TWISTED SISTER guitarist Eddie Ojeda launched his Cherry Habanero hot sauce at last weekend’s (April 20-21) first annual New York City Hot Sauce Expo in Williamsburg.
Other musicians who have their own lines of condiments include AEROSMITH guitarist Joe Perry, ex-VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony, GUNS N’ ROSES axeman Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and BLACK LABEL SOCIETY mainman Zakk Wylde.
Ojeda has spent the last few years working on his second solo album, tentatively titled “Pick A Window, You’re Leaving”.
Ojeda‘s 2006 solo CD, “Axes 2 Axes”, was made available on vinyl for the first time via Steel Legacy and Rockaholics Records. 500 hand-numbered copies of the LP were made (250 in black with pink bits configuration and 250 in a reddish/pink tint).
Carmine Appice asks rock ‘n’ roll addicts of all ages, “How does spending a few days of major face time with me and some of my most excellent, legendary rock ‘n’ metal hero friends sound?”
The groundbreaking drummer provides an answer in the form of Carmine Appice’s Rockaholics Metal Fan Camp — set for August 26-30 at Full Moon Resort in the heart of the “Forever Wild” Catskill Forest Preserve, just one half hour west of Woodstock, New York. Carmine Appice (VANILLA FUDGE, CACTUS) will be joined by “camp counselors” including singer/guitarist Eric Bloom (BLUE ÖYSTER CULT), drummer James Kottak (SCORPIONS), guitarist Eddie Ojeda (TWISTED SISTER), and renowned shredder Michael Angelo Batio.
Carmine Appice is known not only as a heavy metal progenitor for his visionary work with VANILLA FUDGE (and later CACTUS, the power trio BECK, BOGERT & APPICE, and others), but also as a tireless drum evangelist and educator through both his best-selling Realistic Rock Drum Method and decades of clinics. Rockaholics Metal Fan Camp is not so much a forum for preaching and teaching as an opportunity for shared social experience.
“I’ve been thinking about doing a drum camp forever,” Carmine explains. “Then while I was at NAMM, it hit me: ‘Hey, this can be way cooler than that — make it a fan camp for all rock/metal heads.’ So I cherry-picked some amazing stars to join me, and Full Moon Resort offered me a fantastic price package. What better way to reward the fans who have been so loyal for so long than to give them a once in a lifetime opportunity to spend ’round-the-clock face time with me and my friends? We’ll all be hanging out and having a great time.”
Rockaholics camp sessions will feature road warrior stories, musical performances by individual artists, question-and-answer sessions and more — ending with nightly jam sessions featuring the camp’s celebrity counselors. Also planned is the “Carmine Cookoff”, inspired by his “Cooking With Carmine” segment which can be viewed below. Additional details about the daily schedule will be announced in the coming weeks.
While the Rockaholics Metal Fan Camp will showcase Carmine‘s own flair for rock ‘n’ roll storytelling, he’s equally enthusiastic about the lineup of camp counselors that he recruited while attending the annual Winter NAMM Show in Southern California earlier this year.
“As I ran into my friends at NAMM, I asked different people in the rock and metal arena if they would be interested. And one by one I picked the best guys who were available,” Carmine says. “The guys who committed ROCK! They are some of the best in the biz. They are cool, personable rock stars who’ve been around for awhile and have seen it all. It’s gonna be a great time!”
Carmine Appice’s Rockaholics Metal Fan Camp offers a variety of pricing options, based on the variety of available accommodations. Packages are on sale now at this location, and start at just $795, including lodging, access to all gourmet meals, performances, and camp activities.
All activities will be held at Full Moon Resort in Big Indian, New York, which features an eclectic array of comfortable, rustic country-inn accommodations as well as tent camping. All accommodations are just steps away from daily camp activities. Guests can enjoy the spring-fed swimming pool, on-site access to the Esopus Creek, and explore the splendors of the Catskills on the nearby network of hiking trails. Dedicated to the celebration of nature, music and the arts, this one hundred-acre wonderland of mountains, fields, and streams is a world of its own.
TWISTED SISTER guitarist Eddie Ojeda joined Geoff Tate on stage this past Wednesday night (May 9) during the QUEENSRŸCHE singer’s solo concert at the Highline Ballroom in New York City. Fan-filmed video footage of the performance can be seen below.
Tate entered the studio on February 29 to begin recording his second solo album.
Tate released his first solo CD in 2002 on Sanctuary Records. Self-titled, the LP was a huge departure from the work he had previously done with QUEENSRŸCHE.
Geoff played a handful of acoustic solo dates, billed as GEOFF TATE AND FRIENDS, beginning on January 26 at Anthology in San Diego, California. According to Tate, he performed “acoustic renditions of songs from my solo album as well as some of my favorite QUEENSRŸCHE songs.”
In a recent interview with AnthologySD.com, Tate was asked if he is looking into any future solo projects. “I am!” he replied. “I’m actually working on one right now that I hope to have wrapped up pretty soon. This show that I’m doing [on the solo tour] is an acoustic show with some friends of mine who are fantastic acoustic players. We’re doing kind of a blend of my last solo album, some QUEENSRŸCHE songs, and we’ll toss in some new ones that haven’t been released yet. It’ll just be a really fun night. Very homey, intimate, we’ll probably take requests, things like that.”
He added, “For the last couple of years, I’ve been doing more stuff outside of QUEENSRŸCHE in order to just stretch out. But I’ll tell you, even though I’ve sang shows in front of hundreds of thousands of people and also intimate shows of a few hundred, but whenever I go out to an event or something and someone asks me to sing a song with them, I’m petrified! (Laughs) I don’t know much material outside of my own material that I’ve written, and so if someone asks me to sing ‘Danny Boy’, I couldn’t sing it! Not even if someone offered me a million dollars could I sing that song. So I’m trying to be a bit more versatile and learn more stuff.”
