By Hans Fink
Comedy duo CHEECH & CHONG recently signed a giant fiberglass replica of a Gibson Les Paul guitar on the Sunset Strip. Apparently, Gibson Guitars has partnered with the Sunset Strip Business Association to create 26 of these 10-foot replicas along the Sunset Strip, each commemorating different musicians and celebrity personalities.
JUSTIN BIEBER won four American Music Awards in four categories including the top honor of Favorite Artist. Go ahead, reread that last sentence and let it sink in for a minute. I’ll wait. Bieber was nominated against such music luminaries as EMINEM, LADY GAGA, KATY PERRY and USHER. Music lovers, we cannot keep allowing Canadians to win American Music Awards. Do we not remember CELINE DION and BRYAN ADAMS?
In recent news of rock ‘n’ roll real estate, SHERYL CROW has auctioned off her Tennessee-based solar horse-farm. The horses themselves are not actually solar-powered. As a result of this, a bevy of sites have been reporting on the singer/songwriter’s recent auction all using the same incredibly creative headline: “Sheryl Crow wants to have some online auction fun.” See, I totally get it because that’s the name of her most famous song. Christ, have the standards for journalism really fallen this far? They must have, if I still have a job…
In a time of slumping record sales, it’s interesting to see that there are actually a few classic albums being reissued: The reissue of NINE INCH NAILS’ debut album Pretty Hate Machine, featuring a bonus cover of QUEEN’s “Get Down Make Love” recently hit stores and online aggregators web-wide. The reissue of QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE’s eponymous 1998 debut album has been postponed to Jan. 11, and will feature three bonus track including “The Bronze,” “These Aren’t the Droids You’re Looking For” and “Spiders and Vinegaroons.”
ANTHRAX has announced that they have been working on a new album with former vocalist JOEY BELLADONNA, who reunited with the band earlier this year for a co-headlining stint on the Jägermeister Music Fall Tour. The as-of-yet untitled album is expected in 2011, and will be the first Anthrax album with Belladonna on vocals since 1991’s Persistence of Time.
In a move that could only rival the self-importance of U2’s BONO, WYCLEF JEAN is releasing an EP entitled If I Were President: My Haitian Experience, an EP documenting his feelings on the tragedy that struck Haiti. This follows his short-lived attempt to run for the presidency of Haiti. Expressing concern for Haiti is in fact a positive thing, but there is a certain amount of skepticism due here considering Jean’s charity, Yele, used most of the money donated to it for Haitian relief to pay himself and his exorbitant fee for a charity concert. Just saying.
Epic Records recently fired the often foul-mouthed and unpredictable AMANDA GHOST from her short-lived presidency of the floundering label. This is actually not all that much of a surprise, considering Ghost is a gifted songwriter who has no management experience to speak of and should have never been given the job. However, the humorous part of this firing is the fact that someone cited her as “smoking pot.” While it’s true that record executives are typically prone to activities of abuse, excess and general practices of doing lines of coke off of the bodies of high-end hookers, I can see how “she smoked pot” is a reasonable excuse for firing Ghost.
