Happy Friday! Got some exciting news to share this morning! First, Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has told Billboard.com in a new interview the band will begin working on its 10th studio album “in a couple of weeks.” He told us after delaying the disc during the past year due to other projects, recording is finally the band’s main priority for the first half of 2014: “We’re pretty excited about it because we’ve been saying, you know, we need to start working on this album, but we’ve been procrastinating greatly with it. I mean, we’ve pretty much come up with every sort of excuse we can to not start work on the album, and we’ve run out of excuses, you know. We pretty much have to work on it now.” Meanwhile, Kirk “Von” Hammett will take some time out for himself in early February and host his first horror convention. The three-day event, called Kirk Von Hammett’s Fear FestEvil, will take place on Feb 6th, 7th and 8th in San Francisco and will feature vendors, “Kirk’s Crypt” private tours, panels, signings, special guest appearances and more. Hammett will also perform at the event, along with hardcore metal acts Exodus, Death Angel, Carcass and Orchid. Metallica will appear at the 56th annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles next Sunday night, Jan 26th, giving a special collaborative performance with Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang. The last time the band performed with classical musicians were their famous “S & M” shows (Symphony & Metallica) back in 1999! I recall that show fondly. I got to talk to conductor/arranger/composer Michael Kamen (RIP) that night and I was a big fan of his first band, The New York Rock and Roll Ensemble, the first group to merge rock and classical music. Anyhow, looking forward to their performance on the Grammys…..Say aloha to Jane’s Addiction for a while. The group is going to be on hiatus for a while as frontman Perry Farrell works on an electronic dance music stage musical called Kind Heaven. Farrell told Rolling Stone that the proposed show, which deals with the sex and drug trades in Thailand, “is a pretty massive undertaking, so Jane’s Addiction is going to take a hiatus. It’ll be a couple of years before you see Jane’s again.” Farrell added that the musical was a “love story with a very modern scenario,” in which a soldier sent by the Thai government to subdue an insurgency falls in love with a female sex worker and runs away with her to a Buddhist monastery. Farrell hopes to open the show in Las Vegas, and recently visited the city to scope out potential theaters for what he envisions as an immersive, interactive production that audience members will walk through. Sounds like a fantasy for sure…..Lots of birthdays this weekend! Today: Happy 5-0 to our First Lady, Michelle Obama, Happy 43 to Bob Ritchie, you know him and love him as Kid Rock, Happy 92 to Betty White, and Happy 72 to Muhammed Ali. On Saturday, my friend Jonathan Davis of Korn (aka J Devil and of Killbot) turns 43! Have a great weekend!
