AC/DC founder Malcolm Young dead at 64

Malcolm Young, who founded the Australian rock band AC/DC along with his brother Angus, has died at age 64 after suffering from dementia for several years, the band said on its Facebook page on Saturday.

Malcolm Young was a songwriter, backing vocalist and rhythm guitarist for AC/DC, a hard rock and heavy metal band that was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. Their hits included “Highway to Hell” from 1979 and “Back in Black” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” from 1980.

“Malcolm, along with Angus, was the founder and creator of AC/DC. With enormous dedication and commitment he was the driving force behind the band,” the band posted on Facebook without saying where he died.

Malcolm is survived by his wife O‘Linda, children Cara and Ross, three grandchildren, a sister and a brother, the band said. He “passed away peacefully with his family by his bedside,” the band said.

George Young, another brother to Malcolm and Angus, died on Oct. 23 at age 70. George Young had served as producer to AC/DC and guitarist for the band Easybeats.

source: interaksyon.com

Guns N’ Roses reunite early at LA club

LOS ANGELES | The long-awaited Guns N’ Roses reunion got off to a surprise early start Friday, with the band playing a show at a small Los Angeles club where the rock legends were first noticed.

Before a lucky 500 fans packed into the Troubadour in West Hollywood, singer Axl Rose and guitarist Slash performed for the first time together in public for more than two decades.

Videos posted online showed the 54-year-old Rose — still with flowing blond hair but without his once constant bandana — singing alongside Slash in his trademark top-hat over his black curls.

“You know where you are?” Rose yelled in his soaring voice in the signature line of “Welcome to the Jungle,” according to one segment shot by a fan — a technology that did not exist in the band’s glory days.

Social media posts said that Guns N’ Roses started the show with “It’s So Easy,” an energetic song with a bad-boy attitude that has frequently been the band’s opener.

Years of rumors of a Guns N’ Roses reunion came to fruition earlier this year when the band was announced as headliners for the Coachella festival, which will take place later his month in the California desert.

The band has since announced a full tour at arenas but had suspiciously left off any date in their native Los Angeles.

MAD SCRAMBLE FOR TICKETS

Guns N’ Roses early Friday announced the show for the evening. Some fans online initially thought that it could be an April Fools’ Day prank, but the band soon confirmed that tickets would be available — only in person and one each — at a “retro” price of $10.

A long crowd of fans, some wearing Guns N’ Roses T-shirts, quickly converged for a chance to buy tickets near the Troubadour at the designated sale site in the building of defunct Tower Records, now a store of guitar maker Gibson.

The strategy appeared to hinder scalpers, whose inflated prices have long infuriated artists.

Dozens of fans who could not score a ticket waited outside the venue late at night hoping to still hearing the music.

The Troubadour’s calendar had previously listed, cryptically, “Girl Rock (school) — showcase,” as its attraction for Friday, with a sketch of a student playing a guitar.

The Troubadour, with a capacity of 500, is legendary in music history as it helped launch the careers of artists ranging from Elton John to James Taylor. Members of The Eagles met for the first time at its bar.

Hollywood in the 1980s became the epicenter of heavy metal, and Guns N’ Roses landed a contract with Geffen Records after a show at the Troubadour.

The result of that deal, 1987′s “Appetite for Destruction,” remains the best-selling debut album ever, with fans drawn to Rose’s range and raw anger coupled with Slash’s intricate guitar playing.

TOUR YEARS IN THE MAKING

But Guns N’ Roses, notorious for their antics on the road and the tension between Rose and Slash, last played together in 1993 in Buenos Aires.

Rose later continued Guns N’ Roses with other lineups, all the while receiving lucrative offers to reunite.

The band on Friday also announced details of the North American tour, which will all be in stadiums — a far cry from the intimate Troubadour.

The main leg of the “Not in This Lifetime Tour” will begin on June 23 at Ford Field in Detroit, home to the National Football League’s Detroit Lions, and run until August 22 in San Diego.

Guns N’ Roses have only announced three shows outside the United States — April 19 and 20 in Mexico City and July 16 in Toronto.

