Jake Brockman, who was 53 and married, lived in Bristol. He died when his bike was in collision with a converted ambulance near Kirk Michael on Tuesday.

The show was to be NIN's second of four gigs in Los Angeles; the fourth show at the city's Echoplex will mark the final NIN concert ever. There is no word yet whether the Henry Fonda performance will be rescheduled or canceled.

Not only has late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain made it into Guitar Hero 5 as a playable character, as previously reported, but apparently you can make his avatar play guitar right-handed and sing Bon Jovi's "You Give Love A Bad Name", along with songs from Megadeth, Public Enemy and Nirvana wannabes Bush (see video at full story link). A "highlight reel" of what you can do with the Cobain character in Career Mode was posted online Tuesday (September 1), the same day that the game arrived in stores. In addition to the Cobain avatar, the NIRVANA songs "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Lithium" appear in a Guitar Hero game for the first time.

Cobain's widow, Courtney Love, played a major role in putting Cobain's image together for the game, Activision's Vice President of Music Affairs Tim Riley told RollingStone.com. It is not clear whether Love had any opinion on what the unlockable Cobain character could perform, or just took the money and ran.

Metallica.com had this info on the specials: The Sonisphere Festival is a series of rockin' summer music festivals taking place across Europe and features some of the biggest and best bands in Hard Rock and Metal.

Part 1 of the 2009 festival premieres Saturday, 9/5 and features performances by artists such as Metallica, Linkin Park, and Anthrax.

According to Norway's F�drelandsvennen, guitar legend Slash (Velvet Revolver, ex-Guns N' Roses) was paid 10 million Norwegian kroner (approximately $1.65 million US) for his headlining appearance at this year's edition of the Quart Festival that was held on June 30th in Kristiansand, Norway. In comparison, DAVID BOWIE was paid 1.2 million Norwegian kroner (approximately $198,000 US) in 2002 for his appearance at the festival. How very ironic. more

Rush could be back on the road with a new album in 2010. The trio would love to work again with Nick Raskulinecz, who co-produced the last studio album, Snakes & Arrows, but he'll have to hang on a bit longer. more

Keith Richards says he has been recording with Jack White, but the Rolling Stones guitarist refused to say too much about what exactly the two guitar greats have been working on. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Richards said they've "done a couple tracks" but wouldn't confirm rumors that White would produce a new Stones album.more

Former Stooges guitarist James Williamson was in the parking lot of his dentist's office earlier this year when he heard a familiar voice on his cellphone: Iggy Pop. "He asked me if I wanted to play guitar again," says Williamson, who hasn't performed a single gig since the Stooges dissolved in 1974. "I was about to take an early retirement from my job in Silicon Valley, so I figured 'What the hell, let's do it.' "more

TV on the Radio have announced that they'll be taking a year off. In an interview with MTV News, Adebimpe said that the band's recent appearance at San Francisco's Outside Lands festival would be the last time they perform for a bit. "This was the last show for us for a while," he said. "We've decided to take, well, the going theory is to take about a year off, because you have to go and live a life and change things up." more

Megadeth will perform on NBC-TV's "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" on Thursday, September 17. (Note: The program will actually air the morning of Friday, September 18). Wanna check it out in person?

Lenny Kravitz has been added to the bill as a headliner at this year's Voodoo Experience festival in New Orleans, organizers announced Thursday (Sept. 3). more

Blindside fans can check out a new interview done in Las Vegas this past Saturday. Read it here

Anthrax, featuring vocalist John Bush (Anthrax's singer from 1992 to 2005), will perform at this year's installment of the Loud Park festival more

The Tracii Guns version of L.A. Guns - fronted by vocalist/guitarist Jizzy Pearl, with Tracii's son Jeremy on bass and Chad Stewart on drums - has issued their finalized 2009 tour schedule. Confirmed dates are here.

A full American Fall Pelican tour has been announced. The tour begins just days before the release of the band's upcoming Southern Lord Records debut, 'What We All Come To Need,' which comes out on October 27th. A variety of bands will be joining Pelican on the tour including labelmates Black Cobra for most of the dates more

Destruction has issued the following update: 'After Mikes broken bones last week in Belgium, the band has chosen a great replacement for the upcoming show in Portugal.' 'Our friend Ol Drake from Evile will step in and shred for Destruction at the Caos Emergente Festival in Portugal."more

Battle Of Mice (Neurot Recordings), the group featuring Julie Christmas (Made Out of Babies), Josh Graham (Neurosis, ex-Red Sparowes, A Storm of Light), Joel Hamilton (Book of Knots), Tony Maimone (Book of Knots, Pere Ubu), and Joe Tomino (Fugees, Dub Trio, Peeping Tom), has called it quits. more

Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein was buried in a private ceremony Wednesday (September 2), according to US magazine. more

Teenage Rehab have confirmed a November 10th release date for their fourth full length Let's Be Enemies on Jailhouse Records. more

Virgin America is bringing the fans to Chris + the to the music festival so that the winners of the radio contest can still have a meet and greet with Chris and attend the festival for free.

