Infamous fired rock drummers

By Tony Sclafani
MSNBC contributor





Pete Best (The Beatles)

The summer movie “The Rocker,” had Rainn Wilson playing a rock drummer dumped from his band on the eve of their stardom. This turn of events seems to be a recurring theme in rock, and if we had to give it a name, we’d call it “The Pete Best Curse.” Best was, of course, the drummer who got fired from the Beatles days after they got a recording contract. Many reasons have been floated as to why the Fab Four canned a two-year member and at least one book has been written about it. Whatever the case for his dismissal, Best takes the “award” for missing out on the biggest ride to stardom in the history of pop music. At least in 1995 he saw a big payday when a few tracks he drummed on found their way onto the first “Anthology” album.





Kate Schellenbach (Beastie Boys)


Founding Beastie Schellenbach beat the hell out of the skins on the Beastie’s 1982 hardcore punk EP “Polly Wog Stew,” and can also be heard loud and clear on their 1983 “Cooky Puss” single. But she was gone by the time the band released their 1986 breakthrough LP, “License to Ill.” What happened? Rick Rubin, that’s what. The bearded producer purportedly reconfigured the band sans Kate when they signed with Def Jam. Schellenbach didn’t find out until she happened to bump into the guys, who were decked out in new Adidas sweat suits bought by Rubin. They later made it up to her by signing her band, Luscious Jackson to their Grand Royale label.


Aaron Burkhardt and Chad Channing (Nirvana)

Everything about Nirvana was high drama, so it’s no surprise that the pre-fame edition of the group blew through two drummers (more if you count substitutes). Burkhardt was made to leave the fold early on because of an alleged penchant for fighting. Channing got the axe after he piped up with too many musical ideas during demo sessions for “Nevermind.” For the record, Channing contends he wasn’t fired, he quit (see Michael Azerrad’s Nirvana bio “Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana”). In that same book, however, both Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic say he was indeed fired.


Scott Raynor (Blink-182)

Give Raynor some credit: he purportedly managed to be too wild for even the guys in Blink-182, who seemed to live for toilet humor and underwear photos. Raynor drummed for Blink-182 for a long six years before he was replaced by Travis Barker in 1998. Talk amongst fans (and on Wikipedia) is that Raynor partied too much and lacked discipline. Raynor himself is evasive. Either way, the Pete Best Curse was in full swing when the group found mega-success with “Enema of the State” after Barker signed on.


George Tutuska (The Goo Goo Dolls)


Today Summer ConcertsPete Best may have put in two years with the Beatles, but Tutuska was with the Goo Goo Dolls for nearly a decade when he was asked to leave. Asking for a songwriting credit was allegedly the mortal sin he committed against lead Doll John Rzeznik (although you assume other issues had to be brewing). Needless to say, the final album Tutuska played on was “A Boy Named Goo,” which propelled the band to stardom.

News : Jennifer Lopez vows to complete triathlon

Jennifer Lopez has vowed to complete her upcoming triathlon, even if she has to "crawl across the finish line".

The 'Jenny From The Block' singer - who gave birth to twins Max and Emme in February - has been training intensively for the gruelling challenge, which involves running, cycling and swimming.

She said: "If I have to crawl across that finish line, I am going to. I keep telling myself that when I'm training, 'This is for charity. Your kids are going to know about this. Don't embarrass the family! Get it done, Lopez!'

"But the swimming is a killer, I'm not a natural."

The singer - who was voted Self magazine's Most Inspiring Woman of 2008 - has also revealed how well her six-month old babies with husband Marc Anthony are doing She said: "The babies are great, they're amazing. I hated leaving them this morning. They're sleeping through the night. We're very lucky."

The 39-year-old mother also said she is not only participating in the event for charity, but for her children too. She added to US TV show 'Good Morning America': "I thought, 'What can I do to make my babies proud.' I think about what they'll think about the year they were born, who I was and what I did.

"It's important for me to set examples for them." The Nautica Malibu Triathlon is held on September 14.

News : Britney Spears’ custody battle bill

Britney Spears’ custody battle could cost her over $700,000.

