In case you were worried that Tommy Lee wouldn’t have anyone to kiss on New Year’s, breathe easy. He and Pamela Anderson are spending the evening together in Montreal. In Pam’s own words, “How romantic.”

And there’s also a Lars Ulrich interview hidden in this video somewhere, but it’s really the dried nasal mucus that got our attention.

[via Blabbermouth]

Now this is the kind of contest that gets our full thump of approval. Custom drum manufacturer MapleWorks is looking for its next endorser, and it could be you if you got the skillz. To enter the contest, upload a video here of your best drumming performance. It can be from a live show, a rehearsal, or even better just a video of you playing drums in your garage, basement, or bedroom. If you choose to upload a video of a live performance with your band, the video must be focused on you playing the drums! Have your friends and family vote for you every day to get yourself in the Top 5. The winner gets an endorsement deal with MapleWorks and a custom 3-piece kit worth $3,100. The last day you can enter is January 16, 2009.

[via Drummer Connection]

U.K. mag Rhythm just scored a short interview with new NIN drummer Ilan Rubin. The fellow is only 20 years old, but it sounds like he’s got sticks big enough to replace Josh Freese’s…which surely must make Rubin want to defecate in his drawers, yeah?

No it doesn’t. I technically had to fill [Josh’s] shoes a bit since he recorded the majority of Liberation Transmission [his last band’s album], but I’m always a fan of a little competition too!

Could there be a more perfect stocking stuffer for drummers than this T-shirt drum kit?

Shit fire and save the matches! Benny Greb, the drummer dude we here at BDT have a big-time groove crush on, is coming out with a DVD in January 2009. Titled The Language of Drumming, it will be a two-disc set produced by Hudson Music (i.e., the production values are going to be top-notch). Check out the teaser trailer and a behind-the-scenes clip below:

Michael Lee died last week of then-unknown causes, but Blabbermouth is now reporting that the 39-year-old drummer suffered a fatal seizure. A funeral service for Lee will be held on December 3 at 10:45 a.m. in Darlington, England. Cards and flowers can be sent to the following address:

John Meynell Funeral Service
150 North Road
Darlington
County Durham, DL1 2EJ
United Kingdom

Munetaka Higuchi, the drummer for ’80s metal band Loudness, died today at a hospital in Osaka, Japan. He had been battling liver cancer since April of this year. Sadly, Higuchi was only 49 years old.

Wake, thumpers, from your turkey comas, and click in this direction to win a drum set courtesy of DRUM! magazine, Gretsch, Sabian, Gibraltar, and Evans. The prize you’re clicking for is a Gretsch Catalina Mod outfitted in an exclusive G-Tube graphic finish. If you win the 4-piece kit, you’ll also take home a complete set of heads, cymbals, and hardware. That almost makes up for it being called the “Totally Tubular Giveaway.”

at the official Led Zeppelin YouTube channel. The band (or rather its management minions) have uploaded a buttload of bootleg and rare videos, including some shot on spectacularly grainy 8mm. Start off with this performance of “Achilles Last Stand” from a concert in L.A. in 1977:

[via Music Radar]

Everyone knows that the pedals on gaming drum kits suck severe ass in terms of playability, but one dude has filed a class action lawsuit claiming that the Rock Band stompers are shoddily made and “deprive [customers] of the value and enjoyment of their purchases.” Harmonix and MTV, the producers of the game, have released the following statement in response to the suit:

Harmonix and MTV Games are dedicated to consumers having an outstanding experience with our products. When used as directed, our drum pedals are designed to provide years of enjoyment. In addition, at the launch of Rock Band we offered consumers an extended opportunity return defective or broken hardware for any reason whatsoever—no questions asked. This litigation is opportunistic and baseless.

While our experience with Rock Band has been generally positive, we definitely think the pedal is on the worrisome side of fragile. Have you had any problems? Let us know in the comments.

Yeah, okay, it’s true: BDT loves Top Chef. And now we’re no longer ashamed to admit it because the Foo Fighters love the show too. The band appeared on this evening’s episode, a Thanksgiving special where the competing chefs divided into two teams to whip up a holiday feast for the Foos. Dave, of course, got a lot of face time and did most of the talking, but Taylor busted out with some heretofore hidden culinary wisdom as well:

He played drums for Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, Thin Lizzy, Lenny Kravitz, and The Cult, but now Michael Lee is no more. He died Monday morning at the age of 39. Cause of demise is not yet known.

