Love three-day weekends, don’t you? But I am over the snow. By Friday, 54 degrees here! Get the shorts out!….Pulse of Radio reports Nine Inch Nails recently canceled a series of June dates in Russia and Eastern Europe, including gigs in St. Petersburg on June 13th, Moscow on the 15th, Kiev on the 17th and Budapest on June 19th, according to Antiquiet. (I thought it was after he saw the report on NBC on how quickly it takes for Russian hackers to get into your smartphone or laptop when you log on in Russia. I’d buy a “burner” for that.) No official reason was given for the Trent Reznor-led act scrapping the shows, but there is speculation that Nine Inch Nails might have been offered a headlining slot at Tennessee’s massive Bonnaroo Festival, which takes place between June 12th and 15th. The official lineup for Bonnaroo is scheduled to be unveiled on Wednesday (Feb 19th). Nine Inch Nails begins a heavy touring schedule on March 1st in Thailand, and will spend most of the spring in Australia, New Zealand, South America and Europe. More North American dates are in the works as well. Meanwhile,watch Nine Inch Nails perform “Came Back Haunted” on PBS and see the show, filmed in November, on Austin City Limits on PBS April 5th…Deftones singer Chino Moreno wants to clear up any confusion over some recent comments he made to Rolling Stone magazine, saying that the band intends to begin working on music for its eighth studio album this year. The timeline of the Rolling Stone article was vague, suggesting that the quintet would not even start writing new songs until early 2015. But Moreno told me that’s not the case: “I think we’re all excited to make some noise together again, so I think right now we’re looking at, planning-wise, of doing that, and hopefully have a record or material to go record by the end of the year or early next year.” Moreno added that getting the band members together requires some advance planning since they all live in different locations now. Moreno himself just moved to Oregon, while drummer Abe Cunningham and keyboardist Frank Delgado remain in the band’s hometown of Sacramento. Guitarist Stephen Carpenter lives in Los Angeles and bassist Sergio Vega is based in New York City. Check out Chino’s other band, Crosses, whose new album is really great and out now….AC/DC will enter a studio in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada this May to begin recording its 16th studio album, according to Blabbermouth. The project will be the first set of new AC/DC material since 2008’s Black Ice album. In addition, the band intends to celebrate its 40th anniversary this year by playing 40 shows in selected cities around the world which are yet to be announced. The plans were revealed by singer Brian Johnson in a surprise phone call he made on Friday (Feb 14th) to a radio station in West Palm Beach, FL. Johnson is a resident of the state. Asked about the group’s plans, Johnson said, “We’ve been denying anything, ’cause we weren’t sure. One of our boys was pretty ill, so we didn’t like to say anything, and we’re very private about things like this, so we didn’t wanna say anything. But I think we’ll be going in the studio in May in Vancouver. Which means, we should be getting ready.” Johnson added, “It’s been 40 years of the band’s existence, so I think we’re gonna try to do 40 gigs, 40 shows, to thank the fans for their undying loyalty. I mean, honestly, our fans are just the best in the world, and we appreciate every one of them. So, like I said, we’ll have to go out, even though we’re getting a bit long in the tooth (laughs).“…Avenged Sevenfold announced a new run for APril and May. See Road Rage! And dates and venues for the 2014 Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour also have arrived in Road Rage….Bullet For My Valentine singer Matt Tuck offered an update on the recording of the band’s fifth album during a recent interview with German program EMP Rock Invasion. Tuck revealed, “We’ve done five songs so far, and they’re sounding very good . . . It’s definitely more aggressive, edgier. It’s definitely stepping back into the heavier side of what we’ve done in the past. And I don’t mean that as in, like, a screaming way… just aggressive music, you know.” Drummer Michael “Moose” Thomas added the song “Raising Hell,” which the band released as a one-off in November, is a good indicator for the rest of the new disc, saying, “That’s kind of like a benchmark for us to (follow). Certain songs or certain parts of songs will catch us, and then that’s the way we wanna write the rest of the record.”….Celebrating birthdays today: Yoko One is 81! and Dr Dre is 49. And Happy Belated 42nd yesterday to Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day.
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