Rock 'n' Roll News

Rock 'n' Roll News

Recently deposed Kiss fretter Vinnie Vincent is forming a new band with ex-New Englander Hirsh Gardner. Are you?

Boy George and his ex-roomie Marilyn have kissed and made up. They returned from a sunny holiday in Jamaica with actual stubble on their internationally famous chins, a common symptom of men who don’t shave for a week. Do you think they stopped shaving everywhere?

The Rolling Stones are feuding again, this time over Mick’s solo record. Because the lipped-one is tied up with recording sessions in London, New York and Jamaica, all the group’s business has to wait until he’s finished. “Everyone close to the band is worried sick about it." says one “highly” placed insider. “There’s no telling what could happen. Their future together as a group is in serious danger.” To top things off, the whole gang snubbed the christening of Mick’s latest daughter. Low blow for sure, but at least they didn’t show up at the church and piss on the wall!

Duran Duran are gonna be really busy bea—.uh, furry ones for the rest of ’84. Items on the pre-Xmas agenda include a live album, which was mixed by Nick Rhodes this summer, a 60-minute “warts V all” television documentary, a live video and a book about their recent world tour. Nick is also issuing Interference, a book of photos taken around the globe with the group, and hopes to lead the guys back into the studio next spring to record a new album.

Journey guitarist Neal $chon i has a cameo role in the upcoming film Teachers, playing an Italian, what else? Neal’s also writing the music for the flick with pal Eric Martin, who just dumped his eponymously-named band.

Meanwhile, fellow Journeyman Ross Valory’s little brother Brett and his band Moment Of Truth are recording an LP for CBS with the dreaded Sandy Pearlman at the knobs.

Metal gawd Jimmy Page has recorded an LP with Brit folkie Roy Harper. No label yet, as the guys are shopping it around for the right deal. You’ll never guess what they’re gonna call it. Squeezebombers Over Liverpool? Where The Satanists Are? Friday The 13th Part 92? Nope—it’s Harper & Page, of course. Why d’ya think they call it mope?'

Word has it Del Leppard will record their next LP at Wisseloord Studios near Amsterdam. Send all hole/dike jokes directly to this magazine.

Hey, Hey, we’re the Motleys: the feud between heavy metal mentals Motley Crue and the equally polite Twisted Sister is getting hotter and hotter. Seems that some extradumb writer (bite your tongue!) said Twisted Sister ripped off the Crue’s “look.” The Twisteds,

! who’ve been making fools of themselves in this manner for years, didn’t appreciate the comparison at all, and one unnamed Sister went so far as to liken Motley Crue to the Monkeesi

Dunno about those Twisteds, though. They opened their latest Detroit show by shouting a rousing “Hello, Chicago!” at the crowd.

Bad news for Waysted fans: they’ve been dropped by Chrysalis Records. Good news: they still plan to record a new LP with Leo Lyons at the helm. Indifferent news later.

At the very moment you’re reading this, Police meece Sting is taking a four week holiday in the Himalayas. Oops! He just tripped!

Eddy “Romancing The Stone” Grant thinks his records don’t sell well in England because he’s cursed! We bet the only way to break the curse is to shave his head!

Onetime Runaway and forever female animal Lita Ford served as Grand Marshall of the NHRA Summernationals, the second largest drag race known to mankind. Reputedly the first rock ’n’ roll personality to serve as GM, Lita got to ride around Raceway Park on the back of a safety truck and then opened for Twisted Sister and Ratt in New York. Some people have all the luck.

Local goodniks Was (Not Was) are being sued for a cool six million bucks by Edward Harold, a boyhood friend they immortalized in their song “(Return To The Valley Of) Out Come The Freaks,” from their Born To Laugh At Tornadoes album. The suit insists that the song labeled Harold “a freak” and that his reputation, personal esteem and peace of mind were ruined forever. Don Was referred to the case as “a ridiculous nuisance,” just like we reviewed his last LP!

