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Slayer: Metallica Faking It For 10 Years
Slayer's Kerry King had some not so complementary things to say about Metallica and their new album "St. Anger" during a listening session for the British magazine, Terrorizer. 

Blabbermouth ran portions of the interview and here are some excerpts: 

METALLICA � "St. Anger"

Kerry King: [2 seconds in] "Ugh! I know what that is! You can tell right away by the s***ty mix. I made myself listen to this album twice, just to make sure I hated it as much as I hate it.

[on the snare drum sound] "I mean, what is that? Sounds like he's hitting a Pepsi can or something when it should be a snare sound. I like that intro riff, it could be heavy if it was mixed, this would sound awesome. I'm not sure what they were going for in the mix. For me, it's just the mix.

[on the part of the song when the pace picks up] "This part here could be entertaining as hell, but I just can't get past the mix."

[on the album being the supposed "return to form" that most of the rock press are heralding it as] "Yeah, I read that, and I was like, 'What record were they listening to?' I bet it sounds pretty decent live, and those songs are alright, but there's no reason for those songs to be seven minutes long, let along eight or nine. It's like they have one of the better guitar players on the planet, and they're not letting him play lead. It's kinda like putting cuffs on him. I personally can't understand it. I think the lyrics could have gone further than f***in' rehab. James needs to have a f***in' shot and get over it.

"The whole thing about this album that really bugged me is like, 'What was up with the last record ['Load'/'Re-Load']? I thought that's what you liked?' And now they think they're heavy again? To me, I've lived this all my life, day in, day out. I might be Kerry King the homeboy for some of the time, but I'm always SLAYER. METALLICA weren't METALLICA for 10 years. I think when you don't live it, and try to jump back into it� It just doesn't work out.". For more on this interview and also details on the forthcoming Slayer CD Click Here

At The Drive-In Splinters Again
Aversion reports: Is there any limit how many At the Drive In-related bands can get a major push? The latest is Nakia, a record to be released by DreamWorks Records. 

The album was created by Tony Hajjar (Sparta/At the Drive In) as an exploration of electronic music. Hajjar collaborated with a host of other musicians over the past couple years complinging[sic] the material on the record. 

"It is an ethereal interpretation, mixing down tempo ambiance with drum and bass, and certainly confined by no one genre," said a DreamWorks press release. 
. - Click Here for the Full Story

The Cure For Low Ticket Sales
Sluggish ticket sales? Not so for veteran acts this year, and one act in particular has "The Cure" for the slow music economy. 

NME reports: Tickets for THE CURE's headlining performance at KROQ RADIO's 25th anniversary concert 'INLAND INVASION: FLASHBACK TO THE FUTURE' have sold out in record time with 50,000 tickets gone in four days.

Taking place in the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion - the largest amphitheater in the US - on September 20, the event is the fastest selling in the history of the venue, according to Clear Channel.

The Los Angeles radio station's celebration also boasts a line-up including Kings Of Leon, Jet, Interpol, Hot Hot Heat and Duran Duran.

Del Williams, the event's organizer, said, "There is a tremendous passion for The Cure's prolific catalogue of music and relevance as the standard bearer for the alternative rock format as evidenced by the rabid demand for tickets for this event."

Also appearing on the bill will be Dashboard Confessional, Echo And The Bunnymen and Eighties one-hit wonders Berlin.
.- Click Here for the Full Story

Interesting tid-bit, some one close to The Stray Cats told antiMUSIC that they were offered a prime slot at this show but decided for some undisclosed reason not to take it. It still sounds cool, but they should have gotten Oingo Boingo, The Thompson Twins and Flock of Seagulls.  Then they could have called it something like "Hair today, gone tomorrow", or is that the name of the next Poison tour? 

