Extreme/Kotzen Tour Postponed
In news guaranteed to prompt the kicking of walls everywhere (or at least in my house), the Extreme/Richie Kotzen tour planned for April has been postponed amid a very cluttered touring market. Rescheduled dates will be announced soon though, so don’t flip out, okay?
Steve Stevens Guitar Masterclass
Guitar legend Steve Stevens (Billy Idol, Vince Neil, the Top Gun theme) will be in Melbourne on Saturday March 23 for a masterclass for Roland and World of Music. It’ll be at Ding Dong Lounge with doors opening at 3pm, and tickets are available from World Of Music. This is great news for folks who were bummed out when a previously-planned tour was cancelled last year. If you go, be sure to ask him about the stuff he’s been writing with Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach.
Monster 9-String Guitar Means Death For Us All
If you’re a guitar nerd like me, check out this monster Ibanez RG9 9-string prototype. It was unveiled at the NAMM Show a couple weeks ago. It has Lace Deathbar humbuckers (with coil splits) and it’s a 28″-scale instrument, tuned (low to high) C#, F#, B, E, A, D, G, B, E. The folks from Ibanez tell me this one is especially aimed at the djent crowd (obviously), so if you’re into Periphery, Tesseract or you’re into djent forefathers Meshuggah and you’d like to head them off by tuning even lower, you’ll be excited to know that Ibanez is hoping to make these monsters available by the end of the year.
Heads, Start Your Banging: CherryThrash’13
The mighty Desecrator – they’ve been compared to trash legends like Testament, Death Angel and Sacred Reich, don’t ya know? – will destroy everyone’s heads at CherryThrash’13 at Cherry Bar with Metal Storm and Join The Amish. DJ Mermaid will be along for the thrashtivities too. Doors open at 5pm, door charge is $13 from 8pm ’til 11pm then $10 ’til 5am.
Lita Ford Is Coming To Town
Pop-metal legend (and former Runaway) Lita Ford has announced a couple of Australian shows. She’ll be at the Prince of Wales Bandroom on Thursday May 23, and Factory Theatre in Sydney on Saturday May 25. Her band for this tour is Mitch Perry on guitar, Bobby Rock on drums and Marty O’Brien on bass.
Dave Hause Snags Gaslight Anthem Support
Philadelphian troubadour Dave Hause will be supporting The Gaslight Anthem this May. Rock Sound described Hause’s new album Resolutions as “an honest, open and fulfilling addition to the music shelf,” and Moon Back Music said it “managed to capture some of the iconic, American folk style storytelling of Springsteen and fuse it with his own punk rock sensibilities.” Meanwhile The Gaslight Anthem are touring on the back of their new album Handwritten. They’re at the Palace on Wednesday May 15. Tickets from Oztix and Ticketek, available now.
Pennywise Tour Re-Announced
The Pennywise Australian tour originally planned for August 2012 has been rescheduled, so if you have tickets for one of those dates you can now use them at The Palace on Thursday April 4. And if you didn’t grab a ticket last time round, they go on sale on Friday February 8 at 9am through Ticketek. Note that vocalist Jim Lindberg has returned to the band after a brief period with Zoli Teglas at the mic. Pennywise made a seriously killer album with Zoli but it’s great that they’ve smoothed things out with Jim.
Machine Head Begin Work On New Album
Machine Head toured for approximately 23 years on the strength of The Blackening before getting to work on 2011’s Unto The Locust. But there probably won’t be another exhausting million-year wait for their next one while they tour everywhere eight times. Singer/guitarist Robb Flynn has revealed on his blog that the band smashed out their first jam session last week to kick around some ideas for the next album. “Dave, Phil and I practiced the other day and it was a really productive first jam session,” Flynn wrote. “McClain had about five rockin’ riffs, Demmel brought in the skeleton of what feels like a great song and I had a few riffs that we rocked on, no full songs, but solid riffs. It felt good, good to be moving on from Locust. Super proud of that record, but it’s time to move on, and we’re ready to move on. Bring on the future with an open embrace.”
New Orianthi Album
Check out expat Adelaidean beauty (and guitar virtuoso, let us not forget!) Orianthi’s new album Heaven In This Hell, out in March. It was produced by David Stewart (Eurythmics), and it includes modern country and swampy blues elements as well as lots – lots – of rock. Ori is currently rocking as part of a three-guitar attack in Alice Cooper’s band.
Rock The Bay Returns
On February 16, Rock The Bay Festival at The Espy will celebrate its fifth year with their biggest and best lineup yet. Australia’s much loved and hairiest band, The Beards, will headline the 30-band, three-stage festival along with local heroes Electric Mary, Sydney’s Sleepmakeswaves, Bellusira, Tim McMillan Band (returning from Germany for a little while), Engine Three Seven, King Of The North, The Khyber Belt, Sleep Parade, Breaking Orbit (who seriously put out one of the best albums of last year, youse guys), New Skinn, Moroccan Kings, Manatarms (Chile, and these guys are fucking awesome too), One, Sons Of Abraham, Holliava and heaps more! Tickets are just $29+BF and are on sale now from oztix.com.au, The Espy, Fist 2 Face, Polyester Records, Greville records, Karova Lounge (Ballarat) and The Nash (Geelong). Head to rockthebayfestival.com for the full lineup.
