The Metal Masters clinic held their annual concert on January 22, 2014 at the House Of Blues in Anaheim, CA, where members of metal giants like Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth, Testament, Pantera, and more shared the stage to play songs together from their respective back catalogs.

Pro-shot footage of the 3-hour headbanging event, Metal Masters 5, is now online and you can watch it here below.

Some of the songs played were Iron Maiden and KISS covers, but most were from the aforementioned bands, like Slayer’s “South Of Heaven” and “Raining Blood” and Pantera’s “I’m Broken,” “Strength Beyond Strength,” and “Mouth For War.” And the all-star jam finale? Pantera’s “Fucking Hostile,” sung by frontman Phil Anselmo and Testament’s Chuck Billy; a nice touch was seeing bass titan Billy Sheehan playing along on this one, and on Slayer’s “Mandatory Suicide” WITH the guys from Slayer. Too awesome.

Original KISS members Ace Frehley* and Peter Criss performed together this week for the first time in 13 years at the 30th anniversary celebration for radio host and TV’s That Metal Host star Eddie Trunk.

The Spaceman and The Catman, both of whom originally left KISS in the early 80s, but returned to the group for the 1996 reunion tour and subsequent album Psycho Circus, jammed together at the Hard Rock Cafe in New York City on Wednesday, October 23, 2013, along with Anthrax members, bassist Frank Bello and guitarist Scott Ian; former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, and Guns N’ Roses guitarist Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal.

With Frehley on lead guitar and Criss on drums, along with a combination of the aforementioned musicians, the former bandmates rocked out on KISS tunes “Parasite,” “Got To Choose,” “Hooligan,” “Love Her All I Can,” and “Rock And Roll All Night” — the latter three performances can be seen here below in a fan video that was taken.

“From across the room Lemmy spots me. “˜How you feeling? … we were having a drink then all of a sudden you stopped speaking English and ran screaming from the bar!'”

It was the opening show of Scott Ian‘s Speaking Words tour of the UK. The Anthrax guitarist, comic book writer, and now raconteur is in Oxford, England, as he kicks off his latest venture.

The great bearded one is sharing stories from his life, 30-plus years of which have been spent in the heavy metal world. Throw in Meat Loaf as a father-in-law and recording a reality TV show with a heavily armed (and dangerous) Ted Nugent, and there is much to talk about.

The diminutive guitarist (I’m no giant, but there’s clean air between my shoulders and his smooth bald head) has the audience laughing throughout his tales of the perils of playing “˜drunk itunes’, the aforementioned brush with Lemmy – and death – and trying to help Pantera guitarist Dimebag (apparently just Darrell to his friends) in stopping Sebastian Bach from bothering goats and committing suicide. Sort of.

It was the day after Jeff Hanneman’s memorial service. The Slayer guitarist died only days before, an autopsy showing cirrhosis of the liver. Hanneman was only 49 when he died – the same age as Ian is now – and inevitably being part of thrash metal’s “˜Big Four’, their paths had crossed over the years. Ian’s remembers Hanneman’s intelligence and “incisve wit,” a “super nice guy” who, had it been the occasion of one of their other metal brothers passing would be “the first to raise a glass” in their memory.

Last week, we brought you a round-up of news on the metal band Anthrax, including an upcoming EP of cover songs called Anthems.

With Anthems, which will be released in North America on March 19 and in Europe on March 22, Anthrax pays tribute to some of their favorite artists from the 1970s and got the album title from a Rush song called “Anthem,” which they include a cover of on the EP.

For a limited time, their cover of “Anthem” will be streaming online for free over at Rolling Stone, so definitely check that out!

There’s also songs by Thin Lizzy, AC/DC, Boston, Cheap Trick, and Journey on Anthems, as well as a special remix of Anthrax’s “Crawl” off their most recent album Worship Music (the album is on sale right now; see more album sales below).

Anthrax has announced that Jon Donais of Shadows Fall will be filling in as lead guitarist for the departing Rob Caggiano on the band’s upcoming tour dates, including the Metal Alliance Tour in North America this Spring. Anthrax is headlining the tour, with supporting acts Exodus, Municipal Waste, High On Fire, and Holy Grail, and will perform their classic, much-loved 1987 album Among the Living in its entirety.

In early 2010, former lead singer Joey Belladonna returned to the New York-based trash metal band and in 2011 the reunited line-up released the album Worship Music, their first together since 1990’s Persistence Of Time. Worship Music received critical acclaim and one of its songs, “I’m Alive,” is up for a Grammy in the Best Rock/Metal Performance category. This nomination, which was announced in December 2012, marks the fourth time the band has received a Grammy nod.