Rockstar 101: Rule “Numero Uno” – Do not wear your own bands t-shirt or band merch. That’s equivalent to Kobe Bryant wearing his Los Angeles Lakers jersey to dinner. Here is Part 3 of some rockstars breaking the law…

“Diamond” David Lee Roth – Van Halen

Ginger Baker – Cream

Mike Love - The Beach Boys (Hat)

The Edge – U2 (Unforgettable Fire Album Cover Shirt)

Paul McCartney – Wings

Rivers Cuomo – Weezer

Chris Cornell – Soundgarden (repeat offender)

Clink below to check out parts 1 & 2:

Part 1: Band Members Wearing Their Own Band Shirt

Part 2: Band Members Wearing Their Own Band Shirt

Led Zeppelin released this double DVD simply titled “Led Zeppelin DVD” in 2003.

The cover art for the DVD features the West Mitten Buttes, as photographed from the Navajo Tribal Park in Monument Valley, Arizona.  Here’s a view from the visitors center where the photo was taken.

No reason was given as to why Led Zeppelin used this for the cover of the DVD.  Zeppelin also used crop circles for their remasters album cover with no explanation as well.

Led Zeppelin Remasters “Crop Circles” Album Cover Location: East Field, Alton Barnes, Wiltshire UK

Van Halen released “A Different Kind Of Truth” on February 7, 2012 their first new album in 14 years. The release also marked the first Van Halen album with David Lee Roth since they released “1984”  28 years ago.

Sadly the art department couldn’t even come up with an original idea for the album cover.  The album cover uses a reverse negative of the same photo of a locomotive that was used for the cover of The Commodores 1975 album “Movin’ On“.

The image seems to be this 1938 stock photo of a New York Central Railroad J-3A Drefuss Hudson steam locomotive.

I hope the comeback album is better than this unoriginal album cover.

When Nirvana released the super deluxe version of “Nevermind” in 2011, it included a disc called “The Devonshire Mixes”.  These were rough mixes made in May of 1991, that producer Butch Vig put together during production of the album for the band to hear.  They were called “The Devonshire Mixes” because they were mixed at Devonshire Sound Studios in North Hollywood, California.  Devonshire Studio has since closed down but here is the building now.

10733 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, CA 91601

One of the studio assistants said, “They were at Devonshire for 3 or 4 days before they decided to move the mix to another studio. No real tracking occurred at Devonshire, however I recall Kurt doing a few guitar overdubs and I think he did a few vocal fixes as well. Kurt carved the word NIRVANA on the underside of a wooden chair rail in the back of the control room.”

Here’s some great recent photo’s of the men responsible for the “Devonshire Mixes”,  Vig, Dave Grohl & Krist Novoselic from the Foo Fighters ”Wasting Light” sessions and the Nirvana “Nevermind” Deluxe press junket.

 Sure miss Kurt in these photo’s.

The Devonshire mixes remained unreleased until the anniversary reissue – why where they deemed inadequate?

Krist Novoselic -  ”Butch wanted to take a week or two off, to rest his ears. But the recording went on too long, and we just immediately moved on to the mixing.”

Butch Vig -  ”We only had seven or eight days booked, but around the third or fourth mix I realised it wasn’t sounding optimal. Part of it was that the band were hanging out with me. Kurt would keep coming up to the board: “Turn the trebel off all the tracks.” And I’m like: “I don’t think that’s going to sound very good.” So I’d turn all the cymbals down and it made it all sound like Black Sabbath. We went around and around. When we played stuff for the label they felt it could sound bigger and bolder – and I think it was smart to get Andy Wallace to come in with a fresh perspective.”

Dave Grohl -  ”We liked Andy because he had mixed some Slayer records and we felt you can’t get any more in your face than that.”

I love The Beatles and everything Paul McCartney but if this photo had come out in these current times with a current artist “all hell would break loose”.  Paul, Linda, son James and a joint.

Any thoughts???

Here’s another one of Paul enjoying a joint with David Gilmour.

Photo Of The Month: Paul McCartney & David Gilmour Smoking A Joint

According to the album credits Nine Inch Nails recorded “The Downward Spiral” at Le Pig, Beverly Hills.

“Le Pig” being 10050 Cielo Drive in Benedict Canyon, Los Angeles, California, the home of one of the most famous murders in history.  This was the site of the gruesome Tate/LaBianca murders at the hands of “The Manson Family” on August 8, 1969.  Trent Reznor and NIN set up their recording studio inside the same living room of home where most of the murders took place.  Here’s a photo of “Le Pig” Studios.

It was dubbed “Le Pig” by NIN because after the Tate/LaBianca murders the Manson Family members scrawled the word “PIG” on the walls and front door with the blood of their victims.

