This Week's Top stories

Here are the top stories from this week's Day in Rock and the top Day in Rock digest stories

Free Soundgarden- Black Sabbath Reunion?- Velvet Revolver DVD- Prince Tour- Candlemass Reunion- Gay Bush- Star Spangled Slash- Di'Anno Plans Maiden Tour- more

Soundgarden's "Black Rain" music video is free on iTunes this week. The video features Metalocalypes' Dethklok and an animated Soundgarden. Get it here

Music Radar has an interesting spin on Tony Iommi's comments about writing new material, which you may have read about in yesterday's Day in Rock. The site asks, could Black Sabbath be on the verge of reuniting? While original members Ozzy Osbourne, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward have given vague hints that they're open to the idea, the only concrete news in that direction is that Tony Iommi is writing again and plans on working with his Sabbath/Heaven And Hell bandmate Butler. more

A public memorial has been announced for Gotthard singer Steve Lee, who was killed in a motorcycle accident. The memorial will be held in Switzerland on October 17 at the Gotthard Pass Hospice. A eulogy will also be given by two Capucine monks. more

Bush singer Gavin Rossdale has admitted he had an affair with gender bender male pop singer Marilyn, when he was 17. more

Every Time I Die got into a bit of legal trouble by promoting their upcoming DVD release by posting faked re-tweets from celebrities such as Kanye West, Andy Dick, Justin Bieber, and Jimmy Fallon. Read all about it here

The Devil Wears Prada, Silverstein, and For Today will be touring Canada together later this year. more

Rex Brown (Pantera, Down) had a bit of a big lineup news about his Arms Of The Sun group. Brown says "I got Vinny Appice to come in and play drums, in fact he's gonna come out this Monday - and I think that's gonna be the rhythm section. That's gonna be pretty hardcore brother." more

Cheap Trick have confirmed more US and UK tour dates for the fall. more

Tom Waits has collaborated with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band to release an extremely limited 78 RPM vinyl recording of "Tootie Ma Was A Big Fine Thing" , and "Corrine Died On The Battlefield." more

Slash performed the US National anthem at the Kings' game as they hosted the Atlanta Thrashers at the Staples Center; the Kings won the game 3-1. Check it out here

Twisted Sister's annual Twisted Christmas shows will not be performed this year. more

Accept will be streaming their Hollywood concert for free on October 19th live on the web for fans around the world more

Haste The Day has announced the "12 Days of Christmas Tour," a brief December trek that will also feature Oh, Sleeper, Our Last Night, and Conditions. more

Nevermore guitarist Jeff Loomis has posted a trailer for his forthcoming instructional DVD. The two disc DVD set is titled 'Extreme Lead Guitar: Dissonant Scales & Arpeggios.' You can view the trailer here

Image The Jam's 1980 classic, Sound Affects will receive a deluxe reissue next month on November 1, 2010. The album has been digitally remastered and will feature a second disc with demos, covers and more. more

White Wizzard's single featuring "Shooting Star" -- which was written as a tribute to Ronnie James Dio -- and "We Rock" will be released via iTunes on October 18 more

British Sea Power's new album, 'Valhalla Dancehall,' will be released in January. NME has a video of the band discussing it here

Chimaira will headline a handful of November/December shows with support from Impending Doom and Daath. more

The Menzingers are currently in the midst of recording an acoustic album. Currently untitled the album is being recorded in the band's apartment in South Philadelphia. more

The "Right to Rock" benefit will feature a live performance by legendary rock band Vanilla Fudge. Vanilla Fudge drummer, Carmine Appice, sits on Little Kids Rock's honorary board of directors and has been a longtime supporter of the organization. more

Classic Rock reports that Velvet Revolver will release a live DVD next month. Called Live In Houston, it was filmed in 2005, check out the tracklisting here

Prince held a press conference at Harlem's Apollo Theater to announce "Welcome 2 America," a forthcoming tour beginning in December 2010. more

Candlemass have been confirmed for next year's edition of the Roadburn Festival. Candlemass will perform a very special two-hour set, which will include "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" in its entirety; featuring original vocalist Johan Längquist. more

Former Iron Maiden singer Paul Di'Anno will perform the band's classic self-titled debut album in its entirety for the first time ever in the USA plus select cuts from "Killers" during his upcoming tour in December/January. Support on the trek will come from Pittsburgh traditional metallers Icarus Witch.

