Steven Tyler on a Vacation From Aerosmith, But Will It Be a Permanent Vacation?

On that same note, Perry told Billboard on Wednesday, " the band's been playing together for 40 years. It's a really powerful rock band, and I don't want to see it just go to waste and I don't think any of the other guys do, either. We're gonna work and we're gonna do something -- I'm not exactly sure what yet, but the band's too good to let it sit around. We're not going to wait for Steven." - Read that report here

Missing Metallica Fan The Focus of Today's Dr Phil

(antiMusic) Today's Dr. Phil show will focus on Morgan Harrington, the 20-year-old college student who went missing last month at a Metallica concert. Blabbermouth had this about the show: They keep a heartbreaking, detailed diary of what they are feeling so that they can keep their daughter alive in their hearts, but Gil and Dan Harrington admit to Dr. Phil, in their first talk-show appearance, that they are "preparing ourselves that our daughter may not have been abducted, but also murdered." This special episode of "Dr. Phil" will be broadcast Thursday, November 12 (check local listings).

Dr. Phil reads from their touching journal entries and tells the couple: "You're in our minds and hearts and we're going to do everything we can to keep the spotlight on this."

Morgan Harrington was last seen nearly a month ago at a Metallica concert in Charlottesville, Virginia. She somehow ended up outside the arena during the show and after an extensive search by local authorities, very few clues to her whereabouts have turned up — except for her purse and cell phone, found in the arena parking lot. Gil Harrington helped her daughter choose her outfit and reported that Morgan was "so excited about going [to the concert]." With the purse left behind, Mrs. Harrington said, "No girl gives up her purse with her information, her make-up, her cell phone. Once we had reported Morgan missing Sunday after the concert the purse quickly went from being a lost item to being evidence in a criminal case." - more on this story

Vinyl, Digital Sales Hit New High Marks, Billboard Chart To Be Tweaked

Nielsen SoundScan sent over some info about vinyl and digital sales as well as news that Rihanna's digital sales record from last year has been broken by not just one, but 4 artists this year. Here is the breakdown from Nielsen SoundScan, followed by news of another big development.

VINYL: We are now over 2 million Vinyl Albums sold, breaking the previous record of 1.9 million (which was the total sold in all of 2008). 2008 YTD was 1.5 million.

DIGITAL: Four artists have broken Rihanna's Digital Tracks sales record (she sold 9.9 million tracks in all of 2008) and three have surpassed 10 million in sales. -Michael Jackson - 11.3 million Total Digital Tracks YTD. -Lady Gaga - 11.1 million YTD -BEP - 10.3 million YTD -Taylor Swift - 9.98 million YTD

NOTE: 1) Next week we will break the 2008 year-end digital album sales total of 65 million. We are at 63.9 million this week. 2) Next week will also be the week we break the 1 billion track sales mark. We are at 998.3 million this week.

But even bigger news came from Reuters on Wednesday, "The compilers of the Billboard 200, the benchmark pop albums chart in the United States, said on Wednesday they would dramatically overhaul the listing later this month to include catalog recordings as well as current releases." What that means that the album chart will no longer be limited to albums released in the past 18 months, and this could dramatically alter the album charts as we know them and give us a REAL picture about which albums are selling in a given week. - Read the Reuters report here

Flaming Lips Get Naked In New Video- Sting Vs Simon Cowell- Red Hit Chili Peppers Comeback Gig- Ace Frehley Goes To Camp- Beatles Radio Special and more

We feel a little like members of Aerosmith with a lack of clear communication. Yesterday we told you about a Jon Bon Jovi unplugged benefit show and the announcement we were forwarded made it sound like the event was taking place last night, turns out the event is happening on Monday. So there you have it!

Spin had this disturbing report: The Flaming Lips are a weird bunch. But with their latest release, the "Miles Davis meets Joy Division" double album Embryonic, the Oklahoma boys are getting even weirder, with ringleader Wayne Coyne going naked and filming a giant, spherical vagina-type-thing giving birth to a bunch of other naked people, who then ride bicycles and dance around a forest like googly-eyed, peyote-fueled Burning Man attendees. more

Police star states the obvious: Sting has called the (UK's answer to American Idol) X Factor "televised karaoke" and said judges like Simon Cowell have "no recognisable talent apart from self-promotion". The singer, 58, told London's Evening Standard that the Saturday night show was "a soap opera which has nothing to do with music". more

As I Lay Dying entered the studio last month with Adam Dutkiewicz (of Killswitch Engage) and Daniel Castleman (Winds Of Plague) to begin tracking their next Metal Blade Records release. more

Coming later this month from Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI Music, The Beatles: Here, There And Everywhere is a three-part radio series celebrating of the best selling group of the 21st Century in America - The Beatles! Syndicated in conjuction with FMQB Productions, Here, There And Everywhere is the only Beatles special officially sanctioned by the Fab Four's label, Apple Corps. more

Original Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley has announced he will join this Sunday's Battle Of The Bands for Rock N Roll Fantasy Camp's showcase finale of the graduates of the 3-day camp. Frehley will hit stage and jam with the campers as they battle it out to be the top campers of 2009! more

