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.

Back in February, we told you about the Danzig 25th Anniversary Tour with special guest Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, Glenn Danzig’s former Misfits bandmate.

Well, the tour, which is in full force, made a pitstop in Los Angeles, CA, last month for a “send-off” show at the Universal Gibson Amphitheatre, which closed its doors on September 6th, 2013 to make way for the new The Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood.

At the Gibson show, Runaways singer Cherie Currie, who’s currently on a solo tour, joined the band on stage for a duet with Glenn Danzig on “Some Velvet Morning,” a cover of the Lee Hazlewood/Nancy Sinatra song. You can watch a video of the performance here below; there’s also an embed of the studio version of their cover, which will be on Danzig’s planned covers album.

The band Danzig will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the release of their 1988 debut album, Danzig, with a series of live dates in the United States and Europe.

The band, which features former Misfits frontman Glenn Danzig, posted the news this week to their official Facebook, promising to announce tour dates soon. For the tour, Danzig’s former Misfits bandmate Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein will appear at most of the shows as a special guest, which will mark the first time Danzig and Doyle have performed live together in Europe.

If Henry and Glenn Forever isn’t on your radar, it really should be. It’s an indie comic that imagines Misfits/Danzig frontman Glenn Danzig and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins in a committed, loving relationship. And if you know anything about these two muscle-bulging macho metal icons, you’ll how humorous this scenario is.

The creators of Henry and Glenn Forever — Tom Neely, Scot Nobles, and Gin Stevens of the art collective Igloo Tornado, posted a comic strip of what they say is the “mostly true” reaction by Danzig to the comic.

But what does Henry Rollins think of it?

There’s just a few days left of Amazon’s celebration of heavy metal with their
50 $5 Metal Albums sale. For only $5 each in MP3 format, there are some insanely good must-have metal albums up for sale through the end of March, like Metallica‘s …And Justice For All, Judas Priest‘s Screaming For Vengeance, Black Sabbath‘s Heaven And Hell, Quiet Riot‘s Metal Health, and many more, including some really great “Best Of” compilations.

I picked out a few here below, but be sure to check out the main sale page to see all the albums available now for only $5 each.

Metallica …And Justice For All
Danzig Danzig
Judas Priest Screaming For Vengeance
A Perfect Circle Thirteenth Step
Pantera The Best Of Pantera
Van Halen Van Halen – Best Of Volume 1
Megadeth Megadeth – Greatest Hits: Back To The Start
Black Sabbath Black Sabbath – Heaven And Hell
Cinderella Night Songs
Rainbow Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow
Testament The New Order
Anthrax Spreading The Disease
Kiss Kiss
Queensryche The Best Of Queensryche

Glenn Danzig has announced that he is in the studio and currently recording a covers album. Fans of Danzig will know this project is one the artist has been talking about for some time, and five songs have already been recorded for the album. While Danzig hasn’t released full details yet, it’s understood that among the song selections will be tributes to Black Sabbath and Elvis Presley.

While the Sabbath and Elvis selections, I believe, are somewhat “predictable” choices for Danzig (I imagine he’ll probably throw a song by The Doors in there somewhere too), I would like to think he will choose some tracks that might be a surprise for his fans. I could imagine him doing an interesting interpretation of Nick Cave‘s “Red Right Hand” or a classic rock song like “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals.

This is all just speculation on my part of course, but as a fan I’d like to see Danzig tackle some covers that are a little more unpredictable. Either way, it will be interesting to see what Glenn comes up with for this project. Maybe he could include a hidden track of him paying tribute to the “Glenn Danzig Shopping List” :)