Bringing humanity back to an increasingly inhuman race through the power of connection and music. Exalting the ineffable energy of rock and uniting fans to the music they love through whatever means I can. I'm into healing, feeling, wheeling, dealing, staring at the ceiling, kneeling, revealing, grabbing a fresh orange and peeling. Who is saying something today, speaking the truth, expressing the fears and hopes and dreams through their songs and actions? What maketh a hero in the here and now? Peter Gabriel, Pearl Jam, Spearhead, U2, Matisyahu, System of Down, and damn even those fiesty Dixie Chicks. SPEAK. Piss people off. Just say SOMETHING that brings light to the shadows and as Michael Franti says, 'Don't never, ever ever make a deal with the Devil!' Civilization is on a collision course for oblivion. If the artists and stand up comics don't save us, no one will. Lewis Black, Patton Oswalt, and the immortal George Carlin, hear their wrath, laugh, and get on the path. Dane Cook is lighting fast genius of the idiosyncracy but he can't possibly have gotten that many 'friends' without some serious whoring. I blog here to survive, to preach, to teach, to purge and to bring forth like minded missionaries of peace and purpose. My memoir, Life on Planet Rock, is out and I'm doing my best to promote it cause it was a long, hard time coming. I enjoy talking about where I've been and how I got here through the vast riff and word space time continuum. Oh yeah, I made that Faustian deal. Once. Read about it. Me and Carly Simon got no secrets. The stories, lessons-- I hope the book resonates with the fans because without fans, there is no rock n'roll. My journey started at Grant High, San Fernando Valley, early 70s. First musician I ever called 'friend' was Steve Lukather. Our school band became Toto. Thirty years later, Luke and I are still pals. You dig the 444? Sign of the angels? Yeah. Me and Luke on the streets of Chicago, November 06. Horns and Halos, all the way up, eh? Click the cover to order from Amazon.
Music
Life on Planet Rock by Lonn Friend (Bon Jovi Demo)
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Five years ago, I made demo for a proposed VH1 TV show
called, Rock A Mile with Lonn Friend. I took my DV
camera to Europe and spent 10 days with Bon Jovi,
collecting images and moments with the band I'd known
and covered since the heyday of RIP magazine. Jon gave
me permission to shoot unhampered as well as the
rights to intercut the live concert footage directed
by his brother Tony. Aside from a few friends and a
handful of agents and TV executives -- all of whom to
this day can't see pulling the trigger on a TV show
hosted by a sometime rock journalist full time fan --
this 10 minute slice of my original 26-minute clip has
never been seen publicly anywhere. I spent $10k to
produce RAM. It was a labor of love. To me, this is an
intimate look inside one of rock's greatest bands and
illustrates the kind of cool content that can come
from deep, personal access. I made it for Bon Jovi
fans because they are a massive, connected, loyal and
passionate tribe. I reference the summer 2001 Euro
sojourn in the massive, "Ballad of Jon and Richie"
chapter of my book. That's it. STILL livin' on a prayer.
Kate Bush
My taste in music has always been ecclectic. I was born with the Beatles (it's the chapter called "Chicken Soup for the Rubber Soul), became a prog rocker in high school and a new wave punker in college. RIP Magazine's conception was synchronis with the arrival of the band that rattled rock at the close of the 80s like no other, Guns N' Roses. And for some cosmic reason, I was there, in the middle of it all as the Night Train rolled out of control. So the period of Lonn the metal head commenced. "Welcome to My Jungle" opens Planet Rock.
RIP was so tight with GN'R, thanks in great part to senior editor Del James, whom I hired because of his wicked way with words and close proximity to the band, that they performed tasks for us far beyond the call of duty. Like the day we shot a 60-second MTV subscription spot on a Hollywood street corner. Robert John snapped this pic of me, Del, Axl and Slash, the morning of our extremely low-budget shoot. After the spot aired, RIP's subs went through the roof.
