At Home in Hespeler

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

I once danced onstage with Chuck Berry. Or, to be more precise, Chuck Berry played Johnny B. Goode while I danced five feet away from him. Not, you understand, go-go dancer style in a knit mini or anything weird like that, just danced. Onstage.  

It was 1987, August 8th to be specific. Berry was doing a two show gig at “Mount Chinguacousy” during the Brampton Flower Festival. The first show is a bit legendary in Chuck Berry circles because he fired his band during School Days. Berry was infamously difficult, but even for him firing the band, onstage, mid-show was notable.

The second show went better, however, and Berry got to the last song without so much as a sour word towards the musicians who had been hired to back him. So while closing out Johnny B. Goode, Berry invited some young ladies to dance onstage. One of them was my then girlfriend. Berry called her onstage, and from the angle he called her, I thought he motioned to me. Sadly, both she and I pointed to ourselves and said, “me?”
and when he nodded yes and said back “yes you”, I took my cue and went. It wasn’t until I read about the spoil sport bastards who crashed the stage when Chuck was calling on some girls to come up in that weeks Brampton Guardian that I realized, no, not me.

So I’m dancing beside a guy with a notorious temper on a night when he’s already fired his band once (i.e. maybe not a good night). Looking back I can consider myself lucky I didn’t get conked with his legendary ES-355.

The band Berry fired that night were hired by the promoter of the show. As was Berry’s practice from fairly early on, he toured without a band, and every town he went to his contract stipulated they hire a band. The band would get no rehearsal time with Berry, no chord charts and no set list prior to show. In the recording of that August night, Berry stops School Days and tells the band, no playing during the breaks. He continues the song and in their enthusiasm, they can’t help themselves but add some pickup notes at the end of each break. At songs end he gives them shit in front of everybody and does five songs without them before they return chastened but apparently much improved.

It seems strange to hire a different band for every show, and it can’t have been easy to be one of Berry’s back up players. Bruce Springsteen did the gig once in his pre-fame days, and writing about it years later noted that Berry played his songs on odd keys like Bb and Eb (while everybody and their brothers band plays Johnny B. Goode in ‘A’, the original is actually in ‘Bb’ for instance). But by the same token, it speaks to how common his songs are to play for local bands that he could always find three or four guys, in every town, who knew so many of his songs.

In Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Bob Seger sings about “all of Chuck’s children are out there, playing his licks.” This is what he’s talking about, so many musicians over the years cut their teeth, earned their money playing Chuck Berry’s songs. And occasionally, if you were lucky, Chuck’s children got to step on stage and actually play with him. Lucky, that is, if he didn’t fire you in front of everybody.

Chuck Berry passed away on March 18 at 90-years old. He was one of the truly great performers, and he left a legacy that may be unmatched in rock and roll. May he rest in peace. And if there’s a rock and roll heaven, NO PLAYING DURING THE BREAK!

for certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Chuck's Children, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Bob Seger, Brampton, Chuck Berry, Flower Festival, Johnny B Goode

When you make a list of great albums of the rock era, Bob Seger’s first studio album with The Silver Bullet Band, Night Moves, inevitably will get a mention. As Capital Records is releasing Night Moves in 180-gram vinyl today, it seems like a good time to evaluate that contention.

In Night Moves opening track, Rock and Roll Never Forgets Seger sings, “all of Chuck’s children are out there, playing his licks.” Seger is foreshadowing, Night Moves being, if nothing else, a Chuck Berry influenced album. The Fire Down Below, Sunspot Baby, Come to Papa, Mary Lou and Rock and Roll Never Forgets itself, all are, to one degree or another, excellent examples of “Chuck’s children playing his licks.”

But while Night Moves is a great rock and roll album, it is marked by it’s acoustic/slower songs, especially two: Night Moves and Mainstreet. Both are coming of age songs, the first about teen romance in the back of a car, the latter a few years later, a young adult crush on a lady no mother would approve of. Night Moves is Seger’s signature song, the one that gets compared, fairly, to Hotel California or Jungleland, It is the biggest hit of a career of memorable hits, while Mainstreet may be the most romantic song ever written about a stripper.

Soundwise, the 180-gram version of Night Moves is excellent. I’m not sure if it has been remastered, or they are using the famous late-90’s Punch Andrews remaster. However, the sound is excellent, with instrument separation being clear. If you’ve never really heard the organ on top of Night Moves, the funky James Brown rhythm guitar in Come to Papa, the acoustic guitar in Mainstreet, it is a treat.

