Heavy Metal Day at the US Festival – 32 Years Ago
Last week marked the 32nd anniversary of the US Festival which took place at the Glen Helen Regional Park near San Bernardino, CA. Dubbed as a festival of “music and peace”, the first day was “New Wave Day” and drew a crowd of about 300,000. The second day was dubbed “Heavy Metal Day”, and much to the shock of both the promoters and the bands, the crowds swelled to over 600,000 screaming fans.
For the rest of the decade, hard rock ruled popular music, and the festival laid the groundwork for Coachella, Lollapalooza and every other major festival to follow. The worldwide impact for hard rock bands was massive. Surprisingly, the festival lost over $12 million, because Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak overpaid for everything – $1.5 million for Van Halen alone.
Famed photographer and House of Hair friend Mark Weiss was there, and has provided us with these exclusive photos. Enjoy!
Check out the band set lists here.
Dee Does Toronto
Time to book those flights to Toronto! After a very successful run in Chicago last year, our very own Dee Snider is bringing his Christmas musical “Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale,” to Toronto later this year.
With Christmas classics and Twisted Sister hits like “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and “I Wanna Rock,” the musical tells the story of wannabe rock stars in a band called Däisy Cütter (dig the umlauts!) who sell their souls to the devil but end up experiencing the magic of Christmas.
As Dee tells the House of Hair exclusively, “I’m thrilled to be bringing the new and improved “Dee Snider’s Rock & Roll Christmas Tale” to Toronto’s Winter Garden Theater this coming holiday season (Nov. 17 – Jan. 3). With new songs (“It’s Not the Club That Sucks”, “It Takes More Than a Cup (To Make You Rock ‘n’ Roll”) and a new character (MC Dedrok) the Rock & Roll Christmas Tale is better than ever! I can’t wait for Toronto audiences to see it!”
“It’s about a band that has a dream and is giving it everything they’ve got for that dream,” explains Snider, “and also recognizing that sometimes we overlook all the great things we have in our life.”
RIP Allan Fryer of Heaven
Allan Fryer, the lead singer for the Australian band Heaven, has died after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 60. Fryer famously auditioned for AC/DC following the death of Bon Scott but narrowly lost out to Brian Johnson.
Heaven released a trio of albums in the early 80’s, touring with Dio, Mötley Crüe and Judas Priest along the way. Their 1983 album, Where Angels Fear to Tread, featured guest turns by Ronnie James Dio, Lita Ford and Glenn Hughes and the song “Rock School”, which became their biggest U.S. hit.
Fryer moved to Texas in the mid-80’s and kept the Heaven name alive with local talent. Fryer also co-wrote a song with Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe which was featured on the Tribute CD Home Sweet Home and dedicated to Vince Neil’s daughter, Skylar, who had passed away from cancer. All the CD proceeds went to the The Skylar Neil Memorial Fund.
David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar Trade Barbs
In Billboard earlier this month, Roth was asked if he would consider tackling any of the songs that were originally recorded with Hagar during Van Halen’s upcoming tour. Roth responded: “Well, there’s a credibility issue there. Good, bad or in the middle, you know Roth means it; the other guy doesn’t. And that’s why it sold half as well. Literally, Midas Bible half. Never did better than half. And why would you bring that into the proceedings? This hamburger don’t need no helper. [There] ain’t no rehearsing pants in my closet.” Huh?
In response, Hagar took the high rode saying, “The [Van Halen] boys are out on tour — happily doing well, I hope, but they’re not playing any Van Hagar songs. My buddy Diamond said it was something about a quality issue. I laughed. I’m cracking up. You know, sometimes the guy says the wackiest things. But there’s a lot of truth in that. A quality issue — you think about that. Think about them with Diamond, singing this next song, it would definitely be a quality issue, okay? [Chuckles] It would definitely be a quality issue.” Hagar was questioning whether Roth could handle the vocals on a Van Hagar song like “Right Now”. After seeing their recent TV appearances, BuzzChic gives an emphatic thumbs down.
Led Zeppelin Reissues “Presence”, “In Through The Out Door” and “Coda”
The Led Zeppelin final reissue program concludes with deluxe editions of “Presence”, “In Through The Out Door” and “Coda”, available July 31.
As with the previous deluxe editions, the aforementioned albums have been newly remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page and are accompanied by previously unreleased music compiled by Page.