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Axl and Slash in the RIP Commercial
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Axl getting down on Hair of the Dog
Movies
Just the highlights okay, so, let's see, there's Contact (seen it ten times at least and it continues to trip me out because it explains the inexplicable), Lost in America (I did lose the nestegg), Signs (M. Night has the sight, alright), Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill (one and two), Cast Away, Lord of the Rings (the Ents ruled -- talking Redwoods, I mean, that's insane and beautiful ain't it?), anything Hitchcock, Spielberg or Richard Linklater has attempted (School of Rock is IN the book but the director's real brain and soul tweaker is A Waking Life). The catalog of the great Cameron Crowe from Fast Times to Jerry M. to the immortal Almost Famous AND including the courageous and misunderstood, Elizabethtown, a film the critics didn't GET because its immense heart scared the SHIT out of them. Please screen the 'Free Bird' sequence at my wake. I'll add more to this later since I've been traversing those dark aisles since Woody's Take the Money and Run.
One of my most exciting meet your cinematic hero moments came at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas at a comedy benefit for global warming where I turned my head at the after party and there he was, Lost in America creator, Albert Brooks.
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Post Seattle RIP Party, dig this classic where the three lead singers are interviewed by the headbangin' host of the soiree who brought the northwest to the southwest in all its sonic flannel glory. Am I a complete tool in this clip, or what?
RIP Magazine Party 1991 Guns N' Roses, Metallica & Sebastian Bach - You're Crazy
Television
The rolling thunder of politics and porn, Sir Larry Flynt, you might call him my first mentor. He published RIP but more importantly, gave me the freedom to fly and experiment that a later, more Vader-like teach named Clive didn't. Heroes come in fact and fiction. Since season one, show one, my guiltiest media obsession as been 24. Jack Bauer, the mythical warrior, mankind's last, true hope, anguished, honest. I'm honored to report Mr. Sutherland has a copy of Planet Rock and is one of the nicest gents you'll ever meet. The man absolutely loves music. Copy that. House, however, is the most important drama on the modern tube because it's about a man tortured, desperately authentic in his own personal dysfunction, and the theme of every episode is about getting to the CAUSE. We treat the symptoms in this image happy, toxic culture. Get to the root, the source, and therein lies healing, salvation, truth. The happy Lonn loves Family Guy and American Dad, Seth is an envelop pushing genius. It's as rude as South Park but more cutting in its indictment of the black BUSH era we are collectively stuck in. Criminal Intent, Sopranos, Bill Maher. If he ran for President, he'd get my vote. Stoner satirical avatar of truth. My daughter and I watch Entourage 'cause she thinks its insane that people in this Munchkinland called L.A. we live in are actually that affected and completely unconscious. Plus she thinks Vince is hot. Escaping the tube, I sometimes disconnect at the Yogananda Self Realization Center on Sunset Blvd. near PCH.
<img src="http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u283/lonnfriend/lakeshrine.jpg" border="0"
Books
It's 12 years since I left RIP and eleven since it died but you can still find issues on eBay. I think that's pretty cool. These are a couple of my favorite covers. Oh, this is about books, longform composition, like my own heavy MENTAL memoir. Going from writer to author is no easy feat. The list of my literary heroes is long so I'll keep this Cliff Notes short so not to sound like my daughter's AP English teacher.
Everybody was Kung Fu Dancing by Chet Flippo served as an inspiration for Life on Planet Rock (thanks to Jedi Rob Hill for those pages), anything by Henry Miller but most notably his later, more awakened stuff like Stand Still Like a Hummingbird, The Cosmological Eye and Big Sur and the Orange Blossoms of Hieronymous Bosch. Yeah, Tropic of Cancer was awesome. Ditto for Capricorn. Henry and I both cut our compositional teeth with erotica. I learned a lot writing those x rated film reviews for Hustler in the early 80s. Like a hundred different ways to describe the female 'breast,' for example. I coined the term, 'love bags.' Where's my Pulitzer? Bob Dylan said, "An artist is in a constant state of becoming." The journey, right? I love the Kahlil Gibran and Rumi because their poetic insights help me make sense out of a world gone completely mad. Well, maybe not make sense 'cause it doesn't make sense, so let's just say help me cope. Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman and Castaneda's Don Juan exploits. Ekhart Tolle's Power of Now. Wow, a modern masterpiece. Dave Navarro said to me in Las Vegas that cold December night in 2003 when Janes Addiction shredded The Orleans, "That book could save mankind." Coudn't save his marriage to Carmen, however. Guess power is relative. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Alan Watts, the beat poets, Aldous Huxley, I've been reading Ray Bradbury since I was 10. For more than a decade, he lived around the corner from me on the west side of L.A. Everytime I pass his house, I feel inspired. Words in book and song both serve the higher purpose to heal and connect, not to mention affords us an escape route out of the chaos to that inner sanctum where the grooves are groovy and all are one. Kirk Hammett and I have been digging The Tao Te Ching for a decade. Okay, fade to black already, dude!
