I'll be busy all day saturday, so just settle in here & we'll review of a few of the past week's events...
First up today is news that legendary redneck daredevil extraordinaire Evel Knievel is dead.
A native of Butte Montana, he was a media sensation in the 1970's.
Outside of a bunch of later arrests for petty bar fights and woman beating, having George Hamilton play him in a lousy tv bio pic & suing Kanye West recently (and settling just days before his death)...
he's likely to be best remembered for jumping the Snake River canyon, recounted here:
Here's Evel telling a story that was posted at WFMU earlier this year. It's one that will explain to every man & woman what they need to know about his special purpose & "why"...
Evel Knieval - Why
I though can't stop thinking about Evel, because we have a tight if somewhat tense personal relationship. Mainly because he lives not only in my heart, but in the garage. No , not his action figure, I lost that years ago...
But, every day I gaze at where the Evel Kneival pinball machine lives...
excuse me for a moment as I have to go down there and work this out...
Manufactured by Bally in 1976, by 1977 this machine soon became one of the most popular on the market, and remained so for years. Just like evel it has great action, and doesn't run from a fight.
A song featuring Evel ellin it like he sees it... and how he wanted it to be
..."until I'm gone"
Flicky - Evel Knievel Dub
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Also dying within the past week was Quiet Riot's lead singer Kevin DuBrow...
They say the 52 year old rocker may have been dead for almost a week in his las Vegas home when he was finally found...
His last words were apparently an I Love You text message sent to his girlfriend at late the final night she saw him.
When Metal Health ruled the charts in the early 80's, DuBrow had the biggest metal record of all time...
The band quickly went from touring in a station wagon to opening up arenas & playing the US Festival in 1983. They soon hit the arena circuit as headliners & topped the US album charts for over a month while selling a million units a week.
Eventually, the good times ended, their albums began selling less 7 less, from millions to tens of thousands, and later on even less.
DuBrow, who struggled with substance abuse issues, became sorta known as a big powda head asshole for years in LA around Gazarri's, Roxy & Rainbow scene...
I missed those days...but we can live
them vicariously via Decline of Western Civilization pt II & any of yer Vince Neil reality shows.
It was a long way down, and Kevin continued to reform Quiet Riot with various line ups & release albums over the years, occasionally hiring all new guys, but usually incorporating drummer Frankie Banali from the original classic era lineup.
In fact if ya go back to the late 1970's when the band was formed they had Randy Rhoads on guitar, but he left to join Ozzy and died in a plane crash after recording just two albums.
DuBrow's vocal idol was originally Steve Marriott of Humble Pie & Small Faces, who incidentally died about the same age in a house fire in the early 1990's. Marriott was coming home to the UK jetlagged from some aborted Peter Frampton sessions in the US, and spent the night prior doing some blow, drinking heavily & falling asleep with a cigarette in his bed...
Here, shortly after the incident Kevin covers Marriott's psychedelic drug ode here Itchykoo Park in a tribute to his late hero.
Quiet Riot - Itchykoo Park
other music related stuff:
Deutsche Grammophon the renowned German classical music company founded in 1898, is launching an online store called DG Web Shop. The shop will sell songs in DRM-Free mp3 format...
Amazon will be giving away 1 billion free MP3 songs, as part of a Pepsi promotion that’s set to kick off Feb. 3 during the Super Bowl. If you want songs, you'll need 5 special Pepsi bottle caps. Some major labels are balking at the terms though, which will compensate them some 20-30 cents per track less than their usual share of the pie. Amazon is offering participating labels 40 cents rather than the usual 60-70 cents the labels normally receive for DRM free tracks.
Frank Sinatra's heirs have have formed a 50-50 Joint Venture with Warner Music to capitalize in tie ins with Ol' blue Eyes back catalog called JV Frank Sinatra Enterprises. Rhino Entertainment will manage the JV with family reps; Tina Sinatra and WMG chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. will be on the board according to a press release.
In conjunction with former label EMI, Radiohead is offering a 4GB Radiohead USB stick with all their albums on it for sale in the UK.
While in other UK music download news, the Evening Standard newspaper is getting into the indie music promo game and offering downloads of unsigned Derbyshire based band Max Raptor
Max Raptor - Sparks
go figger...
anyhow
gotta go
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