Rock History

2009 – Nine Inch Nails Mock Chris Cornell With April Fools Joke
NME reports: In what appears to be an elaborate April Fools joke, Nine Inch Nails have announced the release of a new Timbaland-produced album called ‘Strobe Light’.

In a suspicious posting on the band’s website and a Tweeter message issued this morning (April 1), the Nine Inch Nails announced that their new full-length album can be downloaded immediately, and features collaborations from Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Jay-Z and Bono, as well as a track titled ‘Pussygrinder’ featuring Sheryl Crow.

The message contains the album’s cover art, which shows frontman Trent Reznor in a black leather jacket wearing Kanye West-style slotted shades, as well as a tracklisting featuring a list of mega-star guest collaborators including Justin Timberlake and Alicia Keys.

good one from antimusic.com

2009 – R&B singer Chris Brown was questioned by police in Los Angeles over a complaint of assault. The 19-year-old had pulled out of his performance at the Grammy Awards, as did his pop star girlfriend Rihanna. Police said Mr Brown argued with an unidentified woman while sitting in a car. Brown had walked into a police station and was later released on $50,000 (£34,000) bail. Los Angeles police did not identify the woman who had made the complaint against Brown.

2008 – GUNS N’ ROSES: ‘Chinese Democracy’ Track Listing Slightly Revised – Oct. 17, 2008
A slightly revised track listing for the new GUNS N’ ROSES album, “Chinese Democracy”, has now been posted at BestBuy.com, which will exclusively carry the album in the U.S. starting on November 23. A pre-order page for the long-delayed release was posted at the site on Wednesday (October 15), although the pre-order option was later taken off. The page lists 14 song titles for the record, 11 of which have either been played live or leaked online over the past few years. The Pulse of Radio reports that one of those, “Street of Dreams”, was previously known as “The Blues”, while three titles, “Scraped”, “Sorry” and “Prostitute”, have not been heard anywhere.

According to Billboard.com, sources who have heard the album say that it opens with a “blood-curdling Axl Rose scream.”

Two different covers will apparently be available, along with CD and vinyl versions. What appears to be one of the covers has been posted at the Best Buy site, showing what seems to be a bicycle with a basket perched on it.

There has still not been an official announcement regarding the November 23 arrival date for the record.

“Chinese Democracy” has been in the works since the mid-’90s, with speculation and mystery surrounding the album’s 13-year journey, ever-changing roster of players and spiraling recording costs.

Revised “Chinese Democracy” track listing:

01. Chinese Democracy
02. Shackler’s Revenge
03. Better
04. Street Of Dreams
05. If The World
06. There Was A Time
07. Catcher N’ The Rye
08. Scraped
09. Riad N’ The Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute

2008 - A study of more than 36,000 people from around the world concluded that musical tastes and personality type were closely related. The research, which was carried out by Professor Adrian North of Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh in the UK suggested classical music fans were shy, while heavy metal fans were gentle and at ease with themselves. Fans of Indie music had low self-esteem and were not hard working, fans of Rap music had high self-esteem and were outgoing. Country & Western fans were hardworking and outgoing, Reggae fans were creative but not hardworking, and fans of chart pop had high self-esteem, were not creative, but where hardworking and outgoing.

2008 – The Times: The story in this morning’s paper is on the ruses various celebrities use to evade reporters outside the main criminal courthouse in Manhattan. Actor Rip Torn, for example, once led paparazzi through a park and past a gaggle of chanting construction workers before jumping into the cab of an occupied 18-wheeler, jumping out again, and rolling underneath the truck. Kirk Jones snuck in a side entrance while his driver successfully impersonated the rapper to photographers, sultry actress Uma Thurman enlisted the help of court officers and producer Sean Combs has a mini secret-service brigade. But the most fascinating courthouse celebrity by far is criminally insane singer Courtney Love, who sashays in and out of the building as though surrounded by adoring fans:

Courtney Love used the sidewalk like a red carpet, chatting and joking with reporters…

Sometimes celebrities do what they do best: bask in the attention. Ms. Love latched onto her lawyer, Scott B. Tulman, as they left the courthouse and gushed as if they were an item:

“Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he beautiful?” Ms. Love then suggested she was pregnant with Mr. Tulman’s child.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mr. Tulman recalled telling her. “What are you doing?”

Another day outside the courthouse she finished off a partially smoked cigarette that she bummed from a passer-by.

“It’s like having a wild kid,” Mr. Tulman said. “After a while, you just shake your head.”

PR consultant Eric Dezenhall told the Times Love’s antics are fine, since “anything that extends the half-life of her career is probably a net positive.” Uh, sure. Maybe even get charged with more crimes like disorderly conduct and so forth and get spotted outside the glamorous criminal courthouse even more often, maybe!