?uestlove and the rest of the Roots survived a major bus crash last Wednesday in France. Luckily, no one was seriously injured. In fact, ‘Love was blogging about the accident only 30 minutes after it happened. Here is the entry from his MySpace blog:

“I used to live life, like there was no manana
Now I’m treatin every breath, like it was “your honor”
malik b, 1999 “the spark” from things fall apart

well…since we are sitting on the side of the road. what better way to pass the time while the ambulance comes then to….blog.

–actually i spoke too soon….the above was written an hour ago. now im in a roadside motel trying to make sense of this all. the last things i remember are eating 2 pieces of cold pizza and a bowl of rice krispies and watching will ferrel’s nuts dance on top of john c. riley’s drumset in step brothers. because it was the ghetto bootleg barbershop version i was more or less wondering when the guy in the theater was going to say “watch….this is the good part” to me as the movie went on.

as usual i fell asleep. now normally i woulda been working overtime in preparing my dj set for my paris afterparty on friday but something actually said “meh leave it alone”–

i don’t wanna get all deep like it was an omen but those that know me (look at my twit/facebook/myspace/okayplayer/blip history) know that when not onstage i am glued to my computer, doing some sort of activity like converting music or tv shows. but this was a rare occurrence in which i actually went to sleep.

next thing i knew was the most surreal feeling ever….

was i upside down?

why am i covered in cereal?

oh shit….that coffee pot is coming for my face!!!

in reality the crash was all of about 7 seconds….but to do a 360 on the highway and end up ramped up (the van that crashed into ours was UNDER our double decker bus) in the air….is….well…

a frigging miracle.

my first thought was not move a fucking inch. i always had fear that we would fall off a cliff while in high mountain traveling like denver or switzerland. i couldn’t tell where gravity began and ended. i felt like i did 3000 crunches so obviously my side of the bus was now on the ground (the only way i can describe the position was imagine yourself on a bus sitting down…..now postion yourself sitting on the left side of the bus….now overturn the bus so that it tips over and falls to the right side. now on top of all that position the front of the bus to stand smack dab in the middle of the air as if a ramp was holding it up 90 degrees.

now add in my drill sgt of a tour manager keith mcphee being keith (which is basically to say no one does intensity or UBER intensity like he does. i ….was……try….ing……to…..rea….ch….my ….ipod so i can channel him out. its like every word he yelled was making this situation much worse than it was….

“……effrom you alive?!?!?!? (yes)……….”frank are you alive!?!?!?”…….frank?!!?!?!!?!? FRANK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!…….—”

it was then i realized the severe nature of the accident and i was NOT in the mood to prep myself on whether or not the remaining 12 people upstairs (i know its a dumb reference but look up the Spiceworld movie on youtube and you can see the type of double decker bus that we were traveling on. i hold court downstairs cause noone can stomach the stench of the urine induced potty in the downstairs lounge. —after 15 mins you dont notice it all that much)—so i was holding court downstairs and the 12 of them were asleep in the bunks.

i dont do bunks and this day proves why.

i just wanted someone to calmly tell me the weight of my body was NOT going to push us down a mountainside. then i wanted assurance that the bus was NOT going to explode.

my drum tech d was the first to make sure i was okay and since the Mcpheepanic mode was setting in…the way he was asking me was rather…..panicky (thanks palin) and based on the fact that he was walking on the ceiling indeed let me know that this wasn’t no fender bender i was in…..this shit might be the real deal based on how he managed to spiderman walk on the ceiling.

or….am i now on the ceiling?

and why do i have to use every stomach muscle just to sit upright?….wait…..

am i upside down?

damnit…..im upside down……lemme just shift my body to…..oh shit….just…..wait if i can just….lift this….leg to….

damn. i need something to hold on to to hoist myself up in the air. i grabbed on to the table and somehow forgetting that i am NOT smedium (riiiiiiiiiiiip!) the entire table ripped from its foundation and was now on the ceiling….which is now the floor.

this is also when i noticed that i am covered in coffee and tea and bread and about 3 bags of cereal multiple water bottles and dvds and broken glass. and….oh god….did the bathroom fluid overturn too? (yes….and YUCK)

hearing cars outside i now know that i am not going to fall down the mountain side…..were are on the highway. but i can see out the right side of window and i see trees and hills….but i hear car horns and yelling.

and where the hell is the ambulance?!?!?

