Earlier in my career, I used to work at a 24-hour music video tv station in Boston called V-66. It was an awesome job. I was the music director and did a daily music news feature, “The Roxy Report,” (hmmm, wonder if that is where Stephen Colbert got the idea? LOL) and a couple of weekend shows, “The New Music Show” and “Guest VJ” where artists or celebs would come in and host an hour of our videos. My assistant was this awesome kid I hired who worked at WBCN, Jamie Willis (Wha chu talkin’ about, Willis?) He’s gone on to bigger and better things, working for several record companies in Boston and now in Seattle. We’re reuniting today after, hmmm, lemme think, 27 years. THAT’S INSANE!….Yesterday I was on the hotLine with one of my favorite people, Lzzy Hale of Halestorm. I love her to pieces! The band had a stop yesterday in Springfield, MO, home of our affiliate Q102! (Nice shot with the band, Shadow!) Lzzy is busting at the seams about the new music on their third album, Into The Wild Life, which drops April 7th. We were talking about how cool it will be when the Carnival of Madness tour starts with The Pretty Reckless. We were laughing. Taylor Momsen makes her stage clothes, and Lzzy has also made many garments she wears and has a merch line, Scissor Happy. She was saying, “I can see us backstage getting ‘crafty” together.” I told her I want Taylor to make me one of those tops she wears with the cross. I HAVE TO HAVE ONE! Anyhow, the new Halestorm single “Apocalyptic” is out now. Hit www.halestormrocks.com for more!…. Pulse Of Radio says Five Finger Death Punch is back in the studio working on the follow-up to 2013’s double record set, The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell. A mid-to-late 2015 release is expected for the disc. Despite the band being fairly prolific by today’s standards — putting out new music every two years — singer Ivan Moody told us the studio is the last place he enjoys being: “No, I don’t spend a lot of time in the studio, man. I truly don’t. I’ll be in there when I have to. I hate the containment, I can’t stand the schedule crap. The monotony drives me frickin’ crazy, you know, ‘Do it again, do it again, let’s try that again,’ and it’s just, it’s so frustrating to me. Sitting in the booth and feeling like, basically it’s just a cold, dead coffin, and a lot of the time people want to know why my lyrics are so angry — that has a lot to do with it.” The band has announced a short string of dates in the spring. See Road Rage….. Papa Roach has released a new track called “Never Have To Say Goodbye” as the band counts down to the arrival of its eighth studio album, F.E.A.R. The track is the fourth released by the band ahead of the record’s Jan 27th release date. The set was written and recorded in Las Vegas, the first time Papa Roach has made an album outside its home base of Sacramento, CA in several years. Papa Roach entered the studio without a single song or demo, a process that frontman Jacoby Shaddix told me on the hotLine was beneficial for the band: “It just came about very differently from anything else we’ve ever done and I think that it forced us to be a little bit more spontaneous, it helped us from overthinking the process — which was, in my opinion, great — and just committing to things right on the spot. ‘Cause we knew that we could always change it down the road, but it’s like, lay it down and live with it for a minute, and it felt right.” The F.E.A.R. album follows up Papa Roach’s 2012 effort, The Connection. The title track from the new disc is a Top 10 hit at rock radio. In other news, Jacoby has also announced that he’s launching a clothing line called “Lovers Are Lunatics” in collaboration with designer Jeff Henry. Shaddix told a North Carolina radio station he wants to “do other things outside of Papa Roach that keep my creative (juices) flowing.” The singer is hiding T-shirts from the line at shows on Papa Roach’s current tour and creating “scavenger hunts” for fans to find them. Jacoby is stopping by the hardDrive studios in NYC on Tuesday, so P-Roach fans, get your questions in to me NOW!