However there are a few good ones around the web…and it’s making it kind of hard to find REAL metal news.

• MetalUnderground.com posted that Lars Ulrich received a settlement letter from the RIAA for downloading Death Magnetic. I’ve saw something similar to that awhile back…I just don’t remember where.
• Metalsucks did a pretty good job saying that Wes Borland quit the Limp Bizkit reunion because Fred Durst decided not to tour because he had some movie to direct. Almost believable, until they imply that Marty Friedman replaced him.
• Austin Soundcheck reported that Metallica loved SXSW so much that they bought the name.

Post from: Metal Martyr

Warner Brothers music and Q-Prime Management have jointly filed a lawsuit against Metallica Drummer Lars Ulrich after he admitted to downloading Death Magnetic illegally via an undisclosed file-sharing network. Ulrich claims; “if there is anybody that has a right to download ‘Death Magnetic’ for free, it’s me.”. Warner Bothers Music begged to differ.

That would be awesome if that was really the case! But he did DL DM FF (you’ll figure it out). According to Blabbermouth.net Lars was on That Metal Show on VH1 Classic and the following was said.

“I sat there myself and downloaded [METALLICA's latest CD] ‘Death Magnetic’ [illegally] from the Internet just to try it,” he told Eddie Trunk of VH1 Classic’s hit series “That Metal Show”. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is how it works.’ I figured if there is anybody that has a right to download ‘Death Magnetic’ for free, it’s me. I sat there one night at my house with about six of my friends and a bottle of wine. And what was it called?! [Trying to think of the name of the file-sharing client he used to download the album] We found it — this was like two or three days after ['Death Magnetic'] leaked. I was like, ‘You know what? I’ve gotta try this.’ So we sat there, and thirty minutes later, I had ‘Death Magnetic’ in my computer. It was kind of bizarre.”

I find this all kind of funny because I really wonder if it truly was the first time he ever downloaded anything for free. I also wonder if he downloaded anything else after that like, I don’t know, let’s say every Megadeth album just to be a dick to Dave Mustaine.

So Lars admits to downloading something for free, even if it’s his own work. Do they own the rights to it exclusively or does Warner Bros. music? If Warner Bros music owns the rights, could they actually sue him if they wanted to? I say we send the FBI to his house and see what else he has downloaded since then. He’s no different than anyone else if he’s guilty of illegal downloading, right?

Image: Newscom

Post from: Metal Martyr

According to Blabbermouth, Lar Ulrich told Game Informer Magazine that it wasn’t easy getting Slayer cleared for the game due to lyrical content.

“I’m super psyched we got SLAYER in there,” Ulrich said. “SLAYER’s got to be part of any heavy metal video game. There had been some issues with their lyrics. That gets into a whole slew of stuff like, ‘Microsoft won’t do it if this lyrical content is in there.’ There’s all this bullshit you have to deal with, but we stood up for SLAYER, and we finally got SLAYER cleared like a week ago.”

This kind of comes to a surprise to me after Tom Araya recently made some derogatory statements about Metallica and Death Magnetic, saying such things as:

When I heard the METALLICA album, it didn’t appeal to me at all. And all I could think about was, ‘Man, what happened?’

And

‘Hey, it’s not Rick Rubin. It’s the band. It’s what the band brings to the table. (Refering to Rick Ruben Producing Death Magnetic)

Perhaps Lars didn’t see those comments. What has me wondering is if Metallica are actually covering Slayer, Slayer playing their song or if it’s the Guitar Hero band (Whatever they’re called). Should be interesting. It also states that some of the other bands on the game will be Machine Head, Foo Fighters (I don’t know how the hell they got on a “Metal” video game) and Alice In Chains among other bands.

Post from: Metal Martyr

“The bonding,” he tells Blender magazine. “Two guys in a bathroom stall—it feels like the most important place in the whole world in that moment. I’ve actually gone into bathroom stalls with friends since I quit, just so I still have a little bit of that bonding.”

Seriously, dude? Most people would say the thing they miss about a drug is the way it made them feel, the high they got…not bonding with some dudes/friends, whatever in a bathroom stall. That’s the funniest thing I have seen all week. Of course I originally read this on Blabbermouth and you know those guys are flaming the hell out of Lars right now inciting glory hole jokes and such. Someone mentioned that George Michael might be one of those “Friends”.

Image Source: Newscom.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Post from: Metal Martyr

Holy shit it’s been forever since I did a Metal Shavings bit. I’ve been covering so much press releases and such lately that I have lacked the human side of this site. My opinion is my outlet on things that are wrong, right or indifferent. And like everyone else I have to get shit off of my chest. Let’s see what we have on our platter tonight…

Anheuser Busch settled it’s lawsuits with the families of victims of the 2003 Station nightclub fire, paying 21 million dollars as opposed to going any further with legal actions and fees. How the hell Anheuser Busch was responsible in any way of this tragedy is beyond me. It’s like the stupid woman that didn’t know here McDonalds coffee was hot. The legal and justice system in this country is all f*cked up. Next up to settle is the company that makes the urinal candies…cause you know they are responsible for this somehow as well.

