Nine more days til my overdue vacation! The BF and I are headed to France! I can not wait! Paris et Provence! And no, I will not be attending Hellfest! LOL…..I am stoked about the new music about to be unleashed from our pals Avenged Sevenfold. They’ve posted a snippet to listen to and here it is. (click here) They’ve gone viral with the promotion of the band’s upcoming sixth album. Although a first short snippet of music was posted at the group’s website earlier this month, a second clip has been made a bit more difficult to find. According to Deathbatnews.com, guitarist Zacky Vengeance left a message online which led to a post on the band’s Instagram account, a message, “The true king, Andronikos.” More research led to a YouTube account owned by “AllHailAndronikos” where the second album preview clip was found. Singer M. Shadows told us the new CD was going to be different: “We had a decision to make on this one. The decision was, okay, do we just make a record that everyone expects us to make, or do we just move forward and make another, different record that we feel more comfortable with, and we chose the latter. So right now we’re looking forward to doing something new and exciting and fresh, and hopefully people give it a shot and like it.” Stay tuned for more info soon!…..Well, footage has been posted of the NEW Stone Temple Pilots/Chester Bennington outfit, with special guests Slash and Duff McKagan, performing Mott The Hoople‘s “All The Young Dudes,” at a special event for MusiCares last Thu night in LA. Check out the performance here. Prior to the event, the original members of STP (Dean & Robert Deleo and Eric Kretz) issued this statement: , “Our purpose in taking this action is not to hurt Scott. We want to move forward productively, and Scott’s (Weiland) choices and actions have prevented us from doing that . . . It was beyond time we made some new music, which was impossible in the dysfunctional environment we were in. We’ve lived in it long enough and have decided to move forward with STP. We wish Scott well.” They added “We’re really excited about the new music we’ve been making with Chester, including the song we just released, ‘Out Of Time.‘” The statement concluded, “We love this band and respect everything it means to you. We want to always give you our best and the choice we made is completely in that spirit.” Before the performance last week, Bennington told Rolling Stone about his collaboration with STP, “For us the creative juices have just been flowing – we’ve been writing, we have tons of great ideas. Next week we’re going back in the studio and hammering out some more music.” With Bennington still committed to Linkin Park as well, he said that STP will focus on releasing one song at a time for now instead of trying to record a whole album. He explained, “All we care about is going out, making the legacy as great as it needs to be, as great as people expect it to be, and coming out with new music that lives up to that standard.” I’ve said this before, I could not be more supportive of this move. Scott has been in denial for too many years now and has blown yet another opportunity with the band he helped to found. But you can’t keep up those antics and expect everything to be status quo. The Deleo Bros have been more than patient with him and the straw has broken the camel’s back, AGAIN! Let us know what you think about all this. Email via the link on the home page….Pulse also reports Tool drummer Danny Carey‘s side project, called Volto!, will release its debut album Incitare on July 23rd through the Fantasy/Concord Music Group, according to Loudwire. The seeds of the outfit were planted when Carey began jamming at a small jazz club in Los Angeles with Don Henley touring bassist Lance Morrison and Pigmy Love Circus guitarist John “Volto” Ziegler. The threesome eventually decided to write original music together and record it. Tool guitarist Adam Jones has helped out with the album artwork, while Tool producer Joe Barresi recorded the trio live for the CD. Carey told us a while back that he always thought doing projects outside of Tool had its benefits: “We just kind of look at it as going off on sabbatical, I think, pretty much, and then when we come back from doing our projects like this, it gives us more to offer into the Tool pot. It all feeds off of each other.” ….Metallica has made available a free download of guitarists James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett‘s performance of the National Anthem last month at a San Francisco Giants home game. The rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was part of “Metallica Night” at AT&T Park, which also featured drummer Lars Ulrich throwing out the first pitch and other activities showcasing the Bay Area-based quartet. Watch the performance here and download it here….I’m hearing cool things about the new music Pearl Jam have recorded. And now it sounds like new music is about 6 weeks away! A listing at the radio industry website All Access revealed a July 16th release date for a song called “Mind Your Manners.” The listing, however, has since been deleted. The band has been working on its 10th studio album on and off since last year, indicating it could be finished and out either in late 2013 or early 2014. But there’s been no official word on when a first single could arrive. Hmmmm….System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian has found yet another way to express himself, via a new project he calls “disarming time musical paintings.” Tankian says that the process involves making paintings based around his music, with speakers and MP3 players embedded within the artwork itself. Tankian explains more about the process in a video he’s posted online, using a painting based around his solo track “Notes In Water.” I’ll be speaking with Serj later this week. Got any questions you would like me to ask him? Send them to me via the link on the home page!…Lou Brutus will have Ryan McCombs of Soil on the hotLine as well this week. Drop me an email there too! Heard their new song, “Shine On,” and it’s really good! Glad to see Soil back!….P.O.D. and Flyleaf are doing a month long trek together. They start Jul 13th in Kenosha, WI. See the Road Rage page for more….Today, Kerry King of Slayer turns 49!