….Ozzy Osbourne‘s wife and manager Sharon has made more details available about her husband’s upcoming Las Vegas concert production, called Hell Gate. Speaking on Monday night’s (Jan 12th) “after dark edition” of her CBS show The Talk, Sharon revealed, “It’s something that’s gonna start Halloween. It was meant to start last year, but (we) couldn’t get it together in time. And Ozzy’s gonna be in Vegas for the whole month. And what it is is a Halloween experience. So it’s a very state-of-the-art, interactive show that Ozzy will put on, with everything that goes with Halloween.” That sounds like FUN! More details coming….Pulse also reports as we settle into 2015, there appears to be some progress on the making of the long-awaited new Tool album. According to Loudwire, the band revealed via a post at its Facebook page guitarist Adam Jones came up with an ending for one of the band’s new songs that all four members were happy with. We can hear those champagne corks popping now, can’t you? The full message read, “Starting the New Year off on a positive note, Adam arrives at the loft with an ending for a new Tool arrangement and gets the nod of approval by the others. As long as they don’t start with the ending, that’s good news!” That doesn’t mean, however, that the band is ready to record yet — just that an ending for an arrangement was finished. We don’t know how many other arrangements or songs are completed. It’s been nine years since Tool released its last album, 2006’s 10,000 Days, although apparently the quartet have spent a good chunk of the past year finally getting down to business. Jones revealed last July that lawsuits involving a former friend of the band and an insurance company had been putting a drag on the group both creatively and financially since 2007. The ex-friend claimed that he was owed money for artwork he had given the group, while the insurance firm — which was supposed to protect the band against such claims — sued the band for “technicalities” regarding the case. Must be nice not to have to worry about money that you can take all this time off between records….The 2015 Bonnaroo Festival for June 11-14 line-up has been announced. Some notables are headliner Billy Joel! SLAYER! Royal Blood and Tears For Fears, because Everybody Wants To Rule The World! See www.bonnaroo.comfor more….This is insane! Pulse reports Metallica‘s controversial St. Anger album has been re-recorded in its entirety by two fans who have called the project #STANGER2015. The fans, Chris D. and Dave C., issued a statement saying, “Recorded during a turbulent time in the bands career, St. Anger has always divided opinion. Some longtime fans were turned off by the drop tuned riffs and raw production, whilst some listeners embraced it, myself included. #STANGER2015 is for the listeners who weren’t so fond on the record back when it was released in 2003.” The pair added, “Recorded from the ground up, the album has been shortened by 15 minutes, yet every riff and lyric is intact, resulting in a more concise and focused record. The production is also more conventional, and we hope that Metallica fans appreciate this new version of an album that is always looked at as an anomaly in the incredible career of the world’s biggest metal band, Metallica.” The statement concluded, “Absolutely no money has been made from this project, and it has been created out of love for one of our favorite bands of all time. There will be no download links or alternative streaming options aside from this singular youtube video.” Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich admitted to us a while back the band was surprised by the hostile reaction to St. Anger by many fans: “It threw us a little bit sure, ’cause the whole thing was to just keep it as raw as possible. And I’d like to think that we accomplished that (laughs), to the point of obviously a little too raw for some people, and that’s okay. I mean, it is what it is. I have not regret one about it. I’m proud of it, proud that we had the balls to see it through.” St. Anger was released in June 2003 at the end of a turbulent two-year period in which bassist Jason Newsted left the group, frontman James Hetfield went for a lengthy stay in rehab, and the entire band threatened to break apart. The album’s raw, lo-fi production, lack of guitar solos and unorthodox sound were not well-received by many of the group’s fans, who still often cite it as Metallica’s worst record. St. Anger has nevertheless sold more than six million copies worldwide, although fans have generally not warmed up to it in the 12 years since its release….And finally today, “THE GAME OF THRONES” mixtape Part 2 is coming. Killswitch Engage & Anthrax are two of the bands to appear on this new mixtape, sponsored by HBO & Launch Point Records. The first one came out in March last year. BTW: New season of The Game of Thrones is April 6, not 7th, as I had reported the other day. (My bad!) HAPPY BIRTHDAYS! Dave Grohl is 46, so is actor Jason Bateman! LL Cool J is 47, Zakk Wylde is 48. Rock on wit yo bad sefs!