Billy Idol, whose “Dancing With Myself” was the first recorded instance of a music video snatching a director from the “world” of feature films, is doing it again. This time he’s lined up Howie Deutsch to lens his new “Flesh For Fantasy” vid. The extremely famous Howie has been celebrated worldwide for his precedent-setting trailers for Ghandi, Reds, Flashdance and what many critics consider the single greatest rock ’n’ roll movie of all time, Ordinary People.

Who is Biiy Idol’s favorite comedian, you ask? David Lee Roth, of course (he’s ours too)! “It doesn’t matter what you think of his band,” the spiked one opined correctish-like. “He is really, really funny!” Opined?

Mick dagger and David Bowie have reportedly commissioned playwright Tom Stoppard to script a movie for them. Might it be a remake of Made For Each Other?

Ray Sawyer, the lowlife cowpoke with the eye patch, is leaving Dr. Hook after 15 years with the guys who foolishly never wished to see their picture on the cover of America’s Only. Not that we da done it, no matter how much advertising they bought. Integrity out the window, indeedy!

Longtime metal peddlers Samson havesplit up. Founding bounder Paul Samson dissolved his unit in order tb go off recording with ex-Gillan villian, John McCoy.

Fresh off the transatlantic rumor mill comes news of several Brace Foxton/Paul Young sightings by reliable sources. Apparently, the ex-jam man and King Dong himself are cooking up a recording project. Did U Know: that Paul took voice lessons from Adam Ant’s teacher?

We’ve always known that—behind those ultra-cool shades—Michael jackson is a real cut-up. For once, we were right! Check out what sis LaToya told Bop magazine: “Michael will come right out and tell me I’m getting fat, but I don’t mind. I have a tendency to gain a little, especially in the booty.” Darn that Michael!

The photo of John Lennon in the FBI’s files is not Lennon at all, according to the author of a new book on the late ex-Beatle. Jon Wiener, author of Come Together: John Lennon In His Time, says the man in the “Lennon ’ photo is New York street musician David Peel, who recorded for the Beatles’ Apple Records in 1972. The 26 pounds of FBI files obtained under the Freedom Of Information Act contain a memo suggesting that Lennon be “arrested if at all possible on possession of narcotics charges” in Miami. “The photo was supposed to help officials identify Lennon so they could arrest him before the planned demonstration,” Wiener explained. “The FBI worried its agents didn't know what Lennon looked like. The photo shows they were right to worry.” Lennon, threatened with deportation by the Nixon administration at the time, never went to Miami, and never was arrested.

The Marshall Tucker Band has a new lineup, but there 1 still isn’t anybody in the Marshall Tucker Band named Marshall Tucker!

...And now for something really important. Trade mag Variety reports that Walt Disney Pictures have begun production on a liveaction theatrical featurette entitled Frankenweenie. The under-30-minute film, starring Shelley Duvall, purports to be “the comedic saga of a boy who tries to bring his pet dog back to life.” We are soooooo sure.

The folks at Warners have begun to make some bucks on MTV. Warner Amex Satellite Entertainment'Co. recently announced that MTV Network, _ which consists of MTV and kidvid purveyors Nickelodeon, made a profit just under three million big ones on a revenue of about twenty million bucks in the first quarter of 1984. Warners is nojv offering about five million shares of common stock in MTV, in case you’re looking around for a “sound” investment. HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!

Moon Unit Zappa’s oncefamous dad, Frank, has announced he’s finished writing orchestral music forever. “I’m ceasing to compose for orchestra,” he stated aptly (having evidently read the first sentence of this item), “because you can’t get an accurate performance." Zappa, who’s given very few performances that could be termed accurate, much less adequate, says he’d rather write on his new computer and skip “the pathetic rigamarole of the serious music world,” which he insists is “crooked, sick and twisted.” Mayhe now he can catch on with his daughter’s back-up band!