Heavy Music News
Mysterious Woman from Black Sabbath’s Debut Album Gets Her Own Funko Pop! Figure
Funko’s popular line of collectible Pop! figures has expanded over the years to include a wide array of music, film, and television subjects. Even with the toy company’s vast roster, who would’ve thought that the mysterious woman from the cover of Black Sabbath’s debut album would get her own Funko Pop! figure? That’s the case with a new line of Funko Pop! figures based on classic albums. The first Funko “Pop! Albums” series features figures modeled after three iconic album covers. They include Sabbath’s self-titled debut, The Notorious B.I.G.’s Ready to Die, and AC/DC’s Back in Black. Upon its release in 1970, Sabbath’s debut album helped usher in what the world knows now as heavy metal. The woman on the ominous cover had remained a mystery until earlier this year, when she was locat...
Testament’s Alex Skolnick Unleashes New Rap Song “Wear a F**king Mask”: Stream
This year’s most unlikely political rap star, Testament guitarist Alex Skolnick, has returned with a second pandemic anthem: “Wear a F**king Mask”. The thrash guitarist surprised everyone last month when he dropped the hilarious “Trump Sucks” rap — a homemade ditty with a clear and direct political message, given the impending November elections. Consider this new track the B-side to “Trump Sucks”. Tragically, the basic safety measure of wearing a face covering during the pandemic has become a divisive political issue, with President Trump remaining defiantly apathetic toward mask regulations despite contracting COVID-19 himself. Well, Skolnick is having none of that. He might not be the most gifted rapper, but that’s part of the satirical humor, as Skolnick himself admits. “My recent home...
Tommy Lee Swears He’ll Leave US If Trump Wins: “I’ll Go Back to My Motherland”
Tommy Lee has had enough of Donald Trump, so much so that he insists he’ll leave the United States if the incumbent wins the upcoming presidential election. As to where he’d move, the Mötley Crüe drummer has his eyes on his “motherland”, otherwise known as Greece. In an interview with the British newspaper The Big Issue, the veteran rocker was asked how he’d deal with four more years of Trump. “Dude, I swear to God if that happens then I’m coming over to visit the UK — I’m out of here,” Lee responded. “I’ll go back to my motherland, go back to Greece and get a house on one of the islands.” Lee was actually born in Greece to his father, U.S. Army Sergeant David Lee Thomas Bass, and mother, Vassiliki “Voula” Papadimitriou, a pageant contestant who represented Greece in the 1960 Miss World co...
John 5 Honors Eddie Van Halen with Unearthed “You Really Got Me” Cover Featuring Corey Taylor and Michael Anthony: Watch
Rob Zombie guitarist John 5 has paid tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen by unveiling a concert clip featuring himself, Slipknot singer Corey Taylor, and longtime Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony performing The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”. The song was famously covered by Van Halen on their debut album. The video dates back to John 5’s Los Angeles show at The Whiskey A Go Go in 2019, when Taylor and Anthony joined the guitarist for the classic cover. As John 5 explained in an Instagram post, The Whiskey was an oft-played venue for Eddie Van Halen in Los Angeles. Along with the clip, John 5 wrote the following: “It’s difficult to put into words the impact that Eddie Van Halen had on my life. There’s no one that influenced me more than Eddie, he was an inventor an amazing songwriter and the ...
Ozzy Osbourne’s Farewell Tour Rebooked for 2022
Ozzy Osbourne is determined to complete his “No More Tours 2” farewell trek, despite experiencing a number of roadblocks along the way. In fact, his wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, says that they’ve already rescheduled his itinerary for 2022. The metal legend set out on his farewell tour in 2018, completing a couple of legs before a series of health issues brought the outing to an abrupt stop. First, he dealt with a nasty staph infection in his hand in fall 2018. Then in early 2019, he came down with pneumonia and experienced a serious fall while recovering at home. That fall dislodged metal rods that were placed in Ozzy’s body after a 2003 ATV accident, and forced him to postpone all of his 2019 dates. With the tour rescheduled for 2020, Ozzy announced at the beginning of this year tha...
Puscifer to Stream Concert Event from Arizona Desert
Puscifer will celebrate the release of their upcoming album, Existential Reckoning, with a truly unique streaming concert event. The show will feature singer Maynard James Keenan and company performing in the middle of the Arizona desert. The concert, dubbed “Existential Reckoning: Live at Arcosanti”, streams on October 30th, the same day that the album arrives. The show will see the band performing the new LP in its entirety. As Keenan explained in a press release, the location makes for an unpredictable experience. “If you’re not familiar with Arcosanti, I highly recommend that you look it up,” said Keenan. “It’s one of a long list of examples of architects, artists, actors, musicians, writers, and poets. People who are not necessarily from Arizona but came here and found that creative t...
