2004

A gunman stormed the stage during a heavy metal concert in Columbus, Ohio, on Wednesday night, firing at the band and audience and killing four people before a police officer shot and killed him, police said.

One of the dead was guitarist “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, 38, of the band Damageplan. The gunman also wounded two people.

Columbus police identified the suspect as Nathan Gale, 25, of nearby Marysville but said they had no information about a motive or possible connection to the band.

The man was “targeting members in the band,” Columbus police Sgt. Brent Mull said.

Before the gunman was shot, police said, he grabbed a hostage and fired into the crowd. It was unclear what happened to the hostage.

The attack came shortly after Damageplan began its performance at the Alrosa Villa nightclub on Columbus’ north end.

One of the wounded is in critical condition, and the other is hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Two others were hurt and treated at the scene, although the nature of their injuries was not clear.

The gunman initially shot the band’s guitarist, Abbott, witnesses said.

He and his brother, Vinnie Paul Abbott, 40, formed Damageplan after Pantera — a group they formed in the 1980s — broke up last year. Their father is Jerry Abbott, a country and western songwriter and producer.

Police were notified of the shooting around 10:18 p.m., Mull said. A uniformed police officer who was near the scene slipped into the venue from a back entrance, confronted the gunman during the rampage and killed him, authorities said.

Source: cnn.com

Pearl Jams Fan Club, The Ten Club is releasing a very special limited edition CD, titled “The Molo Sessions,” featuring Eddie Vedder singing with the Walmer High School choir from South Africa. The CD will have a number of tracks of the choir and a few tracks with Ed and the choir together. “The Molo Sessions” will be available for purchase December 15th on Pearl Jam’s website. Sales will benefit Molo Care, a Seattle non-profit that raises money for schools in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Track Listing

01. Long Road
02. Love Boat Captain
03. Mandela Siyakuthanda
04. Emarabini
05. Theledi
06. Nombayi
07. Ootsotsi Base Benoni
08. Betterman
09. Iyelele
10. Sana Iwami
11. Nora
12. Jabula Ntliziyo Yam
13. Izintombi Ezilishumi
14. Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (South African National Anthem)

Ray LaMontagne will kick off a brief slate of tour dates Jan. 14 in Portland, Maine. The 11-date tour will also accommodate at Jan. 19 performance on NBC’s “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” The singer/songwriter’s debut album RCA album “Trouble” is No. 38 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart.

Here are LaMontagne’s tour dates:

Jan. 14: Portland, Maine (Asylum)
Jan. 15: Boston (Paradise Rock Club)
Jan. 16: Northhampton, Mass. (Iron Horse)
Jan. 18: Philadelphia (Theatre of the Living Arts)
Jan. 19: New York (Bowery Ballroom)
Jan. 20: Arlington, Va. (Iota)
Jan. 21: Carrboro, N.C. (Carrboro Arts Center)
Jan. 23: Nashville (3rd and Lindsay)
Jan. 25: Birmingham, Ala. (Workplay Theatre)
Jan. 26: Louisville, Ky. (Rudyard Kipling)
Jan. 29: Los Angeles (Troubador)

Source billboard.com.

After a five-year recording break, experimental rockers Mr. Bungle are officially done. “I’m at a point now where I crave healthy musical environments, where there is a genuine exchange of ideas without repressed envy or resentment, and where people in the band want to be there regardless of what public accolades may come their way,” says singer Mike Patton. “Unfortunately, Mr. Bungle was not one of those places.”

The multi-member band (whose core members included Patton, guitarist Trey Spruance, bassist Trevor Dunn, saxophonist Clinton “Bar” McKinnon and drummer Danny Heifetz) originally formed back in the mid-Eighties in Eureka, California, while its members were still in high school. Then Patton joined Faith No More before their commercial breakthrough, 1989’s The Real Thing. The boost in exposure landed Bungle a recording contract with Warner Bros., which released 1991’s Mr. Bungle, 1995’s Disco Volante and 1999’s California.

Although Bungle never matched Faith No More’s commercial success, they gained a large cult following and influenced recent funk/metal chart-toppers — most notably Korn, whose guitarists utilize what they’ve dubbed the “Mr. Bungle chord.” Also, long before Slipknot, Bungle donned masks onstage to hide their identities.

“We could have probably squeezed out a couple more records but the collective personality of this group became so dysfunctional,” Patton says. “This band was poisoned by one person’s petty jealousy and insecurity, and it led us to a slow, unnatural death. And I’m at peace with that, because I know I tried all I could.”

With Bungle now removed from his schedule planner, Patton will spend next year focusing on his myriad other bands. Peeping Tom, for which Patton plays all of the instruments himself, will finally release an oft-delayed debut, and there will be records by Fantomas and Tomahawk, as well as General Patton vs. the X-ecutioners, a collaboration with turntable specialists the X-ecutioners. The singer has also recently branched out beyond rock — into acting, in Steve Balderson’s Firecracker; and scoring, for the forthcoming video game, Bully.

