Aerosmith Quickly Joining Ranks Off All-Drama All-Stars

Author: Kyle Anderson  //  Category: Courtney-Love, Latest Music News, Pete-Doherty, aerosmith, hole, music

There's a new twist in the ongoing saga Aerosmith saga. The beleaguered band has had problematic relations with lead singer Steven Tyler, leading to rumors that Joe Perry and company would be recruiting a new singer while Tyler got whatever help he needed. But the band has announced that they will play a series of European festivals in June, and they've promised that Tyler will indeed serve as the frontman. "I love performing as the lead singer in Aerosmith," Tyler said. "I am grateful for all of the support and love I am receiving and am committed to getting things taken care of."

Tyler entered a rehab facility in December, but a series of strange instances (including a visit to a karaoke bar and gig singing in a Home Depot) have created doubt among fans as to what Tyler's future with the band would be. Aerosmith have been through a lot as a band (drug issues, public apathy, that one time their drummer set himself on fire), but they're becoming dangerously close to joining the pantheon of bands who become known more for their personal drama than for the music itself. Who else is in that pantheon? Glad you asked!

Courtney Love/Hole
Love didn't invent the concept of band drama, but she certainly refined it to an art form. It's been six years since she released her debut solo album America's Sweetheart, and since then, she has gone to war with the former members of Nirvana, her old bandmates in Hole, the makers of "Guitar Hero," a credit card company and her own daughter Frances Bean Cobain. She is only now making her live performance comeback, though her heavily-bootlegged follow-up album Nobody's Daughter remains somewhere in limbo. But even if her new album is the new decade's version of Kid A, her personal drama will still eclipse the music.

Whatever Band Pete Doherty Is Currently In
The beleaguered British star, who first broke out with the Libertines and then formed Babyshambles, is known more for dating Kate Moss and taking photos of himself while doing drugs than anything he has ever recorded. Every time he schedules a concert, the question becomes not "What will he play?" but rather "Will he make it to the stage?"

Amy Winehouse
She grabbed everyone's attention back in 2006 when her Back to Black floored music fans around the world and launched a mini-genre of her very own. But since Winehouse won five Grammys, it's been nothing but issues involving drugs, her health, her strange relationship with her parents, her legal problems and her relationship with on-again/off-again boyfriend/husband Blake Fielder-Civil.

Oasis
When they were putting out all-time great singles like "Wonderwall" and "Supersonic," everybody was willing to overlook the fact that the two brothers at the front of the action were constantly at odds. But in the past few years of middling albums and go-nowhere singles, all of the focus has been on the war of words between Liam and Noel Gallagher. And even though the band officially broke it off last year, whenever either brother puts out any music, the question will immediately be "What does the other brother think?"

Axl Rose
No fewer than 17,000 people have been in Guns N' Roses since the release of the Use Your Illusion albums and Axl essentially turned the group into a solo project. Since then, he has floated in and out of the public's consciousness, released one album and sporadically toured (most recently, he showed up for a surprise show during New York Fashion Week). The drama surrounding Rose and his various players has long eclipsed the fact that "Welcome to the Jungle" still rules.

Courtney Love and Hole Debut “Nobody’s Daughter” in London

Author: Daniel Kreps  //  Category: Courtney-Love, Latest Music News, Rock News

Courtney Love took the stage last night at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, marking the first time in over 11 years that she has performed under the “Hole” moniker. Love’s comeback featured a mix of old favorites alongside new cuts from Hole’s upcoming Nobody’s Daughter, the long-in-the-works album that will finally be released on April 27th on Mercury/Island Def Jam, Rolling Stone reported.

We’ve come to expect plenty of controversy from Love-related events in recent years — even Hole’s concert last week in London was canceled when a squat riot broke out in Love’s neighborhood — but according to the U.K. press in attendance, the comeback show was successful and drama-free. The Times Online called the performance a “brash but well-drilled show,” though they felt this “Hole” was too similar to the backing band that Love had behind her when she played a solo show in London in 2007.

In the studio with Courtney Love: exclusive photos.
Photo: Cattermole/Getty

Kicking off with a medley of “Pretty on the Inside” and the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” Hole unveiled eight new songs over the course of the Shepherd’s Bush concert, with Love frequently telling the audience that the new songs were difficult to play and that she needed a teleprompter to assist her with the lyrics.