If you’re re-buying all those old albums you got rid of when you bought a CD player, Night Moves in 180-gram vinyl is an album you want. If your Dad is re-buying all his old albums, kids, I guarantee you he will like this one for Father’s Day. And if your a hipster that has cleaned out the Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd section of your local record store and are wondering what you should get next, Night Moves should be next.

for certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Bob Seger, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Capital Records, Mainstreet, Night Moves, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Sunspot Baby, UMe

I’ve seen Bob Seger a number of times, the last time at MSG in December. He is at 70, as good as he was thirty years ago. He is, and has always been, a solid performer and a consummate professional.

At age 31 he was singing about ‘sweet sixteen turning thirty-one,” and “Chuck’s children… playing his licks…” As Seger’s 70th birthday passes us by, it’s worth noting that Seger is doing exactly what he wrote of almost 40-years ago, he’s out there playing Chuck Berry licks, and a better night would be hard to find.

As we celebrate the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers 70th birthday (yesterday, May 6th), Universal Music (UMe) has announced it is releasing Seger’s breakthrough, and many believe his masterpiece, album, Night Moves on 180g vinyl.

Capitol Records recording artist Bob Seger’s classic album, Night Moves, makes its debut on 180-gram vinyl on June 16, 2015. Seger’s breakthrough album, powerful and personal, is the newest vinyl reissue addition to the GRAMMY® Award-winning rocker’s extraordinary catalogue.

So Happy 70th Birthday to Bob Seger, still Rock and Rollin’ like he always has.

for certified professional guitar repair in Cambridge Ontario: Brian Gardiner Guitar Repair

Birthday Wishes, Bob Seger, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Birthday, Bob Seger, Night Moves

A guy knows what he’s going to get when he buys a Bob Seger record: rock and roll played on a straight four beat. Add in a dash of new country guitar pickin’ and you have a Bob Seger album for the new millennium. It used to be such an album was something to look forward to with eager anticipation, as I fondly recall doing for Like a Rock in the mid-80’s. But Seger’s songwriting has diminished over the years, his ability to find a new, unique, interesting way to play an E-chord exhausted, and what’s left is a collection of familiar sounding songs.

There’s nothing wrong with Ride Out, Seger’s latest album, released this week. If you liked his last number of albums, you’ll like this one well enough. The collection of decent songs, in fact, improve on multiple listens, and the early released songs, Detroit Made, Hey Gypsy and The Devil’s Right Hand after a few weeks of listening are my favorites on the album. The same can’t be said, however, of You Take Me In, the early release balled which was boring on first listen, and boring now that’s it’s heard in the context of a full album.

Seger has a go at politics with It’s Your World, a song in which he decries the state of the world without offering solutions (it is a bit rich, the multi-millionaire singer complaining about cash is king), and if the depth of Your World amounts to the depth of Seger’s politics, it’s a good thing there’s 50-years between here to The Ballad of the Yellow Beret. His attempt at Americana, Adam and Eve, also fails pretty miserably.

Hey Gypsy, on the other hand, Seger’s tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, is an album highlight. You’ve never heard a Texas shuffle played so squarely, so tightly on the beat, as this, but it works magnificently and will likely be a strong addition to Seger’s live set in his upcoming tour. The acoustic song, Listen, one of the bonus songs on the Deluxe Edition of Ride Out, is another highlight of the album.

There’s a number of good enough songs on Ride Out, but let’s also be clear, there’s no Hollywood Nights or Rock and Roll Never Forgets, no ballads as good as Mainstreet, no acoustic numbers of the calibre of Night Moves or Against the Wind. If your looking for Seger to find that magic touch he had from the mid-70’s to the mid-80’s you’ll be disappointed. But if your looking for Seger to meet or exceed what he has done the last couple of albums, he has.

Tracklist

Detroit Made
Hey Gypsy
The Devils Right Hand
Ride Out
Adam and Eve
California Stars
It’s Your World
All of the Roads
You Take Me In
Gates of Eden

Listen (Deluxe Edition only)*
The Fireman’s Talkin’ (Deluxe Edition only)*
Let the Rivers Run (Deluxe Edition only)*

*(Note: There is a Target only CD version with 2 extra songs)

Album release, Bob Seger, Record Release, Review Bob Seger, Detroit Made, Hey Gypsy, Hollywood Nights, Like a Rock, Mainstreet, Night Moves, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Stevie Ray, Stevie Ray Vaughan

New Bob Seger…

Bob Seger’s new album Ride Out, due Oct 14th, is now available for pre-order. The pre-order comes with two songs available immediately, the single Detroit Made and You Take Me In. The album comes in regular and deluxe edition, with three extra songs on the deluxe.

