Sister Hazel Week: Day 4 "Shame"

Learn more about the new CD, preview some tracks and grab tour dates - here

Another Emo Suicide

Blabbermouth reports: According to the Daily Mail, a 13-year-old British fan of Bullet For My Valentine and My Chemical Romance hanged himself after being bullied on Internet social networking sites for his clothes and love of "emo" music and punk rock, his parents believe.

Sam Leeson killed himself in his bedroom after suffering months of "sickening" abuse from cruel youngsters who bombarded his home page with offensive emails.

The schoolboy was tormented about his love of heavy metal, "thrash" metal and "emo" music — a style of hardcore punk whose fans wear dark clothes and have long hair. [that was the mail's definition not ours or Blabbermouth's. We can't speak for Blabbermouth but we're pretty sure they know the difference between hardcore punk and depressing pop with guitars a.k.a. emo. But back to the seriousness of this article, - read more here]

Lil Wayne Bigger Than Kanye

Billboard reports: It's all about Lil Wayne this week as The Billboard 200 prepares for the arrival of "Tha Carter III." The rapper's new Cash Money/Universal album will easily bow at No. 1 next week, as it leads Nielsen SoundScan's Building Chart, to be released this afternoon (June 11) at 5 p.m. ET.

Unweighted first-day sales of "Tha Carter III" at nine leading accounts through the close of business yesterday (June 10), stood at 423,000. Sources close to the album project "Carter" could shift between 850,000-950,000 in its first full week. That would easily give Wayne the biggest sales week of the year, and the best since Kanye West's "Graduation" started with 957,000 last year.

To compare, "Graduation" saw a first-day Building number of 437,000 from eight accounts, about 3% more than that posted by "Carter." - more on this story

Motley Sue Management Again

TMZ reports: The members of Motley Crue have filed yet another lawsuit against their management, once again claiming they're the victims of greed and shady deals.

In the lawsuit, filed today in LA County Superior Court, band members say manager Burt Stein and his management companies were supposed to watch their back -- but instead took money and made backroom deals without their permission in order to cash in on the band's popularity.

If this sounds familiar, it is. Back in 2006 the band sued another manager, essentially alleging the same thing. That case was settled. We couldn't reach Stein for comment. - read the docs

Winehouse's Husband Offers Cash To Beat Up Pete Doherty

NME reports: Amy Winehouse's husband Blake Fielder-Civil allegedly offered an inmate at London's Pentonville Prison £20,000 to beat up Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty.

According to The Sun, Fielder-Civil was convinced that his wife was cheating on him with the singer/guitarist, so attempted to enlist Richard Lyttle, a former doorman who was serving time with him in jail, to harm him.

However, according to the newspaper Lyttle did not accept the money, and instead reported Fielder-Civil to the police when he left prison. - Find out how well UK justice continues to work here

Free Pearl Jams, New Guitar Hero Coming, Maroon 5 Deluxe, Plant and Krauss, Bands Sue Label, Harp Mag Resurrected, M.I.A. Tour Goes M.I.A., RIAA Drop Suit and more

NME reports: Here are some Thursday quicks for you: Gearing up for an early summer tour, Pearl Jam will offer its fans exclusive "mobile bootlegs" of several songs from each performance along the road. more

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss CD "Raising Sand" has earned three of the most prestigious nominations for the seventh annual Americana Awards. Besides being nominated for "Album of the Year", Krauss and Plant are also among those tabbed for "Duo/Group of the Year", and a tune from the CD earned a "Song of the Year" bid more

Speaking of Zeppelin, we have some news about the Zep tribute band that played the DVD release we put on a few years back that Axl Rose showed up at. That band Spirit of Zeppelin (featuring Frank Simes who has played with artists ranging from Mick Jagger to Stevie Nicks and Don Henley) will be performing at Di Piazzas in Long Beach, California on Friday, June 13, from 11:30 PM till 2:00 AM. If you mention "Spirit of Zeppelin" at the door the admission is free. There is no age limit. Di Piazzas is located at 5205 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach, CA 90804. The cross street is Anaheim. Also of note, Mark Romans actually plays John Bonham's "Green Sparkle" drum kit at most SOZ gigs. more about Spirit of Zeppelin

The fourth installation in the Guitar Hero series has been announced as "Guitar Hero: World Tour." The new game is planned for a fall 2008 release for Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, and PS2 and is to support a drum kit with cymbals, a new guitar controller, and a microphone. more

Maroon 5 are jumping on the "let have our fans buy our album twice bandwagon. Billboard reports that their 2007 album "It Won't Be Soon Before Long," will be reissued in expanded form July 8 via A&M/Octone. The package will include a bonus DVD with four music videos and a full concert shot last year in Montreal. more

Carrie Underwood has extended her maiden headlining tour, dubbed Carnival Ride, through mid-December. The new leg begins Sept. 23 in Cleveland. more

Industry speculation that Michael Cohl is out as chairman of the board for Live Nation is premature, but it's apparent that there is plenty of discord atop the world's largest concert promotion company. Even if he remains in place for now, some sources indicate that Cohl's departure from Live Nation is imminent. more

Founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Harp Magazine Scott Crawford today announced the launch of BLURT, a new music digital-magazine. He will be joined by Managing Editor Fred Mills, Senior Editor Randy Harward, Associate Editor Andy Tennille and Contributing Editor A.D. Amorosi. www.BLURT-online.com

The RIAA has voluntarily dropped the case of Warner Vs. Cassin, one of several suits that revolved around the question of whether making MP3s available for download qualified as copyright infringement. It's noteworthy that the RIAA dismissed the case itself, rather than waiting for the court to follow recent precedent more

So, M.I.A., why are you canceling your European tour? Are you hesitant to spend July hopping around Europe due to your visa issues? "I'm canceling because I feel like physically I just have to stop for a second," she told New York. more

The Polyphonic Spree, Ambulance Ltd and Universal Music Group all filed papers on Friday (June 6) objecting to TVT's attempts to sell its record contracts with bands that signed to the label before it went bankrupt. - more on this story

Slash Working on Solo CD

Spinner reports: While media and fans keep speculating on a new singer for Velvet Revolver, Slash isn't waiting around, but rather, keeping busy with solo project.

