Allman Brothers Band Tops Gibson "Rockin’ the Fillmore: The NYC Venue’s Top 10 Gigs" List

Many bands have gone down in history for amazing live gigs, but there are not too many venues that have achieved similar status. New York City’s Fillmore East, though, is one. Mercurial promoter Bill Graham closed the Fillmore East 40 years ago in June, 1971 (along with Fillmore West, in San Francisco), after just three years as rock venues. But in those three years, Fillmore East, in particular, played host to an unrivalled number of great bands, great gigs and great recordings. 

New York gigs can certainly pump up players to perform, but maybe there was something about the Fillmore that made for stellar shows; it wasn’t for nothing that the Fillmore East became known as “the church of rock ’n’ roll.”

The Allman Brothers played so many shows at Fillmore East that they were sometimes nicknamed “Bill Graham’s House Band.” Recorded over two nights in March 1971, At The Fillmore remains the go-to album for Allmans aficianados. These performances sizzle: Duane Alman’s slide on “Statesboro Blues” is the stuff of legend, while his interplay with Dickey Betts seemed almost telepathic. The Fillmore somehow helped the Allmans raise their game: “The audience would kind of play along with us,” singer-organist Gregg Allman recalled. “They were right on top of every single vibration coming from the stage.” Mammoth versions of “Whipping Post” and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” also pack amazing guitar punch but, as with Jimi, the shows seemed cursed. Duane Allman died in a motorcycle accident just three months after the album’s release.

Black Label Society: John "J.D." DeServio Video Interview

Shane Williams of WildKC.com conducted an interview with John "J.D." DeServio, bassist for Black Label Society and Cucle of Pain, on May 14, 2011 at Rockfest in Kansas City, Missouri. You can now watch the chat below.

Black Label Society is currently headlining Fuse's Uranium Tour 2011 presented by Mistress Juliya.

"Order Of The Black" was released in North America in August 2010 via E1 Music. The CD featured four unique covers designed by Zakk Wylde himself - one for each territory: North America, Europe, Asia and Australia/New Zealand.
 

Bob Daisley: In Depth Interview Covering His Entire Amazing Career Available

BraveWords.com recently caught up with bassist and lyricist extraordinaire Bob Daisley, who boasts a career spanning over 40 years and a resume filled to the brim with such notable acts as Ozzy Osbourne, Rainbow, Uriah Heep, Gary  Moore, Black Sabbath and many more. With the anxiously-anticipated Deluxe Editions of Ozzy's first two landmark solo efforts, "Blizzard Of Ozz" (1980) and "Diary Of A Madman" (1981), hitting the street at the end of the month, Daisley spent time with BraveWords.com correspondent Cory Lambert answering a vast array of questions from the past, present and future. Beginning with the most obvious (!), why do the Gods of rock n' roll smile on him so much? 


Bob Daisley: (laughs) "That's a funny question. Have never been asked that before. (laughs). I suppose in some ways I have been blessed. You know I feel very fortunate and grateful for the way my career has gone and for some of the great people I have had the pleasure to work with. I mean, from a young age, I was ready to put my best into what I did and make sacrifices and make that effort I think you get results. I suppose I have as you said, been smiled on by the gods."

BraveWords.com: Recently on th e BraveWords.com Facebook page, they asked who Bob Daisley was and the most common response was "genius" or "legend".

Bob Daisley: "Wow, that's fantastic. It's really amazing. It's really an honour for me to hear stories like those. I mean, how the lyrics started out, was I had written things before but I had not regarded myself as a lyricist or anything but it was really; well, necessity is the mother of invention and Randy (Rhoads) wasn't a lyricist and Ozzy hadn't written any lyrics in Black Sabbath. Lee Kerslake has written some songs himself, but he himself said he was not a good lyricist. I remember coming down one morning when we were rehearsing and writing and auditioning drummers, before Lee was in the band and Ozzy and Randy had tried to put some lyrics together, but I read them and thought this was so Spinal Tap, I mean, they were awful. (laughs) I mean, Spinal Tap was not out yet, but they were corny and cheesy lyrics. I just thought to myself that I had better write the lyrics. Ozzy was good at vocal melodies and obviously Randy was a genius guitar player, so I did the lyrics. Well, I co-wrote a lot of the music with Randy. A lot of the classic riffs, well, those are Randy's but we put the songs together musically. And then Ozzy came up with the melodies and I wrote the lyrics to them. It was a combined effort and I think it was all meant to happen, I mean it seems that way." 


