Categories
Books

It is a great read, I really enjoyed it!!!

Sammy Hagar fills in ‘Red’ with his colorful life story
Talk about the best of both worlds: Sammy Hagar has managed to enjoy the outrageous spoils afforded members of rock’s pantheon without paying dues such as ravaged hearing and repeated trips to rehab.
So let the Red Rocker crow.
“I feel like I’ve always been misunderstood in rock, especially during my Van Halen years where people liked to take sides against me,” says Hagar, 63. “But no one’s had a better time, so I guess I just wanted to set the record straight and blow my own horn a bit.”
That’s the unabashed mission of the new “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock”. In breezy first-person fashion, Hagar mixes tales from his journey in rock with digressions about life-long fascinations with numerology and UFOs.
But what stands out most are stories of the singer’s rough beginnings in the fertile fields outside Fontana, Calif., a pit stop between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. His father, Bobby, was a boxer and a drinker. His nurturing mother, Gladys, fought to keep four children fed and clothed. Hagar got tough fast.
“All you need to know about Sam is that his father holds the record for the most times a fighter has been knocked down in one fight ó 20,” says Joel Selvin, a San Francisco rock critic who helped Hagar shape the book. “Sam’s always had diligence and persistence.”
A commitment to never again experience poverty fueled Hagar as he rose through a series of forgettable bands and landed as the David Bowie-meets-Robert Plant frontman of Montrose in 1973. Hagar never looked back, scoring solo success before joining Van Halen in 1985.
His departure from that mega-band ó Hagar says he was fired, and the band has maintained he left ó remains a sore subject.
“After the breakup (in 1996), some of the things the (Van Halen) brothers said were just flat-out wrong, like me not wanting to work hard,” says Hagar, who in Red describes the metamorphosis of a once-sweet Eddie Van Halen into a belligerent autocrat who pushed Hagar out the door by reconnecting with original singer David Lee Roth.
“I just hope Eddie’s doing better,” says Hagar, referencing Van Halen’s bouts with booze and cancer. “I see he got married. Maybe his wife has him on a tighter leash. We all need that, otherwise we’d all be crazy, including me.”
(Van Halen isn’t commenting, says Eddie’s wife/band publicist Janie Van Halen.)
Hagar had his moments, particularly during his drawn-out estrangement from his first wife, Betsy. In Red, he describes finally cutting loose on 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledgetour, which involved each member of Van Halen having a tent beneath the stage. They were not for naps.
But on that same tour, Hagar met his wife, Kari Karte. When she rebuffed his advances because she had to take her grandmother to a wedding, Hagar was smitten. The couple has two daughters and lives north of San Francisco.
It was Kari who planted a seed when she pointed out how Jimmy Buffett had created an empire out of his island life. “She took me to a show of his, and I was blown away,” Hagar says. “Jimmy is now the godfather to me. I kiss his ring whenever I see him.”
Hagar’s own beachy persona infuses his Cabo Wabo Cantina chain as well as his Cabo Wabo tequila, 80% of which the singer famously sold to Gruppo Campari in 2007 for $80 million. The poverty of Fontana clearly is in this Ferrari-collecting maniac’s rearview mirror.
“I feel like I’m at a turning point,” Hagar says. “I play music still because I love it (with both the supergroup Chickenfoot ó busy recording its second album ó and his longtime band the Wabos). But I’m now focusing on giving back through my Hagar Family Foundation. I’ve also got a restaurant I’m doing (in Mill Valley, Calif.) with (Food Network chef) Tyler Florence. So, I’m busy.”
Despite Hagar’s adult success ó the homes in Hawaii and Mexico, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction with Van Halen, the big bank account and personal bliss ó he does flash back to some hot childhood days and smile.
“I’ve had an awesome life, but I’ve never had so much fun as when I’d go out picking fruit with my mom in order to make enough money for new jeans for school,” says Hagar, who dedicated the book to his mother. “I guess hardships are nothing if you’re happy.”

Categories
Apple Stuff

It was a magical time!!

