Just to put your mind at ease, Metallica will never sell out. At no point will they contribute songs unworthy of their albums to big-budget movie soundtracks or license their music to video games or come down on a college kid and thousands of their own fans for loving their music so much that they wanted to trade it back and forth. That’s right, no selling out for Metallica. They will remain the blue collar metal band that you have loved since 1983 and will do nothing to irritate, alienate or disappoint you.

And in Bizarro world all of that would be true. Then again in Bizarro world we’d all fly backwards and our faces would look like a block of shattered marble so who gives a crap if  Lars gets a Coors Light logo tattooed on his face? But, as we all know, in this plain of existence Metallica has failed to avoid doing any of those things and that’s OK because according to Lars none of those things actually puts them past the point of selling out. By his tally they have yet to sell out and they have punctuated that once again by refusing a deal with Live Nation. Live Nation is a large scale national concert promoter who has recently signed huge deals with U2, Madonna, Jay-Z and others. In turn Live Nation essentially becomes the bands’ record label, merchandise provider and concert promoter. Kind of a one-stop-shopping for all your rockstar needs. Metallica was also approached and Lars says that they shut Live Nation down because they aren’t “sell outs.”

He says, “We haven’t sold out to Live Nation, and we are certainly not planning on it. And we are very, very fortunate that we do not need what they offer to continue to be who we are. Let’s cut to the chase. . . . The primary, not the only, but the primary - function of a record label is to act as a bank. When you’re fortunate enough to be successful and so on, you don’t need to rely on record companies as the banks.”

Now, if Metallica refused the deal because they felt that by taking it they’d give up some measure of autonomy, that’s one thing. But if they refused the deal because they were worried about selling out, then they made a crappy decision since half their fan base started labeling them sellouts when they cut their hair in the 90’s, idiotic as that is. Were they worried about what people would say when they took the 100 million dollars that U2 got when they signed with Live Nation? Because if that was the concern I can tell you what they’d say. They’d say “meh.” Because that’s exactly most people expect from Metallica, especially after suing their own fans because the band wasn’t getting paid for all those downloads. If Metallica took a 100 million dollar payday, people would shrug and say, “Yeah, that’s about right.” So Lars, don’t do it for us because most people made up their minds about your status as a sellout a long time ago. 

And speaking of U2, like their new material or not, if you are a fan or if you’ve ever just wondered what their live show is like, you should really catch them on this tour because Bono doesn’t think they’ll be a band much longer. He didn’t come right out and suggest that this is the last tour but he did make some wistful comments that suggest that they end is near.

Bono said, “We want to play for each other as much as we want to play for the crowd this time. You just don’t know how long you are going to be doing this. When we walk out on stage, the hairs on people’s necks go up - but what people don’t know is that the hairs on our necks go up too.”

You know what the problem with hipsters is? They’re humorless dick-piles who are convinced that the only music worth listening to is obscure synth-pop remakes of Beach Boys classics and Velvet Underground b-sides. They treat music, much like the rest of their lives, with sneering distain and joyless analysis. They use their bodies as billboards for their ironic condemnation of anything that doesn’t fit in the narrow confines of their approval. The only muscles in their bodies with any definition are in their eyes and upper lip from all that eye-rolling and sneering. The rest of their mass is a collection sallow skin stretched over sinew, tendons and sharp, boney protrusions and wrapped in low-rider, too tight jeans, tattered Judas Priest concert T hanging condescendingly from their metal-hating shoulders and a pair of black All-Stars. And while not everyone at SXSW falls into the hipster category, there certainly are a large number of them down there for the premier alternative and college rock expo. And I’m sure whatever hipsters who were in the vicinity when Metallica took over one of the SXSW clubs went into apoplectic fits that led to serious eyeball muscle tearing and lip cramps. Metallica played a semi-secret show and were billed as an unknown Norwegian band, but the word got out in the net and the capacity 2100 room was filled very fast. They played for a little over an hour playing both old and new stuff. The show was part of their promotion for the new Guitar Hero: Metallica.   

