Author Archives: Alex

Deep Purple's first manager passes away

Deep Purple‘s first manager, Tony Edwards (pictured above, far left), passed away at the age of 78.

“It was without doubt Tony‘s love of spotting an opportunity which sparked life into the embryonic contacts between musicians which evolved into Deep Purple, and which he and business partner John Coletta (who died in 2006) sunk money into for a couple of years until the breakthrough album In Rock justified the faith of all concerned.” – Simon Robinson

Read the full thing here.

R.I.P. Tony Edwards.

It is said that without Tony, there would be no Deep Purple. And we all know without Deep Purple, a lot of other bands wouldn’t have existed.

Yngwie likes Guitar Hero

Yngwie Malmsteen loves Guitar Hero and Rock Band… In fact, those games made him pick up the guitar in the first place, as he points out in this interview with “Invisible Oranges”

Invisible Oranges: What do you think of video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band?

Yngwie: Well, I was originally very skeptical. But it actually turned out to be a great thing because it introduced kids to rock and guitar. Guitar was kind of dead in the ’90s. It’s not a bad thing. It actually turned out to be a really good thing.

Read full interview here.

Okay, so he didn’t pick up the guitar because of the games, I was making stuff up exaggerating for the sake of journalism. Newspapers do it all the time, so why can’t I? We make fun of these games but we do agree that they brought ‘guitar playing’ to the masses, so that’s definitely a good thing. I never expected Yngwie to approve of them, by the way. I thought the only things he liked were lasagnas and real guitars.

You live and learn I guess, huh?

Phil's one man band

Here’s the stuff Phil can do: sing, play guitar, play bass, hug dogs.
Here’s the stuff Phil can’t do: form a coherent phrase, keep a constant pitch in his voice while talking, blink normally.

Luckily, his new album will only require those things he can do, as it’s not a motivational album or anything.

Hellbound: Will you be handling the rest of the parts of the album? Playing guitar, singing and playing bass as well?

Phil: I’d say about 99%, for sure. I might have a couple of guys do some leads. I’m nothing great at leads, I’m kind of creative with themes but as a lead guitar player I’m pretty God-awful! Depending on the music, you know, I’m thinking this particular project might call for someone with a little more lead guitar talent.

Read full interview here.

When asked if the dog will have anything to do with the album itself, Phil had no comment. He just emulated a bark. Or maybe that was his answer, who knows anymore?

Lars loves the Big 4

Lars Ulrich, Metallica‘s drummer and main ranter, loved The Big Four. It’s all good and all, but we heard him the first time he said it.

“It’s pretty amazing if you think about it, that it’s the first time basically in 25 years or 30 or whatever that the four of us have actually played shows together,” he said. “So it was a lot of fun, a lot of memories, a lot of fun times — new fun times, and fun times talking about the old fun times. So it sort of was a, it was a winner on every front.” said Lars while counting his zillions.

Read full article here.

Well, I’m sure he does love them since the DVD pretty much sold like hot candy. Expect an in-depth review of it, coming from us, quite soon. Also expect general badassery coming from this site.

Anthrax + Sepultura sitting in a tree

Anthrax and Sepultura joined forces last night for a concert in some city in Chile. I am not good with foreign countries so I didn’t really get where this happened, so maybe you can help me out.

Not much else to say so read the full story here and make the jump to see some videos of them performing.