M3

In the past few years, we have been to Rocklahoma in Pryor, OK, and Rock N America in Oklahoma City, OK. This year we decided on M3 in Columbia, MD. The set up is perfect for the VIP section, the covered pavilion, and vendors.  They even had a National Pinball Museum with a Guns N Roses and a Kiss pinball machine.  There was also a book signing with Eddie Trunk for this new book 'Eddie Trunk's Essential Hard Rock and Heavy Metal'.  It was great that there was only one side stage, but some of the bands over-lapped.  But otherwise, we will definately go back next year!

Friday, May 13 was the kick off party. First up was L.A Guns with Phil Lewis. We love Tracii Guns, but it was nice to see this version as it is the one with the voice. Who else could sing 'Sex Action' and 'Never Enough' like Phil Lewis?

Warrant was up next. It was strange to see them play without Jani Lane. Robert Mason (ex Lynch-Mob) has an amazing voice, but nothing is like the original vocalist. They were promoting their new album 'Rockaholic', but nothing will compare to 'Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich'.

KIX was the final band for Friday night and they were amazing! It was a hometown show for them "Long legged Rosie from Baltimore Took me farther than I've been before" - Girl Money... The crowd went wild.  Steve Whiteman is hilarious, and quite the frontman.  He has an insane amount of energy!  We got to meet them after in the VIP section.

Saturday, May 14 started with Danger Danger at 12 pm.  We made it on time, and were so happy to catch them live!  They are one of the few bands we haven't seen in the past few years.  Ted Poley sounded great, they did all of our favorite songs.  We got to meet them after the show in VIP.  They said they love the shows and then they just go on with their regular lives for the rest of the year, so it is pretty exciting for them.

Pretty Boy Floyd was next.  We love them and have been fortunate to see them the past couple of years.  They for some reason can never make it over the border to Canada, so we have to go to the US to see them.  They were throwing their cd "Kiss of Death - A Tribute to Kiss" to the audience.  It is always great to see Steve Summers and Kristy Majors on stage together. 

 
Firehouse was next.  Unfortunately we didn't get to see the entire set with the overlapping of bands.  We still heard our favorites songs.  C.J. Snare can still hit those incredibly high notes in "Don't Treat Me Bad".

Slaughter was next.  We have seen them a few times over the years and they are always great.  As usual, Mark Slaughter went deep into the crowd for all the audience to see and they finished with 'Up All Night'.

Next was Great White.  The last time we saw Great White was in Rock N America.  Jack Russell was not well, he has just had back surgery.  They had Jani Lane from Warrant covering for a short time, but now they have Terry Ilous from XYZ is filling in until Jack's return after another major surgery.  He was excellent, but it will be great once Jack returns, no one can replace him.

 
We ran over to the second stage to catch some of Black N' Blue just in time to hear Jaime St. James sing 'Miss Mystery'. 

And to see our Edmonton/Calgary friends 'Killinger' on the jumbo-tron.  http://killingerrocks.com/

Next up was Mr. Big.  We were pretty excited, we had never seen them play!  We never thought we would see Eric Martin, Paul Gilbert, Billy Sheehan and Pat Torpey on stage together for a reunion!  They performed all of our favorites and looked and sounded spectacular!

Faster Pussycat was next.  The only original member is Taime Downe.  He sang the songs as they sounded originally which was nice, he doesn't always do that.  It is unsettling to see him in his goth wear singing glam songs.

   
Big Noize, the all-star band event was next.  What a treat to see Carlos Cavasso from Quiet Riot, Joe Lynn Turner from Rainbow and Deep Purple, Phil Soussan from Ozzy and Jimmy Page and Vinnie Appice from Black Sabbath and Dio on stage together!

Sebastian Bach was next!  We had seen him a couple nights earlier on the way to M3 at the famous Crocodile Rock in Allentown, PA.  He was very entertaining as usual, he has such an incredible voice.  He told the story of how he hit his bassist in the head with his microphone swinging and scarred him.  We met him at the after party at Clyde's.

Tesla was next!  They always put on such a good powerful show.  I remember when they used to open up for almost any show that came to Canada.  They still hold that energy and musicianship that they did 20 years ago.

The finale of the night was Whitesnake!  They were spectacular.  They played all of the old songs and also played alot off the new album 'Forevermore'.  The new songs sound alot like Coverdale/Page, sexy and bluesy.  David Coverdale is still an astounding frontman, one of the best!

Can't wait for next year!

