Questlove Pays Tribute To Robin Williams

With a photo of Williams from Mork & Mindy, The Roots drummer started his Instagram post by writing, "Man. The smallest gesture can mean the world to you. Robin Williams made such an impact on me and didn't even know it."

Questlove explains that at the 2001 GRAMMYS, Williams got into the elevator with the Roots and "named checked all of us." Questlove says the band had to ride the elevator to the backstage area and they all piled inside. "When suddenly this voice just said 'questlove�..black thought�.rahzel�.the roots from Philadelphia!!!!' That's right you walked on this elevator saying to yourself 'ain't no way this old white dude knows my entire history and discography'�.we laughed so hard. That NEVER happened to [us] before," he wrote.

"A legend acknowledged us and really knew who we were (his son put him on to us) man it was a small 2 min moment in real life but that meant the world to me at the time," Questlove wrote. "Everytime I saw him afterwards he tried to top his trivia knowledge on all things Roots associated. Simply because he knew that meant everything to me. May his family find peace at this sad time. I will miss Robin Williams. #RIP." More.

Wiz Khalifa's New Album Blacc Hollywood Streaming Online

Blacc Hollywood, out next week on Rostrum/Atlantic, is Khalifa's fifth studio album, coming at a time when the Pittsburgh rapper is one of the genre's bigger stars.

Given that sort of sway, Khalifa didn't skimp on the major featured guests. In addition to the just-released "True Colors" with Nicki Minaj, the album also features Project Pat, Juicy J and Ty Dolla $ign, among others.

The deluxe version, now streaming, also includes two bonus tracks in addition to the 13 standard album songs. There's a "We Dem Boyz" remix including Rick Ross, ScHoolboy Q and Nas, while the DJ Mustard-produced "You and Your Friends" includes Snoop Dogg, plus Ty Dolla $ign on his third featured cut on the album.

Blacc Hollywood is out Aug. 19. Listen to the full album here.

Marty Friedman Explains Exit From Megadeth

He left in 2000 and set up home in Japan three years later. Since then he's gone on to become one of the country's biggest stars, performing with a string of J-pop artists and appearing on TV panel shows.

Friedman tells Wondering Sound: "I found myself touring with Megadeth, and in my hotel room I'd be blasting this Japanese music all the time. What's wrong with this picture? I thought I was doing myself a disservice just playing the same old stuff and not really enjoying it.

"Making money from fans who want to see you play when you're not into it didn't really sit right with me. I was just way more into what was happening in Japan; it's way more uplifting." More on this story.

Elvira Stars In New Ryan Adams Video

Adams is of that same ilk and generation, and has crafted an excellent, solid, exactly-what-you-want-from-Ryan Adams album that will be released in September.

And so the video to go with it is meant to push the buttons of a specific kind of person. Director Michael Reich uses a VHS tape effect on the footage at times, so give it that same effect that Gen X would find familiar from host duties on ThrillerVideos. She was a movie star in her own B-movie right, but she also played hostess to some of the great, tame creep show films - including an '80s B-movie take on Oscar Wilde's excellent work, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

It's a remarkable parallel because Adams and Elvira both look perfectly preserved in the video. And Wilde very aptly captures the essence of Adams, and why such a video would appeal to him, in this particular quote from Dorian Gray: "Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different."

Check out the video here.

Pearl Jam Guitarist Performs National Anthem at Seattle Mariners Game

McCready's appearance was part of Crohn's & Colitis Foundation Night at the park, with a portion of the tickets sold to benefit the Northwest Chapter of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America.

Crohn's & Colitis are two types of inflammatory bowel disease. McCready himself was diagnosed with Chron's at the age of 21, and has worked to bring awareness and funds to the cause.

Watch the video here.

Ace Frehley Releases Stream Of The Joker

The cover is from Frehley's forthcoming album, "Space Invader," which will be released on August 19th in North America (August 29th in Europe), and is Frehley's first new solo album in five years

"The Joker" was the title track to Miller's 1973 album of the same name was a No. 1 US hit for the rocker. Ace's version is the second track issued from his new album, following the lead single, "Gimme A Feelin'".

Check out the song here.

Slash Talks World On Fire Song In New Online Video

"I wanted something specifically dark and specifically fun," says the former Guns N' Roses guitarist, "and definitely something that you couldn't play on regular tv."

Due September 16, "World On Fire" sees Slash working with his touring band, Myles Kennedy And The Conspirators, and producer Michael Baskette.

