According to a posting on GREAT WHITE's official web site, Jack Russell (vocals), Mark Kendall (guitar), Michael Lardie (keyboards, guitar), Sean McNabb (bass) and Audie Desbrow (drums) will be celebrating GREAT WHITE's 25th anniversary with a new record. They are in the studio recording right now, but they will be taking a small break to celebrate the release of "VH1 Metal Mania Stripped Volume 3" CD by playing a show at the Key Club in West Hollywood, California on March 7. Also appearing on the bill are members of QUEENSRŸCHE, TESLA, RATT, original WARRANT singer Jani Lane and DOKKEN. Each of the five artists will be performing a selection of their greatest hits acoustically in celebration of the new Sidewinder Music release, which will hit stores on Tuesday, March 6.

Source BBM

Renzo Van Soelen from Covenworldwide.org has issued the following KING DIAMOND update:

"I just got off the phone with King. We talked about two hours and he gave me some very exclusive info about the forthcoming King Diamond CD. King told me he had just finished recording the vocals which he had been doing for the last four weeks, about six hours a day. In the next three weeks King and Andy (La Rocque - guitar) will be mixing and mastering the album (starting Monday the 5th). Is this better than The Puppet Master I asked him?King started laughing and explained it as follows: 'We tried to get our drivers license for twenty years and now we finally got it. We passed the test! It’s the best album ever definitely, there is no doubt about that for sure. Even the work mix sounds better than any album yet. The music and story are great. I am sure these are my best vocals yet. Andy said to me that he not played solos like this since The Eye. Mike (Wead) told me he has never been so inspired to do solos as on this album. And yes Livia (Zita) is on the album too!'

King said to me: 'I guarantee you this is the best album yet I am positive about it. It's more King Diamond there have ever been. It has the best King Diamond top class through the whole album. The story is very dark, perhaps one of the darkest I have ever done before.'

King mentioned the intro to the album is a ‘real’ intro again, like where 'Midnight' (from The Puppet Master) was more of a pre-song.

Want to get a little taste of what you might expect from the lyrics? Here you go: 'Me and my black cat Magic, the beautiful house on Never Ending Hill, the little girl in the bloody dress and her dead little brother, the dark, the floating head woman, shapes of black and YOU.'

Source Cover Worldwide

DIMMU BORGIR, KATAKLYSM, SUBWAY TO SALLY and EDGUY have been confirmed as the support bands for the Nuclear Blast Festival, set to take place October 27 at Schleyerhalle in Stuttgart, Germany. Headlining the concert will be BLIND GUARDIAN.

Source BBM