The Smashing Pumpkins, as we all know, broke up several years ago and only a couple of years ago reunited. Well, mostly. Billy and the drummer Jimmy Chamberlain reunited. D’Arcy and James Iha weren’t invited.  But still. Two of the original Pumpkins reformed. And they’re the two that really mattered because Billy wrote and sang everything and Jimmy was an ass-tearing drummer. And it was especially cool that he was back in since he was booted in the 90’s because he was a smackhead. Well, Jimmy out again. I don’t know if he’s back on heroin or if he just couldn’t put up with Billy’s crap any more, or maybe, with the bad economy, the Pumpkins just couldn’t afford the extra truck that it would take to haul Jimmy’s kit, since the other three semis were already full of Billy’s ego, but whatever the reason, Jimmy is back out. The new was announced on the band’s official website.  

For those of you who believe in a higher power, you may want to go about thanking that being in his or her preferred sign of gratitude, whatever that may be, whether it’s groveling on your knees for a while or it’s an eternity of devoted and unquestioning servitude or you have to catapult a hamster into a sanctified wood chipper or whatever it if you religious types have to do to appease your angry, invisible cloud men. But whatever it is you have to do, make sure you give thanks because so far it appears that your prayers are being answered. Thus far, no one has used Nirvana’s music in a commercial. A company called Primary Wave Music Publishing bought a 50% stake in the Nirvana catalogue from Courtney for 50 million dollars three years ago. The idea was that they’d make that back and more when they then licensed those songs to companies for commercials to sell fruit roll ups and boner pills. Only 13 Nirvana tracks have been licensed for a total of $480,000 over the past three years. So clearly this is a case of a dutiful god hearing the pleas of his followers and interceding on their behalf. Or it’s because no one wants to use songs about self loathing and heroin written by a man who killed himself to sell lattes and hybrids. The CEO of the company chooses to say, “Nirvana was so revolutionary that it’s very difficult to match different projects, and there are tons of iconic groups that allow their music to be utilized.” Which is to say, most people would rather use the music of a former heroin junkie who looks like a sun-dried apple core, like Iggy Pop to sell iPods than a dead heroin junkie who sang his last notes into the barrel of a shotgun.

Good news! “Behind the Music” is coming back to VH1, meaning they’ll have something new to run into the ground instead of I Love Sober Teen Idol Love Bus. I really can’t tell, nor do I want to even try to tell the difference between those shows. But you know the ones with the celebrities whoring themselves in front of cameras for attention in a house full of drama. But now, with the return of Behind the Music maybe we can get back to the root of the channel where they’d wallow in nostalgia 24-7. Apparently Scott Weiland has signed up to participate in one of the 10 new episodes. Not sure if with just be about Scott and his exploits or if it will mostly focus on STP.

Right around the time of Elvis rockstars discovered that being controversial often brought with it a fair amount of fame. Elvis mesmerized the country’s teenage girls with the gyrations of his junk, like a reverse snake charming where the snake was trying to dance its way out of a pair of too tight shark skin pants. John Lennon announced the Beatles were bigger than Jesus and, thanks to the controversy, if they weren’t before the comment, they certainly were after. And it only blossomed from there, with the blooms on the proverbial scandal-flowers coming in the shapes of mudsharks and headless bats and Janet Jackson’s flabby boob. So, why not compile a list of the most controversial people in rock? Got plenty to chose from. So that’s what the folks over at the British website Orange.co.uk did, or at least that’s what they attempted to do considering they screwed it up so royally.

According to their survey, the most controversial rockstar of all time is Sid Vicious. Sid, the man who could barely stand without the aid of his leech girlfriend propped up under his arm due to all the heroin sludging its way through his veins. Sid, the guy who, when he was sober enough to actually hold his bass, was never competent enough to play it. Sid, who dozed through the murder of Nancy Spungen but still managed to get charged.  And sure, there is certainly some controversy surrounding Sid. But one needs to question whether he is actually number 1.

