This, is an old story but I’m bringing it up for very good reasons.  Awhile back, Metallica had to lecture their management for doing something that could have been online suicide for the band:  they deleted and removed early reviews of their stuff from the blogosphere.  Oops!  At any rate, the band did something rather unprecedented for them, and even apologized to the bloggers that had been wronged.  Wow.  The Metallica I remember is the same Metallica that went straight after Napster all gun’s blazin’ and even pointed some nasty fingers at online music, NOT the type of guys to yell at their own management for being too harsh on some bloggers that reviewed their early demos of their newest material.  Turns out, Metallica of new, is not the Metallica of old and I’m pleased as punch to see that.

That’s right, the heavy metal rockers backed their blogger fans and the reviews they posted after their management demanded that the bloggers/critics take down the posts.  The silliest part of the managements decision to have the posts removed was that the early rough cut tracks that the bloggers were reviewing were given TO them and invited to review BY the band.  Oops.  Here is the statement Metallica offered up after they caught wind of the unfortunate censorship:

“Once we re-surfaced on Tuesday after a few weeks on tour in Europe, we were informed that someone at Q Prime (our managers) had made the error of asking a few publications to take down reviews of the rough mixes from the new record that were posted on their sites,” they wrote. “Our response was ‘WHY?!!! Why take down mostly positive reviews of the new material and prevent people from getting psyched about the next record… that makes no sense to us!’”

There you have it, Kudos Metallica, I like what I see here.  So basically, they gave their management a good lecture, reposted the links to the reviews and all was happy in Heavy Metal Land.  What this all means to me is, do you think this is a trend that will be continuing?  Do you think early, rough demos or rough cuts will be “leaked” to certain bloggers and online critics early to help the band, any band, gauge how it might go over?  I know Nine Inch Nails have done some pretty progressive things when it comes to online marketing, who will be next?

Sound off, what do YOU think the “future” of this will be?  Will music bloggers be reviewing things that is motnhs away from launch?  What do you think?

While the newest installment in the Guitar Hero franchise will see a release just before Halloween on October 26th (Guitar Hero World Tour), another installment has just been announced.

“Guitar Hero: Metallica” will see a release sometime in 2009. This news comes via a teaser trailer included in Guitar Hero World Tour, which can be viewed online over at YouTube. The game will feature choice selections from Metallica’s entire discography.

There is no word yet on what kind of game controllers may be available with the game. Since the band are mainly endorsed by ESP Guitars, I wouldn’t be surprised if the controllers were made after their models. A few weeks ago we reported here that Metallica had sued Fernandes Guitars for putting a picture of bassist Robert Trujillo in an advertisement, because of conflicts with their ESP endorsement deal.

Since “Guitar Hero World Tour” will be released just before Halloween and features Metallica’s classic track “Master of Puppets” (among others)…a great idea for a Halloween party would be to pick up a copy and invite your friends over to play in their Halloween Costumes.

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Metallica is set to begin production rehearsals for their latest tour on Monday in San Francisco, the tour kicks off on October 21st in Arizona. According to drummer Lars Ulrich the band will play “a lot of new songs” from “Death Magnetic” on this tour.

The band has not toured the US for quite some time. When they’ve toured on new albums in the past they’ve been pretty conservative when playing new songs. Ulrich explains…

“These new songs are a lot of fun to play,” Ulrich tells Billboard.com. “Traditionally I think we’ve been a little conservative when we’ve started off with two songs, three songs (from the new album). We’re going to hit the ground running here. We’re probably gonna learn all of them and play, I hope, at least five a night and probably rotate ‘em so we get a lot of new songs in. That’s one thing I’m definite about.”

One of the reasons the band is so keen to play the new material is because its been heralded by fans and critics as a return to form. “Death Magnetic” has already sold almost 3 million copies worldwide and over 1 million in the US alone.

“It’s just an overwhelming, positive thing,”. “You couldn’t have told me a month ago or six months ago that we would have a record that would be this well-received. It seems like it’s so universal this time and it’s all over the world and everybody’s so into it on so many different levels — the fans, press, the peers … everybody.”

The band’s stage setup will be “in the round” once again but different from previous tours, involving a huge, moving lighting rig above the band.

I remember seeing footage of the band during the Black Album era and I believe they’ve been playing “in the round” since then. I recently checked out even older Metallica videos on YouTube and was surprised to see Kirk Hammett playing a lot of Ibanez guitars. Regardless of what guitars they’re playing this time around, its the first time I’ve personally wanted to see a Metallica concert in a long while because I think some of the new material is great.

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I guess now that they’ve finished recording their new album Death Magnetic, Metallica has a little bit of extra time on their hands. Which could only mean one thing…time for a lawsuit! Turns out Metallica has filed suit against Fernandes Guitars over the use of Robert Trujillo’s likeness in their advertisements. But here’s the best part…Trujillo actually signed a deal that gave them permission! However now that he is part of Metallicorp, the deal cause a conflict of interest due to Metallica’s own deal with ESP guitars.

According to this blog, the band sent a cease and desist letter to Fernandes Guitars to stop using Trujillo’s likeness. This whole thing seems pretty ridiculous and I’d be pretty surprised if this went anywhere. But then again, this is Metallica. They are pretty big cry babies if you ask me. I wonder what kind of strain this is putting between Robert and the band.

In an exclusive interview for “Get Thrashed: The Story of Thrash” a documentary about the 90’s thrash metal movement, Kirk Hammett discusses Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.

Spin Magazine has the exclusive clip, that is not featured in the documentary available for viewing on their website.

