Guns N’ Roses Accused Of Stealing ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’
(Radio.com) Guns N’ Roses are being accused of stealing one of their biggest hits. The Australian music website Max TV (via Consequence of Sound) recently noticed that Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” sounds suspiciously similar to the song ‘Unpublished Critics” by Aussie band Australian Crawl, which was released six years earlier. The publication points out that “Sweet Child O’ Mine’ has ‘the same chugging chord progression, a similarly-sweeping lead break, the verse melody, and the elongated one-syllable vocal in the chorus” as Australian Crawl’s song, which went to No. 1 in Australia. Australian Crawl broke up in 1986, a year before Guns N’ Roses recently Appetite For Destruction, which featured the track in question, but as COS notes, both albums were released in the United States on Geffen. Funnily enough, Australian Crawl’s singer James Reymar has acknowledged the similarities between the tracks before, but doesn’t seem interested in getting into court for this. So no, we probably won’t have a “Blurred Lines” level lawsuit anytime soon. Instead Reymar seems to be leaning in to the whole thing, even playing “Sweet Child O’ Mine” live from time to time.
Metallica To Headline The X Games
(hennemusic) Metallica will headline the 2015 X Games in Austin, Texas next month. The band was joined by pioneering skateboarder Tony Hawk to make the announcement for the June 4-7 event, which showcases the best in extreme sports. “We’re excited to be teaming up with our friends at ESPN again to headline the new Super Stage at X Games in Austin, TX on June 6 at the Circuit of the Americas,” says the band. “Being a part of the X Games will be a first for us as the premier action sports event celebrates 20 years of presenting the world leaders in extreme sports including BMX, skateboard, MotoX, RallyCar racing and more and we can’t wait to see what these amazing athletes can do! See you in Austin as we add another show to our summer tour!”
Rush Release Video With Footage From R40 Tour Opening Night
(Classic Rock) Rush have released a teaser video shot during the first show of their R40 tour – likely to be their last-ever large-scale road trip. The run of North American shows started in Tulsa, Oklahoma on May 8, where frontman Geddy Lee told the crowd: “We’re celebrating way too many years of music.” The show extended to two sets and an encore, totalling 24 songs, a drum solo and four video features, and included material the band hadn’t performed in years. Confirming the tour earlier this year, Rush described it as “most likely their last tour of this magnitude.” Manager Ray Danniels later said it was “between possible and probable” that it wouldn’t be followed with anything similar.
Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott Explains Direction Of New Album
(hennemusic) Def Leppard singer Joe Elliott says the band’s upcoming album features some classic sounds from their history while proudly displaying their influences on their sleeves. The UK rockers have been in the studio working on the follow-up to 2008’s “Songs >From The Sparkle Lounge” after completing some marathon songwriting sessions last year. “It’s all over the place,” Elliott tells VH!’s That Metal Show (video below). “Stylistically wise… I can’t really pinpoint, because every song is different from every other song. We’ve always aimed at that. “We hit it for the first time on ‘Hysteria’, where we’d done an album that allowed us to go in any direction we wanted to; it wasn’t just purely hard rock or metal. There was pop, there was ballady stuff. There was… everything other than acoustic; we didn’t have that covered at the time, but we did a few years later with ‘Two Steps Behind’.” “There’s some real classic Leppard-sounding stuff on the new album,” continues the singer, “but there’s also some stuff that a band that’s of our standing – basically, in our 50s – should be doing, which is a little bit more… I don’t wanna say grownup, ’cause that makes it sound boring, but a little bit more… organic, I think is probably the best way to put it. “We’ve allowed our roots, or the music that we were steeped in of other people, to soak into our music a little bit more. So whereas you can listen to a Zeppelin album and go, ‘I can hear a little bit of Muddy Waters in there,’ or a little bit of this, that and the other. You’ll be able to say, ‘That sounds a little bit like…’ because we’ve been honest enough to just say, ‘Well, if it sounds a bit like… This song sounds like Led Zeppelin,’ or, ‘This song sounds like Queen,’ then that’s us, that’s ’cause we always did. “But we weren’t trying to disguise everything too much; we just let it breathe and just be natural. So it’s a very mixed bag of songs. There’s fifteen of them on the go. I don’t know how many of them will make the album, but I’m hoping most of them will, because they’re all very different from each other and very representative of who we are right now.”
