MK ULTRA

The Kinks guitarist Dave Davies has told how he and estranged brother Ray recently played music together – and their private reunion was more important than any public event could be.

 

The siblings have both recently spoken positively about the chances of hitting the stage together to mark the band’s 50th anniversary.

 

But Dave – who next week plays his first hometown concert in 13 years – is more concerned about coming to terms with the “toxic” relationship he has with his elder brother.

 

He tells the Independent: “It’s like some people prefer me and Ray to be at each other’s throats than to be brothers. In my 30s and 40s I resented the fact that he gave me so little credit for my input and creativity. But my love has always been relentlessly directed towards him.”

 

He continues: “The older I get, the more difficult I find it being around Ray. I don’t want to use the word ‘abuse’ – but I feel my energy seeping away from me sometimes if I’m with him.

 

“I might be sitting in the room, feeling perfectly happy, and I start to feel really tired, and wonder why. I think, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get out.’ It’s always been a part of his great talent that he’s been able to extract elements of people’s characters and energy; so I have to limit the time I spend with him.”

 

He’s able to see a positive side to the tension and violence that became a trademark of The Kinks’ career. “Families are difficult, and you can learn from discomfort,” he reflects. “Ray and I have been each other’s most important teachers – maybe that’s the clue to the whole relationship.”

 

No anniversary reunion has been confirmed. But Dave already feels there was a great deal of personal achievement when he visited Ray at home two months ago to discuss the possibility, and the pair wound up working on new music.

 

“Just ideas,” says the guitarist. “Maybe we don’t have time to resolve them. Maybe it’s not important for it all to be fixed between me and Ray. Maybe the dynamic of why it works is the tension, and the energy that comes from it. It did work when we played, for a bit.”

 

Asked if he thinks a reunion could take place in some form, he replies: “Yeah. It’ll be great, I think.”

 

He won’t be playing the anti-Christ, unfortunately — just King Herod.

Hosanna hey or hosanna huh? “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s musical about the final days of Jesus, will soon rise again, this time as a arena show that will feature an eclectic roster of rock and pop artists and will tour North America starting in June.

This new production of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which was announced Friday morning on “Good Morning America,” will feature Brandon Boyd of the rock band Incubus as Judas Iscariot; JC Chasez of *NSYNC as Pontius Pilate; Michelle Williams of Destiny’s Child as Mary Magdalene; and John Lydon (a k a Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) as King Herod. The tour will also star Ben Forster, the winner of a British reality-TV casting competition, as Jesus.

Performances will begin on June 9 at the Lakefront Arena in New Orleans, and the tour is expected to conclude on Aug. 17 at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia. (Other area dates include an Aug. 5 performance at Madison Square Garden in New York.) “Jesus Christ Superstar,” which began as a concept album in 1970 and has spawned numerous stage productions, was last presented on Broadway in 2012, starring Paul Nolan as Jesus and Josh Young as Judas Iscariot.

 

AEROSMITH and Slash last month announced that they will team up for a 2014 U.S. tour this summer. The two acts revealed the joint road trip, dubbed “Let Rock Rule”, via a series of tweets on March 21 from Slash and members of AEROSMITH, although dates and venues have yet to be finalized.

Ahead of the tour’s official announcement — which is expected to take place on Tuesday, April 8 — there has been some interesting activity happening in downtown Los Angeles.

Slash is currently working on his third solo album with his band MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS. The follow-up to 2012′s “Apocalyptic Love” is expected to arrive in September.

Singer Myles Kennedy, who has been on tour with his other band ALTER BRIDGE, recently tweeted that he had entered the studio to begin laying down vocals for the disc.

AEROSMITH released its first set of all-original material in 11 years, “Music From Another Dimension!”, in 2012, and toured for much of the year after its release.

Perry recently revealed that he will publish his autobiography this October, titled “Rocks: My Life In And Out Of Aerosmith”.