Heroes
My daughter, Megan, sweet seventeen and the smartest, purest human being I know. Her work ethic is astounding but she listens to too much hip hop. She gave up American Idol three seasons ago so we're moving in the right direction. I rely on her and her generation to save Planet Rock because me and my moronic peeps damn near blew it up. Jury's still out on our survival. Read The Tipping Point. We're there. In more ways than one. Michael Franti preaches peace though music. Heroic? Indeed. I like Spiderman, too.
About me:
My name is Lonn Friend. This is my official personal and professional home page. I know sometimes its cool to separate the two agendas, put up the 'people' page and the 'corporate' page but truth be told, my career and life are one in the same. I do relish my privacy. Meditation's served me well last few years. Noise and silence make a sweet balance. But in the end, It's about music. I've been blessed with a pretty crazy ride through the media and music environs. But I'm just a fan who loves fans that love their bands and I've never been afraid to shake hands. Treat this space with respect and grace and you're all welcome to rock here. Hey, I didn't get this last name by accident :)
I was the dude you might have seen on MTV's Headbanger's Ball in the early 90s or on VH1 in recent years or heard on the radio or seen on the editor's page of RIP Magazine back in the day. I've logged a million miles documenting rock and rocker for fan and friend alike. From Guns N' Roses to Metallica to Alice Cooper to Pearl Jam to KISS to the lovely Tori Amos -- ivory muse, pictured above shortly after the release of Little Earthquakes -- and on and on for the past two decades. I couldn't get it all into one book, not even close, but Planet Rock is hopefully an entertaining read. Click here for some early reviews and an opportunity to pre order the book!
This is how my friend Franti spreads joy throughout a mad mad world.
Who I'd like to meet: In L.A. you meet icons the street, as in the day I ran into Leonard Cohen.
Tawn Mastrey was a master metal DJ and a good friend back in the day. She passed away on October 2nd. Shot was taken during out Pirate Radio days, 1992.
Alektra Blue showed up at our November 9th Book Soup Hollywood signing for Michael Grecco's Naked Ambition (check out amazon.com). Also in the room were my editorial partner on the book, Rob Hill, and composer to the Foreword, Dave Navarro. Henry Miller and Charles Bukowski's ecstatic, erotic spirit is alive and well.
In 2004, I was treading sand in the desert, writing my book, doing freelance stories and showing up at random cool events. Like the opening of the production, We Will Rock You, based on the immortal music of Queen at Paris Las Vegas. This shot of Deep Purple's Glenn Hughes and axe god, Brian May, was taken post a pool party jam that had even the fat bottom girls shaking their backsides.
Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen hosted a Planet Rock book signing last winter at his Chicago pizzeria, Piece. Thanks to the windy city friends and family that came out.
The chemtrails over Hollywood. Check the skies over your metropolitan area. Those clouds may not be real.
The best taco stand in the world, Henry's, corner of Moorpark and Tujunga, NoHo. Been munching the double-shell two buck tostada since the mid 70s.
Terry Bozzio and Ronnie James Dio were recent inductees into the Guitar Center Rock Walk in Hollywood. I have the honor of doing the archive interviews with the icons who put their hand prints in the sacred concrete.
And for the posthumous Miles Davis Rock Walk ceremony, I got a tale or two from Earth, Wind and Fire's Verdean White.
Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell were part of the Temple of the Dog jam at the 1991 RIP 4th anniversary party, where the Spinal Tap photo of me and Chris Guest was taken. Photographer Marty Temme's amazing live shot captured a magical moment in time and space. Yeah, I've met, interviewed, broke bread with and gotten to know a slew of famous and almost famous musicians. Rock stars have different lifestyles. Fame and fortune can be cool but also, very corrupting. I've bore witness to the glory and the gory. Fact is, celebrities are just human beings. They eat, shit, pray, breathe, make love and get scared just like the rest of us. At this time in my life, I dig encountering people who are humble, generous, compassionate and not afraid to sing, dance, shake, rattle rock or roll in public no matter what the MAN thinks of them. Bring on the conscious objectors, green minds, peacemakers and leaf rakers. But please NO politicians. This space is for light not lies, eyes not spies. Love metal but loathe war. Egomaniacs and greedy repilians, stay away from MY SPACE. Music folk of good heart and creative spirit --artists all! Those who rise and fall. Speak your word and you can hang out here long as the riffs wail and the winds blow.