A week after the album's release, Slash will promote the project and mark the Guitar Center's 50th anniversary with a series of three concerts in Hollywood's most legendary clubs.

Check out the video here.

YOB Streaming New Song Unmask The Spectre

The follow-up to 2011's Atma is set to be released on September 1 on CD and digital formats, with a vinyl edition on September 15. Mainman Mike Scheidt says the track is one of his favorite moments of the band's career.

He adds: "This part of the album gets dark - but it also has a sense of beauty and resolve. The mood and atmosphere nod equal parts to old and new YOB."

Check out the new song here.

Black State Highway Release Ain't Got No Video

"We're very pleased Classic Rock are presenting the video for our very first single", say the band. "Such exposure makes all the time and effort that we've made writing, gigging and recording our debut album all the more worthwhile. The video for Ain't Got No is something that our long-time fans will be excited to finally see, and hopefully give us a whole load of new friends and fans too."

Black State Highway were formed at Brighton's Institute of Modern Music and feature Latvian singer Liva Steinberga, guitarists Olie Trethewey and Jon Crampton, bass player Gordon Duncan, and drummer Harry Bland. Describing themselves as "heavily influenced by the old school 70s rock bands whom need not be named", they play a launch show for the album this Thursday at the Alley Cat on London's Denmark Street. Support comes from blues rockers Little Brother Eli.

Watch the video here.

The Gaslight Anthem Inspired By U2 and Pink Floyd On New Album

'Expand' doesn't mean 'change', we're a long way from The Gaslight Anthem's EDM phase. But what does the new sound sound like? Quite nice, actually. There are effects pedals, synths, and even harmonies. There's a solemn meditation ("Underneath the Ground") on death that takes its cues from Bon Iver, of all places. The growth is unexpected but feels natural: Get Hurt shows that The Gaslight Anthem have enough confidence in their sound to use it as a foundation to leap from.

We talked with Brian Fallon on the phone about the history of bands changing their sounds, the importance of track listings, and of utmost concern, the state of his mouth.

Radio.com: Thanks for chatting with us. These media days can be long. Brian Fallon:It's not been that long of a day, actually. The worst thing that happened to me was that I went to the dentist today.

What happened? Well, I go a lot. Basically, I have to have my whole mouth restructured. For the last couple years, I've had a lot of issues with my teeth. Normal people have two or three roots in their teeth, mine have six, eight, nine. So the offshoot ones, they've never closed since I was born so they can obstructed. And when they do, it's like, your teeth start rotting from the inside and there's nothing you can do about it, you just gotta get them fixed, or get molds or implants. So today I had a root canal, like root canal number fifteen.

Oh man. It's okay, you get used to it. There are people who go through dialysis, so I have nothing to complain about�.I was thinking though, when we were doing the cover of the record, I was thinking "We should have a picture of my mouth!" because it was a state of total disarray. It was being reconstructed: holes sticking out, teeth missing, it looked really weird. So I was like, "Just take a picture of my x-ray and put that on the cover!" And everyone else was like, "No, that's a really terrible idea." And I thought, that's why I do this, that's why I'm in a band: so I don't make all these decisions by myself.

That's a helpful counter. I'll definitely say that drummer Benny Horowtiz is the best at that. He's like, "You know what, I don't wanna do that, dude. I don't wanna wear a clown suit." "But why? It's so cool, Bob Dylan painted his face! Why can't we do that?" "Because we're not Bob Dylan." "Right. Good point. Let's not do that." So I just want to give a shout out to Benjamin Horowitz right now.

You've mentioned Bon Iver as an inspiration for this album, and you can really hear that in "Underneath the Ground". I appreciate that, actually, because I feel like we didn't create that mark at all, which is cool. He's really great at what he does, sonically. Those are tender things, very delicate. When we went into do it, our other records are, you know, "raah raaah rock n' roll loud!" Those moments are tough for us to know when to put it on the record.

And "Underneath the Ground" is a song about death. Do you think that sound and that subject matter come together naturally? Yeah, I think certain songs like that - they almost tell you what they sound like before you finish it. That one started just on the piano, by itself. It was just that little riff at the beginning. I don't know, it had this weird thing. I was watching this movie where a guy was dead but he could hear people talking about him. And I was like, "Oh, that sucks! Uch. What would people say? He was such a good guy, but not really?" I think that impacts people heavily. You could be really angry at someone their whole life but then they drop dead suddenly, and you're like, time for some second thoughts there.