Steve Jobs killed music: Bon Jovi
Jon Bon Jovi has taken aim at Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, accusing him of “killing” the music industry with iTunes.
The rocker is saddened that children no longer enjoy the “magical” experience of buying records in a high street store because of the ease of downloading individual tracks onto an iPod.
And he lays the blame for the generational shift in music-buying at the feet of technology mogul Jobs.
Bon Jovi tells The Sunday Times Magazine, “Kids today have missed the whole experience of putting the headphones on, turning it up to 10, holding the jacket, closing their eyes and getting lost in an album; and the beauty of taking your allowance money and making a decision based on the jacket, not knowing what the record sounded like, and looking at a couple of still pictures and imagining it.
“God, it was a magical, magical time. I hate to sound like an old man now, but I am, and you mark my words, in a generation from now people are going to say: ‘What happened?’ Steve Jobs is personally responsible for killing the music business.”

Categories
Games

I still love it!!!

Ghostbusters lives on through comics, video games
PHILADELPHIA ñ More than 25 years later the answer to the question “Who ya gonna call?” remains “Ghostbusters!”
The specter-busting quartet that debuted in 1984 on movie screens and then was in a sequel and an animated series remains firmly planted in pop culture thanks, in part, to a wide international fan base, a new comic book series and a next-generation video game coming out this month.
“There’d be no Ghostbusters brand if not for the classic comedy that launched it all. It’s incredible that people are still responding more than 25 years later to these great stories and characters,” Mark Kaplan, vice president of consumer products at Sony Pictures Entertainment, told The Associated Press in an e-mail. “We love finding ways to expand that experience for the fans, whether it’s through midnight screenings and DVDs or games, comics and toys that really allow audiences to engage with the movie.”
Tom Waltz, an editor at IDW Publishing, which released the first “Ghostbusters: Infestation” comic last week, called the quartet ó Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler and Winston Zeddemore ó a veritable brand name, one that has drawn fans of film, TV, comics and gaming.
“Movies, video games, the prose novels and obviously the comic books are intertwined and to the point where I think … you’re trying to create a brand,” Waltz, who wrote the upcoming game, told the AP.
The original movie, titled “Ghost Busters” on screen, starred Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as out-of-work parapsychology professors who set up a ghost removal service and featured Ernie Hudson as their hired gun. It remains one of the top-grossing comedies ever. Its theme song, by Ray Parker Jr., begins with the classic line, “If there’s something strange, in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!”
The new Atari game, “Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime,” is set for release March 23 for Xbox Live Arcade, Sony PlayStation Network and Windows PCs via download at atari.com.
“In ‘Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime,’ we are introducing an entirely new look and gameplay experience on digital platforms that will impress new and loyal Ghostbusters fans alike,” said Jim Wilson, president and CEO of Atari Inc.
The upcoming release lets four players take part and play the roles of rookies who have been tapped to save New York from a ghoulish disaster.
Waltz called the four new characters ó Alan Crendall, Samuel Hazer, Bridget Gibbons and Gabriel Sitter ó not replacements for the original crew, led by Murray as Venkman, but the next generation.
“What I try to do, to a certain degree, is to mirror the four distinct personalities to our original heroes but in a way that the character who is the Venkman of the group would be the last person you’d think is the Venkman of the group,” he said.
He said he also strived to create “characters that are likeable enough in their own way with their personalities,” so that “people will accept them.”
Ultimately, he added, the characters in the game could find themselves being written into the comics, too.

Categories
Awards

Well deserved, one and all!!

