A Guns N' Roses lineup that reunites Axl Rose with Slash, Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum is looking like a lock for a 2016 stadium tour that will also include a headline slot at the Coachilla festival. Billboard and Consequence Of Sound have been digging behind the scenes and both seem confident that plans are firming up, although absolute confirmation isn't being offered, yet. It may come during a visit Axl Rose will pay Jimmy Kimmel during the first week of January. Rolling Stone says the New York Times has reported that the group is set for Coachilla appearances during both weekends of the California festival - April 15-17 and 22-24. Billboard sites reports that the group is looking to command $3 million per date to do a stadium runion tour with premium tickets priced close to $300. Whether Izzy Stradlin and Steven Adler are in the lineup is still unknown.
AntiMusic.com
.jpg)
Among the many tributes offered by fellow musicians to Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead was one from Queen guitar legend Brian May. May recalled the intensity of being on stage with him during a Queen concert about a decade ago and then passed along this remark; 'Words don't come easy, especially when you know Lemmy would have laughed at all of us to say dignified things about him being a hero. Any time I attempted to say anything complimentary to Lemmy to his face, he would fix me with a kind of amused, contemptuous stare. But a kind of a hero he certainly was. Unique in just about every way imaginable.' Lemmy died 12/28, just a couple of days after being diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer.
An update to the Guns N' Roses web site has it sporting a prominent Appetite For Destruction garphic, fueling expectations that a reunion involving Axl Rose, Slash and other veteran members of the group will be confirmed in the near future. With promoters eager to put summer festival tickets on sale earlier every year, springing the news in the winter becomes important even if the reunion itself isn't going to happen until the spring or summer.
The Rock Hall of Fame got this year's list of inductees mostly right by side stepping almost every out of genre act (N.W.A. was the exception), but two of the ones going in are problematic. Steve Miller gets in, but the Steve Miller Band has included more than two dozen members over the years, so he's in essentially as a solo artist. Deep Purple has been somewhat less of a revolving door, but has still seen plenty of turnover. Lead singer Ian Gillan is voicing strong resentment about the Hall's decision to exclude a couple of members in particular, Steve Morse and Don Airey. Guitarist Morse has been a member of DP since 1994. Airey became the keyboard player 14 years ago after Jon Lord retired. While they have longevity, the Hall's decision to focus on the members when the band was writing, recording and performing the music that most earned them the consideration as inductees is understandable. Getting honored on April 8 at the Barclays Center will be Gillan, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Ian Paice, Roger Glover, David Coverdale, Glenn Hughes and Rod Evans.
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band appeared on one of the funniest Saturday Night Live shows we've seen in a long time (also one of the only ones we've watched in ages). The E Street Band offered up Ties That Bind and one of the bonus tracks from The River expanded edition during their regular musical guest slot performances and were joined by Paul McCartney and the cast and crew for Santa Claus Is Coming To Town as the show's closer.
For a laid back dude, Jimmy Buffet stays amazingly busy. His latest ambition is to see his biggest song morph into a Broadway hit. Given his legions of fans, A Margaritaville based musical production is destined to open big. A team that includes Frank Marshall has been brought together to produce the stage show. Marshall and Buffett have been tight for some time. He slotted Jimmy into the last Jurassic Park sequel, Jurassic World, playing a barteneder at one of his Margaritaville Cafes. Jimmy also played live at a preview party for that movie. The storyline for the musical will be developed by Greg Garcia and Mike O'Malley. Garcia wrote Raising Hope and My Name Is Earl. O'Malley got writing credit on Glee, and the pair collaborated on Yes, Dear. Memphis and Xanadu Director Christopher Ashley will handle that role for the yet-to-be officially titled production. Buffett says the concept of a musical tied to the song has been 'percolating' quite a while and says now that a crew has been assembled, '...I am happy to sail with them to Margaritaville. I's going to be a fun voyage.'
