The incomparable Tom Lane e-mails in with this interesting news:

On Dave Marsh's weekly Sirius XM show, "Kick Out The Jams", he picked 5 names he would be voting for on this year's ballot:  Chic, War, Jeff Beck, Stooges, and Run DMC.

Marsh also said that this year's ballot was "flawless" and made a remark about how he opposed the Beastie Boys getting into the Hall.

He also said that he wouldn't vote for Metallica because they are going to get in anyway. 

Marsh's belief that the ballot is "flawless" is probably not shared by anyone else outside of the Nominating Committee, but that's great he's happy with the choices he helped make.

Four out of Marsh's five selections are currently leading Future Rock Hall's 2009 ballot, so he may have a chance to see many of his choices inducted in Cleveland on April 4, 2009.

Thanks, Tom. Check out Tom's top snubbed artists here.

Earlier this year, Alice Cooper talked to Craig Ferguson about his exclusion from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Now his former drummer, Neal Smith (now a "rockin' realtor"), is speaking out about Alice and the politics of the Hall of Fame in a chat with Nightwatcher's House of Rock Interviews:

NHOR : Alice was quoted earlier this year as saying he kind of likes the idea of being blackballed from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Do you think Alice really thinks that, and would you agree with his comments, that it's more of an honor not to be in there than to actually be in there?

NS : Well, I know a little bit about the politics around the hall, so I'm not really at liberty to say anything about that. I think whatever he thinks are his thoughts and opinions. I would like to be in there, but the way I look at it the true band Alice Cooper pissed people off way back then, and apparently we are still doing it. When you think of the things we started then, there's a whole vein of music which didn't exist before us. Everybody from Kiss all the way up to Marilyn Manson. All the bands in between in that vein were one way or another inspired by Alice Cooper. I read, and hear things from people all the way up to this day all the time, that they wouldn't be playing an instrument if it weren't for us.

Steve Vai, the first album he ever learned from beginning to end was 'Love It To Death'. A lot of great musicians, and just that whole vein of music, the shock rock thing, or whatever you want to call it was brought upon by us. And to totally ignore that, and pass it over year after year just surprises me, that's all. My spin on it is if we're blackballed, who needs 'em anyway. I look at it as we're still ruffling feathers after all this time. Somewhere, somebody doesn't set easy with us. But you know what? When we were with Warner Brothers, they were ready to cancel our contract after every single album. We had to renegotiate after every single one. They kept thinking it was a fluke. The only ones who believed in us were us and Shep Gordon, our manager. That was it, and our fans. We had to cut a demo for 'Love It To Death'. It was always a fight and a struggle for us. So the fact that somewhere somebody doesn't like us, that's fine with me. (Laughs)

NHOR : Well, let's face it Neal, the Alice Cooper Band was never one of Rolling Stone Magazine's darlings, which seems to be a criteria to being inducted...

NS : I always said that, the magazine's not called, "Alice Cooper", it's called "Rolling Stone". And bearing in mind with what you just brought up, and I'm not going to elaborate on it much more, but we're talking about that whole San Francisco area there. Which does have a lot of influence on what goes on with the Hall. It's all politics, and there's nothing wrong with The Talking Heads, but when I saw that they got in I said, "You've got to be kidding me". I know they had a couple of hit songs but I can't even really tell you what they are. The Alice Cooper 'Greatest Hits' album is really a greatest hits album. How many records did they sell? I don't know.

I think they should start up a Shock And Roll Hall Of Fame. The Hall Of Fame's cool, I've been there, and it's got some great stuff. The majority of the people who are in there certainly deserve to be in there and it's cool for the fans. And the other question is, if it happens, are they going to put Alice in by himself, or the whole band? That would be the biggest kick in the head for us, if they'd put Alice in by himself. Actually, I've had a couple people I've talked to from the Hall in New York, and they've said, "Believe me, everybody knows the original band was THE band".

NHOR : Do you think that Alice would actually accept an induction without the rest of the original band being voted in as well?

NS : He didn't have any problem accepting the Alice Cooper star on Hollywood Boulevard, did he? He actually had the balls to tell me, "I actually thought of you guys". You thought about us? Gimme a break. We used to walk up and down that street starving every day, day after day, thinking someday we'd have our name there, and it gets there and you're by yourself. That's awful nice you thought about us. I think it's great that it's there, but sometimes it's better to say nothing than to say something that stupid. That band was put together through the blood, sweat and tears of 5 people. Each one of them deserves 100% credit, not just one getting 500% of the credit. That's the reason Dennis is writing a book and I'm writing a book. It's just a factual documentation of what we went through.

Smith's dig at the Talking Heads makes him seem out of touch with what the Hall of Fame is about, but he brings up an interesting point about whether or not the entire group would be inducted, or just Cooper himself.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer's pop music critic, John Soeder, follows the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame about as closely as any journalist out there. He recently offered his take on the 2009 nominees induction chances, summarized below.

Safe Bets: Metallica, Little Anthony and the Imperials, The Stooges

Too Close To Call: Run-DMC, Jeff Beck, Chic

Long Shots: Bobby Womack, Wanda Jackson, War

Soeder's confidence in the induction of Little Anthony and the Imperials is a little surprising, given this is the first time they have been nominated in over 20 years of eligibility.

You can cast your own ballot here and weigh in on the nominations here.

Perhaps the most glaring omissions in the Non-Performer category of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has to be legendary producer Quincy Jones. FoxNews.com reporter Roger Friedman recently asked Jones about why he wasn't in the Rock Hall:

[Jones] told me he'd given up on being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, possibly because Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner hadn't liked it when Jones started Vibe magazine. This week, for the zillionth time, Jones was overlooked despite his enormous contribution to rock, R&B and jazz.

