Peart has donated a signed 14″ Drum Workshop drumhead to help raise some cash for Robert “Bobby” Corrales, a Southern California deputy sheriff who is battling leukemia. The eBay auction is open until March 2, and the top bid at the time of this posting is $511.
Time to smash open those piggy banks, thumpers.
Not so fast, friends. You’re going to have look somewhere other than KISS for your fix of old-dude-rock, at least for the time being. According to drummer Eric Singer in the video below, the band doesn’t yet have definite plans to enter the studio, despite persistent rumors.
But he’s also pretty friggin’ hilarious. We told you about his upcoming solo album, but we neglected to mention some of the premium packages he has put together for those of you with enough scratch. Here they are, in full tongue-and-cheek glory:
$7
$15
$50
$250 (limited edition of 25)
$500 (limited edition of 15)
$1,000 (limited edition of 10)
$2,500 (limited edition of 5)
$5,000 (limited edition of 3)
$10,000 (limited edition of 1)
$20,000 (limited edition of 1)
$75,000 (limited edition of 1)
Yep, Mr. Freese is taking the solo plunge for the second time. On March 24, he’ll release a new album, Since 1972, as a digital download on his site; a physical product (can never have enough coasters, eh?) will be available a few weeks later. Freese will be handling drums, vocals, and nearly every other instrument as well.
Why? Because he is that bad a bad-ass.
We knew all that face time on Celebrity Rehab and Sober House was going to pay off for Steven: he just scored (err…um…) a new kit courtesy of Rikki Rockett’s Rockett Drum Works.
Now you can kinda’, sorta’ do so courtesy of DRUM! magazine. Peart will be the cover story for DRUM!‘s June 2009 issue, and instead of having the Professor interviewed by a regular old drumming journo, the magazine is turning over the question-asking to you, Neil Peart’s rabid fans. Just send your favorite to the following email address: neilpeart@drumlink.com. Fans whose questions are chosen will receive their names and pictures in the article. You got until March 15 to think of a good one. Check out the full details below:
[Press Release]
Enter Music Publishing, publishers of hip percussion mags worldwide, will feature Neil Peart on the cover of DRUM! magazine in June. However, instead of having one of its staff writers interview Neil, the company is inviting Neil Peart fans to conduct the interviews via email. In fact, the company has set up a special email address, neilpeart@drumlink.com, so the Neil Peart population can have their say. (Readers can also go online or access a question page on DRUM!’s YouTube site.)
Those fans who want to participate simply email their questions, and if chosen by editor Andy Doerschuk, they will have their names and pictures included in the story. “We’ve done this once before and it was a great success,” said Phil Hood, publisher of Enter Music Publishing. “With Neil’s fans it will be even better. We’re very curious to see what the results will be of our email story campaign.”
After receiving all of the interview questions, which are due by March 15, Doerschuk will then weave them into an integrated interview. “Neil Peart seemed like a great pick for this kind of story,” Doerschuk said. “After all, he has won DRUM! magazine’s “drummie” of the year for two straight years. Our fan base, regardless of age, obviously respects him and that did play into our decision to try this with him.”
DRUM! magazine expects a great response from Peart fans to this opportunity. The company just hopes that its drumlink.com server will not explode due to the amount of incoming email.
We’ve already posted several pics of Lars Ulrich’s signature kit, and now we got the goods on how its color came about.
[Press Release]
Metallic drummer Lars Ulrich wanted a new color in his life. More specifically he wanted a new orange finish for his set for the Death Magnetic tour.” And not just any orange,”said Terry Bissette of Tama.” Lars Ulrich was very specific that he wasn’t looking for something we already had, such as our Marigold Sparkle or anything like that. Our people in LA and Japan worked with Lars for a while before we came up with just the right shade to match what he was looking for.” That finish went on to grace Lars’s kit for the tour. Fortunately, for Tama and Metallica drumming fans, Lars Ulrich was willing to share.
For 2009, that special orange finish, now named “LU Magnetic Orange” for both the tour and drummer, is now an available finish for Tama’s Starclassic maple series. Drummer’s can re-create Lars’s tour kit, or choose from any of the staggering number of diameters and depths available in the Starclassic maple series.
We snapped a few in-the-wild pics of Danny Carey’s signature snare from Sonor at NAMM 2009. More photos of Sonor drums are available here in a Flickr set.
Orange County Drum & Percussion busted out with a black-on-black-on-black Travis Barker kit at this year’s NAMM show. The set was also—and understandably—outfitted with Zildjian Pitch Black cymbals. Less understandably, a “do not play” sign, which you’ll see in the teaser pics below, defaced this beaut of a bangable.