The troubled singer’s lengthy court process with ex-husband Kevin Federline to establish access rights to their sons, Sean Preston, two, and 23-month-old Jayden James, led to two law firms billing her a combined total of $466,000, court documents have revealed.

In addition, Britney, 26, also agreed to pay Kevin’s legal fees, which amounted to around $250,000. The largest bill comes from attorney Stacy D. Phillips, who claimed in court filings that she is owed nearly $407,000 for four months of work and says she has written off an additional $125,000 in fees.

The remainder of Britney’s bill is for $60,000 for two months work from Laura Wasser who took over the case in June. She brokered the agreement between Britney and Kevin that saw him retain full custody while the singer has visitation rights.

Phillips claims the case was more complicated because Britney’s father Jamie, as co-conservator of her estate, has control over Britney’s affairs.

The payments have to be approved by the Los Angeles commissioner and lawyers for Britney and Jamie have indicated that they will contest the bill.

A hearing has been scheduled for September 16 to discuss the fee. Britney and Kevin married in 2004 and their divorce was finalised last July. Under the terms of their divorce settlement, the singer currently pays her ex-husband $20,000 a month.

Madonna turns 50 with world tour on her mind

Controversial star may be universally admired, but isn't universally loved

LONDON - Madonna won't have much time to fret about turning 50. While many people passing the milestone may prefer to pause and reflect, the "queen of pop" is in the midst of final preparations for her world tour which kicks off in Cardiff, Wales, on August 23, a week after her birthday.
If previous shows are anything to go by, the 40-plus "Sticky & Sweet" dates around the globe will put Madonna under the kind of physical and mental strain that would test a woman half her age.
But the world's most successful female recording artist has never let age, sex or background get in her way, and has remained in the ascendancy with an uncanny ability to reinvent herself just when the old Madonna was nearing her sell-by date.

Her latest reincarnation is a shrewd businesswoman, after she severed ties with long-term record label Warner Brothers to sign up with Live Nation, a company that until recently specialized in music tours.
As well as earning a reported $120 million over the life of the agreement, Madonna appeared to be among the first to recognize which way the music industry was heading.
Recorded music, many artists now believe, is making them less money than live performing, meaning they are looking to spend less time in the recording studio and more on the stage.

The last few years have not all been easy for Madonna, however.
A celebrity who often bristles in the media glare, Madonna may be universally admired but she is not universally loved.
Her decision in 2006 to adopt a young Malawian boy whose mother died was controversial both in the southern African country and further afield.
Aid groups in Malawi said the authorities had bent the rules to accommodate the super-star, and the adoption was challenged in court. Not for the first time, Madonna prevailed and the adoption went through.

Madonna has two other children -- son Rocco with her husband the British film director Guy Ritchie, and daughter Lourdes from a previous relationship.
She directed her first feature film that came out in 2008, and although reviews were mixed, there were harsh words for a woman some feel should forget about movies and stick to music.
Her eight-year marriage to Ritchie has also come under increasing scrutiny after tabloid newspapers in Britain, where she spends much of her time, have reported that the couple are planning to divorce.
Both Ritchie and Madonna have denied the reports.

A career full of controversyMadonna Louise Veronica Ciccone was born in Bay City, Michigan on August 16, 1958, the third of eight children in a devout Italian-Catholic family.
Her big breakthrough came in 1984 when she signed a record deal and made her first two big hits "Like a Virgin" and "Holiday."
The following year she married Hollywood wild boy Sean Penn and landed one of her most memorable screen roles in "Desperately Seeking Susan."
Madonna then urged director Alan Parker to give her the biographical role of Argentine heroine Eva Peron in the musical film "Evita" that won her a Golden Globe Award in 1996.
She has appeared in over 20 films, several of which have bombed, most notably 2002's "Swept Away," directed by Ritchie.

Musically, she has few, if any real rivals.
The Recording Industry Association of America has described her as the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States.
Guinness World Records list her as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and she has sold an estimated 200 million albums. Her last tour, "Confessions," became the top-grossing tour ever by a female artist.
The Sunday Times estimates Madonna and Ritchie's fortune at around $600 million.
Much of Madonna's success is built on her shock value.
In 1989, the video for "Like A Prayer," her third transatlantic chart-topper, with its links between religion and eroticism, was condemned by the Vatican and caused Pepsi-Cola to cancel a sponsorship deal with the star.

