When Rock Daily caught up with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Joey Castillo backstage at the Theater at Madison Square Garden Saturday night, the pair were game to offer their take on the news of the week (Radiohead’s big release, R.E.M. debuting a song on CNN), reveal some plans for the Desert Sessions and Eagles of Death Metal and re-live the wonder of the VMAs, where they performed alongside Foo Fighters. But when it came to our Six-Pack Q&A, the duo were skeptical. Click above to check out the video interview — where they also explain why they’re playing a German salt mine in November — and read on for even more.

What’s the most rock-star thing you’ve ever done?

Josh Homme: Not answer that fucking question. That ain’t a good question because it’s so incriminating. Nothing personal, but fuck that question.

Who’s the coolest person you’ve ever met?

Homme: I think a better question is who’s the most famous person you’ve ever boned. I can’t answer that question either, though. If this were a six-pack, it would be a six-pack of Zima. Or Tequiza. Or Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

What was your favorite album when you were fourteen?

Homme: This is a good question. Someone slipped a Corona in the six-pack. Discharge, Never Again. (more…)

Last Friday, we asked you what rock songs said the most without saying anything at all. We received hundreds of responses (mostly from mass-commenting Fragile-loving Nine Inch Nails fans), and after consulting with one another using only hand signals, we silently nod in agreement on this list of the Twenty-Five Best Rock Instrumentals.

1. Booker T. and the MGs – “Green Onions”
2. Dick Dale – “Miserlou”
3. Van Halen – “Eruption”
4. Pink Floyd – “One Of These Days”
5. Jimi Hendrix – “The Star Spangled Banner”
6. The Allman Brothers – “Jessica”
7. Edgar Winter Group – “Frankenstein”
8. Led Zeppelin – “Moby Dick”
9. The Who – “Sparks”
10. Stevie Ray Vaughn – “Little Wing” (more…)

Whose bracelet-covered wrist is this? The next Rolling Stone cover star, that’s who. We’ll be back tomorrow with another clue (and on Wednesday the truth will be revealed, along with an excerpt of the cover story), but for now, guess away.

If Slash’s upcoming Slash: The Autobiography lives up to even half the potential of this excerpt, the former Guns N’ Roses and current Velvet Revolver guitarist may have penned the most lurid, filthiest rock memoir ever. We feel like we should go to rehab just from reading about Slash’s drug-stained memories of Guns N’ Roses as they prepared to journey into the dark abyss that resulted in Use Your Illusion I & II. It’s not all about drugs and Axl Rose’s unpredictable mood swings: Slash infuses this excerpt with hysterical vignettes about his life as a rocker in late-Eighties LA. For example, Slash secretly dated but was unable to bed famed porn star Traci Lords; ultimately, that relationship ended after Slash failed to come down from a two-day crack binge in time for a date with Lords.

And that’s just one anecdote in a chapter chock full of every possible rock cliché you can think of. Groupies offering the entire band sexual favors? Got it. Slash asking the contractor who was working on his bathroom if he wants cocaine? Yep. Drummer Steven Adler secretly using the recording studio’s butter tray to disguise his vices? That’s there. This lone excerpt has it all, including Slash’s drug-fueled paranoid dash when he thought he was being chased by the Predator from the Schwarzenegger movie, which forced him to purchase an arsenal of weapons that even T.I. would deem excessive. One thing’s for certain: This autobiography will probably rock a whole lot louder than Chinese Democracy.

Related Stories:

• More “Chinese” Water Torture: Guns N’ Roses Album Out in 2008?
• Guns N’ Roses in Rolling Stone: The Cover Stories
• Tales of a Rock-Star Love Affair: Slash’s Wife Talks Groupie Antics, Finding Hubby in Rolling Stone

Famous Connecticut resident 50 Cent caused a stir in the relatively quiet city of Bridgeport on Friday as mayor John Fabrizi declared it 50 Cent Day and bestowed the MC with the key to the city. 50 posed with a giant check for $25,000 that he donated to community center (”I bet if we put another zero on there, Curtis wouldn’t miss it,” the mayor joked), spoke to a group of high school students about being Fifty (”A lot of times people mistake my confidence for arrogance,” he said) and even granted one young girl’s request for a hug. And what of his “feud” with Kanye West? “His label and my label are both owned by Universal Music Group,” was the reply.