Check out our full OCDP gallery on Flickr for more images from NAMM.
It always happens this way. Before every NAMM show, I plan and plot and map out my strategy for hitting every drum booth in a methodical and efficient manner. But as soon as the doors are thrown open and I get that smell of new gear in both nostrils, I immediately run to whatever big and shiny drum kit I see first. This time, it was Tama that grabbed me by the balls with a Lars Ulrich signature set. Here are some teaser pics before we get the full gallery on Flickr up.
[Update: Our complete Tama gallery is now available here. It includes thirteen photos of the Lars Ulrich signature set.]
Well, his fiancee, Jill Scott, is doing the actual carrying and birthing and stuff, but Lil’ is the daddy-to-be. The couple have been engaged since June.
Seriously. You can actually own Vinnie’s first cell phone, purchased for him by his late brother Dimebag. It’s apparently been stored away in a shoe box for the last fifteen years, and if you’re lucky enough (i.e., rich enough) to have the winning bid, you can stick this piece of “heavy metal history” in your very own shoe box for fifteen more. The winner gets not only the autographed phone but six batteries, a charger, a car charger cord, and the satisfaction of knowing you helped Vinnie get rid of “this fucking Star Trek cell phone made by Motorola.”
The current top bid is $400. The auction ends on January 19, so there’s plenty of time to take out a loan.
[via Music Radar]
Jazz master Jimmy Cobb, perhaps best known for his drumming on Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, is the subject of a long and excellent 4-part interview with the site JazzWax. Cobb discusses playing with other jazz legends (e.g., Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley, and Miles Davis of course) and lots of other awesome tidbits that you’ll definitely dig.
Here are the links to each part:
Interview: Jimmy Cobb (Part 1)
Interview: Jimmy Cobb (Part 2)
Interview: Jimmy Cobb (Part 3)
Interview: Jimmy Cobb (Part 4)
Get your passports ready, thumpers!
[Press Release]
The year is off to a bang with the announcement of two of the music world’s most innovative and exciting Latin percussionists touring Europe together for the first time. Giovanni Hidalgo, widely regarded as the greatest living conga player, will be performing a series of workshops and concerts with master of Latin drumming Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez.
Called the “TRAVELING THROUGH TIME TOUR” after their critically acclaimed and ground-breaking DVD, they will be performing music from the DVD, which was described by Modern Drummer as “a percussion lover’s dream come true.”
Prepare to experience some of the most incredible playing of drums and congas in history. Better still, these masters will be explaining how each duet was conceived, how they approach their individual parts, and their approach to improvising within each piece during a series of workshops across the continent. This is a unique and rare opportunity to get up close and personal with these incredible players and to explore the bold textures and rhythmic complexities of Latin percussion.
The full lists of dates are as follows:
Horacio “El Negro” Hernandez & Giovanni Hidalgo: TRAVELING THROUGH TIME 2009
25 JANUARY – Vals-Tarragona/Spain – xQbeat Festival (concert)
28 JANUARY – Valencia/Spain – Auditorium (concert)
29 JANUARY – Milan/Italy (workshop)
31 JANUARY – Verona/Italy (workshop)
01 FEBRUARY – Brescia/Italy (workshop)
02 FEBRUARY – Barcelona/Spain (workshop)
03 FEBRUARY – Barcelona/Spain (workshop)
04 FEBRUARY – Huesca/Spain – Theatre (concert)
05 FEBRUARY – Zaragoza/Spain – Theatre (concert)
07 FEBRUARY – Barcelona/Spain – Auditoriun Percussion Festival (concert)
13 FEBRUARY – Cagliari/Italy (workshop)
14 FEBRUARY – Roma/Italy – Auditorium (concert + workshop)
16 FEBRUARY – Salerno/Italy – Il Moro Club (concert)
19 FEBRUARY – Lecce/Italy (workshop at Conservatory)
20 FEBRUARY – Larino/Italy (workshop)
21 FEBRUARY – Urbania/Italy (workshop+concert)
22 FEBRUARY – Udine/Italy (workshop)
23 FEBRUARY – Amsterdam/Holland – Bimhius (concert) + Conservatory (workshop)
25 FEBRUARY – Vienna/Austria – (workshop)
26 FEBRUARY – Gmunden/Austria (workshop)
For more information on tickets and venues, please see http://www.elnegro.com/ and http://www.myspace.com/horaciohernandez
The Traveling Through Time DVD is available from Alfred Publishing.
You just got to get a little bit naked:
You must remove one article of clothing—your pants, your top—or else you are not allowed in my dressing room. That gets the fucking party started so quick. Everyone’s walking around topless.
Does that go for dudes too?
[via Hard Rock Hideout]
