Hacked Head Site Reports Him Back In Korn?

Metal Hammer reports that former Korn guitarist Brian "Head" Welch's website may have been hacked into to contain the following message:

"Hi, everyone!! I've got good news for you!

"I've been speaking with Jon [Davis, KORN frontman] and Munk' [KORN guitarist James 'Munky' Shaffer] about us and the split.. and finally I can say that I'm taking the right side of the stage again for our next KORN tour and album.

"I'm so excited!!

"I will post more later."

There have been no confirmations of the rumored return or hacking of Head's web site at this point.

Welch left KORN in February 2005, noting that his newfound Christianity made it impossible for him to continue to play KORN's music and live the band's lifestyle. Since leaving the band, Welch has spent considerable time working with members of the Valley Bible Fellowship in Bakersfield, California, and has also been working on a solo album.

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Site Update

Who Says Metal is Anti-Social?

Metalheads are often seens as the black sheep. Often misunderstood and seen as unapproachable, or both, many metalheads are perceived as anti social and are attributed anti-social behavior.

In the new millenium, there are a lot more social aspects of the internet. Social networking sites are the latest craze - from social networking to social bookmarks, calendars and photo sharing. Sites like MySpace (despite its flaws) and Last.fm have gone the extra mile to make social networking work for musicians and music fans alike.

While possibly not truely "social" in the context used above these sites make it much easier than ever before to discover new metal music. Sharing experiences and tastes in music help us [at metalunderground.com] achieve our goals of helping readers discover new and underground metal as well.

Metalunderground.com has opened up accounts on both MySpace and Last.fm and are now formally inviting you to "be our friends."

You can check out Metalunderground.com's MySpace profile at myspace.com/metalunderground. There we have posted some general info about the site and my very own "top played" (on the computer) list from Last.fm as well as the usual MySpace features of comments (moderated) and blog. We've been pretty inactive on the MySpace profile in the past, but plan to change that. Many of our contributors are on MySpace as well and Rocket has made quite a name for himself with The Metal Den on MySpace before joining the Metalunderground.com team. So go and add us to your friends list here.

Last.fm has more collaborative social features such as groups (with collaborative journals and top play lists, recommended radio and bands. Everyone knows Myspace, but what is Last.fm you ask?

Once you've signed up and downloaded Last.fm, just listen to music through your computer's music player – as you do every day. The name of each song you play will be automatically sent to our servers and saved in your musical profile. We call this "scrobbling," and it's the basis of everything we do at Last.fm, from personalised recommendations to radio, music charts to musical neighbours, and much more.

I have a personal account on Last.fm but have also started a Metal Underground group. If you have a Last.fm account, you can join this group and we will be able to make our own charts (after reaching 15 members) to see what Metalunderground.com readers and contributors are listening to.

Furthermore, if you use one or more of the dozens of social bookmarking sites such as digg.com, del.icio.us or others, we'll be integrating features related to them a little more in the future as well.

In today's internet age - as opposed to 1995 when I was scouring the newsgroups (aka USENET) for any word of interesting bands I'd never heard of - discovering new metal music could not be any easier.

PS - It also makes me feel better having many "friends" as I sit at my computer working on Metalunderground.com into the wee hours of the night

PPS - We're not going to sign up for every social network out there, but it you have recommendations in the area of metal/music-oriented social networking sites, please feel free to let us know in the comments.

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Amora Savant Seeks New Bassist

Milwaukee's Amora Savant are currently in search of a new bass player. Candidates "must be able to tour, have good equipment, can rock a bass guitar, and be willing to relocate if possible." The group requests that interested parties learn two tracks online ("You Dream, You Wake; You Live You Die" and "Our Destiny Manifested"). Email the band at amorasavant@yahoo.com and they will respond with bass tabs for the songs. When emailing, they ask that you include your name, location, age, phone number, equipment, and any other relevant information.

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The Murdered, She Killed Poetry, Dryline Tour

The Murdered, She Killed Poetry, and Dryline will tour together this fall. Here are the latest tour dates:

10/3 Mcallen, TX @ The Smoke Shack
10/4 New Orleans, LA @ Lounge Lizard
10/5 Jacksonville, FL @ The Pit
10/6 Clearwater, FL @ 688 Skate
10/7 Pembroke Pines, FL @ The Talent Farm
10/8 Miami, FL @ Churchills
10/10 Naples, FL @ Riverpark Community Center
10/11 Fort Myers, FL @ First United Methodist Gym
10/12 Port Charlotte, FL @ Franz Ross YMCA
10/13 Venice, FL @ Durty Dineans
10/14 Rotonda West, FL @ Rotonda Park Pavillion
10/15 Tampa, FL @ The Orpheum

dates w/ The Burning Room
10/17 Orlando, FL @ The Oasis
10/18 New Port Richey, FL @ Bourbon Street
10/19 Bossier City, LA @ Diver Down
10/20 Douglasville, GA @ The 7 Venue
10/22 Savannah, GA @ TBA
10/23 Atlanta, GA @ TBA
10/24 Birmingham, AL @ Smoothie Joe's
10/26 Chattanooga, TN @ Ziggy's
10/27 Nashville, TN @ Club Fathom
10/28 Murfreesboro, NC @ Zakks
10/29 TBA
10/30 Gaithersburg, MD @ Firestation Cue
10/31 New Castle, DE @ Harmony Grange
11/1 Harrisburg, VA @ Captain T's
11/2 Virginia Beach, VA @ Gils
11/3 TBA
11/4 Amarillo, TX @ The POD
11/5 San Antonio, TX @ The Underground
11/6 Albuquerque, NM @ TBA
11/7 Lafayette, LA @ Club Sin