You researched a lot of older bands - the Stones, U2 - for this album, specifically how they made changes in their career. Can you talk about how you did that? My main thing I do, when I'm looking for any sort of inspiration, rather than listening to a certain record or reading a certain book, I watch documentaries. I love documentaries on bands. What I was looking for was, how do you take something that you built a career on, but now there's a desire to do something different than that, how do you do that without abandoning or changing what you've done in the past, without ruining it all?

So I was watching these bands that were severely developed and made great strides. Like Pink Floyd lost their singer and their primary songwriter, and they got David Gilmour and went through this whole new thing. And The Rolling Stones, they went from a blues/Top 40 band, competing with The Beatles to going to all sorts of stuff, psychedelic, disco, you name it. And U2 - U2 were a big one. I love The Joshua Tree, and I equally love Achtung Baby. They did that really well and I wanted to find out how. So I watched the documentary on Stones in Exile, I watched From the Sky Down for U2, and I was reading the Rolling Stone special on Pink Floyd. Anything I could find on this band and their process, as much as I could.

How did they do it? One thing I realized was that none of them hated what they did prior. They were very proud of the work they had done up until that point, and what they wanted to do was say, "Okay, we're going to change what we're going to do, we're going to create, experiment." And I found that strand running through the whole thing! It was just from a desire to see what they were capable of. They were looking around and saying, 'We do this. We're limited to these chords and these instruments and what they can amount to. Let's see how far we can take things to communicate how we're feeling.' That was a big thing for me. I was like, 'Wow. Really gotta start looking around your head and see what's there.' A lot more.

Hammerfall Frontman Laments Boredom On The Road

He tells Arte Concert: "Being on tour is so f***ing boring because you just sit around and wait the whole day. You have crew who are doing soundcheck and set up your gear - they do everything for you.

"But the second the intro starts, it's different. It's like a legal drug. Of course you get bored after a while, but imagine having a regular day job." In the interview, Cans is joined by guitarist Oscar Dronjak who recalls the band's collaboration with the Swedish women's curling team on the video for Hearts On Fire.

Watch the interview here.

Art Alexakis Looks Back At Everclear's Father Of Mine

When you look back on "Father of Mine," almost 20 years ago, does it feel like you said what you wanted to say? Your songwriting is always unusually open but that one didn't hold back anything it feels like. First of all, when I wrote that song I had no idea it was going to be a single, much less such a huge single. I didn't know that was gonna happen. I never try to pick that because I think that's the devil's work right there, trying to tell what people are gonna like and what they're not gonna like. But when I wrote that song, I needed to get that catharsis. I think most of the best songs in the world come from a selfish place, but they have a universal theme that other people can connect with, and I think that's the case with this song. I think people thought it was a little too expository, a little too personal, and I understand that. But I was actually being nice about my dad. [laughs] I didn't put all of it in there, it got worse than that.

A lot of people have issues like that all the time�they still don't know who they are. That might even be worse, having seen their dad but not being able to break that barrier and get close to him. That would be hard. That's something I fight with my daughters; I'm gone a lot. I try to be present constantly, take time every day when I'm gone and when I'm there. Like I'm keeping them home from school today just because after I'm done with the interviews we're gonna go out and get some breakfast and do some daddy/daughter things just because I've got a date.

There are very few hit songs that are addressed with such complete directness. Eminem comes to mind, particularly the way he swears he wouldn't let his daughter go through what he did. Other rappers too. Yeah, all the stuff you're talking about, it's funny because there's different types of emo. When we were coming up there were bands like Slint and Codeine and they called them emo, and then emo came to mean something else. But as far as just touching into emotions, that goes way back to singer-songwriters, and that's what I grew up with, both hard rock and punk bands, and singer-songwriters. And that's what Everclear's always been, trying to be a blunt between that, because that's my loves and my inspirations and influences.

Did your bandmates feel it was too expository, or the label? Well, my other bandmates have always worked for me, it's always been my band. I didn't even ask what they thought. The label didn't say anything, they thought it was a hit song from the beginning. I think most of the trepidation about it being expository came from me. I didn't think it was too intense to be a song on a record, I didn't think that at all. But I thought that being a single, it might not connect with people, it might put people off. I usually heard from like, guys who were irritated at me because their girlfriends liked me. [laughs] That didn't like the song because they think it's fake or that I made it up or something. I think they had a different agenda.

That's crazy, I thought most people would be writing to you to say how much they could relate to it. I've really never had anyone write to me where it wasn't positive. I get people who come up to me every day, every day to this day about this song, from all walks of life. The African-American community, Asians, white people, Hispanics�it's amazing that it has really connected and still continues to do so. More

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