One time guitar-pop favourites Hot Hot Heat are set to release their third record on September 10th. Titled Happiness LTD, the album was written while the band toured the world in support of their previous album, 2005’s Elevator.
North Carolina’s Sanctity have announced their first ever headline tour of the UK. Arriving in late October, the thrashers will be fresh from touring with Machine Head in the US, and look set to capitalise on the success of their previous UK tour with Trivium.
Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant has collaborated with bluegrass star Alison Krauss to release an album titled Raising Sand. Due for release in October, the record will comprise blues, R&B, country and folk songs originally recorded by the likes of Tom Waits, Gene Clark, Little Milton Campbell, Mel Tillis, Townes Van Zandt, Doc Watson, and Phil and Don Everly.
Bristol’s Fortune Drive have joined forces with gHOSTBOY, the graffiti artist widely hailed as the next Banksy, for the cover art of their debut album, A Modern Question. One of the new wave of guitar bands coming out of Bristol, Fortune Drive is fronted by Bobby Anderson, son of Carleen Anderson of the Brand New Heavies. He also had the distinction of being given his first guitar by none other than Paul Weller.
Sepultura guitarist Andreas Kisser is set to visit the Guitar Institute in Kilburn later this month to give students an exclusive clinic as part of the school’s Metal Hammer Weekender, described as “the ultimate metal workout, building up the skills needed to tackle the most demanding elements of this style.”
The recent decision of New Order and Joy Division bassist Peter Hook to use a live radio show as a platform for announcing the demise of New Order continues to ripple through the music industry. While Hooky was adamant that the band was finished, his band-mates, singer Bernard Sumner and drummer Stephen Morris, declared that they had no idea what he was talking about.
There were queues most of the time at the Music Live show in Birmingham (UK) this past weekend. Queues of musos and fans. If they weren't musos queuing up to buy gear or to get some tips from watching Stuart Bull on the Lick Library stand they were fans queuing to get into the live music hall; if they weren't queuing to get into the live music hall, they were queuing to get into the demo booths, and if they weren't queuing to get into the demo booths they were queuing up to have their memorabilia signed by the stars who'd come to lend a little personal endorsement to the products they play.
We had to queue too. iGuitar and Lick Library TV had to take their place in line behind the fans and musos to get our interviews with Kerry King of Slayer and Duff McKagan of Velvet Revolver - or rather, in terms of who they were appearing with at the show, Kerry King of Marshall amplification and Duff McKagan of Rotosound strings, Fender basses and Gallien-Krueger amplification. In fact, Kerry King was so busy during the show that we - and he, and the Marshall staff - had to stay behind and do our interview after closing time.
You could take the cynical view that they sign the posters and programmes because they get free gear for doing so - except both McKagan and King endorse that gear because that's the gear they play. "I've used this same set up ever since Guns N'Roses got its first advance and I could go out and buy some decent gear - way before anyone offered me any kind of an endorsement deal," McKagan told us. Same deal with King, who took us through the design concepts for his signature Marshall 2203KK head. They care about their gear because they might be stars, but more than that they're musos.
And these guys care about their fans. They're patient, they're courteous and not once do they ever come across as 'big time'. They work hard, too, going from signing session to interview to demo to more signing, always with time to chat and put their fans at ease no matter how long the queue might be. Perhaps that's because they might be stars, they might be musos, but at heart they're still fans, too. They both chat about people they are in awe of, and how the example of those people keeps them working at it. Fans N'Musos? One and the same really. A muso is just a fan who did something about it.
