Lenny Kaye: Celebs Rumors

Roy Trakin Creem magazine started publishing as a regional monthly in Detroit in 1969, but didn’t go national until 1971, with a firmly anti-establishment bias that took aim at the likes of Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone and Paul Williams’ Crawdaddy for eminence in the heady early days of rock criticism. Among its earliest writers were certified pioneers like Dave Marsh, the dark rumblings of the late Lester Bangs and Nick Tosches, and rock-crit icons Greil Marcus, Robert Christgau, Cameron Crowe, John Mendelsohn, Lisa Robinson, Lenny Kaye, Wayne Robins, Ben Edmonds and Sylvie Simmons.

Patti Smith has been reportedly forced to cancel a show after being hospitalized in Bologna, Italy, with an unknown illness. According to local media outlet TGCOM24, Smith, 76, was slated to take the stage at Teatro Duse, the oldest theater in the city, before taking ill. “With great regret, we inform the kind audience that the [Patti Smith] concert scheduled for today 12 December 2023 at 9 pm will not be able to go on stage due to a sudden illness that struck the artist,” the venue wrote in an Instagram post.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic “More stars than there are in heaven!” crowed Peter Zaremba, lead singer of the Fleshtones, taking a cue from MGM’s famous slogan of the 1930s and ’40s as he boisterously extolled the cast of performers taking part in Friday night’s tribute to the garage-rock of the middle and 1960s. The salute took the form of a semi-reconstruction of the 1972 compilation album “Nuggets,” put together by the Wild Honey Foundation as one of its annual autism benefits at the Alex Theatre in Glendale, with the original compiler of “Nuggets,” Lenny Kaye, on board as emcee, resident historian, cheerleader and intermittent singer-guitarist.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic There has never been a compilation album in the history of rock as influential as “Nuggets,” a 1972 double-LP that revived a period and style that was seen as having ended about five years before. It was nostalgia of a sort for the very recent past — as opposed to the very distant past that’s now being celebrated with fondness as “Nuggets” itself surpasses the half-century, arguably no less central to a certain rock ‘n’ roll ethos than ever. Lenny Kaye, now best known as the guitarist for Patti Smith’s band, but then highly regarded as a rock critic, compiled the original “Nuggets” for Elektra and may have saved an early wave of garage-rock for the ages … although some would give the collection even more credit, for helping invent, or at least bring into focus, the burgeoning punk-rock movement in the 1970s.

Chris Frantz Sire Records co-founder Seymour Stein was indisputably one of the greatest music executives of all time, with a career that spanned six decades and a rare ear for talent that led Madonna, Talking Heads, Lou Reed, Ice-T, Depeche Mode, the Pretenders, the Smiths, and many others to his label. Stein, who died on April 2 at the age of 80, is remembered here by Chris Frantz, drummer of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, who, with Tina Weymouth (now his wife), Jerry Harrison and of course David Byrne, signed with the label late in 1976.  Seymour told this story many times. His first visit to CBGB’s on the Bowery was to see the Ramones. His wife Linda insisted that he see them because they were something new and fabulous and she thought he should sign them, which he did. He was standing outside the club on the sidewalk speaking with [Patti Smith’s longtime guitarist] Lenny Kaye, waiting for Ramones to go on when he heard the support band begin to play. “When my love stands next to your love….”

The Velvet Underground‘s ‘Loaded’ has been announced.‘Loaded (Fully Re-loaded Edition)’ is a new vinyl box set that includes nearly all of the music from its expansive 2015 CD reissue but comes with nine LPs boasting stereo, mono and “full-length” mixes of the original album.Demos, studio outtakes and live recordings also feature in the box set and several tracks will be available on vinyl for the first time.The £250 box set is available to pre-order here exclusively via Dig! ahead of its March 24 release. It’s limited to just 1,970 copies.‘Loaded (Fully Re-loaded Edition)’comes in a deluxe, foil-wrapped slipcase containing the vinyl, a poster of the album’s cover art, and an illustrated booklet with liner notes by Lenny Kaye that appeared in ‘Loaded: Re-Loaded 45th Anniversary Edition’.In addition to the nine LPs, the set also comes with four 7″s that reproduce the official singles and B-sides released from ‘Loaded’.The songs ‘Rock & Roll’ and ‘Who Loves The Sun’ both come in the generic record sleeves used at the time by Cotillion, the band’s label.

R.E.M.’s debut EP ‘Chronic Town’ have been announced by The Black Crowes‘ Rich Robinson.Set to take place on December 14 and 15 in Georgia, the two concerts will double as benefit shows with proceeds going towards Planned Parenthood. The first event will be at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, while the following night’s concert will head to the Coca-Cola Roxy in Atlanta.On both nights, Robinson will feature in the house band, which also includes the Black Crowes bassist Sven Pipien and drummer Barrett Martin, and comedian David Cross will host.The all-star line-up also includes Darius Rucker, John Cameron Mitchell, Fred Armisen, Kevn Kinney, Lenny Kaye, Mitch Easter, Steve Wynn, David Ryan Harris, Elf Power, Pylon Reenactment Society, and more.

New York Dolls guitarist Sylvain Sylvain has died, aged 69. He was receiving treatment for cancer.“As most of you know, Sylvain battled cancer for the past two and a half years”, reads a statement on his Facebook page this morning.

New York Dolls, has died. He was 69 years old.The news was confirmed on January 15 (Friday) via a statement on Sylvain’s official Facebook page, where it was revealed that he had passed from the cancer he’d been living with for over two years.“Though he fought it valiantly, yesterday he passed away from this disease,” the statement reads.