Kix made it big in 1988, essentially at the end of the hair metal era, with the album Blow My Fuse. The main single was the incredibly popular anti-suicide ballad “Don’t Close Your Eyes,” but as far as we are concerned, the quintessential, you-must-listen-to-this-now Kix tune has always been “Cold Blood.” In the video for the song, Jimmy hammers it down with traditional grip, one of the few rock/metal drummers who have used it (Steve Smith with Journey and pre-accident Rick Allen with Def Leppard are the others). Looks like Jimmy has switched to matched since then, but he definitely gets points for old-school-cool.

Update 11/20/22: Good news. The band released a statement to Blabbermouth about Jimmy’s condition. He’s stable, alert, and undergoing testing:

“KIX drummer Jimmy Chalfant is awake, alert, resting comfortably and in good spirits in the hospital after collapsing towards the end of their performance at the Tally-Ho Theater in Leesburg, Virginia on night one of a two nights stint. While clearly a cardiac event, it is unknown at this time whether or not Jimmy actually suffered a heart attack. Jimmy will be undergoing a series of tests to determine exactly what in fact occurred. The second performance scheduled for this evening (Saturday Nov 19th) is understandably postponed with a makeup date pending the prognosis of Jimmy’s condition. KIX appreciates the outpouring of love and concern for Jimmy and thank everyone for their courteous understanding in the matter.”

If you love jazz or fusion or movies or drumming education or just drums in general, then you love Peter Erskine, even if you don’t know it yet. He made it into PASIC’s hall of fame back in May of this year, and I’m surprised it actually took that long. Peter has pretty much been a legend since playing and recording with Weather Report in the late 1970s. He now has over 700 albums under his sticks and two grammy awards. You might not listen on the regular to total jazzbo tunes, but you’ve definitely heard Peter playing on the Austin Powers, La La Land, Logan, or House of Cards scores. The dude and his drums gets around.

I saw him live way the hell back in 2009 at the NAMM show. He was demoing Roland’s new (at the time) V-Drums. I’m going to embed the old videos of the performance here. The vid image and sound quality is pretty atrocious, but you can still see and hear how great a live player Peter is (and also how great those early V-Drums were!).

Or less awful?

Music Radar is taking votes for its annual best-metal-drummer award. Crowning a “best” musician in any genre is always a thankless, ultimately fruitless, and sometimes downright dangerous endeavor, but none of us semi-evolved simians can resist a list for long. MR’s candidates are more hit than miss at least, a good mix of legendary and new(ish) shredders, so we tip our sticks to that.

Did your fav player make the cut? I voted for Brann Dailor…because I’m quite old I suppose but also because he’s super amazing and I’ve lately been thinking quite a lot about Mastodon, the namesake band of a certain decentralized Twitter alternative. Voting ends on November 20, 2022.

Candidates for Best Metal Drummer of the Year

• Art Cruz – Lamb of God
• Ben Gordon – Parkway Drive
• Brann Dailor – Mastodon
• Casey Grillo – Queensrÿche
• Charlie Benante – Anthrax
• Charlie Engen – Five Finger Death Punch
• Christoph Schneider – Rammstein
• Dan Searle – Architects
• Daniel Erlandsson – Arch Enemy
• Danny Carey – Tool
• Dave Turncrantz – Russian Circles
• Dirk Verbeuren – Megadeth
• Eloy Casagrande – Sepultura
• Fabio Alessandrini – Annhihilator
• Jay Weinberg – Slipknot
• Jon Larsen – Volbeat
• Marco Von Allmen – Zeal & Ardor
• Mario Duplantier
• Matt Alston – Machine Head
• Matt Garstka – Animals as Leaders
• Max Portnoy – Tallah
• Michel “Away” Langevin – Voivod
• Mike Wengren – Disturbed
• Nicko McBrain – Iron Maiden
• Ray Luzier – Korn
• Thomas Haake – Meshuggah
• Thomas Hedlund- Cult of Luna
• Zack Simmons – Goatwhore
• Zyon Cavalera – Soulfly

Followill said the course moved from his “bucket list” to the “fuck-it list,” and then continued to have a bit of understandably snarky fun on Twitter.

Though Bryar might have hung up his sticks professionally in 2010, his big heart is clearly still beating strong. Good on you, man.

[Update October 30, 2022: The winning bid was for $17,365.80. That shall acquire mucho kibble.]

Because eBay will remove the listing once the auction has ended, we’re going to post here for posterity Bob’s original description and photos.

hello. does anyone want this? i have no clue how much it’s worth. it’s my OG black parade costume. it was used in the photos, videos, DVD’s, and handmade by colleen atwood (look her up).

it’s just sitting in a box doing nothing and people need help with money right now.

there might be a few surprise dog hairs on it because i let my dog fred wear it for a minute as you can see in the picture. the fred hairs are free.

The festivities allegedly took place in Punta Mita, Mexico, but there must have been a stopover at the Fountain of Youth because Tommy does not look old enough to nearly be a pensioner.

Need more explicit photo evidence? Then you’ll prob have to throw down the 20 bucks a month for the dude’s OnlyFans account.

Sixteen years later, the love remains the same even if the music has changed a bit on the band’s latest disc, The Car. Helders describes how his own playing style evolved to fit the new Monkeys music:

“[Being] the rock guy is easier. To the naked eye it probably appears less technical, but in actual fact it is more of a challenge to do what was going on on this record and more considered in a way….And it’s fun to be able to achieve it as well. I notice more of a difference when this kind of playing is good. There’s more room for improvement. The subtleties of it can be more of a big deal.”

New music coming from Matt Sorum with a new version of the super group Kings of Chaos. The full album comes out in 2023, but the first single and accompanying video drop on October 28. The tune is called “Judgment Day,” and it features Sorum on drums (obviously) and lead vocals (not so obvious but awesome).

I was just clicking through the band’s nicely done website (linked above), and holy shit, there’s some serious talent playing with Sorum: Jack Blades, John Waite, Lita Ford (yes!), Sebastian Bach, Gilby Clarke, Warren DeMartini, and Sean McNabb.

My inner teenage metalhead is positively squealing.

Or headbanging, I mean. Headbanging is definitely cooler.

“Fun fact, my wife and I invented edging.”

That is a fun fact. It’s also probably a “wrong” fact (we’re pretty sure that high school in general engendered the delightful horror of edging), but we aren’t going to hold it against Travis when he has so much on his mind. And in his hands. And on his lap.