2. Ozzy Osbourne
3. Keith Richards
4. Amy Winehouse
5. Michael Jackson
6. Marilyn Manson
7. Pete Doherty
8. Britney Spears
9. Courtney Love
10. Madonna

Can somebody tell me why G.G. Allen isn’t on here? The guy crapped on stage on the regular. I won’t tell you what he did with it afterwards. So I don’t care how many times Amy Winehouse flopped a scary boob out in front of the paparazzi how many birds Ozzy has beheaded or how much of his face Michael Jackson has had sanded off, G.G. deserves a spot on this list.

I think there is one thing that we can all agree on. There is nothing pathetic in the least about geriatric rock stars. There’s nothing at all difficult to watch in regards to men in their 50s who insist on wearing too-tight leather pants and studded wrist bands. There’s embarrassing about seeing dudes who should be collecting social security trying to spryly dance around the stage like their 30-year-younger counterparts and failing miserably, eventually collapsing in a heap of heavy breathing and high blood pressure.

I think we’re all on the same page here, right? Good.

In a completely unrelated note, Iron Maiden have abandoned plans to quit after their next album, insisting they’ll keep rocking well into old age. It was just last year that bassist Steve Harris was saying that after the next record they would be done forever. Well, now guitarist Adrian Smith says, “We’ll carry on. The great thing is that there’s clearly a huge audience out there waiting to hear what we’re going to do right now; and in the real world that’s not a very common situation so you have to appreciate it.”

In another note, related in no way to the previous story, soon to be hitting a stage near you, old men’s flappy underarm skin wagging like a flag made of meat in a hurricane as they pump their fists in the air to their new de-balled single that the fans patiently sit through while they wait to hear a hit from the 80s.

Last year when Health Ledger died it was if millions of teen girls clutching dog-eared copies of Tiger Beat cried out and were suddenly silenced. OK, well actually they weren’t suddenly silenced. In fact they’re still crying. You just can’t hear them over the lamentations of gay men everywhere and the tippy-tapping of fanboys on the internet launching racist screeds at each other over the rumors that Kirsten Dunst will take over the role of Scarecrow in the third Batman movie, the advantage being that they wouldn’t need to worry about make-up or CGI since the girl already looks like a gunnysack full of axe handles and shark teeth. Yes, Heath is gone, but his work lives on, including some stuff that has yet to be released. As you may know Health will appear a Terry Gillium movie called “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus,” but what you may not know is that one more piece of Heath’s work that (if it exists) may eventually be released to the public. Rumor has it that Heath directed a video for the Modest Mouse song called “King Rat.” It was a bonus song off their We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank album. Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock says that Terry Gilliam was going to help animate the clip before Heath’s death but it’s unclear how far along the project was or if it was ever begun in the first place. But one imagines that if there is anything that Heath touched, finished or not, someone will find a way to capitalize on it and release it to the public.

We live in a world of entitled children. And don’t think that simply because you’re over the age of 18 that I’m no longer talking about you. Just because your body managed to escape doing the right thing for the gene pool and end itself in some flurry of cancerous AIDS embolisms that cause syphilitic Xenomorphs to burst from your chest and give you leprosy, doesn’t mean that your metal maturity has graduated grade school. Too many of you out there think that by the simple dint of your existence that you deserve to have your every desire met, your every whim catered to. And while your average suburban princess is plenty irritating with her sense of entitlement, the ones actually given a modicum of fame are so much worse. Which is probably why Radiohead flat refused to talk to Miley Cyrus or Kanye West backstage at the Grammys. After Radiohead snubbed Miley, she went on the radio and said that she was going to “ruin them, I’m gonna tell everyone.” And I’m sure losing the legions of 11-year-olds who were just blossoming into avant gard synth rock fans will be totally devastating to Radiohead’s record sales. The band, clearly frightened at the prospect of battling Miley’s army released the following statement. “When Miley grows up, she’ll learn not to have such a sense of entitlement.”