Vince Neil: RIAA Suits "Petty". 
blabberMouth reports: MÖTLEY CRÜE frontman Vince Neil has taken the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to task for launching � and later quietly settling � a lawsuit against 12-year-old Brianna Lahara for illegally downloading more than 1,000 songs off the Internet. "I just think it's terrible these big companies will go after a 12-year-old," Neil told The Edmonton Sun in an interview last week. "They're the ones who shove Britney Spears and these people down your throat, and then when it's on the Internet and you can download it, why wouldn't you? It just boggles my mind that these companies would be so petty as to do something like this. It's pretty shameful." Neil said he doesn't believe artists are losing a significant amount of revenue from online file-swapping. "If you look at it in the real perspective, it's pennies. It doesn't add up to that much money to sue your fans, because finally your fans are going to go, 'You know what? f*** you.' You make your money at the concert tours, you're selling your merchandise, they're still going to buy your records too if they're fans."
- Click Here for the Full Story

Nickelback Hit The Road
VH1 reports: The first single from Nickelback's upcoming album The Long Road, "Someday," is about empty promises frontman Chad Kroeger has made to his girlfriend regarding spending more time with her and less on his career. No doubt, he'll shatter a few 
 
�The Long Road, Nickelback's follow-up to their multiplatinum LP Silver Side Up, comes out September 23.

The night the album is released, VH1 will feature the band on the program "Concert Series." A recently shot concert for MTV's "Hard Rock Live" will air later this fall.

Nickelback tour dates, according to the band's publicist:

10/14 - Lubbock, TX @ Canyon Amphitheater 
10/16 - Grand Prairie, TX @ Next Stage in Grand Prairie 
10/17 - Corpus Christi, TX @ Concrete Street Amphitheater 
10/18 - Shiner, TX @ Shiner "Bocktoberfest" Concert 
10/20 - Houston, TX @ Verizon Wireless Theatre 
10/21 - Biloxi, MS @ Mississippi Coast Coliseum 
10/22 - Duluth, GA @ Arena at Gwinnett Center 
10/24 - Antioch, TN @ AmSouth Amphitheater 
10/25 - Cape Girardeau, MO @ Show-Me Center 
10/26 - Champaign, IL @ Assembly Hall 
10/28 - Akron, OH @ James Rhodes Arena 
10/29 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Deltaplex 
10/31 - Atlantic City, NJ @ Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa 
11/1 - Utica, NY @ Utica Memorial Auditorium 
11/2 - Lowell, MA @ Tsongas Arena 
11/4 - Pittsburgh, PA @ A.J. Palumbo Center 
11/6 - Auburn Hills, MI @ The Palace of Auburn Hills 
11/7 - Villa Park, IL @ Odeum Sports & Expo Center 
11/8 - Minneapolis, MN @ Target Center 
11/9 - Cedar Falls, IA @ UNI Dome

- Click Here for the Full Story

J.lo Gets the Heave-Ho?
If it weren't for such a slow news weekend you wouldn't be reading this right now but it also gives us a fun chance to play on J.lo's silly nickname. 

AP reports: Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, the most overexposed couple on the planet, were supposed to exchange wedding vows Sunday � but instead there was a report that they had ended their tabloid-chronicled storybook romance. 

Amid the frantic speculation surrounding the pair last week, People magazine reported Sunday that Affleck has dumped Lopez due to "second thoughts" about their impending wedding..- Learn more with the Full Story . 

Some say he caught a glimpse at her "backyard" in her wedding dress and couldn't go through with it. Sir Mix A-Lot is looking to make a "come-back", maybe J.lo can hook up with him? They could make a flop duet together, "J.lo got back"! 

Harrison's 400K Guitar
A follow up to an article from last week.

AP reports: A guitar played by the late George Harrison during the Beatles' last public performance was sold for $434,750 in a public auction. 

Harrison played the custom-made Fender Rosewood Telecaster during the filming of the movie "Let It Be," said Bill Miller, president of Odyssey Auctions, the California auction house that conducted the sale Saturday. The Jan. 30, 1969, performance on the roof of London's Apple Records was the last time the band performed together inpublic, Miller said. 

The winning bidder was an "anonymous West Coast collector," the auction house said.