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Cult of Luna Film Video For "Back To Chapel Town"

Swedish art-noise collective Cult of Luna have filmed a video for the "Back to Chapel Town", a track that features on their latest album out on Earache records "Somewhere Along the Highway." Filmed in Umea near where the band are from, the video took 5 days to make but much longer to plan. Johannes Persson and Erik Olofsson came up with the concept and directed the video themselves.

"Its about a dude" says Johannes trying to explain "a man waking up in a world he doesn't know, he knows nothing of his past or where he is, people treat him like air or are very suspicious of him." When asked how he felt about filming his own video Johannes says "It took fucking ages to arrange, we shot for 5 days and I've never felt so out of my element, but it was fun, and definitely something I would like to do more in the future."

The video mimicks the dark graphic feel of the album, and was even shot in the same kind of colour as the artwork on "Somewhere along the highway." The video is due to be finished by the end of September.

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Into Eternity Film Severe Emotional Distress Video

Canada's INTO ETERNITY spent Monday, Sept. 11 (a Gigantour 2006 "off" day) filming the video for "Severe Emotional Distress", the first single from its Oct. 3 release, "The Scattering of Ashes". The video follows the song's theme, "cutters" (people who cut themselves), and was shot by Kevin Wildt ("The Warriors", "Set Your Goals"). Wildt reportedly captured the band's vision perfectly. Click here to check out photos from the shoot.

INTO ETERNITY's YouTube guitar lesson #1 won four awards from YouTube, including awards for being in the Top 40 Daily Most Viewed and Top 75 Daily Top Favorites. A new lesson is now posted at the Century Media YouTube page, presented by none other than guitarist/mainman fire fingers Tim Roth, who will teach you how to set your own frets ablaze. Roth herein instructs how to play the scorching solo from "Suspension of Disbelief". More...

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Dark Remains Announce New Vocalist

Dutch death metallers DARK REMAINS have announced the addition of vocalist Erwin to the groups ranks. Erwin joins the group as the replacement for RSD Xul, who decided to leave DARK REMAINS after completing the recording sessions for the band's new album, "Planet Earth Scourged".

The band's sophomore CD, "Planet Earth Scourged", is scheduled for release on September 16 via Burning Misery Records. The CD, which contains nine brand new tracks and two live videos, is the follow-up to 2002's "Death Manifestation" (Cleansweep Productions) and was recorded, mixed and mastered at A.M. Studios.

DARK REMAINS will play a special album-release party show at De Gonz in Gouda, Holland on September 16.

For more information, visit www.burningmisery.com.

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Exmortem Parts Ways With Earache Records

Danish metal act EXMORTEM has ended its co-operation with Earache/Wicked World Records effective immediately. "EXMORTEM will now start to look for a new home for their coming releases, as well as a booking agency that will take care of their coming live activity," reads a statement from the group.

"The band is right now in writing mode and will record the follow-up to 'Nihilistic Contentment' (2005) during the winter. Most of the album has been written, so a release should be expected during the beginning/first half of 2007. This release will be the first with drummer Morten Siersbaek and the first to show the band's 'new' style…"

The band added: "We are in no hurry finding our new partners in crime, but expect to announce a new label pretty soon though."

Interested labels can contact the band through their MySpace page.

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Nightwish Begin Recording New Album

Finland's NIGHTWISH has issued the following update:

"Today [Friday, September 15], NIGHTWISH enters the studio to begin recording the new album. Jukka [Nevalainen] starts the process by recording the drum parts in the next 5-6 days. Then guitars, bass and demo keyboards, followed by orchestral/choir recordings. After those, the final synths and vocals will be recorded. The whole process will last six months minimum, so we should have the final master copy in our hands sometime during the spring."

NIGHTWISH has yet to announce a replacement for departed singer Tarja Turunen, who was kicked out of the group via an "open letter" last October. Tarja's final show with the group — which took place on October 21, 2005 at the Hartwall arena in Helsinki, Finland — was filmed and recorded for the recently released "End of an Era" DVD and CD, which entered the German chart at a No. 3 and has already been certified gold for sales in excess of 25,000 copies. "End of an Era" was also certified gold in Finland the day after its release. In addition to the live footage, the DVD includes a slideshow of pictures from the Hartwall show and a 55-minute documentary, "A Day Before Tomorrow", featuring behind-the-scenes footage of the band in the 15 days prior to the Hartwall Show. The documentary was edited by Timo Halo, who also edited and directed the "From Wishes To Eternity - Deleted Scenes" and "End of Innocence" movies that were released on previous NIGHTWISH DVDs.

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