Metallica

Five '70s Metal Bands Who Are Better Than Black Sabbath

By: Nicholas PellOk, we get it. You like Sabbath. Everyone does. But there's a whole big world out there of '70s metal bands that goes beyond Sabbath -- even beyond Sir Lord Baltimore, if you can believe that. The '70s offered so much in the way of doom-and-gloom heaviness that it's criminal so many ... More >>

Hey, Metal Scene: Where's All the Black People?

Why it's still misunderstood by most African-Americans

Metallica Releases PSA To Help FBI Catch Fan's Killer

No one has ever mistaken heavy metal pioneers Metallica as the type to give a public service announcement. However, recently the band used their celebrity to take up a special cause--  help the FBI catch the a fan's killer. The band released a PSA in order to help uncover new information that c ... More >>

Bassnectar Rumbles Through Lightning In a Bottle Festival

Freeform artist Lorin Ashton reflects on the release of 'Vava Boom' and his journey in EDM

AWOLNATION on Record Store Day at Coachella, and Their First Albums

Is it musical overload to celebrate National Record Store Day at Coachella? Pop up store Zia Records (located on the festival premises) proved it is not. Although the store drew many bands on the festival lineup for special signings, Record Store Day drew even bigger crowds than usual, with attendee ... More >>

Newport Beach Film Festival's Sounds and Fury

Its music series makes more noise

Ten Questions with That Metal Show's Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson

​I grew up in a town where almost every kid wore a jean jacket and worshiped at the altar of Ozzy Osbourne. KNAC blared from garages and Skid Row was played over the loudspeaker at our city's annual carnival. Needless to say, I know a thing or two about metal, which might have something to do with ... More >>

3hree Things: A Box Full Of Cassettes And Shame

Watch out for 3hree Things every Tuesday, where Riley Breckenridge, drummer of Orange County's favorite local alt-rock band Thrice, gives his take on life in Southern California as an OC native.​I'm not gonna lie. I didn't spend my formative years as a music listener (late-80's/earl ... More >>

Local Record Review: 'Anna Vexa' by Anna Vexa

​Anna VexaAnna Vexahttp://annavexa.comWe here at Beat Blvd. have been along long enough to know a few truths, and one of them has become clearer with time -- there are always going to be some form of goth/prog/metal bands out there doing something anthemic, sometimes cryptically and sometimes open ... More >>

MTV's 10 Coolest Videos From Michael Jackson to Metallica

​Today is MTV's 30th anniversary (30! OMG), so we thought we'd let loose with a list of some of the cooler/mind bending/watchable videos to grace the venerable network juggernaut's air waves.  Despite all of MTV's shortcomings as a commercial cable network channel, which has blighted our scre ... More >>

Metallica Bride Annette Ortiz-Diaz Talks About Her Viral Video

​ Last week we posted a video of a bride playing Metallica's "Master of Puppets" at her Beatles-themed wedding. It turned viral pretty quickly, and now has more than 250,000 views. The video was posted on Blabbermouth, Metal Insider, CBS news and more. The couple, veteran musicians Annette Ortiz-D ... More >>

Five Music Biopics We'd Like To See

​ Over the last decade, Hollywood has pumped out an increasing number of music biopics, treating us to everything from enjoyable theatrical hits (8 Mile) to wobbly, tear-jerking cable duds (Take Me Home: The John Denver Story). With Jeff Buckley, Sam Cooke and Clash movies in the works and rumor ... More >>

20 Years Later: A Video Retrospective of 1991

​It may be hard to believe, but it has now been 20 years since 1991. "The Year That Punk Broke" may not have completely lived up to the eponymous documentary title, but it remains a watershed year in musical history, and not solely for the grunge-/alternative-rock breakthrough that defined the tim ... More >>

A Gimmick From Record Stores and Slayer on Black Friday? No Way!

​Thanksgiving, Schanksgiving. As a music geek who lives to shop, Black Friday gimmicks are near and dear to my heart.This year has a bunch of Black Friday gimmicks that sound pretty interesting.