We will find out Thursday 
Ritchie Blackmore has 3 firm dates with Rainbow scheduled for 2016, but more coule be in the offing. Blackmore says that if the Monsters Of Rock date in Germany on June 17 and the two other shows go well, more dates will probably follow. The revival of the Deep Purple spinoff will not mean the end of Blackmore's Night, the goth-folk project the guitarist started in 1997 with his future wife Candice Night.
An InterLeague game between the Atlanta Braves and the Boston Red Sox will be Grateful Dead night at Fenway Park. Fans attending the The April 28th game at the historic ballpark will get a Sox/Grateful Dead t-shirt and will be in on a pre-game concert. Proceeds from the event will go to fund initiatives supported by the Rex Foundation, the Greateful Dead's charity.
One of Rock's most notorious car enthusiasts is at the wheel for a 6 episode series that features him dropping in on other musicians on a x-country road trip. Sammy Hagar visits with former Van Halen band mate Michael Anthony, the Crue's Tommy Lee, Alice Cooper, Ann Wilson of Heart, Jeff Beck, Marin County neighbor Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and others on his Rock & Roll Road Trip, airing on AXIS TV starting January 24. The Red Rockers says, 'There's so much cool, history making stuff that happens off stage that fans have never really had access to, but I do. And that's where this show takes viewers. I'm hookin' them up with a real backstage pass.' The series premiers on January 24.
Pearl Jam's manager has confirmed via Twitter that the group will be on the road in 2016. Kelly Curtis and PJ's bass player Jeff Ament were on Twitter doing a Q&A with fans when Curtis tapped in with, "We will be announcing tour dates the first part of the year". Asked whether the group has something special lined up to mark it's 25th anniversary he added, "Yes, can't say anything yet."
AC/DC abandonned the Stage Saturday night 
The remaining pieces of last in a series of Rickenbacker guitars that met their end at the hands and sometimes feet of Pete Townshend during Who concerts was sold Thursday 
Steve Perry hasn't done a solo album since 1994 and, until last year, hadn't performed live in 18 years. One of those things is certain to change in 2016 and the other might, too. The former voice of Journey has been working on a new album for much of the past year. Speaking with KSWD in Los Angeles, Perry he is looking forward to wrapping the project up and getting it out. Perry performed with The Eels at a trio of concerts in 2014, his return to the stage triggering speculation that he might be open to an invitation to rejoin the group he split with in 1998. While Journey hasn't ruled that possibility in or out, nothing concrete has developed.
The psychedelically painted 1964 Porsche owned and regularly driven by Janis Joplin blew the doors off all estimates before the Sotheby's gavel fell on it's Thursdday
In a Q&A in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionaire, John Mellencamp reveals a preference to have his life end with a '...long and lingering death' so he has time for parting conversation. Of course the notoriously sullen and sarcastic Rocker also answered the question about his most marked characteristic with, 'My pleasing, positive, upbeat personality' and the one about what he most disliked about his appearance by sniping 'My appearance'. Responding to one inquiring about a talent he wished he had by confessing he wished he was a better people person and quickly qualified the remark by adding, '...but I know I have not been put on this earth to have small talk at tea parties.'
Robert Plant has recorded a song with a musician whose father was executed during political strife in Mali in the early 1960's. The former Led Zeppelin front man joins Ag Alhabib, who became a refugee as a young boy following his father's murder, on a song by the group Elbow titled The Blanket Of The Night. Proceeds from sale of the album it appears on will go to the British Red Cross. Speaking about the project and the reason he undertook it, Plant said, 'We have a worldwide international catastrophe. Talking about it is one thing, doing something about it is another. The position we are in, it's paramount we all do our best one way or another to help.' The song appears on a benefit album titled The Long Road that will get released March 4.