Slave Lake Fundraiser

Motorhead

We were very excited to see Motorhead shortly after seeing the Lemmy movie (which was just voted one of The Seven Best New Music Documentaries of the Year)! They played all of the songs that we wanted to hear. This tour was supporting their new album 'The World is Yours'. We were in awe of Lemmy and so was the audience! Lemmy is a Heavy Metal God! There is nothing like a crowd at a sold-out Motorhead show!

http://www.imotorhead.com/

Mosh Potatoes

Mosh Potatoes is a cookbook with recipes from some of our favorite musicians.

Some recipes of Mosh Potatoes include:

‘Opening Act’s’ (appetizers)

Rock ‘n’ Rolly Guacamole from Jeff Pilson (Dokken/Dio), and Party Potatoes from Tyler Connolly (Theory of a Deadman).

‘Headliners’ (entrees)

Rock ‘n’ Roll Sandwich from Bruce Kulick (Kiss/Union), and Lips’ Pizza Fries from Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow (Anvil). The most interesting recipe is from Lemmy with his Krakatoa Surprise, it has an editor note to prepare at your own risk because it involves eating while still on fire!

‘Encores’ (desserts)

Vancouver Lasagna from Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory) and Star Cookies and No-Bake Cookies from David Ellefson (Megadeth).

Along with recipes, the book has some entertaining stories and liner notes.

http://www.moshpotatoescookbook.com/

Blind In Texas

We decided to go visit our friend April in Dallas, Texas in January.  We had an amazing time, here is a summary of our trip!

We arrived in town and went with our friend's to the Texas Theatre to see the Lemmy Movie.  The Texas Theatre was opened by Howard Hughes in 1931, and is infamous for being the location in which Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of John F. Kennedy.

The lobby had a concession with unusually cheap prices as well as a bar! 

The Lemmy movie was awesome. This rockumentary is all about Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, the founding member of Motorhead.  There were interviews with Ozzy Osbourne, Slash, Metallica, Alice Cooper and Dave Grohl all praising Lemmy.  The movie is an intimate behind the scenes look at the life of Lemmy both at home and on tour.

http://www.lemmymovie.com/

We went to the Hard Rock Cafe for lunch and to celebrate Cindy's Birthday.  We browsed the rock n' roll memorabilia that graced the walls including a Motley Crue guitar, furry ZZ Top guitars, a Dimebag Darrell chrome guitar etc..

Later that night we went to see Slash and Ozzy Osbourne at the American Airlines Centre.  It was great to see friends Brent and Todd play in front of such a huge crowd with Slash.  They started their set at 7:20pm so that they could squeeze in a few more songs. Their set-list included "Rocket Queen" "Nightrain", "Paradise City", "Sweet Child O Mine", "Slither", "Back from Cali", "By the Sword" and "Ghost".

Ozzy started with his usual comical movie montage. This time, it featured clips of him superimposed in scenes from Jersey Shore, Twilight (in which he proclaimed "Vampires are pussies, I'm the Prince of Fucking Darkness" LOL) and as Iron Man...

Ozzy played a wide range of songs which included "War Pigs", "Iron Man", "Flying High Again" "Shot In the Dark" "I Don't Know" "Crazy Train" "Let Me Hear You Scream" and finished with "Mama I'm Coming Home" and "Paranoid".

We went to the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.  In 1963, it was the Texas School Book Depository.  It exhibits the life and assassination of JFK and the affect it had on the world.  It is the building where Oswald worked in when he shot JFK and where his rifle was found.  We stood on the grassy knoll were many witnesses claim they heard the additional (4th) shot fired.  There are still x's on the street where the shots that hit the president were fired.  It was very surreal. 

Later that day, we went to see the gravesite of Darrell Dimebag Abbott from Pantera and Damageplan.  On December 8, 2004, a man burst on the stage and shot him at the Alrose Villa Club in Columbus, Ohio.  We were fortunate enough to see Damageplan May 11, 2004 at the Starlite Room.

 

We headed over to Fort Worth Stock Yards and looked in the various shops and markets. We then went to Billy Bob's the Worlds Largest Honkeytonk.  It's a huge country bar with a restauarant, bar, concert hall, bull riding venue, and games room.  We enjoyed browsing the framed signed burgers, signed guitars,  backstage pass wall, and handprints of country and rock artists that have played there.

We had an amazing time in Dallas, TX and Cin hand an awesome Birthday! :)

A Year in Review

We started New Years Eve 2010 off with a Shinedown show in Edmonton at 100.3 the Bear's New Year's Eve bash at the Shaw Conference Centre!  A highlight of the night was when they performed their version of Lynyrd Skynards' "Simple Man" as a tribute to Dimebag Darrell. 

