You’ve probably already seen this news everywhere, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t post about the fact that Mastodon and Clutch are touring together and that Big Business and Graveyard will switch off in the support role. Some things are just too badass not to post, no matter how ubiquitous they might be.

The tour starts April 16 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and all that’s really left to wonder is if Clutch‘s new album — which is being recorded this month — will be released by the time the run ends on May 24. Either way, it’s pretty astounding that these two have come together, so I’ll get out of the way and defer to the PR wire, which has dates and details:

MASTODON & CLUTCH JOIN FORCES TO PUMMEL THROUGH THE MISSING LINK TOUR

TICKETS ON SALE FRIDAY JANUARY 23RD FOR SPRING CO-HEADLINE TOUR

GRAVEYARD WILL SUPPORT / BIG BUSINESS TO SUPPORT WHERE NOTED

Two of the world’s most respected and influential hard rock bands Mastodon and Clutch are proud to announce THE MISSING LINK TOUR, which brings together both bands as they join forces along with special guests Graveyard and Big Business – each taking part of the tour as support.Together, this night of heavy rock will be one of the heaviest and most exciting concert events of the year.

THE MISSING LINK TOUR kicks off on April 16th in St. Paul, MN. with support provided by Big Business, who recently supported Mastodon throughout a sold-out European tour. Sweden’s Graveyard will then take over the main support slot starting in Los Angeles on April 29th for the remaining dates, closing out the tour in Columbus, OH on May 24th. Tickets are on sale now.

Mastodon and Clutch share a longtime friendship as fans will recall Clutch front man Neil Fallon contributed vocals to “Blood And Thunder” (from Mastodon’s 2004’s Leviathan) so fans can expect surprises in store for fans throughout the tour rumbling across North America. THE MISSING LINK TOUR will feature full sets from both Mastodon and Clutch. Clutch will close the show on April 24th in Vancouver, May 10th in Pittsburgh, May 15th in Bethlehem, May 16th in Baltimore and also the final night of the tour, May 24th in Columbus. Mastodon will close all other shows.

Clutch drummer Jean-Paul Gaster had this to say about the tour.”We are very much looking forward to our US tour with our friends in Mastodon. We always enjoy playing live but when we have the opportunity to share the stage with a band as inspiring as Mastodon we know each evening will be that much more special. See ya out there!”

Mark your calendars, as THE MISSING LINK TOUR will roll into Denver’s prestigious Red Rocks Amphitheatre on May 3rd, and joins the stellar line up for Atlanta’s Shaky Knee’s Festival on May 8th. The New York City show will take over the celebrated Central Park Summer Stage annual concert series on May 19th. General tickets on-sale Friday, January 23rd.

As previously announced, Mastodon have been nominated for a 2015 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance for “High Road,” from ONCE MORE ‘ROUND THE SUN. This is the band’s third Grammy nomination. The 57th Annual Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on Feb 8th. Tune into CBS TV.

Revered Maryland rockers Clutch have been pushing the boundaries that define heavy rock music since the 4 original members got together in high school. Clutch is an unmatched musical force that has been best described as “the quintessential American Rock Band”. Clutch released their tenth and latest studio album Earth Rocker via their own label Weathermaker Music on March 16, 2013. The album entered the Billboard Top 200 chart at #15 giving the band their highest chart position to date.

Clutch is currently working on their follow up to Earth Rocker which will be released in 2015.

Do not miss THE MISSING LINK TOUR this spring. Confirmed dates are as follows:

*Mastodon Closes The Evening. **Clutch Closes The Evening

Apr 16 *St. Paul, MN Myth
Apr 17 * Winnipeg, MB The Burton Cummings Theatre
Apr 18 *Saskatoon, SK O’Brian’s Events Center
Apr 19 * Edmonton, AB Expo Centre
Apr 21 * Calgary, AB MacEwan Hall
Apr 23 * Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
Apr 24 **Vancouver, BC Commodore Ballroom
Apr 25 *Portland, OR Roseland
Apr 26 *Seattle, WA Showbox SODO
Apr 28 *Oakland, CA Fox Theater
Apr 29 *Los Angeles, CA Palladium
Apr 30 *Tempe, AZ Marquee Theater
May 01 *Las Vegas, NV House of Blues
May 02 *Salt Lake City, UT The Complex
May 03 *Denver, CO Red Rock’s Amphitheatre
May 05 *San Antonio, TX Kapone’s Ballroom
May 06 *Oklahoma City, OK Diamond Ballroom
May 08 Atlanta, GA Shaky Knees Festival
May 09 *Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre Street Stage
May 10 **Pittsburgh, PA Stage AE
May 12 *Clive, IA (Des Moines) 7 Flags
May 13 *Milwaukee, WI Eagles Ballroom Club Stage
May 15 **Bethlehem, PA Sands Event Center
May 16 **Baltimore, MD Pier Six Pavilion
May 17 *Boston, MA House of Blues
May 19 *New York, NY Central Park Summerstage
May 20 *Niagara Falls, NY Rapids Theatre
May 21 *London, ON London Music Hall
May 24 **Columbus, OH LC Pavilion