Tracklist

Detroit Made
Hey Gypsy
The Devils Right Hand
Ride Out
Adam and Eve
California Stars
It’s Your World
All of the Roads
You Take Me In
Gates of Eden

Listen (Deluxe Edition only)
The Fireman’s Talkin’ (Deluxe Edition only)
Let the Rivers Run (Deluxe Edition only)

Bob Seger, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Detroit Made, Ride Out, You Take Me In

Bob Seger will release his first album of new material in eight years on October 14th. Ride Out will be Seger’s 17th studio album, first since 2006’s Face the Promise.

The announcement comes on the heels of the release of a new single last Friday, Detroit Made. And when I say “release of a new single,” I don’t mean put it on sale on iTunes or Amazon, made a YouTube video available or any other method of what is known as releasing a single in the internet era. Rather, Seger released the song to selected radio stations in the Detroit and Windsor area, hoping against hope, I expect, that it’s still 1977. Still, Detroit’s Greatest Hits 104.3, in a move that must screw up the tightly controlled marketing of the song, are streaming the song so that people can actually hear it. Hear Detroit Made here…

Seger’s recording of Detroit Made, a John Hiatt song, is a rousing bit of rock with a country tinge. It is a fairly classic bit of Bob Seger straight ahead rock and roll, and while in one way it bodes well for the album, if it is the best of the album, as first singles often are, then Ride Out could prove to be a bit of a disappointment.

Not to worry though, with the Seger camps marketing plan in play, it’s unlikely anybody will ever hear it anyway.

No pre-sale information is available at this date, but I will provide links to pre-sale if they become available.

Bob Seger, Record Release, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Detroit Made, Ride Out

Bob Seger has released to radio a new single, John Hiatt’s Detroit Made.  The song will also appear on a new Seger album, which seems to be coming this fall.

Here’s Bob Seger in Detroit last April, performing Detroit Made.

Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Detroit Made, John Hiatt

I was planning on doing this in reverse order, but after seeing the first video, I changed my mind and thought it deserved to be first.

Winnipeg teenager Sean Quigley proves that, in spite of what us geezers like to think, the kids are alright. Having a house full of teenagers myself, I can attest that the next generation is not as lost as the damned media often makes them out to be. This may become my favourite version of one of my absolute favourite songs, Christmas or otherwise.

Of course, the classic rock version is Bob Seger, whose interpretation of this song is one of the big reasons I like it so much. Sadly, the only full versions of this video I could find involved extraordinary house light displays, causing my irony meter to explode.

Speaking of Bob Seger, last Friday in New York City an old friend joined him on stage.

Cool For Cats Bob Seger, Bruce Springsteen, Little Drummer Boy, Sean Quigley

… where to start with Chuck Berry? Johnny B Goode, possibly the most played song of the rock era? Perhaps my personal favorite, Memphis Tennessee? Reelin’ and Rockin’? No Particular Place to Go? So many songs, so little blog.

Chuck Berry at the Brampton Flower Festival

How about we talk about the influence: Kieth Richards idolized him, it was, in fact, what separated Richard’s from all the other London bluesers. John Fogerty quoted him in Centerfield (“roundin’ third and headed for home, it’s a brown eyed handsome man…”). Bob Seger and REO Speedwagon ended their 70‘s concerts with Chuck Berry songs. Back to the Future turned the tables, and inspired his new sound.

Truthfully, it is such a formidable career of great songs and great guitar playing, and while it’s safe to say without Chuck Berry there would be no George Thorogood, the broader truth is, without Chuck Berry there would be a lot less of the music that shaped our lives.

But at the end of the day, it is for inspiring the line in Bob Seger’s Rock and Roll Never Forgets, “all of Chuck’s children are out there, playing his licks,” that I offer birthday wishes. Because I am one of Chucks children, and because it would be so cool to be mentioned by name in a Bob Seger song.

Happy 85th birthday Chuck Berry. And don’t forget to keep on rockin’…

Birthday Wishes, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Back to the Future, Birthday, Bob Seger, Chuck Berry, Kieth Richards, REO Speedwagon

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

In the past, Lady Gaga has dressed up as a nun and swallowed a rosary (which, completely indecently, I’d like to see). The Catholic Church, remarkably, disapproved. Now, however, she has really gone and done it.

