Dave Mustaine published the following message on Megadeth Forums concerning Metallica’s induction in to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame:

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Holt crap! One down, 10 to go already. I have a feeling this year is going to fly by faster than 2008. Today I’m supposed to be in Atlanta Georgia covering Scion Rock Fest. Due to my desire to move back to upstate NY I have decided that I need to save some money for the big move and going to Scion Rock Fest would put a big dent in my savings.

Lamb Of God

• The new album is out and in case you haven;t picked it up yet, spend the extra dollar and buy the deluxe edition that comes with “The Studio Experience”. The Studio Experience is just like the Sacrament tour edition that comes with the individual tracks to play with on various recording programs. Have fun with it.
• Some of the Escape The Plague codes didn’t make to the CD’s. LOG left this message:
  • If your copy of the album didn’t include a code, please email us at escapetheplague@hotmail.com along with your full name, city, state, the store and which version you purchased and we will supply you with a replacement code.
• The latest edition of Revolver Magazine has a great read on lamb OF God and a lot of other content in it worth spending a few bucks on it.
• Enter my No Fear Contest for a Chance to win some No Fear gear and the new Lamb Of God. Follow the link in that post to find out how you can win trip to see Lamb Of God anywhere they stop on the No Fear Tour.

God Forbid

• I can’t get over how much I love this new Earthsblood album. You can save a few bucks by checking to see if your local Wal Mart is carrying it. I got mine for 9 bucks there. It also comes with a live cd from The Starland Ballroom in NJ. Don’t think I’m kissing these guys asses for whatever reason, this album is just that good in my opinion. I have no affiliation with God Forbid or Century Media.

Mastodon

• I’m kind of upset because I’m going to miss Mastodon at Scion Rock Fest. The new album is an amazing progress and it’s just what they said it is, more of a classic rock feel, but in a great Mastodon way. After hearing it I decided that I haven’t heard nearly enough Mastodon so I downloaded Leviathan, Remission and Call Of The Mastodon on iTunes. I probably could have used that money for Scion, but damn. I have Blood Mountain and just never got around to giving the other album a good listen. I’ve tried before but I have to stop sampling from listening stations in FYE because they really suck and don’t give you a good feel for the music. I’ve been missing out on these great Mastodon albums. I’ll get more in to Crack The Skye closer to the release date.
• Enter the Mastodon contest for a chance to win a Gibson guitar and other cool prizes.

Lastly

• Exodus. If you’re in to old school thrash metal and you’ve never listened to Exodus Bonded By Blood…SHAME ON YOU!

Do you think Shawn Crahan is a fan of Baseball.The only reason I ask is because I always see him carrying around that baseball bat in photos. I mean I know he beats on the kegs and shit while on stage, but he also has it for photo shoots. I’m just wondering if he carries it everywhere like he does his camera. Like just in case he comes across a batting cage on tour, he always has his lucky aluminum slugger with him. Also does he use performance enhancing drugs like A-Rod and Clemens? I’m just sayin’.

Image: PRPhotos.com

I misunderstood last week that this was coming out last Friday. Either I read the information I was given wrong or they just pushed it back a week. Whatever, it doesn’t matter because it’s here now. Enjoy Sacrifice For The Slaughtergod from Skeletonwitch. If you like the video and song, pick up the album Beyond The Permafrost.

But I’ve been learning to love it. First it was Dimmu Borgir that I kind of got in to and then Immortal. Then I started getting in to some Blackened Death Metal, which is like the best of both worlds if done right. My latest addition is Aeternus’ Beyond The Wandering Moon. I found this CD today for $4.99 used and I sampled it and while the vocals are kind of mixed low, the music is astounding. I like it because it has some slower stuff that I don’t normally hear in black metal. After looking in to it, this is a re-release on Candlelight records. To the long time Black Metal advocate this may not be anything new or exciting, but it’s new to me. While I may not listen to black metal very often, it’s great to find something that I can listen to every now and again without having to listen to the same band.

Image: Amazon

The beginning of Metallica’s career they played many covers and even recorded some on The $5.98 EP, Garage Days Re-Revisited. Again in 1998 they released the same track on that Ep and a bunch more that were great version of the original. If you ever want to hear the originals of those songs there are two fairly inexpensive compilations out there called The Metallic-Era that have been out for quite some time now. Metallic-Era Vol. 1 has the songs they covered in the early days and Vol. 2 has some of the songs they covered later on and a cover of Metallica’s Master Of Puppets from Holocaust. People praise the Vol. 1 but they say Vol. 2 is not as good. If anything Vol. 1 is worth it and you might find it under 10 bucks.

