Search Results for: death metal

In the words of one of their songs, Dancing Days are here again for fans of Led Zeppelin. Defunct for almost 23 years, the pioneering English band behind such hard rock classics as “Stairway to Heaven” and “Kashmir” has cleaned out its vaults to issue eight hours of previously unreleased live material on DVD and CD. The “Led Zeppelin DVD” contains footage from four tours spanning 1970 to 1979; the CD “How The West Was Won” combines two Los Angeles shows from 1972 to replicate a single concert. Remarkably, the band’s leader and guitarist, Jimmy Page, who compiled the releases,… Read more »

From rampaging bikers at the Rolling Stones’ infamous Altamont show in 1969 to deadly stampedes by fans of the Who and Pearl Jam, the most notorious rock concert tragedies have generally been linked to the biggest names in the business. That is, until Great White took the stage of a tiny Rhode Island nightclub Thursday night. The heavy metal “hair” band, which reached the brief apex of its career in the 1980s, will now be forever remembered for a devastating fire that stands in a class by itself as the deadliest episode in the annals of rock ‘n’ roll mayhem.… Read more »

A fast-moving fire – ignited by an indoor pyrotechnics display during a concert – killed at least 54 people late Thursday at a Providence, Rhode Island-area nightclub, officials said. West Warwick Town Manager Wolfgang Bauer said that emergency officials have confirmed 39 deaths and at have counted at least 15 more bodies that are still in the rubble of The Station club. “The building was well involved inside of three minutes,” said Fire Chief Charlie Hall, who told reporters that the building had no sprinklers because its relatively small size didn’t require them. “The whole place got tons of black… Read more »

The second annual “Plea for Peace: Take Action” tour, which benefits National Hopeline Network 1-800-SUICIDE, features different lineups on different legs of the trek. The D.C. show is headlined by Thursday, which is apt, since the New Jersey quintet derives its anguished post-hardcore sound – which one wag has dubbed “screamo” – from such D.C. trailblazers as Rites of Spring. If anything, Thursday’s “Full Collapse” is even more morbidly sensitive than the work of its inspirations. “I think it’s going to rain, rain down/ Here in this collapsed lung of a borough,” muses singer Geoff Rickly midway through “Paris in… Read more »

Fans growing impatient for the release of the Ramones tribute album We’re a Happy Family now have a good reason to turn that frown upside down. The track list for the LP, which is currently being mastered, and a tentative street date of November 5 were announced via a posting on the Web site of Rob Zombie, who is serving as co-producer along with guitarist Johnny Ramone. Although Zombie himself vouched for the accuracy of the most specific details concerning the album since he first announced plans for it in November, a spokesperson for Columbia Records, the label which intends… Read more »

A day after the body of Drowning Pool frontman Dave Williams was discovered on the band’s tour bus, details remained scarce but memories of Williams as a fun-loving, kind-hearted character abounded. The 30-year-old singer was found in his bunk by members of Drowning Pool’s touring crew Wednesday afternoon, their publicist said. The band was in Manassas, Virginia, on its way to Thursday’s Ozzfest show in Bristow. An autopsy conducted Thursday morning proved inconclusive, according to a Prince William County police spokesperson. A cause of death is expected to be determined from toxicology tests, which generally take four to six weeks.… Read more »

Dave Williams, lead singer of Drowning Pool, was found dead on the band’s tour bus Wednesday afternoon (August 14), according to a spokesperson for the group. He was 30 years old. A cause of death has yet to be determined. The Dallas quartet was on tour with Ozzfest when Williams’ body was discovered. Ozzfest had played the Verizon Wireless Music Center in Noblesville, Indiana, on Tuesday. Wednesday was an off day for the tour. Thursday’s Ozzfest at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow, Virginia, will go on as scheduled, according to a manager for the outing. Bolstered by the hit single… Read more »

Former Ratt guitarist Robbin Crosby died at his Los Angeles home on Thursday morning following a long battle with AIDS. He was 42. The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to Craig Harvey, operations chief for the Los Angeles coroner’s office. One of the original members of the ’80s metal rockers known for hits such as “Round and Round” and “Lay It Down,” Crosby began speaking out several years ago about his drug use in the band’s heyday and how it led to his contraction of the deadly virus nearly eight years ago. Ratt formed in the… Read more »

Roughly one month after the tragic death of his close friend and former bandmate Layne Staley, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell returned to the town that made them both famous, and despite the feeling that a big hole existed where his former partner once stood, it was a rocking, if bittersweet, trip back in time. With plenty of classic AIC material in tow, Cantrell took a sparse but enthusiastic audience at Key Arena on Friday back to the halcyon days of the early ’90s – a time of lank hair, big angst and bigger guitars, before the Bizkit and its… Read more »

With the passing of Layne Staley, those who knew him best remember him as deeply troubled yet immensely talented. Described as a caring person, he made great strides to elevate an underground genre to the mainstream. In the early ’90s, Alice in Chains, along with Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, were directly behind Nirvana on the grunge wave that began in Seattle and cascaded throughout the country. The singer’s Alice in Chains bandmates – guitarist Jerry Cantrell, bassist Mike Inez, drummer Sean Kinney and former bassist Mike Starr – their manager and Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell gathered Saturday, a day after police… Read more »