A representative for Aerosmith is denying that reports that Joe Perry hip-checked Steven Tyler off stage last Tuesday (August 17th) during the band's show at Toronto's Air Canada Centre. Aerosmith's spokesperson told TMZ, "Joe wanted his fans to know he would never deliberately push Steven off the stage. (Joe is a) total gentleman."

Steven Tyler recently told us that he doesn't ever see a time when he'll retire from the road: "No, I don't know if I know how to do that. I know that Joe and I, we questioned it a couple of times about whether, you know, whether we would go out again. We took a year off. I remember I had hep-C (hepatitis-C) and decided to take a year off, and I literally got rid of it. I mean, it's one of the few miracles known to man. I kicked its ass."

Aerosmith tour dates (subject to change):
August 24 - Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
August 26 - Syracuse, NY - New York State Fair
August 28 - Atlantic City, NJ - Boardwalk Hall
August 31 - Detroit, MI - The Palace at Auburn Hills
September 2 - Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center
September 4 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun Arena
September 8 - Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
September 9 - Calgary, AB - Pengrowth Saddledome
September 12 - Saskatoon, SK - Credit Union Centre
September 14 - Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
September 16 - Vancouver, BC - Rogers Arena

It seems more and more like a reunion of the original Black Sabbath, whose members have not performed together since 2005, could be happening sooner rather than later. Singer Ozzy Osbourne is the latest to weigh in on the possibility, telling the Boston Globe, "I never say never. I spoke to (guitarist) Tony Iommi yesterday. I spoke to (bassist) Geezer Butler last week. I speak to (drummer) Bill Ward very frequently, he lives up the road from me. We're all talking and that's a good sign."

Ozzy also told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about his relationship with the other members of Sabbath, "We're not at war with each other . . . I'm trying to get things done right, talking at least."

For their part, Ward said recently that "everyone has an open mind about touring again," while Butler told Hellbound.ca, "You know, it would be nice to finish the whole thing off with one last tour, I suppose. We're all getting a bit old now, so time is running out. It would be nice -- I wouldn't say no!"

Iommi told Sunday Mercury in July, "Ozzy and I have a complicated relationship but we've always kept in touch, no matter what else might have been going on. Would I play with Ozzy again? Who knows?"

Ozzy also added, "To be honest with you, I would love to do a killer Black Sabbath album. It would make my life, my whole thing, round up perfectly for me." But Ozzy also told us a while back that any new Sabbath project had to live up to the standards of the band's early, classic records: "If I had an album which blew Master Of Reality off the map, I'd be crazy not to do it. I don't want to put an album out, just for the sake of us four being on an album."

Ozzy is currently on a six-date mini-Ozzfest tour in support of his latest solo effort, Scream.

Iommi and Butler have played for the last four years in Sabbath offshoot Heaven & Hell, but that band came to an end in May with the death of singer Ronnie James Dio.

Iommi and Ozzy recently settled a legal dispute over the rights to the Black Sabbath name.

The original Sabbath last toured together in 2005 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Their last album together, Never Say Die!, came out in 1978.

Nancy Wilson says that following Heart's cease and desist letter order to the McCain-Palin campaign demanding that they refrain from using the band's 1977 hit "Barracuda" as a campaign song for Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, they were hit by some dangerous threats from what Wilson describes as "crazies."

Wilson told Classic Rock magazine, that at times it got pretty tense on the road for her and sister Ann, recalling, "Some of the fans decided they didn't like us and didn't like our music anymore. At least for a while. We were out on the road, and the next show that we played after that was somewhere in Florida -- which is not where you wanna be if you're a Democrat. We were kinda nervous, but we upped our security and kept a close watch on people walking in. Luckily -- knock on wood -- of all the crazies who have threatened to take us down, nobody so far has done that."

Back in September 2008 the Wilson sisters issued a statement saying: "Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late '70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there."

Nancy Wilson, who co-wrote the song, told ew.com at the time: "I think it's completely unfair to be so misrepresented. I feel completely f***ed over."

Wilson says that throughout its career, Heart has always embraced change and never been afraid of venturing off the beaten path artistically: "They tell you not to reinvent yourself, because your fans have an identity that they know, that is familiar to them, that they don't want to change. But in our case, we've been able to change a lot, but we've had to fight to be able to change a lot."

Heart performs tonight (August 23rd) in Dallas, Texas at the House of Blues.

Former Wings lead guitarist Laurence Juber feels that at the end of the day, Paul McCartney's only post-Beatles band deserves a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite the fact that McCartney himself was inducted into the Hall on his own for his solo work back in 1999 -- Juber believes Wings deserves separate recognition. He told Day Trippin' magazine, "There is no question that Wings as a core group is the Paul, Linda (McCartney) and Denny (Laine) ensemble. This is where it carries over into getting Wings into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Wings was not just 'Paul McCartney' post-Beatles. Wings was Paul McCartney's group post-Beatles, if that makes sense."