keith is yelling and im begging him “please don’t yell”—but keith dont know calm…..but now he got me thinking something is gonna happen is i DONT get off this bus. problem is the door that i would get out of is now the ground. and i am disillusioned and have no sense of direction. he is telling me i must make my way upstairs and crash my way through the window and escape. im yelling “where is everyone else?!?!” and i am informed that me and the driver are the only two trapped downstairs. now the problem is….im not the smallest person in the world and now i have to use uber arm strength to climb my way out of this bus and figure how to hoist myself without the aid of anything to hold on to.

hard shit indeed.

i made leeway to the stairs when it hit me that all my ID and wallet and lifeline are in my personal bag….allllllllllllllll the way on the other side of the bus. i do the contemplate should i shouldn’t i (”i should” won) now it was “how?!”—

the only way i can describe it is that scene in back to the future when doc is in the clock tower and had mere seconds to connect a broken plug that will power marty mcfly’s car with 1.8 jiggawatts of lightening power. and winds up using every body part to ensure this goes down the correct way. so my left arm is hoisting my body up and my right arm and left leg are…..trying ……to …..grab……within……inches….my……bag…..(accidents wind up giving you strength you never knew you had….i carried my bag with my legs while i crawled my way upstairs like i was joe the paraplegic on family guy—all the while keith is being keith

ahmir ARE YOU OK!?!?! AHMIR PLEASE SAY SOMETHING!!!!

im like….wait…am i even alive? like what if i “think” im alive when in actually im not like the movies?—-the next 2 minutes proved how alive i was for i managed to crawl through spaces and holes and broken shattered glass like a contortionist blindfolded….

when i got outside…..and looked at what i crawled out of?

man.

i just couldn’t believe it.

i mean….how in the hell did we experience this?

how did we manage to….man…..

dog we are soooo alive right now.

and yes we went through all that shit people go through when they go through accidents.

dazed. amazed. grateful. laughing?

of course as i type this its a whole nother story: i think the ambulance workers have caught wind of who we are (ze seed?) and there are about 20 ambulance workers and 10 cops. asking alot of questions in french (we so need tina faris right now)

as i type this we are waiting in line to get examined. (some of us have cuts and neck braces on)—keith is still at the bus trying to salvage what he can (amazingly the uhaul extension is still intact) im a ok. i called my mom and some loved ones. and i managed to twit in the ambulance with artless iphone (wanted to be the first celeb to twit from an ambulance)—i guess im just passing the time and taking advantage of the free “internets” and the worlds best bread (yes….the french bread is all that)

as for the future? if we make it to our slot on the glow in the dark tour in paris that too will be a miracle. til then just wanna let everyone know that we are happy to be alive. and not in that tv cliche way….but man……that was divine intervention. we are so grateful for this outcome.

- ?uesto

Rumor has it that Tommy Lee is recording a new Methods of Mayhem disc, and we’re pretty friggin’ excited. Even if you don’t dig MOM’s rap-metalish vibe, you gotta as a drummer love Lee’s beats and rhythms. Check out a couple below from the group’s first album.

The vid below features stupendous Daath drummer Kevin Talley recording a tune for the band’s upcoming album, The Concealers. Got your double devil horns ready?

[via Blabbermouth]

Put your lowly cabasa player out of job with Meinl’s new foot bling. The clever little pedal allows you to play cabasa rhythms with your foot while your hands are free for conga, timbale, or kit thumping. It features a steel-chain drive, a stainless steel cylinder within a wooden cabasa body, and a black powder-coated pedal. The instrument can also be set to sound on downstrokes only or both upstrokes and downstrokes. It’s all yours for a $259 MSRP.

You know, we’re really up on this whole new media, Web journalism thing, but somehow we missed this fabulous Lars Ulrich interview that was published a whole 18 days ago. It consists entirely of fan questions, good ones like “Your girlfriend, Connie Nielsen, is smokin’ hot. Is she with you more for your money or your fame?” and “You once joked that Metallica’s video collection should’ve been called 15 Years of Bad Haircuts. Who has rocked the all-time worst do?” Our favorite, though, has got to be this one:

[via PerezHilton]

You see? Hot chicks not only dig drummers: they sometimes even want to be drummers. The delightful, delectable Dido discovered just how much fun skin bashing could be as she was recording her recently released third album:

According to E!, Barker’s attorneys have filed a negligence lawsuit against both the owner and the manufacturer of the Learjet that crashed on September 19. The court documents claim that “one or more of the tires failed, leaving tire debris and portions of airplane components along the 8,600 foot runway.” The pilot is accused of making a “negligent attempt to abort the takeoff,” and a number of the plane’s parts and components are alleged to have been “not airworthy.”

We’ll keep you updated—Perry Mason like—as details unfold.