Red Hot Chili Peppers singer Anthony Kiedis battled kidney disease this past summer, according to a report in the New York Daily News. Several sources told the newspaper that Kiedis was a "frequent" patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, with one close friend saying, "Anthony's health was pretty bleak. Organ failure was a possibility." The same friend added that Kiedis' past history of drug addiction played a role in both his recent problems and the options available to him, explaining, "There was talk of how to get him on a transplant list, to cover all the bases, but that opened up a whole new can of worms because people with histories of drug and alcohol abuse are less likely to receive the organs they need."
Another inside source confirmed that Kiedis had been in the hospital, and also said that he was on the mend: "The general consensus is that the treatments helped, and he's getting better."
Representatives for the Chili Peppers and Kiedis denied that the vocalist had kidney problems, but would not confirm nor deny his hospital stays.
Kiedis was last seen in public in August, when he hosted a music festival in Pittsburgh. He did not play at the event.
The Chili Peppers have been on an extended hiatus since completing the touring cycle for their 2006 album, Stadium Arcadium, and have yet to announce any definitive plans to begin recording a follow-up.
Weezer is issuing six Christmas songs digitally that were originally recorded only for the recently released iPhone app "Tap Tap Revenge Christmas With Weezer." According to NME.com, the half dozen holiday standards will now be available from both iTunes and Amazon due to popular demand, despite the fact that they were recorded exclusively for the iPhone app. No physical release is planned at the moment for the songs, but that could also change as well.
The songs that Weezer covered are "We Wish You A Merry Christmas," "Silent Night," "O Holy Night," "First Noel," "Hark The Herald Angels Sing" and "O Come, All Ye Faithful," along with two bonus tracks.
Weezer recently completed a North American tour in support of its sixth studio effort, the self-titled "Red Album," and may hit the road again sometime next spring with Oasis.
Rob Zombie has been confirmed to write and direct H2, a sequel to his 2009 remake of Halloween that is slated to open this October. According to Variety, Zombie will begin shooting the movie in March on an accelerated schedule. The new film will pick up right where the last one ended and chronicle the aftermath of a relentless killing spree by the Michael Myers character. There's no word on which, if any, cast members will be returning for the new installment.
Zombie has repeatedly denied any interest in helming a Halloween sequel, despite the first one being the most successful of his three feature films to date. But he also said in a recent call with reporters that he wouldn't necessarily want to produce a another director's sequel either: "You know, it all depends. I mean, I don't know what their plans are. You know, if I was gonna produce somebody else's movie I would wanna know what it was about. I always get offers to make a 'Rob Zombie Presents' or produce things or, you know, shadow produce things where you actually don't do any work and you just pick up a check. But I've never done it because I feel weird about putting my name on something that I'm not responsible for."
Zombie told Variety that the sequel to his remake will not resemble Halloween 2, the follow-up to the original 1978 horror classic.
Zombie also explained why he decided to come back to the franchise after initially taking a pass, saying, "I was so burned out. (But) I took a long break, made a record and I got excited again. Now, we'll be hauling ass, and that's the problem making a movie called Halloween: If you come out November 1st or after, nobody cares. If it was called anything else, I'd be fine."
The next film on Zombie's slate was supposed to be a biker flick called Tyrannosaurus Rex, but he recently revealed that he had yet to even write the script for that one.
Zombie recently issued a box set of all the recordings by his previous band, White Zombie, and will release his fourth solo studio album next year.
Saving Abel has rocketed to fame in the past year thanks to their massive hit single "Addicted," but the only downside has been a war of words with Hinder that started when the latter band claimed that Saving Abel copied their sound, image and attitude. Saving Abel singer Jared Weeks told us that his group was not happy about it: "The Hinder guys went out of their way to drag our name out, and they ended up saying something like we're copying them, you know. Like, that was one of their exact words, saying, like, 'Bands like Saving Abel who copy us.' We're not gonna sit there and take that. Hell, we're from Mississippi, you know, we don't take it too lightly, you know. So, you know, it's really about the music, but, you know, Saving Abel will not back down."
"Addicted" is the first single from Saving Abel's self-titled debut album and has been named the most played track on Active Rock radio for 2008.
The latest single from the CD is "18 Days." The accompanying video pays tribute to U.S. troops.
Saving Abel will finish out the year with a few scattered holiday shows including our Christmas show at Bogart's on Friday