Mötley Crüe’s clothing-optional drummer Tommy Lee is sitting out a few shows in the coming days because he burned his hand last week… while playing with a set of sparklers. (Perhaps he was celebrating the Fourteenth Of August?) Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx addressed his bandmate’s injury in a blog post that recalled the best bits of the band’s classic tell-all The Dirt, and announced that a dude from Sevendust would be filling in for Lee for the coming shows: More »
Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry is being reissued, the latest example of getting every piece of pop music every made back out there before the recorded-music industry goes tits-up, and the press release about the new version touts the fact that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” was a member of the Filthy Fifteen. That was a list of songs put together in 1985 by the Parents’ Music Resource Council, the group of moms who were pretty much the driving force behind the now-ubiquitous “Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics” stickers on albums deemed too hot for young ears; they put together a playlist of songs that in their mind glorified sex, drugs, and violence in such a way that one had to conclude that The Pop Music Was Killing Our Kids. Given that “We’re Not Gonna Take It” seems positively benign right now, I decided to remind myself of the list’s other contents. The artists whose songs were cited fall into two categories for the most part: Heavy metal bands and people who worked with Prince, including the man himself. All 15–complete with some filthy-in-85, safe-for-work now clips–after the jump! More »
Amazon has entered the world of charging $1.29 for certain songs, following the lead taken by iTunes yesterday and rendering somewhat irrelevant the snarky remarks of Diggsters. By and large, iTunes’ pricing scheme has resulted in popular songs having their prices jacked up; in contrast, if there’s some logic to which songs saw a hike on Amazon, I’m certainly not seeing it.
Remember that Iggy Pop biopic starring Elijah Wood? That Marvin Gaye biopic starring the guy from Law & Order? Kirsten Dunst playing Debbie Harry? Zooey Deschanel (or was it Melissa Etheridge) as Janis Joplin? Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix? Lenny Kravitz as Hendrix? What about Laurence Fishburne as Hendrix? You probably remember none of those movies, because after tons of buzz, they all faded away into the veritable Bermuda Triangle that is music-biopic development. Why do so few music biopics actually make it through development, when they usually go onto success and acclaim, whether they’re put out by Hollywood (Ray, Walk The Line) or indies (24 Hour Party People)? Variety lays it out.
Weezy had his week and those Brits in the funny military thrift outfits had their chance, but next week’s chart will be the true test of what style reigns supreme: slightly insane rapping or newly avant-garde sensitive balladry. More »
Many people find it hard to tell the great from the godawful when it comes to 21st-century mainstream rock. To help figure out which is which, here’s “Corporate Rock Still Sells,” where Al “GovernmentNames” Shipley examines what’s good, bad, and ugly in the world of rock and roll. This time around, he takes a look at a couple of old reliables who have re-entered the rock charts.
From time to time, we round up the all-important, all-summarizing last sentences of the biggest new-music reviews. This time around, we look at the writeups for Mötley Crüe’s ninth album, Saints Of Los Angeles, which hits stores today.
“”MTV has become bogged down in its own way. It’s a channel that used to be hip and has now actually become unhip. We signed with them because we believed they were right, but they haven’t come to the table. We need to find the right partner. They are not the right partner.” More »
iTunes and Amazon haven’t been great to the new Motley Crue single, but the gamers who Crue fans would have previously beat up after school are keeping the band alive. More »
It’s the last day of the month, a time for desk-clearing and “to do” list-finalizing and, in the case of April 2008, celebrating that a pretty horrible 30-day stretch is near its end. With that in mind, I’m going to use the last posting day of each month for “Rule Of Sevens,” in which I put together a couple of seven-item, mostly-commentary-free lists–from aborted post topics to my current best-of-the-year rundowns–for your reading pleasure. In the first installment, please enjoy these seven videos that I really wanted to post on various days during April, but didn’t, for reasons ranging from “I got distracted and watched it five times in a row instead” to “All I can really say about this song is ‘it’s awesome and you should listen to it now.'”
The men get older, but the leather-clad honeys just change their hair. We can debate just how corny it is when all their Cruefest openers join in at the end (wow, a context where Josh Todd and Jacoby Shaddix seem young!) More »
Like the Timex Social Club, I spend a lot of time lamenting the rumors that surround me every day. How do they get started? And where do they get crazy? In Truthmongerer, I’ll try to suss out the kernels of truth in the rumors that are taking up airspace in gossip columns, blogs, and our tips inbox.
THE RUMOR: Motley Crue’s “big announcement” today will break the news that the Sunset Strip lifers have signed with touring megaglomerate Live Nation, and that its first tour under the deal will be the traveling hard-rock circus Cruefest, also featuring Buckcherry, Papa Roach, and Sixx A.M.
TRUTH THRESHOLD: 80%.
Motley Crue’s management company, Tenth Street Entertainment, has shot down reports that the band’s “big announcement” this week would be about a Cruefest featuring Motley, Buckcherry, Papa Roach, and Drowning Pool. In a statement to Blabbermouth, the management company provided a list of artists whose names might be dropped during the April 15 press conference that’s making this “colossal announcement”:
It would seem that next month’s big Motley Crue announcement, which was teased in this space earlier this week, may in fact involve touring, with the band taking the ball that’s been dropped by the flailing Ozzfest and launching the first annual Cruefest, an innovatively named tour that will have Nikki, Vince, Tommy, and Mick as headliners. Whether or not there will also be announcements involving a long-rumored deal between the band and concert promoter Live Nation is unclear, but I really hope that something else will be announced at this press conference, because the lineup of supporting acts looks pretty grim:
With all four members apparently still chummy enough to begin the “shameless promotional gimmicks” leg of prepping forthcoming album The Dirt, Motley Crue is now teasing what remains of its fanbase with a “colossal announcement” at an April 15 press conference in the City of Angels, including a… More »
In between bouts of arguing over whether or not to sign with Live Nation, Motley Crue has apparently been recording songs for a new album, its first studio venture since 2000’s New Tattoo and the first full-length to have the original Vince/Nikki/Mick/Tommy lineup on board since Generation Swine. More »
Yesterday Robin Leach’s Las Vegas gossip blog reported that Motley Crue had signed a $100 million deal with Live Nation that would span three albums and three world tours. Leach claimed to have gotten the scoop from Vince Neil, who was throwing a birthday party at Koi in Las Vegas and who was all smiles, saying that Motley’s first world tour under the deal would kick off in July and that by the time the deal was up, the band would be celebrating its 37th anniversary. But then Nikki Sixx fired back via an e-mailed press release from his publicist, saying that Vince was, once again, just talking crazy talk!
A Motley Crue fan is suing the band’s management because of injuries he sustained during a Nov. 22, 2006, performance by the band. More »
A Motley Crue fan is suing the band’s management because of injuries he sustained during a Nov. 22, 2006, performance by the band. More »
