Free Republic

Reuters reports that Mitt Romney's campaign was calling for civility on Tuesday after Ted Nugent's comments before an audience of U.S. gun lobbyists. The Democratic National Committee seized on Nugent's remarks on Monday night in a fundraising email, pointing out how Nugent has endorsed Romney for president.

Ronnie Montrose’s Death Caused By Self-Inflicted Gunshot by: Dave Swanson 5 hours ago Ronnie Montrose Mark Bowman It has been confirmed that Ronnie Montrose’s death last month was not directly due to his long battle with cancer. The San Mateo County Coroner’s Office reports the guitarist instead died from suicide in the form of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to family friend Michael Molenda, in a sad and touching article on GuitarPlayer.com, the Montrose family knew the findings would be made public soon. So they posted a statement on the guitarist’s website and official Facebook page, which reads in part:...

The man who gave rock one of its key visual and sonic props has died. Jim Marshall, known as "The Father of Loud" for inventing the Marshall amplifier, was 88 years old. Marshall was a drummer and drum teacher who used his earnings to set up a music shop in west London in 1960. Among his customers were the likes of Ritchie Blackmore and Pete Townshend, and it was through talking to them that Marshall realised there was a gap in the market for a guitar amplifier cheaper than the American-made models popular at the time. When, at Townshend's request,...

I saw Three Dog Night tonight and they were AWESOME. Those old timers can still rock. I just wish they did Eli. They did not.

'Cleveland by two men whose passion for music bridged the racial divide in a segregated US. Jimmy Sutphin was playing poker and drinking beer in a hotel room with some hockey team pals when they heard the commotion outside. Peering out of the fifth-floor window, they saw thousands of people besieging the indoor arena across the road. The 20-year-old student and his friends abandoned their card game and piled downstairs to investigate. It was Friday evening, 21 March 1952, in Cleveland, Ohio, and they were about to witness history being made. The crowd was angrily demanding entry to a performance...

This is posted in the chit chat thread so relax everyone, no concern trolls were harmed in this posting. Okay, I just purchased the Blue Ray DVD to what is one of the best concerts ever filmed. Shot with 32 cameras entirely in HD in December of 2009, AC/DC Live At River Plate marks AC/DC's triumphant return to Buenos Aires where nearly 200,000 fans rocked as has never been seen before. Here is a link to a 1080 HD video, you can use the little "gear" icon in the lower right and set the Quality super high then click the...

Ever get the feeling that the open-minded voters for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame are welcoming to every genre, subgenre and hybrid of popular and vernacular music — except rock?

A good story about the rise of a new genre of Rock 'n Roll.Something for the rockers on FR. The Blaze article at the link kind of high-lights Madison Rising, but quite a number of other bands and singers are mentioned.

Kiss member Gene Simmons and War founder Howard E. Scott unleashed verbal assaults this week on other acts. Gene Simmons Simmons, the bassist and vocalist for the legendary band, said Madonna is not appropriate to perform at Super Bowl XLVI. When asked for his opinion on the matter, Simmons had a sarcastic response. "I love all karaoke singers," he told TMZ. "I like all the girl singers who get up and sing with tapes. Shame on you."

Legendary musician Jimi Hendrix was named the greatest guitar player in history Wednesday by Rolling Stone magazine in a list compiled by a panel of music experts and top guitar players. “Jimi Hendrix exploded our idea of what rock music could be: He manipulated the guitar, the whammy bar, the studio and the stage,” said Grammy-winning guitarist Tom Morello in the magazine, citing Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” as key tracks.

A 50-year-old Swedish man has been charged with harassment after he played a Bob Dylan song for his ex-girlfriend hoping to reignite an abandoned love. It was around 11pm one evening in June 2011 when the 50-year-old would be troubadour stood outside his ex-girlfriend's balcony, guitar in hand, the Metro newspaper reported. The love-sick man had also cobbled together a group of five other men to serve as vocal accompaniment for the late-night live performance, each of whom donned hoodies with their hoods up.

CANADA'S broadcast standards council has amended an earlier ruling that deemed Dire Straits' hit Money for Nothing unfit for radio, saying that while the homophobic slur in the song is inappropriate, it must be taken in context. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission had asked for a review of the song after the standards council ruled in January that the British band's song was unfit for radio because its lyrics include a gay slur. The council had responded to a complaint from a radio listener.

Less than a day after surviving a stage collapse at the Ottawa Bluesfest in Ontario, Canada, the members of Cheap Trick and their manager Dave Frey are feeling glad to be alive. "We are so thankful," Frey tells Rolling Stone. According to Frey, the sudden windstorm that brought down the main stage at the festival came as a surprise. "They said that we should be looking out for a storm but it wasn't really that apparent," he says. "I was actually on stage behind the drummer and I was taking a few pictures right before it happened. The air was...

He is still revered around the world as a peace-loving working class hero. But by the time he died, John Lennon was a closet conservative embarrassed by his radical past, according to his former personal assistant. Fred Seaman claims that the former Beatle was a fan of Ronald Reagan, who went on to become America’s Republican president in 1981 and forged a close political alliance with Margaret Thatcher.

Last week we asked our readers to vote for their favorite ballad or slow jam of all time. Votes were all over the place – from tracks by Pearl Jam to Elvis Presley to Lionel Richie. In the end it was very close, and there was a tie so we had to expand our standard top 10 to a top 12. If this survey has reinforced anything, it's that our readers really, really love Led Zeppelin.

NewsCore - A 20-year-old Oklahoma woman was receiving treatment in a hospital Thursday after being charged with animal cruelty for allegedly killing the family cat and using the blood for an outfit she planned to wear to a Lady Gaga concert. A relative of Angelina K. Barnes returned to her home in Oklahoma City and found the woman wearing a long coat, with her face covered in blood -- later determined to be cat's blood -- ready to attend the concert, KFOR reported. The light switches in the house had been covered in duct tape to make them almost impossible...

There is no way to quantify if a band or artist is overrated. ItÂ’s more of a feeling than anything else. There exists in popular music a hierarchy. ItÂ’s been created, and is constantly altered, by both natural and artificial means. At the top sits The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Michael Jackson, U2, and Madonna. At the bottom rests the 8th place American Idol contestant. Everyone else fall somewhere in between. Determining which artists are overrated and which are correctly rated is not a science. ItÂ’s not even an art. ItÂ’s just an exercise to start a conversation. ItÂ’s...

In the new issue of Rolling Stone - on stands and online in the digital archives now (subscription required) — Robert Plant explains to writer Stephen Rodrick why he was unwilling to keep performing with Led Zeppelin after their 2007 reunion concert.

A second Battle of the Alamo is raging in Texas and Rick Perry, the lone star state's governor, has called in an unlikely peacemaker: Phil Collins, the British rock drummer. At home Collins, 59, has been mocked as the purveyor of middle-of-the-road hits such as In the Air Tonight. But in south Texas he is respected as a wealthy collector of Alamo memorabilia qualified to mediate between rival conservationists and historians. He admits he is obsessed with the former mission in San Antonio.

...Adapted from Pamela Des Barres' bestselling book... the doc follows Des Barres... as she travels across the country reconnecting and reminiscing with the women who lived up to their reputations. ...“Rock 'n’ roll is art, but it also means sex, so it’s just the perfect combination -- especially for the young teenage girl. I remember when Mick Jagger lit me up when I was 15, and I thought, 'OK, I want some of that.' [But] our relationship was purely sexual.” Des Barres was motivated to log her experiences, and those of her pals, because she felt the word "groupie" had...