Diamond, Cooper, Waits inducted into rock hall
NEW YORK ñ Tom Waits went for laughs, Alice Cooper for shock value, Leon Russell was quietly humble and Neil Diamond may still be talking following their induction Monday into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The acts were joined New Orleans piano maestro Dr. John and “Wall of Sound” singer Darlene Love at the annual black-tie dinner at The Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
A tape of the ceremony is to air March 20 on Fuse.
Diamond appeared jet-lagged for his induction: He said he flew 25 hours from Australia and is due to fly back there Tuesday to resume a concert tour. He took pictures of the audience and promised to “tweet this and tell everybody out there that they really do love me in the Hall of Fame.”
He criticized Paul Simon, who inducted him, for giving his upcoming album a hard-to-remember title (“So Beautiful or So What”). He then called it a great album and jokingly asked Simon for money for the plug. Simon handed over a bill.
The Brooklyn-born Diamond wrote pop-rock hits for himself (“Solitary Man”) and others (The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer”). Presidential daughter Caroline Kennedy was the inspiration for “Sweet Caroline,” now a Boston Red Sox anthem. Diamond settled into a comfortable career as a middle-of-the-road concert favorite, although he made some challenging recordings in recent years with producer Rick Rubin.
Simon noted that Diamond was first eligible for the rock hall in 1991.
“This has been 20 years,” he said. “My question is, What took so long?”
Then he provided his own answer: “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” Diamond’s duet with the un-rock ‘n’ roll Barbra Streisand.
Alice Cooper is the stage name for singer Vincent Furnier and his band, known for 1970s era hard rock songs “Eighteen,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and “School’s Out.” Their concerts were steeped in horror movie theatrics, and singer Rob Zombie, in his induction speech, said they had invented the rock show.
Cooper, the singer, wrapped a huge snake around his neck for his induction and performed a trio of the band’s hits in a shirt spattered with fake blood. A chorus of schoolchildren in gruesome black makeup joined them for “School’s Out.”
“We’ve always been a hard-rock band,” Cooper said. “We just wanted to decorate it a little differently.”
Zombie recalled how he painted a portrait of Cooper with dripping blood when he was in the fourth grade and asked to do an art assignment, drawing him some special attention.
Songwriter Waits is well-versed in blues, poetry and ballads, with songs rough and romantic. Several of his Hall of Fame predecessors have recorded his work, including Bruce Springsteen (“Jersey Girl”), the Ramones (“I Don’t Want to Grow Up”), Rod Stewart (“Downtown Train”) and Johnny Cash (“Down There By the Train”). Neil Young said Waits is “undescribable and I’m here to describe him.”
Waits noted that his rock hall trophy was heavy and wondered if he could have a key-chain version “that I can keep with me in case I hear somebody say, ‘Pete, take the cuffs off him. He’s a Hall of Famer.'”
He described songs as “just very interesting things to be doing with the air.
“They say that I have no hits and that I’m difficult to work with,” he said, “and they say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Russell composed “A Song for You” and “Delta Lady,” but said he was in “a ditch beside the highway of life” when Elton John called a year ago and suggested they record an album together. The result was nominated for a Grammy.
Russell, with a shock of long white hair and beard, walked haltingly onstage with the help of a cane and met John for a warm embrace.
“Thank you very much,” he said. “I appreciate it and Hallelujah.”
Love, whose voice cut through Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound,” called her induction into the hall her best 70th birthday present. She fought back tears in her acceptance speech, saying she had faith that the gift God gave her would sustain her for the rest of her life.
Love lent her powerful voice to several of Spector’s hits, in acts such as the Crystals and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans. Her “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is a holiday standard: She sang on U2’s cover and performs it every December on David Letterman’s show.
She was inducted with a comic ramble by Bette Midler, who said she was a goner when she first heard Love’s voice on a transistor radio.
“Listening to her songs, you had to dance, you had to move, you had to keep looking for that rebel boy,” Midler said.
Dr. John, born Malcolm John “Mac” Rebennack Jr., wore a bright purple suit for his big moment. He was inducted by singer John Legend, who recalled meeting him at a benefit for Hurricane Katrina relief. Legend said the new Hall of Fame member has been a leading global ambassador for New Orleans and its special musical gumbo.
“He has never stopped flying the flag of funk,” Legend said. “Tonight, he is definitely in the right place at the right time.”
That was a reference to one of Dr. John’s best-known songs, “Right Place, Wrong Time,” with Allen Toussaint and the Meters, which he performed as the ceremony slipped past midnight.
Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman and Specialty Records founder Art Rupe were also inducted in the non-performer category.