Duff McKagan Would Advise Slash and Axl Rose To Let Resentment Go
(Classic Rock) Former Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan says he has let go of a lot of the resentment he carried around for years. After overcoming alcohol and drug abuse, as well as his split from GNR, McKagan learned not to hold on to grudges. A chapter in his new book How To Be A Man (And Other Illusions) is called Let Go Of Resentments. Asked if he had any advice for Slash and Axl Rose – who have not spoken for years – McKagan tells Northjersey.com: “I just wrote about something that I understand about myself. Over time I’ve gotten rid of a lot of resentment I didn’t know I was even carrying around. I don’t try to impart anything in the book, though, but if I can write about things without being preachy and people get something out of it, that’s great.” McKagan also recalls how – after getting clean and turning his life around – he turned down the chance to spend a weekend partying with Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler so that he could finish work on some decking at his home. However, he didn’t tell Tyler the real reason he couldn’t make it.
Aerosmith’s ‘Dream On’ Remake Wins Sports Emmy Award
(hennemusic) Steven Tyler and Joe Perry’s video remake of “Dream On” with the Southern California Children’s Chorus to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing won a Sports Emmy Award on May 5. The Boston Herald reports the clip from ESPN’s “E:60” took home honors in the “Outstanding Open/Tease” category at a ceremony in Frederick P. Rose Hall at New York’s Lincoln Center. “It’s kind of a surprise, but I’ll take it,” said Casey Tebo, the director who filmed the performance, which was mixed for broadcast with scenes of the victims, the Martin Richard Foundation marathon team training in Boston and other Boston Strong images. “Steven asked me what we could do,” explained Tebo of the song’s re-creation. “I said, ‘Man, it’s gotta be something that will give you goose bumps.’ And we thought about what happened to Martin, and thought it would be great to have a children’s choir sing with them.” Everyone in the Aerosmith camp felt affected by the tragedy, including Tebo. “What happened affected us all pretty deeply,” said Tebo. “A friend of mine was standing right near where the bombs went off. He spent a month at Mass. General having skin grafts on his legs and hands. And Aerosmith has represented Boston for so long. ‘Dream On’ was a fitting song for the whole Boston Strong thing of trying to rise up after something terrible happened.”
Metallica’s Robert Trujillo Explains Extreme Sports Inspiration
(Classic Rock) Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo says his low-slung playing style is closely linked to his love of extreme sports. His comments come as the band confirmed they’ll appear at this year’s X Games in Austin, Texas, on June 6, headed up by pro skater Tony Hawk. Trujillo tells Rolling Stone: “The style and the way that I play, low centre of gravity, has a lot to do with skating and surfing and even snowboarding. It’s kind of a natural thing for me.” He believes the strong links between metal an extreme sports is here to stay. “It always seemed like the skaters and the surfers were really connected to the music of Metallica,” he says. “There’s a connection to those type of people – it’s similar energy. You see at these events they’re playing a lot of hard rock metal and punk rock.The tribe that followed that style of music is still around for the sports. These guys are listening to that music. It’s important to them. It’s a part of their lineage.”
The Beastie Boys Animated For Fleetwood Mac Debate
(Radio.com) The Radio.com’s latest Minimation, where they animate classic archive interviews with legendary artists, they revisit a 2007 interview where the Beastie Boys take on the timeless debate of which Fleetwood Mac album is better: Rumours or Tusk? If you’ve ever had the opportunity to talk to all three Beastie Boys together (that is Mike D, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz), you’ll appreciate this episode of Minimation. The experience was akin to herding cats. By 2007, when this interview took place, it was well known that that’s how talking to the Beastie Boys would go. Asking what inspired their then-new, all-instrumental album, The Mix-Up, probably never had a chance of getting any legitimate answer. Adam Yauch’s answer, that they were influenced by Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, should probably be taken with twelve grains of salt; as should the ensuing debate over whether or not Mike D prefers Tusk to Rumours, which included shout outs to the Clash and Electric Light Orchestra. As someone who has interviewed the Beastie Boys together, I can promise you that this is exactly what interviewing them was like. It was difficult, frustrating, fun in the way that a roller coaster that you can’t wait to get off of is fun. And I wish I could have interviewed them one more time. R.I.P. Yauch.
Elvin Bishop Big Winner At The Blues Music Awards
(The Blues Veteran guitarist Elvin Bishop was the big winner at this year’s Blues Music Awards in Memphis, Tennessee last week – scooping the best album, song and band prizes. Fellow veterans Charlie Musselwhite and John Hammond were also honoured, as were Bobby Rush and Joe Bonamassa. Bishop – who first came to notice in the Butterfield Blues Band in the 1960s – scored all the top gongs via latest album Can’t Even Do Wrong Right. Meanwhile, Rush was both the B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Best Soul Blues singer, while Musselwhite was top in the harmonica section and Bonamassa took the guitar award. Hammond picked up prizes for best Acoustic Artist and best Acoustic Album for latest release Timeless.
Credit www.antimusic.com
