Slayer (Band)

Thank You, Deftones, For Your Sincere Cover of Kris Kross' "Jump"

Man, this has been a rough few weeks for musician-related deaths. First there was Deftones bassist Chi Cheng, who passed after battling for five years to recover from a horrific car accident. Then yesterday, Slayer guitarist, Jeff Hanneman, died at the age of 49. And the day before that, the world l ... More >>

R.I.P. Slayer's Jeff Hanneman: His Five Fiercest Moments

Sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, and dickheads the world over are in mourning today, for we lost one of the greats. Jeff Hanneman, guitarist and chief songwriter of Slayer, passed on and we adored him. We thought he was a righteous dude. As metal fans, Slayer is such ... More >>

Ghost Practices Satanic Riffuals at Regency Ballroom, 4/25/13

Ghost B.C. Thursday, April 25, 2013 Regency Ballroom Better than: Going to Church on Sunday morning. Ghost is a rock band from Sweden. The members dress up in funny costumes and worship Satan. Like, every song is about Satan. Their lead singer, named Papa Emertis II, dresses like a skeleton pope. ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

The 10 Best Bay Area Metal Albums of 2012

Our year-end listmaking continues with a look at the heavier side of things. Featuring venerable greats as well as brand-new bands -- and even some freaks in heavy costume -- here are our picks for the 10 best local metal albums of 2012: High on Fire De Vermis Mysteriis [E1] Convoluted as the prem ... More >>

Bass Instincts: How Bassnectar Came to Rule American Dance Music

Slideshow: Bassnectar in San Francisco

Top 21 Bay Area Metal Albums of All Time, #21-11

Thrash. Thrash. Thrash. Yes, thrash is what the Bay Area metal scene is famous for. But it doesn't all begin and end with blistering riffs -- our local bands have churned out plenty sludgy stoner metal as well, and even some very heavy shit that's damn near unclassifiable. It's all here on our list ... More >>

In Praise of Artists Touring With Nothing New to Promote

The idea introduced by the Don't Look Back concert series, an offshoot of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival, has found its way into the broader live music circuit over the last few years: a band, currently operational or not, comes together to play one of its most influential albums all the way th ... More >>

The Melvins' Dale Crover on Lazy Musicians, Knucklehead Slayer Fans, and the Band's Record-Breaking Tour

Over the course of closing on 30 years, Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover have co-piloted their seminal underground outfit through a wildly varied exploration of heavy sounds. Inspired by the lumbering tempos and downtuned guitar of Black Sabbath and the dissonance of punk maver ... More >>

US Air Guitar Championships: Witness the Madness of People Rawking on Thin Air

Did the 11-year-old in you never quite get over shredding air in front of the mirror to Master of Puppets? Well maybe that's good, because there's a thing called the U.S. Air Guitar Championships, where similarly imaginative virtual noodlers gather every year to face off in friendly competition. Wit ... More >>

Meshuggah: Show Preview

Future Breed Machine

Q&A: Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister on Touring with Megadeth and His Forthcoming Solo Album

Rightfully worshipped by headbangers and punks alike, Motörhead and its iconic founder, bassist and principle songwriter Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister, have been grinding out their influential brand of balls-out rock for nearly four decades. Founded after Lemmy was fired from British space-rock outfit Hawk ... More >>

Assessing Metallica After 30 Years and Four Nights at the Fillmore

Author Brian Lew on the Early Days of Metallica and the Bay Area Thrash Metal Scene

Brian Lew Cliff Burton playing live with Metallica for the first time at the Stone in San Francisco, 1983​ See more of our Metallica Week coverage: Six Signs of Metallica's Pervasive Influence on Pop Culture Metallica Kicks off Its 30th Anniversary Week with Notable Guests, Rare Songs, and L ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

Anthrax's Scott Ian on Making a Brilliant New Album and Possibly Bringing the Big Four Tour to S.F.

Anthrax, with Scott Ian at the far right.​ California may have been the epicenter of the emerging thrash-metal scene at the dawn of the 1980s, but the NYC headbangers of Anthrax unquestionably earned their place in the genre's history. As an East Coast counterpart and early ally of Metallica, ... More >>

New Book Murder in the Front Row Tells the Story of Bay Area Thrash Metal in Pictures

Metallica, way back when.​ Everyone knows Metallica. But not everyone knows that Metallica was the product of a full-blown '80s thrash metal scene in the Bay Area -- a scene that fostered other notable local bands like Testament, Death Angel, and Exodus. These weren't the makeup-wearing pretty ... More >>

Music Links: Is Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Getting Too Big?

Is Hardly Strictly getting too big for its own good? [SF Gate] "Employees must carve 'Slayer' into forearms before returning to work." [Uptown Almanac]

New York Times Gets Huffy At SF Weekly

The Slayer. Would you call it "beautiful?"​We got an email earlier this week through the "feedback:" portion of our website, where Letters to the Editor are sent. The writer objected to a March 2010 blog post in which Jonathan Kauffman wrote in part, "Sightglass is one of the first cafes in S ... More >>

Buckethead: Show Preview

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and Lows from the Last Week in S.F. Music

Big 4 Tour: Are More U.S. Dates Likely for Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth?

Richard HaickWide-eyed Kirk Hammet, coming soon to a major city near you?​ Pretty much since the moment we heard about the Big 4 tour, we've been wanting to see it hit the U.S. Interstate system. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax have played dates all over Europe, so when they announced ... More >>

Sizzle & Fizzle: Highs and lows from the last week in S.F. music

Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth Announce Plans to Play Together. Once. In Indio.

