Whitesnake’s forthcoming album, ‘Forevermore,’ is tentatively due for release in March 2011 via Frontiers Records.

Frontman David Coverdale stated, “The new songs are in the very familiar and recognizable Whitesnake territory of soulful, bluesy, melodic power rock, with a couple of ballads thrown in for good measure. It can’t be a Whitesnake album without ballads, mate!”

“As always, we want to take it to the next level,” said Coverdale. “I feel that with the last album we achieved a strong Whitesnake ‘cocktail’ that comfortably embraced and mixed all the previous musical aspects and styles of the band’s history, while taking our identity a little further… all on one album.”

Whitesnake’s current lineup features guitarists Doug Aldrich and Reb Beach, former Foreigner drummer Brian Tichy, newly announced bassist Michael Devin and vocalist David Coverdale.

Keyboardist Timothy Drury can also be heard on ‘Forevermore’ but left Whitesnake earlier this year to pursue a solo career.

With his blistering fast lead chops, impeccably clean technique, and exceptional composition skills, Jeff Loomis is recognized as one of the top guitarists on the progressive metal scene today. Since the early 1990s, the guitar virtuoso has been a primary creative force in the Seattle-based band Nevermore, and he’s recently spread his wings as a solo artist with the impressive debut effort Zero Order Phase.

One rainy Seattle afternoon, Jeff and I chatted about technique, gear, and all things guitar for a BOSS Tone Radio podcast. To listen to the complete conversation and clips of his music, visit www.BossUS.com/podcasts.

Eric Clapton was voted the top guitar hero at this week's Guitar Nation Live show in London. The poll was taken at a booth hosted by instrument insurance company Allianz Musical Insurance.

"It's great to see that the U.K. still has a strong rock star tradition," Allianz's Claims Manager Robin Stagg told the press.

Two more U.K. natives, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, also made it into the top 5. The top 5 guitarists in the poll were Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Chuck Berry.

Clapton will have the opportunity to prove that he still deserves the title when he goes on tour in the U.K. next year. Slowhand will play shows in Dublin, Belfast, Glasgow and Cardiff before participating in a six-night residency at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Steve Vai Guitar Techniques provides an unprecedented opportunity for musicians from across the globe to take an "under the hood" look at the work of one of music's most influential guitarists, learn the secrets behind Steve's unique playing style, and incorporate Steve's techniques into their own playing. The Steve Vai Guitar Techniques online course builds upon the guitar curriculum that Berklee has been providing to students for decades. "What's fascinating to me is that the barriers to learning music directly from recognized experts - whether it's myself or the rest of Berklee's renowned guitar faculty - no longer exist with online music education," said Vai. "I'm intimately involved in creating this course, from the crafting of the lesson content, to providing hours of never-before-seen video, and even a dedicated live chat between myself and the online students. This truly is an evolution in the way to teach and learn guitar."

The program showcases an in-depth look at Steve's approach to the guitar through a 12-week online course which begins January 10, 2011. You can enroll in the program starting today & view an exclusive sneak peek lesson here!

The EMG crew has returned from The Black Label Bunker where we showed Zakk Wylde your amazing videos and our top 5 for him to choose from.  We are pleased to announce the grand prize winner, Preston Black of Alabama!  Congratulations to Preston and thank you all for the great videos, it was real tough narrowing them down to five.  Everyone who entered received a special limited edition Zakk Wylde Shred Challenge t-shirt. Check out the video of Zakk at The Bunker choosing the winner.

Yesterday, two of metal music's absolute giants, Rob Halford and Ozzy Osbourne, visited the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. The ACC was packed with festive metal heads from all over Ontario. Every age group was represented, both those who have been there from the beginning, head banging to the early Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, and the younger kids, who probably just know about Mr. Osbourne from his MTV reality show, "The Osbournes." In any case, the hordes of heavy dudes and gals were in for one spectacular experience.
Halford's performance The audience at the ACC received Halford as the metal god that he is – cheering till their lungs were about to burst. The first few rows, kicked their chairs to the side, enabling them to stand up and head bang properly to Halford's pumping metal tunes. Right from the get go, old school full throttle heavy metal filled the ACC, energizing everyone from the front rows to those in the back, sitting just underneath the roof.
If anyone should be in doubt, Halford has been at the centre of heavy metal for about four decades. This was cemented in the second song on the evening's set-list, the one-song Halford biography “Made In Hell.” The crowd grew even more excited and the cheering turned into an inferno of metal roars. Rob continued with “Locked And Loaded.”

