Winter is way over-rated. Skiers, skaters, sledders. Enjoy!…..I am hoping to get Slash on the hotLine to talk about this because it sounds really cool! The Grammy-winning, iconic guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame artist is heading to music week in Austin during SXSW 2014 to launch SLASHATHON, the first-ever artist-focused “hackathon.” Powered by Geeklist, SLASHATHON is a “hackathon” where developers create applications and technology within a 12-hour period. The music-oriented SLASHATHON will offer developers a unique challenge to create solutions for artists to engage their communities for an album release. SLASHATHON will take place Wednesday, March 12 at Capitol Factory (701 Brazos St., STE 1601, Austin, TX). The SLASHATHON GRAND PRIZE includes a Gibson guitar autographed by Slash, $1,000 dollars, AND the opportunity to have Slash use the winning hack with the release of his new album, coming out in late 2014. The judges for the event will be Slash himself, Bram Cohen, Chief Scientist & Founder of BitTorrent, and Ben Parr, Co-founder & Managing Partner, DominateFund. REGISTER FOR THE SLASHATHON AT: WWW.SLASHATHON.COM. *SXSW badges are not required to participate. APIs available to developers to build with include Aviary, Dolby, Leap Motion, Gimbal, Raspberry Pi, Codio.io, Elasticsearch, Mad Mimi, Yellow API and Lob. Furthr.la, and Geeklist will provide mentorship for all participants. Not sure if you have to be there to participate, but find out more when you hit that site….Yesterday, Avenged Sevenfold posted their new tour with openers Hellyeah! Last time Lou Brutus sat down with guitarist Zacky Vengeance, he told us Avenged Sevenfold is always thinking of ways to make its live show bigger and better for their fans: “You constantly have to go out there and put on a ridiculous show. People are paying a lot of money to see this. They’re staying out late on a work night, they worked hard to save up the money, they’re driving, they’re paying for parking, they’re paying for gas to get to the concert — you’ve got to give them something they’re gonna remember for the next two years until you’re able to play for them again, and when you do play for them again, it has to be better than this time.” See Avenged Sevenfold’s tour in Road Rage….Pulse of Radio reports Nine Inch Nails main man Trent Reznor spoke with New Zealand’s 3 News about his recent performance with Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and Lindsey Buckingham that closed out the 2014 Grammy Awards but was cut short by CBS-TV, leading Reznor to blast the show’s producers on Twitter. Asked how he felt about the experience nearly a month later, Reznor replied, “It was an utter waste of time.” Reznor added that the offer to play was “flattering,” even though he had never been a fan of the Grammys. He also revealed he and Josh Homme had debated whether to appear, finally saying, “The way my head works is to try to approach it from, ‘Okay, if we did do it, what could be the upside?’ . . . But what we weren’t expecting was that level of insult.” Reznor continued, “I can look now and say I should have expected something like that, you know? But, more than anything it was just insulting . . . I don’t regret that we did it, but would I ever — in any situation — ever consider possibly patronizing that event in any form? Absolutely not.” The guy’s got a grudge, eh?…Korn frontman Jonathan Davis told TMZ in a short interview that the recent case of Miranda Barbour, a 19-year-old woman who is accused of killing a man she met through a Craigslist ad, has nothing to do with Satan. Barbour also claims to have killed at least 22 people as a member of a Satanic cult, but Davis isn’t buying it. He said, “They just blame that s*** on the devil cause they’ve been blaming it on the devil forever. It’s got nothing to do with the devil.” Davis was also asked by TMZ if he is still fascinated with serial killers, which led him to purchase actual memorabilia from convicted murderers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy at one point in his life. The singer replied, “I’m past that. It was something I was into at the time cause I worked in a coroner’s office and was doing autopsies and stuff like that.” Davis once told us he’d still be in that business if he wasn’t a musician: “I’d probably be a coroner investigator. I went to mortuary college, you know, and worked in funeral homes and worked at the coroner’s office doing autopsies, but I really wanted to be an investigator. That’s really what I wanted to do, other than be in a band.” True dat. I guess they were in LAX airport when this happened. I see Zac Baird and their tour manager in the shot with JD. Watch it <a href="
” target=”_blank”>here….The now-defunct My Chemical Romance has released the final song recorded by the band, called “Fake Your Death.” The track is taken from the group’s upcoming greatest hits set, May Death Never Stop You, due out on March 25th. The song is available via iTunes and can be heard in the trailer for the album. My Chemical Romance broke up early last year, although the band has still not disclosed the reasons for its split after 12 years and five albums….Guns N’ Roses will return for a second Las Vegas residency, titled “No Trickery! An Evening Of Destruction,” at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino from May 21st through June 7th. A total of nine shows have been confirmed for May 21st, 24th, 25th, 28th, 30th and 31st, along with June 4th, 6th and 7th. Tickets start at $49.50 and go on sale this Friday (Feb 21st) at 1:00 p.m. ET….Pearl Jam‘s Eddie Vedder joined Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band onstage in Melbourne, Australia on Saturday night (Feb 15th) for a performance of AC/DC‘s “Highway To Hell.” Springsteen, who has been opening his Australian shows with the song in honor of the band, told the crowd, “We’re going to have some help opening the show tonight. Let me bring up Eddie Vedder!” Everybody’s getting into the act!…..Happy 66th today to Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath.
