VH1 Rock Honors tomorrow night

Be sure to check out the 2006 Rock Honors on VH1 tomorrow night. The Foos will be doing a number or 2 with Queen that will probably knock your socks off. And Def Leppard will be performing as well, so you know it's going to be good. (Images courtesy of sweetparamania.com)

Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne Delivers Bizarre High School Graduation Address

From mtv.com:

It's always interesting when the guy delivering the commencement address at your high school graduation begins his speech like this:

"When I was first asked to preside over this great assemblage, I was not convinced that I was the right man for the job. You see, I am not technically a high school graduate myself ... I felt I was learning more from my life experiences than I was from my classes and my teachers. It is well documented that I worked at Long John Silver's and sold pot out of my apartment. Some of you may say it's a wonder I did not end up going to jail. I would agree with you."

Of course, when the guy speaking is Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne, it starts to make a little more sense. For more than 23 years, Coyne has been rock's foremost practitioner of all things bizarre (see "Flaming Lips Go To War Against Britney, Gwen On New LP," "Flaming Lips Frontman Straps On Raw Meat, Outruns Werewolf"). So when the students at his almost-alma mater — the Classen School of Advanced Studies in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma — asked him to speak at their graduation ceremony, he certainly lived up to his reputation.

"We cannot know what we will become, but we can control what we do. So in my case, instead of becoming a drug dealer, I began to pursue art and music and discovered something that I really, really love," Coyne said in his speech, which was videotaped last week and played during the school's graduation ceremony on Wednesday (Coyne had a show in San Diego and could not attend in person). "We are not what we dream. We are what we do, and all we have is action, and we can only really learn from experience. So if we can only learn from experience, what use is all this knowledge?"

It's an excellent question, and one that Coyne — who attended Classen from 1976 to 1979 before dropping out during his senior year — spent the majority of his 13-minute speech answering in his own, uh, unique way: with a rambling story about one of his friends getting stung in the face by a jellyfish while surfing in Mexico, then taking the advice of a local doctor and applying "fresh human urine" to numb the pain. When that didn't work, the befuddled doctor recommended a bottle of strong tequila, figuring that would be the best option.

"So here's this doctor, thinking he has knowledge, but he has no experience. And here's [my friend], having this horrible experience, but with no formal knowledge. It's like throwing a hot dog to try to stop a tornado: You get the same damage done, but now everything's covered with meat and mustard," Coyne said.

"So what have we learned?" he asked in summation. "Well, we've learned that we should avoid jellyfish no matter what, and we've learned that pain — if it's severe enough — trumps all logic in the human brain. And we've learned that having urine put on your face is probably not as bad as we thought it would be.

"And so as you go out into the world, be aware of those inexperienced fools who offer easy, exotic solutions to painful and complicated problems," he continued. "Do your best to learn from all your experiences, not just the sting of your failures, but also from the joyful accidents that will occur along the way."

New Pearl Jam video!

Check out the new Pearl Jam video for their next single, Life Wasted, here. It's free for download until May 24th (sorry for the short notice).

Chilis rip off Petty? You be the judge...

A story broke here that compares the similarities between Tom Petty's "Last Dance With Mary Jane" and The Red Hot Chili Peppers "Dani California". I never realized it until now, but they certainly make a convincing case.

EDITORIAL: A Petty Case of Red Hot Plagiarism?
Wed, 17 May 2006 11:27:34 +0000
Is it a last dance for popular rock group The Red Hot Chili Peppers or a petty coincidence?

Callers to WGMD Radio’s Dan Gaffney Morning Show expressed surprise and outrage when Gaffney Show producer Jared Morris uncovered an apparent case of plagiarism in the Chili Peppers’ new hit song “Dani California.”

Morris and Gaffney allege that there are startling similarities between “California” and Rocker Tom Petty’s early 1990’s hit “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.”

“The chord progression, the melody, the tempo, the key, the lyrical theme… they’re identical,” Morris said.

The callers agreed. “I play music myself. Those are the exact chords, the exact pitch, almost the same harmony,” WGMD listener Apostle Ivory Hopkins said. “Good God, Man.”

Morris and Gaffney urge you to decide for yourself.

Check out the evidence here.

Foo Fighters announce acoustic tour

Courtesy of ff.com - I sure do hope they announce a Minneapolis date! If a MN show isn't announced, who's up for a road trip to Chicago?

The Foo Fighters much anticipated Acoustic Tour kicks off this July! Seven US dates have been announced at intimate venues across the country! A special 8-piece line-up will perform the live premiere of songs from disc 2 of In Your Honor as well as unique interpretations of favorites from the band's entire catalogue.

Joining the band on the second installment of the In Your Honor Tour are special guests Petra Haden on Violin, Rami Jaffee on Keyboards, Drew Hester on percussion and former Foo Fighter Pat Smear on Guitar! Tickets for all seven shows go on sale May 19th at 4pm Local Time. Opening acts for these shows will be Timmy Curran in July and Frank Black in August.