The Jimi Hendrix estate, Martin Scorsese and an old saxophone player named Lonnie Youngblood are among those battling over a 40-year-old song entitled "Georgia Blues" that was recently featured on a Scorsese-directed PBS special more

Prince held a press conference at Harlem's Apollo Theater to announce "Welcome 2 America," a forthcoming tour beginning in December 2010. more

Antiquiet just got their hands on a previously unreleased Weezer song from 1996 entitled Tragic Girl. Grab a listen here

Kid Rock has taken issue with his Las Vegas impersonator after he was photographed groping reality TV star Tila Tequila and didn't make it clear he wasn't the real deal. more

Guitar Hero 6 has just launched a new track pack which includes Muse's 'Resistance'. This is available for free this week for all XBox Gold Members and will then be available for sale worldwide from October 19th.

Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams has denied a claim she had asked for gang crime police to attend the Guns N' Roses concert at the Perth Motorplex later this year. more

The Experience Music Project announced that they will be opening the world's most extensive exhibit of Nirvana memorabilia in Seattle next April. more

U.D.O. have announced that its forthcoming studio album, titled 'Rev-Raptor,' has had its release date pushed back from the original January 14, 2011 date to March 18, 2011 more

The original incarnation of Corrosion Of Conformity (drummer Reed Mullin, bassist/vocalist Mike Dean and guitarist Woodroe Weatherman) filmed their concert last night for an upcoming DVD release. more

Alice Cooper has been booked to play the Halloween edition of Strictly Come Dancing. more

Vanna, Tides Of Man, Greeley Estates, and A Bullet For Pretty Boy will touring together in late-Nov more

Chronicle Books has released The Ultimate Metallica, a book of photos by Ross Halfin, featuring a foreword by Lars Ulrich, and an afterword by Kirk Hammett. more -

Metallica's Orion Surprise

Metallica surprised fans with a rare treat in Auckland, New Zealand last week when they played the instrumental, "Orion," in its entirety.

hennemusic has more details (and video!): Clocking in at around 8 minutes, the epic track has not been played live since 2007 and, prior to 2006, had never been played live from start to finish.

The brainchild of the late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton, "Orion" originally appeared on 1986's "Master Of Puppets." - Check out a video here and get more details

Duff McKagan Reunites With Axl Rose

Duff McKagan joined his former bandmate Axl Rose and the current incarnation of Guns N' Roses onstage at London's O2 Arena last week. This is the first time Duff and Axl have shared the same stage in close to two decades.

hennemusic has the details: Sebastian Bach posted some breaking news on Twitter: Bach confirms that Duff played three songs with the band:

"You Could Be Mine," "Nice Boys" (Rose Tattoo cover) and "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" (Bob Dylan cover). More details and photos and possibly video by the time you read this - here

AC/DC Up Against U2 and Bon Jovi

(Gibson) Concert giants AC/DC, U2 and Bon Jovi are the finalists for the top honors at the 2010 Billboard Touring Awards.

Billboard.com announced that the three veteran bands are each up for Top Tour and Top Draw awards. The former is for the top-grossing tour and the latter is for the top ticket-selling trek.

The awards are primarily based on worldwide box office for tours that took place from October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010. U2's ongoing 360° Tour, AC/DC's Black Ice Tour and Bon Jovi's The Circle Tour are the tours that earned each band their nomination. - more on this story

Motorhead Taking Homer Simpson to Hell

(Gibson) Motorhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister is dressing up as a cartoon for Halloween. The rock legend and the rest of his band join The Simpsons in the annual Treehouse of Horror comic series.

