Music News & Notes

SLAYER Reveal Album Art for World Painted Blood

Slayer’s World Painted Blood, the band’s highly-anticipated new album set for a November 3 release (American Recordings), will initially ship with four special collector’s edition CD covers. Each of the four covers will display one-fourth of a provocative continental map illustrated with human skulls and bones; when placed together, the four images form a complete and grisly map of the world (see above).

All four of the initial CD packages will include a special blood-red, see-through top panel with the map displayed beneath it.

The World Painted Blood Deluxe Edition will have its own special layout of the map cover art and will be in a double-digipak housed in a blood-red, see-through plastic sleeve. The Deluxe Edition will include the World Painted Blood CD, the “Playing With Dolls” DVD, a 20-minute animated graphic novel featuring music from the album (including part of a new non-album song), and an expanded booklet.

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30 Seconds To Mars New LP

30 Seconds to Mars are gearing up for the release of their new album, titled This Is War. The album, which the band spent over a year and a half making, is due out Oct 20th.

The band's rocky relationship with their label home at Virgin Records has been well documented, when the label filed a lawsuit against the band last summer, claiming the band refused to deliver three albums as required by its contract. The album's title was rumored to be specifically about the band's troubles with their label, but in a recent interview with Buzznet, lead singer Jared Leto said the album's title was about much more.

"It's representative of the battles that we were fighting, us with the record label, creative battles, personal demons," Leto said. "We've discussed, like, is it relevant anymore? Some of the battles - obviously the creative, and the battles with the record label, have all come to pass, but I think it really still represents this record in the best way possible, so we're sticking with This Is War.... It represents too clearly this period of time in our lives."

He added that the title does not have to literally refer to any specific fight. "Also come the ideas about winning, ideas about compromise, about defeat, victory of course. But I think as I've tossed it around, it's always been the working title for the record as well, This Is War, so it's been important because I think it really represented the goal in a good way, a strong way."

Prior to the album's release on Oct. 20th, the band will be accepting cover art submissions from fans at their website http://www.thirtysecondstomars.com. The first 2,000 images submitted will be used as special edition cover art for the album.

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OPETH Mainman: New KATATONIA CD Is Greatest 'Heavy' Record I've Heard In The Last 10 Years


Guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt of Swedish progressive metallers OPETH has issued the following update:

"KATATONIA's [forthcoming album] 'Night Is The New Day' is possibly the greatest 'heavy' record I've heard in the last 10 years.

"Most people know my history with them and also my friendship with the guys. Jonas [P. Renkse, KATATONIA vocalist] and I have been best buddies for the last 18 years or so.

"Every time OPETH or KATATONIA has a new record [coming out], we arrange a small private listening party. Usually with myself, Anders [Nyström, KATATONIA guitarist] and Jonas. For years we've managed to record albums around the same time and had both the new OPETH album and the new KATATONIA album played back on the same session. It's always great fun, however disciplined.

"You can't talk during playback (death penalty), you listen to the album all the way through twice, and then we have the 'comments.' Everything is washed down with beer or wine...there might be snacks on the table.

"Well, two days after the new KATATONIA album is mastered, here we are, holed up in a friend's apartment ready to go through the new masterpiece by KATATONIA. And it truly is a masterpiece! I have not been this taken back by an album for a long time. I almost had tears in my eyes. It's an absolutely stunning piece of music! Easily their most progressive and emotional record, as far as I'm concerned.

The artwork for "Night Is The New Day" (see below) was once again designed by Travis Smith and closes the visual concept for "The Great Cold Distance" phase.

The new material was previously described by the band as "our most varied, diverse and possibly strongest shit all together on one and the same album."

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John Fogerty to Receive Lifetime Achievement in Songwriting

John Fogerty, the man behind the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award in Songwriting at this year's Americana Music Association 8th Annual Honors. The awards happen this Thursday (September 17) at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. Previous winners include John Hiatt, Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Guy Clark, Cowboy Jack Clement, John Prine, and Billy Joe Shaver.