This photo is in the book, but small and black & white, so here it is large and colorfully loud. Me and Mr. Tyler (the Aerosmith chapter is called, "The Screamin' Prophet) in his dressing room, August 1990, Monsters of Rock, Donington, England. Shot was taken by Gene Kirkland, another of RIP's finest. I interviewed adult film star, Katsumi, among many other Erotica characters for the coffee table book, Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X-Rated Industry, coming out this November. It's high-end Hollywood photographer, Michael Grecco's, visual homage to the culture of porn. Former FHM editor and longtime journalistic Jedi, Rob Hill, edited the volume with me. Dave Navarro and Larry Flynt wrote the Forewords. Back to the sexy egg for this pulp pilgrim, just for the moment 'til the next long form book of high conscious music tales manifests. Hey, Henry Miller got paid a buck a page to pen Opus Pistorum in the 40s when he was flat broke. Under the Roofs of Paris, it remains a textbook study of obscenity taken to literary extremes. No braver voice than the bard, Miller. From gonad to God, he expressed it all. Read The Air Conditioned Nightmare. The downfall of the American industrial oil addicted greed complex prophesized a half century before Dick Cheney ever emerged from the black womb.
Maybe this man can save us in the term ramping up to 2012. Obama being handed Spearhead's Yell Fire! by a fan. Franti spirit in the White House? That's a good start!
Because the chemtrails are everywhere, my friends. No illusion. No media coverage. Just the skies above being sprayed with who knows what? day in, day out across the globe. Took this pic in Nashville, June '08, after the Bonnaroo festival. Toxic end to an awesome week.
Marillon's original vocalist, Fish, reunited with an old friend after 20 years, Red Rock Bar in Hollywood, 6/08. 'Clutching at Straws' remains one of Prog era's Top 10 best.
Slash & Luke (whom I've known a combined 50 years) donate two hours to a new Lonn radio show concept for Sirius. Stay tuned.
Dodgers/Phillies Game 3 Dodger Stadium, thanks Paterno for the tickets and putting us next to Joe Walsh for three hours of laughs. Life HAS been good to me so far.
A TRIBUTE TO METALLICA – OUT NOW ON ITUNES, AMAZON, NAPSTER … !!!
"(…)you will get a reggae(!) style version of Blackened, a Latin dance mix of The Unforgiven with brass and stuff, a piano swing tune of King Nothing, as well as more beautiful acoustic versions like the contest winner track (Motorbreath). Besides, the singer is excellent." (metalblog.eu)
Hey, I recorded a new song a few days ago, it's called Masquerade--based on the ballroom scene of Romeo and Juliet. Just wanted to stop by and give you the free download if you'd like it and haven't picked it up yet:
I hope you enjoy it; if you do, please pass it on to your friends and spread the love :)
Sunday October 18th, 2009 is the date for the 1st Annual L. A. KISS EXPO. This is a perfect time to celebrate an all day event of new album releases by KISS, ACE FREHLEY and BRUCE KULICK. What an exciting time for KISS ARMY members everywhere! There will be KISS merchandise, a KISS costume contest, KISS trivia and much, much, more! This event includes special guest and legendary guitarist BRUCE KULICK. Bruce will be doing a Q&A and signing autographs and if we're lucky we might get him onstage to play a few classic hits. Book Author and special guest WENDY MOORE of "Into the Void" and now unveiling her new book "Out Of the Void". Wendy will be doing a book signing and a Q&A for the fans. This years event will include L.A.'s own "VENUS ENVY" one of the hottest bands on the Strip! "School of Rock" has joined up with the L.A. KISS EXPO and rock guitarist Bruce Kulick will be rockin out the kids! FIFI LARUE will be performing, and finally hold on to your seats... The hottest tribute band in the land "PRISS", will be performing an awesome set of KISS tunes! $20 bucks... Kids under 12 are FREE!!! KISS Expo is at LAX Marriott from 12 to 10pm this Sunday!!!
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