Mastodon have just unveiled a brand new video that captures the much-revered metal band in their best setting - live in concert and killing it on the song "Dry Bone Valley" which is the second single from the band's critically acclaimed Mike Elizondo-produced album The Hunter - the band's fifth studio album that was released by Roadrunner Records via Reprise/Warner in late September.

This is the second video for this song: the first been the Tim Biskup created music video (see below). The above live video of the song was recorded at the Atlanta, GA band's recent sold-out show at London's Brixton Academy on February 11th.  The new video arrives just in time for diehard Mastodon fans (and there are many of those!) who have been anxiously awaiting their anticipated 2012 North American tour that kicks off this week featuring the super-skilled hard rock ensemble's Troy Sanders (bass guitar/vocals), Brent Hinds (guitars/vocals), Bill Kelliher (guitars), and Brann Dailor (drums/vocals).

The new US/Canada tour begins tomorrow night (04/04) in Portland, ME and ends on May 12th in Atlanta, GA. Unfortunately for Cali fans the hectic tour, with co-headliners the Swedish progressive metal band Opeth plus opening act Ghost (who are well worth checking out), includes only two Golden State dates so if you don't already have them, so get tickets now. Those two Cali dates are just three weeks away: Thursday April 26th in LA at the Gibson Amphitheatre and the following night (Friday April 27th) at the Fox Theatre in Oakland.  Pick up Mastodon's The Hunter in each of the three Amoeba Music stores on directly from the online Amoeba.com shop.

Jani Lane (born John Kennedy Oswald), the flaxen-tressed former lead singer of 1980's hair-metal band Warrant, was found dead on Thursday in a hotel room in Woodland Hills, California.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, police found the body of Lane, 47, at a Comfort Inn, with no cause of death available at press time. Lane was best known for the Warrant hit "Cherry Pie," which he wrote and features a guitar solo by Poison's C.C. DeVille. The double entendre-filled video for the song — featuring a barrage of footage flaunting the accolades of Lane's future wife, celebrated Star Search spokesmodel champion turned video vixen, Bobbie Brown — quickly became a programming staple on MTV's Headbanger's Ball when it was released in 1990.

The singer was born in Akron, Ohio, on February 1, 1964. He began his career as a teenage drummer before moving to Florida and playing in a series of metal bands. Eventually he made it to Los Angeles with future Warrant drummer Steven "Sweet" Chamberlin in search of fame and a steady gig.

He was recruited to join Warrant in 1986 and the band released their major-label debut, Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich, in 1989, spawning the hits "Heaven" and "Down Boys" -- a vastly underrated song that, as far as I can tell, is about a wild child, looking cool on the cheap and ogling, i.e. "the way the street lights silhouette your thighs through your dress." But it was 1990's Cherry Pie that really put them on the map, selling three million copies and realizing their dreams of "making it" as hair-metal superstars. Supposedly, the title tune was written on the back of a pizza box, which can be seen on display at the Hard Rock Café in Destin, Florida.

My first experience with Ronnie James Dio was when my mom took me to see Heavy Metal. "Mob Rules" plays while an evil horde kills the pneumatic heroine's people. After acquiring a magic sword, she dons a chainmail bikini and, sitting astride a flying dragon, exacts her revenge. Justify that with some philosophy, and you pretty much have my taste in cinema today. I got a walkman for the following Christmas with what was my first album, Prince's 1999. But the first cassette I bought myself was the Heavy Metal soundtrack. Like many budding metalheads of the time, the soundtrack proved a huge disappointment, as there wasn't anything else on it like the Sabbath song. That didn't matter much, though, since it was strong enough to determine my musical preferences for the next 5 or so years. This was back in the good ol' days when genres meant something, were ideologically pure. Punks hated metalheads, and vice versa, but neither was hated as much as the accursed New Wave kids. I was never very good at being a purist: I hated solos even back then and spent a lot of time privately listening to oldies on the radio. However, I wouldn't publicly break rank -- like Maoism, metal gave me a sense of belonging to a greater good. Hell if I'd ever show weakness in front of my enemies. 

I was a committed comrade the first time I saw Dio play on November 17, 1985, at Dallas' Reunion Arena during his Sacred Heart tour. Rough Cutt opened, but I don't remember anything about them. In fact, I don't remember much about this show except my buddy Mitch and I had balcony seats and were determined to get to the floor, where we wouldn't be able to see anything. Watching from the rafters just never had the same appeal as being part of the big, sweaty, headbanging collective by the stage. So, as Dio began "Rainbow in the Dark" for the encore, we dropped about 12 feet and made a dash to the front where we banged out the rest of the show. Hardly the October Revolution, but what do you expect from the Reagan-era suburban youth? At least I wasn't listening to Minor Threat.

The next time I saw Dio was on his Dream Evil tour. This was February 2nd, 1988, and once again at Reunion Arena. By then, thrash had made his style seem passé. The generic divisions were no longer so clear or socially meaningful. It was around then, when walking downtown, a skinhead approached me to tell me how much he liked my Motörhead t-shirt -- truly the beginning of the end. And, truthfully, I only went to the show to see Megadeth, but did get to witness Dio using a broadsword almost as tall as he to slay a dragon shooting lasers from its eyes (Dallas laws prohibited pyrotechnics). Shortly thereafter, I discovered The Velvet Underground and Zappa, effectively ending my metal days.

hysteron proteron - n. inversion of natural order or sense, especially of words; fallacy of proving or explaining a proposition with one presupposing or dependent on it.

It’s been a couple of months since I photographed any of our arty 7 inch boxes, so here are some more examples of post outsider art-damaged modern adverts faux iconography from Amoeba Hollywood 45 Room brain trust.

Hysteron Proteron literally means “the latter before”, and the purpose is to call attention to the more important idea by placing it first. You might say it’s the rhetorical equivalent to "the last shall be first and the first, last". (Sort of reminds me of my old Catholic School Catechism lessons, which no matter how hard I try to obliterate, remains intact in my skull, an example once again of the inverse natural order of things. But the rewards last a lifetime … I mean eternal! The vague and twisted challenges of a post Irish Catholic childhood are the dented theological reflections or simple colorful profanities, available at a drop of a hat … and are never more than just a couple of pints away.)