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Tonight on ROCKLINE!!

Monday – February 12, 2007
Black Stone Cherry

Well, it’s sure a long way from Edmonton, Kentucky to where they are now. In fact, pretty much everything is a long way from Edmonton, KY as the guys in Black Stone Cherry will readily admit. The band has come out of nowhere literally and figuratively. Things must be good growing up there though as the band has musicality far beyond that of most, regardless of seemingly remote geography. Ultimately it matters not the point of origination, Kentucky is as fine a state as any, what does matter is the gifts brought to the party and Black Stone Cherry has arrived with a truck-full. All four members will join us on our next show fresh from some dates in Canada and the night before playing on the biggest American stage of all, New York City. Full dates are available at Black Stone Cherry.com and Myspace

The first time Ben, John Fred, Jon and Chris joined us they were on the second half of a double bill and their debut album hadn’t even dropped yet. My, my, how things have changed. With a succession of songs validated by extensive radio play, their brand of bluesy, soulful, oh so Southern, but distinctly modern Rock has generated response from fans worldwide. One of the great things about this band is that they will obviously continue to grow into themselves and their music, and that is a delightful prospect to ponder for sure. We’ll check in with the band, find out how their lives have changed in recent months, ask them if they’ve gotten to know each other even better after being on the road for months at a time and let you connect with them as well. We’ll also find out why two new songs are available that weren’t included on their self titled album.

You just know some bands have destiny on their side and Black Stone Cherry is one of them. Check ‘em out on the next ROCKLINE!

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KISS by the numbers

The Biggest Band in the land has no Platinum albums?

KISS: SoundScan-Era Record Sales Revealed – Feb. 12, 2007
Ken Barnes of USA Today has posted the SoundScan-era sales of KISS, one of the bands most unfairly excluded from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Like RUSH and DONNA SUMMER (two other artists excluded from the Hall), KISS’ sales heyday came long before 1991, when SoundScan began tabulating record sales. They sold (and their label pressed) a ton of records in the ’70s; these SoundScan-era numbers will represent just a fraction of those older titles’ totals. Still, it’s always intriguing to see what’s continuing to sell and what’s mired in the doledrums.

The long list follows.

Year of release Title: Sales

1974 “Kiss”: 174,000
1974 “Hotter Than Hell”: 153,000
1975 “Dressed to Kill”: 166,000
1975 “Alive”: 258,000
1976 “Destroyer”: 580,000
1976 “Rock and Roll Over”: 183,000
1977 “Love Gun”: 193,000
1977 “Alive II”: 295,000
1978 “Double Platinum”: 510,000
1978 “Peter Criss”: 23,000
1978 “Ace Frehley”: 46,000
1978 “Gene Simmons”: 31,000
1978 “Paul Stanley”: 33,000
1979 “Dynasty”: 157,000
1980 “Unmasked”: 171,000
1981 “Music From The Elder”: 110,000
1982 “Creatures of the Night”: 148,000
1983 “Lick It Up”: 92,000
1984 “Animalize”: 93,000
1985 “Asylum”: 81,000
1987 “Crazy Nights”: 104,000
1988 “Smashes, Thrashes & Hits”: 810,000
1989 “Hot in the Shade”: 112,000
1990 “First Kiss”: 786 (hmm…, what is this, anyway?)
1992 “Revenge”: 596,000
1993 “Alive III”: 552,000
1996 “MTV Unplugged”: 300,000
1996 “You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!!”: 329,000
1997 “Greatest Kiss”: 394,000
1997 “Carnival of Souls – The Final Sessions”: 175,000
1998 “Psycho Circus”: 479,000
2001 “Box Set”: 141,000
2002 “Very Best”: 433,000
2003 “The Millennium Collection”: 311,000
2003 “Symphony: Alive IV”: 134,000
2005 “Gold” (‘74-’82): 105,000

Total: 8.6 million

Barnes writes: “So what can we conclude about latter-day KISS fans from all this? They like hits collections: ‘Smashes, Thrashes’ is the band’s best-selling album of the SoundScan era, and other, largely redundant collections have solid sales.

“The live albums score well, especially ‘III’, which actually came out during the SoundScan era.

“‘Destroyer’ is by far the best seller of the early studio albums. Hard to argue with this esthetically, considering the metafictional pinnacle that is ‘Detroit Rock City’ is on this album.

“There are about 90,000-100,000 fans out there that have to have everything in CD form. Except the four simultaneously released solo albums from 1978. And Ace is still winning that battle (of course, he had the only hit from the releases, his cover of HELLO’s ‘New York Groove’).”

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Grammy Award News

Wolfmother won a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance for their song Woman .

(HRH – “Give me a break already!!, Buckcherry (also nominated for Crazy Bitch) has outsold Wolfmother bigtime. I guess they were too scared to say Bitch on a Grammy show. LOL)

Best Metal Performance goes to Slayer for their song Eyes of the Insane.

(HRH – I never thought I would see the day when Slayer would win a Grammy. This is kind of cool though.)