Reznor rented the house for $11,000 a month and moved in on July 4, 1992.  During his stay at the home Reznor recorded some of his best material,  The Downward Spiral, Broken EP as well as Marilyn Manson’s debut album Portrait of an American Family.  NIN even filmed this live performance of the song “Gave Up” from the Broken EP at “Le Pig”…

One of Reznor’s last visits to the house occurred in December 1993, where he was confronted by Patti Tate (Sharon’s sister), who asked him, “Are you exploiting my sister’s death by living in her house?”. Reznor responded, “No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.”

He later made a statement about one of his final days at working in the house during a 1997 interview with Rolling Stone:

While I was working on [The] Downward Spiral, I was living in the house where Sharon Tate was killed. Then one day I met her sister [Pattie Tate]. It was a random thing, just a brief encounter. And she said: ‘Are you exploiting my sister’s death by living in her house?’ For the first time, the whole thing kind of slapped me in the face. I said, ‘No, it’s just sort of my own interest in American folklore. I’m in this place where a weird part of history occurred.’ I guess it never really struck me before, but it did then. She lost her sister from a senseless, ignorant situation that I don’t want to support. When she was talking to me, I realized for the first time, ‘What if it was my sister?’ I thought, ‘Fuck Charlie Manson.’ I went home and cried that night. It made me see there’s another side to things, you know?

Reznor moved out in December 1993 because “there was too much history in that house for me to handle.”  The house was demolished shortly thereafter making him the last known resident of the house but before the house was torn down, Reznor came back and removed the front door as a momento which he installed at his Nothing Records studio in New Orleans.

Here is the door at the Tate/LiBianca house with “PIG” on the door after the murders…

Here’s the door at Reznor’s Nothing Studios a building that used to be a funeral home.

When the house was demolished they changed the street address to 10066 Cielo Drive.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band released the double album “Some Time In New York City” in 1972.  The half studio half live album cover was packaged like a newspaper of the events covered in the album.

The cover was highlighted by a poster Yoko Ono had made of then United States President Richard Nixon and China’s communist dictator Chairman Mao Zedong dancing together in the nude.  Here’s a blown up version of Yoko’s poster…

Many distributors against the wishes of Lennon and Ono added a non-removable gold sticker that said “TWO RECORD SET”  to obscure the photo.  Check it out…

Here’s what Lennon had to say about the sticker in an interview in 1980…

“You see how they banned the picture here. Yoko made this beautiful poster: Chairman Mao and Richard Nixon dancing naked together, you see? And the stupid retailers stuck a gold sticker over it that you can’t even steam off. At least you could steam off that Beatles [butcher] cover. So you see the kind of pressure Yoko and I were getting, not only on a personal level, and the public level, and the court case, and the fucking government, and this, that, and the other, but every time we tried to express ourselves, they would ban it, would cover it up, would censor it.”

What I find funny is that they did not censor the vulgar sexual cartoon right below the photo of Nixon and Mao.

Most people want to meet and take pictures with musicians but musicians want to meet and take pictures with the “Greatest Of All-Time” Muhammad Ali.  Check out some of these awesome pictures of Ali with rock stars and musicians…

Muhammad Ali & The Beatles

Muhammad Ali & Bob Dylan

Muhammad Ali & Elvis Presley

Muhammad Ali & Michael Jackson (Jackson 5)

Muhammad Ali & James Brown

Muhammad Ali & Etta James

Muhammad Ali & Axl Rose

Muhammad Ali & Prince

Lots more to come!!!!  Click below to check out the Muhammad Ali Elvis story.

Elvis Presley Presented Muhammad Ali With This “People’s Choice” Robe

Dave Grohl made a super quick 3 second cameo appearance on a Season 3 X-Files episode that aired on February 23, 1996.  His cameo is about twenty minutes into episode #17called “Pusher“.  Grohl is shown walking through the lobby of the United States Bureau of Investigation with his now ex-wife Jennifer Youngblood.  Get it???  X-Wife – X-Files.

Here’s the screen caps, check it out…

Grohl even has the 3 second cameo listed on his imdb page.

And finally here is Grohl talking about his very short appearance on The X-Files…

George Harrison released his disappointing “Dark Horse” album in 1974.  The album and tour were rushed and did not allow Harrison ample time to recover from a bad case of laryngitis.  The album and tour were panned by critics and dubbed “Dark Hoarse” because of the sound of Harrison’s voice.  When it came time to release his next album “Extra Texture (Read All About It)” in 1975, Harrison decided to poke a little fun at his waning popularity by including the caption “OHNOTHIMAGEN” under his photo in the album.

“OHNOTHIMAGEN” means “Oh not him again“.  Although the words “ONO” and “IMAGEN” pop out to me, i’m sure it was not intended as a jab at John Lennon and Yoko Ono.   George is awesome…