Today's Day in Rock Stories

ZZ Top Postpone 2017 Tour Dates Under Doctor's Orders

Billboard reports the service for family, friend and colleagues was held at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine, the same temple and meditation garden where Petty's good friend and former Beatles member George Harrison was laid to rest in 2001.

A spokesperson for the late rocker said the private service was followed by a celebration of life with those in attendance.

The demo was recorded in the garage of The Carlson House in El Cerrito, CA in late June of 1985, approximately two months before Metallica entered Sweet Silence Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark with producer Flemming Rasmussen to begin official sessions for the project.

The unreleased recording is featured on the 2017 expanded editions of "Master Of Puppets", including a 3-CD set that presents the remastered album, a disc that is a combination of rough mixes, demos and an interview, and a third disc featuring a mix of live songs that are sequenced into a typical set list from the Damage, Inc. tour.

A limited-edition deluxe box set includes "unreleased demos, rough mixes, interviews and live tracks, many of which have never even been available in the collector or bootleg community and were pulled from our personal collections," says the band. "There's also a 108-page hardcover book with rare and never before seen photos and essays from those who were there with us for the wild ride.

Originally entitled "The End Of The End", the package has been renamed simply as "The End." Directed by Dick Carruthers (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Oasis), the project presents the last concert under the Sabbath brand by three-quarters of the original lineup - Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler - in their hometown of Birmingham, England this past February.

The project will be available on Blu-ray/CD, DVD/CD, 2CD and 3LP configurations. All visual formats feature special bonus material of the band playing a selection of their favorite songs not performed on the farewell trek. These intimate live sessions at Angelic Studios were recorded in the days after their final live performance.

"Couldn't help myself and had to post this iPhone pic," Singer wrote on Instragram alongside the image of Malek transformed to look like Mercury from Queen's 1979 tour, captured on the Live Killers album.

Frostbite is the power ballad of the album and was written on guitar. I was playing around with the guitar in a open D tuning and using a Big Muff fuzz pedal. We felt we had something there that we could work with so we added some drums and a moog synth. Sounded amazing together with the guitar.

The vocal melody came fairly quickly. We needed a powerful chorus so we worked on that for a whole day. There's a pre chorus and then the main chorus and then a middle eight part. Has the structure and arrangement of an 80's pop song.

The lyrics are about depression and how you want to feel like careless and happy like when you were a kid. It's a very serious subject matter which is very personal. If you let the depression take over it will be like frostbite. It will freeze your will to live.

Like frostbite depression needs medical attention and not to be treated as a taboo. We need to break down the stigma of depression. Open up and talk about these things. Makes things worse to bottle up these emotions. Depression can be misunderstood as a feeling and not a legitimate illness. Self acceptance and acceptance of others will help. I hope this song will help spread the awareness.

I've lost many friends to suicide. It's very common in Iceland and it shouldn't be. This should not be normal by any means.

Among this year's releases includes a pair of 7-inch singles from Paul McCartney. One is on red vinyl, the other is on green vinyl, both feature a new version of his classic "Wonderful Christmastime" featuring the Roots. The green vinyl B-side is The Decemberists' rendition of "Jesus Christ" and the red vinyl is backed by a live Norah Jones performance of "Peace."

When he was questioned about the pop star wearing vintage Manson merch during a recent radio interview Manson claimed not to have any insight, "because I don't know how to use the mind of a squirrel" (via Billboard).

"We felt like we had reached a flow, it was the sort of chemistry, the kind of magic feeling we had when we started the band," the duo explained to Zane Lowe on his Beats 1 radio show Tuesday (Oct. 17) about the catchy new song, which was the result of studio sessions in New York and Los Angeles.

The 2017 "Rocket To Russia" 3CD Deluxe Edition reissue presents the record's original mix alongside a new 40th anniversary one by the album's original engineer/mixer Ed Stasium.

A second disc provides two dozen rare and unreleased recordings, including rough mixes from sessions at Mediasound and The Power Station, while a third disc is the complete unreleased concert recording of the band's December 19, 1977 show at the Apollo Centre in Glasgow, Scotland - just a few days before the group recorded the classic live album, "It's Alive", in London, UK.

This Wednesday, 18 October, the newest recipient of the annual Gibson Les Paul Award at the Q Awards, organized by British music magazine Q will be announced.

The award, which honors guitar playing and innovation, has previously been conferred on such luminaries as The Smiths' Johnny Marr, Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, John Martyn and Richard Thompson of Fairport Convention.

The 2015 winner, the legendary Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, recently spoke to Q about what it was like to join such an illustrious club of guitar innovators, saying, "very thrilled to get that award, because so many other brilliant guitarists have received it, like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top, The Edge and Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green. It was really a surprise a to win it, and it was very unusual to win an award that was much more personal. Black Sabbath have won Grammys and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I felt like I'd joined a great cast of guitarists. I felt very honored to be a part of that group."

The visual "Broken Cycle" was shot by Chance White of White Flame Studios at both the complex of the Safety Wolf facility and Atlanta's Big Peach Studios.

The band had this to say "Musically we wanted the song to build from soft and haunted at the beginning to a feeling of resolution and agency by the end. You're taking a stand and saying 'I refuse to play the victim to my circumstances' but there's acknowledgment that you can't always go at it alone.

He sings the song while sitting in a chair, pausing occasionally to stare pensively at the camera. Towards the end of the video, Morrissey hops back in the wheelchair, and gets pushed around the room by members of the band.

The video was filmed at the 142 year-old Peckham Liberal Club and directed by director Sophie Muller. It also features an appearance by performance artist David Hoyle.