Slayer, Megadeth Tour Canceled For Medical Reasons

The headbanging Araya, known for aggressively swinging his long mane of hair while performing, began experiencing back problems while on the band's Australian/New Zealand/Japanese tour last October. In spite of his rapidly increasing pain and discomfort, he carried on with the tour, but immediately upon returning home saw an orthopedic specialist who diagnosed a Cervical Radiculopathy. The rocker initially did not want to take the major surgery route, so the specialist recommended a series of minimally-invasive procedures. While those procedures have resulted in some improvement, Araya continues to deal with intermittent bouts of severe pain, numbness and muscle spasms. The surgical procedure that Araya will undergo, called an Anterior Cervical Discectomy with Fusion, is a relatively routine practice and the recovery rate is excellent. - more on this story

Howard Stern Side Kick Attempts Suicide By Stabbing- Zakk Wylde Inks New Deal, Eyes June Release- Red Hot Flea Market Guitars- Great White Fire Update- and more

Rolling Stone kicks us off today with this disturbing news: Howard Stern Show sidekick Artie Lange is in the hospital after reportedly stabbing himself nine times this past weekend in an apparent suicide attack, the New York Post reports. more

Blabbermouth had this Wylde news: Barbaranne Wylde, wife and co-manager of Black Label Society frontman Zakk Wylde, has confirmed that the band has inked U.S. deal with E1 Music , the label formerly known as KOCH Records (as Blabbermouth.net first reported on January 6). Tentatively due in June, the group's next album will be recorded during January/February at Zakk's new studio more

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea discovered his students at the Los Angeles' Silverlake Conservatory Of Music were using cheap instruments, so that's why he's launching his own line of "affordable" bass guitars dubbed Fleabass. If you consider $500 affordable. more

Great White fire settlement update: A federal judge overseeing lawsuits stemming from a Rhode Island nightclub fire that killed 100 people endorsed a $176 million settlement Thursday, bringing survivors and victims' relatives closer to receiving money and moving years of arduous legal wrangling toward a final resolution. more

Flogging Molly is gearing up to release their Live At The Greek Theatre concert DVD and double CD set on March 2nd. The show was recorded on September 12th, 2009 in Los Angeles, CA with eight high definition cameras more

So what does Jake White have up his sleeve for 2010? He's doesn't even seem sure: "It would be a mistake for me to premeditate anything, even in the next six months, to say what I'm going to do," White told Rolling Stone. "I honestly could be working on a White Stripes [album] in the next two weeks. I have no idea if that is going to happen. And the same with The Dead Weather. I'd rather live like this without a calendar in front of me." more

Jeff Beck has just announced a string of his own UK shows for later in the year. And he'll have a new album out in time. more

Rise Records is proud to announce the launch of its FREE iPhone Application. With this free app, you'll be able to stream music, buy albums and songs, and see when a Rise band is playing near you. Download the app here

Antiquiet has selected their top 50 albums of the past decade, check it out here

Monsters Of Folk have begun work on their second album.The supergroup – which is made up of Bright Eyes Conor Oberst, My Morning Jacket's Jim James, M Ward and Mike Mogis – announced the news via Twitter. more

Prior to touring Europe with Parkway Drive, California hardcore outfit The Warriors will tour the West Coast. more

On February 26th, Ear Music will release a triple disc (two CDs and one DVD) set from Savatage - Still The Orchestra Plays - Greatest Hits Volume 1 & 2. more -

Linkin Park's Rebellious New Game

Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda took to his web blog on Wednesday to tell fans about a new way to experience the band's music: via a new game for iphone/ipod touch. No word yet on a release date, but we're told is it will be soon. Plus it will include a new Linkin Park song. And while Mike doesn't name the game, going by a graphic on his blog it looks like it will be called "8-bit Rebellion."

Here is what he had to say about the app: Many years ago, the world existed in 8-bit harmony...until PixxelKorp arrived. Now, underground forces are assembling to undo the evil corporation's mass-brainwashing campaign. You may be our only hope to lead the rebellion to victory!
The new Linkin Park game is on the way. I just got a new test-build of the game, and it's looking great. As you would expect, my bandmates and I worked hand-in-hand with the design team to create the look and content of the game. For fans of my art: you'll see some new and familiar characters come to life in this 8-bit-meets-hi-res virtual world.

In the game, you have been chosen by the rebellion to solve a mystery. Items have been stolen from the six leaders of the rebellion. Collecting these items is the rebellion's only hope to thwarting the plans of the evil PixxelKorp. - more on this story

Guitar Hero Add A Diversity of Songs This Month

Guitar Hero hits the ground running as it starts 2010 off with a bang and a great selection of new downloadable tracks. Building upon an already vast catalog of downloadable music compatible with both Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, the Guitar Hero music library is providing something for everyone this January.

Fans can look forward music by Vampire Weekend, Creedence Clearwater Revival, up-and-coming blues artists Tyler Bryant, Joe Bonamassa and Scott McKeon and metal bands Shadows Fall, Amon Amarth and Dethklok.