The Grammy award-winning Juber, who's best known for his work on such McCartney & Wings classics as "Coming Up," "Getting Closer," "Old Siam, Sir," and "Goodnight Tonight," is currently on tour in support of his latest album, called Wooden Horses. He says that like the Beatles, Wings also casts a long shadow on McCartney's current live act: "If you go see Paul now and when he does a Wings song in his set, it's great but there is something missing. You're not hearing Linda's voice; you're not hearing Denny's voice; you're not getting the qualities that they brought to Paul's work. It was a tempering."

Juber added that multi-instrumentalist and occasional McCartney songwriting partner Denny Laine played an invaluable role for McCartney throughout the 1970's, saying, "I think Paul recognized that he needed a foil. . . Obviously, no one could fill in for John Lennon but Denny has his own eclecticism with his gypsy/folk sensibilities with an R&B voice and rock guitar prowess. And Linda was kinda the glue. Things just worked better with Linda there in the room because she was Paul's soul mate and the female balancing part of his creative energy. There was a dynamic that happened and, as much as Paul will perform a Wings song and you tap your foot and sing along with it and think, 'What a great song,' it doesn't sound like Wings. I do appreciate the fact that he plays some of those tunes though."

Denny Laine -- who would be the only shoe-in for induction should Wings ever get a Rock Hall nod -- says that he personally doesn't think that the band deserves the honor: "Yeah, but Wings was just too many different lineups to be a real band, I always thought. It was really me, Paul and Linda -- in a sense -- plus musicians for a lot of the time. I never really felt like, you know, I was a member of a band, to be honest. Never really felt that."

The Beatles' longtime engineer Geoff Emerick, who went on to work on several Wings projects, including the One Hand Clapping film and the Band On The Run, Venus And Mars, and London Town albums -- along with numerous solo McCartney projects -- says that above all the members, it was Linda McCartney that was really the unsung hero of the group: "Wings was Wings, and Linda was such an integral part of that -- if you took Linda's vocals out of those harmony voices -- it wasn't Wings anymore."

Laurence Juber tour dates (subject to change):
August 30, 31 - Wasilla, AK - Acoustic Alaska Guitar Camp
September 1, 2, 3 - Wasilla, AK - Acoustic Alaska Guitar Camp
September 19 - Santa Clara, CA - Mission City Coffee Roasting Company
September 21 - Berkeley, CA - Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse
September 22 - Felton, CA - Don Quixote's International Music Hall
September 23 - Winters, CA - The Palms
September 24 - Shingle Springs, CA - House Concert
September 25 - Oakhurst, CA - Coolwater Ranch
October 2 - Long Beach, CA - Grace First Presbyterian Church
October 8 - Tempe, AZ - ASU Katzin Concert Hall
October 9 - Flagstaff, AZ - Coconino Center
October 10 - Prescott, AZ - Center For The Arts
October 11 - Phoenix, AZ - Roberto Venn
November 6 - Santa Monica, CA - McCabe's Guitar Shop
November 20 - Covina, CA - Fret House    Back to top

Like many rock veterans, Stevie Nicks is convinced that the Internet will prove to be the end of rock and roll. Nicks, who's currently prepping her new album, which is a collaboration with the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart, admitted to The New York Daily News that she fears that times are changing for the worse, saying, "The Internet has destroyed rock. Children no longer develop social graces. They don't hang out anymore. I'm financially stable. I'm okay. But what about the kids trying to make it in this business? If you're not an established band, if you don't have a hit single, they're gonna drop you. There are a lot of people out there as talented as we were, but they can't sustain being in a rock 'n' roll band for long without success. We were able to, but we're going to die out."

Nicks, who wrapped her most recent tour with Fleetwood Mac back in December says that her new solo album is her main priority for 2011: "Eventually, there will be another Fleetwood Mac record and another tour. But this record is my moment. All next year, it's going to be this. This is now my turn."

Nicks' good friend and occasional collaborator, Sheryl Crow, says that of all the female rockers she heard while growing up in the '70s, Nicks was the one who meant the most to her: "I just gravitated to Stevie. I thought she was the one young rock-and-roll woman I could really relate to and I could see myself being like. And up until that point, I really only had, like, Mick Jagger and people like that, Robert Plant, to sort of look at and think, 'God, I'd really like to be like that.' I never really related to Janis Joplin so much. In my mind, she wasn't very together, even though she was definitely an artist. But when Stevie came around, that rang a real clear bell with me."

Stevie Nicks tour dates (subject to change):
August 25 -Verona, NY - Event Center At Turning Stone Resort Casino
August 27 - Atlantic City, NJ - Mark G. Etess Arena
August 28 - Mashantucket, CT - MGM Grand At Foxwoods

U2 singer Bono told Rolling Stone that the band has as much as four albums' worth of new material that it could release, including the ethereal and previously announced Songs Of Ascent, a rock record, a club album and the music they wrote for the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.

Bono added that the band is not sure how they will release the records, or in what order, saying, "We're not as 21st Century as we think we are, because we'd be putting out more new songs online, involving our audience in the choice -- if we were really modern."

The band has been playing three new tunes since returning to its world tour following Bono's back surgery.