Old school heavy metal dudes wear their leather jacket with pride and so did Halford yesterday. However, he had to let go of it just before presenting his latest album “Made Of Metal,” due to the increasing temperature at the ACC. The album is in stores now and the title track is as head bang friendly as anything Mr. Halford has ever laid his hands on – and the crowd loved it.

Throughout Halford's set, you could definitely feel the love – thousands of metal heads' love for heavy metal music. At the end of his set, Halford articulated the atmosphere, “we love you metal heads. Thanks for keeping the metal faith.” The love was clearly mutual, as the fans reached out for their metal god, head banged and sang along throughout the entire show. All in all, an awesome show. Four decades of experience truly does make a difference. Make sure to check out Halford next time he's in town!



Ozzy Osbourne's performance
The Ozzy concert was kicked off with a brief and humorous film montage with Ozzy in key roles in popular movies and TV shows, such as “Avatar,” “Jersey Shore,” “The Hangover,” “Twilight” and (of course) “Iron Man.” In one of the most well received film clips, Ozzy, in the role as a street wise punk, got whipped verbally by Snooki from Jersey Shore, after telling her to “shut the fuck up.” Another clip  also spiked wide spread cheering. After opening his coat and flashing Bella Swan from the Twilight series, Ozzy told her, “fuck vampires, I'm the prince of darkness.”
The film montage served as a great appetizer for what the audience at the ACC had in store. Ozzy came running on stage and set the score right from the get-go: “the crazier you'll go tonight, the longer we play. Let the madness begin!” And so it did.

Ozzy himself added to the madness with non-stop jumping and running around on stage. It was tough not to get sucked into the energy field created by Ozzy and soon, thousands and thousands of metal heads were jumping with their fists high in the air. Ozzy didn't even take a few minutes to just stand around and catch his breath. When he needed to cool down, he nosedived into a bucket of water and then went on. The twenty first rows weren't allowed much rest either. If they chose to stand around for too long, Ozzy would blast them with a hose, spooling out litres of some weird looking foam substance.

Oh yes, and the music. Ozzy's fall tour has been put together in support of his latest album, “Scream.” However, the crowd at the ACC got back to back hits from very different points of the metal icon's career, including 5-10 of Black Sabbath's biggest hits. There was no particular highlight of the evening – the show was one long climax, thanks to Ozzy's impeccable performance. From stage, Ozzy yelled, “I'm still crazy after all these years. It's good to be crazy.” This metal music examiner will have to agree with the prince of darkness on that one – it surely worked well at the ACC yesterday night.

The concert lasted for much more than two hours and every minute was a memorable one. Summing it all up, the Ozzy show truly contained a little bit of everything - humour, craziness, high voltage energy, fireworks, foam guns and good old school heavy metal. Ozzy looked younger compared to his appearances over the past years. Thumbs up, high fives, fist bump and a “well done” from this metal music examiner.

Photo: Tom Pandi

Toronto, Canada

A plethora of Canada’s best rock and blues musicians are banding together in a benefit concert for well-loved, Canadian Guitar Hero, Frank Soda. Vancouver’s Soda, who is in Toronto for cancer surgery was a staple of the bar scene in the 1970’s as the front man for his band The Imps.

The diminutive guitarist was an early exponent of rock theatre, often performing with an exploding television set on his head. But it was Soda’s guitar work that made him a legendary performer on the Toronto bar circuit, including the Piccadilly Tube, where The Imps recorded their album, Live in the Tube. Influenced by the likes of Clapton, Beck, Page, and Hendrix, Soda’s skills with an electric guitar were out of all proportion to his short stature. Soda’s remarkable energy and charisma, fuelled his incendiary rock and blues solos, guaranteeing The Imps sold our houses, night after night. The Carpet Frogs’ front man, Nick Sinopoli, comments:

“Frank is a great musician and a helluva nice guy. He’s influenced so many guitarists and gave me my start. It’s only right that we do what we can to help him.”

