This is not a Metallica blog. Just had to put that disclaimer out there, as I’ve been doing a lot of Metallica related posts, just because they are in the press so much lately. The band plays the Bonnaroo Festival today in Manchester,TN where they will probably “kill the festival” (according to esquire magazine).

Last night though, the band (with honorary 5th member - Lar’s Ulrich’s crappy sounding Tama Drum kit), played a surprise 175-capacity club show for fan club members and club employees.

The band played 9 songs as a warm up for tonights headlining show in front of an estimated 130,000 people, which will also be broadcast on the Fuse TV channel.

More info and video footage of the band’s small warm-up show can be found over at Billboard…

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Around 2 weeks ago, listening parties were held for Metallica’s forthcoming, still untitled new album. Member’s of the music press were allowed in and permitted to write down their thoughts on the record, which a lot of people are calling a “return to form” and even praised, in various publications such as Kerrang! Metal Hammer and more.

The band, or the band’s management then instructed all of these publications/websites to take anything regarding Metallica’s new album down. This seemed to defeat the purpose of the listening parties and everyone wondered, why are Metallica retarded? Don’t they want people to get excited about their new album? Don’t they want coverage in the press?

Well now the band has responded, check it out here.

It turns out it was their management, who would’ve thunk it?

Ok, I promise this is not a Metallica blog. It’s just that so much press has come out from drummer Lars Ulrich that I figure why not post about it because…

A) It’s funny, and…

B) It’s all a big waiting game to see exactly what Metallica’s new album will sound like. It’s fun to gamble…

So finally, Lars has given Billboard.com, (via a conference call with many reporters) some actual descriptions of what the new material actually sounds like.

“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.”

Ulrich also mentions that the band is still working out song names. This seems a little weird, since usually if the songs are recorded, they’d probably also have lyrics and one would guess…names. I don’t really know how Metallica works on the inside, but the thought of them doing long songs that are really fast and almost hardcore like sounds cool. I’d love to hear Lars doing super fast tom fills and double bass beats again. The album is still schduled for release in September of this year.

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I mentioned this in my post about Metallica the other day. Many music sites and publications have been running stories on “Dave Grohl’s Open Letter to Metallica” or similar headlines. It turns out this wasn’t really true, as Dave himself has personally stated via FooFighters.com…

“Just wanted to write a quick note to clear up this whole “Open letter to Metallica” fiasco……For the record, I never “wrote” anything to Metallica. I was asked by a journalist, at the end of a long interview (abut the Foo Fighters) to give a quick message to Metallica in the studio. So, I rattled that quote off the top of my head. No biggie, right? Somehow it became my “open letter” to the band, and now it’s been picked up by everyone from Blabbermouth.com to Rolling Stone (as if anyone really cares!). Now, it’s true that I’ve been a loyal fan of this band for 25 years, and I can’t wait to hear the new shit, but an “open letter” to the band?!!?? Nah. Not my style. I’d rather just text ‘em……”

Turns out it’s just the media trying to drum up, (get it?) some controversy. Oh well…no Foo Fighters vs. Metallica feud yet…

After reading a story on Stereogum concerning Dave Grohl, (of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame) writing Metallica an open later chastising them, (Dave Grohl’s open letter to Metallica), ironic isn’t it? I thought I’d check out their website and see what’s up.

Apparently, Metallica launched a website called www.missionmetallica.com, a place where drummer Lars says “people can kind of tune in every day, watch clips, contests, get updates for what’s going on with the record and kind of watch the last couple of months of song titles, album titles, final mixes.” The website also contained a trailer for the new album but the site was taken down, the trailer is still available on YouTube. I just hope Lars can lay down some drum tracks this time that don’t include his super pongy snare drum from St Anger.

The YouTube clips essentially show a few sound bytes/snippets of new songs being worked on and/or recorded in the studio. If you’ve ever seen the bands “Spinal-Tap-for-real” documentary “Some Kind of Monster” it kind of looks like that. Let us also hope Rick Rubin (the Michael Bay of music), succeeds in helping the band reclaim their early sound. I hate to be pessimistic, but I kinda doubt it.

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