#Whaddup for November 6, 2022

Yo, yo, yo, kiddios. Hope all's well wit' you.

I celebrated my week off by working yesterday at my day job. One of the coworkers injured themselves and (knowing all too well how that shit can go), most of us have been pitching in and trying to pick up the slack. Not to mention we're busy as all hell.

Anybody wanna work at a sign shop?

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The Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame held its induction ceremony last night in New York. In addition to the (mostly) well deserved inductions, there was the sad news from Duran Duran that the ban's original guitarist, Andy Taylor, was now in the end stages of metastatic prostate cancer. Singer Simon LeBon read the audience part of the letter Taylor had sent his bandmate and told reports backstage that it was "devastating news to find out that a colleague… not a colleague — a friend, one of our family — is not gonna be around for very long. It is absolutely devastating. We love Andy dearly. I’m not gonna stand here and cry or anything, that would be inappropriate, but that’s what I feel like." LeBon said the group didn't want to discuss the situation further.

The full text of Taylor's letter:

Dear Simon, John, Roger, Nick, my fellow inductees and countrymen

I wanted to send a personal note to pass along my sincerest respect to you all for what’s been an amazing career, and to also share what has happened to me.

Firstly, can I say what an absolute honour it was to be nominated let alone be inducted into the RRHOF. There’s nothing that comes close to such recognition. I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved together and of the way you have continued. As a guitar player in a progressive band from the synth days of the early eighties, literally from the day I met Nick, John, Simon and Roger they truly valued the contribution of a rather noisy, versatile Northern brat. We all grew up on the same vinyl records and live gigs, from David Bowie to Roxy Music, The Sex Pistols and of course CHIC. I could go to all those places as a player and developed a hybrid guitar style that fitted this amazing concept OF A BAND…

I loved going into the studio and recording our material; nobody else sounded like us. We were ripe to absorb what was the art of analogue recording, but with some different kit, Nick’s artful obsession with synth technology was something I’d never seen before and I was introduced to lay-ers. Because we were instinctively the right fit, we evolved very quickly, writing RIO as our second album with the confidence our very early success with ‘Girls On Film’ and ‘Planet Earth’ in-spired.

You can dream about what happened to us but to experience it, on one’s own terms, as mates, was beyond incredible.

I would like to thank each of my brothers in this great band.

My family: my incredibly sane wife of 40 years – Tracey – my amazing children, Andy, Georgie, Bethy and Izzy, not forgetting my grandson Albie, who’s probably online listening or on Fort-nite!!!

The original believers: Paul and Michael Berrow, Dave Ambrose, Terry Slater, Rob Hallett.

The Producers: Colin Thurston, Alex Sadkin, Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers – I’ve also real-ly dug the work with Mark Ronson – I particularly admire ‘All You Need Is Now’, that’s a DD melody if ever I heard one.

Thanks also to Merck, Andrew and Wendy.

Now for the bad blood, well the good news is that there is none, just pure love and respect for eve-rything we wrote, recorded and achieved together. What’s the point? There’s no stopping this 44-year thing called “Duran Duran”.

Now to the reason I’m not here:

Just over 4-years ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. Many families have experienced the slow burn of this disease and of course we are no different; so I speak from the perspective of a family-man but with profound humility to the band, the greatest fans a group could have and this exceptional accolade.

I have the Rodgers and Edwards of doctors and medical treatment that until very recently allowed me to just rock on. Although my current condition is not immediately life threatening there is no cure. Recently I was doing okay after some very sophisticated life extending treatment, that was until a week or so ago when I suffered a setback, and despite the exceptional efforts of my team, I had to be honest in that both physically and mentally, I would be pushing my boundaries.

However, none of this needs to or should detract from what this band (with or without me) has achieved and sustained for 44 years. We’ve had a privileged life, we were a bit naughty but really nice, a bit shirty but very well dressed, a bit full of ourselves, because we had a lot to give, but as I’ve said many times, when you feel that collective, instinctive, kindred spirit of creativity mixed with ambition, armed with an über cool bunch of fans, well what could possibly go wrong?

I’m truly sorry and massively disappointed I couldn’t make it. Let there be no doubt I was stoked about the whole thing, even bought a new guitar with the essential whammy!

I’m so very proud of these four brothers; I’m amazed at their durability, and I’m overjoyed at ac-cepting this award. I often doubted the day would come. I’m sure as hell glad I’m around to see the day.

All My Love

AT

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Aaron Carter, who began his career as an opening act for his older brother Nick's group, Backstreet Boys, was found dead in his home Saturday morning. 

Carter was plagued by substance abuse problems, and had entered rehab in September- his fifth time "in the program"- though he said he had "decided to enroll myself into that program... to take care of aftercare. He added that he'd had "no relapses. I haven’t had any relapses … it’s just triggers are big right now for me."

 In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Carter said he'd also been diagnosed with "multiple mental health issues" after a 2019 DUI arrest. 

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I'm not a fan of Eminem, but I can't really argue with his sentiment at the Rock Hall ceremony when he said "I'm probably not supposed to be here"... But I said I wasn't gonna judge.

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I totally want to see the ceremony, though, at the very least to see Dolly's performance of Jolene alongside Judas Priest's Rob Halford, Le Bon, Pat Benatar, and Annie Lenox of Eurythmics- as well as P!nk, Brandi Carlile, and the Zac Brown Band. Halford's appearance alone makes me want to see it, but Benatar and Annie Lennox, too? And P!nk? Wow!

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I got another plague jab Saturday- along with a flu shot. I don't feel that bad, but I have a knot in either arm. The headache? Well, I pretty much always have that, so I'm not sure if I'm having any side effects or not.

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Paramore has announced 26 more cities in North America will be part of their This Is Why tour kicks. The added dates start May 23rd in Charlotte. The current leg of the tour includes a stop at the Tabernacle in Atlanta on the 15th of this month.

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Stevie Nicks and Billy Joel have announced they'll be performing "five to seven shows" together as part of their Two Icons, One Night tour, according to LiveNation chairman Wilson Howard. 

Both artists art currently touring independently. Their co-headlining dates kick off March 10th at SoFi Stadium. An April date at the Cowboys' stadium and a May date in Nashville have also been announced. 

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Sammy Hagar told SiriusXM's Eddie Trunk that any rumored tribute to former bandmate Eddie Van Halen will happen without him.

When Trunk asked if there'd been any further developments in regards to the show, Hagar answered, "as far as I know, nothing. There was that talk everybody heard about Jason being the bass player and Joe Satriani playing guitar and Alex (Van Halen) and all that. Then I got the call from the management, I got the call from Irving Azoff, (who) said, ‘Hey, you wanna do, you and Mike (Anthony) and Al with a superstar guitar player?’ I said, ‘I’ll do anything with Al and Mike and play music with people, but it’s not gonna be Van Halen. There is no Van Halen; I don’t care what anyone says.'"

Hagar added he would like to "play with Al and Mike and a great guitar player for some event- almost like (what) Dave Grohl put on for Taylor, something like that would be fantastic" but that he had no relationship with Alex Van Halen, saying the two "don’t talk."

"...I reached out to (him) recently. Mikey had a sad thing happen in his family, and I reached out to Al, and he wouldn’t return my call or my e-mail. And so I said, ‘You know what? Fuck it. It’s not on the top of my list, my agenda.’ I think Eddie deserves, definitely, a tribute… And the whole world would show up and the whole world would do it."

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Birthdays today include: Sally Field (76); Living Colour's Corey Glover (58); Rebecca Romijn (50); and Emma Stone (34).