Riot Fest LineUps Revealed
Riot Fest has just revealed the lineups for all three 2015 festivals to be held in Denver, Chicago and Toronto.
Denver’s Riot Fest will take place August 28-30 and the first wave of announced acts includes Motörhead, Modest Mouse, Iggy Pop, Rancid, Testament, GWAR, and the Pixies.
Riot Fest Chicago will be held in Douglas Park from September 11-13 with some of the same bands scheduled to play Denver plus Faith No More and No Doubt will be added.
Riot Fest Toronto will take place September 19-20 and will be headlined by Ontario natives Alexisonfire, plus Wu-Tang Clan, Against Me! and Motörhead.
More acts for all three shows will be announced on June 16. For tix and info, go to the Riot Fest 2015 website.
Monster Energy Aftershock Festival Bands Announced
The lineup for the 4th annual Monster Energy Aftershock Festival 2015 on October 24-25 includes Slipknot, Faith No More, Deftones, Shinedown, Marilyn Manson, Bring Me the Horizon, Breaking Benjamin, Seether, Coheed And Cambria and Stone Temple Pilots. This year’s extravaganza will be in a new location at the Gibson Ranch just outside of Sacramento. In addition to the star-studded musical lineup, the festival will also include live, in-ring matches featuring WWE’s NXT Superstars.
We Are Twisted F*ing Sister!
Music Box Films has acquired “We Are Twisted F*cking Sister!”, the long-awaited documentary movie about Twisted Sister’s club days, from German filmmaker Andrew Horn. Due to be released in August, the film premiered in Amsterdam last November.
As producer Horn says, “The thing that raises them above the level of Spinal Tap is that they are all really smart. They know what is going on. They know what they are doing and they know what their effect on the audience is – and they play with this idea of being the rock band that gets stoned all the time and gets drunk and all of that. For them, it was a complete lie. They spent so much time and energy just doing what they do that they couldn’t have functioned if they had been a band like that.”
The documentary is likely to come as a shock to some Twisted Sister fans who discovered the band in the 1980s – and had no idea of their many years of purgatory, toiling away is the Long Island bar scene without a record deal. Twisted Sister had been together for years and years before they became gigantically famous.
Ed Sheeran Goes Metal on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”
Ed Sheeran went metal on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night. The talented Sheeran, who specializes in acoustic love songs with sensitive, sweet lyrics, performed “Run to the Hills” from Iron Maiden and the curse-filled “Break Stuff” by Limp Bizkit during a fake informercial about his “new” heavy metal covers album. Fallon responded, “That’s like a warm blanket that soothes my muscles and bones.”
Slayer’s 11th album, Repentless, will be released via Nuclear Blast. The label switch was somewhat surprising, but in a new interview on the Metal Hammer Magazine Show, Slayer guitarist Kerry King reveals the move was triggered by an insulting offer from Rick Rubin at American Recordings.
“Solidarity is far stronger than jumping ship and going somewhere else,” says King. “I thought we’d still be on American [Recordings] — but when we got the offer from American, I was insulted. That, to me, just said, ‘Good luck, you’re not gonna have good luck here anymore.’ So we found our new friends at Nuclear Blast.”
Even at this stage of their career, Metallica can still pull out a few surprises. One of those instances happened on May 29 at the Rock Im Rivier festival in Gelsenkirchen, Germany when the group performed a rare live rendition of “The Unforgiven II.” Check out fan video of the performance at DailyHeadbanger.com.
Sebastian Bach and Duff McKagan crossed paths again this week at a private event in Los Angeles. Check out fan video at DailyHeadbanger.com of them playing a cover of Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience”.
AC/DC singer Brian Johnson has recorded a guest appearance on the upcoming rock album from comedian Jim Breuer, a diehard heavy metal fan. The CD is being produced by former Anthrax and current Volbeat guitarist Rob Caggiano.
Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi will appear as a mentor on the new ‘“Guitar Star” talent show, which will debut in the UK on June 9. Similar to what American Idol does for singers, the show will have mentors for competing guitarists.
Check out this fan video footage of Saigon Kick’s new touring lineup — featuring drummer Jonathan Mover (Joe Satriani, Alice Cooper, Aretha Franklin, Mick Jagger, Peter Frampton) and bassist Jason Rosner — performing May 30 at The Social in Orlando, Florida.