Rock Report 1/5/22

This week, Samsung Electronics will unveil a “smart guitar” system known as ZamStar at the consumer tech trade show CES 2022, according to Guitar World. The convention takes place Jan. 5–8 in Las Vegas.

As shown in clips on a ZamStar demonstration website from the South Korean electronics corporation, the integrated ZamString electric guitar features a custom fretboard that contains built-in LED lights on each fret, evidently in a manner that will allow new players to follow visual instructional cues from them.

After first canceling his New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day shows in Las Vegas, legendary Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth has now nixed the entirety of his Vegas residency, which was intended to serve as his final live performances before retirement.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Roth confirmed the cancelation of the residency yesterday (Jan. 3), per a representative at the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay, the venue where the singer’s curtain call was set following what was supposed to be a slate of shows throughout January.

The lawsuit over Nevermind‘s album art that Spencer Elden lobbied against Nirvana was dismissed by a judge on Monday (Jan. 3) after Elden, the 30-year-old man photographed for the album cover when he was a baby, missed a deadline to file an opposition in the case.

Elden (pictured above) had until Dec. 30 to refile after members of the defunct grunge band and their related business entities sought a dismissal two weeks ago. They said Elden had spent the last three decades profiting from his celebrity as the “Nirvana Baby” and that the suit was past the statute of limitations.