Peter Buck Didn't have anything to say, which is good because both Eddie Vedder and Michael Stipe (both lead singers, by the way) said plenty. Must be nice to have to worry about the music swelling behind you after 45 seconds.

That "Begin the Begin" was pretty grungy.

By the way, I've been watching the broadband stream of the ceremony on AOL.Spinner.com and in four and a half hours it's only crashed once (following the announcement "and now to speak about James Brown, The Rev. Al Sharpton") and it's been very much like watching Television.

Technology is advancing too fast for the legal departments of the music business.
The marketing departments know YouTube and myspace and other Web hotspots are/will be great advertising for various products.
But you simply can't control the internet (yet) and protecting your copyright is much harder on the World Wide Web.

Hey, there's Eddie Vedder singing Man In The Moon with R.E.M.!

HEY! There's Patti Smith & Lenny Kaye Singing I WANNA BE YOUR DOG With REM!
Gee, I wonder if R.E.M./Patti think the Stooges should have been inducted into the Rock Hall by now
By the way The Stooges new album, The Weirdness is a bit of a disappointment.
Iggy's the weakest link, lyrically (yeah, even for The Stooges) and performance wise. He just sounds tired on several of the songs.

IT'S JAM TIME!
The loose, star-studded end-of-the-night jam used to be a tradition of these ceremonies but they haven't really been gathering folks for the past few years.
It's good to have it back and Patti's "People Have The Power" is a good choice.
It's got a big chorus and uncomplicated chords folks can solo over easily (as Keith Richards and Stephen Stills are doing right now) and a positive Up With People Message.

Patti Smith and Sammy Hagar singing together on the same stage…that's what the Rock Hall induction ceremony is all about

That Dave Lee Roth didn't show up because he wanted to perform "Jump" and Velvet Revolver had practiced You Really Got Me.

According to AP:

"We offered him opportunities to play and sing a Van Halen song of his choice with our house band, including his own guitar player, or a song with Velvet Revolver, and he refused those opportunities," said Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "We made every effort and the decision not to come was solely his, not ours."

THAT'S the Diamond Dave, I know and love.

Jay Z, the master of Bling inducts Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five in a very expensive suit and Sean Carter sneakers which are also very expensive.
If you were combine every cent each member of the Furious Five and Flash have made since 1979, I don't think it wold add up to what Jay-Z made last year .

By the way, over on FX's new show The Riches, Devo's Whip It is being used to liven up a stiff High School reunion, so the thieving protagonist family (Eddie Izzard/Minnie Driver and some kids) can rob the rubes.

Keith Richards is reminiscing about touring with The Ronettes and what special young ladies they are.

I can't believe Keef's not doing the Smurf in front of Grandmaster Flash & the F5

This nearly as old school hip hop as you can get and that includes the hot combs and blowouts.

Run DMC is next, it'll be sad without Jam Master Jay.

Well, this is going to be pretty anticlimactic, isn't it?

Hey, someone who used to work for/with Scott Weiland during the Stone Temple Pilots days described their experience as a four-year emotional rollercoaster ride from which it took her many years to recover.
He used to do a lot of drugs.

Michael Anthony may have had a nip or two (good for him) and he thanked Gary Cherone…he really is the nice guy of the band.

Velvet Revolver = sex, drugs & Rock n roll survivors.
I think most of the members of V.R. have probably died at least once.
Bassist Duff McKagen actually look pretty healthy.

There's the Paul Shaffer/CBS Orchestra doing the heavy lifting once again on Why Can't This Be Love with Mike and Sammy (whose head is about to explode). P-R-O-fessional musicians.
Do you think Dave & Eddie are enjoying the proceedings from their current locales?

So says Sammy Hagar who backstage just said reiterated what he said in the S.F. Chronicle last week that Eddie/Dave/Alex/Mike owe it to the fans to go out on the road as Van Halen adding "if we all can grow up-including me=maybe we can all do it right and do it together."
Who thought Sammy Hagar would be the voice of reason.

Where the hell has Zach De LaRocha been?

I'm dating myself by admitting this but I first discovered Patti Smith through her appearance on Saturday Night Live that they just showed a bit of in the montage and Gilda Radner's sloppy, always stoned to inertia Candy Slice character.
Funny stuff.

KEEF RICHAHDS!
You know he's probably gotten high and/or had sex with sizeable percentage of the people in the room.

Does Keith know some wild animal has built a nest of some sort in his hair"

"I realized, they could sing right thru a wall of sound, they didn't need anything," well said Keith.

Ronnie was half way through a spontaneous speech before someone handed her her prewritten speech.

…sweetly scattered…and loooong winded

Nedra remembers the moves…is that Sara McLaughlin in Estelle's spot?

The Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony is– like most awards shows–just another television show taping with dinner and really good booze.

That Paul Shaffer/CBS Orchestra is an smooth running kareoke machine ain't it?
They can play anything.

Be My "Be My Baby", "Baby I Love You", and "Walking In The Rain." Those are some damn fine songs.

Mmm, and the pail shadowmaul of Phil Spetcor rears its scary-coiffed head.

Damn, that's a lot of dead people.
An entire era..a very important era the foundations of modern R&B.
I didn't know Grant McClennan of The Go Betweens died.
…Ladies & gentleman, Mr. Robert Lockwood Jr.

Ahmet Ertegun is going to get a lot of love tonight from the entire room.

Stephen Stills sure looks like he's done some hard living doesn't he?
Gee, thanks Steve.
On behalf of Black Culture, I thank you for your kind words…Now, please sit down and let Aretha sing..

The Frozen Chosen….you don't hear many Korean War references at the Rock Induction Ceremon

I was going to write something borderline disrespectful about the Queen of Soul's Wig but then my wife reminded me that at we least we can't see her cleavage which she has been unafraid to share with the general public for the past several years.

Seriously, though..all that weight can't be healthy for her heart.

The following has nothing to do with music, but these are the 2007 nominees for the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for oddest book title.

"The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification," by Julian Montague.

"Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan," by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie.

"Di Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream, Di Mascio of Coventry, an Ice Cream Company of Repute, With an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans," by Roger De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher, and Alan Wilkinson.

"Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium."

"Better Never To Have Been: the Harm of Coming Into Existence," by David Benatar.

"How Green Were the Nazis?"

Those are all fine choices and anything featuring "Tattooed mountain women" is probably worth a look. You can vote here but I think I prefer last year's winner, "People Who Don't Know They're Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It," by Gary Leon Hill.

Actually, any of the entries could just as easily be the titles of Fall Out Boy and/or Relient K songs.

Well, a little bit of the drama has been sucked from the Rock Hall induction Ceremony Monday night.
We've been wondering exactly which members of Van Halen would appear to be enshrined and as of today we know one who definitely won't be onstage, namely, the man himself EDDIE VAN HALEN who announced that he's checked into rehab and will not be at the big party.
No word yet on the previously announced and previously postponed Summer tour. But you gotta wonder how delusional or just messed up Ed must have been to go from thinking he could handle a a 40 date tour to deciding that he couldn't keep his stuff together until Tuesday morning.

Good luck Eddie.

Well according to Sammy, Dave's already there and Sammy and his buddie/sometime bandmate Michael Anthony are definitely gonna be there. That just leaves Alex.
During a conference call with the press to promote the 2004 VH tour Alex and Sammy both said it was their renewed friendship that sparked the (brief) reunion with Alex playing intermediary between Ed & Sammy. Through the hour long phone call the two joked like two old buddies glad to be together again.

Oh well.