Chad Childers has been a music lover since his parents dragged him along to an Aerosmith/Bachman Turner Overdrive show as an infant. His love of music turned into a career in the mid-90s when he left a job in the Midwest as a librarian and moved to California to intern for Westwood One Radio. That led to work researching for Casey Kasem's countdown shows, writing and producing the alternative and active rock-related prep services SpinFax, The Fax, and Rip, Read and Rock as well as doing interviews across all music and entertainment formats.
Meat Loaf may have suggested his touring career was concluding as far back as 2007, but the rocker is finally and apparently ready to say farewell to at least one nation. The vocalist has just announced the 'Last at Bat' tour of the U.K., which is intended to be his final trek in the country.
The new '60s music explosion-inspired film 'Not Fade Away' opens in select theaters this coming Friday (Dec. 21). Ultimate Classic Rock is pleased to bring you an exclusive premiere of the Mick Jagger and Keith Richards-penned song 'Ride on Baby' as performed by the Twylight Zones, the fictional band featured in the movie.
The music world is mourning the death of legendary A&M Records executive Gil Friesen (pictured at left in the above photo), who along with Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, helped grow the record label into a major player in the music industry. Friesen passed away Thursday (Dec. 13) at his Los Angeles home at the age of 75.
Sex, drugs and rock and roll -- those are usually the big attention getters in the music scene. But if you were to substitute death or surgery for sex, you would have the makings for some of Ultimate Classic Rock's most shocking rock stories of 2012.
Queen's Roger Taylor has seen his musical vision come to life and next year North American audiences will get more of the Queen Extravaganza. Dates have been revealed for 2013, with touring set to launch Jan. 11 in Tarrytown, N.Y. and continuing through the end of the band's Quebec City residency on Sept. 1.
Musicians live some wild lives and it's not all that shocking that they may include some of the more outrageous anecdotes when trying to sell books. But Rod Stewart made one major headline-making claim in his 'Rod: The Autobiography' that detailed an imaginative way to get his "high" by taking cocaine anally.
As soon as Guns N' Roses became eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the main question was whether or not the original lineup could put aside past differences to finally reunite for one night. In the months leading up to the event, one-by-one the band members signed on to attend with one major exception -- Axl Rose.
Van Halen had already postponed some dates earlier in the year, but the momentum that the band had regenerated after releasing their 'A Different Kind of Truth' album came to a screeching halt when guitar great Eddie Van Halen was wheeled into emergency surgery in August.
Rockers Ronnie Montrose and Bob Welch were two of the name musicians who died this past year, and sadly both did so by taking their own lives. Initially reports suggested that Montrose passed away in March after a battle with cancer, but in April a family friend issued a statement revealing that the Montrose guitarist died from a self-inflicted gunshot.
Jon Bon Jovi is one of rock and roll's good guys, a musician that for the most part has a squeaky clean image, so it came as a bit of a shock in November when it was revealed that his 19-year old daughter Stephanie had been arrested after a heroin overdose in her college dorm room.