Metallica-Era Vol. 1

1. Let It Loose-Savage
2. Sucking My Love-Diamond Head
3. Killing Time-Sweet Savage
4. Am I Evil-Diamond Head
5. Blitzkrieg-Blitzkrieg
6. The Prince-Diamond Head
7. The Small Hours-Holocaust
8. Helpless-Diamond Head
9. Crash Course In Brain Surgery-Budgie
10. The Wait-Killing Joke
11. Breadfan-Budgie
12. So What-Anti Nowhere League

Metallic-Era Vol. 2

1. Overkill – Motorhead
2. It’s Electric – Diamond Head
3. Dirty Money – Savage
4. Stormchild – Jaguar
5. Loverman – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
6. Evil – Mercyful Fate
7. Tuesday’s Gone – Lynyrd Skynyrd
8. Master Of Puppets – Holocaust
9. The Small Hours – Holocaust
10. Too Late Too Late – Motorhead
11. Curse Of The Pharohs – Mercyful Fate
12. Astronomy – Blue Oyster Cult

Images: Amazon.com

The Number 12 Looks Like You? I hope their tunes are better than their name. Someone enlighten me, please. Scale The Summit are heading out with Protest The Hero to support their latest release Carving Desert Canyons. If you haven’t checked that out yet, do so. Also check out their last album Monument, which is a killer instrumental album by the band. I’m not sure who’s opening for who. It also looks like Misery Signals will be a part of this tour too.

• 2/27 – Houston, TX – Warehouse Live (Cd Release Party)
• 4/17 – Denver, CO – The Marquis Theater
• 4/18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Avalon
• 4/20 – Seattle, WA – El Corazon
• 4/21 – Portland, OR – Satyricon
• 4/23 – San Francisco, CA – Lims
• 4/24 – Los Angeles, CA – The Knitting Factory
• 4/25 – San Diego, CA – Soma (side stage)
• 4/26 – Anaheim, CA – Chain Reaction
• 4/27 – Phoenix, AZ – The Clubhouse
• 4/28 – Albuquerque, NM – The Launchpad
• 4/30 – Dallas, TX – The Door
• 5/1 – San – Houston, TX – Java Jazz

Image: Amazon.com

The End Records recently sent me one of the bunk copies of Dir En Grey’s “A Knot Of” DVD. When I say Bunk I mean it’s one of the defective copies that has the DVD Menu screwed up so you have to go directly to the concert footage. I’m not really familiar with this band at all, but they seem to put on a great show. I would probably enjoy it more, but I honestly can’t understand a damn word the singer, Kyo is saying, but he’s got some insane vocal range. Here is more information from The End Records press release:

On April 28th, 2009, a brand new DVD will be available from DIR EN GREY through THE END RECORDS’ mail order, THE OMEGA ORDER. The DVD, entitled Shinkiba, will be available as a Japanese import only, and in two versions– a standard edition, as well as a limited edition with an alternate cover and two bonus discs. Information and tracklistings for both versions are below. DIR EN GREY guitarist Kaoru comments:

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Starting this Saturday at Scion Rock Festival (Still not 100% sure if I’m going or not) Scotland’s pirate metal band Alestorm arises from the depth of Davey Jones’ locker and takes the waves to North America for a tour. Yeah, I know…too much pun there, right? They do enough of that on their own. Anyway here are some tour dates if you want to see some Pirate Metal Live. Alestorm with Tyr and Suidakra. This album cover of their Captain Morgain’s Revenge album cover reminds me of a movie I saw on Chiller the other night called Jolly Roger. It was a Zombie/Pirate movie that I couldn’t bare to watch because of the sheer cheesiness of it all.

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Do we really need more masked or make-up bands in Metal? We have Mushroomhead, Slipknot, Gwar, Marilyn Manson and almost every Black Metal band and we had Motorgrater, Mudvayne and members of Limp Bizkit. I may have missed some and don’t say KISS, I consider them strictly rock these days. Now in the last year or so the Hollywood Undead have rapped their way in to the rap/metal scene (Is there such a scene?). Obviously kids are eating this shit up because according to Headbanger’s Blog they have sold over 180,000 copies of their album, Swan Songs. Obviously I’m not impressed and it’s kind of disheartening when you see one of your favorite bands that does have great musical talent barely selling over 10,000 after 6 months, but these skid marks are selling like crystal meth in a trailer park. (No offense to any of my trailer park, meth-head readers.)

So who’s buying this garbage? Is it the hardcore Slipknot fans also known as “Maggots”? I seriously want to know, because I don’t see their faces all over the place and I don’t see a lot of press. Seriously, WTF? It’s a cruel, cruel world.

I didn’t want to do it but I changed the video to the same one that was in the link to Thrashhits.com. It’s a better example of the “Metal”/rap. That’s a cool site too so swing on by Thrashhits whenever you can.