In the brief clip, Hammett mentions that Kurt Cobain was a Metallica fan and loved their “Ride The Lightning” album and the track “Whiplash” from Metallica’s first album “Kill Em’ All.”

In other Metallica news, the band remains No.1 for the 2nd week in a row on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart, having sold 867,000 records in a week and a half.

Metallica just played two of England’s biggest rock festivals, Reading and Leeds. A live soundboard version of their new single “The Day That Never Comes” from Leeds is available online via YouTube. The band’s “MetClub” series lets fans download soundboard versions of live shows for a fee, this one apparently leaked to youtube.

The sound of the song is a little muddier than the studio version, but overall it’s decent. From what I’ve seen it appears James Hetfield has been playing a lot of Gibson Explorers and also Les Pauls recently. I personally like the way these sound a lot more than the ESP’s he plays a lot. The structure of the song is kind of dangerously close to the band’s classic track “One” but its probably better than most of the tracks currently on Modern Rock radio.

Metallica have announced a North American run of tour dates with support along the way coming from The Sword, Down, Machine Head and Lamb Of God.

Members of the bands fan club will get access to tickets first before they go on sale to the general public. The band’s new record “Death Magnetic” will be released on September 12th and the first single from the album “The Day That Never Comes” will be released to radio later this month.

Full Tour Dates:

All October/November dates with Down and The Sword :

October 21 - Glendale, AZ Jobing Arena
October 23 - Albquerque, NM Tingley Coliseum
October 25 - Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
October 26 - Des Moines, IA Wells Fargo Arena
November 1 - Portland, OR Rose Quarter
November 3 - Salt Lake City, UT Energy Solutions Arena
November 4 - Denver, CO Pepsi Center
November 6 - Omaha, NE Qwest Center
November 8 - Moline, IL iWireless Center
November 9 - Columbus, OH Schottenstein Center
November 17 - St. Louis, MO Scottrade Center
November 18 - Tulsa, OK BOK Center
November 20 - Houston, TX Toyota Center
November 22 - Little Rock, AR Alltel Arena
November 23 - New Orleans, LA New Orleans Arena

All December dates with Lamb of God and The Sword:

December 1 - Seattle, WA Key Arena
December 2 - Vancouver, BC GM Place
December 4 - Calgary, AB Pengrowth Saddledome
December 7 - Edmonton, AB Rexall Place
December 12 - Ontario, CA Citizens Bank Arena
December 13 - Fresno, CA Save Mart Center
December 15 - San Diego, CA Cox Arena
December 17 - Los Angeles, CA The Forum
December 20 - Oakland, CA Oracle Arena

All January dates with Machine Head and The Sword:

January 12 - Milwaukee, WI Bradley Center
January 13 - Detroit, MI Joe Louis Arena
January 15 - Washington, DC Verizon Center
January 17 - Philadelphia, PA Wachovia Center
January 18 - Boston, MA TD Banknorth Center
January 26 - Chicago, IL Allstate Arena
January 29 - Uniondale, NY Nassau Coliseum
January 31 - Newark, NJ Prudential Center

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Metallica has set September 12th, a Friday, as the release date for their new album “Death Magnetic”. This is unusual as traditional release days are Monday/Tuesday for albums.

The band’s last album “St. Anger” also saw a Friday release, reasons cited for this are that it prevents leaks. How true that is, im not so sure.

The band  has also filmed a video for the first single from their new record, entitled “The Day That Never Comes” with director Thomas Vinterberg.

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Metallica haven’t even revealed the artwork for their forthcoming album “Death Magnetic” but they have already announced a deluxe coffin-style package. What? You ask, well here’s the info…

“In addition to the album, the package will include a disc of demos, a behind-the-scenes DVD chronicling the making of “Death Magnetic,” a T-shirt, a flag, guitar picks and a poster.

Also featured is a Metallica credit card with a code redeemable for a download of a “special European show happening in September.” This edition is only available from the band’s Web site.”

This is a cool idea on the bands part, if not a little extraneous. Although it makes a lot of sense, as I’m sure a lot of you out there, are still sticking with Metallica and would like to get extra stuff from the band. It is also worth noting that the band is including guitar picks in the package, as I’m sure they know a lot of their fans are guitar players themselves.

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Over the weekend Metallica revealed, (via their website), their new album’s title: “Death Magnetic.” I’ll be honest, it sounds pretty cheesy. I don’t know how permanent the title is, but one would assume it is the final title as the album’s release is not too far away in September. Let’s hope the music is the return to the early albums, they’ve been promising.

Metallica also played a well-received headlining set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival this weekend. After the band was introduced by comedian Chris Rock, they proceeded to play the following songs…

01 “Creeping Death”
02 “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
03 “Ride The Lightning”
04 “Harvester Of Sorrow”
05 “The Unforgiven”
06 “…And Justice For All”
07 “No Remorse”
08 “The Memory Remains”
09 “Fade To Black”
10 “Master Of Puppets”
11 “Whiplash”
12 “Nothing Else Matters”
13 “Sad But True”
14 “One”
15 “Enter Sandman”
—-
16 “Last Caress”
17 “So What”
18 “Seek and Destroy”

Cool to see a lot of earlier material in there, no new songs played whatsoever though. A lot of guitarists will be excited as Kirk Hammett is doing early-Metallica-style solo’s on this new record (so says Kerrang! and Metal Hammer).

Find more information, photo’s and anecdotes over at Stereogum, who have excellent Bonnaroo coverage…

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