"I'm working on it pretty aggressively right now while I have the time cause as soon as Velvet finds its singer, then it's going to be off the races with that," he tells Spinner. "I'm using this little period to be able to do as much on my solo record as possible. I'm not sure exactly when it will come out, but hopefully it will come out before the Velvet record."

"It'll be my first solo record," he" continues. All the other ones were just me putting other bands together and going out and just jamming. This will actually be a little bit more personal."
- more on this story

George Michael Retiring

BBC reports: George Michael has announced two major concerts in London to mark the end of his 25 Live Tour, and says he does not intend to tour again.

The star has labeled the dates at Earl's Court in August "The Final Two". It is a nod to his sell-out Wembley Stadium show, The Final, with Andrew Ridgeley in 1986 - when he brought the curtain down on Wham!

The 25 Live Tour began in Barcelona in 2006, and has so far played to more than 1.3 million fans across Europe. - more on this story

Idol Airport Gun Bust

TMZ reports: Times really do get rough after "American Idol!" Security officials nabbed season four finalist Vonzell "Baby V" Solomon yesterday at Southwest Florida International Airport when they found an unloaded gun in her luggage.

Get this -- turns out Solomon actually has a permit to pack heat, but she still can't have one in an airport. Cops took her gun away and sent her packing with a court date.

Apparently the less successful "Idol" contestants are forced to be their own security! - More TMZ Idol news

Blink Star Talks About Emo Suicide Claims

PR reports: Buzznet caught up with Angels & Airwaves front man Tom DeLonge today who spoke candidly to the recent MCR controversy (they are being blamed for influencing a teen to commit suicide) that made headlines and whether he believe in the whole "music saves lives" idea and if there's too much responsibility on the musician?

DeLonge: "The same sort of thing happened to me with Blink, so I can understand what it's like to be a part of something like that. We had a victim of the Columbine shootings take his life with our song on repeat. You kinda go through these situations where you blame yourself —but you can't. You have no idea who these people are.

"And My Chemical Romance, they spend a lot of time singing about coming together and there's ingredients of rebellion and angst, but what band doesn't have that when you're young?" - Full interview

R. Kelly Trial Deals With Sex Tape Minutiae, Possible Mistrial?

idolator reports: After much discussion from witnesses regarding the possibility that the R. Kelly sex tape was a computer-generated forgery, it has now come forward that the prosecution gave the defense an exceptionally poor DVD reproduction of the original tape, which was used during its questioning of expert witness Charles Palm.

While Palm claims his testimony was based on the original, high-quality tape, defense attorneys claim the jury may believe they were acting in "poor faith" when they used the prosecution's cheap copy during Palm's testimony.

No one's currently asking for a mistrial (maybe they're saving this complaint for an appeal), but it's at least clear that the jury will have to be told the reason for the varying quality of the tape they saw, which may further confuse a jury that's already had to put up with some twisted sh*t. During deliberation, however, the jury will be given a VCR so they can watch the original sex tape, despite the defense's worry that they might break it or something. - more on this story

Slayer's Unholy Alliance Tour To Invade Europe

HER reports: The European leg of the mighty "Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter III" has been confirmed to kick off in Manchester, England on October 27 and will play nearly two dozen shows over a four-week period.

This third installment of what has been hailed as "the heaviest, darkest tour of the year," the "Unholy Alliance Tour, Chapter III" will feature Slayer, the undisputed kings of extreme speed/thrash metal, and two true princes of the genre, Trivium and Mastodon.

An opening act will be announced shortly. While Slayer will close all of the shows, they will be co-billed with Trivium on the UK dates. - dates

Does Lars Think He's Trent Reznor with Metallica Mystery Postings?

Blabbermouth reports: We told you yesterday about the mysterious "magnetica" artwork that appeared on Metallica's website. It now appears that Lars (he runs the band doesn't he?) is screwing with people's minds and stealing a page from Trent Reznor's book of "let's post cryptic crap on our website".

Blabbermouth has the details: Metallica has posted an updated version of the image that originally appeared on the band's official web site yesterday (Tuesday, June 10) under the headline "???."

There is still no word as to what the image represents or whether it will form part of the cover artwork for the band's new studio album. [Gene Simmons should follow suit and officially change the KISS logo into KI$$ in time for their new KISS Idol TV show. Now back to Metallica and this mysterious artwork: Our guess is that they are revealing the title of the new album a few letters at a time.
- See the new magnetica artwork and judge for yourself].

Janet Jackson Cancels Tour and Blames Label

E! reports: There are some people Janet Jackson just doesn't want to rock with. Like Europeans. And her record label.

The pop icon has called off the European leg of her heavily hyped Rock Witchu tour, blaming the promotional efforts—or lack thereof—of Island Def Jam Records.

"I'm trying to figure out a way to say this, but just to say it and to be quite honest, they just stopped all promotion whatsoever on the album, so I don't think you're going to hear another single off this album," Jackson told SOHH.com. - more on this story

Wait there is more!

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Subscribe to Day in Rock Report by Email

Add the Day in Rock to your site/blog/Myspace

Read Day In Rock Reports From Other Days

Submit news or a press release to the Day In Rock report