2016 is shaping up to be a very busy year for Bruce Springsteen. In addition to the 24 date tour he and the E Street Band will mount marking the anniversary of The River album (
Saying, 'There comes a time to... take yourself out of the game', Rush drummer Neil Peart has apparently called his own number and done just that. While he hasn't ruled out an occasional performance, this decision adds a degree of certainty that Rush is done as a band. Providing the driving beat for one of the great power trios of all time led to chronic tendonitis for Peart. Speaking with Drumhaed Magazine, Peart invoked a lyric line from the Rush song Losing It in explaining his decision to retire; 'Sadder still to watch it die, than to never have known it.' Geddy Lee quickly weighed in, saying he believes his drummer only meant that he no longer wanted to commit to full-scale tours.
In a dollars a cents sense, we now have a pretty good idea of who the biggest Beatles fan in America is. Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is reportedly said by Rollling Stone to be the high bidder for the drum kit Ringo Starr played in more than 200 performances and a Rickenbacker guitar that John Lennon gave Ringo. Irsay, who already dropped over $2 million to buy the logoed head from the bass drum Starr played when the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, paid about the same amount for the full kit. Yeah, Yeah Yeah... it IS a little like paying as much for a hub cap as the whole car cost, but Irsay probably feels no buyer's remorse. The NFL owner has now acquired an historically significant personal piece from all four members of the band - and he probably has enough left to commission automatrons of all four and stage a Beatles half time set during a Colts game. 
U2 had been scheduled for two performances in Paris last month. Those concerts were both cancelled 
Scott Weiland's death on his band's tour bus Thursday 
Material the earliest lineup of Pink Floyd recorded in 1965 and '65 has been released on an Ep titled 1965 - Their First Recordings. Four of the tracks were written by Syd Barrett, one by Roger Waters that features Richard Wright's first wife on background vocals and the young group's cover of I'm A King by Blues man Slim Harpo. The guitarist on the earliest recordings is Bob Klose. The group issued this statement about the release: 'To mark 50 years since the tracks were recorded, Phik Floyd have released a limited edition set of two seven-inch singles containing the band's first recordings.'
The inevitibly early demise of Scott Weiland came quietly. The troubled former front man for Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver died, apparently in his sleep, on his tour bus in Bloomington, Minnesota Thursday 
The Doobie Brothers have enlisted one of the most talented keyboard players in Rock to be a touring member of the band when they embark on a tour with Journey. Little Feat veteran Bill Payne rejoins a group he's done both studio and road work with in the past and a band that clearly values what he brings to the Doobie Brothers. Tom Johnston of the band counts himself as one of Payne's biggest fans, calling him '...a phenomenal, on-of-a-kind keyboard player', who '...is a huge plus both for the live show and for writing future studio projects.' The tour launches at the Irvine, CA Amphitheatre May 12 and treks east before a western swing that will warp up in southern California at the end of August.
Vinny Appice wants Bill Ward drummer back with Black Sabbath for its final go round, but he wants in, too, AND to have Tommy Clufetos, the stick man that has most reccently toured with Sabbath, to be in the lineup. The triple drum proposal will probably fall on deaf ears because a dispute pver pay even when there was only one drummer seems to have led to Bill Ward's exile from the group, but Appice might lobby Tony Iommi on the idea. Appice played drums during the Ronnie James Dio era. talking with Mitch Lafon's One On One, Appice speculated that the group plans just to use Clufetos, but says he's ready anytime they call, saying, 'I would love to play with them', and adding, I think what they should do is have everybody play. Bill comes out and plays, then I play a couple of songs, then Tommy as a special guest. It would be cool.'
REO Speedwagon and Styx regularly step-up to support organizations doing good things with benefit performances or donations. The two Mid West Classic Rock Bands formed a foundation that identifies and funds causes the groups want to support. The Rock To The Rescue Foundation has passed along a $25,000 donation along to a new branch of Sweet Stuff, the charitable foundation Josh Homme runs, that will be devoted to help victims and family members of those targeted in the November 13 attack on Paris. Homme's band was performing at the club where most of the senseless carnage perpetrated by terrorists took place.
