This morning Metallica announced that they will throwing a two-day Metalica headlined festival titled Orion Music + More in Atlantic City NJ this summer when, joined by approx two dozen of their favorite artists, they will play their self titled 1991 album, better known as the Black Album in its entirety. Joining them in this festival, planned for June 23rd and 24th in the New Jersey seaside casino/resort town at an abandoned airport space, will be such acts as Modest Mouse, Arctic Monkeys, Gary Clark Jr. Avenged Sevenfold, Fucked Up, The Gaslight Anthem, Roky Erickson, Cage The Elephant, Best Coast, Hot Snakes, Titus Andronicus, Lucero, The Black Angels, The Sword, A Place to Bury Strangers, and Liturgy. There will also be some non-music entertainment including several comedy acts. Above is a video containing parts of their UStream announcement of the festival from earlier today. Ticket prices range from $125 for two days general admission to $225 for the two day "Met Club Ultra Pass." For tickets, which go on sale Saturday Feb 11th, and more info, including updates on more to be announced acts, go to the OrionMusicAndMore website. Below is a live version of "Enter Sandman" from the band's Black Album from the same year it was released.

As he did for the NAMM 2010 & NAMM 2011 conventions in SoCal, once again my man Shing02 has filed a report on the this year's annual NAMM 2012 convention exclusively for the Amoeblog.  The renowned Japanese producer/emcee/multi-instrumentalist/all round hella great guy headed to the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, CA music gear/tech convention a couple of weekends ago (January 19th - 22nd, 2012) to file this report (video above, text & photos below) with help from host Yamato Kaneko in which they visit DJ TechTools, STOKYO, Teenage Engineering, Vestax, AKAI, Tiptop Audio, McDSP, KORG, KDJ-One, RANE, Emulator, SlipmatsOnline.com, Vintage Vibe, NORD, Slaperoo and some other booths too. Thanks Shing02!


The annual NAMM convention in Anaheim showcases a convention center full of eye-candy for the gear geeks, and 2012 proved no different. Although the music and recording industry seem to be stuck in an age of meticulously fine-tuning software with no big leaps in ideas and technology, some brands still managed to stand out. My personal favorite was the OP-1 synthesizer by Teenage Engineering from Sweden, which was introduced last year at NAMM, but came back stronger with upgrades. In essence, OP-1 is a synth / drum machine that feels more like an old-school game than a modern machine, which creates a fun learning curve to create unique grooves. (It actually has a game-mode built into it!)

Super Bowl isn't the only event happening today. On a more bittersweet note around the same time as the Giants/Patriots game over in the UK is a big J Dilla fundraising tribute party - just one of numerous events scheduled this month, on both sides of the Atlantic, that will honor the greatly revered late hip-hop producer and emcee who died six years ago around this time (Feb 10th, 2006) following a battle with lupus. Fittingly money raised at the British Dilla event today, which is titled J Dilla Changed My Life and will be held at Scala in London, will be donated to both Lupus UK and the J Dilla Foundation with all the DJs performing for free to benefit both causes. Also in the house today will be Ma Dukes - the mother of the late great artist born  James Dewitt Yancey and was also known as Jay Dee (not to be confused with an early 90's European house music act of same name). For more exact details on today's London event, that will be hosted by Phat Kat, visit the official Facebook event page.

Other J Dilla tribute events this month include ones in Detroit, LA, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New York where on Feb 19th at the Brooklyn Bowl the sixth annual Donuts Are Forever celebration will start at 8pm and will feature such talents as DJ Neil Armstrong, Prince Paul, and the hip-hop group Tanya Morgan. Of this NYC accidentally annual event Derreck "Dee Phunk" Johnson,  a partner in Rare Form - the event's organizer, said, "We never went into this planning for it to be an annual series. The original Donuts Are Forever in 2007 was a commemoration of the first anniversary of his passing.  But when we witnessed the turnout, we were dumbfounded.  We were fans and we knew there were a ton of other fans out there...but just seeing the physical manifestation of that love blew us away.  And five years later...here we are on number six." Details.

1) Gangrene Vodka and Ayahuasca (Decon)

2) Lushlife Plateau Vision LP (Western Vinyl)

3) Homeboy Sandman Subject Matter (Stones Throw)

4) Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( Legendary Music/Live Up/Traffic)

5) Wiley Evolve Or Be Extinct (Big Dada)

For a change from the usual sales-based Amoeba weekly hip-hop chart this week's Hip-Hop Top Five Chart is my own personal favorite brand new and soon to drop hip-hop releases. Topping the chart is the amazing Oh No and The Alchemist group Gangrene's third and latest collaboration Vodka and Ayahuasca on Decon. Also here is the recent Eligh & Amp Live Therapy At 3 ( which gets better and better with repeated listens and the brand new Wiley
album Evolve Or Be Extinct - a double CD on Big Dada which will appeal equally to grime and hip-hop heads. Not out yet but worthy of mention It is the forthcoming Lushlife album Plateau  Vision LP, which will be released in mid April on Western Vinyl, and is sure to propel to mainstream visibility the South Philly producer/emcee/musician who made waves last year with the much buzzed about mixtape No More Golden Days. As with that mixtape, which was an actual cassette tape, this new CD album blends mid 90's underground NY hip-hop flavor with Dilla/Madlib type production values. This is the sort of well produced album that will make you want to also track down the instrumental version. It's pure pleasure to listen to and Lushlife's flow is a treat to listen to. He is also joined by several well chosen guests throughout the 11 track album including Styles P, Canadian rapper Shad, Heems of Das Racist, and ex-Titus Andronicus garage rocker Andrew Cedermark who joins him on the album track "The Romance of the Telescope." My personal favorite tracks are the throwback eigthies/nineties sounding "Anthem" and the opening "Magnolia" which, over a dreamy hypnotic backdrop and a series of well chosen samples, finds Lushlife rapping about such things as graffiti and Coney Island. This is already making its way to becoming one of my year end top albums.

As you might have noticed in the latest Out This Week Amoeblog, published here yesterday by Brad Schelden, among the list of new music releases for this week is Leonard Cohen's new album Old Ideas.  Available at Amoeba Music in both CD and LP formats it is the legendary Canadian singer-songwriter's twelfth studio album and his first album of new material in almost a decade. Amoeba.com reviewers accurately wrote of the new release that, "Cohen returns to form in a manner that is musically reminiscent of his early classics, full of somber details sung in his trademark nearly spoken-word style over deep, atmospheric blues."

As fans of Cohen's already well know Old Ideas is Cohen's first album with new material since his well publicized 2005 declaration of bankruptcy following his ex-manager's embezzlement in which he allegedly cleared out all of the musician's bank accounts - essentially leaving him broke. Consequently some cynics, before even hearing the new album, dismissed it - along with his recent era active touring schedule - as just another stab by the financially strapped star to get his accounts back in the black. But the reality is that Old Ideas is anything but halfhearted. Rather it's an amazing album; one that finds Cohen, who is now in his late 70's, in top form delivering songs such as "Going Home" and "The Darkness" in that trademark baritone flow of his that fans love so well. Already Old Ideas has won extremely positive feedback from longtime Cohen fans and critics alike - many comparing it to his last highly acclaimed album: 1988's I'm Your Man.