• Deborah Harry has given her blessing for Kirsten Dunst to play the Blondie frontwoman in an upcoming, Michel Gondry-directed Blondie biopic. Despite the message board protests to Dunst’s casting, Harry insists Dunst is a “sweetie who is “probably capable” of filling her new-wave shoes. The film is still in pre-production.

• It’s nice to know some of the U.S. budget might not going to the Iraq War: A few key members of the White House, namely deputy press Tony Fratto, downloaded copies of Radiohead’s In Rainbows.

• Strange collaboration alert: OutKast’s Big Boi and actor/”rapper” Will Smith are teaming up to produce a new television comedy series called Uncle Rudy.

• There’s nothing overtly David Bowie-ish about Target’s new Bowie-inspired clothing line, but we’re still totally purchasing the entire ensemble (except maybe Look 6).

• Just when it seemed like Across the Universe would be the first flop for the Beatles since, well, ever, it turns out teenage girls nationwide are now frantically texting one another to go see the semi-new musical, thanks to a soft spot for actress Evan Rachel Wood and Lennon/McCartney songs. The film finally appeared on the box office top ten this past week.

Billy Corgan loves this country. He doesn’t just love this country, he LOVES this country!! (The exclamation points his, not ours). In an enormous blog (or as BC calls it “Blob”) post on the Smashing Pumpkins Web site, Corgan waxes poetic about everything from Uncle Sam living in a timeshare in Trinidad to Epcot Center in Orlando to why his band doesn’t play that many Siamese Dream songs in concert. In a mere 1,156 words, Corgan manages to say everything and nothing at the same time in a bizarro stream-of-consciousness blur that would rival James Joyce’s Ulysses were it a tad more, you know, literary.

Making the labyrinthine post more confusing is the strange visual aids Corgan intersperses throughout the text. A picture of the Statue of Liberty in a snow globe (a nod to Zeitgeist’s cover?), a twenty-four minute YouTube video about Disneyland, and a photo of the puck commemoratively being dropped before an empty Colorado Avalanche/Phoenix Coyotes hockey game. Corgan does make momentary sense when he confronts a fan’s question regarding the lack of Siamese Dream songs on the setlist, to which Corgan replies: “’this is not a reunion tour’ (more…)

Folks in Ottawa had something more to celebrate this weekend than their hockey team’s spot atop the NHL: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band brought their Magic show to Canada’s capital last night. During the six-song encore, the Arcade Fire’s Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, fresh from their NYC concert last weekend, unexpectedly joined Bruce and the E Streeters for a pair of songs. First up was “State Trooper,” from Nebraska, which Arcade Fire themselves had covered in the past. Springsteen’s live performance of “State Trooper” marked the first time that song had been played live by the E Street Band since the Born in the U.S.A. tour over twenty years ago. Next, Springsteen tried his hand at a cover of Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible track “Keep the Car Running,” (and surprisingly not the more Springsteen-esque “Antichrist Television Blues”), which marked the first time in over seven days that Arcade Fire performed “Keep the Car Running.” The Magic tour continues tonight in Toronto, and we’re already wildly speculating which Canadian will guest tonight during the encore. Feist maybe, or Alanis Morissette? Perhaps Godspeed You! Black Emperor? Check out a clip of “Keep the Car Running” after the jump. (more…)

About three minutes into Jon Bon Jovi’s first stint as host of Saturday Night Live, woozy bandmate Richie Sambora — somehow on furlough from the same Utah rehab facility that until recently has housed Lindsay Lohan — screwed up his second of two lines. Jon recovered with grace (see above video), but there was nothing classy about keyboardist David Bryan’s bedazzled, off-the-shoulder, school-librarian sweater (thankfully not pictured above).

Here’s two words you thought you’d never hear in the same sentence: “Kanye” and “modesty.” At this weekend’s BET Hip-Hop Awards, Kanye West, a noted award-show loser, actually won the Best Hip-Hop Video award for his Daft Punk-infused, anime-inspired clip for “Stronger.” When West came to the podium to accept his award, he uncharacteristically told the audience on hand (and the viewers at home when the ceremony airs this Wednesday, October 17th) that UGK’s “International Players Anthem” was more worthy of the award, and told UGK and OutKast’s Big Boi, who features on the track, to come onstage (”I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to win an award I shouldn’t win,” he said). (more…)