July 11 - Seattle *
July 13 - Berkeley *
July 17 - San Diego *
August 16 - Philadelphia ^
August 21 - New York ^
August 22 - Boston ^
August 25 - Chicago ^

* with Timmy Curran
^ with Frank Black

Rock on TV for the week of May 14, 2006

Here are some of the hot bands playing on your favorite late night shows this week (courtesy of VH1's Rock On TV):

Monday, May 15

CBS

11:35 p.m. The Late Show With David Letterman: ANGELS AND AIRWAVES

Tuesday, May 16

NBC

11:37 p.m. The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: GOO GOO DOLLS

Thursday, May 18

CBS

11:35 p.m. The Late Show With David Letterman: EAGLES OF DEATH METAL

NBC

12:37 a.m. Late Night With Conan O'Brien: THE RACONTEURS
1:37 a.m. Last Call With Carson Daly: BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB

Friday, May 19

CBS

12:37 a.m. The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson: NICK LACHEY

NBC

11:37 p.m. The Tonight Show With Jay Leno: MICHAEL BOLTON
1:37 a.m. Last Call With Carson Daly: EELS

Pearl Jam on Letterman

You can watch Pearl Jam's mini-concert from the Ed Sullivan Theater at this location. They put on an incredible show - here's the setlist:

Worldwide Suicide
Comatose
Severed Hand
Marker in the Sand
Umemployable
Gone
Present Tense
Do The Evolution
Why Go
Porch

Rock star writes to miners

Found this article tonight - I sure hope those miners make it out OK and are able to have a few cold ones with Mr. Grohl...link to the story is here.

Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl has sent a message to the two men trapped down in a Tasmanian mine offering to have a beer with them after they are rescued.
Mine manager Matthew Gill said today Grohl had contacted him after learning that one of the trapped men had requested Foo Fighters material on an iPod being sent down the mine.

Mr Gill - who earlier this week mistakenly described the Foo Fighters as a country band - said Grohl had offered to have a beer with the men once their ordeal was over.

Asked how Grohl had learned of the iPod request, Mr Gill joked it was probably because he had described the Foo Fighters as a country band, and Grohl was seeking to "correct the record".

"I read it to them and they were both stoked," Mr Gill said.

"It was basically, 'Thinking of you and anywhere, anytime to catch up with two cold beers'."

Mr Gill said Grohl was keen to know whether he had a deal with the miners.

"And I can tell Dave that those two say 'It's a deal'."

Brant Webb, 37, and Todd Russell, 34, have been trapped 925m underground since a small earthquake on Anzac Day triggered a rockfall, killing their colleague and trapping them in a small cavity down the mine.

A 16m escape route is being painstakingly tunnelled toward the men, who have now been in the mine for more than 10 days.

The two trapped miners will have to endure at least another night underground, despite good progress towards reaching them.

Rescuers drilling a metre-diameter escape tunnel were this afternoon just over 10m from reaching the spot where Todd Russell, 34, and Brant Webb, 37 are huddled in a steel cage.

Rescue teams are then expected to use jackhammers to punch through the final layer of rock to the two men, in the final, crucial part of the rescue operation.

Mr Gill said they just wanted the rescue operation to proceed safely.

"They just said 'do it safely'. They weren't concerned at the time at all," he said.

"I thought I'd get a serve (from them), but they realise that everything possible is being done.

"They were appreciative of the support they are getting, the commentary they are getting, the medics and our own men.

"They were really appreciative of that, almost apologetic."

Mr Gill said drilling had progressed about five-and-a-half metres, "so we are going okay."

"We are working on a (final) process to get them out and it won't be tonight."

Tonight will be the men's 11th night underground since rock falls trapped them one kilometre underground and killed their workmate Larry Knight, 44.

April showers bring May tunes...

We're getting into the summer months shortly, and the big rock releases are rolling off the assembly line faster than you can say "Hump De Bump". Tomorrow will be a great day for new releases, with new albums dropping from Tool (10,000 Days) and Pearl Jam (Pearl Jam). I haven't had a chance to digest the Tool album yet, but I highly suggest picking up Pearl Jam. It is probably their best album that they've released in 10 years. Go here to check out an in-studio performance of Life Wasted from the new album. Righteous.




Next week sees the release of The Red Hot Chili Peppers new double album opus, Stadium Arcadium. I had the pleasure of hearing this album for the 1st time yesterday, and it is simply phenomenal. My whole family was jamming out to it yesterday while prepping for a little barbecue. It's a pleasant mixture of their recent forays into more poppy material (By The Way, Californication), as well as a revisiting of their older funky jams. This is probably gonna get my vote for the album to be pumping on your stereo this summer.