This year's issue, which is #16 in the run, features an installment titled "Homer Goes to Hell." The official description of the story says, "Metal music maestro Lemmy takes Homer on a hard rockin' heavy metal trip to Hell! Together they face the dreaded darkside." Guitarist Philip Campbell and drummer Mikkey Dee come along for the evil excursion.

In the promotional materials, Lemmy tells us "Bart means beer in German." And, as Sideshow Bob would remind us, "Die Bart Die" means "The Bart The" in German. -

Iommi, Appice and Geezer Butler Tribute Dio On New DVD

Eagle Rock is releasing "Neon Nights: 30 Years of Heaven & Hell Live in Europe," on November 16th and we received word today about the bonus material. But first the background details for those who missed the earlier report.

This DVD and CD release captures the historic four-man army performing at the Wacken Open Air Festival on July 30, 2009.

The DVD also boasts 30th anniversary interviews with all four band members as a bonus feature. Personal one-on-one's are conducted with Ronnie, Tony, Geezer, and Vinny as they reflect on the making of their Heaven And Hell album. Additionally, the Neon Nights DVD has newly recorded personal tributes from Iommi, Appice, and Butler in memory of Dio. - more on this story

Alice Cooper Munster Mash TV For Halloween

Trick or treat? It will be a treat for Alice Cooper fans when he hosts the Monstrous Munster Mash on WGN America Sunday October 31 (a/k/a Halloween) from 10 AM - 7 PM ET.

Alice will introduce and provide commentary for 18 episodes of the 1960s series that presented a family of monsters as equivalent to the average neighbors next door. (In the case of Alice Cooper and family this has become a reality!)

The series stars Fred Gwynne, Yvonne De Carlo, Al Lewis and Butch Patrick with a range of guests including Paul Lynde, Leo Durocher, Charlie Callas, Dom DeLuise, Jane Withers, Louis Nye, Harvey Korman, Frank Gorshin, Bonnie Franklin and Ken Osmond. So, in between trick or treating, tune in to see such great episodes as "My Fair Munster," "Rock-a-Bye Munster," "Lo-Cal Munster," "Munster Masquerade," "Prehistoric Munster" and many, many more. - more on this story

Gene Simmons Websites Under Attack

Rock Radio reported early Friday morning that websites owned by KISS star Gene Simmons are currently under attack by filesharers who object to comments he made last week over illegal downloads.

At a TV industry conference Simmons said: "Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line."

In response a community of militant peer-to-peer users under the banner of Operation Payback (is a Bitch) have begun flooding GeneSimmons.com and SimmonsRecords.com with so many requests for web pages that legitimate visitors find they often can't see the sites; and when they can, the pages load slowly. - more on this story

Freddie Mercury Biopic Will Focus on Music

(Gibson) Screenwriter Peter Morgan says the forthcoming Freddie Mercury biopic will focus on the Queen singer's musical career, as opposed to his personal life.

Speaking to Cinemablend.com, Morgan said, "I didn't want to write an AIDS movie, to be honest with you. I just looked the period. It's sort of where he rejects [the other members of Queen] and comes back to them. It's sort of like a family movie. It's sort of like, 'I hate my family, I want to be independent, and then I come back.'"

The surviving members of Queen – Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon – are consulting with Morgan as co-producers of the film. Morgan indicated, however, that the movie will present a warts-and-all treatment of the band. "I'm not sure how much they'll like what I write," Morgan said. "I think they'll recognize the truth in it, but it's a series of painful memories for them. I'm essentially writing about the most painful time in the band's history." - more on this story

Slipknot's Clown Issues Threat

(Rock Radio) Slipknot percussionist Sean 'Clown' Crahan, who started the band with tragic bassist Paul Gray, says the outfit will come back stronger and leaner as a result of his death and has issued a threat on his colleagues' behalf.

