May The 4th Be With You! (Thanks Paulie Walnuts!)….OK, so I had a great time while I was down south in Atlanta and Tuscaloosa, AL. Even though this very LSU Bengal Tigers fan was in serious enemy territory, I left ‘Loosa sayin’ Roll Tide. Good times, good people, cool town…..Well, THIS happened down south. Five Finger Death Punchhas denied rumors the band is breaking up following an onstage meltdown at the Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee on Friday night (May 1st). According to multiple reports, the group performed half a dozen songs before the entire band, except vocalist Ivan Moody, walked off stage, leaving the singer seemingly confused and talking to fans in rambling fashion. After numerous fans posted on Twitter that it seemed as the band had imploded onstage, Moody later took to Facebook to issue a statement saying, “There were a lot of technical problems last night that were seemingly unsolvable. We had to make a decision whether to hit the stage crippled, without being able to hear ourselves; or, delay the start of the show — possibly for hours. We decided to proceed, but not being able to hear if I was in key and just guessing where we were in the song frustrated me to the point that I lost my cool.“ Moody continued, “I’m not saying I handled it appropriately. Matter of fact, I’ve never been so embarrassed before. I apologize for taking out my anger on stage.” Moody wished some members of the band’s crew “good luck in your future endeavors,” adding, “To our fans in Memphis — we’ll make it up to you, I promise . . . And to the haters . . . wipe that smirk off your face . . . We are not going anywhere.” Drummer Jeremy Spencer issued a statement of his own some time later, saying, “We did NOT break up! Things went sideways with technical issues. Ivan got pissed and took it out onstage. It was a bad night, to say the least. He has since apologized. But we are 100% still a band and look forward to seeing you all on tour!“ Apparently taking more steps to quell any rumors about the band’s status, Five Finger Death Punch revealed the name of its sixth studio album, as Got Your Six, due later in the year. An audio sample of the song “Ain’t My Last Dance”, taken from the record, has been posted online. One person who witnessed Friday night’s meltdown told The New Fury, ”Ivan held up Jeremy’s book and asked the fans if they had this FFDP book, adding, ‘That I had nothing to do with,’ directed at Jeremy. Jeremy then threw his sticks and walked off stage, and the band shortly followed.” The fan then said Moody returned, rambled to the fans and tried to start a song on the drums until the rest of the group also came back. He continued, “Jeremy and the rest of the band came back and played a song while sounding completely out of step with each other . . . Everyone left again, Ivan threw the mic again. This routine repeated a couple more times until they just ran out of stage time and walked off stage, not to return.“ I spoke with a band spokesperson, and all is good. Just goes to show you, when things don’t work technically, it can blow your cool, that is for sure. Happens to me ALL the time with this damn old computer! LOL! Maybe I need a crowd-fund to raise money for a new one! Can you say Vista?….Filmmaker Brett Morgen, director of the new documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck, has revealed an album collecting previously unheard music from late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain‘s personal tapes will be released this summer. Morgen told Bedford + Bowery, “We’re going to be putting out an amazing album this summer,” adding that the record “will feel like you’re kind of hanging out with Kurt Cobain on a hot summer day in Olympia, WA as he fiddles about. It’s going to really surprise people.” (Note: Must be a companion to a DVD release of this documentary is my guess. Also note: This is NOT a Nirvana record.) Morgen told us about the material he found while researching Cobain’s archives for the film: “I knew that there was gonna be all this art, but what I didn’t know was there was gonna be all this audio. I opened up a box and there were 108 tapes with over 200 hours of never-before-heard audio. And this ran the gamut from music — dozens of hours of unreleased music — to sound collage, and then there was this amazing spoken word material that I discovered.”….Well Pulse Of Radio has also revealed news about this! Work may finally be progressing a little more consistently on the new Tool album, but meanwhile singer Maynard James Keenan has apparently found the time to complete a new disc from his music-and-cabaret act Puscifer. Keenan told Punchdrink.com a new Puscifer set is nearing completion for a tentative fall release, although he did not elaborate with any further details. Puscifer has existed in some form since 1995 but only began making records in 2007. Keenan told us a while back that the project was not just another band: “This is much more of just a collaborative, creative outlet on all levels with various people, free from label contracts and just kind of express to express, and not really worry about taking over the world with it.” Meanwhile, Tool guitarist Adam Jones has posted images from a recording studio that feature producer Joe Barresi, who has worked with Tool in the past. Jones revealed in March Tool had finally settled a multi-level lawsuit that had dragged on for eight years and set back its recording and touring plans. Jones also revealed that an undisclosed member of the band faced a “really scary do-or-die, serious illness” not long ago. The band is now reportedly working at a faster pace on music for its first new studio set since 2006′s 10,000 Days. The world is waiting!….This is interesting. Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, bassist Duff McKagan and others are among the musicians and celebrities that have joined a campaign this month to make sure bears can still poop in the forest. The campaign, which is actually called “Let a Bear S**t in the Woods,” is aimed at ending the painful and invasive technique of extracting bile from bears on the numerous bear bile farms in China and Vietnam. Kiedis, the Osbournes have all filmed clips to help spread the word about the bile extraction practices. Jimmy Page, Ricky Gervais and Olivia Newton-John are also among those supporting the campaign, which will post videos and photos from everyone involved on May 13th. Go here to see all the videos andhere to see more about the campaign. Watch Anthony Kiedis’ tongue-in-cheek videohere…Speaking of Duff McKagan, I just finished reading his new book, “How To Be A Man (and other illusions)” which comes out next week. It is a great read. I really like Duff; met him briefly during the Velvet Revolver days and then during Loadedand The Walking Papers. He’s a very smart and down to earth fellow with a lot of common sense knowledge to share. I love his story-telling and observations and practices on life. He’ll be in the hardDrive Studios on May 11th.&nbs
