METALLICA Announces Week-Long 30-Year Celebration In San Francisco

METALLICA's official web site has been updated with the following message:

"Thirty years of METALLICA... can you believe it? We think it's cause for a major celebration!

"You've been asking for a while now, 'Just what the hell are you going to do to mark 30 years as a band?' closely followed by, 'Why don't we have more exclusive shows for fan-club members?'



"We've heard you loud and clear and are beyond psyched to announce that the week of December 5, 2011 will be a full-on METALLICA week in the Bay Area, more specifically we will be playing four shows for Met Club members only at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco on December 5, 7, 9, and 10 to celebrate our 30th anniversary. These unique shows will include special guests and events, rare songs, varied set lists, odds and ends, and all the nutty stuff you expect from METALLICA... fun for the entire family!

"Come to the Bay Area and spend the week with us to not only close out 2011 out with a bang, but to celebrate over three decades worth of craziness.

"Participate in the entire week of festivities with special four-pack tickets (one ticket for each of the four shows) and automatic entry into the contests for various other special events, available for the clever price of $19.81 (get it??). If you can't join us for the full week, we'll have individual show tickets too and as you can see we're going back to early '80s ticket pricing (but not the hair!)... single-show tickets will be just $6.00 each. Both four packs and individual show tickets will be available for fan-club members only through a reservation system and we do have to add facility fees, blah, blah. Clubbers can log in for all the details... we're taking reservations through August 8.

"Hope to see you for a week of madness in December!"

Although METALLICA is currently completing work on a surprise collaborative album with Lou Reed, the band is also about to start writing songs for its 10th studio effort on its own. Producer Rick Rubin, who worked with the group for the first time on 2008's "Death Magnetic", told Billboard that he recently met with drummer Lars Ulrich and will return to San Francisco to sit down with the whole band and "explore what the focus is going to be this time around."

Rubin offered a hint of how that initial meeting with the band will go: "I'll ask a lot of questions and we'll probably listen to some of the riffs they've been writing. And usually I'll hear something that will sort of indicate the direction and then we'll talk about it from there."

Rubin did not give a timetable for when he thought METALLICA might begin recording.

The band revealed last month that the "secret recording project" it was working on in May was a collaborative album with Reed, the legendary singer and former VELVET UNDERGROUND frontman.

The project had apparently been in the works since Reed and METALLICA performed together at the 25th anniversary of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame at Madison Square Garden in October of 2009.

METALLICA has not indicated when or how the yet-to-be-titled album will be issued.

Ludicra Calls It Quits

Official statement form their website....Ludicra has officially disbanded. It’s been a great and rewarding ride. We would like to thank all who’ve supported us and been involved.
We have left over items for sale on the official website. The prices have been halved, so hopefully people can enjoy these things instead of them sitting in storage and we can pay our final bills. Thanks.


Ludicra was a black metal band from San Francisco. They originally formed in 1998 as a quartet and later expanded to five members. Ludicra specialize in crustcore-influenced black metal with neoclassical tendencies. Influences include bands such as Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Dødheimsgard, and Bethlehem. The group includes current and former members of other San Francisco-based bands such as Impaled, Hammers of Misfortune, Tallow, Missile Command, Ominum, and punk band Hickey. They have shared the stage with bands including the death metal band Impaled, the post-hardcore/noise outfit Total Shutdown, black metal band Krallice, and instrumental math metal band the Fucking Champs.

COHEED AND CAMBRIA Bassist Released From Jail After Posting Bail

According to BostonHerald.com, COHEED AND CAMBRIA bassist Michael Todd was released from jail earlier today (Monday, July 25) after posting $25,000 bail.
Todd was arrested for armed robbery on July 10 shortly before the band's performance at the Comcast Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts as the support act for SOUNDGARDEN. Todd allegedly walked into a Walgreens in Attleboro, Massachusetts and threatened to blow up the store with what was apparently a fake bomb unless he was given OxyContin. Todd made off with six bottles of the pain pill before police tracked the cab he escaped in. He was arrested outside Comcast Center and officially charged with armed robbery and unlawful possession of prescription narcotics.

Todd, 30, was freed at midnight from the Dartmouth House of Corrections, Bernie Sullivan, spokesman for Bristol Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, told BostonHerald.com.

It was unknown this morning who posted bail for the bassist.

Todd previously left COHEED AND CAMBRIA in 2006 in order to seek treatment for heroin addiction. After a stint in rehab, he returned to the group in 2007.