In the band’s heyday, Guns N’ Roses played to raucous welcomes around much of the world including Europe and Japan.

source: interaksyon.com

Aerosmith’s Tyler and Perry honored for their songwriting

LOS ANGELES – After 40 years with one of the biggest rock bands in the United States, Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry are finally being honored for their songwriting.

The duo, dubbed the Toxic Twins in their drug-fueled early years, co-wrote many of the bands’ biggest hits like “Walk This Way” and “Back in the Saddle,” which catapulted Aerosmith to fame in the mid-1970s.

After winning multiple Grammys and other accolades, Tyler and Perry will be honored on Wednesday with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers founders award for songwriting. They will be also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 13.

Tyler and Perry will miss the ASCAP ceremony because they will be on the Australian leg of the band’s “Global Warming” world tour in support of their first album of new material since 2001.

The duo told Reuters ahead of Wednesday’s ceremony that they draw much of their inspiration from each other, although Perry admits the process may be a bit tamer than in the 1970s and 1980s when he and Tyler turned out some big hits while under the influence of drugs.

“Taking drugs can be a shortcut to that place of creativity, but it will kill you in the end because it stops working,” Perry said.

“We had to figure out how to change the way we did things,” said Perry, 62, who is working on an autobiography and a solo record project.

Tyler, the son of a classical pianist, formed Aerosmith in Boston in 1970 after meeting Perry and bass player Tom Hamilton a year earlier.

They signed a record deal in 1971 and what followed were four often tumultuous decades filled with thousands of concerts, band break-ups, well-chronicled bouts of drug abuse, glorious comebacks and sales of more than 150 million albums worldwide.

“We all just get together in a room and inspire each other,” said Tyler, 65, who at 17 wrote the signature Aerosmith hit, “Dream On,” before meeting his future band members.

“The secret is to overwrite. I like to write 19 songs if I only need 12,” said Tyler, who quit last year after two seasons as a judge on “American Idol” to refocus on Aerosmith.

Asked how his writing methods have changed over the years, Perry said he now loves composing songs with the help of his smartphone recording device.

“Bottom line, I always have a studio with me. It’s called an iPhone,” said Perry.

He said he also likes to have a guitar in every room of his home in case inspiration strikes, often pausing the TV while watching late at night to lay down a new musical phrase or riff that comes into his head.

“I just feel like that there are too many rhythms that haven’t been explored in my head. Even in the narrow confines of rock ‘n’ roll, there’s an infinite amount of places to go,” Perry said.

Tyler said he has a lot of new material to work on, including some songs he began but did not complete for the band’s November release “Music from Another Dimension.”

“I have 30 thumbnail sketches I haven’t finished, including four without any lyrics,” Tyler said.

Aerosmith’s “Global Warming” tour will head to Manila on May 8 when the band will perform at the Mall of Asia Arena.

source: interaksyon.com

Urinals of Rolling Stones museum in Germany win raves

BERLIN -- A German couple on Friday opened a museum devoted to legendary British rock band, the Rolling Stones, complete with urinals in the shape of the group's famous "tongue" logo.

The museum, in the small eastern German town of Luechow, will show "thousands of pieces" of memorabilia, including an original signed pool table the group took on tour, instruments, posters and a Stones pinball machine.

The Stones-mad couple, Birgit and Ulrich Schroeder, say the museum -- in a town with a population of less than 10,000 -- is the world's first devoted to the ageing rockers.

The grand opening party later Friday was due to be attended by Stones backing singer Blondie Chaplin but Birgit Schroeder said she was hopeful that they would soon have a visit from one of the band members.

"There's constant contact between us and the Stones," she told AFP.

"The problem is that it is up to the management to decide, not the band. But we think that if the Rolling Stones are anywhere in the vicinity that they will come to visit us.

"But we can't expect them to fly over from San Francisco or Ireland just to visit the museum," Schroeder added.

The museum's famous urinals made headlines around the world after several local women complained they were degrading.

"It was the best publicity we could possibly have had," said Schroeder, confirming the toilets were still on display.

"People came from far away just to use the toilet."

source: interaksyon.com