Animals As Leaders Riff Out

There's more to Tosin Abasi's instrumental prog-metal outfit than guitar heroics

Uproar Festival: Disturbed and Avenged Sevenfold at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater Over the Weekend

Christopher Victorio/OC WeeklyCheck o​ut our Uproar Festival slideshow featuring Avenged Sevenfold, Disturbed, Stone Sour, Halestorm, Hellyeah, Airbourne, Hail the Villian and New Medicine here!Uproar Festival feat. Avenged Sevenfold and DisturbedSeptember 17, 2010Verizon Wireless AmphitheaterThe ... More >>

Uproar Festival's Headliners Charttoppers: Disturbed's 'Asylum' Hit No. 1 on Billboard Today

​Today we found out that both Rockstar's Uproar Festival headliners' albums debuted at No. 1 this summer. Avenged Sevenfold held the No. 1 spot on the Billboard 200 album chart just a few weeks ago with their new CD Nightmare, and the eponymous single has also been No. 1 on rock radio for the thre ... More >>

TGIF: ¡Aparato!, Exodus, the Mildreds, the Mormons and the D-Strutters Plus the Last Acrobatics Everyday This Summer

Little Teeth perform at Acrobatics Everyday​What's going on this weekend, you ask? There's jarocho rock courtesy of ¡Aparato!, '80s thrash metal care of Exodus (Kirk Hammett's old band), the Mildreds in Long Beach and the last Acrobatics Everyday set of the summer in Irvine, with Little Teet ... More >>

Top 10 Orange County Concerts of 2009, No. 2: Metallica, December 10, Honda Center, Anaheim

Editor's Note: Having spent hours perusing the Heard Mentality archives for a Concert Year in Review feature running in the print issue that streets Friday, I compiled a Top 10 list of the coolest shows to come through Orange County in 2009. Here's No. 2, the first major concert I covered after land ... More >>

Play That Riff...Literally

Fu Manchu guitarist Bob Balch has a website devoted to music lessons. Now, that in itself isn't newsworthy, but I did a little snooping and realized he's really onto something.   Anyone who ever took a lesson knows how boring they are. A 14-year-old wants to learn Metallica riffs (at least I di ... More >>

K'Naan

Ragga Muffin Festival

Old School Hip-Hop: Back from the Dead

I've been a Sirius Satellite subscriber (hello alliteration) since the night before Howard Stern broadcast his first censorship-free show. But in that time, I've come to love certain aspects of the other channels and have recommended this product to everyone from friends to my parents.Sirius and XM, ... More >>

Five Ways To Survive the Current Economic Crisis

BY COLE HADDONThese are tough economic times, what with the depression that's being driven by the housing crash, and skyrocketing unemployment. It's damn near impossible in such a climate to enjoy or even splurge on our hobbies and passions. Who can afford those New Kids on the Block tickets or iPod ... More >>

No More Virgins Left in Orange County

Virgin Megastores, that is. Just got back from a lunch break to find out how true today's report on the Register's retail blog is, and the answer is . . . very. The Virgin Megastore at the Block in Orange will indeed be closing. The plug gets pulled January 4. In the meantime: bargains! I grabbed a ... More >>

Lamb of God: Too Dangerous for LA, Just Right for Anaheim

Faithful Central Bible Church, the owners of The Forum in Inglewood, have (again) deemed Lamb of God not worthy of playing in their arena. They were scheduled to open up for Metallica there on Dec. 17 and 18. The good news, though, is that even though the band, whose debut album was called Burn the ... More >>

This Week in the OC Weekly

[CD Review] Melvins, 'Nude With Boots' (Ipecac)

¡Ask a Mexican!®

Three-question special

Steep Learning Curve

Don Caballero’s Jazzbo Metal Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

Pigs* Bust OiNK

The BBC reports that British and Dutch police today have shut down the popular and flagrantly illegal music-downloading site OiNK and arrested its overlord, a 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough, England. That sound you hear is the celebratory high-5ing of major-label employees worldwide and Metall ... More >>

Sprawl of Sound

Putting Rock in Your Electro (and Vice Versa): Dan Sena’s Busywork Night Is Anything But Drudgery

One Door Closes, Another One Opens

The Cult get their mojo risin again

For Those About to Schlock . . .

KNAC/DC supply the metal, you shout at the devil

Northern Light Junkyard Music

Under Byen orchestrate a Danish treat

Danzig's Lost and Found

Underground auteur unearths hits from hell

Radical Chick

You cant tell Natalie Maines to Shut Up & Sing

Tapping All Levels

Veteran hip-hopper V.I.T.A.L. Emcee steps out on his own

New Reviews

Dog Lover's Symphony; Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties; The King; Korn Live on the Other Side

Troubled Man

The deeply disturbed life and times of a musical prodigy

4,100,000,000 Flies

How High On Fire do Hadean (not Hitchcockian) heavy

Oxxnard

Live review

HOT AS IN GOD

This week in nightlife and more: July 7-14

Live Previews

Triumph of Mediocrity

Evil-free!

Chase Frank

Singer and guitar player in Quiverfish, Producer of Curve and Songwriter's Supper Club, DJ Trytophan.

Johnny Jones

Singer/Songwriter, Artist, Hot Wheels Collector

Call Your Mother!

Henry Rollins sweats pure love

Were Winning the War Against Crappy Music!

A Week of Bad Manners

Oh, and the well-mannered Derailers, too