- Click Here Full Story

Are lawsuits the major labels new business plan to help the bottom line from shrinking profits? It's an interesting new revenue model but in the long run they might be better off improving the product so people will actually want to buy it.  Then again, they think for some reason that they are recession proof. 

Special: Hoax Fooled The Onion, Helped Metallica?
Over the weekend we published an extensive interview with Erik Ashley of the band Unfaith, on our sister site Rocknworld.com. You may recognize the name from the "Metallica sues band over guitar chords" hoax that made headlines a short time ago. We actually spotlighted the group long before they made this media slash, based on their music and hopefully the attention they gathered from this experience will actually turn some people on Unfaith as a band and not just hoaxsters. 

Erik did however have a few things to say about the Metallica hoax experience and also shed some light on a couple of previously unknown details. One surprising thing that did come out of it was that Erik feels it helped make one of Metallica's points about the media. And another is one outlet in particular that took the bait..  Here are selected excerpts form the interview (follow the link at the end to read the entire thing, it's well worth the time) 

RNW: Ok we'll start off with the obvious one, the Metallica hoax. How did that come about? Did you just decide to screw around and have fun to illustrate a point, or was it more thought out?

Erik: The whole thing started out as a joke to help an indie webzine out with its hits. We put up a parody article that jokingly announced that Metallica was suing Unfaith for the unsanctioned use of what they felt were two "Metallica-branded" chords. The fact that it seemed almost believable was only supposed to make the article funnier, not help it spread onto legitimate news media the way it did�.

RNW: Were you shocked at all the press outlets that picked up the story without verifying it?

Erik: You have no idea. As a people, we tend to have this image of larger news media outlets having their own team of reporters and researchers verifying what it is they run; or if they can't research it, they'd at least credit its source so as to cover themselves. Some of the most respected publications on earth did none of the above. They just went ahead with the rumored story without questioning any of the players involved, despite the fact that our contact info was published in the original article that spawned all the controversy.

It was Court TV's Matt Beane who was the first to contact us, and got the real story. He earned himself a legitimate scoop � that the Metallica chord litigation story that was spreading like wildfire was nothing more than satire � and his article not only made the front page of the Court TV website for over a week, but ended up being picked up by everyone from CNN to Yahoo News. Someone took his job seriously and was rewarded for it. Good for him.

One funny anecdote I haven't told anyone yet is that among the thousands of people offering us their genuine and heartfelt support through our "time of trial" (before everyone realized the whole thing was a joke), was a legitimate Onion staffer. Can you believe that? The Onion, of all publications, thought this story was real.

RNW: What about the subsequent response from the public, and Metallica themselves?

Erik: The vast majority of the people thought it was a great idea. There was the odd complaint about feeling used, but nothing resembling backlash.

As for Metallica, they've been great sports. Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett both have been quoted as saying that the whole thing was actually quite clever, and hilarious, respectively. Lars likely realizes that we ended up making a point FOR him, as much as anything else: the media will report what the media WANTS to report, and people will believe what they WANT to believe. And let's be honest, who has suffered more from both those truths than Metallica in recent years?

Erik also goes into details on how difficult it is for unsigned artists to make an impression. 

RNW: Ok, but what do you think is the biggest obstacle for new bands these days to making it in this crazy business?

Erik: Nepotism. Everyone seems to be someone else's son, nephew, or best friend growing up. I've begun to liken Hollywood to mythical Mount Olympus, where Gods reside and hold court, and where only their own are welcome to partake in its various riches.

Honorable mention as well to the lack of original thinking on the corporate side. If you deviate in any way from the model that executives learned to recognize in their "How To Be A Music Industry Executive" handbooks, expect them to nervously lock all their doors and windows, and chant incantations around a sacrificed pig to purge you from their lives.

Read the full interview 

Be sure to checkout Unfaith's cover of the New Order classic "True Faith"
 

**Press Releases**
Snippets from some of the press releases that have come in over the past 24 hours

No PR Today
We'll return tomorrow. 

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