In the video for her new song, Judas, Gaga portrays Mary Magdalene opposite some guy as Judas. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights is not happy, saying of Lady Gaga:

She is trying to rip off Christian idolatry to shore up her talentless, mundane and boring performances.

Hey, if she can swallow a rosary, she can’t be that talentless.

Notice how this all sounds so familiar. She is not only offending the Catholic League, she is blatantly ripping off Madonna’s schtick, who herself is talentless, mundane and boring.

Speaking of Madonna, Andrew Lloyd Webber is trying to get her to star in a musical movie of Sunset Boulevard. He is trying to get her to play Norma Desmond, an aging, washed up former star.

The question is, why would Madonna agree to play on the big screen what she plays everyday in real life?

Review in Brief: Bob Seger at Air Canada Center

Rock ‘n’ Roll ‘n’ Only forgetting a few of the words.

Been a rough year for Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. Fresh from fighting his thought to be fatal throat cancer, a few weeks ago he was seen on video valiantly challenging a group of photographers after one of them seemed to hit his wife. Now, it is her who needs the medical attention.

Catherine Zeta-Jones has checked into a mental health facility to “seek treatment for bi-polar disorder.”

Lets be clear what this is: after a year of looking after a very sick husband, Catherine Zeta-Jones is physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. That’s what happens to care givers. If there’s any suggestion we should infer from this, it is that Catherine Zeta-Jones didn’t farm out the job of looking after Michael Douglas, and took on too much of the strain herself. She deserves praise and our fervent hopes that she get well soon. Personally, I wish Hollywood had a lot more classy, dignified, decent people like her.

Then again, what would I write about?

Fluffernutter Andrew Lloyd Webber, Bob Seger, Catherine Zeta Jones, Judas, Lady Gaga, Madonna, Mary Magdalene, Michael Douglas, Sunset Boulevard

If you are local to the centre of the universe and missed it, one of the greats came to town this week. Because nothing is good for the soul like rock and roll, some Bob Seger from Toronto.

It’s true what they say, Rock and Roll Never Forgets:

On the same day, it was announced, are you ready for this boys, that the Lingerie Football League is coming to Toronto. As much as I hate to do it, I have to throw my support behind a new sport coming to Toronto. So Gentlemen, meet the ladies of the Lingerie Football League:

Bob Seger, Cool For Cats, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Bob Seger, Lingerie Football League, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Toronto, Turn the Page

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

Take a picture of this: It’s 1988, three years after Like a Rock. Bob Seger is top of the world. Besides his hit album and highly successful tour, he has had #1 hits from a couple of movies, Understanding from Teachers and Shakedown from Beverly Hills Cop. Seger had almost finished recording his follow up album to Like a Rock, called Downtown Train. The album was built around the Tom Waits hit of the same name, the song being the focal point of the album.

Seger was in London talking to an old friend, Rod Stewart. He told him about the new album, including the use of the Tom Waits song. Stewart was, apparently, impressed. Within a few weeks Seger had heard Stewart’s version of Downtown Trainon the radio. Stewart had scooped Seger and Seger went back to the drawing board. Angered, Seger said he didn’t know when Downtown Train would see the light of day, but it wouldn’t be soon.

It wasn’t.

Fast forward to 1991. Nirvana owned the airwaves and classic rock was dead. Seger’s momentum was gone, and he was, as the punks said ten years earlier, a dinosaur rocker. Into that environment, he released The Fire Inside, a weak album but not a terrible one. Despite a reasonably big hit with The Real Love it’s sales were not very good. Seger’s recording career never recovered.

Seger went into semi-retirement, sticking his head above the parapet in 1995 and 2006 with a new album and tour. Other than that, and a couple of greatest hits collections, nothing. He settled down with family, raising his two kids and developing a telescope hobby.

And what happened to Downtown Train? As Rod Stewart went from ripping off Bob Seger’s better ideas to ripping off Frank Sinatra’s, Seger’s Downtown Train sat in the vault, forgotten and unheard.

A couple of weeks ago amid news of a tour and a new album in process, Seger released Downtown Train to radio stations and streamed the song on his website. It’s a good version of the song, and may have well been the hit he was hoping for back in 1988. But more like 1991 than 1988, Seger seems to have misread the musical landscape.