Guitar Hero fans will be able to experience blues music in its most raw and most pure form today with a three song track pack featuring three up-and-coming blues masters. The New Blues Masters Track Pack will allow players to jam to Tyler Bryant's "Who I am," experience the American blues-rock styling's of Joe Bonamassa with "Lonesome Road Blues," or rock out to "Broken Man" by Scott McKeon. - more on this story

Angels and Airwaves Free Album Details

In a recent Modcam, Tom DeLonge revealed the tracklist for the new Angels and Airwaves album LOVE, according to AbsolutePunk.

The site reports that album will be offered as a free download and will be followed up with a physical release that contains 30 extra minutes of music used in the LOVE movie.

Track Listing 1. The Flight of Apollo 2. It Hurts So Badly 3. Young London 4. Epic Holiday 5. Clevor Love 6. Triumphant 7. Hush 8. Dear God 9. Hallucinations 10. Atomic 11. Seque (sunshine) - AbsolutePunk

Megadeth Planning Headlining Tour

Slayer fans got bad news on Thursday when the band had to pull the plug on their upcoming American Carnage tour with Megadeth and Testament due to Tom Araya back surgury. While it won't quite be the same, Megadeth are planning to tide fans over while they wait for the makeup tour this summer with a headlining tour of their own this spring.

Not many details have been released but Megadeth had this to say: While disappointed by the tour's delay, Megadeth are concerned for Araya and wish him a speedy recovery.

Megadeth are currently scheduling a U.S. headline run for March and April, and are rescheduling the American Carnage tour for Summer '10. Anyone who has purchased an American Carnage ticket can hold onto it until the new dates are announced. -

Billy Corgan Starting Label That Will Feature The Germs, The Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Electric Prunes, Starchildren and more

Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan is not only hard at work on new music of his own; he's busy inking bands to be on a brand new label. The eclectic label will feature a diverse roster ranging from underground punk legends The Germs to 60s psychedelic rockers The Strawberry Alarm Clock as well as The Electric Prunes, Starchildren, Fancy Space People and YaHoWha 13.

The announcement was made in the following blog entry on Wednesday: A quick update on the Pumpkins recordings for Teargarden By Kaleidyscope: We have 5 songs mixed and another song is tracked and ready to be mixed. Song number 2 should be ready for download within the next 2 weeks. I will let you know when we have a solid date.

Billy and I are happy to announce the birth of our record label! The name of the label will be made public soon. (We need to make sure that we have the name rights before we can announce it.) We are very excited to be collaborating with amazing artists that have made a huge impact on the underground music world... From the psychedelic garage rock of the 60's and the punk rock insanity of the 70's and 80's to the post-punk Pleiadian power-pop that is now. - more on this story

Muse TV Rendezvous This Weekend

Muse have announced a US Airing of A Seaside Rendezvous which according to Wikipedia was a 2009 duo of concerts by English alternative rock band Muse.

Held at The Den in Teignmouth, Devon, the town in which the band's members spent their childhoods and began their musical careers, the homecoming concerts were the band's first shows in the town for 15 years.

Now US Muse fans can tune in to VH1 this Friday (8th Jan) at 23:00 PST/EST to see the band's performance at their homecoming show in Teignmouth last September. In case you miss it, the show will also be aired on Palladia on Saturday (9th Jan) at 21:00 PST/EST! - more background here

Demon Hunter Set March Release For New Album

Demon Hunter will release The World Is A Thorn on March 9, 2010 in-stores and online. The band's fifth album follows the landmark documentary 45 Days, last year's Live In Nashville collection and a catalog of landmark albums that have made the band one of the most important in the genre.

The World Is A Thorn was produced by the band's longtime collaborator Aaron Sprinkle (Acceptance, Anberlin, The Almost) and mixed by powerhouse producer Jason Suecof (All That Remains, Trivium). It's a pairing emblematic of how skillfully Demon Hunter has always blended metallic might with melody.

It's a well-worn cliche these days for a band to say their new album is "our heaviest but also our most melodic," but Demon Hunter delivers in spades with this release. Songs like "Descending Upon Us," "Lifewar" and the title track are by far the most aggressive of the band's career, "This is the Line" and "Collapsing" are a couple of the fist-pumping but still hard-driving anthems and "Driving Nails" is one of two ballads on the album the likes of which their fans have come to both expect and cherish. - more on this story

The Brian Jonstown Massace Asks Who Killed Sgt. Pepper?

The Brian Jonestown Massacre is back and set to release their tenth studio album, Who Killed Sgt. Pepper? on February 23rd.

The 13-track album was recorded throughout 2009 in Iceland and Berlin and features Spaceman 3 legend Will Carruthers on bass, vocalist Unnur Andrea Einarsdottir and a variety of international musicians contributing textures not previously heard on a BJM album. It is to be released on bandleader Anton Newcombe's own label, "a recordings LTD", distributed though Red Eye.

The album marks the return of guitarist/vocalist Matt Hollywood, an original member/co-founder of the band who helped write some of the BJM's classic material from their early albums (Strung Out In Heaven, Their Satanic Majesties Second Request, Take It From The Man, Spacegirl & Other Oddities, Give It Back) as well as penning the infamous dig at the Dandy Warhols, "Not If You Were The Last Dandy on Earth". - more on this story

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