Read the entire interview on this location.

KISS: Eric Singer On Forthcoming Album

Kiss Army Australia recently conducted an interview with KISS drummer Eric Singer. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Kiss Army Australia: It's been a little over 18 months since the release of"Sonic Boom", an album which had the band much sounding much closer to its trademark '70s sound. How do you see that album now? From your perspective was there anything you though "maybe I should have done that differently" or "I didn't quite nail that?"

Eric: "Sonic Boom" was really good and was the first step in the right direction for KISS. The newest record we are now working on at this time will show a natural progression from "Sonic Boom" to KISS 2011 as you will all hear soon enough.

Kiss Army Australia: From the outside looking in it seems as though the band is quite early in the stages of preparing the follow up album. In going about the preparation of the album is there a focus on creating an album that follows in the vein of "Sonic Boom" or is it more of a case of seeing where the band ends up once tracks are "in the can?"

Eric: We are already knee deep into the new record as I write this... All I can say is you will all be very pleased. The material is stronger and more riff oriented and very hard/heavier style. Everyone that has heard material so far is raving about the stuff and we are, too.

Kiss Army Australia: Has your involvement on the new album been any different to "Sonic Boom", or earlier KISS albums?

Eric: As a band we are more comfortable and have more time together under our belts now that really shows in our writing, performances, etc. We work out all the material together in rehearsals as a band before we go into the studio. It really makes for better vibes and performance overall.

Read the entire interview from Kiss Army Australia.

Ozzy Osbourne On New Album: "It's Going To Be Back To Balls To The Wall"

A new interview with legendary heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne will air on Planet Rock on Monday, May 30 at 7 p.m. Ozzy talked to Nicky Horneabout the upcoming 30th-anniversary reissues of Osbourne's first two albums, "Blizzard Of Ozz" and "Diary Of A Madman"; his love of touring, the ups and downs of Black Sabbath; his one wish that his original guitarist Randy Rhoads would still be alive. Ozzy also revealed that he will go back to basics on his new CD. "On my next album, I can assure you it's going to be back to balls to the wall," he said. "I have already been writing some stuff, (working on) some ideas with my band."

Planet Rock broadcasts on digital radio, Sky 0110, Virgin Media 924, Freesat 730, online www.planetrock.com and on iPhone.

In a recent interview with Metal Messiah Radio's "Heavy Metal Thunder"show, Ozzy stated about his planned follow-up to 2010's "Scream", "I wanna get more back down to basics with this next album. 

"I haven't got a title. I've written a couple of ideas down. But I can't really give you much more information. It's not gonna take a long time, I don't think. All I can say to you is I've got a few ideas for songs, but I don't wanna say when it's going to be released because I don't know myself.

"I don't stick to a formula. I just try and experiment a lot. 'Scream' was more like a an experimental album because I didn't have a band at the time. Gus came along and the guys played on the album after I'd done a lot of the work myself and my producer, Kevin Churko, in my studio." 

Ozzy Osbourne's current touring drummer, Tommy Clufetos, told the "Talking Metal" podcast that early work is already underway for a follow-up to "Scream" and that he thinks Ozzy is "going to return to a classic rock band record." Clufetos added, "What he has expressed is that he wants to make it the band playing live in a room so wherever that takes us. Less technology and more amps and drums."

Ozzy recorded much of "Scream" in a studio at his home in Los Angeles with producer Kevin Churko, doing most of the writing and recording on computers. He told The Pulse Of Radio he liked working that way but wanted to do something different next time out. "At the end of the day, the end result was pretty cool, but I don't know whether I want to continue to do it that way," he said. "I like to - like the earlier albums, I'd go rehearse and jam out with the band, get some, like, vibe going, you know. I want to incorporate that and this new technology thing, next album."

Clufetos told "Talking Metal" that Ozzy and the touring band have already begun working on song ideas between shows on Ozzy's latest tour, saying, "We are already coming up with new ideas backstage, in the hotel rooms and at soundcheck and have a bunch of ideas recorded . . . time will tell what happens with them."