Red Hot Chili Peppers have announced their first gig together since the band's 'hiatus' in 2008. Playing MusiCares 2010 on January 29, the group will play their first full line-up show, featuring alongside others artists like Wilco, Norah Jones and James Taylor to pay tribute to Neil Young. more

Pure Noise Entertainment has announced the release of a split 7" featuring East Coast compatriots Transit and Man Overboard. The 7"s will be available in limited collector colors including red white and blue more

Gallows has announced that they will be joining the forthcoming Canadian tour with Against Me!, Billy Talent and Alexisonfire. more

Cannibal Corpse has announced plans to perform a string of February 2009 dates in Latin America. more

Slayer say their UK tour is set to go ahead as planned later this month, even though frontman Tom Araya is still recovering from emergency medical attention which forced them to pull out of a Canada trek with Megadeth more

Agnostic Front and Death By Stereo will tour the West Coast and Southwest together in January. more

After their North American tour with Dragonforce, Sonata Arctica will be returning to the U.S. and Canada to play 24 headlining shows with Mutiny Within and Powerglove. more

The Wonder Years have announced their next full length will be released January 26, 2010. Titled The Upsides, the album is their first since 2007's Get Stoked on It!. more

Mercenary parts ways with their drummer, singer and keyboardist more -

Weird Al Vs. Auto Tune

"Weird Al" Yankovic teamed up with the internet scientists at Know Your Meme for their newest episode discussing the inner workings and inherent comedy in the internet phenomenon known as Auto Tune.

Serving as their expert in the field of Parody and Musical Lulz, Professor Al Yankovic explains how the proliferation of Auto Tune has enabled kittens, babies, and even Winston Churchill to sound like pitch-perfect robots. Comedy ensues. Check out the links below.

Al recently released a collection of his best songs, The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic, a two-disc, 38-song set that spans his entire studio album output from his 1983 debut to his 2006 chart-topper Straight Outta Lynwood. - check it out here

All is Back For more!

Hold onto your hats, the men from ALL are hitting the East Coast for their first shows there in 7 years! For those of you who have been living in a cave, ALL evolved from The Descendents, a band who once claimed they couldn't sell out a telephone booth but whose impact on rock is undeniable.

The Descendents created ALL, a concept celebrating the satisfaction that comes from one's highest achievement, eventually naming their new band in tribute to their own personal ideology. After more than 25 years, there have been line-up changes and a complicated chronology for each member involving spouses, kids, doctorate degrees, labels and recording studios, making touring more of a challenge than in less complicated times. ALL will hit Cambridge, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Brooklyn in January 2010 with Scott Reynolds on vocals joining Bill Stevenson (drums), Karl Alvarez (bass) and Stephen Egerton (guitar).

After years of hiatus, ALL reunited at 2008's Riot Fest in Chicago, setting the stage for additional shows in Japan and in Denver later that year. In July of this year the band headed to their homeland, Southern California for a series of shows, where they were joined by Descendents band mate Tony Lombardo at two shows. Another one-off show in Portland last month set the stage for this brand new set of shows on the opposite coast. - more on this story

Jack's Mannequin fun. Tour

fun. - Nate Ruess (The Format), Andrew Dost (Anathallo) and Jack Antonoff (Steel Train) - have barely taken a break from the road since the release of Aim And Ignite in August 09. The band played to sold-out crowds across the country on their first headlining tour before joining Taking Back Sunday in October. Prior to the album's release, fun. spent the summer touring with Manchester Orchestra.

Now, in the midst of more headline shows, fun. announce their first set of tour dates in 2010, joining Jack's Mannequin on a 12-city tour across the country (with more dates being added!).

Aim And Ignite debuted on the Billboard Top 200 at #71 in its first week and has gone on to sell over 16,000 copies. Buzzbands.la founder and former LA Times music critic Kevin Bronson described the trio as a "complex hybrid of jaunty pop, glam and white soul," while USA Today called fun. "a band that lives up to its name, in a very Electric Orchestra sort of way." - dates

Slayer Hits The Top 20

Satan, the Apocalypse, serial killers, and war are alive and well and thriving on the upper deck of the Billboard Top 200 Albums charts, thanks to Slayer's 10th studio album, World Painted Blood, which debuts at #12 next week.

Keeping chart company with artists like Carrie Underwood, Andrea Bocelli, Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, and the "Glee" soundtrack, Slayer's World Painted Blood holds the distinction of having sold more than 41,000 copies in its first week while NOT being carried in the major chains like WalMart or K-Mart.

In addition, World Painted Blood is a top 10 seller in major markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Boston. And if that's not enough, WPB is the #1 album at indie retail this week - having sold nearly twice the number of the #2 entry - demonstrating the strong, core fan base that the thrash/metal giants continue to possess. - more on this story

Hawthorne Heights and Just Surrender Hit The Road

Pop-punk rockers Just Surrender kicked off a tour with Hawthorne Heights this week and will stay on the road through December.

