Over the weekend of October 25 and 26, 2014, my 11-year-old son Jesse and I embarked on a heavy metal pilgrimage. San Bernadino, CA is 60 miles away from our home in Burbank and is home to the San Manuel Amphitheater. It was there that Slipknot was holding Knotfest, a three-day heavy metal summit featuring 60-plus bands on five stages over the course of three days.

This occasion was custom-made for some quality father/son bonding time and an early celebration of Jesse’s 12th birthday (which was on October 30th — Happy Birthday, Jesse!).

The festival actually commenced on Friday night with a special pre-event concert for the folks who purchased camping passes for the weekend and it featured performances from the likes of Suicide Silence, Chelsea Grin, and The Black Dahlia Murder. Since we aren’t really the camping type, we unfortunately missed that night.

Maggots rejoice: Slipknot has just announced that they will be bringing their massive Knotfest back to America. The 3-day event will take place at San Manuel Amphitheater (formerly known as Glen Helen Pavilion) in San Bernadino, CA this year on October 24, 25 and 26.

In addition to Slipknot headlining both Saturday and Sunday nights, the festival will feature over 60 bands including a “who’s who” of metal. Some of the acts scheduled to appear include: Danzig, Anthrax, Five Finger Death Punch, Volbeat, Killswitch Engage, Testament, Black Label Society, and many more. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday, July 11, 2014 with pre-sale being offered from 8-10am on Monday, July 7, 2014.

Season’s Greetings everyone!

To get you further into the festive mood (one day to go!) have a listen to Black Label Society’s version of the traditional English Christmas carol, “The First Noel.”

It’s not the usual BLS heavy metal fare, it is a beautiful acoustic rendition from their covers album The Song Remains Not The Same. As usual Zakk Wylde’s guitar playing is excellent.

We first reported back in February that iconic actor William Shatner was hard at work on his next album titled Seeking Major Tom (read about it HERE).

The album will be a conceptual recording in the form of a collection of 18 covers of classic rock anthems. Recently the Shat released a video of him laying down the final vocals for his cover of the classic Black Sabbath tune “Iron Man” and you can watch that video here below.

Spock may not think the merging of Shatner and Metal to be a logical one — but at this point in 2011, William Shatner is becoming more metal than ever. And even at his age of 80, there seems to be no stopping the once Captain of the USS Enterprise, for this year he will be releasing a metal album, as we reported on several weeks ago. To acknowledge his efforts not only towards his current album project, entitled Seeking Major Tom, but also for his entire epic career, William Shatner will next month be awarded the Honorary Headbanger Award at the annual Revolver Awards.

The Revolver Golden Gods is an awards ceremony to recognize all metal, held every year. The Honorary Headbanger Award is handed out to someone who is not necessarily seen as being in the metal community, but embodies the spirit of metal. With his upcoming album featuring collaborative efforts with numerous metal artists, and his long career in Star Trek and acting in other roles over the years, Shatner is an artist of determination who continually breaks down the doors of what people think he should do (or if people just think it to be… odd).

William Shatner is working on another music project, and this time it’s all about metal. Following a “space” theme, and titled Seeking Major Tom, Shatner is joining forces with some major hard rock icons for the new project, which is set to be released later this year. Essentially, the release is a covers album, but with covers brought together to tell the story of a concept album.

So far, Shatner has collaborated with Brian May (Queen), Zakk Wylde (Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society), Peter Frampton, Ian Paice (Deep Purple), and Steve Howe (Yes). Seeking Major Tom is said to be a collection of 18 “rock anthems” reinterpreted to tell the story that Shatner is putting forward on the album.

The MP3 album deal of the day over at Amazon today is Black Label Society‘s Berzerkus Tour Sampler for only 69 cents!

Yes, 69 cents!

Note, this sale is only for today, Wednesday November 10, until midnight PST.

For less than a dollar you get this 26-song double live album from the metal band, which boasts former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde on guitar and vocals.

Do I really even have to do the math on this? Ok, fine, Math Time = $0.69 divided by 26 songs = $0.265 per song. That’s less than 3 cents per song, c’mon, buy it now! You’d be insane not to.

If you’re a fan of Black Label Society, then there shouldn’t even be a moment’s hesitation. Grab this now. If you’re not that familiar with the band, well, for 69 cents, you can take a chance on them.

The songs on the album were recorded earlier year during the band’s Berzerkus Tour, in support of their latest album Order of the Black, which was released in August 2010. The Berzerkus Tour is still underway in the United States and will soon make its way to the UK.

I just noticed that there’s an offer on Amazon’s MP3 page for a FREE download of the Eagle-Armoury Records 2009 Metal/Hard Rock Sampler.

The album’s name probably means nothing to all of you, as it meant nothing to me at first glance, but, all I need to see is the word ‘metal’ and I’m checkin it out. Turns out there’s 10 great hard rock/heavy metal tunes on the album from bands like Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Dio, Twisted Sister, and Black Label Society.

Now, listen to me when I say this: This album is FREE. FREE. FREE. No obligations, no commitments, no nothing. DOWNLOAD THIS NOW. If you’re new to metal, you’ll at least benefit from getting Dio’s “Holy Diver” if nothing else. Let’s put it this way: I am the biggest metalhead you’ll ever know – I already own most of these songs in every medium possible, yet I downloaded the album.

Check out the full track listing here below and then go grab this baby for yourself. You can thank me later. \m/\m/