In an emotional heart-stirring speech he tells Sirius XM: "Starting the band with Paul, I have a heavy responsibility to think about what he would have liked for what we started together. It wasn't just Paul and I in this band, let's make that clear, but we started something together. He's so big right now, so it's time for the rest of us to get what we've always needed. The big bands need to get the f*** out of my face. The industry needs to get the f*** out of my face. Everybody needs to get out of our way because we're going to spread the seed.

"It's going to take time, but this is a threat. Today is a threat, a new beginning. And that's how I want it to be." - more on this story

The Doors Unreleased Live Recordings With Albert King

Yesterday's announcement that The Doors would be the first band to offer downloadable content for Rock Band 3 also included a tidbit about the release of a special album featuring previously unreleased live recordings.

We dug a little deeper and have some more info for you. The Rock Band announcement placed the release on Nov. 22nd but The Doors official store states that Live In Vancouver will be released on Tuesday November 23rd.

The Doors Live In Vancouver will be a two-disc offering capturing The Doors set on June 6, 1970, at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, British Columbia, that featured a guest performance by Albert King on four songs and includes "When The Music's Over," "Five To One," an extended version of "Light My Fire" and much more from this historic performance. - more on this story

Billy Joel Hitting The Big Screen

Billy Joel's documentary feature film The Last Play At Shea will hit the big screen at over 120 theaters across the country on October 21, 2010.

In addition, several venues will extend the film for a traditional theatrical run. Here is the synopsis for the film:

The intersecting histories of a landmark stadium, a volatile baseball team, and a music legend are examined in a film that charts the ups and downs of the New York Mets and the life and career of Long Island native Billy Joel. When Joel learned that he would be giving the last musical performance at Shea Stadium, he decided to capture the event on film and then create a unique motion picture that would also tell the story of Shea stadium itself, and its place in the New York and Long Island history. - more on this story

Beastie Boys Back At Work Following Adam's Cancer Battle

(Gibson) The cooking blog of Tamra Davis (wife of the Beastie Boys' Mike D) is full of sweet nuggets, but this week's entry was particularly savory – indicating progress on a new Beastie Boys album and the health of key member Adam Yauch.

"Mike is back mixing his record, which means Adam Y is feeling better," wrote Davis. "Yeah!"

This is the first update that Beastie Boys fans have gotten in months regarding the health of Yauch, who announced the discovery of a tumor in his salivary gland via video message in July 2009. - more on this story

Guitar Hero: Linkin Park

Linkin Park will be the first band to bring downloadable content to both Guitar Hero and DJ Hero.

The Linkin Park track pack will feature a collection of songs from Linkin Park's new album, A Thousand Suns, and will be available for download beginning October 19.

"We're looking forward to bringing our new album to Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock and DJ Hero 2," says lead vocalist Chester Bennington. "I think our fans will have a blast playing it." - more on this story

The Doors To Rock Band 3

(MTV Games) The music of The Doors will be the first available for download in Rock Band 3 when the game launches Oct. 26 in North America and Oct. 29 in the rest of the world.

Harmonix are giving away three of The Doors' songs for one week to any fan that purchases Rock Band 3 and plays online to celebrate the release of the game.

On Oct. 26, twelve of The Doors' most-loved songs, including three tracks with the Pro Guitar and Pro Bass feature, will be added to the Rock Band 3 Music Store of downloadable content for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 system and Wii. It was previously announced that The Doors' quintessential song, "Break On Through (To the Other Side)" is featured in the on-disc soundtrack of Rock Band 3 and is also the soundtrack for the game's opening cinematic clip. - more on this story

Jefferson Starship's Lavitz Dies

(Gibson) The Deep Purple Appreciation Society has announced that keyboardist T Lavitz has passed away at age 54 in his sleep. Over the years, Lavitz was a member of Dixie Dregs (with current Deep Purple guitarist Steve Morse), as well as Jazz Is Dead, The Bluesbusters and Jefferson Starship.

