Neda, young girl brutally killed in Iran, becoming symbol of rebellion
BY Helen Kennedy - Repost by Electrichellfireproductions
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, June 21st 2009, 7:21 PM


Neda Soltani
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Eerie calm settles over Tehran after 10 more reported dead
Her name is Neda, which means "voice" in Farsi, and her death has become the central rallying cry of the Iranian rebellion.

The fresh-faced teenage girl killed by what appears to be a single sniper shot on the streets of Tehran Saturday is now a potent symbol for Iran's pro-democracy protesters.

Her shocking and quick death in the arms of her howling father was captured on closeup video, posted to Facebook and came to life on computer screens across the globe.

"RIP Neda, the world cries seeing your last breath," was one of a flood of messages on Twitter.

"They killed Neda, but not her voice," read another. "Neda is everyone's sister, everyone's daughter, everyone's voice for freedom," said a third.

Within hours of her death, posters of the girl's face, open-eyed and bloody, were being brandished by demonstrators in Los Angeles and New York City.

The graphic video was originally posted to Facebook by an Iranian expatriate in Holland who said it was sent to him by a friend in Tehran, a doctor who tried to save the girl.

He identified her as Neda Soltani, a 16-year-old philosophy student.

A Facebook group created to mourn her calls her "The Angel of Iran."

In Tehran on Sunday, the streets were quiet for the first time in a week, but the city was bracing for more unrest today when thousands are expected to mourn the girl's death.

"To protest against lies and fraud is your right," opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi told his followers in a statement.

"Be hopeful in exercising your rights and do not allow those who try to instill fear in you to make you angry."

An ABC reporter in Dubai said she was told the girl was rapidly buried to forestall a funeral rally.

In the holy city of Qom, turmoil was reported among the ruling clerics. There were reports that some dissident clerics were trying to replace the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The regime is under threat after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a suspiciously huge landslide in the June 12 election, sparking accusations of vote rigging and days of mass protests.

Saturday's brutal crackdown, in which at least a dozen people were killed and hundreds wounded, hardened opposition to the supreme leader as well as Ahmadinejad.

In apparent retaliation, the daughter of powerful former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and four of his other relatives were arrested and held for a day, according to state TV.

State media said Rafsanjani's kin were held for a day for their own protection, but it was seen in most quarters as a clear warning to curb his support for Mousavi



http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/21/2009-06-21_neda_young_girl_killed_in_iraq.html#ixzz0J7yjUNHV&D

Wednesday, June 10, 2009
PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR PRE-SALE BEGINS TODAY!!!!
PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR PRE-SALE BEGINS TODAY!!!

***All pre-sales for the PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR will begin Wednesday June 10th at 12pm-local time to the venue!!



INAUGURAL “PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR” FEATURING MUDVAYNE AND BLACK LABEL SOCIETY TO LAUNCH THIS SUMMER



LOS ANGELES — This summer just got a whole lot hotter, harder, faster and louder.

THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR 2009, featuring MUDVAYNE and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, will kick off July 24 in Portland, ME, and conclude September 9, in Oklahoma City, OK (see complete itinerary below). Joining the two metal juggernauts on the road will be STATIC-X, SUICIDE SILENCE, DOPE, BURY YOUR DEAD, and the extremely twisted HELLZAPOPPIN sideshow review, performing during set changes throughout the evening. Pre-sale tickets are available to all of the bands’ fan club members beginning Wednesday, June 10, at 12pm local time at http://www.pedaltothemetaltour.com/ (website will go live June 10), with general public on sale beginning Friday, June 12, at 10am local time.

“The tour started as a summer tour with us and Black Label Society, but as we started fleshing out ideas, it transformed into this really cool concept,” says Mudvayne frontman Chad Gray. The final result is the inaugural run of THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR, a road ready and battle-proven assemblage of hard rock and heavy metal bands guaranteed to raise temperatures and melt asphalt over the summer months. “We’re really excited, because this package is a merging of great bands, good people and fucking amazing fans. It’ll be great to bring them all together.”

“I was looking forward to a full throttle assault with just Mudvayne this summer, but when Chad said ‘Let’s do more,’ I was all-in.” declares Zakk Wylde, the iconic and self professed General Patton of Black Label Society. Adding, “On behalf of JD, Craig, Nick, the Doom Crew Inc. and myself, we can’t wait to see our Black Label family and the entire Black Label nation once again, rollin’ through hell and destroying everything in our path! Fire up the barbecues, fire up the tunes, and get ready for the rest of your Pedal To The Metal family to fire it up and let the engines roll… Game m-f-’n on!”