The Wenner blackball is really the only logical explanation for the absence of Jones from the Rock Hall. Given his career, he is certainly deserving of the Non-Performer honor if not the Lifetime Achievement award.

Friedman is a little premature in stating that Jones has been passed over again this year since the Sidemen, Non-Performer, and Lifetime Achievement awards will be announced in January with the inductees in the Performer category. It is still unknown what the selection process is for those other awards, but they are presumably picked by a select few members of the Nominating Committee along with Wenner.

Update: From the comments, Joe has another possible reason for the Quincy Jones snub:

A listing in "The New Book of Rock Lists" (Dave Marsh and James Bernard, 1994, p312), in a subchapter titled "Worst Career Moves", suggests a different reason: Jones was selected to give the speech inducting Neshui Ertegun into the Hall. The speech "said little about Ertegun but a great deal about himself...[mostly] concerning his own qualifications for the Hall. Those twenty minutes probably cost Quincy whatever chance he may have had for induction, at least during his lifetime, since all inductees give speeches and nobody's about to risk sitting through another of his." (Any spelling or grammatical errors are mine.)

The official Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominations for 2009 were announced today. There are six first time nominees this year -- Metallica, Jeff Beck (as a solo artist), Bobby Womack, Little Anthony and the Imperials, War, and Run-DMC. Previously nominated artists back on the ballot are Wanda Jackson, the Stooges, and Chic, who have now been nominated 14 times collectively. Run-DMC are the only artist this time to be nominated in their first year of eligibility. The rest of the artists had been seriously considered by the Nominating Committee in the past and can be found on this list.

Some artists who were left off the ballot are 2008 finalists the Beastie Boys, Donna Summer and Afrika Bambaataa. From the newly eligible artists, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Bon Jovi, and the Smiths are notably absent.

The Rock Hall continues to nominate artists outside of the traditional "rock" genre. This year there was rumored to be a focus on various rock and roll sub-genres, and that seems to have come to fruition. This year's nominees include heavy metal (Metallica), hip-hop (Run-DMC), rockabilly (Wanda Jackson), doo-wop (Little Anthony and the Imperials), funk (War), disco (Chic), guitar rock (Jeff Beck), proto-punk (The Stooges), and R&B (Bobby Womack) -- but still no prog rock (sorry Rush fans!). By nominating a single artist per sub-genre, the Rock Hall Nominating Committee is having the voters basically choose whichever genres most appeal to them.

We would prefer to see a system which allows more nominees each year, where you voters could have a choice between a couple of artists with similar backgrounds. For example, nominate Jeff Beck and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys. The Stooges and the MC5. And on and on. Apparently those discussions and decisions happen behind the closed doors of the Nominating Committee meeting and are kept away from the 500 rock experts on the voting committee.

We'll have more analysis over the next couple of months leading up to the announcement of the five inductees in January, 2009. The ceremony will be held in Cleveland on April 4, 2009. Tickets will be available to the public for the first time ever.

You can cast your own unofficial ballot here!

To comment on the nominations, check out the 2009 Nominees page and go to rockhall.com to read the official press release.

As we suspected back in January, the UK Music Hall of Fame has officially died.

What was it that killed this awards show? Was it the induction of Robbie Williams over Radiohead in 2004 that laid an unstable foundation? Or was the final nail in the coffin the induction of Bon Jovi in 2006, the last ceremony ever? We'll probably never know for sure.

There has been no news on the progress of the (unrelated) UK Rock and Roll Hall of Fame since it was announced in January. Anyone know if it died too?

Thanks, Tom.

Heart are one of the few female-fronted rock bands who consistently mentioned as snubs for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Although they have been eligible since 2001, they have never been seriously considered by the Nominating Committee. Singer-guitarist Nancy Wilson still has faith they'll get in someday:

Wilson adds that she hopes recognition from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame comes next, though she feels it's hardest to come by, especially since they're a female-fronted band.

"It's harder to be taken seriously by the brotherhood. So it might take the Hall of Fame people long to figure it out," she says. "But we're serious about our art, and there's no band like this: an original, authentic, vital rock band. People realize it more now and appreciate it."

Wilson isn't kidding when she talks about the Rock Hall as a brotherhood. Fewer than 15% of the artists who have been enshrined are women or have a woman in their group. Whether or not that's a fair representation of the overall rock artist population, we're not sure. The Rock Hall does like to keep women in mind when making its nominations -- there has been a woman or woman-fronted group nominated every year since the Rock Hall's inception in 1986.

Heart aren't among the artists we're predicting will be nominated this year, but the Nominating Committee has been known to throw curveballs in the past, so anything is possible.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee got together today in New York to hold their annual meeting to determine the 2009 ballot. USA Today has a feature article speculating about who the committee might nominate, and they come to the conclusion that Bon Jovi has the best chance of any of the newly eligible artists:

The closest thing to the Madonnas, R.E.M.s, Van Halens and U2s that have starred at recent inductions is probably Bon Jovi.

Another leading prospect is the late blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, but the rest of the crop — including Cyndi Lauper, k.d. lang, Billy Bragg, and metal extremists Slayer — are more marginal prospects.

Which means the committee will need to turn to holdovers — those previously eligible artists who have yet to gain sufficient support. Among them are previous nominees Chic, Donna Summer and the Beastie Boys, all of whom must confront the "Is disco or rap really rock?" conundrum that regularly polarizes voters and fans.

Bon Jovi is currently leading USA Today's reader poll with 29% of the vote. Rush (15%), Metallica (10%) and Stevie Ray Vaughan (10%) are the other leading artists.