Morbid Angel announced earlier this week that they have added a new guitar player into the mix. That’s cool to take a little pressure off of Trey Azagthoth. It’s also really cool to see the band back to the best line up with David Vincent back on vocals. The new guitarist is Thor Anders Mythren from Zyklon.

You may have saw earlier that All That Remains have names their new recording ‘Overcome‘ as opposed to ‘Fozzy’, which I suggested on Blabbermouth awhile back due to Chris Jericho’s band naming their last album All That Remains. ‘Overcome’, a kind of a generic name for an album in my opinion but I think Phil may have been having some personal problems during the time of recording or whatever and perhaps this is where the name came from. Phil also said it’s a much darker album than The Fall Of Ideals. I don’t give a shit what they name it, it’s sure to kill! ATR!!!

Lars Ulrich’s father says the new cd “Sounds like Metallica” which could mean a number of things but at least he didn’t say “Delete that” like he did on Some Kind Of Monster, which in my opinion they should have listened to him. Whatever…we’ll see.

Hammerfall is releasing a Cover album with a bunch of cool songs on it…Makes me wonder why Dream Theater never did this because whenever you heard them doing covers live, they always sounded amazing. Or did they actually do this? They should.

Tommy Lee will be lending his voice to a half hour animated series called “The Life and Times Of Jimmie Jaxx” which is supposedly based on actual events of his life. So what they are saying is this cartoon is going to be about a mediocre drummer who screws a super-model, makes 4 different career changes in an attempt to stay relevant, and ends back up in the same band that gave him fame but he wanted to abandon but realized that THIS was the only way he could stay semi-relevant….does that make sense?

Well that’s all the cynicism and/or enthusiasm I can expend in one day.

Image ©Metalmartyr.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

According to Blabbermouth.net Metallica’s upcoming cd will be mixed by Greg Fideleman. Lars also mentions a bunch of “nutty” stuff during a conference call.

METALLICA has tapped Greg Fidelman — an engineer/producer who has worked with current METALLICA producer Rick Rubin on albums for the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS, SYSTEM OF A DOWN, SLIPKNOT and AUDIOSLAVE, among others — to mix its much-anticipated new album, due out in September.

During a conference call to promote Banaroo Fest Lars said all sorts of “nutty” stuff:

“We sort of promised ourselves that unlike all the records we made in the ’90s, [which] were just completely stressed-out and just nutty, that we were gonna try and have a little more sane environment — and we’ve actually, surprising mostly to ourselves, been able to keep to that,” Ulrich said, according to Billboard.com. “We’ve pretty much finished the music now, so all the next level stuff is just starting to go down.”

Ulrich said METALLICA wrote 26 songs for the new CD but ended up finalizing about 14 of them with producer Rick Rubin. A total of 11 have actually been tracked for the album, though Ulrich said “length issues” might mean one more has to be eliminated.

“These are long songs … we’re talking seven-minute, eight-minute, nine-minute nutty-ass songs,” Ulrich revealed. “We don’t make them long or short on purpose; you just kind of do what feels natural. We’re not really gonna edit them, (so) we’re gonna lose another one at some point in the next month or so and probably end up with 10.”

Ulrich described the material as “definitely pretty all over the place. There’s a lot of variation, a lot of fast, slow, melodic … kind of hardcore, nutty super-fast speed stuff. It’s a little more like how some of the earlier records were a little more dynamic within the songs.”

Wow. Now that’s just nutty! So they should have all kinds of nutty songs left over to make another nuty record in a year or so after this nutty one. Read the rest of this nutty article at Blabbermouth.net

Post from: Metal Martyr

Rolling Stone Magazine recently caught up with Metallica at Record Store Day on April 19th and conducted an interview with drummer Lars Ulrich. Here is a few excerpts.

RS: You went through four boxes of Sharpies signing autographs on Record Store Day. Can you talk about that marathon meet and greet?
Lars: I think the intense energy and all the love carried us through. I didn’t even take a pee break! It’s probably the longest we’ve gone for as long as I can remember. We used to be like, “Where’s the beer? Fire up the Misfits!” It would be a lot more reckless. Now it’s more personal and less about you and your beer needs. It’s funny. You’re at home chilling out in your backyard, being a parent, and driving your kids around town and you conveniently forget. At 9 a.m., I spent ten minutes wiping the shit off my nine-month old. At 12 p.m., I was in the dog park cleaning up dog shit. Then you get into a car drive down to Mountain View and go, “Holy shit!” By 2 p.m., they’re saying how amazing you are. It’s easy to forget in your own little bubble.