British singer Amy Winehouse found dead

AFP – 17 mins ago
Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse has been found dead at her flat in north London, police said. She was 27 years old.

The Grammy award-winning soul singer struggled with well-documented drink and drug addictions. Her death is being treated as unexplained.

"Police were called by London Ambulance Service to an address in Camden Square shortly before 4:05 pm (1505 GMT) today, Saturday 23 July, following reports of a woman found deceased," a police statement said.

"On arrival officers found the body of a 27-year-old female who was pronounced dead at the scene.

"Enquiries continue into the circumstances of the death. At this early stage it is being treated as unexplained."

London Ambulance Service had been called to the flat at 3:54 pm (1454 GMT) and sent two ambulances.

Winehouse rocketed to fame after winning five Grammy awards off the back of her 2006 second album "Back to Black" and the hit single "Rehab".

In the run-up to her live return, Winehouse spent a week at an addiction treatment clinic in London, reportedly at the suggestion of her father, Mitch, over concerns that she was drinking too much before her shows.

But Winehouse pulled out of her European comeback tour following a disastrous opening performance in Serbia on June 18.

She was booed at the performance in Belgrade, as she appeared to be too drunk to sing.

Some 20,000 people gathered for the highly-promoted concert at the sixth-century Kalemegdan fortress, but many soon left.

During the concert, which lasted about 90 minutes, Winehouse could only mumble some of the lyrics, failing to follow her band.

Winehouse left the stage twice, with many fans showing their displeasure despite her band's attempts to calm the crowd.

She had also been scheduled to perform in Istanbul, Athens, Bilbao in Spain, Locarno in Switzerland, Italy's Lucca festival, Switzerland's Paleo Festival in Nyon, Nova Jazz and Blues Night in Wiesen, Austria, and Poland's Bydgoszcz Artpop Festival.

Dead Kennedys question Heineken over un-authorized usage

As recently reported by NME, and a host of other news agencies, Heineken was forced to remove an advert which features a cover of the Dead Kennedys' 'Too Drunk To Fuck' because of complaints it would encourage binge drinking. Heineken had used the song in a commercial tie-in to promote its beer in banner advertisements broadcast via the popular music website Spotify.

Spotify had been running a series of banner advertisements, which directed users to a special "lounge style" playlist as part of a campaign for the beer Kronenbourg 1664.

One of the tracks used was the Dead Kennedys' 'Too Drunk To Fuck', which attracted a number of complaints to the independent industry watchdog, The Portman Group. The complaints were then investigated and were found to be in breach of a rule which bans advertisers from "encouraging irresponsible or immoderate drinking".

Dead Kennedys emphatically deny that they ever gave Heineken permission to use the song. The band's attorneys have contacted Heineken to address the un-authorized use. Dead Kennedys have never authorized any company to use this song or any of the band's songs to promote a consumer product (let alone the consumption of alcohol) in this or any advertisement.

KITTIE ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM DETAILS, NEW SONG AVAILABLE NOW

(New York, NY) — Veteran Canadian metal quartet KITTIE will release a brand new record entitled "I've Failed You" on August 30th, 2011 via eOne Music. For this effort, the band enlisted the talents of Siegfried "Siggy" Meier at Beach Road Studios in Goderich Ontario who took on producing rolls.

A brand new track called "We Are The Lamb" and has debuted today at NOISECREEP.COM, the band recently shot a video for said track last month in New York. "'We Are The Lamb is the first single and is about as musically devastating as we get. It is a tale of self sacrifice, to give those you love a chance to grow and learn to live for themselves. I cannot express to you how proud of this album we are. 'I've Failed You' is real, honest, angry and ugly" says front woman Morgan Lander.

CLICK HERE TO PREVIEW/PURCHASE ON ITUNES

Track List:
1. I've Failed You
2. We Are The Lamb
3. Whisper of Death
4. What Have I Done
5. Empires (Part 1)
6. Empires (Part 2)
7. Come Undone
8. Already Dead
9. Never Come Home
10. Ugly
11. Time Never Heals

The band will be hitting the road this summer on a headlining run spanning the entire US including the notorious "Gathering Of Juggalos" festival. DIRGE WITHIN and DIAMOND PLATE will offer support.

KITTIE is: Morgan Lander (guitar), Mercedes Lander (drums), Tara McLeod (guitar) and Ivy Vujic (bass).

Nuclear Assault at the Craneway Pavillion in Richmond, California 6/25/11 at the Slaughter By The Water 2 Festival