The resulting publicity helped the album of the same title to become a global bestseller.
In her 1990 "Blonde Ambition" tour, she famously wore a Jean Paul Gaultier conical bra and covered the stage in religious imagery. The Vatican called it "one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity."
At the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera as they performed her classic song "Like A Virgin."

Comeback performance in ’68 saved Elvis

On anniversary of death, fans remember TV special as highlight for the King

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - When Elvis Presley made his TV special in 1968, he was coming off a string of forgettable films and a long dry spell on the charts, and the rock ’n’ roll music he’d helped pioneer had given way to the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix.
It was a tough time for a comeback, but Presley, looking fit and tan in black leather, pulled it off with one of his best performances ever.
“You can argue that it was the highlight of his career. He had been treading water for eight or 10 years,” said Alan Stoker, a historian at the Country Music Hall of Fame, where Presley has been a member since 1998.

The 40th anniversary of what’s known among Elvis aficionados as “The ’68 Special” is getting attention as fans gather in Memphis this week to mark the anniversary of the singer’s death from heart disease and drug abuse on Aug. 16, 1977.
Presley’s Graceland mansion has opened an exhibit dedicated to the program, RCA has released a boxed set of all the music, and Steve Binder, the TV show’s producer and director, has published a book, “’68 at 40: Retrospective.”
“He said he was fearful of doing television, because aside from the ‘Ed Sullivan’ exposure, television had been a fiasco for him,” Binder said in an interview. “He said, ‘Television is not my turf. I’m not comfortable in a television studio.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you make a record and I’ll put pictures to it.”’

And that’s pretty much what they did for the hourlong show, which aired Dec. 3, 1968, on NBC.
The original idea, the one Elvis’ manager, Col. Tom Parker, had in mind, was a Christmas special with Presley singing holiday favorites.
But Binder wanted Presley doing his own songs and doing them alone instead of with guest stars — a departure from Christmas specials of the day.
The real breakthrough, though, was offsetting the big-production numbers with a loose, in-the-round performance — raw and unscripted — before a small audience.

“We’d start shooting at 9 or 10 in the morning and go until we were done, then he’d go into his living quarters and invite friends and they’d jam to all hours of the morning,” Binder recalled. “I was amazed by all the energy, enthusiasm and fun going on after a hard day’s work. And it was like looking through a keyhole at things you were not supposed to see. I thought, ‘This is better than what’s going on on-stage with the pre-planned numbers.”’
Parker hated the idea, but Binder persisted until Parker allowed him to recreate the backstage jam session for the camera, bringing in Presley’s longtime guitarist Scotty Moore and drummer D.J. Fontana and other friends to help make him comfortable (it had been seven years since Presley last did a live concert).
“There was no plan at all. I mean absolutely nothing,” Moore recalled. “He didn’t know what he was going to do. I knew he was going to pull out some of the old songs we’d done, that kind of thing. But that was it.”

At first, he seemed nervous. “This is supposed to be like an informal section of the show where we faint or do whatever we want to do, especially me,” he cracked before his first number, “That’s All Right.”
But by “Blue Suede Shoes” he was in control, swapping his acoustic guitar for Moore’s electric and stomping his feet through bluesman Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me to Do.”
Moore said Presley knew what was at stake.
“Because he hadn’t been touring — he had gotten into the movie thing — I know his feeling was ’I’m getting back before the public this way,”’ he said.

The show started a golden era for Presley that included his hits “Suspicious Minds,” “In the Ghetto” and “Kentucky Rain,” as well as a run of successful Las Vegas concerts and a January 1973 TV special, “Aloha From Hawaii,” his last big artistic statement.

By the mid-’70s Presley had become a caricature of himself. But that night in ’68, he was a young man fighting to re-establish himself.
“I think it was the honesty,” Binder said of the show’s success, “the fact that he wasn’t controlled, wasn’t reading prepared lines. It was raw and it was powerful, and I think it was who he really was.”