Rerunnin’ with the devil

The News Review:

- Rerunnin’ with the devil
- Music to Brood by Desolate and Stark
- Imus on Air again Soon?; Wisconsin Shootings Tacoma Explosions

Rerunnin’ with the devil
Toronto Star – Oct 7, 2007
"I hadn’t really thought about them in awhile. I was into them when I was younger but I’d totally forgotten about it. And here was this die-hard evil Satanic death-metal guy just freaking out about the genius of Eddie Van Halen. So I went back and got into the music again. "Whatever one thinks of the divisive Hagar years Van Halen with David Lee Roth was inarguably the best thing to emerge from Los Angeles’s Sunset Strip metal scene. The group’s unmistakable signature sound ? characterized by Eddie’s squelched scorching guitar playing and brother Alex’s nimble dry-toned drumming ? and Roth’s onstage flamboyance combined into stardom-on-delivery with 1978′s self-titled Van Halen (containing rock radio staples like "Runnin’ with the Devil") which carried without much ebb until the chart-topping mega-success of "Jump" and the 1984 album six years later. Van Halen prefigured (and bettered) the entire Strip scene to follow from Mötley Crüe and Poison on down Christe argues and laid the groundwork for the dominance of everyone from Bon Jovi to Whitesnake in the years to come.

Music to Brood by Desolate and Stark
New York Times – Oct 7, 2007
Bernard Sumner’s guitar sounds as if it has been chipped out of granite; Peter Hook’s bass playing is fluent but unyielding like steel cable. In performance as documented on the live recordings packaged with these reissues Joy Division’s dense assault approaches heavy metal. But its studio music was stark and desolate permeated with a cavernous spatiality courtesy of the brilliantly inventive producer Martin Hannett. Joy Division’s unsettling combination of the visceral and the ethereal has hooked generation after generation of listeners. New rder the more commercially palatable and dance-oriented (yet still angst-tinged) outfit that the band became after Mr. Curtis’s death has helped maintain Joy Division’s profile.

Imus on Air again Soon?; Wisconsin Shootings Tacoma Explosions
CNN International – Oct 7, 2007
Also just months after losing his job over controversial remarks shock jock Don Imus could soon be back on the air. We’ll run down his return to the airwaves. Plus music fans know him for his “Achy Breaky Heart” but parents and their kids know that he’s also Hannah Montana’s dad. I’ll talk to Billy Ray Cyrus about stardom and parenthood and toys a little bit later in the NEWSRM. But first up the killings in Crandon Wisconsin. Right now details remain sketchy but it appears there were multiple deaths. And just within the last hour we got word the suspected gunman was shot and killed by police… It also knocked out power to about two million homes. And then devastation misery in Vietnam today where another typhoon Lekima is blamed for dozens of deaths there. Government officials warn the death toll is likely to rise since many districts remain isolated by floodwaters. In some places whole villages are under water. Red Cross officials estimate some 5000 houses have collapsed or have simply been washed away. And another 88000 were damaged by the flooding. What a horrible devastation there in that part of the world.