Says Static-X frontman Wayne Static of the tour: “I’m very picky about who we tour with. I think Static-X slaughter most bands live, and I pride myself in our show – I refuse to open for a band that I don’t think is worthy, so that says a lot about Mudvayne, Zakk Wylde, and this entire package.”

THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR is being booked exclusively by TKO [The Kirby Organization], the agents for Mudvayne, and is being promoted nationally by Frank Productions and Knitting Factory Presents. The package will travel more than 12,000 miles of highway across America this summer, stopping in nearly three dozen cities over seven weeks.

PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR 2009 ITINERARY:

JULY
24 Portland, ME Cumberland County Civic Center June 12 on sale
25 Lowell, MA Tsongas Arena June 12 on sale
28 Reading, PA Sovereign Center June 12 on sale
29 Youngstown, OH Chevrolet Center June 12 on sale
31 Big Flatts, NY Tags Summer Stage June 12 on sale

AUGUST
1 Albany, NY Altamont Fairgrounds TBA *Radio Show*
4 Fort Wayne, IN War Memorial Coliseum June 13 on sale
5 Battle Creek, MI Kellogg Arena June 12 on sale
7 Moline, IL I Wireless Center June 13 on sale
8 Rockford, IL Rockford Metro Center June 12 on sale
9 Madison, WI Willow Island on sale now *Radio Show*
11 Topeka, KS Landon Arena June 13 on sale
12 Mankato, MN Alltel Arena June 13 on sale
14 Omaha, NE Westfair Amphitheater June 12 on sale *Radio Show*
15 Little Rock, AR NS River Water Park June 19 on sale *Radio Show*
16 Wichita, KS KS Coliseum Lot June 19 on sale *Radio Show*
18 Boise, ID Idaho Center Amphitheater June 12 on sale
19 Missoula, MT Ryan Creek Amphitheater June 12 on sale
21 Spokane, WA Spokane Arena June 6 on sale *Radio Show*
22 Seattle, WA White River Amphitheater TBA *Radio Show*
23 Portland, OR Washington County Fairgrounds June 19 on sale *Radio Show*
25 Eugene, OR Cubhert Amphitheater June 19 on sale
26 Reno, NV Events Center June 13 on sale
28 San Jose, CA San Jose Civic Auditorium June 13 on sale
29 Bakersfield, CA Rabo Bank Arena June 13 on sale

SEPTEMBER
1 San Diego, CA San Diego Sports Arena TBA
2 Mesa, AZ Mesa Amphitheater June 13 on sale
4 Corpus Christi, TX Concrete Street Amphitheater June 12 on sale
5 San Antonio, TX Sunken Gardens June 12 on sale
6 Lubbock, TX Lonestar Amphitheater June 12 on sale
8 Dallas, TX TBA TBA
9 Oklahoma City, OK Zoo Amphitheater June 13 on sale

*Radio shows may not include entire Pedal To The Metal lineup*










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THE PEDAL TO THE METAL TOUR 2009, featuring MUDVAYNE and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, will kick off July 24 in Portland, ME, and conclude September 9, in Oklahoma City, OK (see complete itinerary below). Joining the two metal juggernauts on the road will be STATIC-X, SUICIDE SILENCE, DOPE, BURY YOUR DEAD, and the extremely twisted HELLZAPOPPIN sideshow review, performing during set changes throughout the evening.

According to the New York Post, Ozzy Osbourne has filed a lawsuit against his Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi, claiming that Iommi illegally took sole ownership of the band's name in a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Osbourne is suing Iommi for a 50 percent interest in the "Black Sabbath" trademark, along with a portion of Iommi's profits from use of the name.


The Manhattan federal court suit also charges that Osbourne's "signature lead vocals" are largely responsible for the band's "extraordinary success," noting that its popularity plummeted during his absence from 1980 through 1996.

Ozzy's suit follows one filed by Iommi in December 2008 against Live Nation. In that filing, Iommi claims the concert giant sold merchandise bearing the band's logo, despite the 2006 expiration of a merchandising deal, reportedly worth nearly $80 million. Soon after that agreement concluded, Iommi reclaimed the band's trademark.

