Search Results for: death metal

Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley was found dead in his Seattle home on Friday evening. The King County Medical Examiner positively identified Staley’s body on Saturday (April 20), following an autopsy. Exact time and cause of death are pending, as laboratory results could take several weeks, a spokesperson said. Staley was 34. Police responded to a call to check on a person’s well-being at Staley’s address in Seattle’s University District at 5:41 p.m. PT on Friday, according to the police report. Upon discovering the body, which is presumed to have been there for several days, officers called investigators from the… Read more »

A body was removed tonight (4/19) from the University District residence of Layne Staley, lead singer and guitarist for the Seattle grunge band Alice in Chains. KOMO-TV, citing an unidentified source, said the body was that of Staley, 34. A King County medical-examiner’s investigator said his office removed a body from the Staley address and planned an autopsy today, but he refused to confirm the identity of the person. He said it appeared the person had been dead for some time and would have to be identified scientifically. Staley had a history of substance abuse, and in the early 1990s… Read more »

Heavy metal superstar Ozzy Osbourne, infamous for biting the head off a bat in his younger days, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday for his dark brand of showmanship. Wearing a black suit, a large gold cross and round, blue glasses, with bright red streaks in his brown hair, Osbourne accepted the star with humility. “To say that this is an honor is not enough,” he said. “This is just so overwhelming, with all of you turning out so early in the morning to see my old butt.” The 53-year-old is enjoying renewed popularity with… Read more »

The following is a complete list of winners at the 44th annual Grammy Awards, which took place at the Staples Center on Wednesday. Categories marked with an asterisk were handed out during the main, televised ceremony. * RECORD OF THE YEAR “Walk On” – U2 * ALBUM OF THE YEAR “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” – various artists * SONG OF THE YEAR “Fallin”‘ – Alicia Keys, songwriter (Alicia Keys) * NEW ARTIST Alicia Keys * FEMALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE “I’m Like a Bird” – Nelly Furtado MALE POP VOCAL PERFORMANCE “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight” – James Taylor… Read more »

Once again, Todd McFarlane has immortalized one of the most beloved personalities of heavy metal as a detailed action figure. This time, however, it’s not a living musician he’s paying tribute to, but a character from beyond the grave. Yes, shriveled-faced, sneering Eddie – the Iron Maiden mascot – has been preserved in plastic. “With us as individuals, we’re not really interested in being made into action figures, because we’ve got Eddie,” Maiden frontman Bruce Dickinson explained Tuesday. “We’ve got plenty of incarnations of Eddie to go on with for ages.” The first Eddie doll was modeled after the claw-bearing,… Read more »

George Harrison, lead guitarist for the band that single handedly changed the face of rock forever, lost his battle with cancer Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 58. The Associated Press reports that Harrison passed away at 4:30 p.m. EST at a friend’s home. His wife, Olivia Harrison, and son Dhani were with him. The Beatles, unlike most bands of the early ’60s, both wrote and performed their songs, making them the first entirely self-contained music outfit. Even today, few superstar acts can take credit for penning all their hits, but from writing the lyrics and music to recording in… Read more »

What do Osama bin Laden, Britney Spears, Bert from “Sesame Street” and the heavy metal band Anthrax have in common? They were all among the top searches on Internet Web sites for the last week, proving yet again the Internet is nothing if not a mix of serious news alongside a funhouse of wacky pop culture mania, boy bands and hoaxes. Web searches for anthrax, the deadly bacteria that has been mailed to some government and news offices, led many confused surfers to the Web site of the heavy metal band of the same name. “The boys of ‘the good… Read more »

Anthrax never wanted this kind of publicity. The seminal New York metal band’s name is all over the press these days for all the wrong reasons – a small outbreak of the bio-terrorist disease of choice in Florida has an already understandably edgy America in panic mode. Set to launch their Operation Enduring Metal tour with Judas Priest in early 2002 (“the tour the terrorists tried to stop”), the group has let it be known they have no immediate designs on a name change. A statement from the band jokingly begins, “In light of current events, we are changing the… Read more »

“Things are different now,” a news anchor commented last Tuesday while covering the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Those words continue to resonate a week later, with sports, travel and entertainment all vastly affected by the East Coast tragedies. In the music industry, the biggest changes are occurring on the air as radio stations around the country alter their playlists to reflect the radically different context in which pop music is now heard as compared to when the music was originally written and recorded. As Bob Buchmann, program director at WAXQ in New York, put it, “The… Read more »

Brooklyn-born rapper Jay-Z’s latest LP, “Blueprint,” led a torrent of new releases at the top of the album charts this week as America’s record buyers continued to shop despite Sept. 11’s terrorist attacks. The Island/Def Jam release flew off shelves last week, shifting nearly 427,000 units, according to data compiled by SoundScan. Sales of “Blueprint” were powered by the near-ubiquity of its first single, “H.O.V.A. (Izzo),” on both urban radio and music television. Island/Def Jam’s chart dominance continued in the latest session with Nickelback’s “Silver Side Up,” which came in at No. 2 with 178,000 copies sold. “Silver Side Up”… Read more »