We tip our Hi-hats to you, sir
If you’ve ever come into contact with a drum kit, the name Sabian should be familiar to you, as it was probably on the cymbals you melodically thrashed on. If this indeed is your case, take a minute to thank Robert Zildjian, the company’s founder, who passed away last Thursday at 89. Reports suggest he was battling cancer. The only official word as of yet is a statement posted on the Sabian website detailing his life. “His professional story is well known. Having been dealt a major career setback at an age where most men would have opted for retirement, RZ instead chose to re-invent the cymbal business with his own hand-crafted brand, a brand that would forever change the face and sound of popular music. With his bare hands he shaped the Sabian cymbal brand into his life’s story — and by extension we became his family. We mourn his passing, and he will be forever in our hearts. But we are better people for having known RZ, and we are richer for having worked alongside him. We draw comfort from the knowledge that his spirit will live on in the music made by drummers the world over.”
In an interview with XFM radio, 30 Seconds to Mars singer Jared Leto spoke about their fans’ baffling devotion to the band. On the topic of gifts they’d received over the years, Leto said, “The fans are an incredibly committed and passionate group of people. Going to a show is kind of like visiting Japan, you expect gifts on your arrival. You get all kinds of wonderful things.” So passionate in fact, one fan decided to literally give him a little piece of themselves. “Someone cut their ear off once and sent it to me, that was very strange. A whole ear. The Van Gogh move. The note just said, ‘Are you listening?’ I never knew who it was, who’s missing their ear out there.” Asked what he did with the gift, Leto joked, “I poked a hole in it and wore it as a necklace.” He then cautioned others against doing something similar: “Just don’t put your entire body in a case and send it to us.”
A lead up to The Appeal pt. II?
Rapper Gucci Mane turned himself in to Atlanta police last week on charges of aggravated assault with a weapon. Mane allegedly hit a fan, James Lettley, with a champagne bottle in an Atlanta nightclub’s VIP area on March 16, resulting in Lettley needing ten stitches. “I was speaking to the security guard, and Gucci Mane hit me in the head with a bottle,” said Lettley. “That is dangerous because if there was to be any other fan trying to approach him, ain’t no telling what else he might do to them.“ This is far from Mane’s first run-in with the law: in 2005, he was charged with murder, though the case was dropped for lack of evidence, in 2006 he was jailed for assault and in 2011 he was charged on two separate accounts of battery and aggravated assault.