Iommi's suit argues Live Nation continued to sell more than 100 items of merchandise featuring the band's likeness, name and logo, despite the receipt of cease-and-desist orders from the guitarist's camp. Iommi's suit seeks damages in the amount of three times the profits from the merchandise sales, plus a halt to the Black Sabbath product sales.

Iommi and Geezer Butler have both said some less than kind things about working with Osbourne in a new interview with Decibel magazine. The pair recently completed a new studio album as Heaven & Hell, the post-Ozzy version of Sabbath featuring vocalist Ronnie James Dio, and Butler said that working with Dio was much easier than Osbourne. He explained, "Ronnie's a songwriter in his own right — he's got tons of ideas. Whereas Ozzy . . . in the old days, he'd come up with a vocal line and I'd write the lyrics. Ronnie is 100 percent involved in both the musical side and the vocal side, and he writes his own lyrics as well."

Butler added that Osbourne didn't take him seriously as a songwriter, saying, "If we were with Ozzy and I came in with the killer riff of all time, Ozzy wouldn't even think of doing it because I'm not the guitarist and that's the way he thinks . . . That's why it was so bloody hard to write anything."

Butler said about Heaven & Hell's debut CD, "The Devil You Know", "If we'd written this album with Ozzy, we'd still be working on the first track."

Iommi added that there was a sharp difference between the singers live as well, saying, "It was great being with Ozzy on the road . . . but with Ronnie it's a lot different, because we go out and we know exactly what we're gonna be doing. With Ozzy, we didn't really know. It was touch and go sometimes on some of those early shows, whether he was gonna turn up, if he'd be able to sing, if his voice was gone, or what. We'd have to cancel shows, which Geezer and myself really hated. But with Ronnie, we've never canceled a show."

Heaven & Hell will tour Europe later this spring and summer, with North American dates scheduled for August.

Ozzy Osbourne is currently working on his next solo album.
TO READ MORE VISIT BLABBERMOUTH.NET

The World According to Zakk Wylde
Ted Drozdowski | 05.27.2009
In a world where rock stars often seem like they’re skipping English lit classes to make gigs, Zakk Wylde is a refreshingly foul-mouthed larger-than-life force.

Wylde, who became Ozzy Osborne’s main axeman in 1987, when he was just 19, looks like a Saxon warrior both on- and off-stage. He wields his signature Gibsons — the Zakk Wylde Les Paul Bullseye and Flying V, and the horned-and-finned ZV Custom — as if they were broadswords, daring other guitarists to challenge him. His fat, roaring tone and nitro-fueled picking technique make him one formidable opponent.

We caught up to Wylde in Denver earlier this month as he was getting ready to play a show with his Black Label Society. The springboard for our conversation — with almost every one of Wylde’s sentences sprinkled liberally with F-bombs — was Black Label’s new Skullage, (enter to win a copy!) a one-CD, one-DVD best-of set that mixes studio and live performances, and offers some surprises.

There’s a tongue-in-cheek tour of Wylde’s home that begins with him cleaning up after his pack of mutts. But the best extra is Wylde’s commentary on his songwriting, where he espouses his thoughts about family, religion, friendship, responsibility and his love for the late Dimebag Darrell Abbott. It's proof there’s sensitivity beneath his swaggering exterior.

But enough about that. When he called Wylde had two hernias and a show to play, so there was just enough time to talk about:

Zakk on Songwriting
“I don’t just write lyrics; I write about things that are real to me. Let me tell you something that was hysterical. I was working on Down to Earth with Ozzy and they brought in these professional songwriters. Meanwhile, I’m writing all these songs that later went into Black Label — like ‘Love Reign Down,’ with that power riff that Ozzy sounds great singing over it, which was about my mother passing away, and ‘Bleed for Me,’ which is about God …

“But what do I know. I guess I’m not a real songwriter, because these guys, I shit you not, decided to write a love song for Ozzy and came up with: ‘Girl, you are so pretty/girl, you are so fine/girl, I brought you this flower/girl, would you be mine?’

“And Ozz is just sitting there saying nothing, and I’m saying, ‘You’re joking, right? Am I getting punked?’ The truth is everybody just wants to get their two-cents in, if they’ve earned it or not.