Up top, watch Hole run through the encores “Doll Parts” and “Northern Star,” and check out the Shepherd’s Bush Empire set list below:

“Pretty On The Inside”/”Sympathy For The Devil”
“Skinny Little Bitch”
“Miss World”
“Honey”
“Violet”
“Letter To God”
“Pacific Coast Highway”
“Reasons To Be Beautiful”
“Nobody’s Daughter”
“How Dirty Girls Get Clean”
“Malibu”
“Celebrity Skin”
“Samantha”
“Doll Parts”
“Northern Star”
“Never Go Hungry Again”

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Courtney Love’s Hole Finds Label for April’s “Nobody’s Daughter”
Courtney Love Misses First Hole Comeback Show Over “Squat Riot”
Courtney Love Plots Hole’s Return With European Gigs, New Websites

Kevin Smith’s Fight With Southwest Joins The Pantheon Of Celebrity Air Travel Confrontations

Author: Kyle Anderson  //  Category: Courtney-Love, Kevin Smith, Latest Music News, Peter Buck, bjork, mike-tyson, music

Over the weekend, filmmaker Kevin Smith (the indie auteur responsible for cult hits "Clerks," "Chasing Amy" and "Dogma," as well as the upcoming "Cop Out") got into a little spat with Southwest Airlines. While trying to board a plane on Sunday morning (February 14), Smith was asked to leave because he was too big for one of the seats. He immediately began tweeting about the incident for the benefit of his over one million followers and the airline itself. It amounted to a rare air rage incident that took place on solid ground.

In the end, Southwest apologized and refunded Smith, though he remains upset about the incident. "Now I'm gonna carry this Too Fat to Fly sh-- around like herpes for the rest of my life, and it was never even true," Smith wrote on his Twitter.

But Smith's disagreement with Southwest pales in comparison to some of the more high-profile incidents in celebrity air rage history. What other incidents, you ask?

Naomi Campbell
The typically level-headed supermodel became upset with British Airways lost one of her bags upon her arrival at London's Heathrow Airport in 2008. She reportedly started kicking and spitting at airline representatives and police (she claims she was responding to being called a racial slur) and ended up pleading guilty to charges of assault and disorderly conduct.

Peter Buck
The R.E.M. guitarist was responsible for what has gone down in history as the definitive celebrity air rage fiasco. The normally mild-mannered Buck destroyed a cup of yogurt, overturned a service cart and may or may not have marked his territory in the bathroom during a flight from Seattle to London in 2001. The great punchline? Buck had no memory of the incident — he woke up in a London jail cell unable to recall his flight, blaming the whole event on the combination of a sleeping pill and red wine.

Courtney Love
The erratic Love repeatedly berated the flight crew during a trip to London (again!) in 2003. When the plane finally landed at Heathrow, police were waiting to welcome her to the U.K.

Björk
Don't try to talk to the Icelandic chanteuse while in an airport. She has twice lashed out at press folks while deboarding after a flight: Once in 1996 (when she jumped a TV reporter who welcomed her to Thailand) and again in 2008 (when she tore the shirt of a photographer who tried to snap a photo of her in New Zealand).

Snoop Dogg
The D-O-Double-G has been banned from British Airways because of a 2006 incident at Heathrow Airport (what is it with that place?). Employees at the airport asked Snoop and his entourage to leave a business-class lounge, but they didn't want to budge. When they were pressed, Snoop and his friends started a brawl that smashed up a nearby duty free shop. Amazingly, no charges were filed.

Mike Tyson
Seriously, who is messing with former heavyweight champ anywhere, let alone at an airport? Tyson threw a haymaker at a photographer who was trying to snap shots of his family while they were at a ticket counter at Los Angeles International in 2009. Both Tyson and the photographer were booked on misdemeanor battery charges.

Wake-Up Video: Nirvana’s ‘Drain You’

Author: Kyle Anderson  //  Category: Courtney-Love, Latest Music News, Nirvana, Wake-Up Video, hole

Two people in the Nirvana universe share a birthday today. Courtney Love turns 45 today. The controversial wife of Kurt Cobain has had a bit of a checkered history, but it’s hard to deny the fact that she released one of the definitive albums of the grunge era (Hole’s Live Through This) and her first solo album was totally underrated. Love hasn’t released any new music since 2004, but supposedly we’ll be seeing a new solo album, a Hole reunion, or both by the end of the year.

In a strange bit of cosmic coincidence, today also marks the 18th birthday of Spencer Elden, better known as the nude baby on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind. Elden’s parents were paid $200 to take the photo, with the fishhook and dollar bill added later. In an interview in 2007, Elden remarked that he sort of feels like a porn star because so many people have seen his penis.

Nevermind represented the beginning of the ’90s alt-rock revolution and made Nirvana into one of the biggest bands in the world — and it also turned both Elden and Love into generational icons. In honor of their birthdays, enjoy a live version of Nirvana’s “Drain You.”

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