MASTODON:
Troy Sanders — Bass Guitar / Vocals
Brent Hinds — Guitars / Vocals
Bill Kelliher — Guitars
Brann Dailor — Drums / Vocals

CLUTCH:
Neil Fallon – Vocals/Guitar
Tim Sult – Guitar
Dan Maines – Bass
Jean-Paul Gaster – Drums/Percussion

www.mastodonrocks.com
http://www.pro-rock.com/

Clutch, “ZZ” Live at Starland Ballroom, Sayreville, NJ, 12.29.14

Dio, The Last in Line (1984)

What’s the most amazing part of The Last in Line? I don’t know. How about the fact that it hit just a year after Dio debuted with Holy Diver in 1983? How about the fact that side A has the title-track and side B closes with “Egypt (The Chains are On)” — two blueprints for what we think of today as epic metal? How about the whole goddamn thing? It’s all pretty amazing.

You have to figure Ronnie James Dio knew he had something special in the band behind him at this point. After releasing and touring on Holy Diver, to go back into the studio with guitarist Vivian Campbell (the two would later have a vicious falling out), bassist Jimmy Bain (who as I understand it had a vicious drug problem), drummer Vinny Appice (who, perhaps viciously, was never Bill Ward) and keyboardist Claude Schnell (who had a vicious mustache) and come out with these results, it boggles the mind. Aside from being not at all how the industry works today — they’d tour Holy Diver for at least 18 months if not two full years to pay label debt, and it wouldn’t be on Warner Bros. — just to have those two albums back-to-back as your debut and sophomore outings. Granted, by then Dio had already been in Elf, Rainbow and Black Sabbath, and he came to the band bearing his name with a bit of clout behind him, but still, wow. The power of this material, the rawness of “I Speed at Night,” the unabashed commercial play of “Mystery” and the irony-free grandeur of the aforementioned epics. It’s not a moment that could ever come again, and while there are many carrying on the legacy of this approach, I’ll gladly put The Last in Line up against anything that came after it in the last 30 years, including by Dio.

To that end, we all know how it worked out. This version of the Dio band had one more record in it — 1985’s Sacred Heart — and by the time they got around to 1987’s Dream Evil, it was Craig Goldy on guitar, Vivian Campbell to join Def Leppard several years later. Sacred Heart was a worthy third in the trilogy, but metal was changing by ’87, the ascent of MTV and glam well underway, and after 1990’s Lock up the Wolves, Dio would be back in Black Sabbath for 1992’s Dehumanizer before releasing Strange Highways in 1993 and arguably hitting his nadir with the Dio band in 1996’s Angry Machines. I’d argue that 2000’s Magica and the subsequent and final two Dio studio albums, 2002’s Killing the Dragon and 2004’s Master of the Moon, represented a strong return to form — particularly the last two after the concept record — but no question that part of the appeal was the “return” aspect, Dio and company playing both to his strengths as a singer and the expectations of an audience looking for the classic style. Still, it worked.

Not to bring down the room, but Dio‘s death in 2010 cut short both his reunion with Black Sabbath in Heaven and Hell and the chance for any further Dio studio output. There have been a couple live records, collections, and this year a tribute CD was released with I don’t even know who and does it even really matter on it, but as the legacy continues to be mined — and no doubt it will for a long while to come — the earliest Dio albums remain untouchable and unflinching in the face of passing years, carved in marble as much as they are cast in steel.

—

Yeah, I know I closed out with Rainbow like three weeks ago. What, it’s too much Dio? No such thing.

On Monday, I’ll have my top 30 of 2014 posted. Unless I run into some gotta-post-it-this-second news, which happened twice this week, it will likely be my only post of the day. After that, Tuesday maybe, depending on time, a countdown of the 10 best debuts of the year, and somewhere before 2015 hits, a list of the best EPs and singles. Time to get all this stuff out there. The music industry essentially takes off for the next two weeks, but I’m sure there will be fest updates and things of that sort to post on as well. Still, I want to use the time to wrap up the year and give this stuff the attention it deserves, because 2014 had a few genuine landmarks.