The band also just wrapped recording their next album (first with Razor & Tie), which will hit stores in the spring of 2010. The new album is produced by Lou Giordano (Taking Back Sunday, We The Kings, Goo Goo Dolls) and is co-produced by Ace Enders.

"We just finished up recording our 3rd full length album with producer Lou Giordano," explains Kyle Shellhammer of Just Surrender. "I can't even begin to explain how excited we are for this record especially releasing it with Razor & Tie." - dates

Fear Before Fundraiser for Crew Member Injured In Australia

Fear Before and Equal Vision Records sent over this notice and plea for help: As you may or may not have heard, our beloved friend, Trent Jacobi, was involved in a very serious freak accident on the morning October 30th while on tour with us in Australia. Before I go any further, let me assure you that in the long run Trent is going to be OK but until he is well, there are many problems that need to be sorted. I'll start from the beginning...

Trent has been an absolutely vital element to Fear Before the March of Flames. He has been on nearly every tour with us for over 3 years and is responsible for our light show, good spirits on long tours, belly-up unending laughter, counseling for when we need it most, and most of all—being the greatest guy that works hard and asks for nothing. He believes in us and what we do. He supports us to no limit. Now we need to return the favor.

Trent paid his own way for this trip. He went to great lengths to save every penny of his in able to join us on our first tour in Australia. This was his vacation. We all arrived on the 21st and were greeted with overwhelming hospitality. The first show in Brisbane was absolutely incredible. In the days to follow things only got better. Australia was a dream come true up until the time of the accident. - more on this story

Singled Out: Age Of Evil (Full Band)

(antiMusic) Welcome to Singled Out! where we ask artists to tell us the inside story of their latest single. Today we have a very special edition for you. Normally we have one member of a band tell us about their new song, but today we hear from all of the members of Age of Evil to really give us the inside story to "Cruel Intentions" from their new Get Dead EP!

Jeremy, Rhythm guitar and vocal: Cruel Intentions is a song that really defines what we are all about. It is heavy, melodic, filled with twin harmonies and ripping solos, but still has an evil catchy side to it. I wrote the lyrics to match the style of the music in the sense that I wanted them to have intricate phrasing and dark lyrical content. The verse is almost impossible to sing and play guitar at the same time but I don't ever limit myself with lyrics that in turn limit the song. It actually pushes me to be a better rhythm guitarist/singer.

The lyrical content is really just about dominating your woman. It is not meant to be offensive but rather entertaining. When I was writing the lyrics I was thinking about what it would look like in a movie. It was important to me that I painted a picture with the words so that my fans could visualize what I was thinking.

A lot of revisions took place in this song and it evolved as we did. The composition changed many times and we really paid close attention to our chord progressions, hooks, and vocal melodies. I think the song turned out absolutely killer and I look forward to how it translates live.

Jacob—Bass : Cruel Intentions is one of the first songs we've written since our first album, "Living A Sick Dream". The idea for this song came a long time ago and the process of writing has spanned over a year or so.

I remember when Jordan first showed us the opening riff. Right when he went into the arpeggios, I knew this was gonna be a f**ked up song. It sounded so evil, like an evil metal roller coaster that makes you die or something.

The arrangement and composition for this song has probably changed 4 times since we wrote it. A band can change a lot in a year, and we knew we had to evolve the song as much as we did as a band. When we were recording it through garage band Jordan accidently grabbed the guitar track for the verse and moved it over slightly. It became what we know as a "happy accident". It's very rare to get one, but when you do it feels like some higher powers like, "Yo, this is how it should be, 'cause that's way f**king metal". So what you hear on the verse is our happy accident.

This song had no title for a long time, too. We didn't want to just grab lyrics and make those the song title. For a while it was "Guilty Pleasure", and it just wasn't doing it for us. There were a few other names, but they were never quite comfortable with everyone in the band. Garrett came up with Cruel Intentions while were in Europe and the name stuck.

Jordan, Lead Guitarist: When I wrote Cruel Intentions I was in a pissed off mood, thinking about all the people in the world killing other people. It sucks.

There is no special technique in my writing. When riffs come to me I just let it happen. Basically, all you need is inspiration and a LOUD F**king Marshall!

When we recorded this song, it was important to all of us to keep it as simple as humanly possible. I don't like when everything sounds so fake through editing, copying, and pasting. We really like to keep it RAW. If we f**k up we do it again till we get it right. The song has much more attitude this way.
Other than the guitar solo, my favorite part of Cruel Intentions is the verse. It's aggressive and tight as F**K. I like to listen to classical musical when I fall asleep. It inspires me in many ways. One of the ways it applied to this song was the classical chord structure.

The Get Dead EP is definitely metal, dude. Anything and everything that we do now and in the future will always show diversity because of our love for music. Be prepared for your brain to be split in two.

Garrett, Drummer: When we were in Europe over the summer, I was reading through the lyrics and noticed that the song was about someone trying to gain trust from another when ultimately, their intentions toward this individual aren't in good nature. Obviously, it's the title of a movie as well, but I thought it could be a cool title for the song. It's a catchy title, a catchy tune, and I really dig it!

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the band and new EP - right here!

Wait there is more!

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