We also saw the rock opera 'Jesus Christ Superstar' with Ted Neely who was the original Jesus in the 1973 film!

In mid-January we were ecstatic to attend the NAMM convention in Anaheim with our friends.  We had the pleasure of meeting some of our faves such as Slash, George Lynch, Ratt, Phil Varone, Steven Adler, Joe Satriani, Rikki Rockett, Andy Timmons and many more.  In the evening, we attended the Guitar Players Ball 5 with George Lynch (Dokken, Lynch Mob), Chris Holmes (WASP), Carlos Cavazo (Quiet Riot, Ratt) and Brent Fitz (Union, Alice Cooper, Vince Neil and currently Slash) on drums!  Gilby Clarke (Guns N Roses) was supposed to play as well, but he was in a motorcycle accident and unable to attend. 

Also as part of NAMM, we saw Ratt at the House of Blues in Anaheim!  It was packed to the rafters and we were pleasantly surprised to see Stephen Pearcy on vocals. He had been playing some solo shows so we assumed he wouldn't be fronting Ratt that night!  We had alot of fun (and drinks) hanging out with Steve Brown and PJ Farley from Trixter!

After a fabulous day of shopping on Melrose; we took in the Steel Panther show Monday night in LA at the House of Blues on Sunset.  Mark McGrath (Sugar Ray) got up on stage and jammed with them.  We were surprised to see Pearl opening up for them.  Pearl Aday is Meatloaf’s daughter; and Scott Ian’s (from Anthrax) wife.  Scott Ian was playing with the band!

We attended the Motley Crue shows in Vancouver and Edmonton for the Dead of Winter Tour.  Although they played a bare bones type show with way less theatrics than the last couple of tours; they were still spectacular!  The Joe Perry Project opened up for them.  It's just not the same seeing Joe up on stage without Steven Tyler singing and grooving beside him.

We saw Megadeth with Testament in March at the Shaw Conference Centre, in Edmonton.  It was historic to see Dave Mustaine and Dave Ellefson playing on stage together again.  Dave and Dave were two of the musicians we had the pleasure of meeting earlier in the year at NAMM.

In April, the Gruesome Twosome Tour came to town!  Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper both put on very entertaining shows.  Rob Zombie showed movie clips on the huge screen behind him and Alice Cooper entertained with his Rock N Roll horror show!  Alice was recently inducted in to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame!

We took a much needed trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Lor's birthday.  We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel for the first time, and loved it! We checked in at the front desk as the sweet sounds of Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me" billowed throughout the hotel! It felt like home. We saw Benji Madden get escorted through the hotel on his way to fight Riki Rachtman in a sold-out match which Benji won. We also saw Drowning Pool play at Wasted Space!

Our trip also included watching our friends the Spazmatics play a couple of shows while enjoying big Vegas drinks. We also went to the Steel Panther show at the House of Blues.  We saw the new Cirque De Soleil show "Viva Elvis" on our last night in Sin City!  It was a short but enjoyable trip!

In May we saw Slaughter at Century Casino in Edmonton. We talked to Mark, Dana, and Blando and told them how excited we were to see them again at Rock N America in July!  In May, we also saw The Trews and Buckcherry at the Rainmaker Rodeo!  There was a massive snow storm, but Buckcherry put on such an amazing live show, they're worth it!

In June we saw the legendary Iron Maiden.  They played a lot of new songs and Eddie looked a little different than normal; but they still rocked Rexall Place as usual. 

In June, we went to Toronto for NXNE and got to hang out with some old friends Johnny Rude & Lydia, Stacy Stray, Joy and Sammy. We shopped alot and checked out various gigs at bars including Tattoo Rock Parlour, The Hideout, Cherry Cola Rock & Rolla, Bovine, and Oh Boy.  We also saw the rock/jukebox musical "Rock of Ages" and had seats in front of the first row! While in Toronto, we saw Iggy Pop and the Stooges play Dundas Square which was jammed pack with unbelievable amounts of people.  We also saw the New York Dolls at the Burlington Sound of Music!  It was a mind-blowing weekend!

July was an exciting month.  First show was Fear Factory at the Starlite Room!  Next up was Bon Jovi with Kid Rock at the Stadium!  We also saw our friend Tommy Mac and his band Hedley play to tons of screaming fans at Capital Ex.

July 23-25 we attended Rock N America Music Festival in Oklahoma City!  The days were unbelievable, so were the after-parties at the Garden of Evil!    