He is a quintuple threat: songwriter, singer, lead guitarist, arranger, and producer. A roots classicist in love with Memphis-style rockabilly, New Orleans-drenched rhythm-and-blues, and classic country styles, Fogerty was ahead of his time in forging a hybrid of these genres before it was common or stylish to do so. He was more than prescient: As Springsteen said upon Creedence Clearwater Revival’s induction into Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, “Creedence wasn’t the hippest band in the world, but they were the best.” Also a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and Grammy Award-winner, Fogerty began his work four decades ago, and thankfully, he never finished.

- Press Release on Award

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Coldplay Resolve 'Viva La Vida' Copyright Dispute With Joe Satriani

Coldplay have finally resolved a legal dispute with guitarist Joe Satriani, who had sued the band for copyright infringement.

Satriani, 52, had claimed that the melody in Coldplay's 'Viva La Vida' resembled the guitar riff in his instrumental song, 'If I Could Fly'.

According to Billboard, the guitarist's lawsuit has been dismissed and Coldplay will not be required to admit to any wrongdoing.

Although court documents remain sealed, legal sources said the two parties may have reached a financial settlement.

In court papers filed in Los Angeles in April, Coldplay's lawyers said any similarities between the two songs weren’t enough to warrant damages.

They also said Santriani’s song "lacks originality” and wasn't in the position to receive copyright protection.

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Daltrey/Townshend Tour?

Roger Daltrey has told The Rock Radio.com that he and Pete Townshend are looking at all sorts of possible directions for next year's Who tour. "We're toying with the idea, along with the show we've got now, bringing back the production of Quadrophenia that the Who did, because we feel that that was ahead of it's time in 1996 and it would be good to give that an airing. And it also might be nice to do something on Tommy...the way the Who used to do Tommy, which was just a band standing onstage playing it. Not the stage show, Y'know like the production we played at the Met. We might even go back and play it at the Met, who knows?"

It's just not the Who anymore, there's only two of them left, why not call it the Daltrey/Townshend tour?

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Eagle Drops Solo Effort

Timothy B. Schmidt of the Eagles is set to release a new solo album, Expando, on October 20 via Lost Highway. Guesting are Graham Nash, Dwight Yoakam, Kid Rock, the Blind Boys of Alabama, Van Dyke Parks and others.

The track list:

•One More Mile (featuring Keb' Mo')
•Parachute (featuring Graham Nash and Kenny Wayne Shepherd)
•Friday Night (featuring Van Dyke Parks)
•Ella Jean
•White Boy From Sacramento
•Compassion
•Downtime (featuring Dwight Yoakam, Kid Rock and Gary Burton)
•Melancholy
•I Don't Mind (featuring Van Dyke Parks)
•Secular Praise (featuring the Blind Boys Of Alabama)
•A Good Day (featuring Greg Leisz)

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UK Session Drummer Dies

Drummer Bobby Graham, who played on over 15,000 records in the U.K., has passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 69.

Some sources say that Graham was asked by Brian Epstein to take over for Pete Best in the Beatles but turned it down to work with (at the time) more nationally recognized bands. He eventually moved to strictly session work, working with the likes of the Kinks (on You Really Got Me), Dave Berry (The Crying Game), Petula Clark, Tom Jones and Dusty Springfield (on I Only Want to Be With You). In 2004, it was also revealed that Graham was the studio drummer for almost all of the Dave Clark Five records in place of Clark himself.

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Beatles' Sales Figures

Hits Daily Double's predictions on final sales totals for the week show that the Beatles Abbey Road came up two to three thousand short of the 100,000 mark, but it was still enough to make it the third biggest album of the week behind Jay-Z (465,000 sold) and Miley Cyrus (110,000). Whitney Houston's album looks to drop a whopping 72% in its second week to about 83,000 good for third on the top 200 and fourth overall (remember that catalog albums, like those from the Beatles and Michael Jackson, don't chart in the U.S. on the top 200).

Overall, 14 Beatles albums are in the top 50 combined (current and catalog) with only the Mono Box Set and Yellow Submarine not making the top quarter of the chart. In comparison, Michael Jackson is down to three.

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