There is speculation that Radiohead will issue a new digital EP as early as Monday (Aug. 17), following the leak of a track online assumed to be a new song by the band. Fan site At Ease reports that "These Are My Twisted Words" was Posted on its message board and it has since appeared on YouTube. According to At Ease, the source file includes the title "Wall of Ice" and the release date Aug. 17 more

Bob Mehr has this sad news: The North Mississippi Allstars have lost their father, Bob Dylan has lost a "brother," rock and roll has lost one of its great cult heroes and Memphis has lost a musical icon with the death of Jim Dickinson. The 67-year-old Dickinson passed away early Saturday morning in his sleep. The Memphis native and longtime Mississippi resident had been in failing health for the past few months and was recuperating from heart surgery at Methodist Extended Care Hospital. more

Poison the Well have announced a month-long headlining tour with Canadian rockers Billy Talent.more

Bassist Rex Brown will rejoin his Down bandmates on the road starting with the August 24, 2009 show in Austin, Texas.more

Ian Jones, original guitarist for New Wave Of British Heavy Metal legends Blitzkrieg, passed away on August 10 after a long illness. more

Gallows has scrapped their previously announced Australian and New Zealand tour dates, instead opting to tour the U.S. with AFI.more

Rare Beatles audio will appear throughout the upcoming Beatles: Rock Band video game.more

Halloween is back and so too is writer-producer-director Rob Zombie, who once again puts his own twisted twist on the soundtrack. Halloween II � Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Hip-O/UMe), to be released August 25, 2009, and co-produced by Zombie, manages to bring together dialogue from the film as well as music from Motorhead, The Moody Blues, Scream (sans future member Dave Grohl), Rod Stewart, the MC5 and Foghat, alongside new psychobilly band Captain Clegg and the Night Creatures.

AM Conspiracy, the band fronted by former Drowning Pool vocalist Jason "Gong" Jones, has parted ways with guitarist Mike Farole.more

ORBS, featuring members of Between The Buried And Me and Fear Before, among others, will tour the East Coast briefly this month. Dates are here

Original San Francisco bay area thrash masters Sacrilege BC have released their blistering 1986 Party with God recording officially on November Fire Recordings. The seventeen track package includes the bands first demo and has been remastered from the studio session tapes. Sacrilege BC was on the crest of the crossover movement that emerged from the birthplace of California thrash. For more information or to order the digipack visit www.sacrilegebc.com also available on itunes.

God Seed � the Norwegian band featuring former Gorgoroth members King (bass; real name: Tom Cato Visnes) and Gaahl (vocals; real name: Kristian Espedal) tells Blabbermouth: "It has been rumored that Gaahl and King have disbanded God Seed. However, this is not the case. Gaahl has chosen to retire from metal music." more

We end with a couple mailbag items. Jesse writes: John Shanks only confirmed "We Weren't Born To Follow" as the new Bon Jovi smass (single that is). The album is called The Circle, confirmed by Obie on the official Bon Jovi website. Single "we weren't meat to follow" end of august. album The Circle November 10th. [Apparently the "tweet" where that info came from was unclear on this point but was clarified later. Chalk it up to being like when KISS was going to call their album "Condemnation" and ended up going with "Cheesy Nights" instead.]

We got quite a few emails about the Top 100 singers list (which we expected). Aside from a few about a couple of typos (thanks! We thought we double checked all of them but we missed a couple. All fixed now), most were b*****ing about the results (including a large number of Axl haters/Clay Aiken lovers. Astroturf?). First off we must state two important things about this list. One) It is a poll and two) we asked our readers to submit their favorite singers, not who they think are the best singers. There is a distinction. Three) since we cover a wide variety of music, this list also reflects that we attract a wide variety of music fans. That's democracy for you. If we asked ever person who voted for a full top 100 list, they would probably all be different. If your favorite singer didn't make the list, don't feel too bad as most of my personal favs didn't make the cut and a lot of singers that I can't stand did. We might have to do this again in a few months and see what kind of results we get a second time? So if you don't like the results this time, you'll have a chance to change them the next! But first we'll have a favorite guitarist poll and before that we are working on another rather different idea (more on that soon). In the meantime, more Weird Al and less U2 and Springsteen. We got the message. But if you get off at getting angry at lists like this, have we got a treat for you. Check out this side by side comparison of our old Top 100 Albums of All Time polls from 1999 and 2000. [Note No. 4 in 1999!] -

Preview and Purchase Nirvana CDs