And of course, Patton continues to run his label, Ipecac, which will release new material from the likes of Washington, D.C., noise-mongers Orthrelm, British prog-rock duo Guapo and ambient one-man band the Locust. “When something is important to you, you find a way to make the time,” the multi-tasking Patton says. “Or rather, the time makes itself.”

Source rollingstone.com.

The fourth annual Bonnaroo Music Festival is set for June 10-12. The hugely successful jam band fest will return to the same 700-acre site in rural Manchester, Tenn., about 60 miles South of Nashville.

Jonathan Mayers, president of Superfly Productions, producer of the event with Ashley Capps and A.C. Entertainment, tells Billboard.biz that the lineup is being finalized and an announcement of the bill and on-sale information is tentatively set for January.

“We will continue to have our core [jam band artists], but we’re also into introducing fans to all types of music,” ” Mayers says. “We think these fans are very open to different kinds of music.”

Bonnaroo was the second-highest-grossing concert of 2004, according to Billboard Boxscore, taking in $14.5 million from a lineup that included the Dead, Dave Matthews & Friends, Trey Anastasio, Bob Dylan, and nearly 80 other acts. Mayers says ticket prices, $139 and $164 in 2004, will increase slightly in 2005, but capacity, 90,000 last year, will not.

Source billboard.com.

Kanye West — a rapper who has steered away from hard-core topics in favor of lyrics about everyday life — led nominations Tuesday for the 47th annual Grammy Awards, earning 10 nods, including song of the year, album of the year and best new artist.

Several artists — including Alicia Keys, Ray Charles, Green Day and Usher — earned nominations in two of the big three categories: song, album and record of the year.

Usher’s hit single “Yeah!” and album “Confessions” are nominated for record of the year and album of the year, respectively, while Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” and “The Diary of Alicia Keys” are up for song of the year (a songwriter’s award) and album of the year.

Rounding out the latter category are Charles’ “Genius Loves Company,” Green Day’s “American Idiot” and newcomer West’s “College Dropout.” West’s song of the year nomination is for “Jesus Calls.”

Other record of the year nominees are “Let’s Get It Started” by the Black Eyed Peas; “Here We Go Again” by Charles and Norah Jones; “American Idiot” by Green Day; and “Heaven” by Los Lonely Boys.

Song of the year nods went to “Daughters,” written and performed by John Mayer; “Jesus Walks,” written by West and C. Smith; Tim McGraw’s “Live Like You Were Dying” written by Tim Nichols and Craig Wiseman; Hoobastank’s “The Reason,” by Daniel Estrin and Douglas Robb; and Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You,” which she wrote and performed.

West, Los Lonely Boys, Maroon 5, Joss Stone and Gretchen Wilson are up for best new artist.

The Grammys will be given out February 13 in Los Angeles, California, during a broadcast on CBS.

Source CNN.com.

The full list of nominations is available at grammys.com

A longtime friend of late Metallica bassist Cliff Burton has a batch of his unreleased demo tapes, which he hopes to donate to a burgeoning musician. Burton was killed in 1986 when the band’s bus crashed in Sweden on the Master of Puppets tour.
“There are Metallica mega-hits that will never be,” says Dave DiDonato, a drummer in his own right, of the tapes. “All these killer riffs . . . he was working on them until he died.”

Such tapes were key to Metallica’s songwriting process. Burton, singer-guitarist James Hetfield and lead guitarist Kirk Hammett (and his predecessor, Dave Mustaine) would record them, and bandleaders Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich would then sift through them to construct songs. After Burton’s death, the bassist earned a posthumous songwriting credit when one of his riffs served as the foundation for “To Live Is to Die,” from 1988’s …And Justice for All.

Burton’s parents gave DiDonato the tapes after their son’s death, and DiDonato wants to get them in the hands of someone who can continue in Burton’s spirit. “I would love to find a young bass musician following in [Cliff’s] footsteps,” he says, “someone who would utilize this material to improve his craft and appreciate the music, and devote himself to doing what Cliff was doing.” (Interested parties can contact DiDonato through his rotgrub.com Web site.)

The tapes were recorded in the Burton family’s Castro Valley, California, home, and — not surprisingly — the sound quality is often rough. “It was usually late at night, and he couldn’t play loud,” says DiDonato, “and he had this really crummy little bass amp. On a lot these, you hear string slapping, grunting and his equipment squeaking . . . His mom would walk in and go, ‘Cliff, turn it down!’ [laughs].”

DiDonato’s Web site has begun selling CDs of jam sessions from the early to mid-Eighties, featuring Burton on bass, ex-Faith No More member Jim Martin on guitar and DiDonato beating on empty fifty-five-gallon oil drums. The setting for these jams was also late at night, outdoors at Martin’s parents’ California ranch. “We never really talked or practiced,” says DiDonato, “and sometimes it’s really absurd and the time signatures are completely wrong.” But the jams are not without charm, or significance: Metallica and Faith No More songs such as “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “Woodpecker From Mars” were birthed during these sessions.

As for his reaction to hearing the works of his old friend, DiDonato says, “I get goosebumps.”

Source rollingstone.com.