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).

The official website for Gibson guitars has released what they perceive to be the top 50 metal songs of all time. Gibson.com’s writers and editors worked on compiling the list over several weeks, releasing 10 entries at a time, and recently released the top 10, which declared the number one metal song to be “Master of Puppets” by Metallica.

In some ways, the number one spot for Metallica is fitting, considering 2011 is the 25th anniversary of the release of their Master of Puppets album. Having said that though, metalheads are notorious for having fierce and strong opinions about what they consider to be their “top songs,” on top of their fierce and strong opinions about what bands are or are not even metal.

In 1992, Vivian Campbell joined the mega-success rock group Def Leppard, stepping into the second lead guitarist slot left vacate by Steve Clark, who had died the year before. At the time, Campbell had gone a few years out of the spotlight after leaving David Coverdale’s rock supergroup Whitesnake before signed on with the Leps, a position he’s had for nearly 20 years that remains his most high-profile gig to date.

The Irish-born Campbell, who got big break back in 1983 as Ronnie James Dio’s hot-shot lead guitarist in the former Black Sabbath frontman’s newly created solo band, Dio, has always said that the guitar parts in Def Leppard weren’t really challenging to him and he was fine with that. Now, the guitarist is finally bitching about it, complaining that fellow Lep guitarist Phil Collen gets all the good guitar parts. Let’s just say, I told you so.

The latest issue of Revolver magazine is a “Fallen Heroes Of Hard Rock and Metal” tribute to several late musicians, like Ronnie James Dio and Peter Steele, both of whom passed away in 2010. The issue has special cover artwork by legendary comics artist J.G. Jones.

Gracing the cover along with Dio and Steele are Paul Gray (Slipnot), The Rev (Avenged Sevenfold), Dimebag Darrell (Pantera), Cliff Burton (Metallica), Kurt Cobain (Nirvana), Randy Rhoads (Ozzy Osbourne), Freddy Mercury (Queen), and Layne Staley (Alice In Chains).

The cover painting also appears inside the magazine as a free poster. Check out the cover image here at right (click for larger, full view).

The issue is on newsstands now, but you can also purchase it online for $19.95, which includes a commemorative limited-edition 1 3/4″–diameter Dimebag Darrell “dime” along with an antiqued metal coin holder. (This is the only way to get the coin and holder, aside from at Barnes & Noble stores.) A portion of the proceeds will go to the Ronnie James Dio Stand Up and Shout cancer fund.

The New York Times released an online hodgepodge of musicians we lost during 2010, and have omitted three major losses during the year that should anger metalheads across the Earth. In their year review, the Times has snubbed Ronnie James Dio (Black Sabbath, Dio), Peter Steele (Type O Negative), and Paul Gray (Slipknot).

You can view the New York Times montage over at their site if you can be bothered. I’m not embedding it here, because for my part, I’m disgusted they’ve overlooked three significant musicians — presumably just because they’re from the metal genre. The grounds upon which I make this assumption are that there is no metal whatsoever in their “tribute.” Rock, Soul, Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Post-Punk are all included in the company of Funk, Disco, and others. Metal (and related genres) are nowhere to be seen.

Looking for ways to teach your child the alphabet? Well, allow me to direct your attention to this very awesome poster titled “The ABC’s of Heavy Metal,” which makes the alphabet out of various heavy metal band logos.

Check out the poster image here at right (click for larger full view).

This 18″ x24″ art print, by Aye Jay, comes in a hand-numbered edition of 80 and is available here for $25. The two-color image is printed on metallic silver currency paper.

There’s also a version that’s the same size that’s printed on a sheet of metal stainless steel for a super limited edition of 10. That’s so metal!!! Another variant is the Glam Metal edition, which looks real cool, but “glam” doesn’t apply to the bands represented on this print. The glam metal edition is on black paper with metallic gold ink and “a righteous split fountain” and is limited to 20.

It took me all of 60 seconds to figure out which band logos 21 of the 26 letters came from. It wasn’t too difficult considering I’d spent a good portion of my teen years drawing these same band logos all over my school notebooks, folders, and binders.

Can you guess which bands are represented in this poster?

I’ve put my choices here below, with an asterisk next to the ones I didn’t know right away.

The creation of this image was suggested to me by a friend via Twitter, and I immediately thought ‘Horns’ and got to work making it happen.

I created ‘Horns’ to honor of one of the most inspiring people in my life and the lives of many of my friends, the Godfather of Heavy Metal — Ronnie James Dio, who passed away yesterday.

Dio’s bold music scored such a large part of the backdrop of my youth that I can rarely think of good times without thinking of him (Look Out!!).

I was lucky enough to have seen him perform in concert more times than I can rightfully put a number to and I gotta tell ya, every single time I saw him he made that concert seem like the ‘best’ performance of his career.

My friend Greg said it best: ‘Black Sabbath with Ozzy may have created Metal – but it was RONNIE JAMES DIO that made metal a REALITY’

Rock in Peace, RJD!!

\m/ \m/ Hold those horns high!!

Singer and heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio died on Sunday, May 16, 2010 at 7:45 AM after battling stomach cancer, according to an online post by his wife Wendy Dio. He was 67.

Rumors spread over this internet this weekend that Dio had died yesterday, but the truth was that he was in the hospital and not doing well. [Read Ronnie James Dio’s Wife Responds To Rumors: ‘Ronnie has NOT passed away!’]

After quelling the rumors yesterday about the singer’s death, his wife updated Dio’s official site this morning with the news of his passing today.

[UPDATED: Rock Legend Ronnie James Dio Has Died; he passed on Sunday, May 16, 2010 in the morning.]

Rumors began spreading across the Internet last night (Saturday, May 15) that rock singer Ronnie James Dio had died early that day.

Many sites were picking up the story and reporting the rumor as fact, and Twitter and Facebook is all a buzz about this, despite the lack of attribution or official statement.

Since the rumor appeared online — leading to several revisions to Dio’s Wikipedia entry, the singer’s official site has been flooded with traffic, bringing it down (it was still down at the time of this posting).

Blabbermouth contacted Dio’s wife and manager Wendy Dio to respond to the rumors. Wendy Dio, who said she was at the hospital with her husband, responded that while the singer was not doing well, he is NOT dead.