2008 – Total Guitar magazine voted Celine Dion’s rendition of the AC/DC track ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ as the world’s worst cover version ever, the magazines editor Stephen Lawson said Dion’s cover was “sacrilege”. In the best cover versions list, Jimi Hendrix was voted into first place with his version of the Bob Dylan song ‘All Along the Watchtower,’ The Beatles’ rendition of ‘Twist and Shout’, (first recorded by the Top Notes), was in second place, followed by the Guns N’ Roses version of the Wings song ‘Live and Let Die’.

2008 – UK High street chain Woolworths announced it would stop selling CD singles in its stores saying that the format was in “terminal decline” and would be removed from the shelves from August. Sales of CD singles had fallen sharply as the popularity of downloading music from the internet had increased.

2008 – Singer-songwriter Neil Young had a spider named after him. US university biologist Jason Bond discovered a new species of trapdoor spider and decided to name it after his favourite musician. Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi was found in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2007.

2008 – THE CULT frontman Ian Astbury has told Canada’s Sun Media his band won’t be hitting the road with LED ZEPPELIN if and when the legendary group should decide to spin a full-blown tour out of its recent one-off reunion show.

“That really goes to show you how naive people are, and how these things can get blown out of proportion,” said Astbury. “It’s been embellished by journalists … I haven’t even spoken to anyone from LED ZEPPELIN’s camp.”

Astbury reportedly announced during a show in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 17 that his band would support LED ZEPPELIN on a 2008 tour. According to an MTV.com report, Astbury told the crowd, “We’ll be back next year because we’re opening for a band you may have heard of … the name starts with an ‘L’ and has a ‘Z’ in it.” After a fan shouted, “LED ZEPPELIN,” Astbury nodded and raised his arm in the air.

2008 – Confirming long standing rumors, Activision announced this morning that they’re teaming with rock band Aerosmith to produce an entirely new “Guitar Hero” game dedicated solely to virtually playing along with their songs, titled simply “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith”.

Lyrics:

Well on a train, I met a dame
She rather handsome
We kinda look the same
She was pretty
From new york city
Im walkin down that old fair lane
Im in heat, Im in love
But I just couldnt tell her so

Im in heat, Im in love
But I just couldnt tell her

Typical of a “Guitar Hero” announcement, the track list is currently a secret, but the press release did name-drop “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” “Love in an Elevator,” “Dream On,” and “Sweet Emotion.”

In fact, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners will have a chance to download a copy of “Dream On” for “Guitar Hero III” for free over Xbox Live and PlayStation Network from February 16-18.

“On a larger scale, it’s cool for us to be pioneers, helping to rebuild the music industry through a format like video games,” said Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler in the press release. “It’s great for rock since the record companies are struggling to make sense of how things are changing. Fans want to get and experience music in new formats–and there are going to be some of them who will play the game, then pick up the guitar for real and start bands.”

This isn’t the band’s first appearance in modern music games, either. The MTV Rhythm Game Track Finder shows that Aerosmith has had six songs spread across the “Guitar Hero,” “Karaoke Revolution” and “Rock Band” franchises.

Neversoft, the same folks behind last fall’s “Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock,” is behind the Aerosmith, “Guitar Hero” collaboration. If you haven’t yet upgraded to a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 yet, no worries; “Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” is also coming to Wii (in stereo this time, we hope) and PlayStation 2, courtesy of Vicarious Visions and Budcat respectively. No word yet on a PC or Mac version.

“Guitar Hero: Aerosmith” drops on all platforms in June, but as we mentioned, this isn’t the first time Aerosmith has invaded games, far from it. Certainly, you remember shooter classic “Revolution X”? No? Just a little?

Discover the breadth of Aerosmith’s gaming journeys by reading on.

Aerosmith is probably best known for “Midway”’s light gun shooter “Revolution X.” Our favorite moment comes only a few minutes into the adventure, which is about as much as we could take while revisiting the “classic.” Picture this: a club shoot-out involving hundreds of copy-cat thugs taking aim at the player suddenly climaxes with a heavily pixelated Aerosmith rocking out on stage for a crowd of zero, only to be rudely interrupted mid-song and kidnapped by the evildoers. Clearly, the player must put a stop to such madness.

This isn’t the band’s first stint with a guitar simulator, either. “Quest for Fame”, released all the way back in 1995 by Virtual Music Entertainment, actually came bundled with a V-Pick. While the V-Pick wasn’t quite as elaborate as the five-button “Guitar Hero” controller, the V-Pick detected motion and allowed players to strum along to different Aerosmith songs using just about anything shaped like a guitar — a tennis racket, for example.

Patrick Klepek

MTV

2007 – Stu Sweatman begins prototyping the idea for “THIS DAY IN ROCK” website, where you can find many facts about musicians and what happend on a given day in history!

He joined forces with John Myer’s to create the information base you see. Although the site contains facts from all genres, we tried to focus in on Rock in all forms.

Rock On.

LISTEN TO ENTIRE ALBUM AT CDBaby!

2007 -  Proclaimers feat Brian Potter & Andy Pipkin went to No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)’. The Scottish duo teamed up with the two comedians Peter Kay and Matt Lucas for this unofficial Comic Relief charity hit.