The benefit concert will take place at the Rockpile on Sunday November 28th. Doors open at 6PM and the bands hit the stage at 7PM. Admission is $10.00 with all proceeds going to a fund to offset Frank Soda’s medical expenses.

Partial list of performers:
CONEY HATCH
WILD "T"
SCARPELLI
THE ANTLERS W/MIKE TILKA & TERRY WATKINSON
ROCKIZOID W/DENNIS DEMARCHI
RUSSELL "DWARF" GRAHAM
MICHAEL WHITE
THE HINGES
The EMCEE WILL BE MIKE MANDEL

The Rockpile is at 5555 Dundas Street West phone (416) 504-6699

Kid Rock’s best days in the rap-rock game are far behind him, though it is known that he can rock a mean turntable. It has been over a decade since Devil Without A Cause made Rock a late ’90s smash overnight, but subsequent releases like Cocky, Kid Rock, and Rock & Roll Jesus (*cough* pretentious *cough*) noted an evolution steering clearer of rap, furthering instead a penchant for Bob Seger impersonations. One could claim Rock is going the way of Jovi by pretending to be a country boy (from fucking Jersey?), complete with arena gigs where old ladies melt for a blond Kroeger, but I digress.
Born Free is the latest from our formerly bad-ass American; this is an album that tries so damned hard to be steady southern rock, coming shy of a respectable clone. First, let us get the positive points noted quick and painlessly.
Rock’s years of advancing toward something more mature seem to have finally paid off to some extent. Opening titular single “Born Free” is a powerful tune all around, being cribbed by TBS for its 2010 MLB coverage; Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, Los Lobos guitarist David Hidalgo, and Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench take the place of Rock’s typical Twisted Brown Trucker backing band (it pays to have friends when Kracker has screws loose); production by Rick Rubin yields more stripped-down bar band elements to yet another album in his oeuvre, indicating his and Rock’s cameo in the video for Johnny Cash’s “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” wasn’t coincidence.
Songs like “Rock Bottom Blues” and “God Bless Saturday” are the biggest indicators that the Kid is hard at work trying to bring on a Silver Bullet 2.0. If it were anyone else, we’d mock the stuffing out of ‘em, but coming from Kid Rock, we know what to expect, and this is a big step up from crap like “All Summer Long”. The general mood about Born Free is to promote a feel-good summer vibe during this chilly time of year, a record to pop on and pop a top with friends over. Unfortunately, it’s as if Nickelback made an entire album of nothing but “This Afternoon” remixes. A little originality, please?
Two tracks off of Born Free include marketable and redeeming collaborations: a second tag-along by Sheryl Crow on “Collide”, and a double whammy by default country high-note Martina McBride and rapper T.I. on “Care”. It should be noted, while the Crow endeavor comes off pretty generic, “Care” is probably the best song on an effort that is otherwise strictly a series of bluesy tunes. Why? Everyone does their parts grandly, even guest pianist…Bob Seger.
Wait, what? Oh yeah, Bob Seger plays piano on a Kid Rock album, while the rap-rocker himself shamelessly copies him. Last fucking straw, Kid.
Rock forces his notes through a scratchy sandpaper straw and a pseudo-garage rock counting off before every other song on Born Free, instead of relaxing himself as proven in songs like “Only God Knows Why”; Rock is a glorified MC who sang over a Lynyrd Skynyrd/Warren Zevon loop and called it a “sample”. Can you say “blatant rip-off”? Kid Rock went from mindless indulgences like “Three Sheets To The Wind” and a guest spot on ICP’s debut release, to making songs that would be justifiable go-to filler in your local dive’s jukebox. The Double Deuce wouldn’t have been caught dead with this garbage; blind white boys play better rock music. Even the all-star band behind Rock was held back, like having Rex Harrison recite lines from American Pie — there’s only so much you can do.
In the end, it comes down to one fact alone – I would rather hear “Her Strut” over and over, right after pardoning “Shakedown”, than go through this forgery again. If not for Seger and company’s contributions, the raspy out-of-water element that is Kid Rock would have been completely lost. I like to think Seger did his pieces at gunpoint, in a separate room. Now, who’s taking bets on whether or not T.I.’s bit role should be considered community service? Does he get out of jail early for such generous behavior?