David Crosby Gets Backlash Over Dismissive Eddie Van Halen Tweet
Eddie Van Halen (photo by Philip Cosores), David Crosby (photo by Monica McGivern) Following the death of Eddie Van Halen on Tuesday (October 6th), the Van Halen guitarist received near universal acclaim in tributes from his musical peers. However, one fellow music icon didn’t see fit to sing the rock legend’s praises. David Crosby dismissed Van Halen with a “meh,” and it has fans and musicians fuming. Like Eddie Van Halen, Crosby is a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, thanks to his work in The Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash. He was asked Saturday (October 11th) by a fan on Twitter about his opinion on the late guitarist, which he answered with a blunt “Meh.” When another fan responded, “Wow, that was rude, unkind, and totally lacking empathy,” Crosby continued to dig himself into m...
LEGO Is Making a Fender Stratocaster Set Thanks to a Fan Submission
Music was always a category missing from LEGO’s immense library of toy bricks, but that’s about to change. The company has announced a new Fender Stratocaster construction set based on a fan-submitted piece that won the 2020 LEGO Ideas contest. TOMOELL is the LEGO Ideas user behind the winning submission, which will be adapted by a LEGO designer into an official product. The guitar set will also be the first in a new music-centric series of LEGO releases, as the company looks to concentrate on its adult consumers. “Everyone has seen the Fender Stratocaster guitar, it’s super famous and we think it’s going to be exciting to bring this to life using LEGO bricks,” LEGO Ideas Design Manager Sam Johnson said (via Brick Fanatics). “Music is a relatively new place for LEGO to play in so we’re rea...
Mastodon, Baroness, and Kvelertak Members Cover Ozzy Osbourne’s “Over the Mountain”: Watch
Two Minutes to Late Night’s “Bedroom Covers” series has become one of the few simple pleasures heavy metal fans have been able to enjoy during the pandemic. The YouTube channel gathers various metal musicians for socially distant performances, and we’ve seen a consistent stream of entertaining cover renditions over the past several months. The latest video sees Mastodon drummer-singer Brann Dailor on lead vocals — along with Darkest Hour guitarist Mike Schleibaum, Kvelertak bassist Marvin Nygaard, Baroness drummer Sebastian Thomson, and Two Minutes to Late Night host Gwarsenio Hall — taking on the Ozzy Osbourne classic “Over the Mountain”. The song was the lead track from Ozzy’s sophomore album, Diary of a Madman, the last studio recording to feature late guitar legend Randy Rhoa...
Street Artist Turns NYC Subway Station into “Van Halen Avenue”
A New York City street artist paid tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen in the most clever way, turning the Van Siclen Avenue stop in Brooklyn into “Van Halen Avenue”. The same artist pulled a similar stunt last month, turning the 50th St. station in Manhattan into “Ruth St.” in honor of late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Adrian Wilson is the artist who conceived the subway tributes in honor of the guitar legend and the Supreme Court justice. After being featured on the news for his Ginsburg tribute, he figured someone else would have taken the initiative for the Van Halen guitarist, or at least taken credit for it. But, as he wrote on his Instagram, he ultimately took matters into his own hands. “Come on people,” he wrote on Instagram alongside a pic of his “Van Halen Avenue” sign. “I even explaine...
George Thorogood Premieres “Bad to the Bone” from Deluxe Reissue of Live in Boston, 1982: Stream
George Thorogood and The Destroyers have been going strong for more than 40 years. And they’re going back nearly that long for a new deluxe reissue of the album Live in Boston, 1982. In advance of the release, Thorogood is teaming up with Consequence of Sound to premiere a visualizer for the deluxe edition’s previously unreleased live version of his signature tune, “Bad to the Bone”. The deluxe edition, dubbed Live in Boston, 1982: The Complete Concert, adds 12 previously unreleased songs to the original 2010 release, for a total of 27 tracks. The reissue will be available as a 4-LP 180-gram vinyl set; a 2-CD edition; and digitally beginning December 4th via Craft Recordings. A red marble vinyl release will be made available exclusively for Record Store Day’s Black Friday event on November...
Unsane Launching Their Own Record Label, Reissuing Back Catalog
Unsane’s early albums have been out of print for years and missing from digital platforms, but the band has taken things into its own hands to rectify the matter. Frontman Chris Spencer will launch the imprint Lamb Unlimited label Friday (October 9th) as a means of reissuing Unsane’s back catalog and associated side-projects like the Cutthroat 9s. Finally, early Unsane releases will be accessible in digital and streaming formats. Unsane’s 1991 self-titled debut and 1993 singles comp, Singles 89-92, were issued on Matador Records and became cult favorites for fans of noise rock and post-hardcore — with some grisly album covers to boot. It just seemed cruel that these albums remain vacant from streaming services in 2020, so Spencer created Lamb Unlimited to rescue the Unsane discography...