Here is the original announcement: "Due to unforeseen band scheduling conflicts for September 12, Chris Cornell will regretfully not be performing at the Sunset Strip Music Festival in Los Angeles. Cornell will still be attending the Virgin America airline party on September 11, and he will also attend the scheduled VIP meet-and-greets for the winners of the Sunset Strip Music Festival radio contest. He would like to apologize to all the fans who were looking forward to seeing his performance at the festival."

The tour will end with Slipknot headlining the first annual Trinity of Terrors at The Pearl Concert Theater in the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas on Halloween. This run of dates will also include two previously postponed shows from last month. Sacramento's own Deftones will provide support beginning in Portland, OR through San Bernardino, CA.

Queen. Someone ought to erect a monument to them. Think about it: they've ruled their game longer than many of our most famous leaders, their words can be repeated by many more than can recite our most celebrated writers, and despite more than three generations passing since they first blasted their way into our consciences, they're just as omnipresent today as they ever were. Just for starters (and more to follow):

Brown, who is suffering from acute pancreatitis (a sudden inflammation of the pancreas which can have severe complications and high mortality despite treatment), will likely be sidelined for approximately five weeks following the operation. A full and healthy recovery is expected.

The concert will be held at Music Hall in Williamsburg, NY, featuring performances by Frank Black, David Berkeley, surprise guests, and new additions to the roster include Butterflies of Love, The Autumn Defense, Ray Neal, Chris Harford, the Late BP Helium, The Parkway Charlies, Winterpills, The Gravel Pit, The Mericans, Lo Fine, Biet and Gryphon, School for the Dead, Spouse, and Senator.

The Pattern became a song that sort of ushered in a new era of songwriting for me. After the recording of "The Way We Found It" and even during the making of that record, I had been suffering through bouts of anywhere from minor to crippling writer's block. In retrospect it had a lot to do with the fact that I had learned how to write songs by following the route songs by singer/songwriters always seemed to follow---"this song is about the most important subject in the world: me and my love life. This is a riff to go with those thoughts. Enjoy". I think mentally I was just losing my belief that what I had to say about me and my capacity for love would somehow bring me closer to the listener. I wanted to draw from a broader range of experiences, and also from the stories of the people around me.

That's why, instead of lyrics, melody, arrangement and structure coming all at once, The Pattern served as a proving ground for a different, much more methodical (and, in some ways, drawn out) way of making an idea into a song.

In 2007, I had been recording a lot of piano for Lisa Piccirillo's solo record and at the time the house my mom was in had a beautiful piano in a big room. Good combination. I was visiting her and went for a run. I wasn't listening to any music, but got kind of sucked in to the cadence of my own footsteps. "This is the pattern repeat it repeat it"...I started singing those lines to myself. When I got back I just sat down at the keyboard and banged out the chord structure for the chorus. The song's a little different because the chorus is minor and the verses are major, which was actually with me from the moment I started working on it.

I brought it to the band and we came up with the structure of the tune and I just happily fumbled through dummy lyrics. We were so into it that we actually started playing the tune on the road at shows with me singing just gibberish lyrics. This allowed me to hone in on a melody and for the band to just fine tune those parts. We were trying to just find as many hooks as we could. The drums to me are one of the major hooks of the song.

Still no lyrics, but I knew they would come and even with dummy lyrics the song was clearly going over well with audiences. So we booked some studio time and got rhythm tracks (bass & drums) recorded in between sessions for my work producing Gregory Douglass' "Battler".

That fall, a year after my run in New Hampshire where the idea was born, I finally got a chance to sit down and work out the lyrics before finishing up the recording out here in California. I drew from a lot of stories we had shared in the van about the patterns people fall into, whether it's love or work, or whatever, just that idea that you at one point do something (cheat, lie, steal or on the other hand succeed, accomplish) and it can become a pattern in your life. So, no matter what we tell ourselves, we are sort of doomed and/or blessed to repeat those things.

I'm glad I got to spend that kind of time fine-tuning it, it makes the song that much stronger I think, and has served as a blueprint for my kind of version 2.0 songwriting style. Yesterday I starting humming another little melody. In two years, who knows. This is the pattern, repeat it, repeat it....