 

Hall of Fame CEO Joel Peresman gives Rolling Stone an unprecedented, behind-the-scenes look at music’s biggest event of the year

SOURCE: Rolling Stone

(as previously reported in their 40-year KISStory it was not till 2014 KISS made the cover of Rolling Stone. I wonder if Gene sent 5 copies to his mother.- az)

It’s less than a week until the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s induction ceremony at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, and the organizations’s President and CEO Joel Peresman is having trouble getting a good night’s sleep. “Some nights I wake up at 4 a.m. and write down notes for the next day,” he says from his midtown Manhattan office. “There are so many elements to deal with beyond what’s on the stage. I have to deal with seating, selling tickets, the various parties involved with the show and the logistics of getting people and equipment in and out of the venue. We have a great production team, but I have to be aware of all these little elements.”

He’s also had to deal with the wrath of Kiss frontman Paul Stanley, who has gone very public with his anger over the Hall of Fame’s decision to only induct the band’s original lineup. “I don’t need the Hall of Fame,” Stanley told Rolling Stone. “And if there’s not reciprocity, I’m not interested. The Red Hot Chili Peppers, practically every member was inducted, and virtually all 175 members of the Grateful Dead. Rules need to apply to everybody.”

 

“I don’t like all the sniping back and forth, though mostly it’s been forth,” says Peresman. “And I totally understand his point of view. What he’s failing to understand is that there are certain acts that are nominated and brought in on their entire body of work, up until the day before the nominating committee meets. They are still evolving bands that are breaking new ground. With Kiss, there wasn’t a single person we spoke to that didn’t feel the reason these guys were being inducted was because of the four original members. It’s an incredibly unique situation. I can’t think of another band, outside of Gwar, that has members that are dressed up in costumes. You basically have these new members that are replicating exactly and playing the music that was created by the two other members that are being inducted.”

Kiss has invited current members Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer to sit at their table, along with former guitarist Bruce Kulick. “I appreciate how Tommy and Eric have filled in and the way they do things,” says Peresman. “They are fine musicians and I’m sure they’re lovely guys, but they are basically replicating the two members that are getting inducted. How could we have asked Ace and Peter to accept the award and then have other people in their guise playing their music? They probably wouldn’t have even come. They were very clear about that. . .Frankly, I’m really, really happy that Kiss are being inducted. It should have happened a while ago. The four of them will get up, accept their award, say what they want to say and then we’ll move on.”

The drama around Kiss has dominated press coverage of the Hall of Fame during the past few months, but they’re only one part of an evening set to also honor Peter Gabriel, Cat Stevens, Linda Ronstadt, Hall & Oates, Nirvana, the E Street Band, Brian Epstein and Andrew Loog Oldham. “With the exception of Linda Ronstadt and Kiss, everyone is performing,” says Peresman. “Cat Stevens is going to play on his own and with Paul Shaffer’s band. There’s a tribute to Linda Ronstadt – who won’t be attending the show – featuring Stevie Nicks, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Carrie Underwood and Sheryl Crow that’ll also use Paul Shaffer’s band. Peter Gabriel is playing with his own group, though Pino Palladino will be on bass because his regular bassist, Tony Levin, will be on a prog rock cruise.”

The exact plans for Nirvana’s performance remains a tightly guarded secret, while the E Street Band’s plans with Bruce Springsteen still aren’t clear. “I don’t know if all the new guys are playing or if they’re just going to use Jake [Clemons] to play Clarence’s parts,” says Peresman. “I haven’t heard yet, though I do think that [original E Street Band members] Vini [Lopez] and David [Sancious] will play with them. I know that Bruce has played with them in the past on certain occasions and it’s a situation where everyone gets along and is real friendly. I’m sure they’ll sort it out.”

Springsteen will personally deliver the induction speech for his longtime band. “He’s a great speaker and the speeches he gave in the past were always wonderful,” says Peresman. “I’m sure that’ll be a highlight of the evening.” Victoria Clemons, the wife of the late Clarence Clemons, will accept his award and Danny Federici’s widow Maya will accept his.

Most induction ceremonies end with a huge all-star jam, though that is also up in the air as of press time. “We honestly haven’t started talking about that yet,” says Peresman. “We didn’t come up with the idea with Rush until a few days before the show last year. I do think that ‘Rock and Roll All Nite’ would be a natural end, but nothing has been discussed.”

