SPIN Magazine on it's deathbed?

At least the printed version anyway-One of my least favorite music magazines, Spin, has apparently laid off a large number of it's staff and has announced no Nov/Dec issue will be forthcoming. They were recently acquired by Buzzmedia and still maintain on online presence, but it is paltry when compared to the competition. Hey I don't wish this type of situation on any music magazine but they would certainly have been my pick as the first demise of a major music mag. There is more to the story here.

Friday Updates

• New Order is embarking on a very short tour (for the moment) of the US. And Dallas is on the bill....
• Mad Season will release a second album with Mark Lanegan on vocals-formerly of Screaming Trees. Lanegan actually wrote a couple of the songs on the original Mad Season release. 
• Concert list update with last Sunday's Last Summer on Earth Tour. All the bands were great but Blues Traveler kind of petered out toward the end-however Cracker and Big Head Todd were spectacular, as well as BNL.
• Rick Rubin has been getting slammed recently for his latest productions, including CSN, ZZ Top and Slipknot. There is no denying his genius and his list of albums produced is phenomenal. Apparently Black Sabbath and Metallica are fine with him however.

And another....

 I could write a whole nother blog on this shit.....

 Adrian Vandenburg is being sued by the former members of the band he formed "Vandenburg". The suit was initially dismissed by a judge but they are now pursuing control through a trademark office. Honestly this is a little different than some of the situations below as Adrian is an established musician in the rock scene and the guys suing him have done nothing in the 27 YEARS SINCE THE BAND DISBANDED.

 

•  Former Vandenburg members vs. Adrian Vandenberg
• J. Geils Band vs. John Geils/Francesa Records
•  Live vs. Ed Kowalcyzk
• Queensryche & Geoff Tate
• T&N and Dokken
• Asia & Asia featuring John Payne
• Jack Russel's Great White & Great White
• Kyuss & Kyuss Lives!
• L.A. Guns & League of Gentlemen
• Beach Boys
• Creedence Clearwater Revisited and John Fogerty
• War and The Lowrider Band
• Heaven and Hell and Black Sabbath
• Blood, Sweat and Tears and David Clayton Thomas (kind of)
• Steppenwolf & John Kay's Steppenwolf

Dueling Bands Update

This post is due for some major renovation, but for now.

As mentioned previously the J. Geils Band is touring without John Geils, who is claiming name owenership rights under his record label.

And three of the members of Live are suing the original singer claiming name infringement rights.

•  J. Geils Band vs. John Geils/Francesa Records
•  Live vs. Ed Kowalcyzk
• Queensryche & Geoff Tate
• T&N and Dokken
• Asia & Asia featuring John Payne
• Jack Russel's Great White & Great White
• Kyuss & Kyuss Lives!
• L.A. Guns & League of Gentlemen
• Beach Boys
• Creedence Clearwater Revisited and John Fogerty
• War and The Lowrider Band
• Heaven and Hell and Black Sabbath
• Blood, Sweat and Tears and David Clayton Thomas (kind of)
• Steppenwolf & John Kay's Steppenwolf

Friday Bullets with Butterfly Wings

• All the way from 1988's This Notes for You to Judas Priest songs being featured in Honda commercials. And it's everywhere-these days it is possible to discover new music, or rediscover old,  by actually hearing it in a commercial first.
• The Who will honor tickets to the canceled 1979 Rhode Island show on their upcoming Quadrophenia tour. This was the first show after the infamous Ohio show where 11 people were trampled during a mass rush to the door. The show was a general admission event and led to Cincinnati banning general admission shows for many years.
• Robert Plant may or may not be married to Patty Griffin. However they are both living in Austin, TX and can be seen shopping and hanging around just like any other Austinite.
• J. Geils is reuniting for a northeast mini tour, unfortunately coming nowhere near the Texas area. However John Geils is not with the band. See the "Dueling Bands" post for more.

Updated updated update of the dueling bands

Apparently the Tracii Gunns version of L.A. Guns is no more. Tracii has opted for his "new" band, League of Gentlemen and will retire his version of L.A. Guns-Which basically means whatever hired guns he is using is now touring under League of Gentlemen.

Also in your weekly Queensryche update the non Geoff Tate version has won the rights for use of the name Queensryche, at least for now. 

I have updated band names below.......

• Queensryche & Geoff Tate
• T&N and Dokken
• Asia & Asia featuring John Payne
• Jack Russel's Great White & Great White
• Kyuss & Kyuss Lives!
• L.A. Guns & League of Gentlemen
• Beach Boys
• Creedence Clearwater Revisited and John Fogerty
• War and The Lowrider Band
• Heaven and Hell and Black Sabbath
• Blood, Sweat and Tears and David Clayton Thomas (kind of)
• Steppenwolf & John Kay's Steppenwolf 

Jon Lord dead....

The Deep Purple keyboardist & co-founder passed away today from complications due to pancreatic cancer. Jon was the co-writer of the classic hit Smoke on the Water, among others, and was also a member of Whitesnake before Deep Purple's reformation in the 80's. If you are a fan of Deep Purple music, the sound he brought to the group with his playing skills was remarkable. Go ahead and play that air organ one more time.....

Finally the Ridglea has returned to Fort Worth

The revamped Ridglea Theater has its first booking in two years. Phil Anselmo led DOWN is scheduled for Sept. 18th. The speculation is that this will not be the first show at the venue however it is the first booked for now. It is nice to get a somewhat major music venue back in the Fort Worth area. I haven't found any good pictures of what is going on inside with the completed renovation but will continue looking.

Friday Deep Thoughts

• The Queensryche war is heating up. Too much to put here but here is the google news link.
• Yesterday was the Stones official 50th Anniversary celebrating their first gig ever in 1962.
• Thankfully Steven Tyler is leaving American Idol and getting back to what he is supposed to be doing-fronting Aerosmith.
• There has been a rash of festivals canceled/postponed recently-Soundtown, RiotFest East & Sonisphere among others.
• I like music that gives me goosebumps, like those few songs you here (no matter how many times who may have heard) that do it for you, or the one song you here that normally doesn't but you start thinking about how awesome it actually is, or just explaining to someone why music is so awesome-or when the friggin' concrete stadium you are in vibrates at a Slayer show.
• Early Music Careers- I knew about the Beasties and Sugar Ray, the others not so much. They could have included Buffet and his very early country stuff as well.

An Abridged History of Western Music in 16 Genres

Mayhem Fest

Hit Dallas Tuesday night and we made it to the show in time to see Anthrax's headline set at the second stage. Doors opened at 1:30 but due to actually having to work for a living this was not feasible. Nevertheless we were able to catch Motorhead, Slayer and Slipknot as well and prowl the grounds checking everything out. I have seen numerous bands at Starplex (including Slayer on previous tours) but have never felt the actual floor and columns vibrate as they did during Seasons in the Abyss and South of Heaven. All the other bands were awesome as well. And apparently Corey Taylor passed out at the end of the show-I think I saw this but just assumed it was part of the show, we were a little ways back so. It was fairly hot there but this being Texas it could have been much worse, there was cloud cover and a little rain later in the evening-hey I am not the one on stage every other night putting on a show like these guys can so.....

Next up another end of the musical spectrum-Blues Traveler, Barenaked Ladies, Cracker and Big Head Todd (meh).

Orchestral Flash Mob-Pretty Kick Ass