On Thursday at RN'A we saw: Sweet, Bulletboys, Trixter, Faster Pussycat, Great White, a Tribute to Dio, and Twisted Sister.

Friday at RN'A brought us: Steelheart, John Corabi, Firehouse, Pretty Boy Floyd, Michael Schenker, LA Guns, Cinderella, and Scorpions.

On Saturday at RN'A we saw: Warrant, Texas Hippie Coalition, Slaughter (with a special appearance from Vince Neil), Lillian Axe, Lita Ford, Gilby Clarke, Dokken, Lynch Mob, and Ratt.

August was another great month!  We saw Keith Urban at the Big Valley Jamboree, and one of the Scorpions final shows in Canada. 

We saw Blondie for the first time ever. Deborah Harry she looked and sounded amazing!  We were also elated to see Buckcherry again, this time at Edmonton Event Centre.  We attended a meet n' greet before hand at Bourbon Street at West Edmonton Mall.  We finally got to meet Josh Todd! Yay! They were all so nice!  It was a much better show, indoors - with no snow!  :)

We were happy to see our friend's Killinger play Edmonton Event Centre with Lynch Mob.  The vivacious Marq Torien (Bulletboys) was on vocals and James Lomenzo (White Lion and Megadeth) was on bass.  George Lynch is a Guitar God. It was such a fun night! We ran into friends we hadn't seen in many years!

In September we saw the Aerosmith 40^th Anniversary show!  We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Aerosmith!  Joan Jett opened the show, and played a lot of songs from her days with the "Runaways"! 

We also caught a couple of Slash shows in Calgary and Edmonton and were proud to see long time friends Todd Kerns & Brent Fitz up on stage with the Guitar Legend.  (see earlier blog for review on Aerosmith as well as Slash).

In October we saw Collective Soul play at River Cree Casino! We were also ecstatic to see one of our faves,  Bret Michaels, headline the Halloween Howler.  (see earlier blogs for reviews of both Collective Soul and Bret).

The November Grey Cup festivities in Edmonton were fun-filled.  We saw Helix, Bif Naked, Ian Thornley with Big Wreck, Fozzy with Chris Jericho, Trooper, and Big Sugar.  All Canadian, All weekend!  (see earlier blog). 

The last show of the year was Keith Urban at West Edmonton Mall.  It was intimate and interactive (see earlier blog)! 

Can’t wait to see what 2011 has in store for us! 

Brent Fitz - All Access Music Tour - Edmonton, AB

We were happy to hear our good friend Brent Fitz was coming to town to speak (and play a bit of drums) at Long & McQuade's new South location. Brent was there as part of the "All Access Music Tour" which allows successful Canadian working musicians to speak and share their experiences with the public. Brent told stories and shared pictures of various experiences throughout the years of him being a drummer.

Some of the highlights of the evening:

-Brent showed the crowd a picture of young version of him with Gregg Bisonette at a drum clinic when he was younger.

-He showed a picture of him as a teen with Tommy Lee.  He explained that when he was a young teen and his parents suggested he get a job, he answered an add to teach drums at a music store (instead of working at somewhere like a fast food place). He said this allowed him the opportunity to meet some of his influences like for example when the store needed someone to deliver drum equipment to Tommy Lee (when Motley Crue was in Winnipeg playing a show that night) he volunteered!

-He displayed a very polite rejection letter from Ozzy Osbourne that he received in the early 90s after sending in a package to audition to be his drummer.  The humbling experience taught him that you have to put in you 10,000 hours and work your way into the circle before any acceptance and success can be achieved.

-He showed a clip of playing with Vince Neil, Kerri Kelli and Jason Hook.

-He talked about playing with Union, Alice Cooper, The Guess Who, Theory of a Deadman, Econoline Crush, and Harlequin. And how important it is to always be prepared, and explained how he prepares with short notice. 

-He showed an awesome montage 'Back from Cali' video of the Slash shows in Europe this summer.

-He talked about getting out of his comfort zone and the importance of being a well rounded musician to achieve success.  He filled in for our friend Todd Kerns playing bass when he had to fly home from Moscow to have emergency surgery as his retina had detached.  He only had a few hours to rehearse and they played in front of thousands of people.  The drum tech filled in for Brent.

-He played drums along to songs by bands he's played with such as Slash, Harlequin, Econoline Crush and the Guess Who.

Brent was a very entertaining and inspirational.

Brent's official page:
http://www.brentfitz.com

Check out Slash's page for upcoming tour dates with Ozzy!
http://slash.ultimate-guitar.com/

http://www.long-mcquade.com/page/eventshome/