They've been talking about this among themselves (for some time)." Ohayon declined to discuss why the band was calling it quits. The band has been reported to be disappointed by the reception for its latest album, "MACHINA/the machines of God" released earlier this year. The Pumpkins, an alternative rock band co-founded by Corgan in Chicago in 1988, kicked off a U.S. tour in April. Corgan, who has made noises in the past about breaking up the band, told Reuters in an interview in March that he was having too much fun to imagine walking away from the group. But he acknowledged approaching every album and every performance as if it were his last. "In my world, the end is always near. I think that we've always taken a tragic and fatal position to crank the intensity up in the band," he said then. "If you believe that every gig is your last gig, you do play it a little differently .... So we've always lived on that knife edge. With the 1993 major-label debut album "Siamese Dream" and the 1995 double opus "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness," the Pumpkins put themselves on rock 'n' roll's cutting edge. Hit singles such as "Cherub Rock" and "Today" from "Siamese Dream" and "Bullet with Butterfly Wings" and "1979" from the 1995 album helped the two albums together sell 16.5 million copies worldwide.