“I laugh when I go into a music store and there’s a title called How to Write Songs. You can’t teach someone how to write a song. Angus Young didn’t read a couple books to learn how to write ‘Hells Bells.’

“All the bands and musicians I grew up on and loved, like Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix … it’s their names that are on their songs. That’s the beauty of buying a record by a real artist. Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite for Destruction was written by Guns N’ Roses, not some weak-asses like those lame songwriters for Aerosmith.

“Aerosmith wrote great songs like ‘Dream On’ and ‘Back in the Saddle’ when they were on booze and drugs. Next thing you know, they get sober and bring songwriters in and then it’s the most watered down s***.

“If you can’t write songs you’re just a puppet as phony as Britney Spears and all those boy bands. If you can’t sit behind a piano or pick up a guitar and write a song, then you don’t have any business making records.”

Zakk on Metallica and Some Kind of Monster
“When I saw the guys, I said, ‘What were you thinkin’?’ Who needs a psychiatrist? Like I need marriage counseling? I’ve been married for 24 years. Look, I’m gonna get in fights with the wife and that’s life, man. You got the high and the lows. You’re in a band, you’re gonna fight, you’re gonna get over it or it wasn’t meant to be any more.

“The bottom line is this: Tough times don’t last; tough people do.

“Once Mom sent me to Promises rehab. I said, ‘Promises rehab?’ I’ll make you a promise right now: either I’m going to cap myself or some mother is going to die in this joint.’ And one of the bylaws of Black Label is ‘suicide is not an option.’ I got in there and had no time for those weak-willed assholes. One guy said he just couldn’t get out of bed in the morning to get to the group therapy meetings. I said, ‘Hey, sometimes I don’t want to get up on that stage but you get your damn jock strap on, you man up, and you do it.’ I’ve got no time for weak willed bull****. I was cut from the same cloth as General Patton.

“Hey, lions are born lions. They are not made. Berserkers are born berserkers. They are not made. Marines are born Marines. They are not made. Get tough or get out.”

Zakk on Developing Chops
“You can’t make somebody pick up a guitar and practice. I learned this back when I was teaching kids how to play guitar. You have to want it and practice you balls off. They’d ask me, ‘Zakk, how do you practice that Randy Rhoads thing; how do you practice that Jimmy Page thing?’ And they’d come back the next week for their lesson and nail it. I was proud of them. I’ve got no time for bullshit. If you want something, you step up for it. And it’s practice, practice, practice, bro. That … and lots of porn.”

Zakk on His Gear
“I’m playing the Pauls and the ZV, and the Flying V and the double-neck for ‘The Blessed Hellride.’ Me and Nick [Catanese] both play double necks for that one in Black Label. It’s cool. And we have our signature Marshalls — JCM 800s. And we both go out of two of them each, and we both go out of two cabinets and we’re in quad sound. Nick uses Paul Reed Smiths, too, but I play the Gibsons. And then I have my pedals: chorus, distortion, Eddie Van Halen phase shifter, the Zakk wah, and the Roto-Vibe. Let’s put it this way: any 15 year-old kid could have my set-up.

“It amazes me when people say, ‘Hey check this new amp out, or this new rack gear. It sounds just like a vintage Marshall.’ Well, why not get a vintage Marshall? Nuthin’ sounds better than a Gibson plugged into a Marshall.

“And next time we get to Nashville I’m thinking about having Gibson design me a custom guitar that looks like a motorcycle joined with a Flying V. They did a great job on the ZV, putting together the horns of an SG with the wings of a Flying V and a Les Paul Custom neck on it. That thing slams.”

Zakk on 22 Years With Ozzy
“The fact that I do dishes, I do laundry, I feed the dogs, I clean toilets … it’s those unique qualities that set me apart for Ozzy. When I do laundry, my whites are whiter than anybody elses. That’s what Ozzy sees in me.

“I gotta be honest. We’re both goofballs. He’s the greatest. He doesn’t take any of this shit seriously, either. Making great records and putting on great shows — we take that seriously. But to buy into your own ‘Prince of Darkness’ bullshit and all that, you’ve gotta be an idiot.

“God bless Kurt Cobain, but he made only two records. Led Zeppelin was only around for 10 years or so. Ozzy’s been making recordings since 1968 and he’s still around doing it. Something’s gotta be said for that. He’s not just a guy on a sprint.”