The keyboardist was asked to join jazz fusion band Dixie Dregs in 1979, when he was still a senior at the University of Miami. Although the band broke up in 1983, he joined the group for its many reunions, and also worked with his old buddy Morse on the guitarist's solo albums.

Lavitz also released several solo albums, including 2009's Electric, in addition to appearing as a guest on a number of other artists' releases. The keyboardist worked with Robby Krieger, Pat Benatar, Nils Lofgren, Widespread Panic, his old buddy Morse and many others. -

Metallica and Zeppelin Mistakes

(Gibson) Recording accidents sometimes they make it through to the listener intentionally, and sometimes they sneak by purely by accident, but however they get to us they're part of what makes rock and roll so much fun, and what keeps kids wedged between a set of headphones when they probably should be studying. Gibson counts down 10 of the greatest mistakes that made it to tape. Here are just two of them:

6. Metallica – "The Four Horsemen" (Kill 'Em All, 1983) One of the most unique features of Metallica's classic track "The Four Horsemen" is its distinctive simultaneous two-headed guitar solo, heard from 4:10 to 4:30. You can hear two Kirk Hammetts, one in each speaker, playing roughly similar but still quite different solos. In 1991 Hammett told Guitar World this cool effect was entirely a fluke. After recording two takes of the solo, Hammett and Co. were trying to decide which one to use. "I listened to both tracks at once, to see if one would stand out," Hammett said. "But playing both tracks simultaneously sounded great, and we decided to keep it like that on the record. Some of the notes harmonized with each other, and I remember Cliff [Burton, bassist] going, 'Wow, that's stylin' – it sounds like Tony Iommi!'"

3. Led Zeppelin – "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" (Led Zeppelin, 1969) "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" is an eerie, moody track to begin with, but if you listen very closely you'll hear a ghostly voice at 1:43. What is it? A backwards-masked magic spell? Some kind of ghostly incantation? Nope. That's actually the sound of Robert Plant singing along with drummer John Bonham during tracking, and there was no way to delete Plant's singing from the drum tracks. Whether that's his actual naked voice leaking through the drum mics, or perhaps being blasted through Bonzo's headphones, perhaps we'll never quite know, but it sure sounds cool, and adds yet another interesting layer to discover among Led Zep's tapestry of orchestration - more on this story

Lord Says Deep Purple MKIII Reunion Unlikely

(Gibson) When Deep Purple set out to replace iconic lead singer Ian Gillan and longtime bassist Roger Glover, it appeared the band were entering a phase of lesser glories. Instead, the group was energized by the addition of a young, hungry David Coverdale and Trapeze bassist Glenn Hughes, and released the torrid Burn and its follow-up, Stormbringer. Ultimately, Deep Purple's newfound, soulful direction didn't sit well with Blackmore, who left the band to form Rainbow. Ultimately, they soldiered on for another year before calling it quits. But with the later success of Coverdale in Whitesnake and Hughes in Black Sabbath and, more recently, Black Country Communion, suddenly that MKIII line-up appears, in retrospect, to have been something akin to a supergroup. And the prospect of reforming this supergroup was put to keyboardist Jon Lord by Classic Rock magazine. While Lord said there are no plans to get the group together at the moment, he did have some interesting insights on the subject.

"I know a lot of people would like it to happen," said Lord. "But it would have to have [drummer] Ian Paice involved, and right now he's committed to the current Purple line-up. And I know they are planning a new studio album, as well as more touring."

Lord did reveal, however, "I got an email from David recently, and it seems Glenn and Ritchie might be into it, although I don't know how Glenn feels now, with Black Country Communion happening. Yes, I would love to play with Ritchie again, but don't read anything into that as far as MKIII is concerned." - more on this story