​It's called the Big 4 Tour -- Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth, together on one bill -- and finally, after seven shows in Europe, it's coming to the U.S. Only problem is the date and time -- and the fact that as of today's announcement, the long-awaited Big 4 Tour (sorry, make that " ... More >>

Sub Swara: Show Preview

Watch: This Year, Soundtrack Your Christmas Lights with Slayer

​Sure, you could be like everyone else on the block this holiday season and set the automatic music-synch on your tacky Christmas light display to "Jinglebell Rock." But why do that when you could also set it to a face-melter like Slayer's "Raining Blood"? Watch the Christmas carnage that ensues w ... More >>

Metallica Might Possibly Begin Work on New Album Next Year, Maybe

"This is boring, let's write some songs!"​After nearly two years of touring in support of the 2008 album Death Magnetic -- the return-to-form-of-sorts that followed the musical and image disaster of 2003's St. Anger -- the Bay Area's own Metallica is discussing plans to record its next album. Of c ... More >>

Slayer's Kerry King Talks Messing Up Guitar Solos, the New Metallica, and Playing with the Beastie Boys

Mark SeligerSlayer, with Kerry King at far right​Los Angeles thrash-metal juggernaut Slayer has been kicking ass so ferociously for so long that the word "fucking" has practically been appended to the front of the band's name. Raising the metal bar for brutality and blasphemy over the course of ne ... More >>

Master of Puppets

Last Night: Iron Maiden's Metal Juggernaut Gets Father's Day Crowd Headbanging

​Iron MaidenDream Theater@Sleep Train PavilionSunday, June 20, 2010Better than: Any other metal band with 35 years under its belt. Iron Maiden has always fallen into that category of venerable metal or hard-rock outfit that you simply do not miss when they come to town. You don't miss Slaye ... More >>

Concept Concert

Stars perform their hook-heavy new record from start to finish on their current tour.

New Slayer Video Is Relevant: Evil Corporations, Bloody Apocalypse

The plot seems perfect for our era of the mind-bogglingly huge, corporate fuck-up oil leak: A creepily coiffed CEO sends his sharp-toothed tanks out from the boardroom to dominate a ruined world, slaying humans in the process. But the tanks somehow morph into a skull-headed mutant spider that destro ... More >>

10 Things To Do This Weekend For Under $10: Gastronomic Adventures, Free Comics, Electro-disco Noiseniks

Clipd Beaks​Were those glorious super-warm days of last weekend simply a tease? Are we doomed to a more traditional mid-season S.F. weekend of half-sunny, half-windy days? Well I hate to say it fellow park-dwellers, but if you don't like the weather in our oft-overcast city, perhaps you are in the ... More >>

Sightglass Coffee Readying Roastery, Café Expansion

Soon to be an oval coffee bar.​Over the past six or so months, Sightglass Coffee, Jared and Justin Morrison's coffee roastery and cafe on Seventh St. and Folsom, has been selling coffee from a kiosk set inside an old warehouse they're renovating. Tarps separate the espresso machine from the constr ... More >>

High on Fire polishes its metal weaponry

Slayer/Megadeth/Testament Tour To Hit the Bay Area After All

​So we wrote that the metal titans tour involving Slayer, Megadeth, and Testament was thrown off course after Slayer bassist/vocalist Tom Araya threw out his back in a serious-headbanging-injury sorta way. Well, although that Jan. 21 show didn't happen, the tour will indeed kick start anew after A ... More >>

Slayer, Megadeth, Testament Cancel Tour Due to Back Injury

​It's not quite as metal as throwing out your neck headbanging, but Slayer bassist/vocalist Tom Araya has a back injury serious enough that it's forced him to call off the giants of thrash tour. The Slayer/Megadeth/Testament tour, which was scheduled to hit the Cow Palace Jan. 21, has been indefin ... More >>

Hatebreed’s fan-friendly model for survival

Cutting the Deficit: More Ways for Government to Earn Spare Bucks

We noted earlier today that, because the city is having cash-flow problems of the sort experienced by meth addicts with seven girlfriends, creative methods of earning additional revenue may become a necessity. Fortunately, this is a creative place, governed by creative people. Take Chris Daly. With ... More >>

Last Night: Dethklok, Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire

​Metalocalypse Tour with Dethklok, Mastodon, Converge and High on Fire Nov. 21, 2009 San Jose State Event Center Better than: Getting your ass whupped by Glenn Danzig's cartoon twin. It takes a pretty stellar concert lineup to coax even the most fanatical San Francisco music fan all the way to S ... More >>

Rodrigo y Gabriela pay tribute to a history of axe-slingers

High on Fire Prepping New Album

​Oakland metalheads High on Fire are hard at work on a new collection of music that frontman Matt Pike promises will share with the masses "the dark seas of our new riffs and tragic stories." Next month they hit the studio to record their fifth album, working with producer Greg Fidelman (Metallica ... More >>

MP3 of the Day: Slayer

​On its upcoming album, World Painted Blood, Slayer has found God. And by that I don't mean the band has come around on the Holy Spirit--nah, these heathens have this time nailed Him down as a disease, once again expressing their unyeilding contempt for the whole religious shebang. On the new trac ... More >>

Experiment in Terror

Weezer

Weezer (DGC/Interscope)

Guitar Hero III Easily the Best Entry in the Franchise

Swerving on Irving

Some bars in the Sunset are made for regulars

Samples