Until a few years ago, the event was almost always held at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, but now the plan is to rotate on a three-year cycle between Cleveland, Los Angeles and New York. “We also want to keep having it at venues where the public can come,” says Peresman. “Whether that means having it an arena or not depends on how things work out aesthetically, financially and timing-wise.”

This is the first time the ceremony has been held at a basketball arena, and it’s posed some logistical challenges. There’s a Miley Cyrus concert five days before the show and a Brooklyn Nets game the day after. “From a production standpoint, it’s an incredible challenge,” says Peresman. “In hindsight, we could have used one extra day afterwards. We have to get all these things into the building, out of the building and onto trucks and out. Some of the stuff we’re going to have to leave up. We’ll have rigging in the ceiling that we have to leave up and take out after the basketball game.”
All-star events like the Hall of Fame ceremony often stretch on well past midnight, but Peresman is determined to start the show at 7 p.m. and wrap it up before 11:15 p.m. “We’re talking to all the inductees about limiting their speeches,” he says. “We want to be respectful, but they know to be succinct. It’s not live and HBO is going to air a two and half hour edit, but we don’t want people sitting around for 10 minutes between acts. We have this down to a science. There should be only a few seconds between acts, maybe a minute. When people are speaking, the next act will be set up. It takes an incredible amount of coordination.”

Artists are eligible for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first single or album, meaning they are on the verge of honoring artists that began their careers in the 1990s. “You have Green Day and Pearl Jam coming up,” says Peresman. “And then eventually Eminem at some point.”

Pearl Jam should pose another conundrum considering the fact they’ve had five separate drummers. “I’m just trying to get through next Friday,” says Peresman with a big laugh. “I’ll deal with Pearl Jam’s drummers after that.”

 

 

 

 

In the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine, KISS frontman Paul Stanley and original KISS drummer Peter Criss spar over the band’s hit ballad “Beth”, which holds the disctintion of being KISS’ highest-charting single in the U.S., having reached position No. 7 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart back in 1976. Criss claims to have co-written the song with the late Stan Penridge while Criss and Penridge were in the band CHELSEA. In the song’s original version, the title name was “Beck” after Becky, CHELSEA bandmate Mike Brand’s wife, who often called during practices. Criss later received a People’s Choice Award for the track, which was heavily tweaked and arranged by producer Bob Ezrin for the “Destroyer” album sessions.

Despite the fact that Criss is listed as a writer, along with Penridge and Ezrin, in the song’s official credits, Stanley claims the drummer had little to do with its creation. “Peter can’t write a song, because Peter doesn’t play an instrument,” Stanley told Rolling Stone. “Penridge came up with [sings], ‘Beth, I hear you calling…’ Peter had nothing to do with it. Because if you write one hit song, you should be able to write two. That’s the reality. Devastating? It’s the truth. It was a lifeline that Peter hung on to validate himself, but it wasn’t based on reality.”

“Paul is so full of fucking shit,” countered Criss, “’cause as a lead singer of the band he never got to write the hit. That’s his problem. They hated the fact that I wrote a hit record and won a People’s Choice.”

In a 2000 interview, Penridge was asked how “Beck” was written and how much of it Peter was really responsible for, if any. “‘Beck’ was written, almost word for word, from Mike Brand’s responses to his wife’s constant calls that interupted our rehearsals,” Penridge explained. “It got to the point where I wrote down his remarks over a period of 3 or 4 days in what I called my ‘wizard book.’ It was merely a small notebook I carried to jot down silly sayings, sketch in, anything….to save ideas. If you look at the lyrics and view them as a hen-pecked hubby’s remarks to his nagging wife, you’ll see what I mean. Just pause after every sentence and pretend there’s a bitch at the other end of the line. You’ll catch it — I’m sure.”

He added: “[Peter was] absolutely not responsible [for it] at all. Another poorman’s copyright by me in ’70.”

PETE BERWICK @ PHYLLIS’ MUSICAL INN—CHICAGO, SATURDAY APRIL 5
Avenged Sevenfold, Korn, Asking Alexandria, Trivium First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, 7/20, 1:15 PM, all-ages, on sale 4/4, 10 AM.