RS: What did you take away from the fans this time?
Lars: I would say the main thing is that it continues to reinforce how varied metal fans are; how difficult it is to define who they are. You are talking about fans that cross all lines of age, gender and cultural backgrounds — it’s not categorizable. You see parents there with their kids who say they finally found something in common through Metallica. I walked away totally humbled, whereas in my twenties and thirties there’s these big black holes. I didn’t remember walking away with that feeling.

RS: You signed a lot of Guitar Hero controllers. Is that cool?
Lars: It’s fucking way cool. Our kids love playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It’s awesome. There’s something really positive coming out of video games. It’s so cool to sit there and have your kids talk to you about Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.

RS:What made Metallica want to be part of Record Store Day?
Lars: It was a no-brainer for us. It took three seconds to decide to do it. The record store has been such a huge part of our lives. When I was twelve, fourteen years old in Denmark, the record store was the Holy Grail and the guy who worked there was my hero. I would go two to three times a week and get Judas Priest, Accept, Triumph; this guy was like a God to me. In America it was places in San Francisco like the Record Vault where we’d sell our demos, T-shirts, hang out.

RS: How would you feel on the day the last record store in America closed?
Lars: I’d do my best to try and be there playing “Fade to Black” as the last song, but I don’t think it’ll come to that. iTunes? I’m there as much as everyone else, I’m not against that. If you look at vinyl, fifteen years ago CDs came out and yet it continues to make more of a comeback. I don’t think you’ll be able to kill the record store, at least not in major cities. I’m worried about the smaller cities. I’m against these soulless megastores.

Read the rest of this interview at Rollingstone.com

Post from: Metal Martyr

Every time this is on I get pissed off. I get tired of hearing Lars and James argue like a couple of school girls. I get tired of hearing James try to sing Seek And Destroy like a female porn star faking an orgasm. What is it going to take to regain my faith in a band I once loved for their relentless rawness. Their chugging riffs. Their  Bad-ass-ness!

Crybabies, bad producers, and drama queen ass-monkeys. Lars crying about how when it was just him and James in his room back in 1982 that everything was cool but once someone else was in the room James was different. when “Dave Mustaine came into the picture it all changed” I’m not sure if that was the exact quote but it was something in the range of that. DUDE, Dave has been out of the picture for over 25 years. STFU already! Saying that you don’t want to be pushed away like Jason? Jason didn’t have to be pushed away. He wanted to make music with a band that wasn’t taking 5 years between records and you gave him a choice, Metallica or nothing and he chose otherwise so what the f*ck does that say about the cohesion of the band?!?

Anyway, I hope to hell that Rick Ruben has been working his hairy anus off, molding this band into the kick-ass machine that it once was. I guess we’ll see what happens in September? I say that with a question mark because I’m not 100% confident that their release date will be spot on and won’t get pushed back again. Let’s hope for the best.

And to all those about to leave some pissed off comment…you know I’m right so why even bother?

Image Source: http://www.amazon.com/Some-Kind-Monster-Metallica/dp/B0002DB58G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1207966502&sr=1-1

Post from: Metal Martyr

1. Dave Mustaine: Although with his musical genius comes the fact that he is one of the most hated metal musicians in the industry. Over the years he has made more enemies than friends. However, I would love to be credited with writing some of the masterpieces he has written.

2. Lars Ulrich: If I was Lars I would kick my own ass.

3. Glenn Benton: A person that takes himself and his music so seriously that he deems it fit to burn an upside down cross into his forehead is as demented as Charles Manson and deserves even less respect. I’m sure your grandchildren will love that, Glenn!

4. Lemmy Kilmister: This guy is more ugly than I am and I just can’t have that.

5. Tommy Lee: I don’t care how big the “T-Bone” is and who it’s been in, Tommy Lee is now in my book the King of Posers and get’s absolutely no respect for abandoning and defiling the Legacy of Motley Crüe.

6. Ozzy Osbourne: The Oz-man has pickled his brain to the point of no return. That and I couldn’t stomach being married to “SHARRROOON!”.

7. Maz Cavelera: I like to wash my hair.

8. Kerry King: I like having hair… the little bit that I keep anyway.

9. Evan Sienfeld: I couldn’t kiss Terra Patrick knowing how many penis’s have been in her mouth…and other places.

10. Sebastian Bach: From Youth Gone Wild to Decrepit Douche bag.

I could probably think of a few more but I think I will leave it at that. Don’t get me wrong. I am a fan and I respect 98% of the musicians on this list. I just wouldn’t want to be them.

Who would you not want to switch places with and why?

Image Source

Post from: Metal Martyr