While streaming the song in his website is the right thing, not releasing it as a single to iTunes and other downloading services is the wrong one. Seger seems intent on an album to go with the tour. That is old thinking.

In the modern landscape an album is just a collection of songs waiting to be downloaded from the one of a million free sites. Who pays $10 for an album anymore? Better to release singles. One this month, one next, another in three. If you want new material to tour on, just release the best three to five songs you got. At $1.29 a song you have a much better chance of people buying them, and you got new material to play and sell, onstage. Albums are passé, it’s just nobody in the music industry has realized it yet. Instead of following a dead trend, instead of re-living 1991, Bob Seger could have led on this one.

Too bad. More Bob Seger songs over time, less Bob Seger in semi-retirement would be a good thing.

Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', The Freedom of Music Bob Seger, Downtown Train, Rod Stewart

When Led Zeppelin released a jam with piano player Ian Stewart, Boogie With Stu, they gave a writing credit to Mrs. Valens. The reason was because they had heard the Valens family had received no royalties from Ritchie Valens songs after his death. No good deed going unpunished, the estate of the late Valens sued Zeppelin for plagiarism. Considering Valens ooh my head is a rip of Little Richard’s Ooh My Soul…

Love Chuck Berry drumming on the table. And speaking of Chuck Berry, Bob Seger is hitting the road with a small tour: just another one of Chuck’s children playing his licks.

Cool For Cats, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', YouTube Bob Seger, Boogie With Stu, Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin, ooh my head, Ritchie Valens, Rock and Roll Never Forgets

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

In 1980 I bought Bob Seger’s second live album, Nine Tonight, and threw it on the turntable. Everything I thought about music changed. Seger was an outsider to the band culture, complete with virtuoso guitarists, that I had believed was the best in music. I had never been a Seger fan, always thought his stuff was overly simple, three chord pop, not worthy of my attention. Nine Tonight changed that.

A week later, enthused by my reaction to Nine Tonight, I picked up his previous live album, Live Bullet. I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom in dim light listening to it when Turn The Page came on. I was dumbstruck: what was this and how had I never heard it before? When it was over I picked up the needle and listened again. And again. And again. I was sold.

To this day I consider that version of that song possibly the greatest moment in rock and roll. It is on any night a great song, but on that night in Detroit’s Cobo Hall, Bob Seger had an epiphanal moment.

For those not familiar with Live Bullet, a little history: In 1975 Seger was working the same mid-west circuit that bands like Ted Nugent, ZZ Top and REO Speedwagon were working (don‘t mock REO until you‘ve heard their live album), club to club, small hall to small hall trying to eke out a living. He had a number of albums out, none of which had been particularly successful. He was one of the top performers on the lower rungs of rock’n’roll’s hierarchy. Wichita, Akron, Fargo, Kalamazoo &tc. playing for a few thousand people a night.

Detroit was different. Detroit was home and they “got” Bob Seger like the rest of the country didn’t. So riding the bus between Tupelo, Mississippi and Gary, Indiana one night became playing three shows to 18,000 people at Cobo Hall the next. From a wanna be star to a defacto star by crossing the border between Ohio and Michigan:

Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage.
Here I go, playing star again.
There I go, turn the page.

It’s hardly surprising that Seger, and his band, took the above words and made magic out of them on one of those nights at Cobo Hall.

Live Bullet changed Seger’s life, changed the shape of his career. The album was successful enough that he began playing bigger halls everywhere, which led to his best, and most successful album, Night Moves. Everything changed, and then Bob Seger stopped changing.

Last week Bob Seger announced a small spring tour of select cities. Saginaw, Toledo, Grand Rapids and Cleveland have already been announced. Thirty years after Nine Tonight, five studio albums later, the show he will put on will mostly be Nine Tonight, with a few touches from Live Bullet. If you found yourself in a coma in 1981, and your first act after coming out of it in 2011 is go see Bob Seger, you will know most of the songs (including, to your surprise, Chuck Berry’s Cest Le Vie).

I offer the above knowledge of what you will see at a Bob Seger concert not as a warning, concerned you’ll spend hard earned money on some dinosaur who refuses to grow. I offer it as a service, to let you know that there is no surprises at a Bob Seger concert, and that it is a good thing.

“People know when something’s fake, and they know when something’s rehashed and rehearsed. They know when your telling them the same joke between songs that you told in Poughkeepsie last night. They can smell it” Jack White said in the documentary It Might Get Loud.