Judith Berkson, Brandon Seabrook Constellation, 6/29, 8:30 PM.

Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine, Negative Approach Reggie’s Rock Club, 6/14, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, noon.

Black Breath, Mutilation Rites Reggie’s Rock Club, 5/31, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Andrea Bocelli Allstate Arena, Rosemont, 12/13, 8 PM, all-ages, on sale Mon 4/7, 10 AM.

California Honeydrops Schubas, 6/18, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 9 PM.

Paul Collins Beat Wire, Berwyn, Berwyn, 5/29, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Elvis Costello Copernicus Center, 6/11, 7:30 PM, on sale Sat 4/5, 10 AM.

James Cotton SPACE, Evanston, 6/10, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Cultura Profetica Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 8/6, 8 PM, all-ages.

Deathhammer Reggie’s Rock Club, 5/14, 9 PM.

Elephant Man the Shrine, 4/23, 10 PM.

Joe Ely SPACE, Evanston, 6/5, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Fleetwood Mac United Center, 10/2, 8 PM, all-ages, on sale Mon 4/7, noon.

Flobots Double Door, 7/7, 8 PM, on sale Sat 4/5, noon.

Foxy Shazam, Larry & His Flask Lincoln Hall, 6/21, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, noon.

Jackie Greene Lincoln Hall, 5/31, 9 PM.

Hoodie Allen Reggie’s Rock Club, 5/20, 7 PM, all-ages, on sale Wed 4/2, noon.

HoZac Blackout Fest: Dictators, First Base, Shocked Minds, Counter Intuits, and others Empty Bottle, 5/15-17, on sale Wed 4/2, noon.

Iceage, Uniform Subterranean, 5/21, 9 PM, on sale Wed 4/2, noon.

Jurassic 5, Dilated Peoples Aragon Ballroom, 7/25, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Jordan Klassen Beat Kitchen, 5/7, 8:30 PM.

David Liebe Hart Township, 5/4, 8 PM.

Ziggy Marley the Vic, 6/29, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Mercan Dede & Secret Tribe Maurer Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, 6/18, 8 PM, all-ages.

Meshuggah, Between the Buried & Me the Vic, 6/15, 6:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Mirah SPACE, Evanston, 5/14, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Moving Units Empty Bottle, 6/3, 9 PM.
Nashville Pussy Martyrs’, 6/21, 9:30 PM.

New Edition the Venue at Horseshoe Casino, Hammond, 7/27, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Nothing Subterranean, 5/15, 8:30 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Piano Guys Chicago Theatre, 10/17, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Red Fang, Big Business Wire, Berwyn, Berwyn, 6/3, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Chris Robinson Brotherhood Park West, 6/14, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Sacco Schubas, 5/21, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, noon.

Say Anything, Front Bottoms Concord Music Hall, 7/11, 5:30 PM, all-ages.

Shawty Lo the Shrine, 5/20, 9 PM.

Sons of Fathers Schubas, 6/19, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, noon.
Spirit Family Reunion Schubas, 7/17, 9 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, noon.

Otis Taylor SPACE, Evanston, 6/12, 8 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

311 FirstMerit Bank Pavilion, 7/11, 8 PM, all-ages, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

A Wilhelm Scream Subterranean, 5/31, 8:30 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Within Temptation the Vic, 10/1, 8 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

Dizzy Wright Reggie’s Rock Club, 5/15, 8 PM.

Yanni Sears Centre, Hoffman Estates, 9/6, 7:30 PM, all-ages, on sale Mon 4/7, 10 AM.

Yes Copernicus Center, 7/26, 6 PM, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.

UPDATED LISTINGS
David Crosby City Winery, 7/21, 8 PM; 7/22, 8 PM, all-ages.

Hamilton Leithauser Park West, 5/13, 7:30 PM, postponed.

Joshua Radin SPACE, Evanston, 7/13-14, 7:30 PM, all-ages, 7/14 is sold out, 7/13 added, on sale Fri 4/4, 10 AM.