Also on Tuesday, look out for the year-end podcast. I know it’ll be at least three hours long. I might go four if I’m feeling inspired and have the time between travel and all that, but either way, it’ll include a lot of stuff on my best of list and probably more than that, but it will all kick ass, so stay tuned. I’ve got a terrible-in-terms-of-how-much-time-it’s-going-to-take-but-probably-the-way-to-go idea for what to do New Years Week as well, but more on that later.

Oh, and somewhere in there, I’m gonna try to review Slomatics too. Ha.

I hope you have a great and safe weekend as we move to and through the darkest days of the year. Please check out the radio stream and feel free to share all about your seasonal affective disorder with the forum. We’re all here for each other.

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Black Sabbath, Mob Rules (1981)

It’s been a quick four years since the passing of Ronnie James Dio. One of heavy metal’s most principle figures, an inimitable voice that continues to ring out a righteousness that the entire genre in its wake has aspired to, Dio succumbed to stomach cancer on May 16, 2010. From The Vegas Kings through Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and, finally, Heaven and Hell, his was a legacy a lifetime in the making. He was there at metal’s birth, and as a frontman and the architect of some of its most landmark moments — from Rainbow‘s Long Live Rock and Roll to Black Sabbath‘s Dehumanizer — he was human, had his ups and downs, but was as close to a god as anyone singing in a rock and roll band ever could. Truly larger than life, as the inspiration he continues to spark proves every day.

Though at the time of his death he was talking about getting back with the Dio band and creating the second and third parts of what would have made a trilogy out of the narrative to the 2000 concept album, Magica, his last studio-recorded output was Heaven and Hell’s The Devil You Know (review here), which reunited him with Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice. They toured on that album, were a stately live act, and did justice to the Dio-fronted Sabbath more than I think anyone could have anticipated. Thinking about hearing them play “Falling off the Edge of the World” from 1981’s Mob Rules, I still get a chill up my spine.

That song, the penultimate on the Mob Rules before the epilogue of “Over and Over,” is just one of the factors making the album so essential. The follow-up to Sabbath‘s 1980 debut with Dio in the vocalist role replacing Ozzy Osbourne, Heaven and Hell, it built on that record stylistically, whether it was Iommi making another toss-off single into a landmark opener with “Turn up the Night,” or the bizarre sway of “Country Girl,” the epic “Sign of the Southern Cross” or the sing-along in the making “Slipping Away,” Mob Rules was an album that ingrained itself on heavy metal’s consciousness, and its reverberations continue to be felt. Through his work, timeless, Ronnie James Dio remains vital and very much present. Here. We may never get another Dio album — posthumous live releases, collections and tributes notwithstanding — or another tour, but Dio‘s catalog is a canon that generations to come will explore and grow to love, just as generations have done for the last 40-plus years.

Enjoy.

—

Quick week, but I guess that’ll happen without a Monday. I was driving back north from being in New Jersey last weekend. Didn’t hear any complaints and wouldn’t really expect to, but in case anyone was wondering what was up, that was it. Pretty rare at his point that I’ll take a whole day off between Monday and Friday, but every now and then it’s unavoidable. Believe me, as I sat in the seemingly eternal traffic of I-95 North, the compulsion was there.

Heading out to see Swans in Boston tomorrow, which I’m very much looking forward to. I’ve been battling in my head back and forth which show I’m more excited for, them or Fu Manchu, but I think it’s a different appeal either way. That Fu show is on Tuesday, and I’ll have a review on Wednesday. Next Friday, Negative Reaction come north. They’re always a good time as well, and it’s been a minute at this point, so I’m looking forward to that too. Doesn’t look like there’s much of a way to lose.

Well, changing up the radio adds modus seems to have fallen flat at least in terms of the immediate response, but I’ll keep it going for a bit anyway, see if anything catches on. Can’t really judge anything by its first day, especially on a Friday. Was grateful to see the Fu Manchu review getting shared around. Hey, it’s the internet. I don’t get a lot of comments, so I take what I can get in terms of judging a response. If that’s Facebook likes for the time being, then until something else comes along, so be it. I appreciate it all, each one, everything. Thanks to everybody who downloaded the podcast as well. It’s been a while since I was able to do one of those, and I was glad to see there were still a few people interested.

There’s more stuff next week I’d like to plug, but it’s late and I’d rather just let the Sabbath ride out. I hope you have a great and safe weekend. Please check out the forum and radio stream.

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