What happened to my New Orleans Saints last night? Ugh. Although not as bad as how Alabama is feeling I guess…..The guys from Blacklite District stopped by yesterday. As they were waiting for the interview to begin, with the lights out in our green room, the poor fellas fell asleep! Never had that happen before! But I guess you catch a cat nap when you can in rock and roll! Or that’s what happens after a night on the town in NYC. Good guys who are loyal hardDrive and hardDrive XL listeners to X Rock 101-1 & 103-5 in South Dakota! Love that! Check them out on the shows early next month…Stone Sour and Pop Evil announced a tour that kicks off Jan 14th in Orlando and ends on Feb 15th in San Antonio. See Road Rage for complete deets!….Metallica‘s reps sent around a press release yesterday saying the band has added a couple more dates to their European summer festival schedule, including Sonicsphere in Knebworth, England over the 4th of July weekend. They also have a week or so of dates in early June doing the usual big festivals in Europe. So, in the Metallica Bowl: Europe 7, USA 0. Now this morning on Blabbermouth comes this news: According to The Detroit News, Metallica will not reprise its two-day Orion Music + More festival in Detroit, MI next year. A spokeswoman for promoter C3 Presents confirmed the festival will take a year off, due to the band’s commitments to the previously mentioned festivals during the time period Orion was held the last two years. The event may return in 2015, C3’s spokeswoman said, although it is unclear whether it will return to Detroit. Frontman James Hetfield told us it difficult to predict if Orion could be an ongoing annual event. “You never know with adventures like this,” he said. “But we also know, and history tells us, that you’re not gonna break even for a few years. So that’s the goal. Our goal is to make a cool event, get some cutting edge bands in front of a lot of people and break even with it. That would be great.” So now let’s consider this: after spending beaucoup bucks on their 3-D movie, and doing these shows, perhaps they are going to stay home the rest of the time to work on their next album??? Oh, let’s hope so!….I was sorry to read this last night. Pulse of Radio reports Andrew Youssef, the Nine Inch Nails “superfan” who Trent Reznor called from the stage at a show in Las Vegas because he was too ill to attend the concert, has died at the age of 38 from colon cancer. According to Rolling Stone, Youssef died on Saturday (Nov 30th). In a post at the Facebook fundraising page NIN Fans for Andrew Youssef, his brother Pat wrote, “He was surrounded by his family and loved ones and went peacefully . . . I can honestly tell you, that your efforts and love have made a big difference for the family and Andrew.” Youssef, a pharmacist who worked freelance as a concert photographer for California newspaper OC Weekly, made headlines after Reznor did a Facetime call with him onstage during NIN’s Las Vegas concert on Nov 16th and dedicated the song “In This Twilight” to him. Youssef had stage four colon cancer and had written about his battle with the disease in Last Shot, his OC Weekly column. Reznor began following Youssef on Twitter in August. The two soon became friends and had lunch together when Nine Inch Nails was rehearsing for its current tour in Los Angeles. Youssef penned his last column on October 10th after attending those rehearsals, writing, “One of my many favorite moments was being able to eat with Trent and talk about everything from Breaking Bad to my journey fighting colon cancer and how I refuse to give up without putting up a fight. Those moments are something I will always cherish.” At press time, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails had not issued any official statement about Youssef’s death….In another sign of fan love, a fan with extremely long dreadlocks got his head shaved onstage by Eddie Vedder during Pearl Jam‘s concert in Spokane, Washington this past Saturday (Nov 30th). Vedder noticed the fan holding a sign that said he would cut off his hair if Pearl Jam performed “Brain Of J.” The group obliged and the man was brought onstage, where Eddie went to work with a handy clipper. The show itself was Pearl Jam’s first in Spokane in over 20 years. (Jambase)….My boys in Korn have posted a recap of their recent induction in to the Guitar Walk of Fame, which happened out in LA back on Oct 8th in conjunction with the release of their 11th album, The Paradigm Shift. They were inducted by Rob Zombie and John 5. Zombie said, “About 20 years ago I remember flipping on MTV and seeing this band called Korn. 20 years later they’re still constantly reinventing themselves, reinventing the wheel . . . There’s not a lot of spectacular bands who have survived the past twenty years. Korn is definitely one of them.” Check out a brief video recap here….. Set your DVR for Friday, Dec 16th at 11:35 PM ET/PT/10:35 PM CT for ABC-TV’s Jimmy Kimmel Live for Megadeth who will be the guest performer of the evening!….Former My Chemical Romance guitarist Frank Iero has announced details of his two-song solo release titled for jamia . . . , which includes covers of Johnny Cash and the Ronettes and is set for a December 10th release digitally and on limited edition vinyl. Vinyl pre-orders will begin on Friday (Dec 6th). Iero wrote at his blog about the EP, saying, “I recently recorded 2 songs for my wife’s birthday. i have decided to release these songs and dedicate my first ep to her.” (Alt Press)….Blabbermouth also reported my friends Alter Bridge will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Jan 6 with the release of “Alter Bridge X”, a massive, 27-disc box set that will be limited to just 3,000 copies worldwide. The set will include the band’s four studio albums, along with DVD, Blu-ray, and vinyl audio copies of “Live From Amsterdam” and “Live At Wembley”, including a 3D version of the latter. Also in the box will be every webisode to date, hours of unreleased interviews and documentary footage, a coffee table book, a signed poster, and much more. The complete set will contain 16 DVDs/Blu-rays, seven CDs and four vinyl discs. The hardcover coffee table book will contain more than 100 pages of exclusive photos spanning the group’s decade-long career. The 3,000 copies will be split between 1,500 for Europe, 1,000 for the U.S. and 500 for the rest of the world. Any copies that remain unsold after a pre-order period will be offered for general sale. The second teaser for “Alter Bridge X” — an intimate behind-the-scenes piece from the upcoming tour documentary that will be included in the box set — can be seen here….Happy 65th today to “The Prince of Darkness” Ozzy Osbourne! God bless you, Ozzy!