I have seen Bob Seger six times since 1982 and every time he has said, “I feel a bit funky tonight,” before the second song, Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You, just as he does on Nine Tonight. It doesn’t smell. When you leave a Seger concert you know you saw something tightly scripted, tightly controlled and you had a great time. The scripting, the control, the eleven piece band including three female back-up singers. It doesn’t matter. What counts at a Bob Seger concert is the music, the songs. And you will get your fill of good to great rock and roll, played with exceptional professionalism.

Know what the fifth song will be at any Bob Seger concert? Old Time Rock and Roll. Always. He warms you up a little, starting with something like Roll Me Away, followed by Seger’s pronouncement that he feels funky leading into Tryin’ To Live My Life Without You. There’s be something new, Mainstreet and then… “just take those old records off the shelf…”

That’s what a Bob Seger concert is like: taking the old records off the shelf. After Old Time R&R, he’ll lead you through a solid grounding of his best stuff: Night Moves, Hollywood Nights, Shakedown, Lock and Load, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Betty Lou, Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man and, We’ve Got Tonight/Turn the Page.

It is not a serious event, but a revival, a reminder that we once considered rock and roll dance music, and that while sweet sixteen may be 31, 41, 51 even 61, rock and roll really never does forget.

The Freedom of Music Betty Lou, Bob Seger, Cobo Hall, Hollywood Nights, Live Bullet, Lock and Load, Night Moves, Nine Tonight, Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, REO Speedwagon, Rock and Roll Never Forgets, Shakedown, Ted Nugent, Turn the Page, We've Got Tonight, ZZ Top

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Last year Bob Seger suggested on a Detroit radio show that a fall tour was in the works. The fall shows never happened, apparently because Seger put the kibosh on them at the last minute. This year he surprised his people by telling them, reschedule for the spring.

Seger will be hitting select venues in select cities with the Silver Bullet Band, working 30 – 40 dates around drummer Don Brewer’s schedule. Reportedly he will be playing classic Bob Seger music as well as songs from a new, unreleased, unfinished album.

When Bob Seger hit’s the stage, he should take to heart the warning that Jimmy Buffet provides: Buffet was unconscious for ten minutes and spent a couple of days in hospital after falling off the stage in Sydney Australia this week.

Buffet stepped to the front of the stage at the Hordern Pavilion and misjudged where the stage ended, falling 30 feet to the concrete floor below. No word on whether the little birdies circling Buffets head were flying clockwise or anti-clockwise

Rock star rumble: In an article in Rolling Stone a few weeks ago, Robert Plant, justifying his choice to make mediocre adult contemporary instead of reuniting with his old mates, Led Zeppelin, said:

There’s nothing worse than a bunch of jaded old farts, people who have written their story… I don’t deal in that, and I don’t deal in people who deal in that.

Who could he be calling out here? I’m sure we could all think of a few names, but Alice Cooper wouldn’t have been one.

None the less, step right up, Alice Cooper:

Jimmy Page wants to do it. John Paul Jones wants to do it. And they got Bonham’s son, who is a killer drummer. All they need is Robert Plant. But what is Robert Plant out there doing? Playing folk music! What is he doing?

Careful Robert, he’s got a snake.

Motley Crue singer Vince Neil was sentenced to 15 days house arrest Wednesday after pleading guilty to DUI. He was arrested for driving his Lamborghini 60MPH in a 40 zone in Los Vegas last June, and found to be over the legal alcohol limit. And Wednesday was a good day for Neil this week.

By Friday, reports had surfaced that Neil is being investigated for up to $1Million tax evasion.

Tax evasion is no 60 in a 40 zone, as Wesley Snipes can testify.

Not a rock star, but Charlie Sheen think he is one. This week Sheen went on yet another bender, this one ending with TV’s highest paid actor in the hospital. Very Rock Star.

His hospital stay is being reported as a hernia, which is, alas, very not rock star. Sorry Charlie.

She may not be a rock star, but she plays the daughter of one on TV. And now, for the second year running, Miley Cyrus is listed as AOL’s JSYK.com’s “worst celebrity influence.”

See Charlie, that’s how Rock Stars do it.

Fluffernutter, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin' Alice Cooper, Australia, Bob Seger, Charlie Sheen, Jason Bonham, Jimmy Buffet, Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, Miley Cyrus, Motley Crue, Robert Plant, Silver Bullet Band, Vince Neil, Wesley Snipes